Enchanted Forests and scientific mixtures

This week was perfect because my sisters-in-law hosted an over-the-top combined birthday party for their kids that was enchanted forest themed.  It wasn't a stretch at all to tell my kids it was a MEDIEVAL enchanted forest, and voila!  It was a school learning experience without any work from me!  Booyah!

I wish I had taken more photos.  From the Dragon cake to the chiffon-draped ceilings, the whole thing was AMAZING!

This is Grandma with all the dragon egg pinatas for the birthday kids.

And it was a dress up party, so here is Maxwell as the cutest Medieval Wizard ever:

Of course, I didn't leave all the activities up to others to do.  We learned about Medieval castles.  Did you know Ms. Frizzle does history books as well as science books?  My boys and I were pretty excited to find that out.  Her Medieval Castle book was perfect.

And here is our marshmallow, ice cream cone, and toothpick castle:

We also learned about Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts.  The book "Magic in the Margins" was perfect for this.  We made our own illuminated names with gold glitter glue as a finishing touch.

And we actually did science this week.  We learned about mixtures.  We mixed sugar and iron fillings and played with the fillings from underneath the plate with a magnet to show how the mixture was not a compound.  I quickly changed it from sugar to salt, once I realized that the little ones were to tempted by a plate of sugar regardless of the iron fillings!  Eek! (no one was tempted by the salt-thank goodness!) We also mixed water and a lot of different substances.  And we mixed water and salt and boiled all the water away to prove that it really was just a mixture since the salt was left behind.

Fun fun, another homeschool success of a week....speaking of homeschool successes, my homeschooled-niece just graduated from college!  A bachelor's at the age of 20!  GO RACHAEL!