Weekly Wrap Up: Week 20- A lot of Science and more...

Our week...

A couple of weeks ago, I sent out an S.O.S. to a yahoo group looking for a homeschool group and a nice lady responded to me.  We had such an awesome homeschool group in our last town and I hadn't found one locally yet.  She invited us to join and we were thrilled!  So on Monday, we joined the homeschool group for a P.E. class.  The kids had a good time getting some exercise and playing a friendly game of dodge ball.

Little Man finished All About Reading Level 2 and is so excited to jump into level 3.  Woo Hoo!!

 

My husband was home on Monday so he was Sweet Girl's lab partner who had a cow eye dissection in Advanced Biology:  Human Anatomy.  Little Man wanted to join in too.
I just love the look she's giving me in this picture..."I have to do what?"

 

The Lens

Sweet Girl also had an experiment in chemistry this week, "Household Acids and Bases".  She tested common household items using litmus paper to find which were acids and which were bases.

 

Silly Guy had a lab in General Science "Factors that Affect Bacterial Growth".  This was an interesting experiment.  He concluded that salt and low temperatures hurt the growth of bacteria.  He had two other experiments this week "Yeast as a Decomposer" and "Vegetative Reproduction". Both of these experiments have to sit for a few days, so he'll finish them up next week.

 

Little Man studied invertebrates this week in science.  We read about the worm, snail, and octopus. In the beginning of the year he chose to make a rainforest diorama for his animal project.  As we've learned about different animals throughout the year, he's been adding the ones who live in the rainforest to his diorama. This week he added the worm and the snail.  He also added the animals to the "Carnivore/Herbivore/Omnivore" chart.

 

Sweet Girl joined the 4H Dog Project when she was twelve years old.  She competes with Roxy in agility, obedience, rally, and showmanship.  They have received Grand Champion a few times in several different classes.  It's a lot of work but these two are a great team and I've enjoyed watching them grow over the past 4 years. This week they returned to training again, taking an obedience class.   We are hoping to find some shows this spring.

 

Little Man studied the poem The Flag Goes By by: Henry H. Bennett this week.  After studying the poem throughout the week, I copied it for him to put in his notebook.  He decorated the page to reflect the poem's meaning.

 

He also was inspired by the poem to make a Lego American Flag.

 

Our new read aloud is Little House in the Big Woods by: Laura Ingalls Wilder.  He drew a page in his notebook comparing where he lives to where Laura lives.

 

After reading Colossians 3:12-17 he made an origami shirt.  On the inside he wrote what God wants us to have inside our hearts;  love, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.  He tried to put it on his bear but it was too small so he glued it in his Religion notebook.

  

Weekly Wrap Up Week 19

Share your week too at Weekly Wrap-Up hosted by Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

I'd say our week was productive.

Little man was busy but he informed me he wants more school work.

Ok:)

I'm thinking about adding in a foreign language.  Any recommendations for a first grader?

 

In science he was learning about salmon and seahorses as a part of the fish unit.  After his reading and narration, I found a few YouTube videos for him to watch.  Check out this video.

 It's  about the Leafy Sea Dragon Seahorse.  He's a great example of camouflage.

 

For his experiment We sliced a cucumber and placed three pieces in both salt and fresh water.  We checked the flexibility of the cucumbers after 30 minutes, and then again after an hour to demonstrate how fish cells respond to fresh and salty water.

Little man's bible study was from Ephesians 6:  10-11 "The Whole Armor of God" .  After the bible study, he made armor for his teddy bear.

How cute does he look!

I recently found a website that offers online art classes ArtAchieve.  Usually I try to come up with something or find an art lesson on the internet but these lessons are laid out so nice and it's a break for me:)

The lessons usually come with some background information, warm-up, pep talk and step-by-step drawing guide.  The boys love the lessons and have really been happy with the end result.
This week they drew the "Owl from Bali".  It was a lesson in warm and cool colors.
Little Man's artwork is on the top and Silly guy's is on the bottom.
They used black paper, chalk and oil pastels.

Silly guy finished up his World War II chapter in Story of the World Volume 4.

He wrote a biography about F.D.R. and made a poster.

He also wrote an interpretation of the poem "Breathes There the Man" by Sir Walter Scott.

He finished up Module 9 in Apologia General Science.  He was a week ahead so he took the time to review &  study for the Module test.

Sweet girl had a busy week too.  She had a mid-term , a research paper on "The Industrial Revolution", chemistry test, and she has started trigonometry.  She is going to take 3 semesters to complete  trigonometry which will carry her through her senior year.

