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.