School Over Christmas

Originally, my husband's last day of work was going to be Tuesday of this week. But, then he found out he could still use some of his vacation days the first week of the new year, so he's going to take a few days off then. So his last day will be Friday. Since our weeks are out of alignment from the teacher's manual, I didn't want to do 3 days of school of a week, and then take 2 weeks off, and then finish off the last 2 days of a week. Rabbit needs a little more continuity than that.

The plan for Rabbit is to work on Math, Spelling, Writing and her AWANA T-n-T verses for the rest of this week. The boys are going to be doing Math and Reading/Phonics - focusing on word families for practice. And then, we're going to do a lap book I found at CurrClick called "The Arrival of a King." It is all about the birth of Jesus and all the people in the Bible story. That will cover our Bible and History and Writing and Art (cutting and gluing) for the next 3 days, and maybe even Monday and Tuesday next week. Plus, we'll throw in a little home-ec class with baking some Christmas treats for the neighbors. This will give us our 4 hours a day as needed by state law in order to count as school days.

I've been wanting to try more lap booking, but I didn't think I could design my own. I think doing a big one like this may give me more ideas on some to do next summer.

Week 17 in CTG - Halfway Done!

Whoo-hoo! Half-way done! It is great to get to the half-way point before Christmas.

Bible this week was encouraging. Reading about Joshua's faith as he lead the Israelites into the Promised Land was just uplifting. There was one verse, when we read about when he died, he told the people, "Be very careful to love the Lord your God." I just thought that was so interesting. We usually say, "Be careful!" to our kids when we think they are about to get hurt or do something wrong. And here is Joshua saying, "Be very careful to love the Lord your God." Like you have to watch out for distractions and other things that might keep you from loving Him.

In History we covered basically the fall of Ancient Egypt. It was interesting to read how once the priests were in power, things seemed to deteriorate quite quickly. We read about the Senet game, but didn't make it yet.

We did all the Science experiments this week. We dropped different sized marbles into Moon Sand (tm) to see how craters are formed on the moon. We took a globe, softball, and flashlight into the bathroom to model solar and lunar eclipses. And, we taught Barbie how to bungie jump. That was the favorite - even Tigger and Pooh got into that one. The lesson said to have her dive into a bowl of water, we decided that would be too messy. One thing about Barbie bungie jumping, instead of pushing her off the "diving board" we dropped her from the height of the diving board. We noticed when we pushed her that the rubber bands would reach their maximum stretch at an angle rather than straight down. So, instead of doing that, we held her parallel to the board and then just let her go. For a fun "experiment" I attached another Barbie and asked, "Will they hit the floor or not?" (We had one Barbie stopping about 1 inch above the floor.) The children said they would hit the floor, and they did. Then we talked about how the rubber bands were kind of overcoming gravity when they pull Barbie back. We also talked about how perfect gravity is. It keeps us on the earth, yet we can briefly over come it when we jump. It keeps on on the earth, yet we can lift our hands over our heads. So, it was a good little discussion. Science got an A this week.

In Art, we talked about Warm colors. Rabbit really didn't like making the distinction between warm and cool colors. I had to explain to her that it didn't mean that one set was better than the other, that's just what they were called.

In Reading, Rabbit finished her Pathway reader. We'll start up in the Abeka readers again after the New Year.

In Spelling, we've finished up to Lesson 21 in book 3. Sometimes I'm not sure she has truely mastered a concept. She'll memorize a rule, and can pass the key cards and sound cards and everything, but it doesn't always come out in her writing. But, we keep working on it.

In Math, we're only at lesson 10. But, I am pleased with how she is remember concepts from last year - like multiplying 2 digit numbers together.

For Writing Strands, we are at the lesson describing the placement of furniture in a room. I tried to get her to do Crystal's suggestion of the bathroom, but Rabbit wanted to do the living room. It is fine. We're only going to describe the "major" pieces of furniture, as there is a lot of furniture in the room.

Treasures of the Snow is an awesome book. We are so enjoying it. The kids are always eager to find out what happens next.

Week 16 in CTG

Well, the rest of the week didn't seem as intense as day 1. Whew! I guess sometimes that happens.

For Bible time we are working on memorizing Psalm 23. Rabbit has memorized it before - in Sparks at AWANA. We're doing the NIV version rather than KJV. This week we covered from the Twelve Spies going into Canaan, to Rahab.

In History, it was fun to study what was happening in the Americas during this time period. Some of the similarities and differences between the development of Africa and South America, versus what the North American Indians were doing. Very interesting how the religions between Africa and South America seem similar - with priests in charge, and worship centers and such. Rabbit made the remark at one point, "It just shows you how much they needed Jesus."

We didn't do any of the science. It was too cold to go outside for the Solar Weenie Roaster. And since Rabbit doesn't like fire, we didn't do Solar Peanuts, either. But we talked about how trees take in the sunlight just like peanuts, and when we burn wood, we're burning trees, which means we are releasing the sunlight captured by the tree.

I really enjoyed the lessons from God and the History of Art this week. Rabbit and I did them together, which made it more fun for her, and made it go a little faster.

I love Bach. So much of his music is light and upbeat. We enjoyed listening to the Concertos.

The rest of our topics (Vocabulary, Spelling, Math, Writing Strands, and English) are going well. Rabbit is struggling with divide by 4 and divide by 6, but we'll keep plugging at it.

Week 16, Day 1 in CTG

Well, normally I don't do day-to-day updates, at least not this year.

I am today, just to give a heads up - to me, the Bible and History were especially long today. It took us a little over an hour to get them done. It was good stuff. Rabbit really enjoyed learning about how people first came to North and South America. And while reading the Ancient World book Rabbit dug out our Usborne Book of World History and we looked at some more pictures and ideas of what that time period might be like. So, not that it wasn't good, it just seemed to take a lot longer than usual.

