Week 9 goes on Fall Break...

 So I had every intention of doing "school" this week. We started week 9 on Monday. Then we got an offer that was just too good to pass up. Public school here is on Fall break and a girlfriend who was at the beach sent me an S.O.S. Her boys were fighting non-stop with no one else around. Would we/could we please come play at the beach? They had plenty of the room in the condo.  So after oh like 2 minutes of contemplation we began packing and left early Tuesday morning.  We spend the next three days on the soft white sand and in the clear blue waters of the Gulf. The kids had a fabulous time. Hulk missed soccer practice but got in lots of footwork on the beach.

The kids literally spent hours collecting close to 50 Hermit crabs and Sea Snails. We kept a few to watch  on the beach while were there but released everyone home before leaving. The kids treated this like a treasure hunt. Even the 8th grader, came down on high to join in since well he had no one to impress...lol. We discussed going to the historic fort near where we were staying but the kids all voted "nothing educational". So we just hid all the learning. They don't count complete Audiobook on the way to and from (14 hours of driving and I now know quite a bit of Egyptian mythology), or the shell guide was used to  pick out what kinds were on the beach, or the times they googled ( while on the beach) "what do hermit crabs eat?". Nor do they count the first aid lesson when one of the boys cut in foot and ankle on a jagged rock.  Could have used stitched, but when the mom's are both ER nurses you get " hold pressure, while I get the silk tape!". We taped it up so he could keep playing and then steri-striped when we got back to the condo 4 hours later.. lesson in wound irrigation and edge approximation..lol. It got a little red a few days after we got home and when one of our ED Drs took a look  he was very impressed with our job...lol.. He told us with our deductibles he would have totally done the same thing and put him on a few days of antibiotics, 

We drove into Destin one night and did the touristy things at Harbor walk. the kids liked watching the boats display their catches for the day. Some of the Captians were really great with the kids, helping them identify the types of fish.

While we were gone our family also got a new addition a little early. Taz and Hoss got a new little brother, and my kids got a new cousin. They are all very excited. Ying would have liked another girl to even things out a bit but otherwise she's a mamma hen alright....

Week 8 the end of the Old Kingdom

This week we did special projects on Friday. Hulk Built the Great Pyramid at Giza and Sphinx out of Nano Blocks. He did it almost all by himself after a brief lesson om how to read the building plans. I had to help with the head of the Sphinx ( it was hard even for me..lol)

Look! our copy work and dictation are coming along! we are now in 4th and truly capable of need writing on wide rule paper. So for all of those fretting that your 2nd and 3rd can't do it on notebook paper... the is hope!



The girls special project came from a Creativity For Kids kit called Mummies and More". It has 3 projects.. Make a mummy, a sarcophagus, and a pyramid coin bank. We did the mummies and sarcophagi today. 

Our mummies started as these lovely rubber skeletons. Then plaster gauze wrappings are applied. This was the girls 1st time using plaster gauze and it took a little work for them to figure it out. With patient and very minimal adult help ( i held the rubbery arms.) This was Ying's final product left to dry.

 Ying chose to color/paint/sticker the pre-printed cardboard sarcophagus. Yang however decided to  plaster cover her sarcophagus. It took two attempts. The first she didn't smooth and the wrapping just fell off and didn't stick together. On the second attempt, she smoothed our the plaster  and it bonded to the cardboard and other strips. The cardboard warped quite a bit due to two applications of wet stuff, but we just baked our creations in the oven to help speed the progress.

Week 7---- Hieroglyphics

I am trying to keep up this year with weekly blogs, but I am finding hard to be as detailed as I have been in the past. Also I find myself compltely ignoring MFW 1st. We are really using it as LA only.  I will say that so far I am loving Language Lessons for Today. I am being most more consistent and getting these lessons done because they are short and too the point!

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This week in History were studied Hieroglyphs. The TM shad use making Cartouches out of clay but we didn't have any. We decided to use the girls current obsession with Perler beads. It worked surprisingly well!

Hulk learned to Ice skate this week. We went to homeschool skate, which due to it still be very warm here most people forgot about. The three of them had most of the ice to themselves and had a great time ( and were even nice to each other for 2 hours!!!!).

