Our Week: Rockwell, Castles, and Earth

We were a little slow getting started after being on vacation, but we ended up having a pretty good week. We did spelling, math, phonics, art, history, and science. I hope to get the rest of our subjects added back in next week.

Art Museum Field Trip

We had a field trip this week to the NC Museum of Art. We got to tour the Norman Rockwell exhibit with our homeschool group. I was really impressed with how much of his work they had and they also had all of the covers he did for the Saturday Evening Post. The docent we had did a really good job of explaining things to the kids and asking them questions.
We used Discovering Great Artists for this week's art assignment. The kids had to draw pictures that tell a story like Norman Rockwell's pictures do. We also read a couple books about Rockwell and looked at pictures of many of his paintings to prepare for our museum visit.

We were also able to see some of the other temporary exhibits they have right now. Inverted Utopias are mostly wooden sculptures of people. Some of the people are upside down or flying above you. The kids thought they were neat. Fins and Feathers is a collection of children's book illustrations.

While we were there, we stopped in to check out the Ancient Egyptian collection. I had wanted to do that in September when we were studying Egypt, but didn't make it there.

History

This week we learned about how English is a mix of different languages. We did an activity with Play-Doh to help the kids understand. We started with 5 colors of Play-Doh labeled Old English, Latin, Viking, French, and Celtic. We mixed one color at a time into the red (Old English).

Then we ended up with this brown that doesn't look anything like the original colors.

We also learned about feudalism and stone castles.
For fun, we made our own castle with Kix cereal, marshmallows, and butter. The kids made walls, towers, and the keep in the middle.

It sure was sticky, but they managed to start shaping it pretty well.

The walls weren't enough to protect this castle. The kids started grabbing it as soon as I snapped the picture and they all said it was yummy.

Astronomy

In Astronomy, we started learning about earth. We learned about all the differences between earth and the other planets that allow us to live here. We also learned about the reason for seasons. For our experiment, we used a flashlight for the sun to show how the tilt of the earth causes the sun's rays to sometimes shine directly on us and at other times to be more spread out. 

Everything Else

Colin had his first official hockey game this week. He has said for a long time that he wants to be a goalie. Apparently that's not what lots of kids choose so he is the only goalie on his team. He was so excited and had a great time playing. Here he is somewhere inside all this stuff.

Warming up before the game

We also met with our First Lego League group to play. It's the first time we've gotten together since the regional tournament so the kids were all happy to see each other.

Visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see what others did this week.

Skating

We took the kids skating during Christmas vacation. It was horribly busy there. Caleigh and Molly have only been skating once before. Caleigh didn't want to go out with so many people so she sat out for most of the time. She did finally go out and did well. Molly was a little nervous, but she did keep trying. She didn't want to let go of the wall though. Colin was so sweet and would stop skating whenever I asked him to help Molly.

Molly hanging on to Colin and the wall

Colin was finally able to get her away from the wall here

He was trying to pull her away from the wall, but she wasn't going for it

Caleigh finally went onto the floor

Picking Oranges

While in Florida, we found a place nearby to pick oranges and grapefruits. I think the kids were as excited about that as they were about going to Disney World.

Our New Year's Eve Celebration

I've had an idea for New Year's Eve in my planning stuff for at least a couple years, but never managed to find the time to do it. I think it was in Family Fun magazine and I've seen several people on the Five in a Row message boards do it. I didn't think I was going to get to it again this year because I still hadn't gotten the bags ready at 2:00, but I decided to just go ahead and quickly get them together. I had already gathered things for us to do and my hubby helped me come up with rhymes for them.

Here are the bags with clocks telling the kids what time to open each and a little rhyme about what is in the bag.  

Bag #1
Today is the last day of the year.
Get ready to have fun and cheer.
Let's make some friends to help celebrate the day;
Be careful though, sometimes these friends try to run away.

Inside the bag: candies, icing, and gingerbread people

Bag #2
Attention girls and boys,
Use things in this bag to make some noise.

Inside bag: paper plates, markers, beans

Since we had the markers out, we went ahead and decorated a Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011 sign

Bag #3
Now that you've had some food,
Use this stuff to get into the party mood.

Inside bag: necklaces and I gave them their party hats

You can see pictures of them below.


Bag #4
We've traded victories through the year,
Open this bag and the final champion will appear.

Inside bag: games

I was gone for a few minutes and came back to find them playing blackjack and betting beans.

Molly was the big winner

Then it was time for Uno, one of the kids' favorite games.

Molly was too worried about the cookies to play much.

Bag #5
It's dark now so there isn't any sun.
That's okay because we're just wearing these for fun.

Inside bag: 2011 glasses

Game playing continued with Hedbanz, a game Molly got for Christmas. They all really like it. You try to figure out what you are by asking everyone else questions.

Molly trying to cheat and see what her card is

Bag #6
With all this fun going on, the house is probably a wreck.
Let's not worry about that and sit down to watch Shrek.

Inside bag: Shrek movie and popcorn

Kids in our theater with popcorn and drinks ready for the movie

Bag #7
The end of the year has come at last,
Open this bag to have a blast.

Inside bag: sparklers, poppers

Colin's lego ball drop he made

Bag #8
Snuggle up with the ones you love most,
It's time for the New Year's toast.

Inside bag: plastic wine glasses

Happy New Year!

Even though we did pretty much the same things we always do on New Year's Eve, the kids really liked the bags and have already asked to do them again next year. I'm going to really try to get them done ahead of time next year.

Christmas Pictures