In November, she participated in NANOWRIMO Young Writers Program.  If you are not familiar with NANOWRIMO( National Writing Month),  writers from around the world are challenged to set a word count goal and write everyday for the entire month of November.  Then the writer submits their novel to get a "self-publishing"offer.  She won and will receive 5 printed copies of her novel and will be able to sell her novel on Amazon.

 

 

Time to Catch Up

 

 It has been a challenge for me over the past few weeks to find time to blog.  We have been busy with school and getting ready for Christmas.  We also recieved our storage shippment so I was getting that all put away.  I had a goal to finish A History of US book 5 before Christmas break(didn't get done).  My husband's schedule has been weird too.  He has had off various days during the week then working weekend days.  It's always tough to stay on track when dad is home;) but we love having him home with us. 
We usually spend the Christmas season baking and crafting but this year I feel like I have fallen short.  We baked a batch of yummy White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies last night.  I hope to bake some more over the next week since we will be taking off.  As far as crafting we haven't made one single Christmas decoration:(  A lot of that has to do with the lack of a craft store in our town.  Next year I will have to prepare better, make a list and go into the city to shop for supplies.  I have been scrapbooking a lot though.  The kids pulled out their books and pictures too.  We also made some embelishments together using the Cricut. 

Sweet Girl finished Tom Sawyer.  We went on a field trip to the Mark Twain Museum.  It was in the dark, damp, kind of creepy basement of the once Territorial Enterprise which is where his career as a writer began.  I will post more pictures later.
History we are studying the California Gold Rush and the emigration West.  I was excited to have found a state park just south of Carson City called Mormon Station State Historic Park.  I was reading they have a replica of a trading post built in 1851 and pioneer-era artifacts.   How great!  It would fit in so perfectly with our studies.  Then I was bummed to find out they are closed until May.  It's on our to do list for spring field trips.
The kids also wrote "Mini Reports" last week. Sweet Girl chose to write about Robert Fulton. Silly Guy wrote about  The Louisianna Purchase.   We recieved our household goods shippment from Virginia a couple of weeks ago.  It was full of stuff that has been in storage for four years.  Inside was our encyclopedia's.  So the kids used them for their mini reports.  I don't know what I was thinking putting them into storage in the first place but am so happy to have them back in our home.

 Silly Guy dissected an owl pellet finishing up the bird unit in Science. 

 After dissecting the owl pellet, using the identification key, he came to the conclusion this owl had eaten a pocket gopher.  Since then he has started learning about mammals.  We borrowed a bag full of books about mammals native to Nevada from the library. He has been busy reading. 
The kids have been keeping up with the rest of their subjects too.  Math is Math.  In writing they have had some interesting assignments.  Silly Guy wrote some poetry. He also used a story starter picture to write a short story.  It was about two girls who wandered into the woods to find a mysterious house.  Inside the house they found hidden treasure. He loves the creativity of assignments like these.  I had to help him with composure because he's at an akward writing stage right now where his thoughts can't seem to come together on paper.  I get frustrated at times. My husband reminded me I went through the same thing with Sweet Girl and that it will come with maturity.
One of Sweet Girl's writing assignments was to read the compostions in Tom Sawyer(if I remember correctly Ch. 21) and determine why they were bad.  Then create her own "horrible" composition.  It sounds easy but it wasn't. I heard these words all week..."I can't...but how...what...why"  I couldn't help but smile that she was having such a difficult time writing a horrible compostion.  I can remember not that long ago....but I won't go there.  In the end it was a fun assignment and I think she learned a lot from it.  She just started working on writing a literary analysis. I found this resource useful when I had to write a literary analysis  when taking a literature class. So I using it again while teaching Sweet Girl to write one. 

We also went on a nature hike this week.  It was a beautiful day! I will share more later:)
Hope you had a wonderful week! and Merry Christmas!!

Weekly Wrap Up-13!

 This week we celebrated  Sweet Girl's(my oldest)13th birthday.  I can't believe she is 13!!  How time does fly!! I remember when we brought her home from the hospital I couldn't put her down.  Holding her in my arms felt so right.  I literally held her for the first two weeks of her life.  In every picture we have I am just gazing at this little baby girl with amazement.   I am so thankful God has leant her to me and made me her Mommy.    She brings such joy to our lives!! 

