Weeks 18-20

I decided to squeeze weeks 18-20 into one post because I'm so far behind on my blogging, so I'm just going to give an overview of all 3 weeks few weeks.

History: Sis is so happy to be doing Draw and Write Through History again. This year she is doing the ancient Greece and Rome book. She's learning about Greece right now in her History studies. Here are the two drawing s she did during weeks 18-20. The first is of a Greek soldier and the next was a drawing of the Parthenon in Athens. How this book works is she draws one day, colors it the next and then practices her cursive by copying a paragraph about the history related to her drawing.

Sis has learned about the Greeks, Persians, and the Golden Age of Greece these 3 weeks. In unit 20 we looked at different kinds of Greek columns like those used in building the Parthenon. For her history project Sis made a 3D paper column that was stuffed with tissue paper to make it stand. She had to choose one of the types of capitals (or column tops) that we studied for her column. She drew it, cut it out and made it 3D by stuffing it.

I decided not to post pictures of Sis' note booking pages because 3 weeks worth is too many to show them all.  Sis did start a new history book called Ancient Greece Streams of History.

 Boo is still learning about pioneers in US history.
We learned about pioneers on the Ohio river and Eli Whitney's inventing the cotton gin. We looked at how the pioneers use to make clothing from cotton. It was a lot of work! Slaves had the awful job of picking all the seed out of the cotton before it could be made into cloth. Cotton was very expensive.
A fun project that Boo and Baby bear did together was to take a cotton ball, stretch it out, and glue little black seeds made of paper to the cotton. Then we wadded it back up into a cotton ball. The next day the girls had to pick the seeds out and imagine what it was like having to pick seed for the slaves. Then we learned that Eli Whitney invented the cotton Gin, a machine that could remove seeds making production of cotton faster and affordable for everyone.

On week 20 Boo learned about Thomas Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase. We added to our timeline and also added the States of Tennessee, Ohio, and Louisiana to our states map. One night we ate red beans and rice for our study of Louisiana, Boo did copy work for all of her history stories. We also learned about the war of 1812. I was so happy that Boo covered this war, because in few months we are visiting a real fort used in the war of 1812 where we are going to take a tour, meet soldiers, and see a musket demonstration! Sis already knows a lot about the war of 1812. When she was younger we read the American Girl Caroline books together which take place during this war.  Finally, we listened to our national anthem, which was birthed out of the war of 1812 and we learned the story behind it.

Read-aloud:
For our daily read-aloud time Boo and I are slowly still reading through Farmer Boy. I know some people don't like this book because it's long and boring at parts, but Boo and I are really enjoying it! She begs to read it everyday.
Sis and I have been reading through a book called "Archimedes and the Door of Science," together. This is definitely NOT our favorite book that we've read, but we are learning a lot and it's not as boring as the cover looks.



Science: We finally finished learning about light in science! We moved on to the 2nd day of creation, water and sky. Our first lesson was about evaporation and condensation. We learned that many Christians (but not all) believe that the expanse mentioned in genesis on day 2 is the sky because waster evaporates and forms clouds above us. Therefore the sky separates the water beneath it from the water above it (clouds.) For our experiment we made a cloud! The instructions were to fill two glasses with water one boiling hot the other room temp. We lit two matches and dropped them into the glasses. The match dropped in the hot water let off a lot of smoke, the other did not. We covered the glass with hot water and a "cloud" formed inside the glass. We learned what steam is and why water that is hot steams.

Bible:
Boo learned 2 new names for Jesus over the past few weeks. We've had a lot of Bible stories and two verses to memorize. The first name was "Lamb of God." This one is my favorite. We learned about the first passover and why a lamb would have been important to the Jewish people. Then we compared how Jesus was like a sacrificial lamb. I always seem to see a light bulb go off when I teach this subject, like it helps them to really understand why Jesus died on the cross and what that means. Sis made a handprint lamb with her memory verse on it. She traced her hand upside down and then we glued cotton balls for our wool.

The second name that we learned is "the vine." We learned that Jesus is like a vine and we are the branches. If we remain in him we will bear much fruit, but apart from him we can do nothing like a branch that has been cut off.

Art/Poetry: We did two poetry painting over these 3 weeks. The first was a winter scene of a tree on a snowy hill. The second was a mountain scene.

Baby Bear learned 3 new letters. We're trying hard to get her through all of them before summer, she's doing great so far and she loves doing art with her big sisters.

Week 16 & 17

Weeks 16 &17 were pretty rough. We had an unexpected death in the family with the girl's Grandpa passing, so school was a little bit hard. We skipped days here and there but managed to get most of our school work done. Even with combining weeks 16 and 17 in this post there's not a  lot to write about, because many days we struggled to even finish the basics like math spelling and language.

Bible: Boo is still learning the different names for Jesus during her bible time.  We added the name "Immanuel." to our list. We learned that the name means "God with us." Our picture was of baby Jesus, because God came to live with us as  man when he was born as baby. We learned that even after the ascension God is still always with us. We also learned the song "O Come, O Come Immanuel." Too bad this lesson didn't fall on Christmas week!
Boo and Baby Bear made  little paper people. The girl is her and the boy figure is Jesus. On that one we wrote Immanuel and explained they are holding hands bc God is with us.

Sis does daily bible reading on her own and is still working on memorizing all of Philippians chapter 2.

History: Here is Sis' history journal from the past 2 weeks. This is the one part of HOD that I am going to miss next year. I love the note booking idea and the nice pages that come all laid out for her. She knows exactly where to do her writing, journaling, copying verses, and narrations. Plus it's so much prettier than using plain white notebook paper and will make a nice keepsake for 5th grade when it's all finished. I've been throwing around the idea of making our own note booking journals when we return to My Father's World.
One of the most exciting things for her this unit was the return of Draw and Write Through History! Sis' favorite history assignments. Last year she did a different D&WTH book and loved it. The only difference is this year her drawing and writing go directly onto her note booking pages. This was her first assignment, drawing a Babylonian Garden... I love Sis' artwork when she actually tries and cares about it.

below is the finished product along with her writing assignments...

 and this is her work from week 17...

Boo took a short break from learning the states and learned about Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Road. We added a picture of him to our timeline and we read about him in our history book. We also read a cute fictional story in our American Pioneers and Patriots book about what life was like for one family traveling the wilderness road. We found the cutest Daniel Boone hat and wooden gun at a specialty toy store. Boo had fun playing with them and getting to see what a real pioneer hat was like,too bad we didn't have enough money to buy them though. They were so cute though I promised the girls I will buy a racoon hats when we study US History together in a couple years.

Language: I feel like language is the one thing that we worked on most those 2 weeks. Boo is working hard on her spelling words and did really well on her tests. She also has been working hard on spelling and neatly writing her full name. She always writes her nickname when signing something because it's easy, short and what we call her. It just occurred to me though that she didn't even know how to spell her entire name! So we've spent two weeks working on that. She also learned the difference between, "two, to, and too" in her language book. The best part of language this week though was getting a new letter from her pen-pal in FL.

Sis and I have done a ton of Language because we're trying to get caught up in her book. Most of it is review this year so we have been doing 2-3 lessons at a time skimming a lot of the stuff she already knows pretty well. Her book is huge though and we have 100 lessons left to finish the book! So we're trying to speed up a bit and focus on the lessons that have new material.  

Baby Bear learned the letter "o "and the sound ah" for the short /o/.  here she is making an "o" with her hands.

Art: Our book actually had no painting scheduled for these two weeks. I'm glad because with everything else that was going on, we probably would have skipped it anyway. We did however try our hand at pottery early week 16. It was A MESS! They had fun, but I had a nightmare.We were covered in wet gooey clay and they were sloshing dirty water all over the floor.  I'm pretty sure we're never doing it again. Each of the girls got to make a small pot with the pottery wheel though. Our pots took three days to fully dry, so we didn't paint them until week 17.

 

Week 15

I'm about 2 weeks behind on my blog. We have a lot going on right now and it's hard for me to keep up. Here is a little of what we did a couple weeks ago for week 15...

I still can't believe we are already half way into January. That means there are only about four more months until summer break! I really feel like this school year just started. We have been moving so slow this entire school year, that there is no way we're going to finish everything by summer...panic! Take a deep breath....I have to remind myself that it's ok. My kids are learning. We can set our own pace and whatever we don't get to we can incorporate into next year. I have been trying to re-evaluate this past week though and set some end of the school year goals to make sure we cover the most important things. I'm also planning, researching, and preparing to buy next years curriculum already. I always order in February, so it's coming soon! I have some really fun ideas that I think I want to try out next year...we'll see.

