Skip to main content

Weekly Wrap-up ~ Flying Through our Days


Holy Exhaustion! Yep, we're in the full swing of homeschooling and life around here! Whew!

We are doing some great work. I am just astounded at how much both Eli and Brynne have matured in their approach to their schoolwork this year. I look at them several times a day in awe at how independent and responsible they have become.

Constitution Day


Did you know that it is now a federal law that if you are a governmentally funded educational facility that you HAVE TO present a "program" about the constitution on Constitution Day? That pesky government.

As an educator, I don't like being told what I have to do. But, I do enjoy doing what I get to do. On the heels of the second Republican Debate on Wednesday night, I threw together some impromptu lessons on the Constitution to study on Thursday (because a reminder of that day is, in fact, something worth doing), and it was a hit!

We started out with our beloved CNN Student News because we knew Carl would be talking about it. That segued right into watching Schoolhouse Rock's "The Preamble" and then, "Hey, wasn't the last episode from Liberty's Kids on the writing of the Constitution?" So, we watched it, too.

I found three great lessons for us to do:

This American Symbols worksheet was fun. Some of the information they remembered from watching National Treasure.

Filling in the blanks of the Preamble had us searching our dictionary for the meanings of a couple of words.

We ended our time with a Close Reading of an article about the Constitution and it's parts and purposes. This was a great FREE activity pack purchased from TeachersPayTeachers. And daddy even led this activity, so it was extra special. (Love having him home to get him involved!)

I think by the end of the day the kids had an even greater understanding of our Constitution. And, they learned how to pronounce executive, legislative, and judicial correctly. Wish you could have been here for some of those funny moments!



The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew


Plants

Aslan created Narnia this week, and with it the plants and trees. We did a little reading about "The World of Plants" from our Fun with Learning text I picked up at a garage sale for 50 cents. (Good little addition to our library, as it turns out.) We also watched a fascinating, although long, video on Youtube called "What Plants Talk About". The answer? Apparently quite a bit. Very cool.

While watching the video the kids chose four flowers created in Narnia to draw and write about in their Science notebooks. This had them researching on their devices, which is a new skill we are really working on this year.



Atmosphere

We went back to Fun with Learning and read about the Earth's atmosphere, then watched a short clip from Bill Nye.

The kids completed a paper diagram on the topic and then made an atmosphere in a jar.



WWII


It was all about airplanes this week. We are gearing up for our next trip to Pensacola, when we will make another trip to the National Naval Aviation Museum. This time we will be honing in on any aircrafts, carriers, and subs that would have been used in World War II.

The kids did some cool computer activities on "How Things Fly". They learned about Forces of Flight and created their own airplanes to maximize thrust and minimize drag. They learned about wind flow and speed and its effect on airplanes.

Then they took to making some paper airplanes and experimenting on them with different levels of drag and changes to the center of gravity.

We ended our week with popcorn and The Wind Rises.



The Victory Garden


At our hosted enrichment class this week, we planted our fall garden and then took some time learning about war bonds.



Other Happenings


We got to hear our grandbaby's heartbeat for the first time yesterday! It was a special occasion as both sets of grandparents were present. Seeing your own baby's heartbeat or watching someone else's is really cool. But there is nothing like seeing and hearing the heartbeat of the baby that is growing inside the womb of your own daughter. Baby Werths is progressing nicely. He/she had a strong heartbeat and should be arriving the first of May 2016. Kyndal is feeling great, and is now very relieved to know that she is only carrying one baby!



Brynne's sports have kicked into high gear now that she has started volleyball games. She has also added in a Wednesday afternoon pitching clinic. The girl is always so busy!



From the Kitchen


A favorite around here, for the adults anyway, is Bubble Up King Ranch Chicken. I follow the recipe exactly except I puree the Rotel so that there aren't any "chunks" in the casserole. Even my older kids don't like tomato chunks. It's kind of spicy, but it is so good!