 

  My week has been busy with lesson planning.  We are about 1/3 through our school year.  I made some new timelines for the kids and notebooking pages.  The other timelines we were using worked but I wanted a timeline that had boxes.  The timelines I made have boxes with lines for writing and some empty boxes for drawing.  I will be putting them on my page at HSLaunch.com .  I also finished Silly Guy's Science notebooking pages for Christian Kids Explore Biology.   I worked on record keeping a bit but have some more to do.  I also started thinking of next year already.  I am trying to decide what to do with Sweet Girl for high school. 

This week we made(and ate)Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies.  I used to have a good recipe but couldn't find it anywhere.  So I searched through some online recipes and  one at  http://www.pickycook.com/.  I will post the recipe in a later post:) 

Some of our school week highlights:
Well, much of this week we seemed to be in auto drive:(  I think it was the fact Thanksgiving is coming.  The kids (and I)are looking forward to having a break to recharge the old battery. 
Little Man learned the letter B.  One thing he did was made this baby.  I just think it is so cute. 

For Science we went back yard bird watching.  Silly Guy has started the bird unit in Christian Kids Explore Biology.  Can you believe we didn't see one bird!!  It was kind of a bummer.  Then later in the day they heard a bird twittering around in the juniper in front of the house. 

 Silly Guy also made a birdhouse to put in the back yard.  We realized during the bird watch we had to make our back yard more bird friendly.  In writing he wrote a friendly letter to his friend in Hawaii. He is really hoping to get a letter back in return.   
 

Silly Guy's birdhouse

We started reading aloud Mocassin Trail by: Eloise Jarvis McGraw this week.  It's about a boy who ran away from home when he was 11.  After a grizzly bear attack he was adopted by an Indian tribe.  After living with the tribe for 7 years(now 19), has been contacted by his family who needs him.  It's an interesting story so far. 
Silly Guy also has been reading Freedom Train:  The Story of Harriet Tubman(History).
In Math he continues to work on fractions. 
Sweet Girl worked on study guide question's and reading in Apologia.  She finished Streams to River, River to Sea which she said is a great book.  She continues to read Tom Sawyer in Lit.  Her writing assignment this week was to take Aunt Polly's soliloquy(in chapter 1)and then translate it into modern day language. This was fun and a little challenge. 
I bought a new devotional for the family, The One Year Bible for Kids.  Until now the kids have been working on their Bible assignments in Alpha Omega's Bible Lifepacs.  These are great, but in addition I wanted something we could study together.
In History we are still reading History of US book 4.
   
Art-The kids finished painting the Turkey bowls. 

This week I signed the kids up for the 4H Sking and Snowboarding Club.  They meet twice a month through March and go Lake Tahoe.  They are thrilled to join!! 
Friday morning my husband called to give us the upcoming weather report-snow. We made a Walmart trip to buy snow boots, salt, and a shovel.  By Sunday, we are supposed to get around 6-8 inches of snow.  Little Man was born in HI so he's never seen snow before.  He's so excited to see snow, make a snowman, and thow a snowball. 
So that was some of our highlights.  Hop on over to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers !

Weekly Wrap Up- Time to Make New Friends

  Our main focus over the past month has been to get the family back into a normal routine and   settling into the house.  I felt like it was time to find a home school group in the area. So last week I was searching and emailing and was contacted by a couple of kind ladies.  They were welcoming and asked us to join the group for park day on Wednesday.  We woke up in the morning eager to go meet some new friends.  We arrived at the park and were welcomed with smiling faces.  Soon after we arrived it began to sleet.  The kids didn’t mind and were having fun so we hung around for a little while. It was so great to be around other homeschooling mommies again.  The group sounds just the right pace for us.  We are looking forward to meeting up with them again. 

Some other highlights...

We woke up to snow capped mountains this week

Little Man came to me this week and wanted to make a necklace for Grandma.  We pulled out some penne pasta, pony beads, and yarn.  He found this bead in the container(the only one like it)and thought it was “so cool”. 

 While he was stringing on the pasta and beads he was talking about how much “Grandma is going to love this necklace.”   “I think this necklace will make her happy!” Such a sweetie pie! Then he wanted to model his creation-he, he.

 He has become mama's little helper in the kitchen too.  Everytime I am baking he's there "I want to help!".  Then he drags the step ladder over to the counter top ready to be of assistance.  His favorite part is licking the bowl of course:)

We also worked on numbers and counting a bit this week. Most of the time he was enjoying tag along lessons, baking, and hanging out with mom.  We had a lot of cuddle time on the couch reading books and playing with his toys(doctor and his Thomas trains were his favorite this week). 


