Friday, November 30, 2018

Meeting Jan Brett



Jan Brett has been my favorite children's' author since before we even had children!!  When I saw she was coming to our area in one of only two stops in Ohio, I jumped at the chance to get to meet her.  We spent all of November studying her books and learning about her artistic style so that we would be ready for the tour stop!

Just a few projects....we used The Mermaid during our Japan study.


Jan Brett has a great Youtube channel with drawing activities.  The girls and I made turnip cakes from her channel.




They really liked these.


We were very excited to get to the Children's Literature Museum to see her!!


And so was everyone else....the rooms were PACKED!!  The girls were able to wiggle up front so that they could see better.


She did a drawing from her new book The Snowy Nap.


Other artwork she had donated to the Mazza Museum in Findlay.


We won a Snowy Nap tote bag.



Meeting Hedgie.



Her finished illustration





Such a wonderful day!!  We loved meeting Jan Brett!!


Friday, November 23, 2018

Ecuador, Genetics Mutations, and Basketball Is Underway....



Since I'm going to be taking the kids to basketball practice four days a week, Joe and I joined the community gym that is at the gym where they have practice.  This is one of many lifestyle changes that we are working on.  The stress we are dealing with is overwhelming.  And working out is a way that we are getting healthier to survive it all.  This was my view three days this week, the weather kept me from four days this week.



I did manage to re-make a cookie recipe to make it low carb for Caty and Joe.  I made dark chocolate chip walnut and white chocolate chip macadamia nut.



I also made some with regular flour for the kids that have nut allergies.




Lydia had another online class this week....  Paul Gauguin was the artist this time.  She really enjoys this instructor.  I sign Lydia up for all her art classes.






Caty LOVES to cook, we all know that.  This week our library branch had a Julia Child cooking club.  This is one of her favorite chefs.   So we got her new knives and a new cast iron skillet.  I also got her a small slicer.  She did NOT like the slicer and said she prefers doing that all by hand.



But her sliced potatoes were very good.



The little buffet that was set up by all the aspiring Julia Childs cooks.





I am reviewing a classic grammar/literature unit (Primary Language Lessons).  I'm liking the style and since we are working on full sentence structure.  We used a stack of Jan Brett books we are reading to look up sentences to use in our lessons.



The girls basketball team started practices this week.  We at least got one practice in before bad weather hit.





We had a beautiful sunset that night and then we got hit with bad weather!  Unfortunately the beautiful sunset we had was attributed to the smoke from the CA wildfires that is being sent our way.





I'm working with Caty on her penmanship....Using some drawing for pencil control.



In Science/Geography this week we were studying genetic mutations and the country of Ecuador.

For Genetics we used a candy experiment I found online to visually see how traits can literally disappear over several generations.





This week we had a fun lunch that the kids prepared with supervision.  They made Ecuadorian potato pancakes and shrimp ceviche.





They added avocado separately since Caty is allergic to avocado.



They also had an Ecuadorian berry dessert that our friends brought and served with the cutest party spoons and cups!  Everyone was full and had a great time!





The books the girls and I read.



We also watched a special on Amazon Prime about Darwin and his theories/studies.



Our biggest Jan Brett activity this week...  The Turnip.  The girls made her turnip pancake recipe we found on the Jan Brett Youtube channel.









The girls liked the turnip pancakes.  They ate them with veggie cream cheese.



On Friday our local library had a writing event.  We decided to go, since I'm working on sentence structure and writing in general with the girls.  I was hoping to inspire Lydia more.




The class was above Caty, so she just looked for books and did some coloring.




I crocheted dish clothes...lol


Then we were off to archery practice.





We need to start our next Volume of Story of the World, but I am behind there.  I'm trying to decide how to proceed with history lessons.  I like the story style of Story of the World and I love that we can listen to the lessons in the van.  It's great!  I am mixing in the Who Was/Where Is book series to our studies also.

The girls are making great progress in Math with Teaching Textbooks.  If we can stay on track, she should be done and ready to start her next session by the middle of December.   Caty is working on her multiplication facts right now.  I have her playing in the Times Tables app also.  I'm getting ready to start Brayden with Teaching Textbooks.  The short and easy to understand instructional style seems to be working.

The girls are still chugging along in their co-op classes.  Every Wednesday I teach two classes using Minecraft and the girls each take a class.  Lydia is taking piano and Caty is taking beginning sewing.  She is super excited and wants me to set up our sewing machine.  I'm trying to find a space to set it up for her.  Each week is the step-by-step process of Caty's sleep pants she is working on.  It's really cool how excited she actually is.

Brayden had the week off from school.  I was so overwhelmed last weekend....I didn't get his work ready.  I had him read.  He is going through some stuff and I need to get myself back on track and mentally back in the game.

Next week the girls will be working on our reading for prep to start Chemistry in January.  We are almost done with our genetics/DNA studies using Cells and Heredity.


We will be studying the history of Chemistry before getting down and dirty with experiments using the same series above.  But we will be reading The World of Chemistry.


We had a couple doctor appointments that I was working to get schoolwork around.  More med changes.  Hoping for success with these.  Next week the girls will be working on planning a big meal.  We aren't doing a Thanksgiving.  But we are working on planning a big fall meal with friends and family.  I found a study unit for them to use.  We collected sale flyers and cookbooks at the library this week for them to go through.  I'm hoping they have fun with this study.

I hope everyone had a great week!!