Week 15: Almost ready for a break

Jessie's 7th Grade

•  Jessie worked on positive and negative fractions this week in Lial's.
• In CW, she focused on working with adjective elements within a small bit of Shakespeare and did several sentence shuffles.
• We did her regular vocabulary, but lightened up on her logic and only completed half what I had planned.  In grammar, she learned the active and passive voices.
• She completed all of her Omnibus reading, but we have some discussions to finish next week.  I found it impossible to finish up the Christmas cards, ship the presents, and put up the remaining decorations while still finding time to read her Omnibus assignments myself.
• In Latin Alive, she finished lesson 16 covering more third declension nouns, the imperative mood, and the vocative case and started 17 working with the dative case.  She also completed another week of EG2 where she worked with first person pronouns.

Violet's 5th Grade

• Violet doubled up math lessons this week while studying ratios and has been breezing through her lessons.
• She continued reading Treasure Island by Stevenson and Susan Creek by Wilson for literature.

• She scored a 95 on her spelling test and practiced diagramming predicate nominatives and predicate adjectives in grammar.
• For CW, she rewrote the model "How the Came Got Its Hump" by Kipling.  We finished up the poem "Twas the Night Before Christmas" for dictation.
• In Latin, she learned the cardinal numbers to ten.  On the left, she's working on one of her Mind Bender's puzzles for logic.

Benny's 2nd Grade

• Benny continued multiplying and divided by 2 and 3 this week in Singapore math and worked on a mixture of topics in Miquon.
• He finished reading aloud Misty of Chincoteague by Henry and began The Black Stallion by Farley.  We continued to read The Story of the Amulet by Nesbit.
• He's still using a portion of Luke 2 for his copywork and doing his regular spelling assignments as well.

HISTORY

In history this week, we covered Bacon's Rebellion, William Penn, and the Ottoman Empire and the siege on Vienna.  The girls outlined from This Country of Ours.   Jessie read William Penn:  Quaker Hero by Dolson while Violet read from The Story of the Thirteen Colonies. 

Everyone read from SOTW 3 for the Ottoman Empire.  Benny and I also read about William Penn using SOTW 3 and The Story of William Penn by Aliki.  The only hands on for history was our mapwork this week.

SCIENCE

Jessie's still learning about plants in Life Science.  This week she learned about the different parts of a vascular plant and its leaves.  The one lab that we fit in was to measure the change in weight in a plant due to the loss of water by transpiration.

Violet studied wedges and screws.  We took paper ramps and rolled them around pencils to illustrate how they are related.

She also learned about different levers and tried lifting a tub of nails using a yardstick and fulcrum to compare the length of her level to the ease of raising her weight.

ART / MUSIC / GEOGRAPHY

Violet and Benny made nutcrackers this week.

No music.  Lots of geography games.

HENRY'S CORNER

Henry and I read lots of Christmas books this week.  He spent a lot of time moving ornaments around on the Christmas tree, so I pulled out our small tree for him to play with instead.

The Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede - Book 27 of 52 in 52

The Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede is the well known work concerning the expansion of  the gospel among the English.  While I confess that there were portions of the text that were a bit dry, overall I enjoyed this selection much more than I expected.  It contains tales of brave Christian kings, faithful monks, and Christian martyrs.  Despite the outward threats of barbarians and the inward threats of heresy, the gospel of Christ was proclaimed and advanced through the land.  There are portions such as the tales of miracles relating to the bodies of saints or the constant arguments over how to properly calculate the date of Easter that seem odd to our own day.  To Bede the miracles are grounded in his belief in the resurrection, a promise of a greater resurrection to come.  His emphasis on church unity should give any modern day Christian pause in our time of fractured denominations and conflicting beliefs.  It definitely deserves its place among the great books.

The Dragon and the Raven by Henty - Book 26 of 52 in 52

The Dragon and the Raven by Henty is a delightful peace of historical fiction set in England during the reign of King Alfred the Great during the invasions of the Danes.  Edmund and his father are driven out of their home in East Anglia by the invaders.  After his father's death, Edmund travels to Wessex with his companion Egbert to join the West Saxons under Alfred in their attempts to repel the invasion.  Edmund proves to be an exceptional leader himself as he trains his men to harry the Danes on land and then builds a ship to harry them on the sea as well.  Along the way he mercifully spares the life of a Dane at the request of his daughter.  That one act of kindness changes the course of several subsequent events in the story.  As with all Henty stories, there is plenty of historical detail, plenty of action, and of course a bit of romance as well.  Sure to be a hit with both boys and girls.

