And yet my school will have to be on hold while I go to Mexico in a week for a business vacation. And then Dustin and I feel like we need to take a quickish trip to Vanuatu (just him and I) to check on things.
This is why I think summer school is inevitable. How can I hope to get through all the material I want to any other way? You know what? I have a busy life as a homeschool mom to these wonderful lovelies with learning disabilities! Check out my schedule to see what I mean:
Yeah. I'm little overbooked.
As far as the last month goes, (oops....haven't posted for a month....but hey, at least I'm in Cardston again, so I'm having regular contact with Westwind so no one is frustrated with my lack of writing but myself.) science has been the biggest visual accomplishment, so let's go through what we've done week by week before I talk about other things.
We did end up learning more about Mars. We even did this experiment where we had three jars of sand and one had a chemical reaction, one had no reaction, and the other had a reaction with something living (yeast.) This was to show how we can test for living things on Mars.
The next lesson we learned about other elements of the solar system. This included the outer edges of system which of course includes Pluto. We learned about it's weird barycentre and created a model (btw my phone was in for repairs, so that's why I have horrible photos.)
Also, it included comets and we learned why the tales always point away from the sun.
The next class was about space exploration. We talked about natural and artificial satellites. We talked about propulsion, gravity, and exploration. Umm I can't find any photos. I think we actually did comets this day because we ran out of time on the other day.
Anyway, next class we talked about the moon. We talked about the phases and we had ourselves be the earth, this Styrofoam ball be the moon and a lamp be the sun. It really helped bring it home.
Although our faces weren't as close as this. It was just a cute photo. Anyway, I finally realized that the "dark side of the moon" is actually lit up by the sun as much as any other side, but is called the dark side because we never see it! I don't know why this took me so long to realize.
The next lesson we learned more about the moon, but we also learned about the earth's rotation.
IT WAS PERFECT! Serendipity often happens with homeschool. It just so happens that I got to the point in the book where we’re learning about solstices on the day of winter solstice! We also learned about the Zodiac and why the suns rays effect different parts of the earth differently.
Our next lesson (boy, just going through all these lessons makes me realize how much science we've really done! Go us!) We learned more about the earth's rotation. We learned about different evidence of the earth being round and the sun going around the earth. We watched this awesome youtube about the earth not being flat. It talks about a group of people who insist that the earth is flat. I loved it!
We talked about sundials, and I guess you can make a compass out of a sundial, but I couldn't figure it out.
Then we went on Christmas break. I told everyone that we could only do one science class a week from now on, and it was really good timing. One: because I was getting burnt out, and two: I was done with astronomy.
The first lesson of the year was about the study of the earth . We talked about fossils and geological history. We briefly talked about energy as well because of fossil fuels.
As part of this, we made our own "fossils" by taking tiny toy dinosaurs and pressing them in play dough and then putting plaster of Paris in the indents.
And that's it! Whoo hoo for science!
Okay, so there were some good reasons why I did not have "perfect" days of checking off lists. One of the best reasons was when we went to the Buffalo jump field trip.
It was awesome! and such good weather. I thought it was really funny when they separated us by gender at one point. Hahahaha, they don't know how homeschool works. We don't care about being mixed boys and girls. To be separated like that is weird for us.
But anyway, they did an excellent job of teaching history using every method of teaching imaginable. I loved how First Nations were the ones teaching. How beautiful that they are the ones passing down their own history!
Hyrum made this video of it all:
Another reason we missed some school is because of the dentist. Unfortunately, we need more of these visits.
My parents came, and it was wonderful because they would read to my mom which was a huge help. We all miss them!
And we did do all our classes, including swimming. This is not turning out like I had imagined. It was meant for Abraham mostly, but our swim teacher says he only knows how to teach my older boys. Not sure to do, but I'm teaching Abraham in the mean time.
And we've really enjoyed art. Look at some of the fun stuff we've done:
This is Daniel's Fox
And maxwell's nativity,
And Hyrum's Mushroom village.
Art has inspired us to do some art at home as well:
And even though we didn't check off ALL the boxes, we did do quite a bit English and math. William is plugging along. He's learning his lower case letters!
We've done more Barton. Not enough, but some
And I bought a new Grammar curriculum for Maxwell. It's The Great and Beautiful by Jenny Phillips. It's ALL THE RAGE in the homeschool world right now. Especially among LDS. I started out with level three because honestly Maxwell needs that level of grammar help.
Okay, so I think I'm caught up. We'll see about school in the future, but my MOTHER-IN-LAW IS HERE!!! We are decorating/renovating our house, and it's super exciting, but takes up all my time, and then it's off to Mexico and then who knows, and that is why I have to calm my worries by just telling myself I'll teach in the summer, but we'll be in England in the summer!!!
That's an education in itself. Right?!?!
