We started out our week going to a History Festival. Unfortunately though the Civil War encampment was rained out and so we just rode the little trains and watched the model trains for a while. The kids had a blast!
We rode both the trains.
This is the other train. We were kind of crammed in the cars. But they had fun.
While we were there, they had a Kiddie Tractor Pulls. Caty and Lydia wanted to do it. Lydia kicked butt. She was the one I thought would have trouble, but she pulled that thing all the way to the end without stopping!! Caty struggled a bit more, but pulled all the way to the end.
We are in for a busy fall/early winter. This was our first time trying out Lego Robotics. We joined our local program. The kids were a little whiny, and skeptical. But they really enjoyed it.
Then we went to Olive Garden for a major treat. I forgot how little we eat out now. This trip reminded me of that. But Caty was in love. She has been begging to go to Olive Garden for a while.
On Tuesday, we went on a trip with our troop to learn more about the Native Americans in our area. The kids learned more about wigwams and built one. They also played some Native American games.
Group
The kids are enjoying the Do-It-Yourself Curriculum Funschooling with Minecraft. I throw in extras like sentence writing and some grammar topics. I also have been using a separate math with them all working as a group currently. Hopefully we'll be moving that up by January.
Science:
In Science this week we learned about the circulatory system. The heart, veins, arteries, and blood were covered.
They labeled a heart
The kids made a blood model also. We highlighting a coloring sheet to go along with this study. To make the model we used water, yellow food coloring, mini marshmallows, rainbow sprinkles, and red hots. (I didn't feel like buying corn syrup)
Caty added the food coloring to the water to make our Plasma.
Joey added the Red Hot candies that represented our red blood cells. Lydia added the mini-marshmallows to represent our white blood cells. If you notice the water has started to take an orange color. Our blood isn't red, it's the red blood cells that make it look red. Our red hots worked better in water. They changed the color of it quicker.
Brayden added sprinkles to represent the platelets.
See how it looks red and not yellow.
We had a little too much water in our container. We should have had less. But you can see how after an hour, the water was red from our red blood cells and our white blood cells were working to fight germs.
Just like our other systems so far, we had a dissection to explore more. This week our friends came over and we dissected a sheep's heart.
We also watched a couple videos to review the science of bees. Our Lego theme this session is bees and the group chose to study penguins. So we watched these to get ready for our meeting on Monday.
Also Magic School Bus - Inside the Beehive
History:
This week we read about the draft process during the Civil War. We actually covered two chapters in our History this week. We are flying through the information on the Civil War. We started watching The Blue and the Gray. I remember watching this in school. It's a long movie, so it'll take us through next week to finish it. But I think it does a great job showing life and some of the struggles during the Civil War in a non-documentary way...lol
Computer:
Instead of our regular computer lesson, we started on a Lego Robotics team. They will be working on programming and I'll be sneaking in more programming also. To be honest, with the extra field trips, computer gaming was kind of put on the backburner for another week. We'll pick back up.
Geography:
Egypt, Morocco, and Madagascar are the countries we visited this week. While searching around I found some great videos posted on YouTube. They have a whole series of tourism videos from around the world.
I planned an Egyptian meal, but it didn't work out this week. So we'll be having it next week. Lydia is excited to be able to fix that, it will apply toward one of her badges.
I try to add in a sporadic reminder about internet safety. It was time again this week. This was a video I picked up from the library. We used it as one of our "reading" times this week.
We so needed some time at home. So we declared Wednesday PJ day, and we started watching a video on Disney World and counting down the days to our trip. We made a paper chain to keep track of the days.
Individual:
Caty this week didn't work much on food. It was kind of a busy week. With Lego starting up, it will take me a couple weeks to find a good schedule for things. But she did learn about hard candy. On Thursday we made our own suckers. This was messy, but hands-on for me.
Lydia
She is continuing in her next Veterinary Science lesson. This week she learned how important it is that all an animal's body systems work together to stay healthy. She watched an animal necropsy video of a dog and learned more about their internal organs. Rather gross to me, but if it's what she wants to do.
The boys laid low this week. Joey has been suffering from anxiety and we do not know why. It's come and go with him. The amount we do in group covers all his subjects, with the exception of careers and some review work. Brayden is working on some map reading curriculum.
The kids were excited to go to the local district's football game and see my nephew play in the band. He plays Saxophone. The band was wonderful, as always. The game was great. Our team won! It was a fun night of junk food, music and football! (Joey did not enjoy it at all....except the hamburgers. It was very difficult for him.)
When we got home our friends brought over the kittens the girls are kitten sitting this week. They are only 3 weeks old. The girls are so excited.
We finished out the week at a horse show. Dusty Boots, the stable we ride at, held it's annual Fall Show. Lydia placed 5th and 3rd. She is entering trotting events, and she was having trouble getting the horse to trot. So she followed her patterns, just needs to work harder on the trotting. Caty placed 3rd and 1st in her events. The girls had fun. Lydia helped out Stacey by handing out placement ribbons. And it was another successful show.
We finished out our weekend having dinner with my family. It was nice to relax with everyone, even for a short time!!
Hope everyone had a wonderful Week!!! See everyone next week! Linking up with other homeschool moms at
Sounds like a busy, but really fun, week!
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