History: This week in history Sis learned about Israel falling to the Assyrians and Judah being saved. We finished reading God King, whose plot takes place during this exact time period. So, all year I have been nagging Sis about how sloppy her history notebook is. It drives me nuts that she is fully capable of neat handwriting, but her handwriting looks like slop in her notebook. Also this girl can draw, she has been drawing since she was two and is able to produce some pretty good artwork for a kid her age. When she draws for pleasure her drawing are great, however her artwork for history a lot of times looks like my 4 year old drew it. I just can't understand, why I can't motivate her to try harder at school work. I know a lot of the time she just wants to rush through the written work so that she can do something else. This week though she actually put some effort into it. This is the neatest I have seen a notebook page all year, so I'll take it!

 

Also Sis made an origami prayer box for her history project. The lid has 4 letters to remind her of 4 types of prayer: A-adoration, T-thanksgiving, C-confession, S-supplication. Inside the box there are prayer requests written on strips of paper. This is for her to use during her prayer and devotion time.

 



Boo learned about four new States in her U.S. history; New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, and North Carolina. We reviewed a little bit about Jamestown and the early settlers on the day we learned Virginia. That is definitely on our vacation bucket list for site seeing/ field trips in the future.

On the day we learned about New York we did a study on the Statue of Liberty, also on our bucket list...you'd laugh if you actually saw the length of our bucket list. There are so many awesome historical and beautiful things to see in this nation and just not enough time or money to see it all. That's why I'm not a huge fan of repeat vacations. There are some favorite places or places a few hours from home that I like to visit every now and then.  I guess what I mean is that although all of our trips have been fun and if my family wanted to I would gladly do them all over again, I would rather choose to go somewhere new and see things that we've never seen any day. There's just so much I want to experience and want to show my kids. I want them to be able to see as many states and sites as we can firsthand as a family before they are grown. Ok, vacation rant over. Once I get started talking on this subject I usually can't stop. Anyway, we will be visiting Northern New York with the girls for the first time in a few months, so that made the state a little more exciting to learn about.

Boo and I read a book about the statue of liberty. We also did some really fun measurement activities...such as "How wide is your mouth? How wide do you think the Statue of Liberty's mouth is?" then we did nose, arm, height. It's crazy how big she is!

In our bird book we read about the Northern Cardinal. This is Virginia's state bird but we learned it's also the state bird of many states. We learned that the common bright red cardinal's are the males, females are a lighter pale color. The kids were not happy about this fact because they had to rename their stuffed bird.hahaha.

 

Science: We are finally nearing the end of our light unit in science. At the back of each unit are a few bonus lessons. We decided to try out the first one. last week we learned that fiber optic cables can be used to bend light. This lesson taught us that light can also be used to send information through the use of fiber optics. Most telephone and internet providers now use fiber optical cables, because light can carry information faster than electricity. We used a simple experiment using Morse code and a flash light to show how a message can be sent without using sound. The girls each made up a 1-2 word message and then used a flashlight to shine "dots or dashes" on the wall while the others had to figure out the message using the chart. They had fun with it, and Baby Bear's message was "oranges" they all thought that was random and funny.

Language Arts: Sis and I have been working double time on English (Rod and Staff Building With Diligence.) We doubled up on a couple lessons this week and plan to do the same for a few weeks. We are not even 1/3 of the way through the book yet! Luckily most of this year's material is review for her, so there are several easy lessons that she already knows that we can skip too.

Boo is still working through her Language Lessons for Today book. This week she had a poem to memorize, write, recite and draw a picture to go along with it. She had no problem learning it, but my problem is I can't get her to quit. She's been saying it over and over all week even in the shower!It is driving me nuts! I'm glad she's enthusiastic about learning her poetry though. Her poem was:

There was an old man with a beard,

       Who said, "It is just as I feared!

Two owls and a hen,

Four larks and a wren,

Have all built their nests in my beard!"

Math: Ok I don't write about math much, because there's just nothing that exciting about it and (don't tell my kids) I hate math. I have to pretend to not hate it so that my kids won't hate it too, so I never say that in front of them. However, math has had me in almost in tears this week. Boo is usually the one who gives me blank stares when we talk about numbers, but this week Sis' 5th grade math has been so frustrating. I understand the concept, but when I try to teach it to her she has no clue what I am trying to say. By Friday I think she was finally starting to understand. I'm scared for the rest of the year. I hope it doesn't get much harder!

Art: Our watercolor poetry painting this week was of ocean waves using blue and green paints.

We used a crumpled paper towel while the paint was still wet to soak up some of the paint making white tops on our waves. 

