Let's start with Friday! Like many of you, we had the most beautiful day! The temps were in the mid-60's and it was sunny and cheery! Fridays are "Freedom Friday" around here, where we wrap up some unfinished work and then I leave the kids to do some delight-directed learning (with supervision). Do you know what is awesome? Being able to leave the house for a few hours to get groceries and run errands and know that your kids are home doing what they are supposed to be doing. They are great kids, and I am so glad that I can trust them to do what I asked them to do. I hope they are like this forever! I am a pretty lucky mom.
So what did they do on their Freedom Friday this week? They finished watching a video about squirrels (because our internet was not cooperating early in the week) and then they did some research on squirrels and badgers and filled out some worksheets. This is a concept that is difficult for Eli, but he pushed through. His skills are getting better every time he researches.
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| Never too old for Wild Kratts. |
Their favorite thing to do is watch an episode or two of Brain Games. They read out of their personal books for about an hour, and they each worked on their UniversalClass courses. Brynne did a lesson in Dog Psychology 101 and read out of How to Speak Dog by Stanley Coren. Eli watched a video from Astronomy 101 and read out of Night Watch by Terence Dickinson.
Finally, they did a little camouflaging activity where they took cars outside and attempted to camouflage them from the "enemy". U.S. soldiers needed to be very careful about camouflaging their vehicles, especially supply trucks. This activity came out of our WWII for Kids book.
The rest of the week was good, as well ... just cold.
The Basics
We are moving along nicely with our basic studies. We continue to do increasingly complex division problems with fractions. Spelling and Grammar lessons are going just fine. This week we revisited the "i before e" rules and learned about main/independent and subordinate/dependent clauses and subordinate conjunctions. I was very proud of how they conquered this topic. We read more of Prince Caspian and On the Far Side of the Mountain. Eli finished Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Old School and started How to Ride a Dragon's Storm. Brynne finished Warriors: Dawn and started Warriors: Starlight. Finally, we read and did more copywork of three selections from McGuffey's.
Of course we watched CNN Student News each day. And we learned that they are now taking reservations for their new CNN Student News VIP tour. We are going to be in Pensacola, Florida, in April so we decided to book a tour and head to Atlanta for a day. My kids are so excited to get a behind-the-scenes look at CNN Student News and to get to meet Carl Azuz in person!! Secretly, I'm a little excited myself!
Activities
We learned about the armor and weaponry of knights. The kids made some edible knights. It was just for fun.
They did an entire lesson about blacksmiths with a reading comprehension fill-in-the blank assignment and a word search.
Enrichment Class
The kids in our class took an energy and recycling quiz and completed some recycling Scrap Libs. These two activities earned them enough points to send in a photo to the WWII Museum in New Orleans and receive their first prizes in the Get in the Scrap program.
On the Web
I am an avid Aldi shopper. Here is a great article about their attempts to bring in more organic foods. That makes me happy!
And I just loved this.
In Other News
Today was a super busy day with Brynne having two basketball games, both kids bowling, and Eli going rock wall climbing with a friend. We also got to get a glimpse of the American Bald Eagles who have been hanging out at our city park the past month or so. We have been told there have been up to 22 of them at one time, but now there appears to only be two. Beautiful!!
We also did a little photo shoot and decided it was time to make this announcement ...
Our grandbaby is due in September. Mama is doing great, but this time is definitely feeling pregnant with exhaustion and sickness. She is happily sick, however, knowing that it just means that she has a strong pregnancy. We have seen the baby's heartbeat on an ultrasound and she has her first office appointment on Wednesday. This appointment will be a nerve-wracking one for her as it was at this appointment that she learned that she had miscarried her first baby. We are praying to hear that sweet heartbeat with the doppler at the appointment. If you have a moment, please be praying for her and Collin.
2015-2016 Hours Logged - 560 1/4 hours out of 1,000 required hours (206 hours outside home)
Plus 83 Summer Hours
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Love the edible knights! My grandfather was a blacksmith. I would have loved to read up on the trade with you.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe you're going to have a grandbaby! So exciting!!!!
ReplyDeleteWe are trying to schedule a tour with Carl as well. Super excited.
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