Weekly Wrap-Up: Kids Licenses, Trying to Make Gas & The Real Pocahontas

In my Life this week.... I saw my need to be purposeful in being a joyful mother... too often I let circumstances dictate my attitude and I want to change! I also saw how much I have been consumed by the "house hunt"... so I'm trying to let that "go" too... trusting that we will find/be lead to the perfect spot.

In our homeschool week...

Bible
I have found that the kids really enjoy our prayer times, but they are also getting "silly" with it. So before we prayed this week, I reminded them to Whom they are praying... the Creator of the Universe! And the manner in which we pray that shows Him reference.

We're also learning more and more of 1 Corinthians 13. This week the favorite verse was 7 because they had to shout the words in bold "Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance."

Language Arts
We had all sorts of fun here... I'll just share the highlights;) Anna is reading a series of fictional diaries from colonial Jamestown called My America. She's really enjoyed what she has read. On Wednesday we ventured to meet grandparents traveling through and Anna read for at least 30 minutes of our 45 minute drive, so we all got to "read" some of the book, too;)

Anna has also started working on cursive again....
( I really do not stress handwriting with my crowd, they get practice with their handwriting during the toddler and preschool years and then doing copywork and assignments once they start "school". I think it's important that they recognize and can write neatly, but we don't stress about perfectly formed letters and I don't even purchase handwriting curriculum, just cheap workbooks that I photocopy for them to practice with. All that said.... I feel like the kids need to know cursive in order to read it!!! If someone (usually Grandma) writes them a letter in cursive, it's very important that my kids can read it!! )

and she loves it!! I'm not sure how many letters she has written to people this week... but I am finding them everywhere. She's been through one simple cursive letter workbook last year and this year I have a harder workbook I got for a $1 at a book sale. She is hoping to review 2 letters a week... but with all the letter writing she's been getting a TON of practice and has almost convinced Chris to start learning cursive with her next week:)

This week as I did reading with Lydia, I was soo surprised at how well she is sounding out words. It took the older 2 much longer to get to the stage where they would sound out words on their own... but Lydia is seeing that she can already read soo much independently.... gotta love the homeschool learning curve for younger siblings, I definitely read less to Lydia in my lap,one-on-one than I did for Anna and Chris!! No guilt trip there, right!?

Chris, Lydia and I enjoyed our Grammar lessons this week. Learning about the state we live in and naming states of the United States. Our last lesson on Friday was writing our address... I felt a little silly teaching them our current address just because we know it will be changing in a few months... oh well...

We made an activity though with our address writing (see there is hidden handwriting in Grammar!!). We made index card driver's licenses using an extra Christmas Cards from last year:)

They glued their picture on, wrote their address at the top and then filled in some personal information (like eye color, hair color, weight, height,etc).

Math
Each child did at least 4 lessons;) Yay:) My lefty at work!

During her down time one morning, Lydia followed an activity from Math Mastermind all by herself and came to show it off;)

Lydia also had a BIG milestone in math this week!! She finally got to do a fact sheet, like Anna and Chris!! She was soo excited she did her first one a day early:) With the Time Timer at her side... set at 5 minutes, although she completed it in record time :)

History
We studied King James and Jamestown. I love how much British history we are learning and to see how it ties into American history soo much... especially these early years:) We read, colored and mapped;) And I totally gave in and let them watch Pocahontas .... i know it's not historically accurate :( Anyway, it's a good picture though of the tension and the mindset that did exsist. To balance the Disney indoctronation (LOL!!!.. joking!) we did read some fabulous books from our library.... Who's Saying What in Jamestown, Thomas Savage? by Jean Fritz, The True Story of Pocahontas by Lucille Penner, and In Their Own Words: Pocahontas by George Sullivan.

Science
This week we got back on track with the "other" gas experiment. It resembled the soda experiment from two weeks ago, but we used kitchen ingredients to make gas. The kids measured and poured the ingredients.

The 1st concoction was baking soda and vinegar.... LOL, Chris took a big wiff of the vinegar and made the funniest face. We put the balloon and the kids shook up the bottle making the ingredients mix and the gas form filling the balloon:)

The 2nd concoction was orange juice and baking soda. It made a little bit of gas... I wonder if it was because it made gas or I just didn't rinse the bottle out well enough???

And Lydia was my fearless little chemist.... she also helped me mix 2 other concoctions..... water/baking soda and salt/vinegar to make gas. Neither of those made gas :(



Other
Before soccer practice we made a community fall event! We basically made an appearance, dressed like this....

And then headed to soccer;)

And this evening we attended a Rodeo.... and that is another post :)