Pages

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Weekly Review–Week 2 & 3

 

weekly review graphic 2

Week 2 and 3 of the new year was a bust. We got in a half a week of work and then Kiddo got sick. It was some virus he could not shake on his own so we ended up at the Doctor over the weekend getting medicine to help.  He is feeling better now still tired and coughing but on the road to recovery.  I got sick last week with the same thing and once my hearing and sense of smell return I will feel better. And this weekend DH has caught it, so we have passed around to everybody.  We hope to get rid of it by this weekend because our vacation starts Friday!

Since we have completely derailed from my lesson plans due to illness and this week is a mad house trying to get ready for Disney World our lesson this week will be centered on our trip and we return we will get back on track. 

I am planning all of our lessons this week to revolve around travel and Disney.  We will be reading up on Disney World, planning our travel route, counting miles and learning about gas mileage.  Our handwriting and spelling will come from the Disney character encyclopedia.  We have made our touring plans and he is helping to map out where each ride and attraction are. It will be a light week but fun with Disney as our inspiration for lessons while still getting plenty of learning in.

 

GoingtoWDW

 

Have a good week!

Monday, January 9, 2012

Science Experiment–Rock Candy

For a science experiment we grew sugar crystals, a.k.a rock candy. 
It was a fun easy experiment to do. It takes a little patience since it takes a week to grow the crystals.  
I used this web page for directions.
Rock Candy

IMG_0005-1_edited-1
Supplies needed, water, a glass jar, a cup of sugar and a stick for the crystals to grow on and a cloths pin or other way to hold stick in middle of jar.
IMG_0009-1_edited-1
Boil water and let sugar dissolve, lots of stirring.
IMG_0017-1_edited-1
Setting up in a out of the way to place to be undisturbed.
IMG_0038_edited-1
Day 2 – you can see a few little crystal starting to form
DSC01743_edited-1
Day 3 – I think it is going to work. We definitely have crystals
DSC01783-1
Day 5 – Progress but certainly not like the photo in the directions.
IMG_0062_edited-1
Day 7 – Hmmm it worked but not quite as much rock candy as we were hoping for.

IMG_0075_edited-1
Our rock candy.

This experiment was a success , Kiddo was a bit disappointed we didn’t have a huge growth of rock candy.  I wonder if we had left it alone another week what we would have ended up with.  We might try that another day with colors and flavors. 
This was a fun and very easy to do experiment. the perfect way to start back our school last week. 

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Weekly Review– New Year

weekly review graphic 2

We started back to homeschool first thing Monday morning. Other than changing our location and adding a new daily book, I really did not make any changes to our schedule.
Here is our new temporary school location. One wall of the living room.

new school area
We have started studying the American Revolution which he is very interested in. I purchased a few new books, we will also be using the library a lot for this topic and we are watching Liberty Kids on Netflix. 


Our new book this year is a coloring book on the Periodic Table. He loves it, my child who hates to color loves this book.  We are going one element a day in no particular order, I let him chose.  He reads and does the coloring page and then we look up more information on the element. We are working on a list of a few experiments that we will be able to do for some of them.
This coloring book was expensive $25.00 on amazon.
 The Periodic Table of Elements Coloring Book

I consider it a curriculum book and as much as he likes it, it is worth the money.
IMG_0026-1_edited-1

IMG_0035_edited-2DSC01740_edited-1
This week we have reviewed Latin, spelling, math and done our daily gram pages everyday. It has been a fairly light week for getting back into the routine.
For a science experiment this week we are making rock candy.  It takes 3 to 7 days to grow the sugar crystals so it is not done yet.  Not real reason for the experiment other than fun, it has nothing to do with the circulation system which is what is up next in science. 

IMG_0025-1
The beginnings of rock candy, I hope.

We start winter bowling league this week, he has his first horse back riding lesson coming up and both he and Dad are training for a marathon this spring.  Kiddo will be doing the kid version where over a 8 week period he will run 25.2 miles on his own and then on race day the kids will run the final mile on the race course and cross the finish line just like the adults. It should be fun for them.  I am happy to be the coach and cheerleader.  ING for kids has several kids marathons, if interested you can see if there is one located near you here : ING Kids Rock
IMG_0029_edited-1

Sunday, January 1, 2012

2012 - A New Year and New Goals

 

 

I can’t believe it is 2012 already 2011 seemed to have flown by. We are getting ready to start our school year back on Monday. We took almost all of December off and it is time to get back to work. 

I have been working on lesson plans for the month of January. we will be taking a week off for a trip to Disney so it is a short month.  The first week back I always add in some fun projects to make it a little easier to get back into the schedule. I have some crafts planned for us to do for the trip.  We are going to make rock candy for a science experiment. It has nothing to do with the circulatory system but it will be a fun science experiment. 

He is very excited to start studying the American revolution. I am so happy to see his interest in history since I was a history major.  I plan on taking as much time as he wants on the American Revolution. Isn’t that just one of the best things about homeschooling being able to take time and really study a subject at length.  He has already watched about half of the Liberty Kids series on Netflix. It is available for instant streaming on Amazon also.

I also bought a few books for extra reading and we will be making a trip to the library next week for huge book run.

 

  IMG_0024-1_edited-1IMG_0025-1_edited-1

IMG_0023-1_edited-1

He also picked Neil Armstrong for his next biography read.

IMG_0022-1_edited-1

I found a coloring book for the periodic chart, very excited to start this.  One side has a coloring page with  visual images of the element and the page to the left gives you all the basic information. A great way to learn about the periodic chart. I bought it from amazon and it is a bit pricey, $25.00 but I look at it as a curriculum book.

IMG_0026-1_edited-1

 

We have a new temporary school area.  We have done so much school work in the living room vs. the schoolroom/office we have.  He does much better paying attention that way, drives me batty but what works it what counts.  We are needing a little more space for spreading out his books and things. While I reorganize the office to hopefully make it work better and we are shopping for new living room furniture, I set up a small area in our living room.  It looks a bit odd when you walk the front door but we are a homeschool family. I hope it will work for a couple of months. 

new school area

 

I hope everyone has a great 2012!