Weeks 29-31

We're finally nearing the end...only 4 weeks to go! I want so badly to wrap up this year and begin prepping for next year. I'm also getting a little anxious for our vacation coming up in a few weeks.

We're taking the girls to Niagara Falls for a week for the first time. This is one thing that I've wanted to do for years, so we'll finally be able to scratch that one off of our list. I know I've talked about it before, but there are so many places that I want my girls to experience while they're kids.

One thing I've never shared on here are our vacation books. Every time we go on a family trip I make a hardcover Shutterfly photo book to record our memories and I try to write as much details of everything we did. I also take tons of pictures on our vacations and I try to take a special group picture specifically for the cover of our book. We started doing this when Boo was a baby. These books have ended up being one of my kids most favorite things. I keep them on a shelf in the dinning room where they have easy access. At least a couple times a month they pull them off the shelf and sit down together and read through them. Baby Bear even loves looking through the books of trips from before she was born and the things that Boo can't really remember she feels like she can because she's read it about it so many times. These memories are precious to me and I'm so glad I started this tradition. FYI: Shutterfly offers free photo books a couple times a year where you only pay shipping. We never pay full price for a book but wait for the free offers. They are so worth the time and money though. I've been thinking about blogging about our vacations on here too, maybe I will for our next one. We'll see...

Math& Language: We have spent a lot of our school days lately focused on math and language because we are still a bit behind schedule in those subjects and will probably have to do a little into the summer after we've finished all of our other curriculum.

Sis is trucking her way through MathUSee Epsilon/fractions. She is working on adding and subtracting mixed numbers right now. We've also been flying through her Rod and Staff English book. A lot of it is review for her so we've been moving pretty quickly. In addition to reviewing parts of speech and diagramming though she's been doing some writing. I like that this curriculum combines both. She's been studying how to take notes for a report, how to write a topic sentence, and form the body of a proper paragraph. We also studied how to write a book report. Sis' assignment was to read a book, write a report and present it to the family. Her book of choice was "Andrea Carter and the San Francisco Smugglers." These are Christian mystery books in a series called the Circle C Adventures. Sis loves mysteries and horses so she loves these stories. She presented her book report one night after dinner and did a great job.

 
Boo is finishing up MathUSee Alpha and is working on Language Lessons for Today. These past couple weeks she's worked on letter writing, addressing an envelope, picture narrations, and we're just now beginning verbs.

Bible: Boo only has a couple names left in her "names of Jesus," study for this year. We finished up learning about Jesus being the "Good Shepard," and we began a unit on "The Resurrection and the Life." This was time appropriate since Easter just passed! Our names of Jesus wall is getting pretty full now!

Sis is studying the book of John right now in her Bible studies. Most of her lessons consist of reading on her own, copying verses into her notebook, and memorizing scriptures. Next year I am excited that we will be doing our school bible time together as a family again, since the girl's will finally be in the My Father's World Family Cycle.

Read-aloud: Our read aloud time has been our favorite time of the day the past few months. We have been slowly reading through "The Ark, The Reed, and The Fire Cloud," together as a family, even Baby bear sits and listens. This is a thick book, but we finally finished! I am so glad that I finally get to share these books with my girls and that we chose to read this one now. This first book is all about the animals journey to the ark and what it could have been like for them on board the ark. There's so many things you never though of before like "how did arctic animals live on the ark outside of their natural cold habitat? How did the animals know to go to the ark? What was their journey across the globe like?" This book forces you to use your imagination, yet keeps the biblical account accurate. Back to vacations...We are planning a trip to Ken Ham's Ark Encounter this fall, so this was perfect timing! Now more than ever my kids are interested in the real Noah's ark and what it was like. I know they will be thinking of this story as we walk though the replica and it will become all the more real for them. 

