Sunday, September 28, 2008

Week in Review 9/22-9/26

I finally feel like we are getting into a good homeschooling groove! We had a busy week, here are some of the highlights:


The entire week was characterized by lots of art projects. We have our laundry room set up as an art area, with an old table and many bins of art supplies to encourage creativity. This week the kids were very busy painting and painting.These cute little pumpkins were painted by Reagan (left) and Mary (right). Reagan's is a tri-clops, inspired by Avery's math lesson about triangles and the prefix "tri".Avery chose to work on top of the washing machine, he had a bit of trouble with accuracy due to the spin cycle.These are the projects the kids did at their classes. Avery and Mary made trees of different seasons, and Reagan made a watercolor still life collage of a vase of flowers. And Jameson made this masterpiece, he learned about blue this week.


Avery's been learning to read three letter words, here is a game he likes to play for practice:

I write several words and draw a picture and he has to point to the word that matches the picture. He is also learning about nouns, so we spent some time discussing nouns as the names of places: kitchen, mountain, playground, store, etc. He also wrote a book using some of his spelling words:


The Fat Cat by Avery Gray


The fat cat sat on a bat on top of a red bed.


And here is something he did for math: he built a tower from base 10 blocks and we counted how many there were used number cards to form the number: 9938.


Reagan is learning about fractions and percents in math. And he was very pleased to get 100% on his spelling test. He made up a story for grammar.


Mary learned the letter K, and worked diligently in her Explode the Code workbook.


We finally had a full week so we got a chance to get into a weekly flow for our afternoon subjects (mornings are for math and language arts). Monday was history day, Reagan worked on a map of China from the Story of the World. And we finished listening to volume 3, so I guess I need to order the next volume, which covers modern history. Avery started First Timeline, which covers a biography of a historical figure each week in chronological order. He liked looking at the timeline and the discussion we had about history being the story of our ancestors.


Tuesday was science. We had the Montessori First Great Lesson, a story of the earth's beginnings, and I was pleased that the kids remembered a lot of it from last year. Here is a picture of one of the experiments, oil, water and honey seperated into layers:

This lesson has already triggered a lot of interest in volcanoes, astronomy, and other earth science topics. I have stack of books from the library and I am hoping to get the boys going on some research projects. I am really excited about the Great Lesson format for introducing topics, I wrote a lengthy post about it here and I have some exciting plans for this year!

We also covered the next chapter in our Real Science 4 Kids Chemistry text, which discussed chemical reactions. Of course for our lab Reagan and Avery mixed substances from the kitchen (vinegar, egg white, baking soda, salt, etc) and observed and recorded the results. They were looking for one of the four signs of a chemical reaction: bubbles, color change, temperature change, or precipitate.


We also got a chance to look at Jupiter through our borrowed telescope, it was pretty cool! The boys were excited to point out several constellations after I figured out we were holding the star chart upside down :)

On Wednesday we have co-op classes with our homeschool group, Art and Science Lab for Reagan and a preschool/kindergarten class for Avery and Mary.

Thursday afternoons we have teatime- the boys bake a treat and discuss the Sunday Gospel reading. Sometimes we also incorporate poetry, music and art appreciation at this time.

Friday we just started nature study, using the Outdoor Hour Challenges from this blog. This week we learned about trees. We had a picnic at a local park and walked around observing trees, discussing the function of their various parts, and Reagan used a tree finder guide to identify a Bur Oak. It was a lovely day to get outside!

So that was our week!

Monday, September 22, 2008

Sweet Science

Our Chemistry lesson in our Real Science 4 Kids text last week was about atoms and molecules. The lab involved making molecules out of marshmellows! Large marshmellows represented Oxygen, Carbon, or Nitrogen, small marshmellows were Hydrogen or Chlorine, and toothpicks were used for the bonds. Here Reagan made CH4, NH3, CH3OH, and H2O. A very fun and tasty lab!

Look what we brought home from the planetarium...


We borrowed this telescope for two weeks, the kids are quite excited to try it out!

Friday, September 12, 2008

Bouncy Balls

Avery and Mary made bouncy balls at their class on Wednesday, and came very excited about it. Avery tried to replicate the process with a soda bottle and colored sand, but when all that he managed to make was wet sand I told him that probably what they used in class looked like sand but really contained some different chemicals.
As it turns out the teacher uses a kit to make the ball in class. They turned out very nice, I am hoping to pick up one of those kits sometime. In the meantime, I found this list of materials and these directions online to make our own bouncy balls at home. We had all the supplies (borax, glue, and cornstarch) on hand so we gave it a try.

I think it worked reasonably well, except that the balls stayed a bit sticky (more like silly putty) and didn't bounce very well.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Birthday Week

We had two birthdays this week. Jameson turned two on Monday, and Ryan had his birthday on Thursday. We won't mention his age.
Jameson invented a new way to blow out his birthday candle, he stuck a balloon on top of it and the balloon popped and the candle went out. We were all stunned, then Jameson smiled and started to clap. He was pretty pleased with himself.

Here is Ryan and the kids on his birthday. Notice the birthday hat.On Saturday we had all the grandparents over for a party. Here is the cake and a picture of Reagan helping Jameson open his gifts. Lots of birthday fun!