For science, we were suppose to kind of map to scale our solar system. Well, it was snowy and cold, so we didn't do it. But, we discussed the distances and how Jupiter is twice as far away from the sun as the first 4 planets. We should try to do it in centimeters. I'm not to worried about comparing the scale of the planets. A couple of the books in book basket from last week (that we haven't returned yet) had models that showed the planets in scale to each other, but none of them showed distance comparisons.

You know, there's an old joke that goes, "Did you hear about the atheist-insomniac-dyslexic? He lays awake at night wondering if there is a dog." Well, in spelling today, one of our dictation sentences was, "We shopped for dog food and catnip." Rabbit wrote, "We shopped for god food and catnap." Sigh. At least she remember to capitalize and use a period.

English we did on the couch. It was Intermediate Language Lessons lesson 46. We didn't do the dictation part, but we talked about the rest and did the outline.

Math was the area of a triangle. So, I took a couple of pieces of paper, one like a rectangle and the other like a parallelogram and cut them in half to show how they make triangles, so the area is one half of the base times the height. She got it just fine.

We're back to the Pathway reader. The Abeka reader was great. We're almost done with the Pathway reader. I expect we'll be done by the end of this year. I have other Abeka readers, so it's not a problem.

In art, we did complementary colors. I did the lesson with her. I've read about color wheels before, and Primary, Secondary and Tertiary colors and such. But, this lesson with complementary colors just really made a lot of sense to me. I love it when I learn something. It was funny, we were trying to remember the different pairs, and this is what we came up with: red and green are Christmas; blue and orange are the Broncos' (NFL) team colors; and purple and yellow are the colors of the cleaning gloves I use. So, to remember the pairs Rabbit said, "The Broncos played at Christmas wearing Mom's cleaning gloves."

We're at lesson 15 in Spanish. Rabbit told me today she wanted to learn French. Now, why would she suddenly want to learn French? Well, she watched to Barbie and the 3 Musketeers in French in the car on the way back from Thanksgiving vacation. Don't ask me why. I know she sometimes watches her "Bella Let's Dance" DVD in the other languages. I guess she wants to be able to understand all the words. Plus, in ballet, most of the words are French. I said my only problem with that was that I don't know any French. I told her that in Jr. High and High School she could pick whatever language she wanted. She seemed happy with that possibility.

Sickness Finally Arrives

Not that we wanted it to. While we were in Las Cruces, NM, visiting family for Thanksgiving, Tigger started running a 102.7 degree temperature (actually, that was Thanksgiving day). Thank goodness for 24x7 Walgreens. Later that day, Pooh finally started running a fever, too. Friday morning Tigger had 103.2, and Pooh was 102.3. They were eating well, and over-the-counter meds seemed to bring their temperatures down to "normal" so we went ahead and drove the 12 hour drive back (even though the nurse I talked to with our health care provider didn't seem to think like it was a great idea). Saturday, the boys had sniffles and coughs, but no fever. This morning, Rabbit has the fever and stuffy nose. The boys still have sniffles and coughs. Rabbit needs to get better by Wednesday, as it is her last dance class before the fall recital. They have practice/dress rehearsal again next Monday, but Monday night is the performance. Eeek!

Week 15 in CTG

This week, History covered building the Tabernacle. A hands-on activity, and worth every effort. Now, we didn't have enough scrap fabric of the right size to do all the curtains - we used fabric for the curtain that separates the Most Holy Place and Holy Place, and then we used tissue paper and packing paper for the curtains over the top. The first day, you make the Most Holy Place and the Ark of the Covenant. Here's our Ark:

The next day you make the Alter of Incense, Table for the Bread, and the Lampstand. Here they are, placed in the Holy Place:

Then, you put the curtains over the top, kind of like this (you can see the purple tissue paper, then a layer of packing paper, then yellow tissue paper, and then packing paper again):

The last two days, you make the Bronze Basin and Altar of Burnt offering, and enclose it with the Courtyard Curtains:

(I just love how it fits perfectly on our coffee table.) We didn't glue the curtains together - and we forgot to color the front curtains. Not gluing will allow us to "pack it up" easier. The pictures in Victor and in my study Bible really helped give a feel for the whole thing.

For Science we are moving into studying Sun, Moon and Stars. We go camping in the summer, so the kids have seen the night sky. It's very cold here at night now, so Rabbit and I only spent a few minutes outside. We did try to spot a couple of constellations. For "Slow Motion in the Sky" - we went out to dinner one night, and before we left, we found a constellation and made note of where it was in the sky. Then, when we came back, we saw where it "moved" to. Then, the "Galaxy in a Cup" experiment - well, we don't drink coffee. So, I used warm water and blue food coloring. Stir the water, drop in a drop of blue food coloring, and viola! spiral galaxy:

We didn't really work too hard at memorizing the planets in order. What is really cool is next summer they will be redoing our local park. They are going to do a solar system/space theme. They are going to put markers across the park to show how far each planet would be from the sun to scale! I see that we're suppose to do that next week, and we'll still try, but I think it is going to be cool that we can go over to the park and see it too. The people designing the park said that the scale they are using will just fit all the way out to poor old demoted Pluto.

In Art, we did Tertiary Colors and Coloring with line. Rabbit didn't really do a great job on Coloring With Line.

We did a little school on Monday of Thanksgiving week - memory verse test, vocabulary test, and a Math quiz, so we wouldn't have a week off and then 3 tests. Rabbit did fine on all of those. Math-U-See added in reviewing of multiplication of 2 digit numbers, and Rabbit remembered how! And, she didn't miss those on the quiz. (She reverses 42 and 24, so she always gets 6x4 and 6x7 mixed up. Those were the problems she missed on her math quiz.)

