Week 23 A week for the Dramatic Arts

 So this week has been all about the drama... in the best way possible....lol. We started off with the touring production of "Elephant and Piggie : We are in a play". This was a field trip performace, so it was us and 2700  other k-2nd graders from local area schools. The production was very well done and the kids had a blast, especially Hulk. they girls were a bit old for the material but they found it interesting from a technical aspect, especially Yang who is my drama queen ( again in a good way!). Afterwards they talked about the production's use of costuming, and stetting  brought the books to life, but kept true to the original material making it easy for kids identify and connect with.

 Later that evening  Yang and I attended a production of " Bedside Manor" presented by the middle school age troupe of her theater group. It was a musical comedy set in a hospital with tons of zany staff, patients, and visitors. Yang loved it. I loved see how well this group does productions. Its our first year with this group and  so far we love it. Its and interesting balance of talented kids, Christ centered focus, and professionalism.  Anyone can join and every one get's a part, but the kids who seek this group out are committed and have a certain amount  natural flair..lol...It's definitly a step up from our church musicals of the past in terms of commitment but its been so worth it for Yang.

 Despite all the fun field trips we did get some other work done. Hulk is still working of taking his time to write, and this week using a pen seemed to motivate him.  He can do it when he wants, but most of the time he's still a 6 year old boy with more energy the patience.

 Grandma saved our Friday meltdown this week with  wall climbing sticky ninjas...lol. We were in  a bad place Friday morning until theses guys made and appearance. I can not thank her enough.

 On and Adult note: I checked this out to listen to myself last week and have really enjoyed it. They kids have listened to some of the lectures and also enjoyed it. I would not reccomend it for most kids, though. it is meant for college level classes and  adult topics are discussed freely. However  it has helped me greatly with pronucations for the Children's Homer.

Week 22- Saul's demise and David's Rise.

The best thing about this week has been starting the Children's Homer. The kids love this book since they are pretty obsessed with mythology. This is not an easy read...lol but its such a great stretch in style and structure. Even Hulk is enjoying it especially the battles! We are also reading an Imagination Station for Hulk. Not quite such a stretch for him ;).

 Our note booking has taken on comic book form lately. While maybe note producing traditionally written paragraphs they are definitely proving they are absorbing lots of details from our bible readings.


 Next week we are going on a field trip to see a play based on the Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems. This is one of the first field trips we have ever done solely based on Hulk's interests. He's usually just gone a long with the "big" kids. In preparation he asked for all the books we could get from the library in the series. So, we got as many as we could..lol. Hulk loves to read these books and they have really helped him work on reading with inflection. The books are full of visual clues beyond basic punctuation that really work for him. He's also picked a great understanding of dialogue.

 Also in 1sty world this week we worked on the story of the 12 spies. Hulks is making a lot of progress in  his wiriting. He gives excellent recaps of the stories and we struggle to condense them done into  1-2 sentences that will fit in the bible notebook. We are also working on adding more details to our drawings.

Speaking of writing... Writing Strands produced some crazy sentences this week. The assignment was to use adjectives to make more detailed sentences. I think they got the point...lol

In Science this week we continued to watch our might fava bean plant grow. We also started on the started on the solar system. the kids loved the toliet paper roll model of the spacing of the planets.My mom came home int he middle and just starting laughing at the toliet paper rolling down the hall.
The kids also began some classes this week through the Skrafty. These are  fun classes using Minecraft. Ying's been Skyping with her friends while playing and they were building a bible study venue for kids to hang out and chat. They had a blast.

Week 21-Saul y'all

This week we went back to biblical history.  Israel wants a king and to be like the rest of the folks around it. So God give's them Saul and all the pain that comes after. Consequences of getting what you asked for and the freedom of choice. Not much really to show for this week.

Our coolest Science this week was getting the dead apple tree taken down and Grandma and Grandpa's. We found out why it was dying when they cut into it and found it to be basically hollow due to giant black carpenter ants. Hulk had lots of fun watching the crew and then digging in the remains..

