School This Week

This week we finished up chapter 1 and started chapter 2 in Weaver Volume 1. It took a few more school days than it is "supposed to", but we have certainly been enjoying ourselves! 

We began making a topographical map of the United States of America-- I got to put my VERY rudimentary map drawing skills to work for this one!

We talked about how Christians are to be a light to the world, a city on a hill. I showed them how putting a candle up high in the room makes the whole room light up, whereas putting it down on the floor makes almost no difference in the darkness.

They made a picture of a light bulb using foil for the filament.

They also made crosses to remind us of heaven.

 The Bible first lesson in Chapter 2 is about the Tower of Babel again. We discussed how the people chose not to obey God, and instead wanted to make a name for themselves. We also talked about how, historically, ziggurats were used as places of worship. So, we went on a trip to see a number of different places of worship! Mainly Christian churches, but we also threw in a synagogue and observed the fact that there were crosses visible on nearly every church, but not at all on the synagogue. We first took them to see a number of more ornate and grand structures in one of the neighbouring communities, so that we would be able to discuss the historic architecture and design, and then we came back to our area, where the churches are far newer and compared the ornamentation of the older churches to the newer churches.

Apparently this "looks like heaven" to our children.

Greek Orthodox church

Jewish synagogue

Spring Has Come!

I had told the kids that we would make St. Patrick's Day cookies, but feeling pretty yucky myself meant that I really didn't have the energy to deal with making St. Patrick's Day cookies. Instead, we made sugar cookies in a number of spring shapes, and then of course we absolutely had to decorate them!

For the last couple of years Elias has asked us for a duck. Specifically a green duck. However, there is absolutely NO way to guarantee that we got a green duck without paying a small fortune for it (ducklings sexed at the hatchery are rather expensive!), and this year he decided he just plain and simple wants a duck. Who cares what colour it is. So we called up the person we knew of who hatches various birds every spring and asked if he happened to have any duck eggs due to hatch. He said he did, but they weren't due to hatch for another week, so call back and see what he had then. We called a week later and found out that his batch of eggs had been a pretty poor hatching result this time round-- he only got two ducklings out of the whole batch of incubated eggs.

We told the kids we were going to go see some ducklings, and possibly get Elias a duck, and Elias ran off to get his money he has been collecting for the last year so that he could buy his own duck(s). He was adamant that he be the one to get them! We are just letting him think he paid for them in full. I believe they are Pekin ducks, I'm not sure if they are both regular ones or if one of them happens to be a jumbo one. They are drastically different in size right now!!

And... our winter garden stalled out when the snow came, but we are finally getting really nice produce out of it! Perhaps next year I will try planting carrots as well?! I can't wait to use these turnips and their greens this week! :)

This Week in our Homeschool

This week we continued to talk about soil, civilizations, and land formations. In Bible we talked about Jesus talking with the disciples about counting the costs of something before beginning an activity, and we also talked about being a light set on a hill rather than down in the valley, and how we can see for miles around from a hill instead of being unable to see and defend ourselves in the valley as well.

I gave them small cubes to build two circular towers. One set of cubes was only 20, the other 200.

She decided that it obviously pays off to count the costs and be sure we have the materials and abilities required before we begin a project!

 Along with counting the costs, we talked a bit about stewardship and the need to have our money set aside for tithe, spend, and save. We made little "piggy banks" out of dixie cups (my kids don't get a whole lot of money!).

Since we have been talking about soil and its components, we got a jar of water and added a good large scoop of the soil from our garden in the front yard. We shook it up until there were no more lumps visible, and left it to settle into the different layers of soil. It took a good 24 hours to get the layer of silt to settle in, but the sand layer was visible almost immediately, and the clay layer about 2 hours later.

In this picture you can see the sand layer having already settled at the bottom.

This picture shows sand on the bottom and then a good thick layer of clay-- I always suspected we had a very clay-based soil in our garden considering how wet it stays and for how long!

 We also have discussed the need and uses for electricity, and so we went to take a look at where we get our power from. Our power is supplied mainly by a nuclear power plant, which is about 20 miles from our house, but takes nearly an hour to reach due to rivers and such being in the way! We wanted to go see both sides of the plant, but couldn't figure out how to get to the other side. We are thinking they must have had the access blocked off for some reason, so we just went to a spot where we could see one of the domes and the distribution center of the plant from the road, and called it good. We'll look at some pictures of the plant online in the coming week.

The control buildings and one of the domes are visible in the center/left of this photo, and some of the distribution equipment to the right.

Distribution equipment

Results! Sand on the bottom (yellowish), clay in the middle (brown), and silt on top (grey). There was also a very small amount of humus left floating around on the very top.

We have also been waiting on the tomato and pepper plants that we started on Sunday to sprout, the tomato plants started sprouting yesterday, hopefully the pepper plants will sprout by next weekend, though I always find those quite difficult to coax into growing. We also plan to plant the garden in the coming week or so!

St. Patrick's Day!

I found an interesting "icebox dessert" recipe as I was browsing my facebook last week, and since it is made with Lucky Charms, it seemed fitting we would make it for the St. Patrick's Day weekend!

