MFW 1st: Week 17

This week we survived a two day snow storm. Storms don't usually effect our school day, this time we lost power one day, so no lights or internet! We still had school and we survived. 

Boo read stories about Abraham and Isaac. First, she read the story of Abraham's three visitors when Sarah laughed at the thought of having a baby in her old age. Second, she read the story of Isaac and Rebekah. She also learned to read the /oy/ /oi/ sound. We no longer use flashcards of words, but one thing that has helped is we have a workbook page where we practice reading and writing new words before she has to read them in the story.

 At the end of the week we had 2 bible stories, but Boo didn't have reading or note-booking for those. Instead she had to listen to the stories and then orally narrate it back to me. We learned about Jacob and Esau and how Jacob stole his brothers blessing and bought his birthright with a bowl of lentil stew. Her project was to make lentil stew. She did it all herself.  It was interesting. Not disgusting, but not really good either (in fact as the manual suggested we ended up adding diced tomatoes and crumbled bacon to make a less authentic tastier version) definitely not worth selling your birthright for though!

After reading the story of Abraham's servant taking camels to find a wife for Isaac we learned about camels. We learned how they store water, that some have one hump and others have 2, about their feet, and that since ancient times people have used them for travel. We looked through pictures and remembered the time we rode a camel at Creation Museum. We also used the internet to look at pictures of camels. We finally have a portable computer (no tower) w/cordless keyboard. It has come in real handy for school because we can use it at the table when we need to do research.

 

One project we did was t to push a pencil into sand to see how easily it sunk to the bottom. then we taped a quarter to the end of the pencil to represent a camel's big flat feet. It was much easier to "walk" the pencil on top of the sand without it sinking. God designed camel feet just perfect for walking in the desert.

For math we practiced addition using dice this week. Boo did several worksheets where she had to roll dice, add them up, and write out the problem. She also made a graph to show which number she rolled the most often. The sum of our dice was 9 more than any other number.

Unit 22: Preparing

History: This weeks history was about Roman emperors and Christianity. We continued to learn about Christians being persecuted and martyred at the hands of the Romans. We learned about the wicked Nero, Titus, the fall of Jerusalem, Aurelius, Commodus, and Constantine. We also learned about Pompeii the Roman city that was buried under lava and discovered 2,000 years later! We learned about Paul and Peter being martyred.

Sis researched a Roman Triumph, which was a Roman celebration or parade. The triumph was to honor a person who had been triumphant in conquering for Rome. We learned about the order of the prepossession and the different things that wet on at a triumph. We learned about the golden Laural wreath that the person of honor wore on his head. We watched this Youtube clip of a triumph scene from the movie Ben-Hur as an example...

Sis' project was to make a Laural wreath out of heavy paper. We made the base of the crown out of heavy card stock. The bay leaves were made out of yellow construction paper and then the edges were painted with gold paint. Boo made one too. For some reason they think wrapping themselves in a red blanket makes them look like Romans.hahaha





 We stared reading a new book together. Raider's from the Sea: Book One. Next
week we will be learning about the time of the Vikings. That should be exciting. We started the read-a-loud book this week because it's going to take a few weeks to finish. Before I even opened this book I was warned that it's a lot of kid's favorite and the end leaves you hanging. I told Sis that if she ends up loving it I will order the rest of the 5 book series for her. The main character is a 13 year old Irish girl named Bree, who is taken captive by vikings. So far the story has been very exciting and full of surprises. Every chapter leaves you hanging and Sis begs to keep reading. This has really been the highlight of our school week.

Reading: Well we finished our book on Folk Tales last week and that was the last genre that I had planned on learning this year. It was suppose to take us the entire school year but Sis is a fast reader and moved way faster than I planned. For the time being we are done studying genres and I will just be finding books for her to read aloud each week. This week she asked me if she could read the original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Into the Looking glass by Lewis Carrol. I have owned it for a long time, but we've never read it. So I let her read it in her own quiet reading time this week. She said she liked it and can't believe how different it is from the animated story.


Science & Math: We moved on to learning about the cardiovascular system (Heart) this week, but we didn't do any fun experiments yet. We also had a not so fun week in math. Sis had a complete meltdown one day (the kind with tears and "I hate math!" shouts) because she couldn't get the answers to come out right! Her long division problems are getting much longer and harder now. It's been a little frustrating. She did pretty well on her test though.

Unit 21: Preparing

We're finally back to school after 10 days off (incase anyone was wondering why there were no new posts last week.) We had already planned on taking a couple days off for winter break, but after some things came up making school difficult we decided to take a whole week off. One of those things was the adoption of a new fur baby into our family. Taking care of a puppy is much
more work than I anticipated! This is our first family dog and something my kids have dreamed about their whole lives. So aside from all the work, I figured just the excitement of a puppy being in the house would be too much to focus on school anyway.  We were able to take the kids for a day at the waterpark on our break (with free passes we were given.yay!)

