Comic Strips, the Digestive System, and Civil War Field Trip

It was  very busy week.  We had a couple of field trips, lots of work to finish.  Bu we made it through....I should say our educational checklist was done. But so many other projects I needed to work on didn't get finished.  The life of a work-at-home mom.


Group

The girls' scout troop had a field to our local Apple Store.  They were able to create comic strips using a comic app in store.  This was a very neat hour-long project.  There was room for siblings, so the boys were able to do it also.  Last week, we finished planning what they wanted to do.  This made the process much quicker.  They all enjoyed this.

We were at the mall so we let the kids get a snack.  This is something we rarely do anymore, so it was a real treat.  Cookies, soft pretzels and slushies for all...

Then we had Lego Club.  Our team is the Powerful Penguins.  So we are learning about bees and warm-water penguins.  This week they learned a little about honey bees, and we brought some honeycomb for the kids to try.

History:  This week we continued with the Civil War.  We learned about some of the final battles of the Civil War.   We started learning about the period of Reconstruction also, this included learning about sharecropping, carpetbaggers and the beginning of the Ku Klux Klan.

We also talked about the Impeachment of President Johnson

We went on a field trip to a hidden Ohio gem.  I was doing a web search and found a Civil War museum in our area.  Turns out it is the only one in Ohio.  So we headed out to see what they had.  It was a cute little museum with lots of information, and we learned some new things that were not in our textbook.

We picked up this movie about the Andrews Raiders during the Civil War.  This event was not in our textbook and they had an entire section at the Civil War Museum.  So after learning about it at the museum, we watched this together.  It was a nice movie.

We still have a couple more weeks of review.  I don't want to start our next section in History until after we come back from vacation.  So we'll continue to watch some videos on the Civil War and I think we are going to make a battle timeline also.  The Civil War Museum had some nice worksheets out for students, so I picked up a few to use over the next two weeks in our studies.

Science:  This week we finished up Sassafras Science Anatomy.  We learned about the digestive system, the excretory system and the reproductive system.  It was a lot of material.  But we were trying to finish it all up this week.

We made models of the Stomach and discussed the process of digestion.

We watched lots of videos this week on our digestive and endocrine system.  We also watched a video on how a baby develops in the womb.

We talked about germs and how to keep our systems healthy.  We did the germ project to show how we have to really wash our hands.

The girls dissected kidneys as their final anatomy dissection project.

Student Affairs (Government):  We started watching the CNN Student Podcasts this week.  It's definitely easier news for Joey to listen too.

The kids worked on grammar review of singular/plural nouns.  And in Math it would double digit addition without carryover.

I feel bad because we really concentrated on group activities this week.  It was a bad attention week, so we did not get to projects that I wanted to.  Next week is going to be a hard week for extras, but I'll see what we can get done.  I have some interesting food history picked out for her to watch.

It was one of those weeks where I do not feel like I accomplished a lot.  I know that we did a lot.  We really made our way through our history unit.  We also finished our Anatomy sooner than I planned.  We will be starting a Botany study next week also through Sassafras Science.

As we are making our way around the continent of Africa, Lydia made an international meal to fulfill a badge requirement.  She made green olive Moroccan chicken and a flat bread that they also make there.  It smelled wonderful and Joe said she did a really good job.  This is one of his favorite meals.  I haven't made it for ages.

Caty and Lydia were kitten sitting this week.  They were about a month old.  This kept me on my toes.

We traded in our 2011 Sienna and got a new 2016.  It wasn't something we planned, but we got the greatest deal.  So we went with it.  There's not much difference from our other van.  Just without all the extra mileage.

We had a busy Saturday.  We made it a big family day.  First we started out at the BGSU STEM event.  This was not what I was expecting.  It was HUGE!  Everyone enjoyed it.  They had a Verizon truck set up to tour.  He explained how they deploy during disasters and helped out.  I learned a lot.

Bowling Green had a fire engine out for the kids to explore.  They all loved this.

Brayden won a flashlight from the Toledo Parks department.

Checking out a snake skin.

He liked this truck.

Then we headed off to ride the trains again.  Brayden asks to go very few places.  So when he asked to go on the pumpkin train ride, I knew we needed to figure out how to make it happen in our schedule.  He got a hat for next weekend when we go and help the Model train club at a train show.

Then we got home and chilled.  We played games with the girls and watched movies for the evening.  It was really a great family day!

When I look at this, I do see we were doing really well at getting our work done.  So I know we accomplished quite a bit.  It's just my typical not feeling like we are ever doing enough.  It's my homeschool mom guilt.  There's always so much to learn!

Hope everyone had a wonderful week!  Linking up with other moms at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers....