William Penn, My Hero

Up until this year, I didn't know much about William Penn. I was listening to Story of the World with my kids (I SOOO RECOMMEND THIS SERIES!!!) and there was a section in there about him, and I fell in love with his story.  I knew we needed to study him as part of our history.

A Religious Freedom story at it's finest.

We made pull taffy as our activity. I made it too hard. They could hardly pull it, and then it turned into HARD candy. I got it as hot as the directions, but I think I won't let it get that hot when I try this again.

For science, we learned about potential and Kinetic energy.  As part of it, we got out a Mouse Trap game I borrowed from the alternate school. Has anyone got this game to work well? I never can.

But what the kids really liked was this youtube video about potential and kinetic energy (well---it is!) So cool, check it out:

I also took some experiments from Steve Spangler. He's a hero in my boy's eyes. They could watch his youtube channel for hours.

And this week, Heather Burton put together a fun morning of good food and good work to celebrate the book "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Such a good book. I enjoyed reading it with Maxwell.

I so appreciate Heather and all those in this community who make homeschool a group effort. Heather even gave Maxwell a pumpkin. Although, it was not milk fed like Almanzos. ;)

Also, I went to a couple meeting teaching about the brain. I am a little obsessed with learning about the brain these days. It really fascinates me. It affects how I interact with my kids. In fact, after this week I plan on working with Hyrum differently before his one-on-one schooling. I plan on doing simple messages and words of affirmation before we start learning.

Hyrum had a traumatic birth and he got hit by a horse as a toddler. I feel that it is up to me to do everything I can to help his brain and skin on skin touch has been proven to overcome brain damage. We are already doing a bit of Brain Gym and we always have fish oil, but bit by bit I need to include more and take out more that will help my kids.

Anyway, here's a couple awesome videos that Alberta Family Wellness has put out about the brain:

And that's it for this week. I was going to teach about the Filles du Roi, but I had THREE extra boys all week long since my friend and her husband went down to Utah, and I think I did pretty awesome just plugging along, and Filles du Roi will have to wait.