My kids were already begging to begin book two "The Dreamer, the Schemer, & the Robe." So we started it a couple days after finishing the first. In this second book our beloved animal friends journey to the days of Joseph and walk along side him as he is sold into slavery in Egypt. The book is packed full of Egyptian history and makes the story of Joseph come alive. I wish we were all studying Egypt right now, because this would be perfect. Sis did just finish Egypt earlier this year though, so it will still be good for her. It will be a long time before we cover it together in the Cycle, so we can't wait that long...

 
  History: In addition to learning 5 new States Boo learned about the Transcontinental Railroad. We finished our last story in American Pioneers and Patriots which taught us how the railroad was built. Our timeline is growing and we will be taking it down and putting it into a book as we finish up the school year. 

We also learned about Mount Rushmore in week 31. It took 14 years to make using dynamite and chiseling by hand! It is unbelievable to me that people could actually create a monument that size on a mountain and it actually really looks like the presidents! That's some amazing talent. I imagine it is just unbelievable to see in person...This is something I've always wanted to do that is high on our "things to see" list.

Sis and I started reading a new book for for history called "The Accidental Voyage." This book is about an old man and two children who travel learning about old Christian Hymns. The old man tells the children stories of the lives of the Hymn writers. We're not too sure about this one yet. It's a pretty thick book with long chapters and not as exciting as some of the other books we've read. I have a feeling it's going to take us a long time to get through it.

Here are some of Sis's history journal pages from the past few weeks.

We also took a trip to the zoo for Sis birthday. We saw some neat animals, but  we had one of the coolest experiences we've ever had at a zoo. A female lion came walking from a far off cliff and came right up to the glass where we were standing. We were the only people in the room at the time so we had her all to ourselves. This was the closest any of us have ever been to a real lion and she was looking us right in the eye! If the glass had not been separating us we could have easily reached out and touched her face. Then she stayed there with us for a long time before walking away. It was dark in the room and hard for me to get a good picture, but here is a picture (not zoomed at all, we were actually standing this close to her!)  Below is a 2nd picture with the girls so that you can get a better idea of how close she was...a lot of the animals were really close actually.
 



 Then something crazy happened, another lion came up to the window and started roaring at us! It was so loud they said it could be heard from much farther away. She was showing her teeth and roaring over and over! She was mad! I've never seen a lion roar like that (well unless the Lion King counts.) It was so cool! I wish I had gotten a video of it.
 It was a little windy but we had a great day and by going while school is in we had a lot of the zoo to ourselves. Here are some more pics of our day...

 

Week 26-28

History: Sis is ending the school year with a study of Rome. She's got about 6 weeks of that left and then we will be finishing up this school year!

We started reading a really good book together this week called "Traveling the Way." Again, this is another book that I never would have chosen on my own and that doesn't look very interesting, but is actually a great story! It's about a gentile slave boy who lives during the time of the apostles and runs away from his harsh master. On his journey he's faced with a question of religions...pagan, Jew, or Christian. Who was right?  I love books like this that are not only entertaining and exciting for kids, but have some real meat. Unlike a lot of the "fluff" books out there for kids that are just non-sense. Those books can be fun and it's great to get kids excited about reading period. However, I'd rather have my kids reading something that's not only exciting but teaches them something too or helps them grow spiritually rather than reading Captain Underpants all day...ya know? Charlotte Mason calls these real living books...books with depth. Thank you Heart of Dakota for all of your awesome book choices!

Sis only had one Draw and Write through History project over the 3 weeks and she drew a Roman soldier with a horse an chariot.

 One of her projects was to make a paper doll of a Roman soldier. She had to learn each piece of clothing that they wore and make the entire outfit.

Boo has been learning about Abraham Lincoln in U.S. history. We read national Geographic Kids Abraham Lincoln and we looked at the pictures of Abe and the Lincoln Memorial on the penny and $5 bill. 
We also read a book together called "Who Was Abraham Lincoln? We learned a lot of facts about Abe's life. We also learned a little about the Civil war.

