Snow Fun

Even getting a dusting of snow is exciting here so 6-7 inches is a big deal. The kids were thrilled to wake up to snow the morning after Christmas. They had a hard time waiting until warm clothes could be found to go out. It's been a long time since we lived somewhere we expect much snow so there was lots of digging through closets and the garage in search of things to wear. Luckily, Colin still had some things he has outgrown that the girls could wear.

Colin pulling the girls

That ended with everyone falling

Visiting Santa

Our Weekly Wrap-Up

It was a short school week for us. We spent Monday driving home from Florida. Tuesday was a day to rest and get back to reality. Today, my hubby heard water outside when he was leaving for work and discovered water spraying from part of our sprinkler system. So I spent a lot of time waiting for and talking to plumbers getting that fixed. I'm happy that we got most of what I had planned for school done though. The kids are already asking when Christmas break starts though.

The Three Rs

We managed to get some phonics, spelling, and math in this week.

Astronomy

In science, we learned all about Venus. Some of the things we read about were its temperature, volcanoes, rotation, revolution, spacecrafts sent there, and how it's different from earth.
We learned that there are many volcanoes on Venus. We did an activity to make lava. Butter represented rock. We melted the butter, a solid, changing it to a liquid, just like rock melts and changes to a liquid.

Colin pouring the butter (lava)

This is what it looked like after each of them poured some.

Then we left it to let the butter harden just as rock would.


We also read about how spacecraft studying Venus have to use radar because the clouds are too thick to see the surface. To help the kids better understand how radar works, we did an experiment.

I placed Legos in a box so there were different heights.

Then we made a grid on a napkin and placed it over the box with Legos. To the right, there is a paper with the same type of grid drawn for the kids to record what they found.



They used a bamboo skewer that we colored different colors to poke a hole in each box on the grid. Then they recorded which color the skewer was on when it hit something.


After they finished, we discussed what the colors on their record sheet meant and where they would choose to land a spacecraft before taking off the napkin to see what it looked like inside the box.

History

This week we read about the Vikings invading England, Alfred the Great, and the Battle of Hastings. Since we studied Vikings a few weeks ago, we didn't do any projects or extra books this week. We just read from Story of the World and did the review questions and discussed the map in the Activity Guide. 



Everything Else

We didn't have any outside activities this week. Most things have ended. Sick kids and bad weather cancelled everything else. It was nice having a few days without any running around after a busy trip. If you noticed from the pictures above, the kids enjoyed having some pajama days.

We started reading some of our Christmas books.

I've been trying to finish my Christmas shopping by ordering things online. I think I'm going to have to actually go out shopping tomorrow though. I really wanted to be finished before we left on our trip, but it just didn't happen. I'm getting close now though, but I haven't even started wrapping yet. I just can't believe Christmas is only a week away! I guess I need to convince myself that it is so I can be ready.

Go over to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see how other homeschoolers' week went.

Viking Field Trip

I'm so glad we were able to fit studying Vikings in before leaving on our trip. The kids got so much more out of the Norway part of Epcot than they have before. They have a Stave Church with some Viking exhibits inside. The kids, especially Caleigh, noticed a lot of the things in the exhibits and on the buildings that we had read about. We also went on the Viking ship ride, Maelstrom.

In front of Stave Church

Stave Church

Erik the Red

Caleigh noticed the braided beard just like we had read about

In front of a troll inside store

Dragon head of ship ride

Our Week with Vikings and a Surprise

It was hard for me to get back into school after having a week off, especially knowing that we'll be off for another week next week. The kids did pretty well with it though.

We spent this week learning about Vikings. We read from Story of the World: Volume 2 about Vikings coming from Scandinavia to invade France, Eric the Red and his son, Leif, and the Norse gods.
Some other books we read were Hiccup: The Seasick Viking, What a Viking!, Viking World, Leif's Saga, Viking Ships at Sunrise, Adventures with the Vikings, and Yo, Vikings. Of the Scandinavian countries, we mostly concentrated on Norway because we'll be getting the chance to explore it more next week.

The kids made their own little Vikings.

We also made Viking longships. We combined the instructions in SOTW activity guide with these, an idea I got here.

Molly coloring the pictures for the ship

Caleigh gluing on strips of paper

Notebook pages (mini-books from Homeschool Share)



Questions and a map of to label, flag of Norway, adjectives describing Vikings, a Viking longship to label.
I left the blank space to add a picture of the boats the kids made.

Colin and his FIRST Lego League team spent some time getting ready for their regional tournament tomorrow. They met to practice their skit, possible questions the judges will ask, and robot runs.

We also gave the kids an early Christmas surprise.

Chad made this pizza while I was running around trying to get all the stuff together.

The brownies wouldn't cut without falling apart so this is what he made.

The present



Opening the present




Disney shirts, toys, glow sticks, trading pins, etc.




And in the bottom Disney World tickets





Colin immediately ran to his room, where he pulled maps from our last trip out of his drawer so he could start planning.


Now I have to get back to packing because we're leaving tomorrow right after Colin's FIRST Lego League tournament.

See what other homeschoolers did this week at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Thanksgiving Activities

We've had a lot of other things going on and I have a list of things I want to get through before a trip we're taking soon so I decided not to do a full Thanksgiving unit study this year. We all really needed a break so we took this week off from official school, but we did do a few Thanksgiving activities.

We read some books.

We made turkey cookies.

The kids drew turkeys and pilgrims using Draw Write Now.

You can't have Thanksgiving without handprint turkeys.

For breakfast Thanksgiving morning, I made the kids turkey pancakes.

Thanksgiving Day



In this one, you can see the Lego decorations Colin made.