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.