I took the girls to the Perot Museum on the last day of May to sneak in one more visit before school let out, then we won’t be back again until September. We wanted to see the parts of the museum we missed on our last visit.

Nadia asked me to take photos of both of these to show Mike because it’s from Jiangxi Province where she and Dani were born.

We had a great time and stopped for a photo with the frogs on the way out!

The first week of the curriculum is a basic introduction to geography and then you start with the continent of Asia. I posted already about our special guest from Japan but here are some fun photos and information from the rest of our Asia study.

For China we made Chinese fans. We eat a lot of Chinese food so we didn’t do anything special for food.

For South Korea we made Jeweled Crowns for our craft. And for dinner at the end of the unit we tried a Korean restaurant called Namoo. We immediately became hooked on the place and have been back for Gotcha Day’s and birthdays.

For India our craft was to make our version of “inlaid stone tile.”  One fun fact about India is that they invented chess.

For Israel our craft was to paint the “Dome of the Rock.”  One fun fact we learned is that Israel has more doctors per patient ration compared to the US.

For Thailand our craft was to make a Floating Thai boat. We took the girls to Sweet Basil for Thai food. The photo above is of Thai dumplings which were different than Chinese, but just as delicious! Fun fact was that Thai people eat 4 or 5 times a day and that chopsticks are not widely used like in other Asian countries.

Nadia’s Torii Gate was a craft for Japan along with lots of origami.

We had a wonderful time doing this study on the continent of Asia. There was a lot more than was photographed here and we learned all sorts of cool things about far off places. We watched quite a few videos on Youtube and checked out lots of books from the library. After finishing Asia we moved on to Europe.

During our Expedition Earth study of Italy, the science part was on Volcanoes. We watched a lot videos, looked at books and learned cool (and sometimes scary) facts. I found a quick and easy make your own volcano craft on Pinterest. The girls each made their own and had a lot of fun. Once we dumped the vinegar in they were giggling like wild.

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My happy surprise of the day was running into Vanessa!

The K-2nd graders and 3-5th graders took Texas History this year so our end of the year co-op was Cowboy food themed. We had cornbread, pinto beans, cobbler and the kids churned butter. Nadia made a blackberry cobbler that was gone as fast as lightning so she was very proud. It was a sweet night with lots of visitors to see all the stuff that the kids learned this year.

Nadia’s body for Human Anatomy.

From Nadia’s Texas History class.

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This is a sample of the artwork my class did over the course of the year! I am so proud of their hard work. They were just the most fun kids.

Amelie was due for her yearly hands and feet check up at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital so the girls and I packed up and headed for Dallas. Amelie got the all clear for another year which was a great relief. It doesn’t look like the toenails they removed are growing back so that is good news. Once we were finished we headed over to redeem a gift for a free dozen cookies from Paradise Bakery. YUM!

Popcorn is the best part of Scottish Rite.

Then we headed for the Dallas Children’s Aquarium. There were quite a few school groups in there, but we still worked our way around the place. Dani couldn’t wait to go see the stingrays, but they weren’t starting the feeding until noon and I wanted to just spend the end of our time there. This time I remembered to bring extra shirts for the girls to change into since they get splashed.

Chambered Nautilus 

Nadia and Dani fed the stingrays the little pieces of shrimp that they sell. Amelie wanted no part of it because it creeped her out the last time. She just wanted to pet the sting rays as they swam past.

“He splashed me!!!!!!!!” 

Nadia holding a cow heart for science class.

Learning to rope steer in Texas History.

Group shot.

Learning about the Chisholm Trail.

Learning about Longhorns.

This is the official Fort Worth brand – the running W.

Nadia and Amelie loved this maze so much! They talked about it for days and how cool it was. Thanks to my friend Marti for organizing this fun day for the kids!

They “stitched” a circuit to make the light work.

Nadia wanted to go to Engineers Week at the museum so we planned to go in after picking up Dani from museum school. It was a really cool set up and they had people there from IBM, Mouser and Lockheed Martin the day that we went. There were a lot of activities for the big girls to do and not much specifically hands on for someone Dani’s age, but she still had a lot of fun.

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The girls had to have a photo right here

Ever since we did a unit study on horses Nadia has wanted to see an Arabian horse “in real life.” We have a friend who has some and we finally worked out a day where the weather and our schedules cooperated. It as a wonderful time to see the Traci’s beautiful horses. She has a 10 year old, a 3 year old and a 1 year old colt. They are all beautiful!