Week 6

Rexie got new glasses this week to help him see more clearly and remind the kids to focus. They've actually done amazingly well this year so far with all the changes and interruptions. Grandpa has been discharged from home PT and OT so we have fewer morning visitors at the house. As much as my dad grumbled about it, I think he actually misses them. Gave his day a bit of routine. He's moving slower again this week as the cortisone injections from the rheumatologist have worn off, but he's still trying.  I am starting to understand that his sleeping all day has a lot to do with pain. I am just not sure what else there is available..... But now on to School:

We are finishing up with the pyramids book for science this week before returning to SITB. We've been observing our "mummies" and bread. The mummies have been more interesting as all the apples in  something have a hard shell around them, and some are growing crystals up the walls of the cups. The bread is pretty much doing nothing.......

Mummy Experiment day 4

A testament to the preservatives in white bread... going on 10 days and no mold in sight on any of the pieces.Not sure if I am impressed with modern science or disgusted.....

So this year with the girls I gave up trying to figure out my own LA stuff. We went with Language Lessons For Today grade 4 and I am loving it. Really can't say enough.  I am also enjoying the MFW phonics in 1st. I was unsure how it would work after not using MFW for K last year, but Hulk seems to be well prepared for it but not so far ahead that I am tempted to skip. I have come to the realization that the girls read to learn so fast that we skipped much of the phonics stuff. Their public school used a sight word,figure it out, sorta phonics approach that got them reading quickly but not writing well. Also they were allowed to write and spell "phonetically", but no one ever corrected the phonics and as parents we were asked not to correct their writing. They didn't want the children afraid to write because they might make a mistake.One on hand I get, but on another, as the person who had to spend 2-3 years fixing the break down in spelling skills, I want to say hogwash...lol. While they could read, it has taken a few years for their spelling skills to  be even close to matching their reading. I can already see Hulk getting it through the dictation and phoneme work.

So I had to finally show Hulk actually doing some MFW 1st grade stuff. He's only using the phonics portion so its a pretty minute part of his day.

 I forgot to thank my mom last week for also finally getting our timeline started. I plan to "z" the line back and forth on the board. We'll add the 1st grade stuff in as we can too.....

And because I don't have enough science experiments taking over my parents house.... project #3 brewing...lol... Pyramids in chemistry!... We are working on growing baking soda crystals that we can observe for shape.

And Wa-la! Few hours later we actually have crystal growth..... the kids were very impressed as we've never had good luck growing crystal before..........

 And then by the next morning we have......

And then we had to go one step further...

  DAY 7- Mummy Experiment results.... the winner was straight table salt, followed by the control. NaCl provided the most drying power and no mold growth. We took a picture of the cool crystals growing on the side of the cup with the table salt. We speculate that these were formed as the water drawn from the apple evaporated. We were most surprised by the Epsom salts. While it drew the water out of the apple, it trapped the water in the salt or below the layer of salt causing pooling, and mold growth.

Here's a look at our final results......

CTG week 5- Where Grandma takes over!

Well not completely! This week I had to get recertified in Trauma nursing, so I had 2- 8 hours days in professional development classes an hour's drive away from home. Unfortunately we couldn't line these days up with co-op but the " Amazing Grandma" stepped in and became teacher for those two days. She got rave reviews, and I have been ordered to take classes more often. Good thing I have a good self esteem..lol. This week was about mummies and Pyramids. We/they did several related science experiments. We have been adding in Story of the World Vol 1. I am not doing so well at condensing Streams of Civilization but this has been really helping.

Experiment #1 of the week: Preservation. Which slice of bread will mold/decay faster? So we have one plain, 1 toasted, and 1 covered in bactrain ( antibiotic ointment). Kids predicted that the plain with mold 1st, followed by anti biotic bread, and lastly the toasted piece. Their reasoning is the toasted piece has least amount of moisture for the mold to use.

Project#2: Build pyramids from different materials. Here are their sugar cube and paper models. They also did clay and Lego but I didn't get home in time to take pictures before they demolished them. My very mathematically inclined Hulk was the most precise and efficient builder of pyramids. My mom said he was finished before the girls had even counted out the correct number of "bricks".

Project#3/expirement #2- " How To Mummify An Apple"- This isn't part of the CTG curriculum. I found it online and couldn't resist adding it. Basically each cup has different ratios  of table salt, Epsom salt, and baking soda and an equal slice of apple, and 1 control cup. After the slices of apple are buried in the mixture you leave them be for 1 week. After the week we'll look to see which  combination did the best job preserving the apple slice. So check back next week for more pictures...