We really like the finished product on this one. It reminded us of the Atlantic ocean that we visited last fall. The waves were rolling and beautiful. Baby Bear's painting is on the left (I still can't believe how well she does with these paintings for a four year old!) and Boo's on the right.

  For some extra fun we also did glow in the dark markers on felt stickers one day for art.

 

Dad had the whole week off for week 15 and it was hard getting much done. Now that the holidays are over and he is back to work hopefully things will get back to normal around here. I'm hoping to get caught up to date on my blogging this weekend ( I'm going to try anyway.)

Week 14

After having over two weeks off for holiday break, it has been so hard getting back into school. We've been trying to get as much done as we can, but it's been difficult motivating anyone. We had a good Christmas and got a lot of rest though. Here is a little bit of what we've been working on the past week.

History:
Sis is learning about the Assyrians in her history studies. She did research on Aram or Syria to gather information about the area. She has been reading all of the bible stories and history lessons on her own, then she adds to a timeline, takes notes, and writes narrations about what she learned in her notebook. Honestly I do not love this method of learning. I wish I was more involved in her history studies. next year we will all be learning history together, so I can't wait! We are still reading the book God King together which talks a lot about the Assyrians.

I didn't take a picture of Sis' notebook pages from this week, but she did all of those as usual.

She also did a mosaic project this week. She had to draw and color picture of a soldier riding a chariot. Then she had to cut the picture into 64 half inch squares and number them. Then she glued the squares into her notebook to make a mosaic. Some of the squares got cut a bit too small and didn't quite line up, but it still turned out pretty good. Sis loves any kind of art project, so she enjoyed this assignment.

Boo is still learning about the states along with the state birds and flowers. This week we added the States of Maryland and South Carolina to her map and learned some cool facts.

Spelling: I just wanted to give some recognition here to Boo for getting all of her spelling words right this week! This is the first time that she has been able to get them all. Spelling does not come easy to her and she gets so upset when she misses words on her tests. She had a couple that she really struggled with earlier in the week, but she was able to remember them by Friday. I'm very proud of her.
We also did a lot of handwriting practice this week. We are working on forming all of her letters properly and writing on smaller lined paper (Boo tends to write her letters huge.) She has improved so much since last year. I couldn't believe it when she brought me this worksheet. The top word she traces and the one underneath she does by herself. It is almost perfect and this is from a kid who had really sloppy handwriting a year ago!

Science: In our study on light we learned that with the right tools light can be bent to make it go where we want it to go. We did a fun experiment where we cut a small hole in a plastic bottle and filled it with water. We shinned a flashlight on the hole through the bottle and put a hand in the sink underneath the stream of water pouring out. As we moved our hand close to the bottle a light appeared on our hand where the water was hitting it. The water bent the light and causing it to shine on the hand rather that traveling straight ahead. We then learned how we can use fiber optics to get this same result. Many occupations such as doctors and plumbers use this technology to do their jobs.


The girls drew pictures of the experiment with arrows showing the light passing through the water, reflecting off the air, and back into the stream.






Reading:
Boo and I are still reading Farmer Boy for her read-aloud. Sis started reading my Narnia book on her own. She just recently started to getting interested in these books. She read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on a long car ride on vacation last fall. I've put off letting her read this series until I felt she was old enough to understand the allegory and the good vs evil. After that we watched the first movie together and she loved it. So, this past week she started reading Prince Caspian. I told her when she finishes we'll discuss it and watch the second movie. As a writer for children, I've always been a Narnia fan. My favorite part is when the lion (Aslan) is voluntarily sacrificed in place of Edmond for his mistakes of betraying his family and following the White Witch. I typically do not allow my children to read books or watch movies that contain any sort of magic or witchcraft, just a rule we have in our family. For these I make the exception. Here's why; these books were written by a christian for the purpose of helping children understand truths about Christ and our enemy through allegory. They do not glorify witchcraft but are meant to show that there is no place for it in the Kingdom of God. They have such a powerful story of redemption, Christ's sacrifice, great examples of our battle against Satan, and victory over the evil one. Also, they are great conversation starters. I'm really glad that one of my girl's is finally old enough to share them with me.

Art/Poetry: This week we read a poem called "The Road Not Taken." We painted a road that divided into two roads. The girls were excited to get back to our watercolor painting after having a few weeks off.

I addition to our paintings we did a lot of other art activities this week. The girls got a lot of art supplies and activities for Christmas. So they've had plenty of coloring and marker type activities and arts and crafts. We got over 6,000 beads for Christmas from Grandpa so the girls spent hours one day making bracelets. I love getting gifts that we can use for school projects.

