A day at the park

We took homeschool to the park today. Rachel stayed at Grandpa's house, technically, so it was just the younger five (just). And, boy, were they excited to be there!

They were like, "Thanks for teaching me math, Mom! I really appreciate it!"

And, "I love angles so much! Good thing I brought the protractor you got me so I can measure like a pro!"

And, "This article about Stonehenge that I, myself, elected to read is thrilling me to pieces. I'm so glad my mom provides such fascinating reading material."

And "Golly, there sure are a lot of numbers and things on this page!"

Whoop-dee-doo. These kids were all in surly moods. I wasn't doing much better myself. These two were somewhat cheerful:

But, oh, how Phoebe drove me crazy. We had breakfast right before we came, but she also knew we packed lunches. So the minute we arrived at the park it was, "Lunch. Lunch. Lunch. Lunch. Lunch."

"It's not time for lunch. You have to wait."

"Lunch. Lunch. Lunch. Lunch. Lunch."

"If I give you your lunch now, you'll be sad when everyone else eats their lunch."

"Lunch. Lunch. Lunch. Lunch. Lunch."

"I'm not giving you lunch right now."

"Snack. Snack. Snack. Snack. Snack."

 "Maybe I will give you a little snack. But then you have to be satisfied until lunch."

So I gave her a little package of cheese crackers. She ate those and then proceeded her "lunch" litany. 

"Fine. I will give you half your sandwich. But we'll be saving the other half for lunch."

She ate half her sandwich and then started crying out for more. 

"Fine. Apparently you're starving or something. So eat your lunch now. What do I care?"

She ate every last morsel of her lunch. By the time she was polishing off her last piece of cheese it was time for everyone else to eat lunch, so then she went around begging bites from everyone. 

And then I had to tell her that the food was simply all gone. And that there was no way she could still be hungry having moved smoothly from breakfast to snack to lunch to nibbles without taking a breath. It was time to do something else. 

She had a whole playground at her disposal, but mostly she went around pestering everyone. Here she is taking a brief reprieve from running around making chaos because I trapped her in the swing:

After everyone had finished with their math lessons and lunch, we moved on to painting. Here are the big kids with their little paint pots:

And the little kids with their big paint pots:

It was a messy, messy activity for some of us, but making messes outside is ever so much better than making messes inside, don't you think?

Here's Alexander showing off his rainbow:

He was especially proud of the green stripe, which he mixed himself using yellow and blue.

After Phoebe saw how he held up his clipboard to show me his work, she had to try it as well. 

Because Rachel didn't come to the park with us, we didn't read any Hamlet (which is our current read) and instead delved into some of Shakespeare's sonnets which Alexander has been begging to do (for real). After reading several and talking about their meaning, examining their form, identifying rhymes, and clapping out iambic pentameter, the kids set about writing sonnets of their own. 

All in all, we stayed at the park for nearly seven hours yesterday! And then we came home and the kids...played outside with their friends. So it was a long outside day yesterday.