Friday, March 17, 2017

4H Season Underway, Living History and Daily Life




Since we have finished our History book for this "school year" we are in full 4H project mode.  Having history finished has opened the door to put a lot more work into our 4H projects.  Each of them have a minimum of 5 they are working on.  They did pretty good this week.  I am combining their projects into our menu and schedule.  So it makes things run more smoothly.

This week has been a week of constant pictures being downloaded from my phone as I document every step the kids are doing on each project.  I'm trying to stay on top of this part of their projects, since I can very easily lose the pictures in files.  So I developed a system last year that helps me out.  I also create a file on my computer that I keep all of their materials in.  One for each child and it's marked with the year.  When they email their papers/research challenges for a section, they go into these folders on my laptop.  Then if something happens to a paper, I can easily print it out.   It has been a bit of a challenge to keep up.  There were a couple times this week when I had two kids doing two different cooking projects in the kitchen at the same time.  I about lost it, but we survived.

I fortunately only had 1 review this week.   We are really liking the Eclectic Foundations Language Arts - Level B program.   It's a quick review to help reinforce letters and sounds with Caty.

It's also cookie delivery week.  What a busy week...I have cases of cookies just sitting in my office screaming at me.  This is why I don't sell Girl Scout cookies....I let the girls talk me into it.

Math has been a nightmare of long division.  Joey cannot get the steps.  Brayden won't show the steps so he gets confused.  We have all 3 been beating our heads into the wall.  No matter how many videos or cheat sheets I have used....OOOHHHHHH boy!  Lydia has gotten it finally, she forgets a step here and there, so we have to correct problems.  But it got better this week.  So next week it will be on with new topics.

Lydia really likes the computer game class she is taking at a local computer school, Hack BG.  This week we lost power during high winds, so everyone went with me to BG and they ate at the Kabob place across the street while Lydia was in class.  Caty said the steak kabobs were great!


Science 

We started our next chapter in the Periodic Table.  We learned the history of how the Periodic Table was developed.  There were some fun activities that helped us explore many of the elements and how they are used in everyday life.


Dog was all nice and comfy while Lydia was researching something for her 4H projects.


Art

They did chalk pastels of cardinals.  I printed examples for them to try and re-create.  They did this while watching a movie together.  I pulled out Good Morning Vietnam.  I had forgotten about some of the crude things in the movie, but we were able to discuss further about the police action there and how hard it was for our soldiers.





On Tuesday we had our annual Living History (Night at the Museum event).  Lydia was Beatrix Potter, Caty was Nellie Bly, Brayden was Walt Disney and Joey was Roald Dahl.  They all did a great job getting facts for their reports.





This was a video I found about Nellie Bly that Caty and I watched together.  She was a pretty amazing women.


Taking advantage of his lap desk while laying out his periodic elements cards for a science assignment.


Just a few of our cooking projects this week....

Brayden made a yogurt parfait

He did a measuring experiment showing the importance of proper measurement when cooking.



Brayden also made breakfast burritos for lunch one day.  He invited over grandma and they put out a little topping buffet for your burrito.  This was a hit.


He also learned how to make smoothies in the blender.


He also made a popcorn trail mix.


Joey - Whole Wheat pancakes


He also made pear muffins.  These were a huge hit!


Caty - Diabetic peanut butter cookies


She also made Monster Cookies to take to the stable where they ride.  If you couldn't tell she is working on our county's MMMMmmm Cookie project book right now.



Reading....

Joey - Continuing Animorphs series.  He was having a hard time staying focused this week and staying on task with reading.
Brayden - Geronimo Stilton - Back in Time - The Second Journey through Time
Lydia - Still working on The Fifth Wave
Caty - a little of this and a little of that

This was a very tough week.  We made it through.  Even when I try not to over-schedule, somedays it's just overwhelming.  It was definitely hands on all week in the kitchen, but boy did the kiddos love cooking.  So I need to keep this up, even when their projects are done.  I'll have to work on that!

Hope everyone had a great week!!

Linking up with other homeschool moms at:

Weekly Wrap-Up

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