American Heritage Girls

This year Irene joined American Heritage Girls. Think Girl Scouts without cookies. Also, AHG is a Christian organization. She's really enjoyed it. Funny how the badge incentive inspires her to learn things! They work on badges at their twice monthly meetings, and Irene has worked on three at home. She's earned her Freedom's Heroes Badge - meaning she learned a bit about our armed forces, her Insecta Inspecta Badge - involving a honey tasting, and Cake Decorating - being by far the most fun. Irene loves her troop and gets really excited about AHG Fridays, which I SUPPOSE makes all the hassle worthwhile.

The Katy Rice Harvest Parade was the first major event. Irene did a wonderful job saying the Oath and the Creed with the Unit when they stopped in front of the judges table.

It can't be all work, work, work. (Actually, here she and her troop are working on their Photography Badges.)

The first graders did a wonderful job leading the flag ceremony as part of their Flag Badge.

She and her buddy worked together on the Cake Decorating Badge. Boy, they were tireless in working towards this one!

Better than decorating a cake is eating one straight off the plate with one's hands. Irene and her friends never complain about having Mary join in their activities.

Super Princess History and Science Team

We are part of a very small scale home school co-op. Twice a month we meet and do either a history or science lesson and project. In the beginning, the kids decided to pick a name for their co-op. John Patrick and Michael learned the pitfalls of democracy, as the name of the co-op is the title of this post. Here's a bit of what we've done thus far:

After the first meeting the kids display their Egyptian scrolls.

Painting bird houses

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Little Mary, official mascot of the Super Princess History and Science Team
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Another mom (yes, she's holding Mary) talks to The Bat Lady, who was mysteriously and thankfully present at our excursion to the Waugh Bridge Bat Colony. The Bat Lady was full of information and enthusiasm, which makes for an ideal teacher to first graders.

The Bat Lady's flashlight was tricked out with red saran wrap, so we were able to see the bats resting.