Sweet Girl has finished A Gathering of Days:  A New England Girl's Journal.  She wrote a book report about it for her writing assignment.  She has now started reading Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.  We'll have to check the weather reports and plan a trip to go back to Virginia City.  There is a Mark Twain museum and it's where he started his career.
She started Module 4:  Science, Applied Science, and Technology in Apologia General Science.  She has had a couple of experiments this week learning about simple machines( making a lever and pulley).  I can't say enough about how wonderful this curriculum is. The book gives wonderful information and explanations of what was supposed to happen and why it happened.  I am no scientist and Dr. Jay L. Wile has made teaching Science painless.
For her independent History reading she has started reading Streams to River, River to Sea which is about the Lewis and Clark expedition. 

Which brings me to History...this week we started A History of US:  The New Nation(1789-1850)Book 4.  Some of the topics included in our studies-President George Washington, President John Adams, President Thomas Jefferson, Judicial Review, and Lewis and Clark.  Some links I found this week-  Washington is Elected ,  Thomas Jefferson, Judicial Review and Construction-the nature of the Supreme Court, Biography of John Adams, and Lewis and Clark Expedition.  We only viewed a couple but I figured I'd share what I found;) 
Silly Guy wrote a newspaper this week in.  It was to take place in 1803.  He had a lot of fun with this assignment. Many of the topics he wrote about we've covered in his History and Literature lessons.  However, he did some additional research for the assignment.   Usually for writing I have him write out his assignment.  But being a newspaper, I gave him the option of choosing a template and to type the assignment.  Writing a newspaper was a hit with my Silly Guy.  

Literature-he finished reading The Lewis and Clark Expedition which he really liked. I also had him read some short stories (historical stories)in an Abeka book I picked up at an used curriculum fair.  

In Science this week he learned about trees.  Mostly reading the text and some books I grabbed from the library. We did do some tree and leaf rubbings.  Today he finished up the "Plants Unit" with a quiz.   

  I enjoy decorating the house for Thanksgiving and Christmas. So for art this week we started a two week project "Ceramic Turkey Bowls"using air drying clay.   Little Man had a different idea about the clay project. At first my 3 year old refused to allow anyone to help him.  Then he made a HUGE mess with the sponge and water.  I had a small pond on my kitchen table. So, I helped him to form the bowl.  I think he'll enjoy painting his bowl more.  Not to say he didn't have a blast splishing and splashing clay water everywhere:).       

 









Oh, I think they're gonna be cute filled with nuts or candies. 
I am so glad to have worked Art and Music into our weekly schedule this year.  In the past it has been on the schedule too but it was one of those things-If we have time.  With our schedule not jammed packed with so many activities we now have the time.  It's  really been a gift.  A gift of  time together to create:). 
 One thing that arrived in the mail this week is our new wall map. Our old one was ruined in the move. The kids(especially Silly Guy)loves to look at the map. They'll quiz each other for fun. Just by having a map on the wall since Silly Guy was 4(when we started homeschooling) he can pretty much locate anything on a map quick too. This year we've used Sonlight's maps(which aren't labeled) for our History/Geography lessons.  We've had fun with these maps and have turned Geography lessons into a daily Geography bee.
Let's just say Geography has become quite competitive around our home. Fun!
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Weekly Wrap Up-A Week of Perfect Timing

When I started writing this post I didn't know what to title it.  As I went through our week I realized we had some perfect timing. 
Some highlights for the week...
Our week started off with a much needed nature walk.  It always is relaxing and therapeutic to spend time in nature and appreciate His creation. 
I might be behind the times on this one but wanted to share a link I found.  It is an online field guide for identifying wildlife- enature.com .  Which is going to be useful to us being new to these parts.  We found this lizard sunbathing on some rocks in our front yard.  This website was great and user friendly.

the desert spiny lizard

Art this week, we stepped away from the picture study.  My kids love picture studies and are learning a lot about art and the artists. However, I chose to do a "lesson" from Incredible Art Lessons.  The objective of the lesson was to create a design by reversing positive and negative space. They used leaves that we collected from our nature walk to develop the designs.

This week in History we finished A History of US Book 3 From Colonies to Country.  Some

topics studied this week: the Constitutional Convention, Constitution, the Northwest Ordinance, and the Bill of Rights.  Perfect timing #1- learning about the forming of our government during election week.  We ended it with the question"Will you preserve America's democracy?".  Which lead us into thought and discussion about voting and some current events.     

