Week 13

Fall Party

We hosted the fall party for our homeschool group. We decorated sugar cookies, played Minute-to-Win-It games and just enjoyed getting together.

Math- J reviewed dividing decimals. She learned about volume and multiplying into the thousands. A did subtraction and started measurements.

Science- We took some time to help a relative clean up around her farm. We found some old bones from a deer and learned about its skeletal structure. We also enjoyed exploring the properties of mud.

These two also discovered they are distant cousins

More Science- A is doing the Crash Course Kids Earth Science. He learned about the water cycle and how you could theoretically be drinking dinosaur pee. We then created our own water cycle. Hot water in the bottom acts like water being heated by the sun. Ice cubes on top act like water being cooled in the atmosphere. Water condenses on the plastic like in a cloud and it rains.

PE- Who knows how long these warmer days will last.

Floor Scooters!

LA- We review quotation marks to help with our writing.  J wrote a fun story about her cats.

There's a Dragon in the Bathtub

There's a dragon in the bathtub

And a huntress is looking at it.

There's a dragon in the bathtub,

And a huntress is moving towards it.

There's a dragon in the bathtub,

and a huntress is sliding down towards it.

There's a dragon in the bathtub,

and a huntress is sitting next to it.

History- J learned about westward expansion and immigration.

Presidents by J-

George H W Bush served in WWII. After his loss to Bill Clinton, he wrote Bill Clinton a letter for him to read once was president. The last line said, "Your success is now our country's success. I'm rooting hard for you."

Bill Clinton passed a lot of unpopular legislation and was one of the only presidents to impeached.  

George W Bush won in one of the closest elections ever. He is only the second president to have a dad that was president. His presidency is defined by Sept. 11th. when two planes crashed into the World Trade Center. He enjoys baseball and was the first president to run a marathon.

Barack Obama was the first African American president. Where he was born was a controversy, but determined to be Hawaii. He tried to get better health care for all Americans but it unfortunately was flawed. He did try to help homeless veterans.

Donald Trump had never been a politician before becoming president. He appeared in movies' and made a lot of golf courses. While president, he worked to keep every campaign promise he made and helped with a peace treaty in Israel and helped improve the economy.  But, when he lost the election to Joe Biden, he was very mad, and refused to admit he lost. Hm, that was very unlike the gracious George H W Bush. Covid-19 also happened during his presidency.

Joe Biden is the oldest president to be elected. Is president right now. Inherited the Covid crisis. He is dealing with the an energy crisis, shortages, inflation and the Ukraine war. Basically a lot of crisis's.

There you go, there is all the presidents. And the states will be coming soon.  

All About K

K loves preschool. They are currently going through letters A-Z and while this isn't my favorite way to teach letters, I have to look at it as him getting fine motor practice in as well. 

Because I struggle with the heavy worksheet, academic only, approach of traditional preschool, we incorporate what I feel is the most important education into our day. I am a big fan of Joy School. It focuses on teaching preschool children joy as the most important skill they can retain (since joy is something they already have and we don't want them to lose). Every month we take a new "joy" to focus on. We have done the joy of the body, such as dancing to music, or jumping on the trampoline, or trying a new food, and the joy of the earth such as watching a worm, appreciating fall beauty, or picking things from our garden.  

Week 12

 

I can choose to bring joy to people around me.

I can be kind even when it’s hard.

I can create a positive change in the world.

 “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.

-Mother Teresa

Math- We are still reviewing for J. This week we did angles, area, decimals, and improper fractions, which she understands well. By the end of next week or early the week after, all 4th grade material will be reviewed. We got a slow start with switching math programs, but are well on our way.  A is learning subtraction with remainders and will be next week as well.

PE- Taking advantage of the warm weather while we still have it. We also saw who could hang on a bar the longest and did more obstacle courses and sock dodge ball.

Science- The kids are eager learners. A has already completed all 13 life science lessons and the same with the zoology videos. And is looking for something new to learn.  We also made homemade air fresheners.

Art- We made paper pumpkins.

LA- The kids love to write stories and are both avid readers.

History- Like A, J is cruising through her history lessons. J learned about the Civil war this week. She also learned about more states and presidents. At this rate, she'll be finished by the end of next week.

Presidents according to J- 32nd president was FDR (Franklin D. Roosevelt). He seemed like a good president and ended up serving FOUR terms and he would have served a fifth if he hadn't died in office. He was the president that made it so they could give weapons to allies during WWII but still remain out of the war, then Japan attack Pearl Harbor.

