Weekly Wrap-Up : The 1st Week

I honestly was a little worried about going from our relaxing and unscheduled summer days into a school day routine. We did start very slowly only adding a few subjects at first. In fact, there were a few subjects like Science and Logic that I had collected the materials for but didn't really plan to teach so we could really just ease in. But the kids asked... or more like begged! So we ended up covering a lot more than I had initially planned!

Glad I was ready:)

Bible
We started with Old Story New in the beginning of the week:) We started it last year, worked on a few weeks through the summer and so it felt very familiar. We also read and discussed some introductory verses from Tapestry of Grace, Year 1.

Math
All three older kids jumped excitedly into their math:) They were sharing a computer, which I dreaded; but, it all worked out quite well. As they waited for each other to finish they worked on their own practice problems or fact sheet. Since the girls were starting with a new level they began with review, but Chris jumped right back into the middle of the 4th year... so it was a little tougher to zip through lessons, but he got the hang of it quickly!

Writing
We started with the IEW Ancients curriculum. We started on key word outlining because it matched our history topics better than the beginning assignments. The kids knew right what to do from our experience last year with IEW. It was exciting to see how quickly they remembered how to pick out the key words and then to use the outlines for their own summaries. Yipppeee!!

Reading
For our reading, we used the literature suggestions from Tapestry. Anna started the cat of Bubastes by G.A. Henty and Lydia and Chris read other books about Egypt, Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile, Deserts and Peeps at Many Lands (on the Kindle). Anna quickly lost interest in The Cat of Bubastes and Peeps at Many Lands (with all the new words and places) got "too slow" for Lydia and Chris. So we changed it up a bit in the middle of the week:) I read Peeps at Many Lands to everyone (a chapter each day), we started reading The Golden Goblet in the evenings with Brian and the kids chose from a pile of Ancient Egypt books what they wanted to read during their structured reading time:)

History
One of the reasons I wanted to ease into school was so we could figure out how Tapestry would "fit" into the school day. I've already explained a bit how using Tapestry has affected our Bible time by reading and discussing passages suggested for the week. Our readings were based off of Tapestry suggestions as well. Surprisingly our history time looked some what similar to when we used SOTW because we pulled it out to read 2 chapters for this week.

When working on our paper maps, I used some of the suggested places/regions/etc from Tapestry (TOG) and blended the two. We did most of the bigger geographical identifications by the kids finding the locations on the map on the wall. For the terms (lots of terms) we made note cards. It was kid of cool to learn the differences between seas, gulfs and bays. And then we planned our salt map of Egypt:)... yes, just planned we didn't actually get to make it until Week #2.

Part of our reading talked about the meaning of history and that everyone has events in their life that makes up their own history, so we made our own timelines.

And then another section of reading talked about archeology. Nate and I went out one morning and buried some "treasures" (plastic plates, a homemade bracelet, pencil, etc) in the sandpit. Later in the afternoon the older kids went outside to dig it all up:) They tried to made some grid lines but then just started randomly digging and still did not find all the items (even with Nate helping them)! I think they learned a few of the challenges of archeology especially earlier when they wanted to go dig but it had just started raining!

Science
We began Science with learning about the different theories surrounding the formation of the world. We read from the Bible and sources confirming creation and then found sources explaining evolution. And we talked about other theories, like "old world" versus "new world" and intelligent design. We started reading a child's biography on Charles Darwin as well. The kids really liked the detailed coloring page from a our science book.

When "preparing" science I quickly realized how different this year of science is going to be for us. The book covers a lot of topics but is merely a guide not a full teaching curriculum - how spoiled I was after using Apologia! So there is a lot more preparations that need to be done each week (but after Week #2 I'm seeing that we are being challenged, I just need to be willing to find additional resources to make it more hands-on and "alive").

Logic
They begged to pull out the Mind Benders book:) I cut up little paper pieces so I wouldn't have to copy a page for each kid and we did each puzzle together. Just two or three puzzles during each session.

