Friday, January 20, 2017

Germany, More Mythbusters, The Great Depression, and Lego Time



I had one of those weeks scheduling.  I was feeling just out-of-it to start with.  I messed up our Monday schedule and the girls missed a cheerleading event.   It was one of those weird things because the kids had re-scheduled dr. appts and then their Lego Robotics meeting to get ready for their exhibition on Saturday.  I was so stressed about the med check appt. that I forgot to double check my phone calendar with my written calendar.

Lego Meeting

They had to get their poster board ready for the exhibition this upcoming weekend.


Their final project




American Girl Meeting

This month was American Girl Grace.  They decorated cupcakes, aprons and made suitcases for their dolls.





History

This week we explored the Great Depression.  We learned about the New Deal and also the Dust Bowl.  We read through our material and again watched lots of documentaries about this time period.  One included When the World Breaks (Off of Amazon Prime), and of course a few Crash Course videos also.


We also watched the Grapes of Wrath.


We also watched American Girl Kit.


I highly recommend the Ken Burns Dust Bowl documentary.  It's long, but I really liked it.  Next week we will continue to cover this era.  I decided to put off the start of World War II for a week, and learn a bit more about this time period that affected lives for generations.

Science

This week we watched some Mythbusters on Duct Tape.  And we learned about Trebuchets (off the Duct Tape Mythbusters).  We built a trebuchet and then figured out how they worked.  This was a fun activity!





Lydia decided to play with duct tape and made a pillow.


Geography

This week we visited Germany and Poland.  We watched some great videos from New Dimensions on our Amazon Prime subscription.


The girls painted nutcrackers after we researched their history.








Our meal this week was pretzels and german pancake with turkey bacon.



Our suitcases this week.




Math

Well the older kids are finally pulling away from Caty's level.  She's a little stuck, so this week they emerged apart.  I had the older kids move into books that will help them advance at their own speed.  Caty will be working at her grade level.

Reading

Joey read City of Ember.  Brayden read I Survived The Battle of Gettysburg.  Lydia has been let off the hook for reading comprehension because she was working so hard on her spelling bee words.  And there is a lot to work on!  Caty and I were reading American Girl Grace together.  But we started in on her Julia Childs book also.

Grammar/Language Arts

More "book" work.  This week they practiced using encyclopedias online.

Part of our work this week was to send Get Well cards to the boys in Chicago that was tortured.  I just sit and cry in my heart for him.  I can't let me tears show in front of the kids.  So each child wrote out a card for him.


Sports this week, we had cheerleading and basketball.  The girls are prepping to cheer at a local high school with their team's cheerleaders.  So we worked with their team at our practice this week.  It was fun.





On Saturday we had our Lego Exhibition and the Power Penguins were able to show off their project board.  The whole team did really well at answering their judges questions and showing off their project.










We had another full week, with a few hiccups.  But we got things done, even if it was at weird times.  Hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Linking up with other moms at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Weekly Wrap-Up

3 comments:

  1. Looks like lots of fun! Have a great weekend!

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  2. Lots of great learning! We studied the dust bowl and the great depression last year. There were so many wonderful books and videos to help us along. I just wished I had thought to make a depression cake with my boys.

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  3. Wow! Busy week! How neat that your kids can be involved in so many interesting activities! I wish there was an American Girl club here, that sounds like so much fun.

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