Our Week: Franklin, Pennsylvania, and Neutralization

When I found out Colin's hockey games on Monday meant leaving the house at 10:30 a.m. and not getting home until 9:00 p.m , I was afraid the week would be ruined. Usually if Monday doesn't start well, the rest of the week falls apart. Of course, we didn't get much school done on Monday, but the rest of the week ended up going great. The weather was really nice so the kids were very motivated to get their work done and get outside. We had three days in the 70s. The kids spent lots of time playing outside, the girls and I did our walks/runs on the trails, and we met friends at the park one afternoon.

History/Geography

We continued studying Ben Franklin, primarily using Download 'n Go. We read lots of books about him, did an electricity experiment, drew the U.S. seal with a turkey instead of an eagle, and played with kites. We also used some lapbook pieces from DNG and Homeschool Share for our notebooks. We still need to paste them in so I'll post pics of those later.

Static electricity experiment

Seals with turkeys

Kites

We started reading about Pennsylvania a couple weeks ago, but didn't get a chance to finish it. It went along well with studying Ben Franklin this week. We finished reading our books, and the kids did the flag coloring page and the other pages for their notebooks. They also made their own Liberty Bells.

Liberty bell art

Science

In chemistry, we read about acid and base neutralization. We did two experiments this week. The first was testing items to see if they are acids or bases. The second was adding a base (ammonia) to an acid (vinegar) to make it neutral.

Making an acid neutral

Acid or base?

Our Week: Ben Franklin, Chemical Reactions, and Rapunzel

Our week went pretty well. I'd really like us to get started earlier in the mornings though. The kids have been sleeping later and I've had to wake them sometimes. I need to just set a time to start every day. I get distracted by other things and don't realize it's getting so late. I know as the weather gets nicer, they're going to want to finish and get outside in the afternoons.

Science

We did an experiment about chemical reactions that went with the chapter we read last week in RS4K.

Most of the things we mixed weren't too exciting, but here are a couple that bubbled.

 

 

We read about bases, acids, and pH.

In Colin's biology class, they're learning about the parts of a plant. This week, they dissected a flower to see the parts. 

History

History this week has been all about Benjamin Franklin. We read about him in A History of US and lots of other books. We're doing the Download 'n Go study. We've done days 1-4 and will finish the other day next week. All week I've had trouble getting the videos in it to work. My hubby tried everything to see what was the problem with my computer. I just saw that it's a problem with our internet company. Hopefully, they'll get it fixed soon and we can watch the videos we didn't get to see. I'll post more about our study once we finish it all.

Everything Else

We read books for Valentine's Day on Tuesday. We also had a special breakfast, lunch, and dinner to celebrate. Of course, there were some gifts too. I still need to get my pictures uploaded and post about the day.

Today we got to see Rapunzel at the children's theater. It's one of the girls' favorite movies so they really enjoyed it, and so did Colin and I. I'm sad that it's our last play for this school year. We've been to five there this year and they've all been really good.

 

We've had some really good weather this week except for yesterday when it rained all day. The kids have liked being able to play outside.

I'm working on the Couch to 5k program. I've finished week 3. I haven't run since high school so it's taking a lot of work. The girls are loving this extra time on the trails in our neighborhood.

Colin has a hockey tournament with games on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday so it's going to be a busy weekend.

Our Week: Marshmallow Molecules, 100 Days, and Cupcakes

This week seems to have gone by really quickly. My hubby was away in Canada for work so I expected the week to drag by. We were all glad to have him come home Thursday night. Colin was excited to hear about anything hockey he saw while there. He also brought some gifts for the kids.

Colin started running a fever Monday around noon and felt really tired the rest of that day and Tuesday. Thankfully, that's all he got and so far no one else has been sick.


We had a Valentine party with some homeschool friends. The girls decorated these cupcakes for the party.

