Friday, September 29, 2017

Haiti, Ancient Egypt, Rome Architecture, and Fall is Here!!




This week was pretty much a blur.  My foot has continued to bother me.  I felt like we could barely keep up, yet I didn't feel like I overscheduled them at all.

Pre-Algebra is killing me.  Lydia is doing pretty good with it, she struggles a bit with some of the new topics.  That's where I am ready to lose my mind though trying to remember how to do these most basic algebra problems.  What am I going to do in a couple years???  Ugh!

Daily we started listening to the CNN 10 Student News again.  The kids still love Carl's puns.  With all the news stories this week, we were able to stay on top of things.

I spent one afternoon working on the boy's high school transcripts.  I'm not sure how I felt as I finished adding information and verifying what they both needed to have to meet graduation requirements in Ohio.  I felt panicked and confident all at the same time.  Homeschooling special needs kids with learning disabilities does not make the transcript process any easier.

We did a quick trip to Cedar Point..


Yep... fracture shoe.  I hurt my foot somehow and the chiro thinks I have a stress fracture.  So trying to heal myself.


The amusement park was nuts, so we left sooner than we planned.  We stopped and ate at a new to us Ice Cream factory in Sandusky...the kids were in love.  Joe said it was good too.





I bought myself a new coffee mug at Cedar Point.  It's my Monday cup.  I made myself my own Starbucks with hm whipped cream.  It was yummy!


Brayden tried to get himself ready for meeting.  We can't get him to realize that you shouldn't wear a tie with a polo shirt and a performance polo on top of that...lol


He cleans up nice...lol


I couldn't stand it any longer.  It is so hot in Northwest Ohio this week.  Temps in the low 90s and the heat index hitting near 100 in September!!  But I had to get fall decorations up...it's Pumpkin Spice season!!  It's my favorite time of the year!







On Friday Morning, I surprised the kids with fall presents and I made homemade pumpkin pie muffins.  It was a fun surprise for the first day of Fall.  We got them each a pair of warm, fuzzy socks, some favorite fall candy and new toothbrush.  Nothing big, but a fun surprise.




Some of this week's activities:

Bowling


Drum Lesson for Caty



Riding lesson and volunteer shift for Lydia at the stable.


Art History

Roman architecture





We had to cancel Science/Art Club this week, but I had already planned out art and bought the food.  So we had an Ancient Roman meal for our lunch.  We had hardboiled eggs, grapes, pears, cheese, hummus, bread chunks and shredded chicken.  The kids really did like this.


After watching a video on how arches can be used in architecture, they built a model of the aqueducts.




Ancient History 

The girls this week finished up our exploration of Ancient Egypt and did a quick stop in Mesopotamia.


Mummified a Barbie - We measured in minutes for days.





They also started the mummification of Hot dogs.




In our chapter on Mesopotamia, they learned about cuneiform.  They used wet clay to carve in the images from their workbook.  (It's Model Magic and a Scratch paper tool)





Geography - We visited Haiti


I found this picture from Port-au-Prince, Haiti and decided to turn their project into an art project...

We talked about perspective and I had the girls do a re-creation of it using Sharpies and crayons or color pencils (their choice).


I made a Haitian cookie recipe for the girls to eat while they watched their videos.  It's a lime cinnamon cookie called Konparet.  They liked it.  (I was in such a hurry, I forgot the baking powder...so they were flat.  But Caty still loved them.)


Fall Nature Studies

So the girls and I are working our way through the Fall EcoJournal.   Daily we are studying some sort of Fall science topic.  This week.... we learned about owls






They had these crystal fall trees to grow.  So they did these one day.  They grew overnight!


Building a house for a barn owl was a bit out of our reach...especially since we live in town.  So the girls each built one of these kits and started painting them.  After we spray them with a clear coat of wood protector, we're going to hang these near my parent's birdfeeders.  We love watching the birds.





I'll post pictures next week of this project, since they are still painting them.

Since it's almost fall, I found a bunch of fall grammar/language arts activities for all the kids to work on from Super Teacher Worksheets.   The girls both made one of these scarecrows for the front door.


Caty worked hard on double digit addition with carryover.   We also reviewed Greater Than/Less Than.  This is another activity from Super Teacher Worksheets.  Caty really liked this.


The boys started back using an online math program this week.  CTC Math is something we have used off and on the last few years.  I have noticed their need for online work over worksheets, so we made slight adjustments for both of them.  This week Joey finished some of his Elective Classes, and we picked out a few more for him to work on.

Brayden finished up his Biology program with Fascinating Education, and his also almost finished another one of his Elective Classes.  They will both be taking a program on writing up research paper, and how to do the most effective research.  I added back in more assigned reading.  Joey is about 3/4 through Around the World in 80 Days.  He'll finish it up next week.  Now I have to figure out what to have him read next. ... Hmmmm.....

On Saturday we surprised Caty.  We were talking earlier in the week about the death of Lydia's bearded dragon.  It was said that Lydia got her first beardie at her Kindergarten graduation party we threw her.  Caty realized she never got a kindergarten graduation party.  We were traveling around the US when she finished kindergarten.  So we never threw her a party with the family.  So we decided since my parents were coming over for brunch, that we would surprise her with a cake and small gift.  She loved it!



Then we rushed around and got ready for a wedding that evening.  It was a wonderful ceremony and reception.




We had a great week.  Hope you all had a great week too!

Linking up with other moms at ... Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Weekly Wrap-Up