A project we did was to read "Abe Lincoln's Hat." We learned how Abe always kept all of his important papers in his tall hat so that he would not forget about them. Then Boo had to write about what she would keep in in her hat if she had a hat like Abe. We made a cute craft out of construction paper and crayons. The flap on the hat opens to show show what she would keep inside.


We also added a few states to our map...we're getting pretty close to the end now!

***I feel a little bad that most of the pictures this post are of Boo, but there was not really too much to take pictures of Sis' work.

 Science: We took a little break from our regular science and we spent a week on magnets. The Fun with Magnets kit was included with Boo's My Father's World curriculum. All of the girls wanted to participate though, so we just did this instead of Science In The Beginning. The kit comes with cards that have activities and info on them we've done 3 cards front and back so far. One of our projects was to make a compass using a bar magnet. We also tested different kinds of magnets to see where the strongest point of pull was. Boo discovered that the ends are the strongest.

Reading: Boo has been reading Arnold Lobel books for her reading time. She is doing really well in reading now. His books are my most favorite books for early readers. Boo read all of the Frog and Toad books and then we moved to the Mouse and Owl books. I love that these stories are not only easy for her to read, but they are just plain fun to read. She begs for reading time because she can't wait to see what funny thing she will read about next.

Sis doesn't have a formal "reading time" anymore but there's not a day that goes by that she doesn't have her nose in a book, so she gets plenty of reading practice. Her biggest problem is life is that she never has enough books to read though. I'm constantly looking for books for her. This past week I found a winner that made her cry, not because the story was sad....because it ended with a cliff hanger and she doesn't have book 2! HAHA! She loved this book.  It's the first of a 15 book series by Jerry B. Jenkins called "Red Rock Mysteries."  It's fast paced adventure and mystery (her favorite kind) so she finished one in 2 days. Apparently all of these books leave you hanging, so you have to buy the next one. That's kind of annoying to me, but I think I at least found her some new books that are clean and exciting. These are "tween" books I would say for 11-14ish so some are intense and some subject matter is for older kids.

We haven't done much art lately. We have been so busy lately that we've skipped a lot of our paintings. The girl's did dye Easter eggs one day though. That counts as art right?

 

Week 24-25 & Maple Syrup Day

The past two weeks have moved quickly. It seems like we've done a lot. We also fit in another field trip for this school year. We haven't taken many, this was our 3rd one for the year. I just wish it had been a little warmer. I want to tell you all about our trip, so I will try to be brief with our school work.
 
History: In history Sis has been learning about the Roman Empire.One of the books that we are read is "City" this book explains how Roman cities were planned and built. We learned about the different building structures as well as roads and aqueducts. It was pretty interesting and I loved that it had a lot of illustrations so that we could see what it was talking about.

 Sis only drew one picture in her notebook over the past two weeks, but I think it's my favorite one this year. She drew one of Hannibal's war elephants, when he took 40 elephants over the mountains to Rome. I won't show you all the other note booking pages with her writing and timeline.

Boo learned about Samuel Morse and the invention of the telegraph in US history. We already learned a little about Morse code in science this year, so some of it was review. Boo had fun writing secret messages though with the codes. The second week she learned about the California Gold Rush. Here's some of her copy work from both weeks.

 
For a history project Sis made a card game, called "Go trade." Similar to "Go Fish." The cards had different items that were traded to Rome from other countries. For example a card would say "Oil and Wine from India." and the goal was to find all of the matches. Here is a pic of us getting ready to play our card game. Baby Bear just decided to photo bomb us.

Science: In science we continued our unit on water. We used our veggie steamer to observe boiling water evaporating and turning back into condensation as it hit a cool lid. We placed some ice on the lid to help the gas cool quicker forming larger drops more quickly. Then we watched them fall back into the pot. This was just sort of a review of how rain happens. One new thing we discussed though was that clouds actually have the ability to move so that water that evaporates over the ocean doesn't necessarily rain back down over the ocean. God designed an awesome way to water the whole earth with the lakes and oceans.

