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 Grammar, The 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

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