The 33rd president, Harry S. Truman, was vice president and became president once FDR died and he set the atomic bombs on two places in Japan to end the war. His middle name was just the letter S, it didn't stand for anything.

Dwight D. Eisenhower helped in WWII and helped end the Korean conflict.

John F. Kennedy started NASA, but he didn't live to see people go to the moon, because he was assassinated. He also started the Peace Corps.

Lyndon B Johnson grew up in a town that was named after his family, yet he had a tough time during his childhood. He was the first member of active congress to volunteer for military duty. During the war, he got off a plane to use the bathroom. When he came back, he was told he would have to board a different plane because the other one already left. Later that day, Japanese troops bombs the plane he was originally going to get on and no survivors were found. As president he signed the civil rights act that outlawed discrimination.

Richard Nixon helped astronauts land on the moon, was the first president in China, and ended the Vietnam War. He is the only president to resign from office. He did so because of the Watergate Scandal which involved a break in at the Democratic Nation Committee Headquarters.

Gerald Ford was the only president to become president that was not elected as president or vice president. He survived two assassination attempts.

Jimmy Carter served only one term but he did so much in and after his term. He made peace with Africa and other places. He also negotiated lots of treaties to help with world peace.

Ronald Regan was an actor. As president he gave lots of speeches including one that was after a space ship exploded killing all aboard. He also gave one at the Berlin Wall.

Stay Curious

J couldn't remember how many days there were in a year. I told her 52 weeks and she times it by seven to get 364. So in a regular year there is actually 52 weeks and one day! Leap years have 52 weeks and two days! I just learned something new.

All about K

This week, we made homemade playdough and created patterns using the game Mastermind. This covered science, fine motor and math. We also did more reading. 

*For reading skills, it is more important to start with common letter sounds, rather than letter names. K has learned the letter sounds for M, S, A, E, T. In that order. We will be putting these letters together so he can read words like: mat, sat, me, see, etc. Doing it this way, rather than learning letters in alphabetical order, quickly gives functionality to the alphabet and gets the learner reading words far sooner than waiting until all letters are learned. 

Week 11- Baking Ice-Cream!

 

Life Skills 

J learned to cook French toast and A helped shred the monster Zucchini we got from our garden to freeze. Later, it will become chocolate zucchini muffins.  Even though it will be awhile before the first freeze, we decided to pull up the garden. Look at these beautiful carrots!

PE-Old School Hop Scotch. Our four-year-old is learning to hop on one foot and we are so proud to watch him improve his skills. The other kids had fun joining in. 

Eventually it became part of an obstacle course.

Math- J is reviewing factors and products. And, since she loves long division, she makes up her own long division problems. A has been doing subtraction without remainders this week. And began addition with remainders.

A wrote his own math problem 5 digits long.

Science- A has a strong interest in animals and, after studying ocean animals for awhile, he was ready for more. We found a life science course on Crash Course for Kids that he has been watching. He also started watching the Zoology Crash Course.  

We also decided to bake ice-cream for our science experiment! Baked Alaska helped us learn about insulation. The ice-cream was in a 450 degree oven for 4 minutes and it didn't melt. Thanks insulation!

The meringue ended up being runny though- guess we won't be serving to Paul Hollywood anytime soon.

Craft Club- sinking jelly fish

History- J has been watching Crash Course for US history (made for high school AP students, but she still gets something out of it). We found a free program call ZoomIn for history that we will look into as well.

Presidents by J-

Grover Cleveland was the 22nd AND the 24th president. He is the only president to leave office and then come back four years later. 

Benjamin Harrison was sandwiched between Cleveland. He was not very memorable. Which is why I don't remember anything else. But I do know he lived when Utah was only a territory and California and Nevada were the same state. 

William McKinley was the last president to have served in the Civil War and was voted as having the worst presidential eyebrows in history. He was assassinated (not because of the eyebrows) and Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt became president, whom we've already talked about so lets just head to the next president.

William Howard Taft was the heaviest president. So heavy, he got stuck in a bathtub. He really wanted to be a supreme court justice, which he did after his presidency. He was good friends with Roosevelt until he became president.

Roosevelt didn't like what Taft was doing so he formed his own party, the Bull Moose Party, and ran against him. That split the Republican party and a Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, became president.