In case you would like to make your own, you can get the recipe here

As it turned out, it tasted pretty good the day we made it. We ate it about 3.5 hours after I finished assembling it, and I would say you probably would want to eat it within 2-6 hours of making it. However, by the next day it was starting to taste a little "soggy", and by today it is just not that great, in my opinion. It is very rich also, which has somewhat turned me off. However, Justin seems to have no issue with it. But, it was a fun experiment... I'll just stick with Lucky Charms and regular milk, personally. :)

Instead of doing Weaver activities I decided we were going to learn a little about St. Patrick's Day this year. We read a book all about the holiday-- its origins, where Ireland is, what the Irish flag looks like and stands for, the way the holiday is celebrated by Irish people around the globe, etc. We listened to the Adventures in Odyssey episodes about St. Patrick, and we made cupcakes!

We coloured them with sprinkles to look like the Irish flag!

We finished the day with shamrock shaped raviolis in green and white. Which wasn't particularly Irish, and my kids would have happily taken corned beef over the raviolis, but it turned out that my plan was the raviolis, because I was feeling pretty rotten by the end of the day yesterday, and despite having a nap in the afternoon with the baby while I occupied the older two with a Magic School Bus marathon, I was feeling pretty nauseated and doing my very best to continue to function long enough to get everyone into bed! We were going to make sugar cookies, but that didn't happen. I do have a shamrock shaped cutter, however I think we might save it for next year and just make some cute spring/Easter shapes instead-- I have a lovely set of Easter cutters now, so that should keep everyone happy.

And, that's it for our St. Patrick's Day fun this year!

New to the Coop

While they have not yet been added to the coop, as they are too young and being brand new we don't want to potentially contaminate our very small flock of three chickens, we have added 7 chicks to our flock! They are not sexed, however, so odds are good that at least one or two are actually roosters, and will be leaving our family in about 4-5 months.

The kids are very excited about the new chicks, the black ones are Plymouth Barred Rocks, and slightly heavier than the Golden Comets we got last year. They are a dual purpose hen, which means they will be able to be used as food when they stop laying eggs. The yellow chicks are Silkies, and will look like big balls of fluff even when they are full grown. They lay a small or medium sized cream coloured egg instead of the large to extra large size brown ones the Comets and Rocks lay. 

Week 1 with Weaver

We began using a new curriculum this week. I had been planning to save it until the "new" school year, whenever we began that, but I needed inspiration, the kids needed more to occupy them than asking me to watch The Magic School Bus or to please let them go catch worms for the turtle, so we started using Volume 1 of The Weaver Curriculum. 

In the first unit, the focus in social studies is on the development of civilizations, and the history in the community around you. Therefore, it is suggested that you ought to select some historical sites that may be of interest to your children, and go visit! We started our week with a visit to the location where the Battle of Dam #1, or the Battle of Lee's Mill, took place. 

There wasn't a whole lot to see, but we did sit and sketch the scene anyway.

You can't really tell, but the kids are standing next to one of the earthworks. Lesson learned: specify angle desired when you aren't the one taking the photo.

The first Bible lesson was on the Tower of Babel and how the people disobeyed God and chose to make a name for themselves by using bricks baked in an oven to make them strong, and they were going to do this in order to not be scattered over the earth. We just happened to take a trip later in the week to a place that we actually saw "fired bricks"!

Our next trip took us to visit the old old courthouse, built in 1810, and the oldest government use building in our city,  and the new old courthouse, built in 1884.

Built in 1810, this courthouse has 3 rooms.

The keystone for the 1810 courthouse with the names of those involved in its design and building engraved on it.

You would think they were about to be on trial, based on their expressions, but they actually really enjoyed their outing to the courthouses!

The 1884 courthouse

 The 1884 courthouse was built because the municipal case load had grown too large to be handled in the small 1810 courthouse. The 1810 courthouse became the county clerk's office when the 1884 courthouse opened in 1885.

Another part of the unit focus is on geology, and at this age, the geology we are studying focuses greatly on that which is around us. What sort of land formations are around us, the soil in our neighbourhood, where the highest point in the city is, etc. So... we took a trip to the highest point in our city. A manmade hill. Which isn't even as tall as the trees that grow in the field below it! This is the most popular "sledding hill" in our city, probably because it is the only real hill to my knowledge!

Standing on top of the hill-- they were amazed by this hill. I guess when you live on the coastal plains it doesn't take much!

 Our second Bible lesson was about the parable of the houses built on sandy ground and on a rock. We used popsicle sticks to build houses on sand and on a piece of my old broken baking stone, and used the spray nozzle at the sink to make it rain on each house and its foundation.

Building on the sand.

Building on the rock

Results!

As you can see, the sandy foundation washed out, and the rock stood firm. Point made-- we should build our lives on the solid rock of God instead of the shifting sand of the world. Or at least our houses. They are at a pretty literal age, and took it to heart that we need rocks under our houses. I wonder if they are going to try to dig down under our house's foundation to be sure it is secure... hmmmm.

Anyway, we also went and collected samples of soil and mounted them on a piece of poster board after examining them with magnifying glasses, and when the ground dries out enough to show a difference, we will check out different areas of our yard to determine the best place in our yard to build if we were to build something.

Along with all our activities, we have been reading a book about our state, learning about the symbols of our state, learning about community helpers, reading books about soil, geology, cities, and maps, and generally just enjoying having a lot to keep us busy. Between bouts of vomiting, since we have all been dealing with a stomach virus for a week. It finally seems to have subsided as of yesterday! :)