Week in Review-Week #3

This week has been filled with many unplanned diversions in mini lessons.Which is okay. That is what makes homeschooling so fun and at times chaotic.

Memory verse we are still working on John 3:16. Bug has already got it memorized. Little Man is struggling and getting frustrated that sissy already knows it. We will do this verse for another week or two and then move on. After that we will do reviews. We also are working on memorizing the first five books of the bible in both English and Hebrew. Dad does most of the Hebrew with them. We also do the Shema Deuteronomy 4:6-9 everyday and have done so since last year. The kids recite it in English and Hebrew.

We are also going into the Hebrew month of Elul and will be reading Psalms 27 and blowing the Shofar. We are preparing ourselves and learning about the upcoming holy days of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, which occur next month, in the month of Tishrei. During the month of Elul, we look at all the things that we have done during the past year and examine our hearts.

We are in Week 3 of Sonlight Core C.

Monday we had no therapy and we were able to do a full day of school. We investigated a bug that we encountered on Sunday at the Dillions Nature Center in Hutchinson, Kansas. It was a rather large bug. I am still trying to figure out what it is. I am not having any luck identifying it. Do you know what it is? I even pulled out our bug field guide. They all look the same to me! It was pretty thrilling for my Bug.

We finished Red Sails of Capri  and found out that the mystery in this book is an actual place. We searched for the Blue Grotto of Capri on the Internet. Watched some neat videos on YouTube about it. The link is just one of the many videos on YouTube. It was an amazing place for the kids. Go check it out.

We shelved one book in the Sonlight selection," Cornstalks" it is a poetry book that neither the kids or I was enjoying so I replaced it with, "What to Do When a Bug Climbs Into Your Mouth." It is poems about bugs. It has been a big hit.

Tuesday we had PE and the kids played soccer again. Little Man scored his first goal ever. He was feeling pretty good about his self.

We started our new read-out-loud Ginger Pye. Little Man was excited that he was finally able to use his U.S.A. passport book. Yea, I know we don't need a passport in the United States. It gives us a chance to see the flags and learn where the states are on a map. Stamping something is just exciting for the kids.

Next stop----Syria. They worked on mapping in the Middle East.We sang the song from Geography song. We played with our new map program Wondermap. Stay tuned for a review next week.

Bug worked on a new Lapbook that covers addition.

Wednesday I decided to let the kids sleep in a bit except  the city showed up to chop down a tree in our front yard. Forget sleeping in! So we all sat on the front porch and watched all the excitement. Little Man is always my camera man. I would forget pictures most of the time if it was left up to me. Afterwards we explored the tree trunk and the age of the tree. Little Man wanted to know about the trucks used. It was a fun mini study.

Little Man said, "Bye, Bye big fluffy tree "

We have to wait till the trunk dries up a little to see the rings to tell how old the tree is. This was a fun study for the kids.

Little Man played with a new game we have, Alphabet Mats and afterwards he worked on a number puzzle. Guess what else happened- Bug did her Handwriting Without Tears by herself and even did her time, money worksheets independently. That was a big step for her and a surprise for me. My jaw still hangs open just thinking about it!

Then more excitement. Little Man found something stuck to his skin and screamed so loud upstairs it almost gave me a heart attack. I made a wild dash upstairs thinking he was bleeding or something. Well it turned out to be a tick. Yuk, it was attached to his privates. So we removed it and studied it under a magnifying glass. Then it went down the toilet. Lots of questions from the kids that I didn't know how to answer so it turned into another mini study. On to the Internet we went to find out about ticks. We believe it was a dog tick. I think he picked it up Tuesday night. Praying that he doesn't get sick from it.

We also had another Doctor appointment for Bug in the afternoon. You can imagine that we didn't get much of our planned school done because of the diversions and appointment.

Thursday we did our first science experiment on how our stomach digest our food. We put kiwi fruit in jello and had another bowl without the kiwi. The kids seen how different the consistency was with the enzymes in the kiwi effecting the jello. We also did more maps for the upcoming review.

We worked on Kansas history using My State History Fun book. Little Man cried because he didn't want to cut up the brochures with the maps and Kansas pictures in it. We had some drama but- in the end he agreed to it:0).

Friday- I continued our study on Wolfgang Mozart from Let's Meet the Famous Composers. We then listened to some more of his music.

Our art lesson this week was on Cimabue and how he changed the so called, church art. We talked about how gold leaf was used in paintings. No gold around here so we settled for yellow paper and tissue paper.

Disclaimer: We do reading, phonics, math, language arts, history, science, and geography and all the other areas of study. I just don't mention everything:0) This is one of my records of how much fun we have in school.