Week 14 in CTG

This week Bible and History cover The Exodus through all the laws. We talked about eating manna every day for 40 years. (What if we had to eat pop corn or Cheerios for every meal?) That would get old. We talked about why God had to give them the new laws.

(It was interesting, I found a book through the library by Gilbert Morris called By Way of the Wilderness - it is a historical fiction (with a little romance thrown in) of the account of the Exodus. It had some interesting points - true or not, I don't know. First, that the Israelites had been slaves for 400 years. They didn't know how to behave themselves without someone ruling over them. They'd rather be slaves and know what the day held, than be free and face the unknown. So, they needed someone schooled in being a leader (like Moses). Second, how Moses being a shepherd for 40 years (hmmm, weren't other great leaders, like King David, shepherds too) really helped him lead his people and care for them. Anyway, it was an interesting supplement for me to read while studying the Exodus.)

Science was a little better this week. We didn't do "The Little Guys...Again," but we read through it. We did try "The Good, the Bad, and the Tasty," but we weren't able to get any "bubbling" effect. I suspect our water may have been on the cool side. (I bake bread regularly, and use the hottest water out of the tap I can get for my sponge.) We didn't do "Floating in the Salty Sea." Rabbit said they had tried an experiment like that in Sunday School once as an object lesson, and they couldn't get it to work. We did do the "Parfait of Color" - using syrup, water, olive oil and rubbing alcohol (only 4 layers) - and that did work. I think we'll try the yeast experiment again someday, with a little bit warmer water.

Art lessons were more interesting this week. We learned about Primary and Secondary colors and filling in a color wheel. We tried mixing to get Secondary colors, and then "pure" secondary colors. It was hard to mix.

We'll be finishing up the Abeka reader we started several weeks ago. Rabbit is loving the story. We'll go back to the Pathway reader next.

Everything else is going well. Writing Strands is a bit harder for us. I'm not sure I'm doing it justice. Much of the time I'm writing and Rabbit is copying - we do discuss, but sometimes I wish she would come up with ideas. I have a friend who has IEW that I may borrow to review. Something more "formulaic" may work better for us. We'll see.

Week 13 in CTG

This week we finished out the plagues. Starting with boils and hail... well, we didn't tape red paper patches on Pharaoh and his officials. But, we had a really bad hail storm earlier this summer, so we talked about that and how the Bible said it destroyed the crops. For the plague of locusts we talked about what they are and how they can eat everything green. An interesting note in my study Bible said that the plague of darkness may have been a horrible sand storm, "darkness they can feel" was the wording. The death of the first born was very sad for Rabbit. She doesn't like sad things happening.

Science was frustrating. The first experiment - getting string/thread to melt into an ice cube so it would stick - we could NOT get it to work. We must have tried 7 or 8 times, different strings, different amounts of ice, different ice cubes. Here is one picture of our many attempts:

We did the White Powders experiment. I didn't have any aspirin, so we used vitamin C tablets instead. It was easy to see what dissolved and what didn't. Actually, the vitamin C didn't completely dissolve. We didn't do the pH indicator with the cabbage. But, I do want to go back and do it sometime in the future. We just didn't have time to make our indicator juice.

The rest of our subjects (Math, Spelling, English, Writing, Reading, Spanish) are going well. We've moved writing to Thursday and Friday, as often there is writing in English, and that would be too much for Rabbit.

I'm not sure Rabbit is totally enjoying the art lessons. They take a bit of work, and I think she would like them to be easier. We did start learning about Bach this week, so that was good.

We started Treasures of the Snow. Yet another book that is going to be awesome to read to the kids.

Week 12 in CTG

This week covers from The Burning Bush through the first five plagues in Egypt.

At first, the kids were excited to act out the plagues. Rabbit was Pharaoh, Pooh one of Pharaoh's priests/magicians, and Tigger was Moses.

However, by the end of the first day of acting out the plagues, well Rabbit was in tears about being Pharaoh, because he was the bad guy. This upset Tigger and Pooh, and well, things only went downhill from there. So, to ease tensions, I agreed to play Pharaoh for the rest of the plagues and Rabbit got to be Aaron. It went much better after that.

For the river turning into blood, I got a large cake pan, and just put about 1/4 inch of water in it. We set it on the floor, and then I dropped some red food coloring in as Moses pretended to strike the river. Very cool effect. We only made about 40 or so frogs, but did spread them out all over the living room floor. Here is our frogs piled into a heap, as described in Exodus:

We didn't do anything extra for the plagues of gnats and flies, but we did talk about how there is one rest stop in our state where we have stopped to have lunch has lots and lots and lots of flies. (My husband said, "Yep. That rest stop did have a plague of flies!") We decided it must have even been worse than that place in Egypt.

The plague on the livestock is the first plague where there was a distinction between the Hebrews and the Egyptians. So, we took half of our stuffed animals and put them in one corner of the room, and half in the other. After we "acted" our parts, I sent the priest to check on the livestock and report back his findings. We talked about how God protected the Hebrews from harm.

We didn't do any science experiments again this week. I think we needed a break. (As a side note, I've read ahead to next weeks experiments, and I think we will try those - they look interesting.) But, we read through them and discussed them as best we could.

The book basket list was light for this week, so I got books about the animals you might find in Egypt during that time - sheep, goats, camels, etc. Not sure that Rabbit really enjoyed those, though.

Rabbit got a little tired of our Pathway reader (we're almost done with it anyway), so we've switch to the Abeka 4th grade readers for now. We're reading Song of the Brook and enjoying it.

