Homeschool Week 8

This past week we continued to study insects.  I had planned to start an experiment on crickets, but we wrapped up our fly experiment instead and will begin the one on crickets now.  We have been observing the life cycle of a fly for the last three weeks.  This was super simple.  All we did was put a banana in a mason jar.

We watched it over the next week or so until it had about 10 fruit flies in it.  At this point we covered it with a knee high pantyhose and secured that with a rubber band.  We watched it for another five days.  The fruit flies multiplied like wildfire and it got lots of maggots in it too--so gross!  Joe thought it was really cool:-).

We took it outside and set all of the fruit flies free.  So now we had lots of maggots.  They went into "cocoons" after a couple days and then finally hatched out into fruit flies completing the life cycle.  The jar was once again full of flies.

You don't know how happy I was to throw this jar in the trash.  This experiment was very fun and it was interesting to watch from start to finish for all of us, but it was gross.  So, now we are moving on to crickets.



An earwig just happened to turn up in our workshop so of course I immediately ran upstairs and grabbed the bug viewer I found at Target's Dollar Spot so we could check him out for a while:-).  I also found some pages about earwigs in some of the books we were reading.

Hanna is studying dispersal and pollination in Botany right now.  No big projects on her end at the moment, lots of notebooking pages and diagrams/drawings.



Here are some the books we are reading currently to go along with our insect studies.  There are more in my Shelfari.  These are our favorites.













We also had fun with Geodesic Designs in the form of marshmallow sculptures.  This was our first time doing these and it was lots of fun.  Hanna, Joe and I built sculptures.  **All of our Science experiments this week were taken from Activities in a Bag's General Science 1--worth EVERY penny!**

Joe's masterpiece

Joe and I are continuing to study Thomas Jefferson in History.  We are mainly reading books and doing our History lesson on him from our I Love America History curriculum.  My mom had a Value Tale on Thomas Jefferson that we are enjoying right now.



Hanna finished up reading and writing her report on The Trumpeter of Krakow, she read Beowulfd wrote a paper on what makes it an epic.  She also completed dates on her timeline and mapping activities in her history lessons.



Grammar is continuing to go well for Hanna.  She is catching on to labeling parts of speech finally, and doing well with diagramming too.  Personally, I am not fond of diagramming and find it pointless, but I do know it is on standardized tests, so for this reason I have chosen a Grammar curriculum that includes diagramming.  This is our third grammar and in this case, "third time's the charm".  Finally one we will stick with. 



Joe is doing well with Reading.  After being reminded about Progressive Phonics on my friend Jenny's blog, I decided to give it another shot.  It was successful this time around.  Perfect too for a little more handwriting practice each day to compliment our ETC pages.  Again, I am not rushing Joe at all with reading, with anything actually.  That said, he catches on to things so quickly and is doing so well in general.



Going back to Abeka Math with Joe was the right choice.  It moves a bit faster and covers a little more than Singapore did and this is what he needs.  Last week we worked on money and time.  He caught on fast and really surprised me!  I'd figured this might be where we would spend a little more time in the beginning.



Teaching textbooks is still keeping Hanna happy which keeps me happy.



Jack did do a few trays, but I got no pictures.  He really needs me right beside him when he does his school work.



As far as art, we did a few things.  I had each of the kids do something with watercolors.  Joe and Jack painted watercolor houses on paper plates.  This was quick, fun and they liked it.

 Joe and I used liquid dish detergent, food coloring, small shallow dishes, and straws to create bubble art.  This was FUN!  It looks pretty too.

Joe's

mine

Hanna's watercolor project was drawing, and then painting an O'keefe style flower.  She did a great job!

She also made a fireworks picture using oil pastels and watercolors.  I LOVE this!!

We had a SUPER FUN week of school!  I didn't realize how much we actually accomplished until I typed up this post.  We are continuing our insect study for a few more weeks, moving along with daily curriculum lessons, and doing a few more simple art projects.



I am proud of the work Hanna and Joe have done this school year.  They are both working hard and putting forth so much effort.  Our school year is off to such a great start and I am having so much fun with what we are studying, what we are using and just teaching them in general.



To see what others have done for their learning fun visit Homeschool Creations.



**OK, I turned comments back on because a few of you mentioned you'd missed being able to leave them, so feel free to comment away when you get the notion:-), and thank you!**