Woodrow Wilson helped give women the right to vote during his second term. However, he had lots of stokes during his life even during his presidency.  He eventually died from one.

It looked liked Warren G Harding was doing good things as president but his friends, whom he put in power, created a presidential scandal. He took a vacation to Alaska and when he was heading back, he died of a heart attack in San Francisco, California.

Calvin Coolidge was Vice President for Warren G. Harding and when he died unexpectedly, Calvin Coolidge was made president. He was visiting family in Vermont at the time, so he became president in his own house.

Herbert Hoover was president during the Great Depression. Before he was president he fed lots and lots of people around World War I. He was known as The Great Humanitarian.

Stay Curious

One night at dinner J asked a lot of nutrition questions.

What is the healthiest food? While dark leafy greens are worth mention, and Chia seeds are one of the healthiest seeds. We decided a good balance of all the food groups would be the healthiest.

What is the healthiest meat?  We said Salmon.

What is the healthiest vegetable? Spinach is one of the most nutrient dense foods, and so is kale. These two leafy greens frequent Google lists of "healthiest vegetable". We planted kale in our garden this year and found it to be incredibly prolific, it was also one of the only things in the garden the deer didn't eat. Should that be a good or bad sign? Hm... Also, does anyone have any good frozen kale recipes? 

What is the healthiest tree? We said the every fruit tree. We talked a little about how grafting works so a tree could bear multiple types of fruit.  We then discovered a researcher has created a tree that bear 40 different types of fruit!

Extra for the family-All about K 

While I have been mainly writing about our two kids enrolled in My Tech High, I have also been doing preschool with my four-year-old and would like to share more about what we do for him as well.  He also goes to a public preschool a few hours a week partly for physical therapy. He participates in most of our science projects and we do reading at home. He is both read to and is learning to read using the book, "How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons".

He excels at puzzles and both him and his brother have been doing a monthly Lego project that they take apart and put together multiple times. This week his favorite thing from public preschool, besides the playground, was taking yellow paint and blue paint and making green paint.

Week 10

We learned through our My Tech High homeroom teacher that October is National Cookie Month. This week, we celebrated by reading books about cookies, drawing smart cookies, and learning the science of cookies (Thanks, Alisha!).

I also learned when to use baking soda vs baking powder. "Powder puffs, Soda spreads". So if you want fluffy biscuits, use baking powder, if you want delicious cookies, use baking soda.

 And, of course, we baked some cookies with Grandma! 

Grandma makes the best cookies. 

Grandma also taught Life Skills by reading them the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today? 

Grandma let them each of them create a bucket and they spent the rest of the day writing nice notes to each other. It was so cute! Thanks Mom! 

They created these notes to write nice notes to others too. 

J also created her own craft inspired by Grandma's fall decorations.

LA- Before our visit to Grandma's, we had a read-a-thon in a blanket fort with stuffed animals (and a couple real ones) during a rain storm.

Math- Example page by A. He getting pretty good at addition and we're ready to focus again on subtraction.

Science- Besides cookies, we explored what happens when you leave your garden for a week.

And we built a bridge out of popsicle sticks. Supposedly triangles are the strongest shapes. 

While waiting for our bridges to dry, the kids watched The Magic School Bus on bridges. 

The next day we tested our bridges.

The bridges weren't holding as much weight as we thought they would, so we experimented with using duct tape to secure joints.

It worked better, but in the end the structure still collapsed after only one and a half bricks.  

We did observe it wasn't the triangles that gave out, but the places where the different pieces where they were taped together.

We also explored some Earth Science by looking at beautiful fall leaves.

Exploring Tech- Crunch Labs Art Machine

Lastly, Presidents by J- Eighteenth President, Ulysses S. Grant, was a war hero. His real name was Hiram Ulysses Grant but someone miss wrote it on important paperwork and the name stuck.

Ruthford B Hayes was the first president to travel to the west coast as a president and was the first president to have a telephone in the White House.

President James Garfield, the 20th president, was not very well known, and didn't finish his term because he was assassinated, and he didn't even want to be president. But the people wanted him to be so he ran.

President Chester A. Authur became president after Garfield was assassinated. He was a good president and he owned 80 pairs of pants!

Stay Curious- Question by A

Why does lava explode when water touches it? 

The rapidly boiled water turns to steam and pushed outward to escape, resulting in "exploding" lava.