The Vikings Are Coming!

The Time Travelers Adventure Club is back up and running after a summer of living only in the 21st century. September we studied the Vikings---their culture, runes, clothing, cool head gear and more. The club has grown and so now we have a preschool group, a 2nd grade group, and a Big Kids group. Overall, I think this has been good for the kids since they can now learn more at their unique levels. Unfortunately, I cannot show photos as my digital camera recently broke. :( If photos are posted, it means I located my 2nd camera and was able to retrieve the old photos!

New World Discoverers Book Club

Our other new club this year is the New World Discoverers Book Club, an American history club & Socratic discussion group combined. The kids spent September reading about the early explorers to the Americas and reading and discussing books!

Brand New S'mArties Art Club!

Blazing Trails Adventure Clubs now sponsors 2 new clubs: one of them being the S'mArties Art Club. The Art Club is for kids up to 3rd grade. We spent September studying two medieval artists: Cimabue and Giotto. After learning a bit about their lives and studying two of their works of art, the children made projects inspired by them. We have done watercolors, oil pastels, scratch art (like Giotto as a boy), and fresco painting. If I can retrieve my photos, I'll put up some examples of the kids' work!

SAND Club Kicks off Hardwoods Study

The SAND Club will be studying the three major Minnesota biomes this year, in an effort to understand the Minnesota-area wilderness as experienced by the early explorers, voyageurs, and missionaries. In September and October, we will study the Hardwood Forest. We are using the Jr. Naturalist booklets put out by the DNR. We visited Fort Snelling State Park and the informative ranger took us on a walk through the forest, showing us a variety of interesting plants and trees. We collected leaves (with her permission!) and made leaf prints at the Nature Center. My favorite new critter is now the leaf miner, a small insect that burrows through leaves, leaving small tunnels behind. Very interesting!