The Never Ending Winter...

I read a great post about the winter doldrums yesterday.  I can safely say that I'm in the midst of the winter doldrums.  A few weeks ago we were able to walk to the History Museum without coats on, and it felt so good!  Since then, it's been cold, snowy, and wintery.  In fact, we even had Christmas dinner tonight (chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, cranberries...the works) in an attempt to embrace this never ending Narnia winter.

Well, despite my extreme lack of motivation, and extreme desire to stay in bed with a cup of coffee, notebook, sharp pencil, and laptop, I have kids to educate.  Here's what we did this week:

We started out the day with a regular Monday.  I love Mondays!  We always get everything done that day, we're well rested, and everyone is usually in a great mood.  Millie learned about classifying animals in science, started to learn about the civil war, plus did the usual line up of math, spelling, reading, etc.

Wednesday we went out with out Jr. Rangers group to learn about bird migration.  The National Park Ranger took us on a hike along the Mississippi to check out a Great Blue Heron rookerie.  I had never seen a rookerie, and was not expecting to see what I saw.  It was pretty amazing! Can you imagine those huge birds (we're talking HUGE 6 foot wingspan birds), living high up in these trees?  It was pretty spectacular.  Along our hike, the kids found a tree that had been struck by lightening and was still smoldering, attempted to build a lean-to, found a cool animal carcass, and best of all, got to soak up some of the "heat" (it was in the 30's, but not raining or snowing!  We'll take what we can get these days!).

Thursday and Friday were really bad, weather wise.  Roads were horrible, so we stayed home.  We were supposed to go to the Minnesota State Orphanage Museum, but that was cancelled because of the weather. While I was glad I didn't have to drive in the ick, I was super bummed to miss that field trip.  I had been looking forward to it for months!!  It'll be rescheduled.  I just need to be patient.  ;)

For preschool this week, we talked about how gardens grow.  We read a couple good books, practiced counting with beans, cooked 15 bean soup, and started growing some beans (black, white, and kidney) in a clear plastic cup.  The girls hypothesized that the black bean would grow roots first.  They were right, but were surprised when the other two beans kept on growing like crazy, while the black bean stopped with just a couple little roots.

Millie had her 4-H Share the Fun skit competition on Friday night.  She had a blast!  She has made some great friends in 4-H, it's honestly one of the best things she's got going on.  Her skit came in 3rd place!!  Congrats to the St. Croix Clovers!!

See my little peanut, right in the middle?

Millie is "Pinkie the Ghost"

Back to my winter doldrums...my goal for next week is to break free from the doldrums.  I'm calling it "willpower week".  Here are my goals for the upcoming week:

• Drink 5 glasses of water per day
• If the temp hits 40*, I will go jogging
• If the temp is too cold, or it's raining (or heaven forbid...snowing!!), I'll do a Turbo Jam video
• I will purchase supplies to create a household management binder
• Teach Millie how to make breakfast so I don't have to buy cereal anymore
• No sweets, unless I make them myself.

Check out what other homeschoolers did this week, here!