Last weekend we caught the end of the big blizzard.  The amount of snow wasn’t that unusual for Maine, but the wind made it an extra fierce storm.

From inside our cozy house we fretted for the birds as they fought their way to and from the feeders.  We watched the chickadees aim for one tree but end up blown to another.  I was glad for the existing evergreens…and glad I planted over twenty more!  After the storm passed this snow mountain was in our driveway and provided hours of building enjoyment.

Monday we celebrated our 100th day of school.  What a fun day to beat the midwinter blahs!  (And yes, in Maine it is really only midwinter…spring is slow reaching us up here.)  I detailed all our activities in that post, and would be happy for any new ideas I can put on my list for next year!

You know how you have those things about school you don’t want your kids to miss out on?  Making and exchanging Valentines is one of those for me.  Luckily a friend hosted a Valentine Party for about 20 kids and we spent the day crafting, playing games, and exchanging the sweet Valentines our kids had made.

Today we’re donning our citizen scientist hats to participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count.  We’ll spend periods of time throughout the weekend with binoculars in hand, tallying what we see for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to track bird populations.  There is still time to participate, just check out the GBBC website!

Thank you to the wonderful hostesses with fun link-ups on Fridays. Be sure to join the fun and see what other homeschoolers are up to!

I make our 100th day a time to play with numbers and pat ourselves on the back for being over half way through the school year.  It also lands perfectly in the winter doldrums, so it’s an opportunity to ditch the normal schedule and make it a special day.

Here are 10 ways to have a little fun on 100th day:

1. First of all, mark the day!  Decorate–just a simple message on the white board, or even break out the balloons and streamers.  I personally like making things a surprise, so I didn’t tell the kids ahead of time.  They were pretty excited to walk into the schoolroom on a Monday morning to see our whiteboard pictured above.  The pocket chart held the list of 100-themed activities we were going to do.

2.  I type up a quick and easy list of 100th day questions.  I’ve varied the questions, but basically ask about their thoughts on the year so far and then some 100-themed questions.  What has been your favorite activity of our school year?  What would you buy with $100?  I would like to have 100 _______.

3.  To get out the wiggles that can go along with a special day we did 100 exercises!  I simply cut five index cards in half and on each half wrote an exercise we would do 10 times, then the kids took turns choosing a card.

4. Make a picture from the number 100!  I gave each of them a big 1-0-0 cut out of paper and instructed them to make them into a picture.  My daughter’s finished product really cracked me up!

5.  We had some fun with estimating.  Which container has 100 items?  How far will we go in 100 steps?  How far can we run in 100 seconds?

6. Lunch and Breakfast were 100-themed.  Breakfast looked like the number 100 and lunch was 100 items!

7.  Each of them completed a 100-piece puzzle.  (I read aloud while they worked–we can’t have a day without reading aloud!)

8.  We played Chutes and Ladders, since there are 100 spaces!

9.  The highlight of the day was a Lego Challenge: What can you build with 100 Legos?  To add difficulty I chose the 100 Legos and they had to build with just the ones in the tray and use every piece.  My daughter built a car (with storage in the back–creative spot for the pieces she didn’t have a place for) and house complete with pool and side play yard for pets.  My son’s creation was a factory.  He turned his wheels into a conveyer belt!

10.  Write a 100 word story or poem.  We ran out of time before getting to this due to a large mountain of snow outside waiting to be made into a fort.  I planned for this to be an optional activity, figuring my 10 year old daughter would be interested but not my 7 year old son.  I will add this idea to the list for next year.  My daughter writes very long stories, so I think having to choose words carefully and make it shorter would be an interesting challenge.

What ways do you celebrate the 100th day?  I’ll need some fresh ideas for next year!

The high temperatures in Maine this week have been in the single digits.  Brrrrr.  We’ve done most of our at-home schoolwork near the gas stove.

Though we don’t love this kind of weather we remembered to be thankful we live in much more comfort than Laura Ingalls did in The Long Winter.

In our homeschool this week…

• We celebrated Marlin Luther King, Jr. using suggestions from Mary at Homegrown Learners.  The Netflix documentary was fabulous and I highly recommend it for all ages.
• Both kids were able to complete their full week of individual work for the first time since before Christmas!  Between the holidays and then illnesses we’d had such odd schedules.  This week the basics (reading, writing, arithmetic) were done and done well each day.  That was a good feeling.

The rest of our learning was all about reading aloud.  Quality literature is always our base, and subzero temperatures make for perfect reading time.

• We read The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden and enjoyed the lovable characters.
• We’re continuing our historical journey with the audio version of These Happy Golden Years.  Oh how I love this series and sharing it with my children.
• We continued our nature study of birds despite the frigid temperatures by reading The Burgess Bird Book for Children and continuing to watch the nest cams I talked about last week.  It’s amazing to see how fast the hummingbirds are growing!  I was able to talk about the “pin feathers” after reading about them in the Handbook of Nature Study.  For fun we read through Feathers: Poems about Birds.
• We continued our study of Mozart with the Tell Me About Wolfang Amadeus Mozart Biography and lots of listening.  We were all amazed with how young he was when he began not only performing but composing!
• My daughter finished From The Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and loved it.  I asked her to notebook it in some way and she asked to do two book reports–one on the storyline and one on the main characters–and a picture collage.  (Oh, okay, if you really must!)  She is now reading The Secret Garden and loves that, too.  Hooray for great books.
• I am still very slowly working through the original Charlotte Mason series.  Did you see the six volume collection for Kindle for 99 cents from Amazon?  I picked that up and use it with the Kindle app on my android tablet.  I had downloaded the series free from Ambleside but the formatting and table of contents are worth the 99 cents.  I also borrowed A Charlotte Mason Companion through inter-library loan.  I enjoy Ms. Mason’s writings but also like to have a little help applying it to our homeschool now.

Places we went and people we saw…

Though the cold temperatures made me want to hibernate we had a lot of places to go this week.

• Daddy took the kids on a radio station tour that turned out to not be as technical as my kids were hoping for.
• For my daughter’s book club they attended a talk by author Jennifer Richard Jacobson.  It was full of great information about being a writer, and how even as a professional author you have to make lots of revisions.
• Our homeschool geography club meeting was about Russia.  My son presented on the volcanoes in Russia and its location on The Ring of Fire.  My daughter shared about Matryoshka dolls.
• We paid a visit to the orthodontist.  Good news–no one needs braces right now!  My pocketbook heaved a sigh of relief.

Things I’m working on…

I’m trying to gather and organize everything to send off to my accountant to prepare our personal and business taxes.  Anyone else out there buried in paperwork?

Thank you to the wonderful hostesses with link-ups on Fridays. Be sure to join the fun and see what other homeschoolers are up to!