Misty of Chincoteague by Henry - Book 25 of 52 in 52

Misty of Chincoteague by Henry has long been a favorite tale of children.  It has been years since I read the book for myself, but I decided to pull it out again for my oldest son (and my most reluctant reader).  Paul and Maureen Beebe have their hearts set on capturing and taming the legendary Phantom, who has twice eluded the pony roundup gang.  On the big day, it is Paul who finds the Phantom encumbered by a tiny foal and brings them to the rest of the ponies.  Can Paul and Maureen manage to buy both horses?  Can the Phantom ever really be tamed?  A thrilling tale for young children (and their parents) to enjoy again and again.

The Book of Dragons by Nesbit - Book 24 of 52 in 52

A Book of Dragons by Nesbit is a delightful collection of short stories for all ages.  These aren't just your normal fire breathing dragon tales either.  There are dragons of all sizes, dragons of ice, dragons with lots of feet, and dragons that purr.  Add to the dragon mix a wide assortment of heroes and heroines and a good dose of adventure, and this will be a hit for dragon lovers everywhere.  (Can you tell I love dragon stories.)  The only downside that I have for the book is that the author could, on occasion, be more concise in her storytelling and leave out a bit of her own rambling.  Still it is an excellent book. 

Week 14: A Little More Like Christmas

YEAH Jessie!!!

 Jessie's 7th Grade

This week Jessie

• completed her 3rd chapter in Lial's Prealgebra and passed the test with a 95%
• worked on common problem verbs in grammar
• completed the regular lesson and a half of vocabulary
• analyzed adjectives in a short excerpt from Shakespeare for CW
• completed reading The Ecclesiastical History of the English Church by Bede and the book of John for Omnibus.  (We are a bit behind in our discussions.)
• finished one and a half chapters of Latin Alive and another chapter of EG1
• did her regular logic work.



Violet's dictation
Note the big smile.  I chose
"Twas the Night Before Christmas"
for our lessons this week.  Sometimes the
theme makes all the difference.

Violet's 5th Grade

This week Violet

• completed the textbook portion of Singapore covering the area of triangles and began the IP section
• Rewrote "The Woodchuck Episode" by Burrough for CW.
• Successfully passed another spelling test
• worked on problem verb pairs such as raise and rise for grammar
• continued to read Treasure Island by Stevenson and began reading Susan Creek by Wilson as well.
• reviewed Latin prepositions for LFC B

Benny's Second Grade
Benny

• worked on the 3s multiplication table
• read more of Misty of Chincoteague by Henry to me and listed to The Story of the Amulet by Nesbit.
• copied a portion of Luke 2
• covered commands and questions for grammar
• aced another spelling test
• generally kept his Santa hat on for the whole week once I had mended it

HISTORY

We covered a range of small topics in history this week including pirates, the plague and fire in London under Charles II, Isaac Newton and John Locke, John Bunyan, and King Philip's War.  The girls read relevant sections from Our Island Story by Marshall, Trial and Triumph by Hannula, Courage and Conviction by Withrow, and SOTW 3.  They outlined from The Story of the Thirteen Colonies by Guerber.  Jessie also read Isaac Newton and Gravity by Parker as well as When London Burned by Henty (just for fun).
Benny and I read Pirate Diary by Platt (which I highly recommend although depending on the child you may need to preview some of the pictures) and portions of SOTW this week.

He was very excited to make a pirate hat out of newspaper

 and enjoyed burning our paper version of London.

SCIENCE

 Jessie completed chapter 12 this week on plants.  We collected spore prints from mushrooms

and examined a bit of moss under the microscope.  We also observed a prepared slide of a mushroom.

 Violet learned about friction, work, and power.  Here she used a rubber band to pull the train on 3 different surfaces.  She compared the stretch of the rubber band on each surface and also compared the initial stretch to the stretch once the train was moving.

No science for Benny.

GEOGRAPHY / ART / MUSIC

Jessie is working on landforms in North America.  Violet is progressing nicely with the states and is ready to begin working on capitals.  Benny is about halfway through his song and still working on the midwestern states.

 Violet is the only one who did art this week and drew a gingerbread man.

Mo music this week.

HENRY'S CORNER

Henry is thoroughly enjoying his morning reading time and seems to prefer choosing his own books.  Here are a couple of his antics for the week.