After our long break it was a little hard getting the kids back into the swing of things. We had to do a little reviewing to make sure everyone was on track with where we left off.

History: The title of this week's unit was "The Christians are Persecuted." Sis continued learning about the early church and stories from the book of Acts. We learned about James being martyred, Peter's escape from prison, Paul and Barnabas preaching the gospel and all the hardships they faced, and finally John's vision while he was exiled to the island of Patmos. We also finished reading Fountain of Life this week. I liked the book, but it seems like we've been reading it forever! I'm glad to be done.

One of Sis's assignments was to research Roman mosaic art. Every week this school year Sis has had one research topic. She's been learning how to use the internet (with supervision of course) to do research, something that will be necessary for future college research papers. After she reads and learns more about her topic, she answers oral questions so I can see what she learned. While doing our research we found a website with a game where you can make your own mosaic picture online. HERE... The girls took turns playing with it and creating different patterns and pictures. This is an example of one Sis was working on.

Our History project was to make a mosaic picture of a cross with clouds and sun-rays behind it. All the girls wanted to make one. First, we drew our pictures on black construction paper. Then we used scraps of paper, magazines, and construction paper to cut small tiles. We glued them to our picture to make our mosaics. We worked on these a little each day, because this was a three day project. They had fun though and even Baby Bear learned something. On day 3 She said "Momma is it time to finish my mosaic?" I about fell over that she knew the correct word!

Reading: Sis started learning about Folk Tales this week. We learned about the different kinds of folk tales and what makes them folk tales. For our genre kickoff activity Sis wrote her own folk tale. She decided to write a pourquoi tale, which is a fictional short story that explains why something in nature is the way it is. Her story was called "Why Zebras Have Stripes," It was about a horse who got caught in a storm and struck by a lightning bolt that left a white stripe on the horse. More and more stripes appeared until it was no longer even a horse. It was cute. I think she did really good on this assignment. 
The folk tale we read together was " A Penny's Worth of Character." This is an old story that teaches a lesson on honesty. It's about a boy who disobeys his mother and deceives a store owner to get candy. I liked this one because it's one of those stories that sticks. It's one I hope she remembers when she's ever tempted to be dishonest. 

Science: In anatomy we finished up our unit on blood. We learned about blood types this week and what the different types mean. also the Rh factor that makes the blood type a positive or negative. Then we concluded with an experiment that I thought Sis was going to object to...finding her own blood type using an at home blood typing test. None of my kids are ever calm about needles, so I thought she would refuse to do this project. I was surprised that after I explained it to her she actually wanted to do it! The kit was fairly easy to use. It came with the device to prick her finger and everything. It ended up bleeding more than we expected, but she was a good sport about it and said it didn't hurt. The results of her test were AB negative. You can see on the card that the blood clotted in both circle A and B showing that she has both A&B antigens present. The 3rd circle has no clots meaning that it is a negative for Rh. She was so brave about the blood and all, who knows maybe she'll end up being a doctor or nurse someday.

One more thing that happened last week...most of our next year curriculum came in the mail. I love seeing that UPS truck pull up everyday when it's curriculum week! I still haven't ordered everything yet because I'm still deciding on a few things. I'm sure I will be blogging about it all later, but here's a sneak peak of what we have so far for Sis's 5th grade year... 

MFW 1st: Week 16

It's a little bit harder for Boo to get back on track when we take breaks, which I'll admit scares me for summer! At the pace we're going we might end up having to school into the summer though. We're only on week 16, so we have quite a ways to go. After a lot of reviewing we were able to pick back up with our phonics and reading lessons. This week Boo read the stories of Noah's ark and the Tower of Babel. It was a challenge for her. The words are getting bigger and the pages longer. She was able to sound out all of the words eventually though with a little help. Even when the reading is difficult, it is boosting her confidence though. She was so proud after reading her Noah story that she couldn't wait for Dad to come home to tell him she read three whole pages! She said "I really read the whole story!"

 We also practiced reading color words and learned the /ew/ as in new.

Here are her notebook pages for the two stories...

Boo's memory verse this week was Proverbs 30:5... Every Word of the Lord is flawless; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. We talked about how God was like a shield for Noah and his family because they took refuge in God by trusting him.



One of the activities she did was build a tower. She used Lego Duplos.

For now we are still doing workbook pages to practice addition facts. We did a color by number and several others this week. She's still using Lego bricks to figure out the answers to a lot of the problems. A few of the easier ones she is able to figure out in her head now though, so she's showing improvement and I'm happy with it. My goal with her right now is not to master addition or memorize all of the facts, I let go of those high expectations and math has been so much more enjoyable for her. If she understands what addition means and can figure out how to add two numbers together (by whatever means she chooses) then for now I'm satisfied. Maybe next year when she's matured a little we will give MathUsee another try and work on memorizing facts.