Preschool Corner

Nate and I began The Story of Ping. I got a lot of my printables from Royal Baloo and Mama's Learning Corner. After reading Ping and taking about the books some he jumped into some activities.


He  worked on beginning sounds printables and a few pages from an "old-school" pre-reading book I own.

He glue ducks to make a D. And we used some toys to learn some new things about water;)

You've got to love preschool in the bathtub:) We read a book about water and some of the things it does, while Nate was finishing his bath. And we used some toys to learn some new things about water;)

 Preschool is pretty short and sweet around here;) Although he did have a few practice sessions on listening quietly during Bible Time. And learning to finish a task when ask and cleaning up before pulling out a new toy:)

Nature
A few weeks ago we were given some tadpoles. I was super excited since we hadn't done the "tadpole thing" for a few years and Nate hadn't seen it yet. One morning, during our first week, we realized that some of the tadpoles had grown their back legs, so we added some rocks to their habitat.

Nate and I also took a little break from rowing Ping to read about tadpoles. He enjoyed seeing all the stages and then finding tadpoles in our batch that were at some of the different stages, too.

One morning while walking the dog we found a visitor:) This turtle looked a little different than the normal Eastern Box or Yellow-Bellied Sliders that usually bravely venture into our yard! The kids pointed out all the differences, like his nose and webbed feet, to try to figure out what he was. We're actually still not sure but we put him near the water since his feet were webbed.

Extra Adventures
We still got to the pool a few days last week:) It was a great motivation to get all the school work done... a perk to starting school while the pool is still open:)

On Friday we began final preparations for the kids snack sale at Grammie's community yard sale. The kids sold snacks, fruit and drinks. We bought their supplies and then taught them about paying for the supplies before calculating how much they actually got to keep. I really think it was a good 1st "business" adventure and they learning a lot about giving change back and talking to adult customers!! They each got to keep just over $4! So a pretty good experience overall!

Getting Ready!!

Customers!

The snack crew...  such welcoming faces!! Don't you love the 100% little brother!

Overall a fun, busy, great week!! Things just clicked for us and we got off to a pretty good start.... don't think it's all peachy here because then Week #2 happened. The honeymoon-like 1st week was OVER. LOL!!

Our 2013-2014 Curriculum Wrap-Up

At the beginning of the year everyone is soo excited to share what they plan to use. We are excited about new possibilities, new pencils, exciting topics... I love a new start as well.

As I begin to get all the "new school year" curriculum together this year I am finding that I keep going back to what we used last year to get an idea of what we can do to make this year "fit us" even better! What worked last year? What didn't!? What did we have to tweak and can it be tweaked again or should it just be set aside?

Instead of doing this in my own wee little brain and I being the only one to benefit from this exercise; I thought I'd just share it and maybe, just maybe, our experience can help someone else deciding on some of the things we used and challenges we faced.

Bible
We have loved, loved, loved Old Story New as a devotional. It's not an in-depth Bible study but we've looked up the verses, read the short stories that really connect the kids to the biblical teaching and have had some really cool application-based discussions!! It's definitely my favorite part of the day:)

We also started to memorize the verses that follow the "Roman Road". The kids were given a hand-out of how to share their faith using their hands. So we began memorizing the verses that corresponded to each verse. At the end of the year Chris volunteered to say all the books of the Bible at the RA Ceremony (in front of the church members gathered), so we spent some time being sure he was ready:)




Math
If you have read about our home schooling you know we are BIG Saxon fans! It works for us and has continued to work well for the kids (they all tested above their grade level in math this year on two different tests)! Anna and Chris were both doing lessons on CD from Saxon 6/5 and 5/4 respectively. For the most part they are independent workers. Anna does a complete lesson a day except on assessment days where she only does the assessment and her math facts.

 I divided Chris' lessons (Saxon 5/4) into 2 day pieces... on day #1 he does the warm-up (including part of the math facts), the lesson on CD and the lesson practice. The following day he works on the mixed practice, checks his work and corrects any mistakes.