Rabbit is doing well with the vocabulary. Right now I'm just typing up matching quizzes for her to do by herself, but I help her with most of the steps of learning the new words.

We're already on step 13 in All About Spelling Level 3. One thing I started doing about 4 or 5 weeks ago during dictation is saying, "Sentence check," which is a hint for Rabbit to check punctuation and capitalization of her sentences. At first, I said it for every sentence. Then I started only saying it for sentences that she missed one or the other. Well, this Thursday or Friday, I didn't have to say it for a single sentence, and she didn't misspell anything on dictation that day. I am so proud of her. Slowly, I'm starting to see the spelling carry over to her writing some. Once, she knew something was spelled wrong, but she couldn't see how to spell it correctly. I am just glad she is beginning to recognize when she is making mistakes.

In Math, we finished lesson 6, and have started lesson 7. She seems to be doing fine with it, so we'll continue on.

In Writing Strands, we're working on a lesson to show how characters in a story "think." We have a story from personal experience, so it's going pretty well. Again, I'm helping a lot, but I think modeling how to do this stuff is a legitimate way to teach writing.

We didn't paint a stone, because by the time we got to a day to work on that project, we had 6 inches of snow on the ground. I told Rabbit we'd pick another day to try to do that lesson.

Star of Light was a terrific book to read. The kids loved the story and always wanted to know what was going to happen next. I'm looking forward to our last of the Patricia St. John books from the Deluxe package.

Week 10-11 in CTG

I'm just going to do some highlights from these two weeks. (We actually juts finished week 12, so I a little bit behind on my updates.)

Rabbit is doing great with the memorization in Bible. We've had some good discussions, too. Basically, these two weeks cover from Joseph interpreting the Baker and Cup Bearer's dreams to Moses fleeing from Egypt.

Reading about the ups and downs of Egyptian history has been interesting. It is easy to understand why the Egyptians would have wanted to enslave the Hebrews after the Hyksos domination.

I want to encourage anyone who thinks making costumes for acting out the 10 plagues is too much work. We kept it really simple. We used our Pharaoh's crown from earlier in the year for Pharaoh. Then, I used one old pillow case to make a shepherd's head piece, and another one to make Pharaoh's priest's leopard skin cloak thing. I used some of the pictures from Ancient World to make them. Do they look authentic? Not at all, but I think it makes acting out the plagues more fun.

Another activity was to make a clay pot. We used Crayola Model Magic for this. Way cool stuff. We loved how easy it was to work with. We did let our pot dry for about a week before anyone was allowed to touch it. Here is a picture:

We haven't really been doing any science experiments for these two weeks. Some of them we've done before, and I didn't feel like doing them again. Others, I didn't have the supplies and wasn't sure where to get the supplies.

Rabbit continues to make progress in the basics, so not much new on that front. Writing Strands 3 is a big challenge for her, but I think it is good. I'm trying not to set my expectations too high. Yes, I want her to try, but I'm not opposed to helping her as needed, especially to avoid frustration.

Week 9 in CTG

Bible

We covered from Jacob meeting Rachel to Joseph and Potiphar's wife. I wasn't quite prepared when I was reading from Victor's Journey through the Bible and the Bible, and ended up having to edit on the fly. Not sure the kids are quite ready for some of that adult stuff. The wording in the NIV is pretty mild, so it wasn't too bad, I just was taken by surprise. I almost wish there was a little note in the Bible square on the grid that said, "See notes before today's reading" with a little reminder. I know it's at the top of the column on the grid for the day, but I forgot to look.

History

We did some activities that looked at Abraham and his descendants and how they are all related to each other. Not sure how much that really helped Rabbit get the bigger picture.

We read about Egypt's Middle Kingdom, and then looked at what houses, games, and how Egyptians may have generally lived their daily lives. We did NOT build a house (an activity suggested in the manual), but we looked in detail at all the pictures. Plus, we had a book finally come in through the library that had some more pictures that Rabbit remembered applied to what we were studying, so we looked at those.

We added the 12 tribes and Joseph to our time line.

Science

Science was just a tad bit frustrating this week. One of our experiments was to fill a pan full of water, put a candle in it, light the candle and then place a jar over it. We were suppose to see two things: first, the candle going out because it used up all the oxygen in the jar, and second, the water level was suppose to rise inside the jar because the water would be taking the place of the air. We tried several different variations of the jar and pan and how much water, and just could not see it. The candle would usually go out before I could get the jar completely down in the water. So, the water in the jar would be lower than the water in the pan. Now, one time, after the candle went out, the water started rising - and we could see it - but it seemed like it was just the water back filling from in the pan.

Anyway, I want to try this experiment again. Perhaps getting a tall see-through plastic jar or cup, and cutting the bottom off straight. Set the cup in and make sure the water level is equal on both sides and then set a saucer or something on top that will close up the jar and then see if the water rises. I think our lower oxygen levels at a mile high may be the reason we weren't able to see everything the book said.

The other experiment for this week (called "Carbon Dioxide") worked great. We had a large grape juice plastic bottle to mix our solution in, and were able to blow out the candle twice with one mixture. The kids thought that was way cool.

We didn't do the weather balloon experiment as it was already too cold here, and I don't have a small thermometer or a bunch of helium balloons.

Language Arts

We are moving along in All About Spelling Level 3. There are days when I actually see Rabbit's spelling carry over into her writing, and other days, well, not so much.

Using Intermediate Language Lessons is working well. I like how it gradually works on skills and we can do it together, to make sure she understands.

Rabbit aced her Vocabulary test this week, but couldn't remember what pyrophobia meant for "extra credit," even though she is VERY pyrophobic (which made science a challenge, too).

