Weeks in Review

 



      So I have been posting on all our outside activities and I can't believe we have one more week until our second six week break! Helping to homeschool my niece and nephew has definitely kept us on a more strict schedule that I am having a love/hate relationship with. LOL The kids are all doing great and I think they really like the routine.

 

    The best part with the weather cooling off is the kids like to read and do some work outside. 

 

    

Science has been so much fun! We are all loving the experiments between smoke bombs and dissolving Styrofoam it has been very exciting.

In History we have finished up our Arizona unit study (except for field trips we will take throughout the year). We are now studying world mapping and cultures and some ancient history.  First up was China, studying The Great Wall and complete with a lunch of fried rice, egg rolls and pot stickers.

 

 



2nd Week of November

This month Joshua and I hosted book club so I have lots of pictures from that and none of Keeper's. For Keeper's they went on a tour of a bike shop and learned about bike safety.

Our book this month was:

We also happened to meet on Veteran's Day which was really neat and just a total coincidence.  We all picked the books and the months we wanted to teach over the summer and I did not realize our meeting would fall on Veteran's Day.

Book club meets from 1-4pm.  There are nine families and a total of 14 boys that participate.
The host serves lunch, engages the boys in a discussion about the book and then usually has an activity for the boys to do.
For lunch we made potato pancakes and beans and weenies....typical depression era food.  Then I wasn't able to get MRE's so I did get a couple of freeze dried foods for the boys to try.

The boys all said they really liked this book.  Of course what boy wouldn't with war and travel and weapons.  :)  We discussed the book and their story chart and then even gave background info on Veteran's day. It was a really good discussion and the boys seemed engaged.  For the activities after wards the boys made dog tags and wrote a letter to a Veteran.

We still had some time left because 3 hrs is a LONG time.  HA!  5 memebers of Joshua's First Lego League team are in book club so they took some time to give their presentation to the other boys.

Since the girls were at Keeper's and Joshua had book club.  I invited Jadon's friend, Bodie to come hang out with him and stay the night.  Bodie's sister is in Keeper's and his brother is in book club.  So my girls went and stayed the night with his sister.  Jadon had been so excited about this sleep over!  They made PB&J sandwiches all by themselves.  They both love to be in their jammies so by 5:45 they asked to put them on.

I was just in the kitchen and they asked if they could watch a show on the tablet.  I checked on them at 6:20 and this is what I found:

Oh my!  Jadon was passed out.  I couldn't even wake him up.  He ended up sleeping through the night.  Bodie watched a movie and then Joshua played with him some.  LOL  Easiest sleepover ever!

They at least woke up early and had time to play.  We arranged the sleepover during the week only because this family is here visiting for a short time before being back up in Idaho for a long time.


Also, the next day was Science co-op and Sherrie was teaching/hosting.  The next two chapter we have been studying in anatomy were nutrition and all about the lungs. Sherrie provided a nutritious lunch with each food serving a purpose and learning point.  Then they did a couple of activities and then we all went for a hike to give our lungs a work out.

2nd Week of the month

Co-op is on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of the month.  So Keepers and book club is on the 2nd Wednesday of the month in the afternoon and Anatomy co-op is on the 2nd Thursday of the month in the afternoon as well. 

This month for Keeper's the girls went on a tour of our local library.  I was probably looking more forward to it than them.  If I had to get a job outside of the home I would want to work in a library and do children's story hour.  Ha!  After the tour was over they did like it.  We all got to even see how books are checked back in to the library.

I just dropped Joshua off at book club this month and I went with the girls so no pictures of him.  His book for this month was Maniac Magee.  I made him read this one all on his own. He told me it was an okay book but not his favorite. I told him that is part of book club, to read all types of books and it is okay to not like them all. However the mom who was hosting had a lot of fun activities planned and he really enjoyed them.

Pictures from our library tour:

I tried to get a couple of pictures for Science co-op.  This month we completed chapters 3 and 4 (we still have a little bit of work to do).  These chapters included studying the muscles and the digestive system.  The mom who hosts co-op for the month is responsible for coming up with the activities.  We usually put the kids into 3 or 4 groups and they rotate "stations".  Each one of us moms will teach or lead the activity at a station. This month the kids practiced using and naming certain muscle groups, they labeled and colored the digestive system and had to creatively make their own digestive system using the materials they were given.  One of the families in our group is my friend who has moved away.  It was very strange not having them there.  However, we are very excited knowing they will actually be back next month for a visit.  : )

Science Co-op

This year for Science we are using Apologia (once again) and are studying Human Anatomy and Physiology.  The kids are super excited to learn about the body this year.  We formed a very small co-op with just 4 other families.  We didn't want to leave anyone out but if we invited everyone we would just be another huge co-op like we already have.  And we meet in homes so we had to limit our number of kids.  : )

We do science on our own at home and then get together one afternoon a month to do hands on activities and experiments that go with the 2 lessons we have been studying.  This really helps keep me on track to get our science done on time for these meetings. Win-Win!  We again met over the summer and planned out the year of which mom would be teaching which lessons each month.  Whichever mom is teaching also hosts.  We usually have 3-4 centers all planned out and the kids rotate in groups to each center.  There is a mom at each center helping out.

This first co-op was all about cells and bones. They made an edible cell with all it's parts, they played a bone game, and made DNA.  It was so much fun and I think they learned a lot!