 Boo also had a fun time this week making things with her new Sew Cool machine. She wanted this so bad. She asked to learn how to sew, but after researching I decided that since she is only 7she is not quite old enough to learn to use a real sewing machine with a needle. Most are for ages 12 and up. When I discovered that she mostly wanted to be able to make cool things for her dolls more than she actually wanted to learn to sew. I found this. This sews felt sheets without having to use thread, has a protective shield so that you can not touch the needle and comes with some fun projects. You still have to guide the felt under the needle as you would with a real sewing machine, so she is learning a little about how to really sew. When she is older I will buy her a real one, but for now this was good. She made some pillows for her dolls, a doll purse for herself and Baby Bear, and an eye glass case for Sis. I thought it was sweet that she used some of her felt to make gifts for her sisters.

Week 12 &13

 History:

Sis and I started reading a new book for history. It is called God King. It's a historical fiction story that takes place in the biblical time period of king Hezekiah. It's about an Egyptian boy who becomes the king. In Egypt the king is considered to be a God, so he is the God King. When he flees  his country he meets two kings who are in conflict, King Hezekiah who trusts in Yahweh and Sennacherib the Assyrian. He must choose who to side with and the fate of his own country is in the balance. This fictional book brings the real bible story to life.
This is a pretty thick book so I assume that it will be several weeks before we finish this one.



Here is Sis's notebook work from both weeks:

 Sis did a history project in her notebook showing the division of the 12 tribes when they divided into Israel and Judah.

Boo started something new this week in history. Up till now we have been learning the history of the United States. Now we begin our study of the 50 states that will continue until the end of the school year. This year is not meant for her to memorize her states and capitals but just give a brief introduction to them. Each day we will add a state to her notebook. We look at a map to locate it. then Boo has her own map to color in the state we learned. She also has a worksheet for each state where she will label the capital, color the state bird and flower and stick a state flag sticker on. On the back of the page is facts about the state. We also have full color state cards that she will look at and use to color her birds and flowers correctly. here is a sample of the sheets she is doing with the flag stickers and bird cards...

We also finally get to start adding stickers to our  state sticker poster that has been hanging up all year. It is a blank map of the states and we will add colorful stickers of each state with it's name as we learn them.

Science: We are still learning about light in our science book, but we also added a second science book for Boo that goes with her history. She will also be learning about birds in science as we learn state birds in history. We started reading this book, "Birds, Nests, and Eggs Take-Along Guide." which tells all about birds and introduces her to many different kinds of birds. 

For a small project Boo made some pretend binoculars. She had fun using her real ones to look out side for birds, but it's the middle of winter so the best we did was find some nests in the dead trees.

 
For our regular science lesson all of the girls did another experiment with light. This one was really cool, yet so simple. We learned that light can not only be reflected and absorbed but can also pass through some objects. in the experiment we put a metal fork in the bottom of a clear bowl. When we looked at the fork from beneath the bowl it appeared to flip upside down and float on top of the water even though it was really still just sitting at the bottom of the pan. This is because the light is passing through the water, bouncing off the fork, reflecting off the top of the water, then passing back through the water and glass and hitting our eyes!
This is what the fork really looked like...

This is what it looked like to us from under the table looking up! No the fork isn't really floating upside down on top of the water. It is the reflection of the real fork that is being seen in the picture. cool huh?

The girls drew pictures of what happened in the experiment and Sis wrote about what we learned.

Bible: Since we are learning everything birds Boo had a whole week of Bible stories about birds. Then for week 13 we added a new name of Jesus to our list: Jesus is the Way.

Read-a-loud time: Boo and I also started reading Farmer Boy as a read aloud time together. This picture cracks me up!! Only in homeschool can you dress yourself for school when you're 7. Why not? Hahahaha!! All of the kids have been listening to this story though. We love Laura Ingals Wilder.

 Art/Poetry: We only did one painting over these 2 weeks. It was of a night time sky with a full moon and trees. Sorry I never took a picture...


Baby Bear had fun doing Play-Doh cake factory while we did school. All 3 of my girls still love to create things with Play-Doh (even Sis when her sister's are playing) so they all took turns making cakes this week during their quiet time, but I discovered this is a great way to keep Baby Bear busy while the older girls are doing their work. So, I bought the the pizza maker and ice-cream factory too too for Christmas! shhhh!

 We will be taking a couple weeks off for Christmas break and will be back after the New Year.