Week 19-21

*Title Week 19-21 is to stay synced with My Tech High submission logs. We have one week to go before our Christmas Break.

Critical Thinking- We have been doing conundrums. Sometimes we use the ones from Class Dojo. Sometimes, we use a real life example. Such as a petition from Egyptians for a British Museum to return the Rosetta Stone. We talked about its history especially with language and who they thought the stone rightfully belongs to and what would happen if we returned all artifacts to their origins, etc. No right answer, but it's fun to hear their thinking.  

This week we did an Escape Room. I thought I was keeping it pretty simple, but it turned out to be more of challenge than expected. Good critical thinking going on though.

The first clue was in the treasure chest. They then had to find all the letters and unscramble them using this clue:

The first thing they figured out was "base" as the four letter word lock.

Even realizing the word was color coded, they still struggled to understand each square coordinated to a color coded word. They were looking for numbers.

When the letters were organized by color and unscrambled they got Birthday Times Kids. A had his eighth birthday this week. There were four kids working on the puzzle, including a friend. A has been learning the principle behind multiplication in math and mentioned 8 x 4 is eight groups of four OR four eights. In this case, the combo was 4 eights.  

Math- End of Semester Review

History- Regan Era

LA- Some things we do every week: reading, spelling training, writing, Night Zookeeper.

Exploring Technology- Legos and Minecraft and How to build a 3D box out of a flat piece of paper. (Amazingly, no picture)

PE- We tried out Yoga. K and A thought it was fun. J did not like it.

The boys also went on another hiking adventure with Grandma and Grandpa.

Science- Learning about heating sugar. We made Brazilian truffles and puffed wheat balls.

Plus, a natural example of a colloid. (Last week's lesson)

Stay Curious

What happens to a compass when you're standing at the top of the world? It points south! Ha ha. Really, if you are standing at Magnetic North, which is not directly on the north pole, it would point in random directions since you are standing on the point it wants to point to.

All About K (and A2)

Science- Baking soda and colored vinegar.

Music- 

Oh the noise, noise, noise, NOISE! ;)

Fine Motor for A2

Week 18

 

Failure is not the opposite of success,

It is part of success.

 

I can persevere when things get hard.

Mistakes are invitations to learn something new!

Challenges help me to learn and grow.

Life Skill- Being charitable not only helps others, but brings happiness to the giver. For Giving Tuesday we contributed to Water Aid and CWS best gifts. The kids thought about gifts that represented their grandparents and bought those for others. For example, chickens for Grandma on the farm, or corn and shovel in behalf of Grandma who loves to garden.  "A" really wanted to buy 500 baby fish for someone in Honduras. When we told him we didn't have enough money, he ran to his bank and pulled out $15 dollars (which is a lot for our kids). J also contributed $10 of her own for a water in Africa. It was sweet to see them so giving.

https://www.wateraid.org/us/

https://cwsbestgift.org/

Math- Review

LA- Dad and A finished reading Harry Potter the Sorcerers Stone. We watched the movie. 

J and I are listening to Kid Normal- it is hilarious as an audio book and highly recommended.

We also continued with our funny stories and writing letters.

Also finished our PBS kids November read-a-thon. Printed our adventure passes that gives us free books and free admission to places like the zoo, natural history museum, Thanksgiving Point, and more.

Music- A learned how to play a song on Grandma's piano.

Art- We finally carved our pumpkins... on Thanksgiving.

And crafts- 

Finishing touches

Science- Colloid- Where one substance is mixed or suspended in another. For example, cream has particles of fat suspended in water. They are not chemically combined and remain two distinct components. To experiment with colloid, we made homemade ice-cream, where cream, ice and air all mix together to form a tasty treat. On her own, J realized cake is also a colloid with tiny air pockets being dispersed through the dough. Other examples of colloids are: bread, toothpaste, mayo, smoke, and fog. 

We also made peppermint bark. I'm sure it counts as a colloid. ;)

History- US history Crash Course

PE- SNOW!

And we had a lot more fun than snow. At Grandma's, we made an indoor slide out of a folding table. Later, the boys went on a hike to some cool ruins and petroglyphs. (I was stuck in bed after surgery, so we may be repeating this one.)

Exploring Technology- Crunch Labs and Kiwi Crate and Mark Rober's new video about the world's largest mattress dropping an egg from space.

All About K and A2 (aka Kylina)

K had a birthday. He's devoted a lot of his time to Legos.

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K helped make his own birthday treat. Peanut butter "cheese" ball with homemade Reese's Cups. (Kids have taken after Dad and don't like cake.)

J made him a lego cake

K is so good a puzzles

Channeling his inner Home Alone-
Learning how things work using spare parts from updating the house.

A2's work

Sensory play- water and cat

Sensory- paint

A2 is a ninja, too.