 I am available for both of them to ask questions. And I definitely go over any problems and re-teach when they just don't "get it":)

Lydia finished up Saxon 3 in Lydia-style! She finished weeks before the end of the semester and spent her "extra" time working on xtramath.org and other online math games. She'll be starting Saxon 5/4 in August!

Science
We LOVED using Apologia's Chemistry and Physics!! We had done Chemistry and Physics in previous years using little science experiments, reading books and writing little reports but we still learned soo much from Apologia's book. They each had the notebook which they liked but I added some outlines that I either made myself or found on a group FB page. The fill-in outlines helped keep their focus while we read through the chapter and really narrow in on the key terms and concepts because there was soo much good and unique information in each section!

And anytime we could stop reading and do anything hands-on was always fun! And that Apologia textbook was LOADED with hands-on experiments, like this one:



**BTW... the whimpering is from a concerned sister. She was concerned her brother, who has an egg-allergy, might touch the egg in the experiment. A little drama in the Science class:)

In planning for next year, I am VERY bummed that there isn't a simple one-year textbook that fits us from Apologia. We think we have something that will fit us until we can do  Apologia Astronomy the following year:)

Grammar
Chris and Lydia finished First Language Lesson #3! Oh, how we all  LOVE this series! They will definitely continue FLL#4 :)

Anna and I used Shurley English 5 and Daily Grams (2x a week) this year. And for most of the year we floundered... Shurley just wasn't a good fit for us. Each day, Shurley was loaded with an hour or more of Grammar lessons and practice with a lot of the time spent with an instructor. I did like breaking down the sentences and the vocabulary words for her to look up weekly. I just felt like the actual teaching of Grammar in Shurley got lost during our Grammar time together because of all the other daily activities in the guide. We ended up dividing each chapter into two weeks and spreading out the work/lessons a bit. It helped us feel like we were actually getting a little more out of it. But I'm already looking into something else for us in the Fall :/

Reading
We did a lot of reading aloud last year. And daily the kids would grab a book or two to read during their independent work times. I then realized one of my children was not reading but still at the "looking at pictures" then flipping the pages. So I buckled down and read individually with that one child... and  I can already see a huge improvement since January! I am also working with that child through Alphaphonics which is a "learning to read" program but it's painless and they're zipping through it as I really get a picture of where they are struggling so I can help (or get help).

While I knew what they were reading and often it was related to our history, I want to be more intentional with their reading this year by planning, using many graded reading lists to come up with level-appropriate books that tie into our historical topics.


Writing
We began the year using IEW's All Things Fun and Fascinating. It started so simply with key word outlines, then forming those into paragraphs. And then we went into summarizing and collecting information to build reports.

But then a friend offered to let us borrow the IEW Style and Structure B DVD lessons. It's such an amazing resource that we dropped the ATFF (for a bit) and then did a lesson a week using the DVDs. It was really cool seeing the overlap and it really cemented the teachings of ATFF for the kids (no, it wasn't Mom just making something up).

At the end of the year, we did go back to ATFF for a bit to cover some of the things that I didn't want to miss... some poems, writing from a picture and writing from a prompt (easier topics in the ATFF).

IE Ancients for next year???

History
For the last 5 years we worked through Story of the World, all 4 volumes... yes, it took us a little longer, but we enjoyed the story part of history. We all just loved reading, completing maps, doing activities, discussing topics we ran into together and often seeing where our history topics connected with current world events ( we were studying Russia post WWII when Russia invaded Ukraine.... my kids knew some of the history and their eyes were huge!) . Often we got our hands on some living books from the same time periods that I read aloud while the kids played "quietly" with Legos (yes, they do actually listen and get a LOT from those readings).

Just a note... get the activity guide! Between the ideas of additional books to explore deeper, the review questions and maps... that guide is worth it's weight in gold! Then add that many chapters contain "do-able" activities! It really does add a lot to just reading the book.

We are going into a new stage though:/  I have a new challenge! Anna can't do through SOTW again the same way we did when she was in 1st grade.... so how do I "beef up" a curriculum we have enjoyed and that has worked well for us?