 He successfully snuck into the kitchen, retrieved two pot lids, and banged them together behind Violet causing her to jump several times which he found hilarious.

He also entertained himself one day by popping the packaging that came with his Christmas stocking.

Week 13: A Little More Progress

I spent most of the weekend Christmas shopping and didn't prepare very well for this week.  DH was also home, and I let the kids spend more time with him before he leaves to go fishing tomorrow morning.

Jessie's 7th Grade

• Jessie worked her way through chapter 2 of Lial's covering variables, simplifying algebraic expressions, and solving simple expressions to find the value of the variable.
• She finished the textbook portion of her R&S chapter on verbs and had the week off from vocabulary.
• In CW, we finally finished revising her second writing assignment and began the third unit.  (I'll post her final draft and some thoughts on Diogenes in the next few days.)
• We played catchup in Omnibus by completing the entire section on Henty's The Dragon and the Raven and continued our progress through Bede's history. 
• Our Latin focus for the past two weeks has been vocabulary.  Jessie has been playing the online FlashDash game daily.  This week she also managed to complete chapter 14 and begin chapter 15.  In Greek, we've done a lot of flashcard work and completed lesson 12 covering the Greek word for not.
• Logic also got done for the week.

Violet's 5th Grade

• Violet completed her fractions section of Singapore IP and started some review in her textbook this week.
• She had the week off from SWO, but continued working on verbs in R&S.
• In CW, I took a week off from the regular lesson plans and added a chapter from Colum's retelling of the Golden Fleece to get some additional practice on the 3rd level of sentence shuffles and paraphrasing before moving to the next level.
• She finished Around the World in Eighty Days by Verne and began reading Treasure Island by Stevenson (which she is enjoying so far).  We've also been using short sections for dictation this week.
• In Latin, she worked on ablative pronouns.  She completed her regular combination of BTS 2, Mind Benders B2 and Think-a-Grams A1 for logic.

 Benny's 2nd Grade

• Benny finished his IP section on multiplication and began a new section in the textbook on the multiplication tables for 2 and 3 on Friday.  He also finished the fractions portion of Miquon Blue.
• He's still thoroughly enjoying reading Misty of Chincoteague by Henry to me, and we've begun The Story of the Amulet by Nesbit together. 
• For the month of December, his copywork will have a Christmas theme.  This week he copied the first verse of "Away in a Manger".
• In grammar, we worked on statements and commands.  He did complete a spelling lesson and start a second this week as well.
• I gave him the week off from critical thinking.

HISTORY

    This week in history, we covered Prussia and Peter Stuyvesant and New York as well as the beginnings of New Jersey, North Carolina, and South Carolina.  All three read about Frederick of Prussia in SOTW3.  Jessie read The Story of the Thirteen Colonies by Alderman for the remaining topics.  Violet read the same book one day, but read Old Silver Leg Takes Over!  by Quackenbush and a chapter of Guerber's The Story of the Thirteen Colonies for the other two days.  Benny and I read SOTW, Spier's The Legend of New Amsterdam, and Lobel's On the Day Peter Stuyvesant Sailed Into Town on Tuesday.  Wednesday and Thursday, we read portions from Whitehurst's The Colony of New Jersey, The Colony of North Carolina, and The Colony of South Carolina.  There was no hands on this week other than the mapwork.

SCIENCE

Jessie is the only one who did science this week.  She finished the reading portion of chapter 11, took the test, and began chapter 12.  We have several labs to catch up on still.

ART, MUSIC, GEOGRAPHY

No art or music this week.  Geography was the normal online games for the girls and state song and mapwork for Benny.

HENRY'S CORNER

Henry spent as much of the entire week following DH around as he possibly could.  When this wasn't possible, he managed to successfully sneak up on Jessie under the table and tickle her feet once making for several minutes of laughter by everyone at her surprised reaction. 

Week 12: A Little Crazy

Jessie's 7th Grade:

• Jessie finished the first chapter in Lial's on integers and began reworking the comparable lessons in NEM1.
• In CW, she began her writing assignment for unit 2.
• She continues to make steady progress in CE2 and studied transitive verbs in R&S 7.
• In Omnibus 2, we began reading The Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede but are still waiting for our secondary book, The Dragon and the Raven by Henty to be returned to the library even though it was due on the 15th.
• Jessie completed the Unit 2 reading in LA1.  We played some Latin jeopardy on Thursday, and FlashDash online on Friday.  EG2 covered the declension of the word the.
• Logic was also completed.