She finished her story in Writing Strands (see my last post) and we looked at the next lesson, "Description of a Friend." She wanted it to be "Description of my Favorite Horse or Horses." Perhaps I should try to adapt it - she might enjoy it more. But, I'm not sure how. I don't know enough about horses.

Math

We finished Lesson 5 in Delta, and Rabbit got a 100% on her test. It was "flashcard" review week - which she really doesn't like all that much. I found some dice with numbers and math symbols and thought about using them for review time sometimes. But, usually I leave math review time to be "independent work."

Art and Music

We looked at Monday's Art lesson, but Rabbit felt overwhelmed by it. I didn't push - she's young for this book. Wednesday's lesson was a "Doodle" page and she had lots of fun with that.

Rabbit drew her picture for Vivaldi's Autumn this week. The directions said that the first movement was of the harvesters celebrating and then the second movement was them sleeping from drinking too much wine. So, Rabbit drew a Maypole with all the people dancing around it, and had all the dancers holding cups of wine (they kind of looked like martini glasses!) with the wine splashing out. It's amazing what they'll think of. We are enjoying the music.

Read Aloud

Of course, every day they ask for the next chapter in Star of Light. The story is wonderful. Sometimes the kids are in tears, though, worried about Hamid or Kinza and what might happen next. The kids are really connecting to the characters in this story.

It was a pretty good week, except for science. Just loving this curriculum!

A Writing Strands Sample

We've been working on the "write a story about a kitten raised by a duck" lesson in Writing Strands 3. Rabbit is 9, and we did one paragraph a day. The first 3, we worked together, but today, K took a lot longer than usual with Tigger and Pooh, so Rabbit went ahead and wrote the last paragraph by herself. Then, together we did a little editing. I'm really proud of her effort, so I told her I would type up her story and put it on my blog.

The Adventures of a Kitten Raised by a Duck

Once there was a kitten raised by a duck. The first time the other ducklings ate corn, the kitten tried to lap it up off the ground. The kitten got dirt and hay on her rough tongue. It was funny to watch her spit out the dirt. She then asked the cow for some milk.

The ducklings gracefully glided into the pond. Splash! In went the kitten, spraying all the ducklings. The kitten decided she wasn't meant for water adventures.

The mother duck lead her sleepy ducklings back to the barn for a nap, and the kitten followed along. Suddenly, the kitten eyed a pretty butterfly. She got sidetracked and began to follow the butterfly. the butterfly was a friend of mother duck, and lead the kitten back to the mother duck.

Just before they fell asleep the kitten eyed a mouse. As all kittens, she wanted to chase the mouse and so she did. Now this frightened the other ducklings and they began to squawk and run all over the barn and the hay loft. In and out of the stalls the kitten and the ducklings ran, until at last the chase was over. When the mouse escaped, the kitten and the ducklings were out of breath and went to sleep.

The End

Week 8 in CTG

Bible (and I suppose History) this week covered from Abraham offering Issac to Jacob's ladder. What a week of ups and downs! The faith shown by Abraham's servant to go and find Rebekah, and then the deception of Jacob and Rebekah. Yet, God is still sovereign and still has His way in His plans.

We looked at the projects for painting in Ancient Egypt and the Pyramids, but didn't do them. Rabbit did color the tomb painting notebook page. She also did a good job with her summary of Abraham and Isaac. I ended up having to make another copy for her as she got flustered with several mistakes on her page right from the start.

Science was a bit of a challenge this week. First, we went to the local hardware store and bought a piece of 1 inch x 1/4 inch x 8 foot strip of pine trim. Then I cut it down to 30 inches, as recommended for the Karate Kid experiment. We used 2 layers of newspaper over the stick, and Rabbit could still flip the stick off the coffee table. We also tried the kitchen island, as it had a smoother top, and still Rabbit could flip it off the counter. I noticed we had a real hard time pressing the newspaper around the stick and getting it to be really smooth. Remembering something I read over at the MFW message board, we tried a ruler instead. Since it was a 12 inch ruler, we had it stick out over the edge of the counter about 2.5 inches. Because the ruler was more rounded over the top, we were able to flatten the newspaper over it better. Plus, the newspaper was about 6 to 8 inches longer than the ruler (our newspaper was only about 1 or 2 inches longer than our 30 inch stick, which may have been part of the problem). Using the ruler and paper, Rabbit could not flip it off the counter. It bounced a little, but she definitely got the idea of air pressure.

The Straw Drinking Race was easy. Tigger and Pooh agreed to be the racers. Tigger had the straw with the holes, and it took him about 5 minutes to get all of the water out of the cup. The Old Updside-Down-Glass-Of-Water Trick was a bit different. We tried the clear disposable plastic cups that we got for last week's experiments, but the sides were too flimsy when we flipped the cup over. So we went ahead and tried a glass cup. Sure enough, it worked. Later on I tried with a hard plastic cup (to show my husband), and I could see the "vacuum" bubbles at the top of the cup. (My hard plastic cup was a yellow First Years cup that have the spout lids - not clear, but you can see into them.) We didn't try to do any larger cups or containers.

We finished another Math lesson this week, and started All About Spelling Level 3 for Spelling. Using Intermediate Language Lessons has been going well, although some of the lessons seemed a bit archaic (we don't know all that much about birds). We're writing "The Kitten Raised by a Duck" story in Writing Strands, basically doing a paragraph a day. Rabbit is actually kind of excited about it, and has been reading it to her brothers and dad as she finishes each paragraph. I've been trying to give her ideas to get her jump started, and it goes pretty well.

In God and the History of Art, one of the lessons was to do cross-hatching for shading. She did a pretty good job, be we talked about how hard it is and how much practice we need. We listened to "Autumn" from the Vivaldi CD, and she did the cross-hatching while we did that.

