13/14 Week 31 Day 2

With a surprise visit to the urgent care this morning, and watching Saara perform at her ballet recital, and baseball games this afternoon, we did not get a significant amount of school work done today. 
Tomorrow, then, promises to be extra busy. :)

We have loved the ballet classes very much! Over for now.

Science. Saara still learning about evaporation. This time, the experiments were all about food, how food soaks up water and why we dehydrate some foods.

Andrew's experiments looked really awesome on the science video. They did not quite work when we tried them. The hothouse one above failed (the ice cube under the glass was supposed to melt faster. It did not). And our homemade thermometer refused to read any temperature. Well, the barometer we made a few days ago works beautifully, though.

TOMORROW OR DAY 2 PART 2

We managed to catch up with all the school work from yesterday. Almost all.

Saara woke up with fever in the middle of the night and I woke up with a sore throat and half of my voice gone. I saved the the other half for the classes and will read all the read-alouds once I find the first half of my voice. 

Andrew got an earful of my croaky voice when we read through the French Revolution. I had recently recorded an old balck-and-white movie "Marie Antoinette". After reading the chapter and looking at pictures on-line, we watched some scenes from the movie that depicted the things we learning. Thankfully, the movie included everything, even the Marseillaise.
  
But now, it is time for some cold medicine.

Science. Our homemade barometer is working wonderfully.

Over the breakfast, the kids compared the raisins with the ones that had been soaking in the water overnight.

Our 'soak the beans' experiment was spilling over. Every now and then you could hear a 'ding!' when another bean hit the saucer.

'13/14 Week 31 Day 1

As the kids and I sat down with our calendars this morning, we saw that the week ahead will be very busy. Our day today was very busy. By some miracle, we managed to cover all the subjects today. The best part of it was -  we had fun doing it. 

In history, I decided to postpone learning about the French Revolution (the next chapter) until Andrew understands and is able retell the course of the American Revolutionary War. For this purpose, I drew a map with lots of stick figures and arrows, etc. on the white board. Andrew thought, it was fun and it clearly made it easier for him to remember the names and the order of events.
 

Bible. The story of Jesus resurrecting a poor widow's son.

 In science, Saara learned about how things expand in heat and how they contract in cold. Our experiment with cooling down air in the bottle worked beautifully. The opposite - heating the air in the bottle - did work, but not as well.

'13/14 Week 30 Day 5

A very busy day for a Saturday. Our main focus was on Andrew's history lesson. It was rather long and involved a lot of new names. The birth of the US was what we read about. Thanks to our civic studies, Andrew had a general idea of the Revolutionary War. It was easy to build on this foundation and add more names and facts.

Math. Andrew describing each shape.

A nice end to a busy week. A water-party at the neighbor's house.

'13/14 Week 30 Day 4

Yesterday, we spent our morning at the dentist's and popped to a playground on our way home. We met another family with lots of children Andrew's and Saara's age. They all had a fun time playing until we had to leave. 
We did some schoolwork, but it was not enough to count it as a full school day. 
The evening took us the ball park again where both kids had a game.

Today, we did not have any appointments or any interruptions of any sort. Pure schoolwork from morning till afternoon. Saara was trying to get her head around kinetic and potential energy. Andrew met up with square corners in math. 
More school tomorrow.

Bible. Reading and learning about the Beatitudes.

Science. Andrew's weather studies continued with some experiments. Learning about air-pressure.

Our home-made barometer.

'13/14 Week 30 Day 3

The snakes are out! They have been out for a while, but we have been blessed not to have spotted any yet. Yesterday afternoon, however, opened the season. We saw a rather large diamond back water snake, non-venomous, but still, a snake. Also, while I was in the garden, one hummingbird was defending his feeding spot with lots of buzzing and noise. He was darting in and out of the trees like a mad man. 
This morning, brought us some more wildlife: a hawk and a pair of ducks.

The fierce hummingbird from yesterday.

I wonder, what the hawk was eying?

Later, the hawk decided to sit on the fence post.

Schoolday today was a blessed one. Andrew took his eleventh math test and received an A-. 