Violet's 5th Grade:

• Violet continues to make steady progress through fractions in Singapore 5A.
• She rewrote "The Face That Launches a Thousand Ships" by Guerber for CW Homer.
• She completed a review chapter in spelling, finished the unit on verbs in R&S 5, and continued to reading Around the World in Eighty Days by Verne.
• In LfC B, we worked on the accusative case prepositions.  I added Latin grammar cards to her regular memory verse to get more consistent review of the chants.
• Logic was the regular combination of BTS 2, Mind Benders B2, and Think-a-Grams A1.

Benny's 2nd Grade

• Benny is really enjoying reading Misty of Chincoteague by Henry and listening to The Book of Dragons by Nesbit for literature.
• In math, we began working on multiplication and division in Singapore and on fractions in Miquon.
• He successfully passed another spelling test, learned the definition of a sentence, and copied the definition for handwriting.

HISTORY

The girls read Johannes Vermeer by Venezia, Marquette and Joliet by Syme, and La Salle and the Exploration of the Mississippi by Harmon this week for summaries and completed an outline of the chapter on Louis XIV from SOTW 3.  They mapped France and the routes of the explorers.  Benny and I covered the SOTW chapter and its map work.  We've also started reading the Syme book, but it has taken longer than expected so we'll be finishing it up next week.

SCIENCE

Jessie finished up chapter 10 on evolution this week and moved on to a new chapter on the kingdom Protista.  We managed to squeeze in a lab which we had previously skipped as well.  The bags behind Jessie each have 10 radish seeds that were subjected to 0-20 minutes of heat in the oven in 5 minute increments or 0-20 seconds of radiation in the microwave in 5 second intervals.  Rather than buy irradiated seeds, we followed the basic directions found here.  We haven't yet chosen an endpoint for out experiment.  We can either stop and write the results based on just germination or plant the seeds and look for other qualitative effects as well.

Violet learned about kinetic versus potential energy, the conservation of energy, and force this week.  In addition to rolling the golf ball at different speeds to knock over dominoes, she enjoyed shooting Benny's Nerf gun at a target and figuring out the energy conversion involved, investigating tensile strength by comparing thread to rope, and using our scale to measure the force of her weight versus her ability to push on the scale versus the weight of a book.

Benny got the week off from science.

OTHER

In geography, the girls played their games as usual.  They also found some world maps from church that they had forgotten about and started coloring them in one evening.  DH began quizzing them on countries.  I was very glad to see how much they have learned despite our rather inconsistent efforts.  Benny and I keep plugging away with his state song and the midwestern state locations.

No music this week.  We'll spend some extra time on it next week instead.

In art, Violet drew a turkey this week.

 Henry had a great time sitting with her and playing with the different marker colors

and even doing a little drawing of his own.  (That's a jellyfish in the middle)

Henry and I read the dragon series from last week some more as well as Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss and Five Little Monkeys with Nothing to Do by Christelow.

Five Children and It by Nesbit, Book 23 of 52 in 52

Have you ever pondered what you would wish for given the opportunity to wish for anything?  What might happen if your wishes were granted for a day?  This is opportunity that is given to Cyril, Robert, Anthea, and Jane in E. Nesbit's Five Children and It when they discover a Psammead (or sand fairy) in the sand pit during their summer holiday.  The rather grumpy fellow agrees to grant them one wish every day with the understanding that their wish only lasts until sunset.  Each day brings a new wish and a new set of troubles for the children.

The story itself gets off to a slow start.  The author from time to time unnecessarily adds too many of her own opinions into the story; however, the story itself with its delightful premise wins out and is an excellent read aloud for grades 2-3 or independent read for grades 4+ for both boys and girls. 

The Nine Tailors by Sayers, Book 22 of 52 in 52

Set in the quiet countyside of East Anglia, The Nine Tailors by Sayers follows the steps of the famous Lord Peter Wimsey as he seeks to uncover the truth about a recent murder.  Who is the disfigured corpse?  How did he come to be locked in the church's belfry?  What exactly killed him?  Is there any connection to an old theft of a valuable emerald necklace?

I actually found this to be a refreshing change from the typical mystery.  Instead of the formulaic ending where the case is neatly solved in an instant at the end of the story, this case is slowly pieced together over the course of the book.  Lord Peter, while an excellent detective,  must adapt his theories to fit each new piece of evidence.  I also learned far more about bell-ringing than I ever wanted to know, but it provided a unique background for the textand flowed well in the story.  Jessie enjoyed it enough to immediately read all of the other Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries that our library had available.  I just wish I had that much time to read. 