Bible: All of Boos Bible lessons this week focused on Jesus being the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. She made a crown with her memory verse on it.

Art: We decided to go back and do a painting that we skipped earlier in the year. This one was of a field with a spider web! The spider web is white and you can't see it great in the pic.

Maple Syrup Day!

Finally here is a little bit about the field trip we got to go on. We took a little road trip an hour from home to Chippewa Nature Center where they were having their annual Maple Syrup Day event. We got to not only learn all about how maple syrup is made, but got to explore the nature center, participate in crafts and games and spend some time with some of our family that live around there. In the visitor center the girls got to see all kinds of animals, Indian tools and a canoe, observe birds feeding, touch different animal skins and all sorts of cool things.
Baby Bear liked this stuffed turkey on the right.
 Here is a picture of Boo and Baby Bear feeling all the different animal furs. This was a good activity to go along with Boos adventures in US history since she's been learning all about pioneers who hunted and wore animal skins. There was also quite a bit of Indian things for her to see.


 After exploring the nature center and observing the birds and ducks on the river. We went to do some crafts. There was also a pancake breakfast for those who wanted to sample the homemade maple syrup. The girl's uncle decided to give them a try. He said it was the best he's ever had. The girls then made Maple leaf name tag necklaces and then they made little baskets that look like maple trees. We also played a couple games like a beanbag toss and a hopping game. I tried to get a good picture of them with their crafts, but Baby Bear was freaked out by the stuffed bear in the case behind htem, even after I assured her it was dead.

 
After we left the visitor center we took a wagon ride out to where they make the maple syrup. It was a little chilly and very muddy. I had been hoping for a nicer day, but it wasn't too bad. I forgot to get a picture of our wagon ride. Our first stop was the sugar house where the syrup is made. Outside they had some syrup boiling in a large pot over a fire. The man explained to us that is how they use to have to make the syrup in the old days. Now they have much more efficient machines.

Then we went inside and sat through a demonstration where they explained how they make the syrup now. We were shocked to learn that they have to get 40 gallons of sap out of the trees to fill up the machine, but most of the sap is water. The machine uses evaporation to get all of the water out of the sap and when it's all out only 1 gallon of pure maple syrup is left! Wow! It takes a lot of tree sap to fill all of those bottles. I loved that we were learning about evaporation since that's what we are also learning at home in science! I couldn't get many good pics of the demonstration.

  
Next the girls got to go outside and learn how to tap a tree and how they connect the buckets to the trees to catch the sap. We opted out of the guided tour through the woods to look at trees because it was just too cold and muddy.

After that we went to an old school house where we sat and watched a puppet show about Maple syrup and trees and we got to finally warm up next to a heater!

After the school house we went to another old log cabin house that looked just like something out of Little House on the Prairie. Inside the girls did another craft of planting beans seeds that they got to bring home to grow. Our last stop was to my brother in-laws parent's home. They raise pigs and just had a few litters born, so we went out behind their home to meet one of the baby pigs. The girl's were so excited and in love. Now they almost cry every time I feed them ham.haha.

Box day!!!!

So, I had to share my joy with all of you. It's here! EEEEEEKK!! My favorite holiday...box day (known by many home schoolers as the wonderful day of the year that the UPS truck arrives to deliver all of next years curriculum and then just like Christmas you get to unwrap all of the boxes and look at all of your new stuff!) The only bad part of this holiday is that as I've heard others say "The new stuff is all so exciting that you want to start it now and lose interest in what you're currently doing." I'm trying hard not to have my head in the clouds thinking about everything I have planned for next year, but to focus on what we're doing now. We do still have a few months of this school year left, although I will admit I'm anxious to be finished. So, here is a picture of everything that came this past week minus a new keyboard for music lessons!

