Our Week: 9/10-9/14

I'm still surprised with how well we've all adjusted back to school. We're still not starting as early as I would like, but it's getting earlier. Everyone got used to sleeping in later while I was dealing with the tiredness and sickness of pregnancy. I'm still dealing with some sickness, but it's mostly just nausea and has gotten much better. 
The weather was great this week and I wish we had gotten out to enjoy it more. Looks like next week is going to be nice too so I really want to try to get us all outside more.

History

 

 

We ended up getting in a lot of history this week.

We started by reading more about Catherine the Great and learning how she became the empress of Russia. Then we read about the steam engine being used in Britain and how that increased the demand for coal. We also read about Eli Whitney's cotton gin and how he made standardization popular by making interchangeable parts for guns.

 

We finished the week by reviewing a little about the Jamestown settlement, the Battle of Yorktown, and what life was like in Williamsburg during Colonial times to prepare for a trip next week to visit those places.



We made our own cotton gin to help them understand how it worked.

 

Science



We finished the first chapter of Zoology 1.
The girls did a couple of experiments.

The first used a balloon and soda bottle to demonstrate how lungs react when a person dives into the deep ocean.

 

 

The second experiment was to find out if hot or cold water is heavier. This one was a little difficult
 for the girls to see. You were supposed to color the cold and hot water different colors. When the water came out of the cup into the bowl, they should have been able to see where it went, but it was really hard to see. It worked a little better when we tried leaving the water in the bowl clear and only coloring the water in the cup.

 

For General Science, Colin did an experiment that showed two chemical reactions occurring.

 

The girls were very excited when they saw the balloon suddenly blow up.

 

Art

 

This week's lesson from Artistic Pursuits was about form. We read about what form is, looked at a picture to discuss if it had form, and then made animals with form.

 



Molly's cow

Caleigh's dragon

Colin's dog

 

 

Other News

 

 

We drove two hours to go to an apple orchard Sunday. It was a beautiful day and we all had a good time. The kids picked 40 lbs of apples. We had a picnic lunch there, petted and fed some animals, and bought lots of goodies. The only bad thing was that we had car trouble right after leaving there. Luckily, we made it home, but the car wasn't going any farther. We had to have it towed and ended up getting a new transmission, which caused some rearranging earlier in the week with only one car.
 

 

Colin had hockey practice Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings. We drove to Richmond, VA today for his first games of the season tomorrow and Sunday. We're planning to get in some history field trips while we're here.





Our 2nd Week

Our second week of school went well. We've almost worked up to doing our full load.

Three Rs

 



Everyone has finished reviewing and moved on to new stuff.

Molly finished learning all the single phonograms and is ready to start Spell to Write and Read. She also started cursive this week.

Nothing else too exciting. Colin and Caleigh are just progressing with their usual things.

 

History

 

 

We did 1 1/2 chapters in Story of the World this week. First we read about the French Revolution. Then we started learning about Catherine the Great of Russia.

 

 

 

 

 

Science

 

 

Just as I expected would happen, Colin has insisted on listening in to the girls' science even though he still has to do his own. We started on the first chapter of Zoology 2, learning about aquatic animals, currents, and tides.

They did an experiment to create a miniature gyre to learn more about surface currents.

 

In Aplogia General Science, Colin did two experiments.

The first was putting different things in a glass to learn about density.

 

 

Then he did an experiment with cold water, hot water, and food coloring to learn about atomic motion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Art

 

 

We did a lesson in Artistic Pursuits, where we talked about seeing shapes and studied Diego Rivera's Flower Day looking at shapes. Then the kids made paper cutout collages. 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

Other Stuff

 



 

Colin had his first week with three hockey practices. He'd only been having 2, but will have 3 the rest of the year. 

 

The kids got to go to the doctor with me and see the baby on the ultrasound. I think it made it more real for them to see the baby and hear the heartbeat. The girls have asked how much longer until the baby is born a million times since then. It's going to be a long 4 months.

 

We met some new people at a park day nearby. The kids had a good time meeting new people and playing. Hopefully, we'll be able to go to another one soon. Since we've moved, most of the kids' friends are about 45 minutes away so it would be nice to have some friends closer too.