On the Incarnation of Our Lord by Athanasius, Book 21 of 52 in 52

Athanasius was the bishop of Alexandria in Egypt for 45 years in the 4th century AD.  The church at that time came under attack from false teachers including Arius, who taught that Jesus was created by, but not equal to, God the Father.  Although banished temporarily after the Nicene Council, the Arians gained influence in Constantine's court and were allowed back into the church despite the vigorous protests of Athanasius.

On the Incarnation of Our Lord lays out his understanding of how the Incarnation is central not only to Christian faith but also for the entire course of history to a fellow Christian named Marcarius.  He discusses the Trinity, Creation, the fall of Man, the condition of man after the fall, the incarnation, and the redemptive work of Christ while refuting objections to each of these points that were raised during his time.  He spends the last few chapters specifically refuting first the objections of the Jews, and then the Gentiles ending with an exhortation to Marcarius to copy of the lives of the saints in action and to study the Scriptures himself in order to have a right understanding of them.

While I found the text challenging, it was far more clear and concise than more modern commentaries I have read on the subject.  It is an excellent glimpse at basic Christian theology from an excellent teacher that I would recommend for every Christian to read.

Week 11: Busy, busy

It's been a busy week around here, but we got almost everything done.

Jessie's 7th grade

• For math, I've temporarily switched Jessie over to Lial's pre-algebra to work through integers and real numbers until she's got a solid mastery of those topics.  The difficulty isn't anywhere near that of NEM, but there's plenty of practice and the concepts are very clearly explained.  She covered numbers to the hundred trillions, integers, adding integers, subtracting integers, and rounding integers. 
• She finished lesson 8 in CE 2, worked on verb tenses in R&S 7, and did more analysis of a Silence Dogood letter for CW.
• In Omnibus, we spent the week studying creeds and took off from the Secondary lessons since we're still waiting to get the book from the library.
• In Latin, she worked on conjugating 3rd conjugation verbs in the imperfect and future, while EG2 was a review week.
• For logic, we looked at examples of mob appeal and discussion different generalizations made by various historians in the Critical Thinking text.

Violet's 5th grade

• She did extremely well in math this week multiplying and dividing fractions by whole numbers and continues to improve with her math facts.
• She continues to slog through Around the World in Eighty Days by Verne for literature.
• R&S has been mostly the principal parts of verbs with a bit of outlining thrown in.
• She rewrote "The Golden Apple" by Guerber for CW and did very well on her test for lesson 11 of SWO G.
• Latin was a review week.  Logic continues to progress very well.

Benny's 2nd grade

• Benny finished both the textbook and IP sections on weights this week in Singapore, completed his first section in CWP 2, and worked through a variety of mixed operation problems in Miquon.
• We started The Book of Dragons by Nesbit for literature and Misty of Chincoteague by Henry for reading to me.
• He passed two more spelling tests in SWO B and is now on lesson 18.
• We began introducing verbs in FLL while continuing to use "Amazing Grace" for copywork.

Geography

• Jessie's working on the last levels for the states and is ready to move on to a new topic.
• Violet has moved up to level 3 for the states where she drags the state to its correct location on the whole map (instead of just a region of it) and is ready to begin working on capitals next week.
• Benny is still working on the Great Lakes region.  I think I'm going to have him start working on the online game twice a week on the days we aren't doing geography together.

History

This week, we shifted our focus back to England covering the reign of Charles I and his death, the Puritan Revolution and the rule of Oliver Cromwell, and the restoration of Charles II and his persecution of Scottish covenanters.

Jessie and Violet both read primarily from The Story of the Renaissance and Reformation by Miller.  They completed summaries of each king and outlined a section of a chapter on Cromwell's rule.  Jessie read two chapters of Trial and Triumph covering the Scottish persecution, while Violet read Courage and Conviction about Samuel Rutherford.  Jessie was thrilled when I handed her some additional historical fiction Duncan's War, King's Arrow, and Rebel's Keep by Bond.  It must be good since she's on her second read through of the set after only two days. 

Benny and I read the first two sections of SOTW 3 and the same chapter on Rutherford as Violet.  He hasn't been interested in any hands on, so we just stuck with reading and mapwork for the week.

Science

Jessie is working on chapter 10 covering evolution.  Her one activity for the week was designed to illustrate mutation.  She started with a basic sentence.  She spun a number to select which letter to change, drew a new letter for that space, and rewrote the sentence with the new change.  After 8 times, the sentence was of course completely unreadable.

