Week 29-----

 So while its still March  here Spring has sprung! upper 70's for temps and flowers are blooming. Here are our find from our nature walk. Some rabbit fur and  wild pansies and violets.

 I am in charge of sets for Yang's musical. I got the start on things this week by painting our staging blocks in bright primaries.

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.

Minoans and Mycenaens-week 19

YEAH!!!!! We've made it Early Greece! The kids are thrilled. They are huge mythology buffs so getting to some of these stories is the highlight of their year. We've pulled out Percy Jackson's Greek Gods and Greek Heroes on audiobook and they have been listening non stop. Hulk didn't do much of our Mythology study last year (we took a month off ECC to do some when the girls became obessed with Percy Jackson... We've listened to ALL 10 books multiple times..lol) So this is the first time he's putting some of the stories together. Its been fun to see the light bulbs going off. He's also a boy and likes stories about war, and blood, and death.

Math has been challenging... there are days I can't decided if this is really too hard, or if I am giving too much, or what. I am kinda at my whit's end...lol.

 IN MFW 1st  we started summaries in the Bible Notebook. I was actually really impressed by Hulk's first summary. He used the reader and his notebook to help him with spelling but otherwise he did it solo. I had him write it on paper first and then he copied it over into his notebook.

 Hulk and Ying started Basketball this week. Neither has ever played before. It will be interesting ;) But in other great accomplishment Ying conquered a very difficult rock climbing path she's been trying for a while! Go Chick! In other PE related we hit the ice skating rink for home school day. They spent most of the time doing hockey slide and Supermans. Ying taught Hulk and it was over from there.

Week 15.... The Tabernacle

So this week was the project i had been dreading all year.... Building the tabernacle. I tried to wrap my head around this last year as I was previewing.  I have read through the instruction a few times up till now and I have been just seriusly confused and overwhelmed at the idea... Well folks let me tell ya something... I was WAY overthinking this project. Its incredibly simple. So her is a sort of step by step pictorial:

Step 1. Cut apart your "milk" cartons and combine into a 30 cm structure like this. A picture was so worth a thousand words when it came to these instructions.

Step 2... 10 cm from back wall separate the "Most Holy" with a curtain made from whatever cloth you have. There are ideas in the manual for authenticity but for use we were using up scrap... so our "scarlet"= hot pink..lol. Build the corresponding paper structures from the student sheets. Add Lego Isrealites as desired. We have Minecraft Steve, Hagrid, and Coast Guard Israelites..lol

Step 3.... Make the 4 covering layers... Again we used what we had on hand... So our colors are off but our textures are close. I decided the textures were more important then color to help the kids understand how people living and nomadic existence were keeping the interior warm and dry. How you would layer cotton, wool, and leathers to keep out wind, sand, and water. Build outside structure.

4. Assemble to courtyard curtain and enjoy!

SO much simpler then i was making it in my mind!

 In 1st grade world, We started our Bible notebook. Hulk has been excited about this part, but he has his limits. I appreciate the progress he's made in  drawing/coloring.  These are neat and detailed for him. I recognize this as a lesson for me in appreciate each kids gifts. My girls were very verbal and artsy at this ago and Hulk isn't. He's a math and tinkering kid. His aren't publisher samples, but i cherish them.  Remember to judge your kids against themselves; not facebook, or blogs, or siblings, but as unique creations.

Out

Our last project of the week was items for our Co-op bake sale. We didn't have time or energy to bake this week, but we made it work!.... Chocolate dipped giant Marshmallows and pretzel sticks. Quick 1 hour  project that made 50 items.

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......