We also had our 100th day of school (at least it was the 100th day that I've remembered to mark down). It's not something we normally pay attention to, but I got the girls one of those countdown posters at the beginning of the year. We've been really bad about remembering to put the apples on. Molly asked to do it on Monday so I decided I better see how many we had missed. Our state requires I keep an attendance sheet for the kids so I went through and counted the days I had checked and found that Tuesday was the 100th day. Since Colin wasn't feeling well, we waited until Friday to do anything. With the cake left over from the Valentine cupcakes, I made 2 circle cupcakes and a rectangle cake. The kids each decorated one of them and then we put them together to resemble 100.

Science

We seem to be staying a week behind with our chemistry experiments. This week we made molecules from marshmallows. The girls spent most of their time eating them though. Colin had to fill out things in his lab book to go along with it so he had to do more.

We read the next chapter about chemical reactions.

History and Geography

In history, we read about Isaac Newton, Locke, and changes in farming.

We started learning about Pennslyvania. We'll continue with that next week.

Our Week: 1/30-2/3

As I prepare for a weekend hockey trip and deal with the fact that my baby boy is turning 12 tomorrow, I'm having a hard time remembering exactly what we did this week. I had to look back in my record book to figure out what we did. My sister came to visit for a few days so the kids got out of some of their normal school for the last couple days.

Science



We continued learning about the elements. We read about the final two groups, lanthanides and actinides. The only experiment we did was using a magnet to make a dollar bill move because of the magnetic ink used in them. We also started back in the RS4K Chemistry book and read about how atoms become molecules and form bonds.

In Colin's Biology class he's taking at the local nature center, they've been learning about frogs. They sent home tadpoles two weeks ago. Half the kids fed them iceberg lettuce and the other half fed them spinach. This week they brought them back to compare the two groups and found the ones fed spinach had gained weight while the others lost weight. They also dissected frogs this week.

 

 

History



In history, we started the week reading about King Philip's War. Then we read about New France and their war with the Iroquois. We learned that Louis XIV saved New France by sending soldiers to help and later sending women to be wives. We also read about William Penn and his holy experiment, which resulted in the beginning of Pennslyvania.

Everything Else



As I wrote in a previous post, we read some books for Groundhog Day and made some treats.


Part of the reason for my sister's visit was that she wanted to take the kids to the circus since they had never been. They had a lot of fun.

 

 

Caleigh's face is because she decided she had a fear of clowns and said her cup was scaring her

 

 

Our Week: More Chemistry Experiments, Prussia, and New Jersey

After a very busy weekend, where Colin had 7 hockey games and we had a birthday party for Caleigh, we had a hard time getting started on Monday. Once we got going, things went pretty well though.
We celebrated Chinese New Year on Monday by reading some books, doing crafts, and making dragon cupcakes.

Science

We are still learning about the groups of elements on the periodic table. We read about the nonmetals, noble gases, and transition metals.

We studied metalloids last week, but I had trouble finding the blue gel glue we needed so we finally got to make slime with that and Borax this week.

 

To go along with the nonmetals, we learned that yeast will let off carbon dioxide when mixed with sugar and water. The carbon dioxide made the balloon on the bottle blow up.

 

We also soaked dirty pennies in Pepsi to see what would happen.

 

To learn about iron, a transition metal, we used iron fortified cereal and a magnet.

 

Art

So excited that we actually did art! It seems to get pushed aside when we get busy. We did a lesson in Artistic Pursuits on portraits. The kids made portraits using watercolor crayons.



Top left: Molly's                     Top right: Colin's
Bottom: both are Caleigh's

 

History/Geography

This week in history, we learned about Prussia, which became Germany. We specifically learned about Frederick, the first king of Prussia. The kids colored the flag of Prussia and Colin took the chapter test.

We also read two chapters from A History of US.