Finally I also got Boo's new curriculum last week! I have decided after much consideration to go against My Father's World's suggestions and do Adventures In US History with Boo next year. MFW suggests both girls do Creation to Greeks together in the "family cycle." I really had planned on going that route by the time Boo reached 2nd grade. It sounds so much easier to do school all together as a family, so I might try to go back to the family cycle the following year. However, right now I feel like Boo is not ready to join Sis even if it's only for history, Bible, geography and science. I feel like she would get left behind and still needs her own separate curriculum for 2nd grade. I am excited that I found a science program for all elementary age levels so we will all be doing science as a family next year! Sis did Adventures back in 2nd grade, so I'm familiar with it and already own most of the materials. It will be a lot of work on my part teaching totally separate things for 2nd and 5th, but I think I can make it work.

MFW 1st grade: Week 15

This week Boo learned about Adam & Eve and Cain & Abel. Both of these stories in her Bible reader had more text than we had last week, so school took us a bit longer than usual. It looks like for the rest of the school year there will be two stories each week to read. The pattern will stay the same...I read the long version of the story from my book, Boo retells it in her own words, reads a shortened version from her reader, then writes and illustrates her notebook. From here on out we will also add each story to our timeline. She also learned the "ow' sound in phonics.

Here are the pages she did in her notebook...

Here is our timeline so far...this is actually a 2 year project! Next year we will continue to add to our timeline all the way to modern times.

Boo finally used her weather chart to make a graph. We also practiced addition in her math workbook.

Not much else to write about this week. I'm glad to say that after a couple weeks of sickness everyone is well again. I'm glad because we have exciting things happening next week. We will be taking a little mid-winter family time break, so only 3 school days next week. woohoo!

Unit 20: Preparing

It's my most favorite time of year...not Christmas...it's time to order next year's curriculum! I've been a curriculum ordering maniac all week. I've had to make some big decisions. We decided to stay with Heart of Dakota for 5th grade and I'm super excited about it! I can't quit looking at all the books online! We always order our curriculum when we get our yearly tax return, so that we don't have to worry about the expense in the fall. I can't wait until all of our boxes start coming in the mail! I'm sure I will be blogging about it all! I'm also setting aside money for some field trips and some classes I would like the girls to take the remainder of this year and next. I truly love planning all this stuff.

History: This week Sis learned about the early church and the spreading of the gospel after Jesus went back to heaven. We learned about Peter and John being thrown in prison, the stoning of Stephen, the believers scattering when persecution broke out, the conversion of Saul, and Peter's vision.


Her History project was to make an Ichthus (Jesus Fish.) We decided to make an Ichthus poster. First we drew our fish with a thick layer of white glue onto black construction paper. We let it dry over night and then we used different colored chalks to decorated the background. Boo and Baby Bear thought this one looked fun (they like to get messy with chalk) so they joined us and we all made posters. They took turns using our new chalk board to create their chalk masterpieces so that we didn't get the table messy.

Reading: Sis started learning about biographies this week. The book I chose for her is "Louis Braille:

The boy who invented books for the blind." I picked this book because it's fairly short. I decided not to spend over one week on biographies since we just recently read Rosa Parks. I also picked this because it seemed like an interesting story. The back cover of the book has the Braille alphabet with raised letters so that she can feel with her eyes closed. She thought that was neat. Sis read this one on her own while I worked with Boo and she told me about all about it when she finished. We also studied the characteristics of biographies.

Science:

In science we started learning about blood.We looked at what the Bible has to say about blood...and it's a lot! The life is in the blood. We learned that only through the shedding of blood can sins be forgiven, because someone must pay for the wrongs that have been done. In the Old Test times that meant the sacrifice of an animal, but an animals blood even one without blemish was not sufficient for covering all of a person's sins. Only the blood of a perfect human sacrifice would ever be able to do that...but there was no perfect human. So God decided he would become a man with flesh and blood, so that His blood could be shed for our sins! How awesome it is to think about the blood of Jesus! Without it we would have no hope of salvation or eternal life. We also learned about how our bodies work and why we need blood to live. We read about arteries, veins, and capillaries. 

We made a blood model for our project...corn syrup represented plasma, red hot candies were red blood cells, a white jelly bean for our white blood cell, and then candy sprinkles for our platelets. 

Sis added each ingredient as we studied the different parts of the blood. The most interesting fact we learned is that the plasma or liquid part of our blood is actually "straw color" like the corn syrup! There are so many red blood cells floating in there that it makes the blood look red!

  

 
For fun we also spent some time listening to season 2 of Brinkman Adventures! MFW sells these audio Christian adventure stories. They're great for in the car and road trips. My kids love listening to them. I tell them this is what life was like before tv, kids use to sit and listen to "shows," on the radio. At first I was surprised that my kids would actually sit and listen to acting on a CD without "pictures," but these keep Sis and Boo's attention. They are great entertainment though, they are exciting and Christ centered.