Preschool with Nate

Last year I began working with Nate...

 only 20+ minutes a day (based on what he wanted to do). We worked through books from Before Five in a Row! Using the book's ideas and free printables from other home schooling moms, we row-ed each book in about 2 weeks a piece. Lots of fun, lots of hands-on stuff and he still loves those books!! So that was a good fit for us:) YAY!

We also began adding in letters!!! One of the biggest ways is LeapFrog's Letter Factory (love.this.DVD!) and studied one letter that matched one of the major themes of the book. Like while we read Corduroy we spent time learning "C". 

Onto a new year....

even though this summer has felt like my 1st year home schooling and trying to figure out what to use! I am just thankful that I have had 5 years of experience now! It does help to ease some of the "craziness" of having to pick out "new stuff"!

Weekly Wrap-Up : The 1st Week After Christmas Break

We dug out the paints to work on our birdhouses... a 2nd coat!

After almost a full 3 weeks off of school work for Christmas, traveling, New Years and a few days of trying to get the house back together and some rest... none of were totally ready for school to start again last Monday.

but.we.did.

We pulled out the books and got to work;) And really once we got started it wasn't soo bad:) Since we really were just starting where we left off it didn't feel like we were starting all over again.

For Bible we discussed the Seeds Parable. I am always so impressed with the kids' thoughts with some of the questions we get to discuss each day. There were some days that our Bible times were really crazy, disruptive and basically dysfunctional:/ And I didn't handle some the situations with grace like wanted. But we got to have a very good conversation about the importance of studying/reading/memorizing the Bible!

In Math, we are in the thick of multiplication, division and fractions! As much as the kids (and I) are eager to just finish their work, I remember that these basic concepts are ones that I saw high school math students struggle with often, too often! So we will work until we "get it"!

For Language Arts, we jumped back into Grammar, spelling, reading and writing. We worked on thank you notes for our writing for the week (should be in the mail soon!!!). Spelling is just spelling:) LOL!! But I realized how close Chris and Lydia are to starting on another level... finishing a grade level of spelling in 1/2 a year:) Library books that the kids picked the previous week were their reading for the week, although by the end of the week the girls were reading Molly- American Girl books to correspond to our historical time period.

I haven't written much about Anna's (our) experience with Shurley English! I'll be honest and say that it's totally kicking our tails!! There is soo much work in one week that it makes it stressful and discouraging:/ So we tweaked it because we can!! Anna is doing the 5th grade level while she's in 4th grade so we decided to do a lesson every 2 weeks instead of every week!! So one week will be new concepts, practice, labeling sentences, etc! The following week is test taking and writing assignments (pre-writing, rough draft and final draft). Two days a week Anna completes a Daily Gram  to keep her practicing lots of different Grammar skills;) So far, so good;)

Our read alouds were Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin and When Hitler Took Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr. Breaking Stalin's Nose was a very strange read because the main character is pro-Stalin throughout the book and he is soo brainwashed... it was hard to read. The ending was cool though and made it a "good" book. We started When Hitler Took Pink Rabbit right after and we all got "into"the book really quickly! We are looking forward to how the main character's family adapts as refugees.

As you can probably tell with the read alouds, in History we are starting WWII. This week was the rise of Hitler to power. Pretty scary stuff:/ We read, made some main point sentences to copy into our history notebooks.

And then there was Science:) We are loving the materials from Apologia Chemistry:) We read half of chapter 5 using outlines to pick out the important details during 2 days. And then Friday afternoon we had Lab Day... always fun:)

A quick experiment about "cleaning" metal with vinegar!

A few days later:/

Chris working hard getting it all down in his notebook;)

 

The first try didn't come out right (although we did redeem them later)!

So we tried again:)

Anna's expression was funny... she really wanted it to work, but it was soo sticky at first

Lydia's cheese smile! And she DID get her hair cut this week:)

The many faces of Chris:)

Lab Day, win!

I'll do a separate post for Nate... maybe:) But we've been working with Corduroy by Don Freeman last (and this) week. He LOVES the Before Five in a Row books:)

So I did it;) A wrap-up:)
Hope you all had a great first week back!!!