Our state was New Jersey. We read some books to go along with it and Colin made blueberry muffins since we read that NJ is a large producer of blueberries. We also read a couple books about the Hindenburg, which caught fire as it was landing in NJ. We read about it a little in our chemistry lesson on hydrogen a couple weeks ago. The kids did a coloring page of the state flag, bird, and flower. They also filled in their state sheet for their binders.

Our Week: Birthdays, Chemistry Experiments, and the Borrowers

We started the week with birthdays. Sunday was Caleigh's 9th birthday and Monday was my hubby's birthday.

Since Chad worked Monday, we did morning school as usual and then talked about Martin Luther King, Jr. in the afternoon. Molly wasn't happy about that because she thinks you should take birthdays off since we take the kids' off from school. She was even less happy when she saw kids out and realized public schools were off for the day.

History

On Monday, we took a little time to talk about Martin Luther King, Jr. We watched some parts of his speech. We also watched the video version of the book, Martin's Big Words, found here.

We read about Louis XIV, the Sun King of France.



Science

The groups of elements we learned more about this week were metalloids and halogens.

Metalloids:

I got each of the kids a container of silly putty. They formed it into a ball to see if it would bounce. They also pulled it apart slowly and then quickly to observe the differences.

 

 

They did an experiment with static. Molly rubbed a balloon on her head and then they put the balloon near some small pieces of Kleenex to see that it picked them up because of the static. Colin rubbed the balloon with a dryer sheet to get rid of the static.

 

 

 

Halogens:
We used eggs, vinegar, and toothpaste to do an experiment about fluoride.

 

Colin had his biology class this week. They learned about frogs and brought home tadpoles for an experiment they're doing.

Everything Else

We had a great time going to see The Borrowers today at the Children's Theatre. Unfortunately, everyone else must have wanted to read the book before seeing the show too because I had to wait for it from the library. I got a notice that it was in today so we'll start reading it next week.

 

We're going to have a very busy weekend. Colin has his regular ice hockey game, a roller hockey tournament, and he's been asked to fill in on an older team for a couple games. He'll end up playing either 6 or 7 games this weekend. We're also having a Smurfy birthday party for Caleigh.

Our Week: Getting Back into a Routine

We started back to school on Tuesday after 2 weeks off and a week before that of light school. It went so much better than I expected. We only took a short break for Thanksgiving and the kids had such a hard time starting back so I was prepared for it to be a rough week.

Three Rs

Colin started back with RightStart Geometry. He mostly worked on finding the area of lots of different shapes.
Caleigh is one lesson away from finishing RightStart Level C. She really liked working with tangrams this week.
Molly has been working more on place value by adding 1, 10, and 100 to numbers. She also started working on telling time again.

Colin and Caleigh both did Writing With Ease and a Spell to Write and Read lesson along with some grammar activities that went with it.
Molly is continuing Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading and her handwriting.
They will all start back with regular grammar next week.

History

We read about the Moghul emperors of India and how they eventually lost control.

We also read about the Salem witch trials.

Science

We started chemistry this week. We're using Real Science-4-Kids Level 1. We'll also be using Fizz, Bubble, and Flash along with lots of library books. RS4K is actually a level above where the girls should be, but that's the level that is best for Colin. My goal for them is just exposure at this point and I hope they'll find the experiments fun. They want to understand everything though so they're asking a lot of questions and I'm having to go back and explain a lot of it to them. We learned about matter, atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons, and the periodic table.
We read What's the Matter in Mr. Whisker's Room and Bartholowmew and the Oobleck. We made our own oobleck just like in these books. We mixed 2 cups of cornstarch, 1 cup of water, and a few drops of green food coloring.

 

 

Colin also started the second part of his Biology class. It's the first academic class he's taken and he's doing so well. They are also using Real Science-4-Kids.

Everything Else



While Colin was in his science class, the girls had to go visit the horses again. They're so fascinated with them and will spend an hour just looking at them and trying to feed them.

 

 

 

Colin had his two regular ice hockey practices. He also went to tryouts for a travel roller hockey team twice.