We have done a lot of reading over the last few days. Dorothy, et al, got done melting the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz), and Andrew's Prof. Sherman just crash-landed his huge balloon on a mysterious Pacific Island (The Twenty-One Balloons). Besides all this, the children themselves are reading about Amelia Bedelia's antics (Saara) and a short biography of Amelia Earhart (Andrew). Add to this Bible readings in the morning and evening. Quite a lot. And we are loving it!

Bible. Listing all the disciples.

LA. Saara is enjoying her Oz reading. She is learning a lot of new words and our story line wall with all her coloring pages is growing bigger and bigger.

'13/14 Week 30 Day 2

Saara had her last ballet class this morning. I and Andrew got a glimpse of the 'Grand Finale Performance' that will be presented to friends and family next Tuesday. We are very excited!

LA. We are continuing our adventures in the world of poetry. Yesterday, we wrote some free verses. Today, we painted an illustration to R.L. Stevenson's poem "Rain".

'13/14 Week 30 Day 1

Our last ten weeks of school have begun. We will finish our school year later than previous years, but it does not bother me much. Many families prefer to teach throughout the summer months because of the heat. Also, I'd rather take longer and make sure we cover and not skip the subjects.
The last leg got a mighty kick-off with the church's Easter egg hunt. The children are growing up and soon will consider participation in it too childish. Until then, let them have fun!

 

 

Andrew found a new favorite game - bolo toss.

Our Bible time this morning turned into a full blown discussion about the differences between children and grown-ups. It was brought on by Saara's memory verse from Matthew 18:3 "Unless you become like little children, you can not enter the kingdom of God." At the end of the discussion, Saara even drew a little diagram of how grown-ups should relate to God like children relate to their parents. 

Another delightful group assignment we had today, was in the LA. The children 'wrote' their own free verse poetry. I read to them a few, and showed how the simile worked, and this was the one we all agreed was the best:

Math. On our last trip to the bank, I asked the teller for the Half Dollar coin. Andrew called it as big as a pancake.

LA. Saara (and I, too) is very proud of her neat handwriting. Her spelling is a work in progress.

One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns! A sweet end to the school day.

Easter Break: Horseshoe Junction Family Fun Park

We had a fun end to our Easter Break! The best part of it was seeing and visiting with our family. Going to a family fun center with the whole crowd made it extra fun. The children got to drive go-carts for the first time, ride bumper boats, try their hand at mini-golf and lazer tag, and so much more. They will be talking about this trip for years to come. That's how much fun it was!

Andrew as a River Cat

I finally had a chance to watch Andrew's game. He has matured and his performance has improved compared to last year's. He is enjoying the game and his team mates.

There are two positions Andrew favors: the catcher and the short stop.

PGM Spring Concert

This was one of the most beautiful concerts I have heard the kids give yet. All of them from the littlest to the oldest gave their all. It was just a pure joy to listen to them sing and ring their bells.
The concert finished up this school year's choir activities. We will see everyone again come fall.

13/14 Week 29 Day 3

It was a rather ordinary day. Both kids asked me early on if I was going to read the "Oz" book to them. I said, I was planning to. I also had a small craft to go with the chapter. The children liked the craft so much, they filled additional pages with their little fingerprint mice.

Good morning!

Science. Saara checking on one of her experiments from yesterday.

LA. Saara in the process of making fingerprint mice.

'13/14 Week 29 Day 2

A lot of science happened today. And a lot of math, among other subjects. As I had a doctor's appointment this afternoon, I grabbed the children's reading books with me and they read their daily portions as were were waiting to be called in. Love homeschooling!

Bible. Jesus' first miracle. A little help from Cool-Aid and we made our own version of the 'miracle'. :)

Science. Saara had a few science videos to watch today.  She is always so concerned when the 'scientist' in the video is making such a mess on the counter top.

And our own experiments about evaporation. One of them, the 'rainbow sugar', will take a few days.

Adding a few drops of food coloring to sugar water. Two years ago the experiment worked beautifully yielding a bowlful of colorful sugar crystals.