Weekly Wrap-Up: Turtles. Ned Kelly and Sound

This was a hard week to finish.... finally we are getting some beautiful spring weather and the outdoors kept calling us;) Specifically... the turtles...

 

Almost every morning we found turtles in the yard... and these weren't little turtles!! I'm talking a foot across turtles looking to build a nest to lay some eggs. The first morning they surprised us by being in the garden...

we moved them, but they were back a few hours later with their eggs already deposited in their hole! Very cool to see!

Needless to say... we spent a LOT of time watching turtles from the windows (so we won't scare them off) and think so far we have at least two holes with eggs. We've also done some research about what kind of turtles that are visiting and how to care for the eggs indoors so they won't get eaten (we found eaten eggs last spring). So, yes...

this is some real-life, hands-on home schooling, but we DID drag ourselves back indoors and away from the windows (not too far away) to get our "core" work finished for the week:)

Bible
It was strange not starting the week with an Our Family Way coloring sheet...

but we did fine just reviewing a way each day (minus the coloring sheet) and using a new devotional that I am temporarily borrowing from a friend. The devo is called Long Story Short and it's just 10 minute family devotions that works through the Old Testament. For us it was longer than 10 minutes but it was because all the kids looked up the passage in their Bibles and then we took turns reading the passage.

I can't tell you how much it warmed my heart each morning to see the kids wanting to get their Bibles and reading them!!

 I know you could use ANY devotional or just pick a book to study or passage to read... it's so very simple... and exactly where my kiddos and I need to be as we start our school day!

Yes, even Nate joined in a few mornings;)

Language Arts
Lydia and Chris did two sections of spelling and poor Anna is still chugging through the names of the States:) She 's doing a great job though. We thought we could use a cool computer program to help quiz her but we never could get it to work... so it was back to the Spelling Power model:)

I had to laugh this week when I got to correct Brian's Grammar;) LOL... seriously, THAT Never happens;) So Anna (and I) have learned from Rod and Staff but we are counting down the lessons until we are through for the summer:) Besides doing some Grammar exercises, Lydia and Chris began working on one of their first written compositions... it's very simple but it's a great start to learning to write well.

For reading... Anna started a historical fiction book based during the French Revolution... unfortunately she lost interest in it and read through other books in our library bag:) Lydia read through a book called Hearing-Ear Dogs; it was a non-fiction book about training stray dogs to be helpers for the deaf... I enjoyed listening to parts of it while Lydia read. Chris and I read through a Henry and Mudge book and through some of a dinosaur book called Amazing Dinosaurs by Dougal Dixon. The information was very familiar but it was written for emerging readers so Chris could read it with some help...  it was nice to have a book that fed his dinosaur interest while he could practice reading:)

Math
The older two are still at work finishing their SAXON for the year. Lydia though had a fun week filling in her math hour with ixl.com (the free practice), xtramath.com, mathbuddlyonline.com (the word problem of the day- grade 1 and 2) and a game on a little kiddie tablet she has. The older ones can't wait to finish so they can join her;)

History
This week for history we traveled to Australia and saw the British colony become a commonwealth. SOTW focused on the struggles of the poorer farmers who felt like they were not being treated fairly and how some turned to crime, especially the life of Ned Kelly. Chris, especially, liked the story:)

For the map, the kids used an atlas and world map to label Australia, it's provinces, the bodies of water around the island and other countries on the map. They love doing this and its our geography:)

We were trying to come up with a history sentence  to summarize what we should remember from the whole section. We ended up with a fun poem (a very kid understanding of the situation):)

In 1880,
Australia was a baby,
Ned Kelly died
Fighting for Australia's side.

In 1901,
The fighting was done.
Australia was a Commonwealth,
They picked their own leaders and made laws for themselves.

Anyway... definitely a fun way to do some cross- curricular writing!!

Science

We started our unit on Sound this week;) One of the first "explorations" was to figure out ways to "make" sound... so they banged on tables.. lovely, I know;) Our book suggested  cutting straws into different lengths and blowing gently into those. The kids took it a step further and make little straw pipes with many different lengths.

