'Twas the Week Before Christmas (Homeschool Edition)

'Twas the week before Christmas, when all through the house

All the  people were restless, even the spouse;

Math angles were solved by the children with only one care,

Finish the workbook and get out of there.

Week 17: A Play and a Gingerbread Walk

So much learning happened this week and there was big events for all our kids. We're so proud of all the hard work they have been putting in week after week that made this week possible. To first report on OpenEd's required Classes:

Science: A1 has been watching animal documentaries and working on his life science course. He also built a new electric circuit.

And engineered a cat fort with multiple rooms.

In progress

But our favorite science of the week was watching the Geminid Meteor shower Saturday night. Because we live fairly rural, we were able to sit in our front yard and enjoy a great view. Often one shooting star was followed by one or two more in the same location. We saw dozens of them in the 30 minutes we braved the late night and cold.

Week 16: Another Course on Animals Complete

For math, A1 learned how to find the area of a triangle and began learning about ratios.

In science, A1 finished his crash course in zoology. If anyone has ideas on where he could keep learning about animals, particularly reptiles, send them this way.

He also continued his life science course through Mia Academy and his nature notebook.

For Language Arts, he did Exact Path, typing, lots of reading, and writing.

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For history, we talked about the civil war and things leading up to it. For fun, we played the American Civil War map on warzone.com (Risk)

A1 continued with piano, a mindful journal, fort building, obstacle courses, baking, and more.

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A2 had Joy School and story hour. They also had cousins come visit and had a lot of fun playing, building Legos, and running around.

Week 15: 3D Printing

Even through Open Ed doesn't require a Learning Log the week of Thanksgiving, Al did some pretty cool things I wanted to record.

A1 has enjoyed playing around with a 3D printer for about a year now, learning about how different filaments and heat affects the final print. This week, he coded and printed his very own design.  He made a basic template of his favorite food. 

Pizza Slice

When 8 of them are printed, it makes a full circle pizza.  

Week 14

This week it was my turn to be sick, fortunately, Dad, a former history teacher, had half a day off to help. I taught a math lessons on word problems with fractions while Dad taught a social studies lesson on US westward expansion. In reality, it would be amazing if he could teach all the US history lessons as he's a way better social studies teacher than I am- I leave it up to Mia Academy. 

Math: We arrived midway through Singapore Math: Primary Mathematics US edition, book 5A. A1 worked on the mid book review.

Language Arts: A1 worked on Exact Path as well as spelling. He enjoys writing stories to practice his spelling.

A2 enjoys sharing the whiteboard with A1 so she can also "write".

Week 13

Fun Fact: 

The days of the week were named after celestial objects. (And the Norse gods associated with them.)

In order: the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn (Saturday)

As hard as we try to keep a regular homeschool schedule, life happens. In this week's case, A1 and his brother were sick, our main vehicle was out of commission, there was a mid week holiday, and an emergency vet visit for my daughter's cat. But we tried our best.

Week 12

 “The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.” 

— Mortimer Adler

Math: A1 learned how to multiply mixed numbers and convert units of  measurement and time. For example, hours to days or feet to inches. He also did Exact Path and we signed up for a Prodigy membership since all my kids love to play.