Weekly Review- Feb. 13-17

This week we had a lot of hands-on activities and a Valentine's Day Party in addition to our 'normal' routine.  We did an in-depth study of ancient Greece, since the boys are into everything Greek at the moment.  They started lapbooks which look like they will be amazing when completed-hopefully by the end of next week.  We watched a really neat movie on our big screen complete with popcorn:


I meant to show the boys our Greek episode of Drive-Thru History, but we just couldn't fit that in this week. Hopefully next week! 

The boys also made the Greek Islands of ancient times out of Clay.

As usual, attire is optional

The four islands surround Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, (in the middle of a hurricane- no less!),  and Zeus is looking over his domain as the Greek god of thunder and sky.

We started our new science unit on the human body, using 'Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology'.  We read about the history of anatomy and talked about the ancient Egyptians, Hebrews and Greeks and their ideas about the human body.  We also learned about Hippocrates and his four humors.   The boys performed an experiment and mummified an apple after reviewing how the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead. 

Before

The apple on the right still has the remains of the baking powder/salt mixture it sat in for a week.  The apple on the left was the 'control' apple, and was clearly rotten.  The mummified apple on the right was much better preserved and had a 'spongey' feel to it.

We had a Valentine's Day Party on Tuesday with our home school co-op.  The kids all enjoyed a valentine exchange, crafts, cookie decorating, snacks and games.  All three won a prize during the cakewalk. 

You can see J-Straco in the blue shirt on the left, and the Princess wearing her tutu in the middle.  Farm Boy was behind everyone picking out his prize cupcake. The boys were 2 out of only 4 boys at the party.  At this age, they didn't like those odds, although in a few years I think that may change.

We made a home-made heart shaped pizza for lunch- Yummy!

Then, Grandma surprised us by bringing over the supplies to decorate our own cupcakes.  Everyone enjoyed that!

The Princess kept very busy this week as well.  She has a wide assortment of pre-school curriculum, none of which I require.  Once in a while she will join us at the table and work on a page from her Rod & Staff preschool curriculum, or Handwriting Without Tears manipulatives.  However, this week she found some fun activities to fill her mornings. 

One day she made a zoo out of blocks and filled it with her little animals.

She insisted I make a sign for the alligator pen which read, "No eating the little animals!"

They must have been very smart, literate alligators, because we didn't have any trouble with them.

Another day, she found a dead fly and built a little house for him complete with  bookshelves filled with books (small pieces of paper).  Apparently, her 'pet' enjoyed being read to before he was tucked into bed. 

Toward the end of the week we enjoyed identifying and counting birds for the Backyard Bird Count.

Daddy took the kids to buy a couple new bird feeders, as our old ones had broken, and we thought we needed something more official than a plastic bowl filled with bird food. 

Two of our visitors- a Cardinal and Downy Woodpecker

Here is a list of birds we saw, according to Farm Boy:

Downy Woodpeckers, male and female

Red-Bellied Woodpeckers, male

Cardinals, male and female

American Tree Sparrows

Dark Eyed Juncos, male and female

Black-Capped Chickadees

Blue Jay, male

Homeschool on Steroids

We have been so busy the last two weeks- busy with our school work, and busy with life.

J-Straco had his first musical performance at an open-mic night at a local cafe.  He played a contemporary Christian song, 'Free To Be Me' by Francesca Battistelli. 
The majority of the performers were also students of J-Straco's guitar teacher, and between the ages of 7 and 16.  It was a very non-threatening environment for him to try out an audience. He had a huge cheering section consisting of both grandmas,  an aunt, two uncles, and many cousins.  He did GREAT!

The Princess with her cousin and Ima

The Princess with another cousin, and favorite babysitter.

Farm Boy with his best cousin-buddy

We also took a field-trip to the local children's museum.  All three kiddos (and mom and dad!) had fun exploring the exhibits. 

Daddy and Farm Boy try the human-powered hamster wheel

Both Boys spend a lot of time making 'spag-marsh' creations.

The Princess like the ice rink on the roof.  She practiced ice-skating.

J-Straco loved looking at pine cones, feathers and rocks under a microscope in the roof-top club house.  Everyone enjoyed a special presentation on 'Amphibians of Wisconsin', complete with an opportunity to see and touch different amphibians.  The Princess now wants a salamander for her birthday.

We also worked on some valentines, in preparation of our upcoming co-op's Valentine's Day Party.

School work, you ask?  Yes, we manged to fit some of that into our schedule as well, although not as much as normal due to the fact that daddy was in Canada this week and I was in 'surival mode'.

I have just received our new science curriculum: 

and:

  Because I haven't coordinated the curricula, we watched a couple videos for our science this week. 

We watched:



and:

The boys created more 'spag-marsh' (hard spaghetti noodles and mini-marshmallows)  creations, trying to replicate some of the structures in the videos.

In addition to the above, we also did:

Math:  Farm Boy is cruising through Math Mammoth 4b, and has been working on division.

J-Straco tried out some Pre-Algebra from Dolciani's text, but decided he'd rather finish his Math Mammoth 5. He is now working on dividing decimals and converting fractions to decimals.

Grammar:  We learned how to diagram adjectives, and learned about possessive nouns and pronouns used as adjectives. We did some parsing to help identify the differences.

Writing:  I had the boys do 'Winning With Writing' for the last two weeks, and to be honest, I don't think I like it.  I'll need to re-evaluate my goals for their writing, and see what else may work better.

Latin:  We have been reading 'Horatius at the Bridge' and chose a portion to memorize.  This tied in well with our history studies of the government of Rome. We also started using Minimus Latin as a fun supplement one day a week.  The boys created Birthday Cards in Latin, which turned out really cute.  We also started another new curriculum:

I plan to use this a few times a week to work on our pronunciation.  The boys really enjoyed the TPR (total physical response) aspect.

History:  We read about the first Olympic games in Greece and the beginning of Rome.

Greek:   I have decided to make Greek a required course for J-Straco this semester.  He did it last year as an elective, but let it fall off after a few months.  It is now back on his schedule on a regular basis. We have been listening to the Greek Alphabet song all week, and Farm Boy has picked up on the letters and sounds.  My next goal is to entice Farm Boy to tackle Greek as well. 

Bible:  We do a couple lessons a week in God's Names, by Sally Michael.  So far we have learned; Elohim-strong Creator, Jehovah Yahweh-self-existent & unchanging, and El Shaddai-God Almighty.

Philosophy:  Some of our recent topics of discussion were:  Should you be rewarded for your efforts in school, Should you let little things bother you, and Is it your duty to give to charity.  We were introduced to great thinkers like Confucius, Marcus Aurelius, and Moses Maimonides.

Reading/Lit:  We are still reading The Children's Homer, and The Lost Hero, and listening to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  The boys also read books on the Olympics. 

I have been reading Climbing Parnassus, and The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What It Means to Be an Educated Human Being, and listening to The Modern Scholar: The History of Ancient Israel: From the Patriarchs Through the Romans on my I-Pod.

We are so excited that Daddy is on his way home, and we hope to get back to normal next week.