During the first lesson, they defined Sound and we read through the Magic School Bus: Inside the Haunted Museum. We also read through a couple of small sections in our Usborne Science book (like how sound is measured) and the kids made a notebook page with 2 or 3 things they learned about Sound.

During our second lesson we started talking about how sound travels in waves. We did a silly "experiment" where the kids had to make some dangling cereal pieces move without touching them or blowing on them. As suggested we used a rubber band and pulled on the band to see if we could use "sound" to make them move.

I had to get Anna doing this... she was a good sport... of course Lydia and Chris don't have the teeth to hold the rubber band with;) LOL!!

I pulled out a bowl of water for us to see the ripples when some thing is dropped into the water; just to give them a visual of "sound waves".  But it turned into another lesson;)

We  started talking about where sounds can be made and what are better conductors of sounds... liquids, air, or solids?

Air is a little obvious because that is hwo we hear each other talk. Using my bowl of water we clanged coins together, and we could hear it. A corresponding section in our experiment book gave us some great information to talk about... like how water carried the sound really well so yelling at the pool is loud or animals talking to each other under the water.

To experiment with sounds and solids, we scratched a wooden ruler at the end with our fingernails close to our ears and it was barley audible. Then we put the ruler right on our ear and scratched with the same intensity... it was much louder!

We found that solids are much better conductors of sound than air or water due to their molecules being closer together:) We remembered watching a show  (or maybe even in Rifles for Watie) with an Indian guide listening to the ground to hear for horses running. So we put our heads on the table and tried to guess when someone at the table was tapping (and even what song they were tapping).

Yay, for more fun, hands-on Science:)  And a great video to go with this Sound unit is BIll Nye the Science Guy: Sound... just beware that it is LOUD and old school... lots of references to Janet Jackson;) Other than that it's very thorough and fun and loud:)

 Throw in a sleepover for Chris with his RA class (and Brian tagging along)! An afternoon playdate with friends... even another doggie for Jack to pal around with:) More planting in the garden (more tomatoes, corn, watermelon and cantaloupe)!!! Some Leave it to Beaver shows and conversations! A fun new read aloud called Wonderstruck that we're all wanting to know how it ends....

And I think it was a good week;)

And it was our last 5 day week until August thanks to Daddy's summer schedule starting next week!! 
 

Weekly Wrap Up: A Canal, Heat and Upside Down Painting

yes... it's all learning;) And I'm trying, trying , trying to get back into Wrapping Up:)

No good excuses  not to, except that these days are precious:)

Bible

We worked on our final way of Our 24 Family Ways by the Clarksons. I really have loved this kid-friendly devotional. I am hoping to make the list visible somewhere in our school room. Hopefully with it visible we will be reminded of the things we need to continue to put into practice. I would also like to repeat the study in a few years.

Language Arts
Doing the Spelling Power thing.. sort of:) The middle two and I worked through 2 sections and Anna started a BIG section; she's working through the names of the States. I love that my kids are definitely going to be better spellers (is that a word?) than their mother:)

We're treking on through Grammar... the middle two still loving FLL and Anna (and I) just doing it to finish up. I hate to say it but we're both learning from Rod & Staff just not as "fun" as we'd like :/ Anna also completed a book report... maybe she'll blog it;)

Anna and Lydia were reading Misty of Chincoteague and Stormy: Misty's Foal last week (they started the week before last). Chris and I are reading through some Henry and Mudge by Cynthia Rylant... these are some great practice reading books for Chris and he likes them!!

Yes, I even caught him reading on his own... one the first steps of being a fluent reader;)

Math
We're getting to the end of our math for the semester... well Anna has 20 lessons and Lydia FINISHED!! LOL!! During the year, Lydia would sometimes do 3 lessons in a morning (she's a determined little gal)... so she got to finish early... her siblings aren't very happy about it;)

Since Chris started SAXON 3 after Christmas, he is working to the middle of the book and then he'll take a break... if he wants!! He has been doing really well with his math work... but he's not loving  doing xtramath.org subtraction:/ Working on it;)

History
We looked at the building of the Suez Canal and the changing of power in Egypt at that time. We read the section from SOTW, did the map, worked on the outline together and the kids wrote narrations for the section. Unfortunately there was little for kid to read about the Suez Canal and Egypt during this time period.