I still have a list of read-aloud books I want to buy and of course supplies. But, this is all three girl's curriculum so far. It's nice that because we decided to return to My Father's World, Sis and Boo will now do all History, Science, Bible, Read-aloud, Art and Activities together! That means less books to buy and less time trying to teach 2 different grades. They will separate only for the grade leveled subjects...Math and Language.  Baby Bear will be starting K (I can't believe she's kindergarten age already!) She will also be tagging along with anything fun the older girl's are doing.

The last time we did MFW together Boo was only in preschool and just tagging along for fun, but we did Exploring Countries and Cultures together as a family. I think that was our favorite school year. We had so much fun. I love all of the hands-on, crafts, games, read-aloud time, food, field trips, and celebrations that go along with My Father's World. So I am so excited about next year. My kids seem to learn best together and when we're having fun.

Next year we will be learning Rome to Reformation. There's so many opportunities to make school fun next year, learning about The Roman Empire and time of Jesus, then Medieval Times with castles, knights, and princesses! Some fun things that we already have planned are a Roman Feast, building a 3D medieval castle, learning to play Chess, a cooking class, and keyboard lessons. There are also crafts and projects/ activities every week. I have a lot of read-aloud books planned including a nice full color 126 page picture book of Pilgrims Progress.

For science we will be finishing the 2nd half of our "Science in the Beginning Book" and then the 2nd half of the school year will be astronomy! Fun! I'm thinking solar system models and a trip to the planetarium will be on our agenda. MFW also included some good Christian books on having important talks with kids about growing up, becoming a woman, and where babies come from. I also ordered a couple good ones from Heart of Dakota. I can't say I'm too excited about having those talks, but I am thankful that MFW thought of that and gave us some good material to help when the time is right.

Our MFW package included a year long subscription to World Kids for the girls to read for their quiet reading time. We already received the first issue and it's basically a news magazine for kids about things happening in our world right now. I loved it and I think the kids are going to enjoy reading it too.

Other than that I'm searching Pinterest and blogs for activities, recipes, and field trips that will go along with next years studies. Wouldn't a trip to a Medieval Times dinner show be perfect? We'll see. I also have some fun ideas for the first day of school and some surprises for the kids.

This past school year has been really hard for us. It just seems to be dragging and I really dislike how much of Sis' work is independent and we're all doing different things. We've skipped out on so many of the extras that make school fun. Science is my kids favorite thing about school and of course that's the one thing we do together. I feel like this year we've sort of lost what I love so much about homeschooling...us learning together as a family, the kids working together on projects, spending time together and making it fun. School has not been that way this year. We're all disconnected. They're taking turns learning with me while the other goes and works in their room.  I use to have kids begging to do school and now I hear more groaning, "Do we have to do school today?" It's not age, kids can love learning and have fun doing it at any age. It's that when you're not enthusiastic about school, your kids will not be either. So it was a no-brainer that we need the My Father's World family cycle. It's what works best for us and I have high hopes that next school year we're going to be back to loving school like we did in the past.

Weeks 21-23

History: For US history Boo learned about Robert Fulton and the invention of the steamboat. Since we're learning about pioneers. We learned how this invention helped travel to the west become much easier. Here is some of her written work...

We also added the states of Indiana and Mississippi to our United States map in week 21.  In week 22 we learned about going west by wagon train. We read a fictional story in our American Pioneers and Patriots about a family who traveled this way and then we learned many facts about what it was like to live in a wagon train. We added the States of Illinois and Alabama to our map. Then for week 23 we did not have any history lessons, but we learned about four more states, including our home state   Michigan!                                         


In week 21 Sis continued to learn about ancient Greece in her history studies. For her Draw and Write Through History assignment she drew "Bucephalus" the ferocious black stallion of Alexander the Great that only he could ride. Here's a picture of her note booking pages that now include her drawings.

