Week 14 - Gymanstics, Duct Tape Camp, One Direction, Lobsters and Chickees

We ended our week last week by going to see One Direction is concert.  Lydia was super excited....Caty was just excited.  It was too loud and overwhelming for her.  But she liked the pyrotechnics.

I have been chugging along on Homeschool with Minecraft uploads.  Plus finding the schedule I need to follow to keep the house somewhat clean.  With a lot of the remodel somewhat accomplished....or I should say the goal for this year's remodel was met, I have more to clean around now.  So working on it.  I need to get into super organization mode very quickly.

Lydia started the DIY duct tape camp this week.  It's a 4 week camp that is supposed to teach duct tape basics and beyond.  Our reviews after the first week are mixed.  

This week she had to fix up something, so she covered her older riding helmet and made it look better.  It's really scratched up.  

And made a purse.

She also needed to update or make something for school supplies.  She decided to duct tape Caty's history binder to make it look nicer.

Joey and Brayden did really well with their reading and getting their work done.  I had minimal arguing with Brayden about his reading assignments.  Which is saying a lot.

In their social skills book, we discussed personal space.  I used a hula hoop to illustrate having a halo around our body as your personal space and you want to make sure that you are not inside someone else's circle.  I think they understood because they could actually see that circle they need to respect.

The girls started gymnastics this week.  It's a small tumbling studio.  They both had a lot of fun.

Lydia "forgot" to add water to her mac & cheese one morning....yeah my microwave is still messed up and it's been cleaned ...  I hope it gets better.

Lydia had a med check and she decided to help Caty with her math while we were waiting.

Our messed up living room.  School is messy, and this was actually picked up a little.

Lydia doing a refresher on double & Triple digit addition

Caty has spent a couple weeks learning about Inventors.  These are some of the books that we read.  We also learned about Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Marconi, Henry Ford and Karl Benz.

She worked on writing sentences and her word families also.

We learned about the State of Maine this week.  I decided to change things up every week for our Geography studies.  This week we looked at animals of Maine and the food of Maine.  The kids enjoyed this.
  
Lydia made blueberry pancakes

We made Moose Munch because we decided to learn about America's 2nd largest land mammal.  We watched a video about the moose.

The inventor of what we know as gum lived in Maine.  In the late 1840s, John Curtis developed the first commercial spruce tree gum by boiling resin then cutting it into strips that were coasted in cornstarch to prevent them from sticking together.  By the early 1850s, Curtis had constructed the world's first chewing gum factory, in Portland, Maine.  But the spruce resin was not great for gum because it tasted so bad.  But he switched it to paraffin wax and more people started making gum.  He never patented his formula. So I got the kids some typical gum for bubble fun while watching the documentary on bubble gum and how it's made.

Then we did the a Make Your Own Bubble gum kit..  The kids had fun doing this.

We made seafood roll.  I messed up and thought I grabbed lobster from the freezer section at the store.  But turns out I grabbed the crab legs.  I was in such a hurry.  So instead of lobster roll we did seafood roll.  I showed Lydia how to get the meat out.

 We mixed the crab with shrimp, Just Mayo and chives.....so easy ans so yummy!!!

 We also made some potato soup, since one of Maine's biggest crops is the potato.  That caught me off guard too.

For history we continued learning about the Native Americans of North America.  This week we learned about the Southeast Tribes and the Great Plains.  We attempted to build a Chickee project I saw online.

Yeah it didn't turn out.  But we had a great discussion about why they built their houses that way.

We had another successful week, even with a bump in the road experiencing some food allergy issues with Lydia and well all the kids.  I let them have Chinese takeout from a local fast food Chinese restaurant.  They normally do not have major issues with Chinese, but holy cow....this was awful.  Their meds could not even touch their behaviors they were so bad.  So that restaurant has been added to our DO NOT EVER go again list.  

Lydia is struggling a bit with her book club.  I think she picked a book that is a big tougher to read and understand.  So she doesn't love thinking extra...lol.  So we have to work on a groove for her since she was so excited about her book club.

Lydia has riding on Saturday mornings now.  She is getting ready for the upcoming Quarter Horse Congress in October.  She is pretty excited.  I forgot my phone last week so I don't have pictures of the different horse she is now riding.  She has to build a new relationship since the horse she has been riding was not a quarterhorse and that is a requirement.  She did really well last week.

Hope everyone had a great week!!  
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