Interesting videos about the Suez Canal;) YouTube summary of the building of the canal  called "A man, a dream, a canal" (4 min) or Modern Marvels: Suez Canals (44 mins). The kids watched both, but Brian and I liked the Modern Marvels video because it covered the original building of the Suez Canal through the point when Egypt was the final "owner".

It was a little humorous that as we were studying the Suez Canal inside, Brian was building his own outside....

LOL!! Actually he is working on a "french drain" but uncovered it looks like a canal through the yard:)

Science

Last week we started working on a unit of Heat Transfer. I'd definitely heard the words before but I'm totally learning with them (well a little before them).

We talked about conduction last week as we heated up a pot of water with two spoons sticking out, one metal and one wooden. We read a description about the molecules of the spoons getting hot and bumping into one another making the heat move up the spoon... move more up the metal spoon than the wooden one. We demonstrated it by standing in a line and having the last person bump the first one... we were close and we all felt it. Another cute explanation of the molecules "moving" was that they don't travel around but "dance in their seats when it gets hot". LOL!!

This week we tackled convection and convection current. We attempted two experiments, the first was heating up particles in water so we could see the particles move as the water heated up. The second was to show how warm air currents using a spiral and our space heater.

Maybe it was because the first experiment was "ok", it was really cool to see the 2nd experiment work;)

Through different readings we also learned about some real places convection currents are found/used... like weather (wind), some ocean currents, heating/cooling a house, etc!!

On Wednesday we finished with radiation. Through our readings we were able to make a definition and talk about where we use radiation.

Some fun resources were
*Intereactive video that reviewed the prinicples
*Simple explanation of each concept
*Heat, Matter and Energy by Graham Bateman ( a little too much for my kids but we read through a good portion of the book.. a great resource for us).

Art
Last week we started reading about Michelangelo as our "artist of the month".  We have enjoyed the Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artist series and corresponding lesson plans from COnfessions of a Homeschooler.

This week we looked more indepth at the Sistine Chapel.  We talked about the challenges surrounding painting the ceiling. And we examined talked about the different scenes found in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

And then ....

they climbed under tables and benches...

and painted their own biblical scenes;)

Super fun.... they all said that they "Love art time!!" Oh, and "ouch, this hurts my neck!"

Well, there was a look into our schooling time... it totally doesn't really wrap it ALL up, but it's ok:)

Just Another Week- Painting the Door Frame & Grammar Ninja

Bible
This week we began the lessons that prepare for Easter. We are using Ann Vokamp's Trail to the Tree Easter study series. And then using the little pictures the kids made last year (or making some for the ones we missed) to review each morning. I love how simply powerful the little devotions are.

One day last week we read and talked about the Passover. How the blood around the door showed that they obeyed and trusted God so that the death "passed over their homes and allowed them to escape from the control of the Egyptians. I think that is just a awesome picture of Christ's blood "protecting/saving/sealing" us. And so we did it:

Language Arts

Last week during Grammar with the middle two I introduced dictation. They did pretty well... yay!!

And then we took a new color and "Grammar Ninja-ed" the sentence finding the verb, noun, article and prepositions. They loved it;)

And if you haven't played Grammar Ninja... you are truly missing out... LOL!! We are definitely nerdy enough around here to enjoy Grammar practice with Grammar Ninja;)

We finally finished Rifles for Watie... loved it!! It definitely had us holding on at the end! We started Across Five Aprils but it started way too slow for us:/ We started a new book on the way to visiting parents ... totally read Bridge to Terabithia in 2 days! I selectively read it aloud because it contained a LOT of stupid, dumb and uses of LORD... that I really would prefer my kids NOT to say, just as a heads up;)

Math
Chugging along... lesson by lesson:) Anna working through word problems, ratios, calculating tax, and longer division;) Chris starting multiplication families while reviewing other concepts from Saxon 2 and adding fractions to make a whole.