 We also found a great article in Smithsonian magazine about new archaeological digs in the area of Galillee looking for clues to what life was really like during Jesus' life. It was a little over the kids head but they loved looking at the maps.

Off week

 This week was an off week because the adult world intruded. Mommy had to work until 3am on Monday morning throwing off Monday. Then I had to go to and professional development class form 8-5:30 on Wednesday and Friday was Grandpa's annual  Day O' Heart procedures ( left heart cath, echo, x-ray, labs, blah, bah.....) Monday was a veg day.... Cold, wet, and great sleeping weather. mom slept, kids played Minecraft. Yep, that's how we rolled. Tuesday We took a trip to the Tellus Science Center the pic below are from a very cool set up the have to help show the earth's rotation. The pendulum always swings in the same plane so as the Earth moves more dominoes are knocked down and the compass "rotates". Pretty cool.

2pm- Cartersville GA

4pm- Cartersville GA--- From some position at 2pm shot.

Wednesday the kids spent with Grandma and Grandpa. They did yard work, baked, went on a walk through to wood to the park behind G & G's house and ran around on the BMX track.

Thursday- we got stuff done at home.

Friday was Nana Day!- My MIL is on a sabbatical after leaving her former position. The kids hung out with her while I was at the hospital with G& G. Ying and Yang got  cake decorating lessons. Everyone went to the library. My MIL doesn't often keep my kids for any period of time..lol.. She said taking all 3 to the library was an "experience"..lol

Trojans Horses and Trampolines- wk 20

 And we are back at it after about a week off for Christmas picking up with the Trojan war and trying out some of the blessing we received this Christmas. On our last day of break we took the kids to Top Golf here in Atlanta. Its an interactive driving range. The only person in our family with any golf expirence in my husband so it made for a fun afternoon as Mommy could be just as bad at something as the kids. Even Daddy was pretty rusty.

The girls spent part of break working on stop motion Minecraft movies from a kit Ying received as a gift. They loved taking stop animation Lego movies last year at coop and this allows them to continue the fun. The one down side is the app does not allow sharing of the movies they made. We hadn't realized this prior to purchasing it and were kinda of disappointed. We had thought they could make hisotry movies to share but oh well.

 Hulk got a Zoob Movers set. Its basically a robotic body that you can design legs, arms, and other features for. He loved controling it around that house..... Now on to school....

 Our Fava bean just keep growing. We transplanted it to a pot and staked it up. We are going to see how far we can go with it.It was so warm that we gave our bean plant some outdoor time also. It loved the unrestricted sunshine.

 As we read The Trojan War the girls decided to use the Nativity scene to reenact the scenes as we went...lol. It was quite hilarious and made the story stick for the kids. Forgive us Baby Jesus for your untimely demise as the hands of the Greeks.

We got some cool science lessons in this week. We discussed how sundials work based on the suns position in the sky. God also blessed us with a side lesson on cloud iridescence ( or cloud rainbows). It pretty rare here in the south to get the condition just right, especially on a 60 degree day. 

My Favorite Christmas gifts this Christmas were 2 rolling crates. One is storing our Spine books and workbooks down at Grandma and Grandpa's. Instead of having to chase books all over the house on different shelves we've sort of confiscated everything is in one concise place. It has shaved tons of time off our day and I am not harping on everyone constantly to clean up behind themselves. We roll it out to the table when we start and before everyone get to leave the table they put there stuff back in. We also got a smaller crate to function as our book basket/library transport. its fabulous when you taking out 50+ books a time now with 3 kids.

We continued on with writing strands this week and I was impressed by the stories I got. Its so funny how different the girls are when it comes to writing. They both finished the assignment meeting all qualifications but one had to get in a lot more details.

The weather finally cooperated for the kids to get their biggest Christmas present. Grandma and Grandpa got them a trampoline for their backyard. It lets them get some exercises on afternoons with Grandpa and during short breaks between subjects during school time. They were so excited to help put it together and finally get to jump.

We had to take a 30 min break during construction while Daddy was on the phone with his program director discussing his capstone project. Pretty sure she had no idea he wasn't "working"..lol