Violet finished her Heat and Energy book this week.

Benny and I read about walruses, dugongs, and manatees and completed the corresponding booklets.  Then he made a seal and a pair of manatees for his ocean box.

Art / Music

 Jessie drew a pumpkin this week, colored it with oil pastels, and attempted some shading.

Violet decided to draw a peacock, and I decided to let Benny's science double as art.

Music has not been done as yet.

Henry's Preschool

It was dragon week for Henry.  In addition to our regular Bible stories, I read the same four books every day this week:  The Egg, The Great Dragon Rescue, The Dragon Snatcher, and The Dragon and the Gruesome Twosome by M. P. Robertson.  I reviewed the first three previously.  The fourth one is an excellent follow up as George and his dragon match wits with a pair of troublesome trolls.  Great books for boys (even Benny snuck in at least 3 days this week to listen as well).

 He also snuck under the table to tickle his siblings feet

and mashed playdough to cut shapes from like his big brother was doing.

Week 10: Up and Downs and Indians

Jessie's 7th Grade:

• We worked on adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing integers this week.  It did not go well at all.  We'll start fresh next week with a combination of NEM and whatever addition supplements I can find.
• In CW, she's been analyzing a piece praising Alexander the Great one paragraph at a time.
• She finished unit 3 in R&S on nouns and began working with verbs.  Although she did well on her test, she missed more than usual.  Starting next week, I'll have her diagram a sentence or two each day with a noun phrase or clause for continued review and additional practice with the topic. 
• Vocabulary and logic both went well as usual.
• In Omnibus, we finished with both On the Incarnation of Our Lord by Athanasius and  The Nine Tailors by Sayers.  Next up the creeds for primary and The Dragon and the Raven by Henty for secondary.
• In Latin Alive, she completed chapter 11 and most of chapter 12 this week covering various uses of the ablative and genitive cases.

Violet's 5th grade

• Math has gone very well for Violet this week.  YEAH!  She's done very well with adding and subtracting mixed numbers, multiplying fractions, and multiplying a fraction and a whole number.
• She's zipped through her grammar lessons and verbs and done very well with her spelling this week of French based words.
• Her literature continues to be Around the World in Eighty Days by Verne.
• In CW, we worked on various ways to make grammar changes in sentences, and she rewrote "The Tale of Jemima Puddle-duck".
• She completed two more Mind Benders puzzles in the B2 book and is halfway through Think-a-grams 1. 
• For Latin, she focused on the second person pronouns and the different uses of the genitive case.

Benny's 2nd Grade

• Benny finished up the measurement section of his IP book and finished the multiplication charts in Miquon.
• He also finished reading A Lion to Guard Us by Bulla and listening to Five Children and It by Nesbit.
• Two more spelling tests were completed successfully.
• He's been copying lines from "Amazing Grace" and working on identifying nouns and pronouns in sentences for grammar.

HISTORY

Everyone's history topic for the week was Indians, specifically those living in the eastern forests of the United States.

Jessie and Violet read Life of the Powhatan by Kalman and wrote about the different roles in their society.  They also read a portion of The Iroquois Indians by Sherrow covering Hiawatha and wrote a brief summary of the events.

 Benny and I spent three days reading from The Book of Indians by Holling.  He narrated about how to make a wigwam, made a duck decoy from a paper bag using directions from More than Moccasins by Carls, and got some help from DH in making a fishing lure with goose feathers although it didn't help him catch any fish.

Together, we had an Indian inspired dinner of halibut, mashed acorn squash, and cornbread.  The squash got mixed reviews.

SCIENCE

Jessie spent the week working on chapter 9 of BJU Life Science which discussion Creationism.

Violet continued learning about light and did some experiments looking a refraction.

Benny got another week off (although we did buy more clay for him to make a manatee).

GEOGRAPHY

• Jessie tried the USA puzzle games on sheppardsoftware.com.
• Violet moved up to the level 2 states game.
• Benny continues to work on locating Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio on a map and is up to Montana in his state song.

ART

Everyone drew clown fish this week and painted them with watercolor.  I challenged Jessie to add some depth to her drawing by having portions of the fish in front of some anemone and portions behind.

MUSIC

Jessie and Violet began learning about percussion instruments.  Benny learned about the harp.

Henry's Preschool

This week was more Henry chosen selections.  We did read The Three Billy Goats Gruff by Arnold almost every day.