Anywho, what an amazing time period!  We are loving this series.  Mrs. Hakim writes like she is sitting in the room having a conversation with you.  Anything that grabs their interest(and mine-he,he) and provoke's thought get's a thumbs up in my book.  The kids also worked on memorizing the Preamble to the Constitution, finished up their timelines(for this period 1735-1791), maps, etc.  I wanted to share a couple of links  The Constitution Preamble Song- Schoolhouse Rock video

Ratification of the Constitution- video accompanied by text

The Bill of Rights- a slide show naration



Sweet Girl's History notebook

Perfect timing #2-Sweet Girl  read some poems about autumn this week by Robert Frost.  She finished Traitor: The Case of Benedict Arnold this week for her independent history reading.  In Literature she began reading A Gathering of Days: A New Enland Girl's Journal, 1830-32 by: Joan W. Blos.  She also read the tale of Rip Van Winkle. 

Which leads me to her writing assignment.  It was to write two epitaph's for Rip Van Winkle.  One that might have been on his gravestone before he fell asleep for 20 yrs, and one that may have been written after his actual death.  Perfect timing #3-We set out for Silly Guy's dry seed hunt project at Fort Churchill.  At the fort they had a cemetary where she was able to read some epitaph's that were on the tombstone's there. 

She had a quiet week in Apologia General Science.  Basically reading and finishing up Module 3 with studying and taking the test. 

On to Silly Guy, this week in Science(Christian Kids Explore Biology) he continued learning about plants.  His lessons were focused on plant reproduction and fruits/vegetables.  Along with reading he had an experiment and a project.  His experiment was to dissect fruits and vegetables and then classify them first into either a fruit or vegetable.  Then into different groups:  dry, juicy, pomes or drupes/stone fruits.  The best part of this experiment was all of the taste testing going on by both Silly Guy and Little Man.  It was funny.  It was as if they had never tasted a fruit or a vegetable before.  Little Man ,who loves Science, was chiming in,"Ohh, it has seeds...Yup, it's a fruit!" 

Big knife but under my supervision!! Kids don't try this at home!!

Silly Guy's Science notebook

Then they(the boys) had a project- a dry seed hunt.  We pulled into the parking lot at Fort Churchill.  Which brings me to perfect timing #4- I almost didn't park in this lot and we wouldn't have seen these trees otherwise.  Little Man got out of the van, pointed up to the tree and shouted..."Seeds!!"  

We really didn't know what kinds of seeds we would be finding in the desert. Much to our surprise we did find some.  It was a beautiful place to go on a seed hunt too!!  Silly Guy added his findings to his Science notebook.   

Silly Guy's Science notebook

 Although he didn't want to leave, Little Man couldn't wait to make a collage with his findings. 

Silly Guy finished Sign of the Beaver at the start of the week for his Literature study.  Now he is reading Lewis and Clark Expedition by Richard L Newberger. For his independent History reading he read and finished If You Were There When They Signed the Constitution. 

I added Easy Grammar to his Language Arts curriculum last week.  I felt he needed more grammar practice.  The lessons are short, sweet and to the point.  It's great for him and he's picking it up(getting 100%'s ).  Now if I can get him to use what he learns in his writing!! In writing he had a few journaling assignments.  He loved this assignment!! He is my journalist.  He carries his journal with him everywhere; the house, outside, the car, to bed, to the store, etc. Always writing about something:)

Math went a little better this week.  Previously, I was having him complete his Math assignments in the school room/office.  Well, I decided I would move him into the kitchen. He said he likes having me in the same room with him for Math.  So that's what we did;)

  Always growing and learning what works best for them. 

 This week a milestone was reached in our house. I was in the shower and a little boy comes into the bathroom with a shirt on his head..."Mom, I am going to get dressed." I replied,"Okay honey.I'll be out in a few minutes to help you." "No mom. I am going to do it all by myself." I giggled as I peeked out of the shower door watching him walk away. A few minutes later that same not so little boy walked back in completley dressed from head to foot. He had picked out his clothes and got dressed all by himself. He knew how proud we all were and asked me to get the camera. This is his pose-he, he. We were so proud of him(holding back the tears)!!

such a proud big boy

Along with learning by his big brother and sister side, Little Man worked on writing some of his letters and numbers.  He is very interested in learning how to read.  He is pointing to words on the page and asking me,"What does that say?"  Also if a book has sight words listed he will ask me too. At bedtime after we read some books he will then  tell me a story of his own.  I can not express in words how much this excites me!!!

Ruins at Fort Churchill-more about the fort later:)

It was a great week where lesson plans worked with perfect timing!
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