For week 22 she finally finished Greece and her studies switched over to Rome. Next school year the girls will be doing history all together and the first half of the school year focuses on Ancient Rome and the days of Jesus. We will be doing a lot more hands on projects including a Roman feast! Can't wait. So, since Sis is switching curriculum she will get a repeat of a lot of this info, because the two overlap some. Oh well, I figured that it won't hurt for her to study Rome twice, since it was such an important part of Bible history! Sis drew a picture of the lighthouse of Alexandria, which is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world for week 22. In week she did a lot of writing and reading (I decided not toadd pics of all of those notebook pages, so I don't bore you to death) but she didn't have a drawing to do.

Read-aloud:
For our read-aloud time Sis' book goes right along with her history studies. We started reading the book "Cleopatra." She was a very interesting woman to say the least. We've been enjoying learning about her though. The book is an easy read full of colorful illustrations. We've just been reading a few pages a day.

Boo and I finally finished reading Farmer Boy together. All the kids have enjoyed listening to this one. I've been reading this each day while the kids eat their lunch. They listen while they eat. I've found that lunch time is a great time for read-aloud time, especially with little ones. It's one of those rare moments that everyone is sitting down at the same time and Baby Bear is too busy stuffing her face to be distracting.

Bible: for her bible studies Boo learned a new name for Jesus. For two weeks we learned that Jesus is the "Head of the Body" (the church).
 
Reading: I had to take this proud picture of Boo. She's been reading small picture books this year for reading time, but this was her first book with chapters that she finished. She read a chapter a day aloud to me and when she came to the end she was so proud. She said "Mom, I really read this whole book!" She's come a long way since last year, when she was really struggling with her reading.

 Science: In science we are learning about water and air. We did 3 experiments with water over the past few weeks.The first week we learned that water is the only liquid that expands when it is in it's solid phase, all other liquids contract. To demonstrate this we filled a water bottle full of water, cover it with a balloon and froze it. The water expanded and no longer fit in the bottle so some of it froze into the balloon. Then we filled a spoon full of liquid wax. when it "froze" there was less wax in the spoon then when it was liquid.

Our second experiment taught us about volume. We took two pieces of aluminum foil the same size and five pennies on top of each piece of foil. We kept one piece of foil flat and with the other we wrapped our pennies up in the foil. Even though both had the exact same weight, only one floated. The pennies and foil that were flat had a greater volume (took up more space) so it would have had to push a greater amount of water to sink. Science is quickly becoming all of my kids favorite subject! "Science in the Beginning" has been the best science curriculum we have ever done. My kids are amazed at just about every experiment and they are learning and remembering so much.

Our third experiment was also about volume and more sinking and floating we made some hypothesis' and then tested a bunch of items to see if they would float. We learned that it is VERY important that ice floats. As we learned earlier all other liquids condense when they freeze and would therefore sink in water. God made water differently from the other liquids, because it plays an important part in creation. If ice did not float then lakes and ponds would freeze from the bottom up because ice would sink to the bottom. Every winter all of the living creatures would die in the lakes and ponds. But, because God designed water to expand when it freezes causing the ice to have more volume than the water, it floats and only the top of the lakes freeze. The animals are kept safe under the ice until it melts in the spring! So much of science (really all of it!) points to such an amazing intelligent Creator!

Math& Language: I feel like we have been doing a ton of math and language lately because both Sis and Boo are only about half way through their books and the school year is way more than half over, so we're trying to catch up. Sis is working through fractions this year. We're currently working on reducing using Prime Factorization. Wow! It has been so many years since I've had to do this stuff. It literally took me two days to figure out  how to even teach one of the lessons! It scares me to know it's only gonna get worse from here! Boo has mastered her addition facts. We spent one week learning how to tell time to the minute and now she is working on subtraction facts.
 
Art/Poetry: We did two poetry paintings over the past 3 weeks. The first was one of our favorites. It was a sunset over a horizon. The second painting we did in week 23. It was a little different from anything else we've done this year so far. Most of our paintings have been landscape, but this was a painting of apples on a table with checkered wallpaper! fun. We all enjoyed this one.