Adventures in U.S. History Week 3

We had another fun week of adventures! We learned about Jamestown, came up with a chant to help us memorize Matthew 1:21, and learned more about air!

Jesus means the Lord saves

We learned last week that the name Jesus means the Lord saves, and this week we learned that if we say we belong to Jesus we should live like Jesus would. I gave Miss M a bracelet from when I was a little girl with the letters WWJD? on it. Little Guy wanted to know: "Why is there a mystery on it?" which is what he calls question marks.

On Tuesday we did an experiment with a cup of water and a piece of cardboard.

We were afraid it wouldn't work, but it did! I queried on Facebook whether it is really air pressure that keeps the cardboard in place and my uncle responded: "In order for the water to come out of the cup, air has to get in. A hole anywhere into the cup would allow air in, which would then cause the system to collapse. But as long as it's sealed, the air pressure from all sides keeps the cardboard in place." Fascinating! And so much fun!

Miss M spends 15 minutes every day with the Book Basket!

Book basket time is occasionally met with some grumbling, but once she delves into the books, she often doesn't want to quit when the timer goes off! I love book basket time because I have 15 minutes to do some housework -- switch the laundry, run the vacuum, or put the dishes away -- or sometimes just cuddle Little Guy who has usually been off playing happily on his own.

Miss M is loving her Tagalog lessons on the computer. She's still a little too shy to use the phrases she's learning when she talks to her grandparents, but she'll get there! She at least overcame her trepidation enough to speak into the microphone and get 100% on one of her lessons!

Screen shot: Rosetta Stone Tagalog lesson

Miss M nearly knocked my socks off as we got started with Spelling Power this week. I knew she was a good speller, advanced for her age. (Keep in mind she's only six and would be in kindergarten now if I had sent her to public school). But I never expected her to test into the program at the sixth grade level! WOW! I'm so thankful that we're homeschooling and can take it all in stride and place her where she needs to be without any unnecessary drama.

Setting up the Cricut and cutting out the letters J-E-S-U-S might have been the highlight of Miss M's week. She had a million-and-one questions about how it all worked. I let her push the buttons and use the tiny spatula to lift the letters from the sticky mat.

Then she grated some peeled crayons and we made a Jesus window poster.

We sprinkled crayon bits between two pieces of waxed paper and arranged the letters in the middle. Then I ironed it all between some blank newsprint and made a pretty melted-crayon picture!

Friday we took our nature walk into the woods, just Miss M and I. Most of the snow has melted, but everything still looks dull and dead -- no signs of spring yet!

We saw some deer again and lots of animal prints! These raccoon prints led right down into a ravine.

Miss M found a bug! She observed it and sketched it, and when we got home she identified it as a Common Green Shield Bug. Then she typed it up and added it to her nature journal!

It was a wonderful week! Next week is going to be a little different schedule for us since we have some activities going on that are atypical. It'll be interesting to see how the interruptions to our status quo affect our lessons.

Come see our previous adventures:

Week 1, Week 2

The rest of our adventures:

Week 4, Week 5, Week 6,

Week 7, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10, Week 11, Week 12

Week 14, Week 15, Week 16, Week 17, Week 18, Week 19,

Week 20, Week 21, Week 22, Week 23, Week 24, Week 25,

Week 26

MFW ECC: What's different this time around?

I am so excited to go through Exploring Countries and Cultures again. The last time my kids were so little -- 3rd grade and Kindergarten. And now they are in 5th and 8th grades! They have grown so much over the past five years. As I began to think about our plan for this year, I realized two things: 1) my gifted eldest child remembers just about everything we covered in ECC the first time, and 2) my younger one hasn't had many of the basics that ECC covers. So I was faced with a dilemma -- how do I adjust ECC to suit the very different needs of both children? How do I shift the focus for my 8th grader to aspects of ECC that she hadn't spent time on before (such as types of governments, imports and exports, etc.) while also taking my younger child through the more foundational information that he missed when he was just a kindergartener? ECC is designed to be parent-led, family learning, with a supplement for 7th and 8th grade. But I came to the conclusion that I need to deco...

Pilcrow pajamas

I finally finished a sewing project...it's been a while, huh? Little Guy has outgrown most of his pajamas and bodysuits. He has several onesies, but they're mostly short sleeved which isn't really appropriate for this time of year without a cardigan. Ottobre to the rescue! I had traced off the "Naava coverall" (Ottobre 6/2009, #3) but it was already a size too small. I "remedied" that by simply cutting it out a little larger all around and keeping my original seam allowance...a bit sloppy perhaps, but time-saving! I actually cut out two at the same time from the same material. I was going for practicality (something for the kid to wear!) rather than fashion. The other one is nearly done - just the leg binding and snaps left to do. Still, I needed to do something fun to spruce 'em up a bit. The other one was voted by hubby to be video game themed, so I decided to make this one reflect my abject nerdiness personality....

Letter posters with memory verses

I have very fond memories of the cursive letter banner that was posted around the top of the walls in my fifth grade classroom. I thought it would be fun to make something similar for our homeschool classroom (a.k.a. our kitchen). I decided to include a Bible verse for each letter. At this point it's mostly for my own benefit since Miss M doesn't read yet. They serve as great reminders to help her memorize these important bits of Scripture while her little mind is still a sponge. (It saddens me that my memorization skills are not what they were when I was a kid!) The fun part is I saved my work in a pdf file for you to use too! Just click the image above to download the file. I laminated mine before sticking them around my kitchen walls with ticky tacky. (The laminator is a new toy!) Enjoy!

CHRISTEPHI

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