Golden Acorn Homeschool

No, I did not go shopping on Black Friday, and I never do.  This means you won’t be hearing about my amazing deals.  LOL!

I do have a lot of time to fill with NOT thinking about my husband who has started his new job 2000+ miles away.  (He totally loves it, by the way.)

Yesterday, I just knew we had to get out of the house, so I looked up events and activities in the area and decided on a tree lighting ceremony down at the National Harbour.  It’s one place we have never been, and there were fireworks and an ice skating rink.  The Gaylord Hotel is A-MAZING!  I have never seen anything like it, so the trip was worth it for that alone.

We went ice skating (of course) and ended up having a fantastic time!  It was the first time any of us had been ice skating.  I used to be an avid roller skater back in the day (which means about 18 years ago, of course), but I was surprised that I was able to skate without falling on my butt.  The kids also did really well, and in spite of many falls, they continued to get right back up and keep going.  I was a proud mama!

Zoey was really brave.  She stayed pretty close to the wall, but she was definitely going for it on her own and wouldn’t even hold my hand.  She decided to strike a pose for me here.

Sydni always tries for a model pose…LOL!  She fell more than anyone, but continued to get up over and over and over again.  By the time our session was up, she was going around the circle with the experienced skaters and doing so well!

Cole skated about half a lap before he decided to try and skate with the big dogs.  He fell a lot too, but he was doing fantastic by half-way through the session.  My kids rock!

After skating we went down for the tree lighting ceremony, but it was so windy we ended up seeking hot chocolate at Mayorga Coffee.

TWENTY minutes later, we had hot beverages and walked back down by the marina again.

I would say this is a new Black Friday tradition, but we will have to find something similar in Las Vegas for next year.  Woo hoo!

On Friday we attended a FANTASTIC class at the National Zoo in Washington DC.  It was arranged by a wonderful mom in our homeschool co-op and we are very glad she did!

The class was held in a room that was divided into four areas: The Small Mammal House, The Commissary, The Keeper’s Office, and The Animal Hospital.  We divided our co-op into four groups and took turns rotating through each station while practicing various zoo jobs.  I had a blast, and I know the kids did too!

We identified some animals in the Small Mammal House, collected some scat to send to the hospital, and even caught a Golden Lion Tamarin!

In the Commissary, we created meals for the animals, and then loaded them up on the delivery van.  Of course, we cleaned up when we were done!

In the Keeper Office, we fed meal worms and crickets, made important phone calls, and learned to use the transponder to identify animals.  Among other things…

Finally, in the Animal Hospital we learned to care of sick and injured animals.  We were very worried about the corn snake and had to examine his x-ray to determine if he had been eating properly.  We discovered a rat!  Good job corn snake!

This is open to the public on weekends, and if you live in the DC area, I highly suggest you go and try it out.  Ms. K, our zoo teacher for the experience, recommends a rainy day since the zoo tends to be empty.  I plan to get back down there and spend more time in “How Do You Zoo?” very soon.  What else can you do on a rainy spring day?