Friday, November 25, 2016

Wales, Scotland, The Pony Express and Transcontinental Railroad oh and Decluttering




So I went through a bunch of junk in our house this week.  Actually I cleared out a bunch in our kitchen cabinets and junk cabinets.  I really wanted to get through our craft area too, but wasn't able to get it all done.  But I did finally clear out some summer clothes, because the kids kept trying to wear them outside now that its too cold for them.  That is a big deal with 4 kids...lol.

I took 8 bags to Goodwill, and still have a ton of sections to go.

I got a new play toy.  It's been pretty handy.  Going to be trying more and looking for more recipes to try and adjust some of our family favorites to this.


But onto our school work....

Each day we are watching the CNN Student News.  I find the clips on Youtube.  The kids enjoy it and it's definitely easier for the kids than watching the regular news.  We have been doing this for a month now, and I think they are learning more about life around them.


We are spending time learning how we can improve ourselves, including building our relationship with God.  So each day we spend time pondering on some sort of spiritual thought.  This week we learning about things that should really be important in our lives.

In math, we did a bunch of review on reading thermometers and charts/graphs in math this week.  The big thing was remembering how to read a plain thermometer.


We also worked on Measurement review.  We made a poster to hang up with reminders for while we are cooking.


In History we learned about the origin of America the Beautiful and the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.   Our history unit study introduced us to the Harvey Girls and the first restaurant chain opened by Fred Harvey.  After reading about his business ventures, we watched the Judy Garland movie, The Harvey Girls.  The kids thought it was funny in spots, and Lydia thought it was cool she saw Dorothy.  But the boys overall attitude was it was boring.

We also learned more about the Pony Express.  I found this premade booklet at Teacher Pay Teachers that we read together.  Then we watched these videos.



In science we started with Geology.  I couldn't find a program that I really liked on short notice, so I am adjusting a book that I already have.  We are discussing both the secular view and compare it to our Christian views and talking about the differences.  I am loosely using the Geology book from Intelligo Unit Studies.  This week we started with "What is Geology?, Who studies Geology?, and also the Layers of the Earth review.






Geography this week we worked more on countries in the United Kingdom.  We "visited" Wales.  We had Welsh Rarebit and tea cakes for our international meal from there.



 For Scotland, I made Scottish meat pie....this was a HUGE hit!



We went with daddy to the zoo and rode their winter rides.....the ice slide and bumper cars.  They all had fun with that!











Caty made her Raddish Kids meal one evening.  It was stuffing cups and mashed potatoes.  Joe said it was excellent.  It smelled amazing.





We had some friends over Friday afternoon to watch movies and play.  The girls colored these cool pillows I found.  They really liked them.



We had a busy week, and we were able to finish all of our schoolwork on the lesson plan.  I was pretty happy.  It's a sign of success.  I have been working hard to not over-schedule our schoolwork.  We all have our limits.  Plus we need a little down week between the busy, busy weeks.  Next week will be a VERY busy week!

Hope everyone had a wonderful week!!  See everyone next week!


Tuesday, November 22, 2016

I Survived The Sinking of the Titanic Reading Comprehension Questions Guide




I love this series that has been released by Scholastic.  Each story presents actual facts and events that occurred during that time.  They are eye openers about how people were feeling and the challenges that faced them during these tragedies.  We have been using them in our home and also with Homeschool with Minecraft classes.  I thought I would share the comprehension questions that I created for each story.

I Survived The Sinking of the Titanic, 1912 Reading Comprehension Guide


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Monday, November 21, 2016

Trolls, England, and Life in General



Everyone checking out the Super Moon!


We had an excited weekend.....the girls had riding.  Lots of kittens to play with.



Then we came home and cooked like pioneers.  The girls and I made cornbread and chili over an open fire.






The cornbread was a bit overcooked.  I wasn't controlling the flame enough.  But everyone said it was good.

Grandpa and Grandma came and had dinner.  So did My brother, Sister-in-law and their kids.  It was a nice family evening, and ended with smores.


The girls had their first swim meet.  This Regional meet determined whether or not they got to compete at state.  The girls did really well.  But we weren't sure if they would get to go to state because this is their first year on the team.






In the end, Lydia got a 4th and Participation in her Breast stroke categories.  She swam on the relay team also, they placed 2nd.


Caty got 2 - 1st place in back stroke and free style.  She also swam on the relay team, and got a 2nd place medal for that.


The kids were begging to see Trolls, so I timed it while we were in Toledo for Lego Robotics.  They all really liked it.


Then we headed to Lego.  They built cars and programmed them to run.  They also had to give them different variables to see if it affected speed.






For our country this week studied England.  This was one of our meals, roast with Yorkshire pudding.
We ate it while watching Robin Hood (1959 version from Disney).




For each country, the kids are filling out a country report.  I really like this one from Activity Village.  

We also learned about William Shakespeare.  Watched this Brain Pop video.
  

For our other meal, we had fish and chips.  This was a hit for Caty.  She loves fish.  I didn't have newspaper, so I served it in parchment paper.


Next week we will finish up most of the United Kingdom, and "visit" Wales and Scotland also.

In History we continued Pioneer Life.  We watched several episodes of Little House on the Prairie and read these books.


For our project they made a brownie sod house, which was a hit.


Brownie mud bricks.






To go along with our math of figuring change, we played Buy It Right.  I bought this off of Amazon a couple years ago.  Lydia loves playing it.


We had a long day on Thursday.  We had American Girl Club, which I didn't get any pictures of.  This was our first meeting of Saige.  The girls talked about the book and then worked on horse silhouette art.  Then we headed to basketball practice.  This is the first time in 3 years that Brayden has agreed to play basketball.  A big step!


Caty and Lydia also joined the team.



Then after dinner we headed to swim practice.  The girls found out that they get to go to State Competition in a couple weeks, so we have lots of practicing to do!!  They are both excited.


It kept getting longer Thursday.  The kids new Pokemon game out Friday, so we took them to the midnight opening at our local Game Stop.  The kids were so excited!  The boys were definitely with their people.  Everyone around them knew what they were talking about, where as when I listen to what they are talking about it's like a foreign language.



Friday we finished up our lessons for the week and then went out to dinner with Grandpa and Grandma.  It was a nice night.  The next day, we were back at it again.  It was the Voices of HOPE shootathon fundraiser.  All the kids participated.  They had fun!



In Grammar/Language Arts this week we learned about Prefixes and how they change the meaning of words.  All the kids picked up this very quickly!

In Science we wrapped up our Sassafras Science book - Botany.  We are listening to the final chapter this next week.  Then we will be starting a Geology class.  The kids want to learn about volcanoes, earthquakes, etc.  We did learn about the Redwood Forest this week.  We watched a documentary about that.

Looking forward to half a week next week.  Lots to do, but a bit of downtime to enjoy.  This was definitely one of those educating when we can this week.

Hope everyone had a wonderful week!  See you soon!

Linking up with other moms at:

Weekly Wrap-Up