Adventures in U.S. History Week 26

I started the week by sorting a whole bunch of library books I got for the next couple weeks.  I love our library!  And so far this year I've only had to pay less than 50 cents in library fines.  Considering I consistently have over 50 books checked out at a time…that's pretty good!  It helps that I can manage our books, due dates, holds, and renewals online!!

We learned about the Santa Fe Trail, Oregon Trail, and the Gold Rush this week.  Many people in our area made a lot of money outfitting wagon trains headed west.  William M. Paxton, who recorded the history of this area 150 years ago, said that of the many people who left our county with gold fever, most were never heard from again.  Very few returned, most died, a small handful made it rich and stayed out West.  He lamented the loss of so many of the county's fine people.

We have two student desks, a child-sized table, and a spacious kitchen table…yet Miss M consistently chooses to do her school work in the middle of the hallway or on the kitchen floor!  Go figure.  At least she's comfortable!

Learning multiplication on the kitchen floor.

She's working away at learning the 2 and 3 times tables.  I plan to supplement her Singapore Math with Math Mammoth's Multiplication 1 book.  It seems to do a more thorough job of introducing the idea of multiplication and the various angles to approach it from.  Plus, you can never have too much practice with something as basic as the multiplication tables!  It's a product I received for review, so keep an eye out for that in the coming weeks!

We've been learning all about Tchaikovsky this year.  We'll go see the Nutcracker in December, but for now Miss M dressed up in her ballet clothes and watched a DVD called Prima Princessa Presents Sleeping Beauty that we got at the library.  It held her attention a lot longer than I thought it would!  We also borrowed the Royal Ballet version without commentary from spunky Prima Princessa.

Miss M finished Level E in Spelling Power this week!  Since Level E is approximately a 6th grade level, I won't be having her do any more spelling this year.  It's getting to the point where some of the spelling words should really be vocabulary words.  We'll pick up again with Level F when we start 3rd grade in January or February.

In science we've been investigating solids, liquids, and gases.  We did some fun experiments with fizz…making raisins dance…and a fizz-on-your-tongue powder that reminded me of a cross between Pixy Stix and Pop Rocks!

We finished off the week with a little nature exploration in our backyard.  It was nearly 100 degrees all week, so we didn't go on a long walk.  But we did enjoy the sunflowers blooming in the corner of the backyard!

We're still enjoying our studies even though I've started to keep a mental count of our weeks left.  I'm excited to finish and excited to start our next year a few months after that!  Oh, and I'm excited that the "bers" are starting soon…happy September…happy fall! 

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Our adventures from previous weeks:

Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, 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