Home's Cool: Week Nine and Ten

 STILL A WEEK (OR TWO) BEHIND ON POSTING

I am getting a bit behind with my home school posts so I am posting last week and this week together. Time is flying by as we work diligently with our school. Here is a little of what we have been up to the last few weeks.....

Bible - Week nine we continued to learn and discuss the verse Matt. 7:24 about Jesus being our Rock. On our camping trip the kids were to find and bring home a special rock to write this verse on. They will keep this rock by their bed to remind them of The Rock! Week ten we started learning a new verse, John 7:37. "If anyone is thirsty let him come to me and drink" We are learning about how our soul thirsts for the Living water and only Jesus can quench that thirst.

We built houses with blocks on the pillows and bean bag.

Then we built some on the table. A wise man builds his house on the "Rock".

History - Week nine we continued our study of George Washington and started learning about the Revolutionary War. This week we continued learning about the war, the 13 colonies, and began learning about the first meetings of Congress and the Declaration of Independence. As we learn about this time period, we have continued to learn about how the people lived.  We made a feather "pen" and wrote our names with berry ink. And every day we read a chapter in Sarah Whitcher's Story, which by the way is a great story.

We made tricorn hats, so the kids decided to pretend to be pirates. Not quite what I was going for!

Writing with our feather pen and berry ink

Science - During week nine we learned about seeds. We learned about seed dispersal by wind, water, human, animal, and mechanical. Very interesting. As we camped and hiked this past weekend, we saw sticker burs and talked about animal and human dispersal. We also talked about the trees by the river and the fact that their seeds probably float - water dispersal. We can take our home school experience anywhere!! Our lesson about seeds came at the perfect time this week. Our project was to cut open a squash to investigate the seeds. Seeing that it is the week before Halloween, there are lots of pumpkins to choose from. Before we began carving our pumpkin we read Matthew 13:3-8 and talked about how when we "plant a seed" for Christ, God multiplies that just like one seed from a pumpkin can produce many more pumpkins from its vine. As we carved our pumpkin we did so with the "Pumpkin Prayer"

Dear God,

As I carve my pumpkin help me say this prayer:
Open my mind so I can learn about You (cut the top of the pumpkin)
Take away all my sin and forgive me for the wrong things I do (clean out the inside)
Open my eyes so Your love I will see (cut the eyes in the pumpkin)
I'm so sorry for turning up my nose to all you've given me (cut the nose in the pumpkin)
Open my ears so your word I will hear (cut the ears in the pumpkin)
Open my mouth so I can tell others You're near (cut the mouth in the pumpkin)
Let Your light shine in all I say and do! Amen. (place a candle inside and light it)

On Thursday we did a project called "Which Flies Farthest?". We measured the flight of a dandelion tuft and a samara to determine which seed went the farthest. We discovered that they went the same distance. Then the kids decided they would be the wind and blew the seeds down the table for fun. 

Isaac thought it was funny that the sticker bur was caught in his hair

Art - Week nine the kids got to draw trees and use Q-tips dipped in red, yellow, and orange paint to make the leaves for our fall tree. Isaac got a little overworked with the picture not being just right and had to be dismissed from this activity so I finished his for him. Caleb thought this was so much fun and the Q-tips were perfect for his little hands. Julia enjoyed this as well as she usually does with art. This past week the kids used the DWN books to help them draw a pumpkin. Isaac's turned into much more of an intricate picture with a whole pumpkin patch and Julia decided to give her pumpkin a face. Both turned out cute. On Thursday of week ten, the kids got to listen to Tchaikovsky's music while they drew and painted pictures. The idea here was to let the music guide the mood of their artwork.

Caleb/ Mama/ Julia

Reading/Spelling/LA - Isaac finished reading Stuart Little this week and had a vocabulary test at the end of week ten. He is still doing great with spelling and has completed 10 lessons. He is currently learning about nouns in LA. Julia finished reading Andi's Pony Trouble this week as well. She finished her lapbook and folder activities. I think I am going to do some other reading activities with her through the end of December and let her start the next book in this series in January. She also finished book 2 1/2 of Explode the Code. I will fill in her reading with other supplemental materials and start her on book 3 in January.

Math - Both Isaac and Julia are doing great with math. Isaac has been learning about addition and subtracting with renaming and Julia has been learning about simple addition and subtraction without renaming within 20. I am proud of them both for working hard on math even though it can be tedious at times. Even Isaac has been doing better about keeping his attention on task while working on math.

Music - We continued to listen to The Story of Tchaikovsky in Words and Music. I also read to them The Nutcracker and now Julia has been acting it out with her stuffed animals! I can't wait to take them to see it in December!

So there you have it... bits and pieces of our last two weeks of home school. Just a few more weeks and we will be taking a break for Thanksgiving already. Where does the time go?