Friday, April 2, 2010

Weekly Report...Week 30

Wow! The year has flown by! I can't believe it is week 30 already! As far as our Charter School is concerned, we only have 6 weeks left. As far as I am concerned, we have more than that. As far as the Charter School is concerned, this week was Spring Break. As far as I am concerned, it wasn't.

History (Both)
We continued learning about the Battles in New York during the Revolutionary War. I'll admit it, the Liberty's Kids videos taught the boys again. I did read The 4th of July Story by Dalgleish and we added many items to our timeline. Magnus read, and reread, and reread Toliver's Secret by Brady. Needless to say, he really liked it.



Science (Both)

We suspended a solid into a liquid creating a suspension that acted both as a liquid and a solid. That's just a fancy way of saying...we mixed cornstarch with water and made a huge mess!


We also created a polymer and ate it!


And finally, we created a thixotropy concoction. It stays put until you apply some sort of pressure, like your finger, and then it acts as a liquid.




We only have 3 more weeks left of our Chemistry unit. The boys are pretty sad about that. We have had a great year learning about all kinds of properties and phases and changes and such. For the remaining weeks, I let the boys choose an animal to research and a lapbook to complete from Homeschoolshare.com. Magnus will be studying Wolves while Thane and I learn about Giant Pandas.

Language Arts (Magnus)
Grammar...Well, we are going back through our MCT Grammar Island Level book. I dropped the ball and did not have him working through the Practice Island workbook consistently after we finished the grammar book and I want to make sure he has an extremely thorough understanding of what he needs to know. It has nothing to do with a weakness in the program. It was all me. I may actually take a step back from it next week and see what I can do as far as creating some sort of mini office to go along with it. I don't know. Just brainstorming and typing as I think. That is one of the main reasons I have a blog. Helps me think.

Writing...He wrote a rough draft from one of the stories in IEW SWI A, made corrections with me, and wrote the final copy. Complain, complain, complain. "I hate writing"..."I don't want to do this"..."Do I have to write my final draft today"...blah, blah, blah.

Spelling...He completed list 12 and is working on list 13 of Phonetic Zoo.

Language Arts (Thane)
Phonics...He completed some episodes of Heasdprout. I am a little sad as he is almost finished with the program. I feel it was completely worth the money and has helped him learn to read.

Reading...
We started reading through George the Drummer Boy. He is doing real well.

Writing...We did Week 8 of WWE. He really likes writing...at least he did this week.

Spelling...He spelled all of his words correctly! All About Spelling is the perfect fit for him!

Math (Both)
We're continuing to work through the Math Mammoth Blue book on subtraction and they are both doing very well. I am so glad I made the decision to have them working together. It's a lot easier on all of us.


We did our Estimation Jar and Thane won the prize (Reeses Peanut Butter Cup) for estimating the closest. In case you missed the explanation of the Estimation Jar, you can visit this post.


We played a number (HA!) of games of Zeus on the Loose.

Latin

Giving this some thought. No action. Just thought.

Fun Day Friday
We're starting our artist study of Monet but I wanted to give the boys an idea of what the Impressionist style is. I read the book, Katie Meets the Impressionists by Mayhew, to the boys. They both really enjoyed the book. However, if they are ever blessed to see Renoir's Girl With a Watering Can in person, I have a feeling she will get a lesson in honesty from Magnus. He didn't care to much for her in the story.

We worked through a really fun math book today. It's called Math Adventures: Firefighters to the Rescue. Thane, who wants to be a firefighter, really liked it. I really liked it because of the different operations and kinds of math the boys had to work through. It included word problems, addition, subtraction, picture graphs, telling time, multiplication, ect.


For art today we messed around with our science concoction.



Activities

Monday...Winnie the Pooh Rehearsal (Magnus) and the Library
Tuesday...No AWANA :o(
Wednesday...Fencing (Magnus) and Rock Climbing (Thane)
Thursday...Winnie the Pooh Rehearsal (Magnus)
Friday...Fun Day Friday

Thanks for stopping by! See you next week! :o)

8 comments:

Tonia said...

Those science experiments look like fun! Looks like they had a great time with them. Have a wonderful Easter weekend!

Just some guy... said...

You are an awesome home school mom with some lucky kids. Great work!

Julie said...

What an awesome week! I'm loving your science.

Unknown said...

As far as I'm concerned you run a fabulous school. Great post.

Carrie said...

Love your chemistry experiments! Are these from NOEO, or did you get them from an experiment book? We'll be studying chemistry next year, and these looks like great experiments/projects! ;)

Robin Johnson said...

Love the pictures and the science experiments. It looks like you had a great week.

Brittney said...

Thanks for the comments and compliments! It's very encouraging! :o)

The experiments we have been doing are part of NOEO Chemistry but they come from a book called Super Science Concoctions. It is FULL of fabulously fun experiments with easy explanations. We have really been enjoying them.

Carrie said...

Thanks, Brittney! I'm just now finding your reply!! ;)

I'm off to check out that book on Amazon!