So far, Star of Light is an interesting story. The kids are asking a lot of questions about why the little girl, Kinza, was born blind. I've read ahead, so I know how the story ends. Oh, what good stuff is in this book! Don't skip it.

One interesting side note... I was cleaning up the school room, and found a paper Rabbit had written on. She basically summarized what she had learned about pyramids. Now, the spelling wasn't that great (pyramids was spelled "pearumids"), but I loved how she summarized. She got that the base of the pyramids were perfect squares, and the sides perfect triangles and that we really don't know exactly how they built them. Anyway, I never told her to write it, she just did. That is so encouraging to me that she is trying things on her own like that.

Week 7 in CTG

Boy, school is going so well so far. Yes, we have our ups and downs, but overall, things are going well.

Bible this week was about Abraham - from God making his Covenant with him to Hagar and Ishmael being sent away. One of the things that I thought was interesting about Hagar is she wasn't really seeking God - yet he found her twice. He sought her out. God seeks us out.

History was about writing and reading. It was quite interesting how they made paper from papyrus reeds. Rabbit made a Cartouche and hung it on her door.

Science had some fun experiments. Everyone joins in. I really worked hard at just guiding Rabbit, and only helping her when she was really doing it wrong. We bought those clear plastic cups that are like the Solo cups, only smaller for our experiments. We were able to do the experiments in the sink. (The bathtub is out of the question due to water restrictions. If anyone ever offers you an aquarium - accept it. They will come in handy for science experiments even if you never have any fish.) Rabbit was really surprised that you could keep paper in a cup dry if you put the cup in the water upside down. Even after doing the "pouring air" experiment, she did not expect that result at all. Seeing that air has weight (or mass) was another interesting experiment. Blowing up the balloon and watching our scale "tip" toward the air filled balloon was another surprise. Rabbit expected the balance to stay equal.

We've almost finished All-About-Spelling Level 2. It has been a good review for Rabbit, and I see some of her spelling getting better. She's starting to recognize when words "just don't look right." Now, that doesn't always mean she can fix them right, but she's learning.

Math is going well. We've finished Lesson 2 and began Lesson 3 in MUS's Delta. She's doing great with it. She really remembers the division facts faster than multiplication at this point. I think when she sees a product and one of the factors, she easily remembers the other factor that goes with it - kind of like a number bond. Just seeing the two factors doesn't always help her remember the product, though. However, she is getting faster with her multiplication facts. But, her addition and subtraction facts have gotten slower.

Art and Music continue to be fun. She didn't quite finish her picture for Vivaldi's "Summer," so no picture for the blog. The art lessons are good for her. They make her think and try new things. She gets a little frustrated, "because I'm not that good at it." But, I think the skills build on each other, and long term will make a difference.

The kids caught colds toward the end of the week, but we still managed school every day.

The boys are doing well with Abeka's K. We've done up to lesson 31 now. It is funny, Tigger sounds out each sound and then blends them together - he still gets the blends/words right, but he will say "/c/-/a/-/t/ cat." Pooh, on the other hand, blends each sound right from the beginning. He stretches the sounds out a little slower, but he still does it. Sometimes, though, he adds a sound onto the end of a blend that isn't there (most commonly /t/), but he is getting it. They love the silly games in Abeka. (Rabbit didn't really get into them all that much when she did this program.) One thing I did for "review" drills is opened a manila file folder and drew a race track, with spaces that are just the right size for a matchbox car. Then, each one picks their favorite car, and when the say the right sound/blend/whatever, they get to move their car one space. They LOVE this, and it was so easy to do.

Another thing I am doing for the boys is focusing on writing numbers for the next 2 weeks. I never did for Rabbit, we just plowed into Primer and she didn't really know how to write the numbers. We had got through lesson 5 in Primer with the boys, and I realized I hadn't taught them how to form their numbers. So, I made up some worksheets, and each day we practice one new number, and review the two previous. We'll do 0 - 4 this week, and 5-9 next week. Primer will have lots more practice for them, but I just really wanted to focus on forming those numbers correctly before we got too far into the year.

Abeka K5

Well, mostly my blog has been focusing on MFW's programs. This year, I am doing Abeka's K5 program with Pooh and Tigger. I used it with Rabbit, and still have all the games, flashcards, and other things I made to go with it, so I thought I might as well use it. Some people have said that you shouldn't teach your twins together. So far, though, it is going okay. Their desks are right next to each other, with a lamp in between.

We start out with phonics. Usually it is some game, or song, or review activity. Doing this together works pretty well. Sometimes it is a blend ladder (or ladders), and those I do one-on-one.

Next we do handwriting. If we are learning a new letter, I get out our Handwriting Without Tears hands-on activities and we do those together. But, when they practice writing the letter on their slate, I watch them each one at a time, to make sure they are doing correct formation. If it is a review of a letter, then I have a Rubbermaid container of sand that they each practice in. Usually, I sit with Pooh when they actually do their worksheets. (Tigger has much better fine motor skills.) I talk him through the letter formation. Now, we're using Abeka's manuscript pages for handwriting worksheets, but we do single-stroke formation instead of ball-stick. Most of the time, I've crossed out the arrows and numbers and put in the way I want them to do it. They think it is fun that we're breaking the rules. Tigger actually goes slower than Pooh when doing his handwriting worksheet. So, after I'm done with Pooh, I go assist Tigger. Usually, it is to keep him from getting upset over little mistakes.

After that, we do our Phonics Review time. Again, this is usually some kind of game, or song, or other fun activity. I do try to do these together, but make sure that both of them get a chance at all the flashcards. If it is blend ladders, though, we do those separately.

