Weekly Report -- November 25-30

We're back!  We were gone last week, but Annika Clare celebrated her 11th birthday on Monday, so between that and Thanksgiving we took the week off.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving just hanging out as a family.  

The electrolysis of water

We started the week with Super Science Sunday and Matt did a lesson on breaking up molecules.  He and the kids set up the experiment and then broke apart some hydrogen and oxygen.   The kids really enjoyed having Matt teach the lesson.  

Drawing their diagrams

Then Monday ended up being a lost cause as I was stuck at the truck dealership service department all day while they redid the brakes.  I'm glad that's over.  The kids did a few lessons they don't need me for while I was gone. Tuesday Annika went for her 6 month check in with the orthodontist and it looks like were about 6-7 months from her braces being put on.  She has 1 baby tooth left to fall out, but it's just hanging on by a thread.  

The rest of the week was pretty typical.  They all did math daily, Everett started a new unit on report writing although we had a little mix up at the beginning of the week and he watched my teacher training DVD instead of his lesson DVD.  Oops!  We were about to reset and he watch the correct lesson DVD and completed his fused outline for his humpback whale paragraph.  Next week he'll finish that up and then we'll move on to writing a 2 paragraph mini-report, followed by a 3 paragraph report.  

Annika has started coming along nicely in her reading confidence and recently picked a new book to read aloud to Matt and I at night.  She picked, The Dragons of Wayward Crescent: Gruffen it was one I read aloud to the kids a few years back, but she wanted to read it herself this time.  I'm quite proud as its the book with most difficult reading level she's picked this year.  Everett and Annika also did history lessons on the Erie Canal and Mountain Men.  Next week we will learn about our early presidents. 

 Lucas is moving right along in phonics and math, he's almost mastered his doubles facts for addition and got a 100% on his first math test this year.  Penmanship is still his nemesis, but he's getting better and less whiney about it each day.  

The endothermic reaction went a bit awry
  

We finished out the week with Super Science Friday.  I did a demonstration on molecules and then we did 2 experiments, one on exothermic reactions and one on endothermic reactions that were a lot of fun.  We even mad a mess with one of them.  Lastly we got the first step of making a batch of cabbage indicator done, so that we're all ready for our upcoming experiments on pH.

This is what happens when mom
doesn't use a large enough beaker
to demonstrate an endothermic reaction
between baking soda and lemon juice. 

All in all a rather fun and full week in the end. 

Weekly Report November 12-16, 2012

Ok, so I didn't really keep my promise of better, more consistent posts.  This year has just been CRAZY.  After my last post Lucas decided to scratch his forehead one night, a seemingly uneventful task, unless you're Lucas.  Instead of just his forehead, he ended up scratching his eye with his own finger, resulting in pretty much a gouge in his cornea.  That resulted in multiple trips to the Dr, as well as to a specialist at the medical college downtown.   Despite this little issue, we've been able to get some school done.  Between my last post and this November 11th, we'd done the typical schoolwork of math, penmanship, a little history and science as well as reading, writing and phonics.

This week started out great because Matt was home on Monday for Veteran's Day.  YAY, another teacher on site.  Matt helped out with any math questions and then stepped in to teach spelling as well as science.  I'm not sure that he'll want to help out with spelling ever again.  Teaching All About Spelling isn't hard, but since I've been doing it for a while now, I know the flow of it which makes it a little easier.

The kids and I had a pretty basic week for the rest of it.  After talking to some cool homeschool friends on facebook I've decided to shelve grammar for Everett and focus on writing and literature for the rest of this year.  Literature won't start until Jan, 2013, but he's looking forward to it.  We may do a little grammar here and there using a program written by the company that publishes his writing program, but it won't be anything on a regular schedule.

Here's some pictures from our week, I hope you enjoy them.