Lydia had some memorable lessons:

History
We began our 1st back in Story of the World vol 4 after our 6 week study of the Civil War. While we've loved using Story of the World the chapters for the next few weeks feel really rushed covering 2 or 3 events in totally different countries. I am actually debating about either slowing down and doing one "event" each week and just using SOTW vol 4 next year too or skipping over seemingly "insignificant" events to finish sometime in the summer. Honestly, I'm leaning more towards slower and savoring for a couple of reasons:)
 
So last week we studied the rise and fall of Paraguay and the role of Great Britain in the ruling of Canada. We did the outline, maps and read a little about each country:)

Science
Here's where I dropped the ball last week;( Sadly!! It seemed hard to jump back into a new topic after finishing simple machines soo strongly:/ I know BAD excuse.

We did though begin a "side" unit of identifying birds. I printed off some little bird "cards" and the kids have been finding the birds in a identification book and then reading together the information about each bird! We are excited and hopeful that soon we will be able to tell what each bird in our yard is:)

Art
We discussed two more of daVinci's works, The Last Supper and Madonna (or Virgin) on the Rocks. The kids would much rather paint B&W sketches of famous works. But we did do something a little unique. We have a Biblical art book that we pulled out to compare daVinci's works with other artists to painted the same "scenes".

Another week:/ Wow! They seem to go soo fast!

Ending the Civil War and Simple Machines

Bible
Our discussions were about doing the right thing regardless of what others are doing. This was a great lesson that was very applicable for my kids!! And it lead to some fun, real, "what would you do" conversations.

Language Arts
Nothing too exciting;/ Journaled about a simple machine they'd like to build, kind of like the inventions of Da Vinci :) More prepositions! Comparision adjective for Anna:) Spelling words and sentences!

One "new"thing is using our Time Timer for a reading time. Setting the timer for 30/45 minutes each morning to read!! I usually use that time to do reading lessons with Lydia and Chris and then free-read with Chris until the time is up:) So they are reading during their "down time" during the day and then this reading time, too! yay!

Math
Thankfully we have some diligent math students;)

 

History
We read a lot last week just to "catch up" some and finish up:) We talked about the hardships different groups faced during and after the War. The final match-ups between Grant and Lee. Sherman's "March to the Sea" as he marched through GA really crippling some if their homes, businesses, rail stations, barns,etc! And the official end of the War happening at Appomattox, VA.

Even though we had read and discussed the assination of Abraham Lincoln before, we still spent some time discussing the impact of Lincoln's death on the Nation at such a critical time. Anna had a great observation....

 she got excited that there was another person who was shot in the head and worked with the government.  The person she remembered was shot in the head but because we know more about brains and how to help this person, she is on TV with her husband and can walk and talk again.
Any guesses who Anna was linking Abraham Lincoln with????

Gabby Giffords!! It amazes me how much information my kids learn from watching the news with their dad! And what s even cooler was that Anna was making connections from historical figures to modern times... similar shots in the heads and then the difference because of modern medicine! 

We also talked about some of the challenges of Reconstruction. The bitter feelings and anger that still kindled in the hearts of people in both sides of the War. How the freed men and women were treated :(


Science
We finished our three week study of Simple Machines;) This week we finished with Screws:) And then we enjoyed a magazine from our library to review.

And a Simple Machine Scavenger Hunt.

I also found a great printable Simple Machine sort!! They sorted through the many different pictures

and then made some of their own pictures to "even out" some of the smaller columns:)

And then I found a fun simple machine quiz at EdHeads! A great way to end our unit on Simple Machines;)

Art
We did art on Monday so we'd be sure to fit it in this week:) We reviewed who Da Vinci was by reading a short biographical article. I gave the kids a black and white sketch of Lady with an Ermine and we read some of the background information about the painting. Then the kids pulled out the painting supplies and got to work using the painting as a guide;)

A great week:) Kind of sad to end these two units, we've learned a lot.