Then the boys do a math page from Math-U-See's Primer. (Though, the next two weeks, we're going to stop and focus on learning to write our numbers.) This usually takes 5 minutes, tops. It is funny to see how different they are. When Tigger is counting items on a page, he numbers each one so he doesn't lose track of where he is. Pooh just puts a mark through each one and counts as he goes.

Some days we add in the Cuisinare Rods Alphabet book. They enjoy doing these activities. I don't normally sit with them while they do these. I could, and have them do all the questions/suggestions on the pages, but they just prefer to build. It is still problem solving skills, so I'm okay with it. Most days that takes about 1 hour. Sometimes 1 1/2 hours.

The boys can get on each other's nerves playing with each other all day. I'm thinking about scheduling time for one of them to go play, while the other does an activity from our old preschool toys, and then switch off again. I'll probably really need to do this when we start reading the little Abeka books for K5 - I'll need some activity to keep one occupied while I work with the other. I realize that's what the "seatwork" is for, but I can see my boys finishing that stuff pretty quick.

We'll be on day 27 tomorrow, so I feel like were making good progress.

Thoughts on Science

Doing Science with my kids for home school has been a real struggle for me. You’d thing a Computer Science major with a Math minor would have no problems. I think I had a lot of negative experiences in school. I remember trying to do a “making crystals” experiment in elementary school. We never got any crystals to grow on our screw – we only got rust. Then, I remember doing dissections in 7th grade biology. I always got C’s or D’s. I could never really tell the animal’s body organs once we opened it up – they were never in the same place as the drawings in the textbooks. Experiments in Chemistry class were always hit or miss. I think the only class where most of the experiments actually worked was Physics. Even in college, I think I just got B’s in my Physics lab class.

So, when we’ve been doing our Science stuff for school, mostly I’ve been reading the book, and doing the experiments with Rabbit (and Pooh and Tigger as observers). And really, it is me doing the experiments. Now, some of that is because Rabbit is afraid of something “bad” happening (like she was scared of the sparks from squeezing the mints). But, the other part of it, I’m not sure.

Well, the other day, my friend mfwrocks posted some thoughts about doing science in the elementary years:

1. Let them read the material with you.
2. Ask them, “What do you think will happen?”
3. Then say, “Ok, let's find out.”
4. Have them try the experiments on their own, as much possible.
5. Let them go "cool" and "wow" and laugh at science nerd jokes.
6. Teach them to observe what is going on.
7. Make them clean it up and put it away.
8. Ask them, “What did happen? Is that what we expected? And why?”

Now the other observation that my dh made was that we need to teach the Scientific Method without being hung up on the teaching the terms and phrases of The Scientific Method. You just want the kids to be so comfortable with asking, “What will happen if I do this?” Set it up, observe and figure out why --- that it becomes how they think about science. And not a check box to say, "Ok. I covered scientific method in the curriculum and that's good, right?"

See, I’m the one doing the experiments. I should really be letting Rabbit try the experiments, and just being there as a guide or assistant. It is usually the other way around. Then I get frustrated when she doesn’t do anything but stand there or sit there. I also have a hard time with #7, as my kids aren’t really that good at cleaning up. But, that’s part of the training process and I just need to get over it and start training them.

Anyway, it was just such a timely post, and it really made me think about what I’m doing as a teacher that is either helping or hindering the kids.

Week 6 in CTG

I’ll start with Sukkoth. Ends up we didn’t even put up the tent. Rabbit was getting tired of the readings every day, and she doesn’t quite get the idea of the feasts. So, we basically read the readings as a part of our Bible time. Some of them were quite long, which was part of the issue. I tried to explain to her the connections between the feasts and how they were looking forward to the Messiah, but I don’t think it has sunk in yet. But, I learned a lot. I loved the connection between pouring out the water and God pouring out His Holy Spirit on us. The other thing I thought of was Jesus pouring out His blood for me.

Science has been more intense than last year. We’ve been doing pyramid and ancient Egypt science 3 or 4 days a week. It is tough for me to stay on top of that. (But, I better get prepared, as others have told me that Science steps up to 4 days a week next year.) We have tried the growing crystals experiment. We got some on our beaker, and a few on our string, but none on our paper clip. I thought about doing one with baking soda and another with dishwasher soap, but there are warnings all over the dishwasher soap box, and that scared Rabbit off from trying that.

It has been interesting reading about how all these ancient civilizations developed in History. Basically, they each developed by a fertile river valley. The river would flood each year, leaving silt deposits that were very fertile. The people would plant and harvest each season. Because they could grow so much food, not everyone needed to be farmers, so lots of people had time to develop other skills – like architecture, writing, metal work, pottery, etc. It was just neat that all these places developed separately from each other, but similarly.

In Bible we are going to be memorizing The Ten Commandments over the next ten weeks (on top of our regular readings that follow along with where we are studying in History). We have a box of packing paper that kids use to paint or do other large art projects on. So, I took a sheet, folded it in half, and then cut an arch at the top. Then I crumpled it up in a ball and then undid that and flattened it out. Now we have our stone tablets:

I used Photoshop Elements to type up the commandments, and then used some bevels and shadows to try to make the words look like they were carved. Probably more complex than what the teacher’s manual said to do, but it was more fun for me to make it this way.

We studied Job one day, and now we are reading about Abraham, or Abram as his name hasn’t been changed yet. I thought it was interesting that Hagar runs away, and she’s not even seeking God, yet He seeks her out. Isn’t that just like God? He seeks us out, even when we aren’t necessarily looking for Him.

This week, the curriculum added in copying the memory verse and dictation of the memory verse. So, on the days we do that I’m not going to have Rabbit do her Handwriting Without Tears book. Learning the Greek roots has been good. We now have enough words where we can start to see how other words are put together. What is really neat is when a root comes up in our Reading time.

