Week 21 - Guy Fieri, New Jersey, Chemical Reactions and James Madison

Brayden is a Guy Fieri fan!!  He loves watching Guy's Grocery Games and Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.  Oh and that kids cooking show that he was in with Rachael Ray.  I heard earlier in the week that Guy Fieri was making an appearance in Ann Arbor.

They had recipes from his cookbook.  Of course the kids didnt want to try any.

Freezing and waiting for Guy get there.  They started drawing.

Caty snuck away from us.  I saw her near the front.  Didn't know she weasled her way all the way up until I saw her on the big screen.  She was really bold and just started talking to him.  It was hilarious.  He loved her.  Even gave her a cookbook, since she was a "cooker" like him.

 The smile on Brayden's face the whole time he saw Guy.

That night we made Asian chicken wings from the cookbook he gave Caty.  Brayden was super excited to help with this.  But it really turned into a Mom only project because of the frying.

Then to keep with the grill theme, Joey has been begging to try and make pizzas on the grill.  So I got that project going too.  We made grilled pizzas with homemade crust.  They all loved this!!

The kids had buckeyes at Costco last weekend and they loved them.  But poor Joey was left out...no diary and no peanuts.  So we made buckeyes that Joey can enjoy!!!  Even Brayden got into making these and he was sneaking the sunbutter before dipping them in the chocolate.

I also showed them how to make popcorn balls this week.  They didn't like the blue raspberry, but Joey said the sprinkles were good.

But we did more than cooking this week.  They were back to their regular lessons.  We had a few struggles with wanting to finish the workload, even though it is really not that bad.  But I expected it considering they had the week off from table work last week.

This week in group, we started Explorers of the New World.  We learned about Columbus and the true story of his exploring in the New World.  I was trying to come up with a cool project to help them remember routes and after seeing someone using balloons to create globes, I thought, why not try a pumpkin.  So the next few weeks we will be adding the routes of the explorers onto the globes they started this week.

I had to repaint their work.  They started out using tempra.  It peels, do not use it.  Use acrylic paint.

I was going to have them draw on the continents, and realized how frustrating it would have gotten.  So instead printed out continents and they colored them and glued them on.

Here is Lydia's globe marked with Columbus' voyages.  They added Vespuci on Thursday.  I didn't get an updated picture.  Will next week after we add Magellan and the voyages of the Spanish.

They boys were reading extra, beyond what we talked about as a group.  They are reading child biographies on Magellan and Columbus' hero Marco Polo.  They will switch up next week.

The kids signed up for a Drawing Basics class that another Homeschool mom is teaching near us.  I was nervous about how the boys would react to this new concept.  The girls love to draw little pictures.  And Joey usually does....but Brayden has never really shown a big interest in this area.  They actually all enjoyed the class.  Brayden isn't keen on the "homework" and practice he needs to be doing, but he survived.  Joey has done a great job with his work so far this week.

A historical event in our town this week, they tore down our old water tower.  The kids and I went down to watch some of it get taken apart.  It was cool to see the welders up high.  I turned it into a drawing project.

Lots of lines and shapes made up the tower.  So they were to draw the tower.

They also brought their backpacks full of their schoolwork to do while we sat and watched.

Poor Caty wasn't feeling great at the beginning of the week.  We visited the doctor, and he's suspecting acid reflux maybe due to food sensitivities.  So she started meds.   By Wednesday she was back feeling like she could do cartwheels and Thursday she was doing handstands again.  We still have some exhaustion issues we need to address.  So I am just keeping an eye on her diet and her behaviors.  For right now, she can eat without tummy aches.

I let her slide with a little less work.  She did work on double digit subtraction with borrowing.  We practiced our words using the Wilson Reading System and she did some lessons in Reading Kingdom.  We also learned about hibernation/migration and how some animals adapt to the new season.  She did a poll on my Facebook page of what people would like to do.  She chose hibernation, and I chose migration.  The majority of those who participated in the poll chose to migrate to warmer conditions.  She watched the Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot about That on Migration.

Lydia is chugging along in her Chinese course.  She still loves it.  She started reading the American Girl Josefina series.  She decided to try American Girl club again.

For science this week, we learned about how elements got their names and how chemical compounds get their names.  We discussed why it's so important to have the same name, especially for dangerous compounds.  I am trying to include in more experiments, even when there are not really a lot in their textbook.  This week we did the age old colored milk and film canister rockets.  We have done both these before, but they have so much fun with them.

Brayden was getting impatient by the time we tried to video tape the rockets shooting off.  But we had used almost a half a box of alka-seltzer by then.  That's a lot of alka-seltzer...lol

This week we learned about James Madison in Presidents.  We watched a video about him and learned that one of his favorite foods was ice cream.  (Shhh...we had ice cream twice this week in his honor.)

Our state this week was New Jersey.  We found it on the map and practiced our state capitals.  Then we watched Aerial America on New Jersey.  We spent a lot of time there the last couple years, so we recognized several of the landmarks that they showed in the video.  Our project to go with New Jersey had to do with Campbell Soup.  Since Joseph Campbell opened his first plant there, we chose to learn also about Andy Warhol and his soup can art.

Last year we saw this art at the Museum of Modern Art while we were in New York City.  Caty fell in love.

Andy Warhol ate Campbell's Tomato Soup daily for over 10 years.  That was his life.  So we recreated this artwork ourselves this week.

We watched this video on Andy Warhol...

and also

We did a little bit of everything.  Did not do any field trips this week.  Maybe next week.  I have a couple places we would like to go before the snow starts falling in Northwest Ohio.  The kids did enjoy some of the warmer than normal temps that we had this week.

Hope everyone had a wonderful week!!

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