The Upcoming Weekend


Rick and I have plans to do some more painting on the exterior of our house. I am also hoping to get it power washed. Brynne has a birthday sleepover on Saturday night, and I have another birthday party to attend on Saturday afternoon. Rick's sister and our brother-in-law are coming for a visit on Sunday evening staying until Tuesday morning. We are just planning on doing some hanging out, playing games, and they are going to attend Brynne's volleyball game.



The Basics


Basics were done every day. In grammar we completed four more days of lessons from IEW's Fix-it GrammarThe Nose Tree; we learned spelling words that are synonyms; math had us subtracting fractions with unlike denominators and then simplifying; in writing we worked on paragraphs and staying on topic (We are using JacKris Publishing's Soaring with Spelling and Winning with Writing); we read several more pages in The Miracle Worker and read passages out of McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader; and, we watched CNN Student News every day.



2015-2016 Hours Logged - 97 1/2 hours (9 hours outside home)
Plus 167 Summer Hours

*********************

We are linking up with Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers and Mary at Homegrown Learners.




Comments

  1. I've always loved how you can take something interesting, perhaps not previously planned or thought of, and turn it into an engaging, multi-sensory study. How fun! I need to take a page from your book and learn to flow with the moments of learning! I can be quite rigid sometimes! How sweet on the grandbaby! And everyone being there for that special moment!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stopping by from Collage Friday and Weekly Wrap Up... Holy exhaustion is right! You all had a packed week!

    We love The Magician's Nephew. It's my son's favorite in the Narnia series. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Stopping by from Collage Friday and the Weekly Wrap Up, I enjoyed reading about your week and "meeting" your sweet family!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Stopping by from Homegrown Learners - Collage Friday 8)

    Great pictures!

    We watch CNN Student news also...starting Liberty Kids with my girls this year...looking forward to "relearning" with them 8)

    Enjoy the week!

    ReplyDelete
  5. You're always doing so much! I love it! And that family selfie listening to the baby's heartbeat is awesome! XOXO

    ReplyDelete
  6. Nikki I love reading about your weeks. You are one of the very first Homeschool Moms I ever found back when you were homeschooling Dawson. :) Isn't WWII an amazing thing to study? Keilee loved it. We also start our day with CNN Student News. Keilee loves Carl.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

We all know that in this crazy world of homeschooling, we need all the (adult) support we can get. Please leave a comment if you so wish!

Popular posts from this blog

ABCya

Eli's reading resource teacher shared a website with me yesterday that I would like to pass along. It's called ABCya . There are separate educational sections with fantastic games for ages kindergarten through 5th grade. I browsed the 2nd grade level, and it includes age-appropriate games about Letters, Numbers, Shapes, Geometry, Patterns, Mouse Manipulation, Art and Holiday games. There are lots and lots of fun and creative games for children to play. They are fun, but oh, so educational. Eli's favorite, in his short time playing it, was Create a Car . A lot of the games also have Apps available for purchase (99 cents for most of them) for the iPad and iPhone. I have been looking for another free website for games similar to Starfall , for some time. I think I have found it. I can feel confident having Eli and Brynne play these games.

Cells ~ It's What's for Dinner

Dawson made edible cells on Friday. He made an animal cell pizza ... and a plant cell chocolate chip cookie ... He reviewed what he's learned about cells the past two weeks, and I had dinner made by someone else. Win, win!! I am linking up at Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.

Last Child in the Woods ~ Chapters 1-4

Welcome to our book study of Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv. To be honest, I have no idea what this "study" is going to look like. I imagine that when we get together I will post about all of the things that caught my eye. And I would ask that you leave a comment, or a link to your own blog post in the comment, about what caught yours. This isn't anything formal, ladies, just a place to talk about what we have read. I have now read the first four chapters of Last Child in the Woods two times. It is just so good. Several things have specifically hit me deep, but in general I just realized that "times, they are a changin'." Things aren't the way they were when we were kids. Chapter 1. Gifts of Nature ~ "When I see birches bend to left and right ... I like to think some boy's been swinging them." ~ Robert Frost What is your definition of nature? What feelings, visions, senses does it conjure up? For me, it's not a