English has been pretty good. We do most of it orally, or she dictates to me and I write it – especially on days where there has been a lot of writing already. Writing Strands has been more of a struggle. We got through the second lesson, but it was sure hard for her. I’ve been trying to explain that we don’t just write once and get done with it. But, she just doesn’t like writing. I need to get more consistent about teaching her typing.

This week we finished Step 22 in All About Spelling Book 2. If she can just keep her attitude good, we get through the lessons just fine. It’s when she has a bad attitude, or misses too many words during review time that she gets upset. I’ll need to be ordering Book 3 soon.

Rabbit pretty much likes God and the History of Art, but she said this week she wished it was more drawing and art lessons and less history. She had to draw a picture of her family for her AWANA section this week, and I see a lot of what she is learning from art carrying over.

We listened to Vivaldi’s “Summer” - what a wide range of musical style in one song. It was quite interesting. And Spanish is going well. I like that it is really low stress. And the stories are quaint.

We finished The Tanglewood's Secret. I read ahead in the book so I would know what was happening, and yet I cried again reading it out loud to the kids. They loved the book, and were always interested in what was coming next. I love how you could see everyone’s change of heart as they met Jesus, or re-established their relationship with Him. The book made the comparison of Jesus being the Good Shepherd so real. It was just an excellent book.

Week 5 in CTG

Another fabulous week of school. Monday, of course, was Labor Day, so we didn't do school then. But, that's okay, since Friday on the schedule is a feast day.

Bible has been working more on memorizing the Old Testament books. I love all the verses that they picked for us to read. Such encouraging verses.

History has been learning about Ancient Egypt. Our books didn't come in until Thursday, so now I have a bunch of books on Egypt when we're almost done. It was interesting to read about pyramids, why they built him, how we still don't know for sure how they built them, etc. Rabbit really likes it when the notebook pages are just coloring - one of them was this week. It was also very interesting to draw the map of the Middle East Today over our map of the Mediteranian area.

We're still in the Pyramids science book. One project this week was to build a step pyramid from sugar cubes. That was fun! Here is our final result:

We didn't do all the science activities, but one of the activities we're doing is to figure out how the mummification process prevents decay. So, we've got our sandwich bags set up and waiting for mold to start growing:

(Just an update on this experiment - we never got mold to grow on any of the bread. They were on the top of the fridge for several weeks.)

Rabbit enjoyed listening to Vivadi and creating a "Spring" picture this week:

In math, Rabbit decided she wanted to learn division, so we've switch back to Math-U-See's Delta. I know, probably not a good idea, but I figure if she wants to do it, then it will go easier. She finished lesson 1 in 3 days - including the quiz. She's also read some silly stories from the library about kids who have had trouble learning their math facts.

The rest of school is going well. We didn't get to Writing Strands or Spanish on our last day because of a doctor's appointment. Spanish I'm not worried about. We'll just move on to the next lesson. For Writing Strands, I may do a lesson on Friday, just to get all "caught up." It's been a lot of writing for Rabbit, so it has been a challenge, but I'm trying to encourage and help her as much as possible.

We're not going to build a booth for Sukkoth. We're probably going to set up Rabbit's pup-tent, and do the Sukkoth readings in the tent, and maybe enjoy a snack there. The kids love it when we set up the pup-tent. We did read the passages in the Teacher's Manual. It is neat how the emphasis is on celebrating, being joyful or having joy, and praising God.

One other thing. On days we start by 8:15, we usually finish by noon. On the days we don't, then we're doing 1 to 1.5 hours after lunch. More motivation to get started by 8:00!

Week 4 in CTG

Wow! I just have to say we love this curriculum so far.

We celebrated Rosh Hashanah over the weekend, and have been blowing the shofar every day and reading the "reasons" to remember. I've tried to talk to Rabbit about the symbolism of the different parts, but she's not quite getting it. Anyway, here is our shofar:

Here is how our table looked for Rosh Hashanah:

Besides the crown on the globe, Rabbit made crowns for herself and the boys.

For Bible this week we've been working on memorizing the books of the Old Testament. Rabbit has already learned these for Sunday School and AWANA, so it has just been review. However, mfwrocks posted a great idea for a game. We write the numbers on the back of the "flashcards" and place them in order on the floor or table. Then, one of us flips one over. The other person has to name the book before and the book after. I figured this would help Rabbit be able to find the books quicker in her Bible. We enjoyed this game.

Most of History has been studying Egypt. One day we looked at the Unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. The kids acted it out. Here is Tigger and Rabbit with their crowns:

And of course, Rabbit had to be King Menes. Here she is with the combined crown:

Rabbit enjoyed coloring the notebook page. We did not make the reed boat. We thought about using corn stalks or leaves (our corn didn't grow this year) as an alternative. We may still try doing this sometime. Reading about Egypt has been interesting, but many of our books from the library haven't come in yet.

Science has been fun playing with the different aspects of pyramids. I think the kids were surprised how strong they were. If you do the experiements, get LOTS of sticky-tac.

Rabbit is doing well for her other subjects. Right now we're working in Singapore math. Rabbit decided she wanted to try it.

She's enjoying the stories in The Easy Spanish. I'm not having her go too in depth. At this point we're looking at "exposure" to the language.

The God and the History of Art lesson are fun. I see the exercises carrying over into her other drawing.

The Tanglewood's Secret is such a good book! Don't miss it if you can.

We didn't do the Yom Kippur feast. We talked about it a little, but had other plans this weekend. But, it was kind of funny - for the boys bed time our bookmark was at the story of Jonah, so we got to talk about it a little bit.