Fun things first, Social studies. We did a short Ancient India unit, and we marbled shirts as part of this. Which will tell any true India buffs how badly I taught my kids. Marbling is Japanese, not Indian, but I didn't realize this until after. We also read "Just So" stories, which was written by an Englishman....so yeah, I failed.
But we DID talk a lot about the Ganges river and how that impacted their society and religion. I got that right...Didn't I?
After that, we've been having an Ancient China unit. I invited my friend whose parents are from China to be part of this, and I was a little intimidated teaching her family, but she was excited to be part of it, and brought some super yummy Chinese food every time.
I even decorated our house for this unit
Once we learned about the Chinese inventions. Namely wood printing, the compass, kites, and PAPER. So we made paper.
The next time we talked about the legends of the invention of silk, the Silk Road, and gunpowder. We danced around with sparklers as our activity. It was a hit.
The next time we learned about Qin Shi Huang. It was all very fascinating but our activity was going to be flying lanterns, however, it was windy, and so when we tried, we wrecked a couple and I got my van stuck in the snow. Yeah.
Then for our last time together we moved over to Japan and learned about ancient Japan (not too ancient-we focused on the samurai which was really during the Middle Ages.) For our activity we did origami.
Science- we had two science clubs since I wrote last time. The first week we learned about oxygen and carbon dioxide. We did things on air pressure too if I remember right. This year I actually remembered to get ready for this lesson and made some carbon dioxide indicators from a lime solution. These take over 24 hours to prepare, and I usually forget to prepare that far in advance, so this was the first time we actually did it, and it worked!
Next week we focused on the water cycle (perfect timing for watching Frozen 2 which in a round about way talks about it.) As part of this we showed how hot water rises and cold water sinks. Red is hot and blue is cold. In the purple one the red had been on the bottom and they mixed immediately.
I also had them draw pictures of the water cycle.
Pretty cute eh?
And maybe they miss my science during the holiday or (more likely) they love Mark Rober, they decided to have an egg drop contest, and engineered ways of making it so their egg wouldn't crack. They did this 100% on their own, and I don't think a single egg cracked after they had perfected their carriers.
Since it's been Christmas break all of their many, many, many extracurricular activities have been on hiatus, which honestly has been nice. But before they left, they got their fill.
For art, they made Christmas cards. They also have been making "zen tangles" which are really awesome and keep them occupied almost as good as a video game.
Abraham has been loving art and says he wants to be an artist when he grows up. At the risk of being too graphic, I have to share this story: So Abraham drew a picture of our aquarium one night while I was reading to them, and he had done quite a good job and asked me to keep it safe. I forgot about the picture almost as soon as he had trustingly put it in my care, and left it on the bedroom floor. That night Daniel woke up and threw up on it! Yep.
I got sick before Christmas as well. (Head cold-not throw up) and my sweet sister-in-law came over and had all the kid making gingerbread houses while I slept the day away. Maxwell had been preparing for this for a day or two. First he designed the house pieces and 3D printed the cookie cutters for it, and then he baked them all. So really, it was all ready for my sister in law to come in and finish off the magic.
Another thing that ended for the holiday was Westwind classes. This year they've been having Maxwell's class make their own houses. They had to design them and figure out prices for things (I think) anyway, I loved the idea, and I thought Maxwell's was pretty awesome.
They've also been teaching things that are off the Alberta check list, like aerodynamics.
Our choir had its holiday performances, which were so cute. I really appreciated Jandy and Kadie's work with them.
Their Hip Hop had its "parent watch" day, but I could only come for the very end and I only got this really bad photo.
The service club had its last activity. We all made cookies and sold them as a fundraiser for #TeamTrees. That was super exciting for the kids to be involved with something that all their youtube heroes were doing. They ended up donating over 250 trees!
And our group had it's last field trip, but I can't remember why, but only Daniel went. He went to the Card house and to the old Court house.
And as for the necessary subjects, Hyrum is done with his trigonometry unit that Rightstart had him do. Here he is finding the angle to our ceiling to figure out how high it is.
Yet here is him writing phrases for Barton.
Yep. That's my kids for you. Dyslexia. What can I say.
Daniel is also moving along with Barton, here's one of his extra practice pages:
And Abraham is ready for a reading program! He knows all his letters and their sounds. So I had him take the Barton student screening test to see if he needed Foundation in Sounds.
Not sure if you can see this, but he doesn't need FIS because he passed level C, but he FAILED A and B. Yep, just as dyslexic as the rest of them.
I've talked on here about how I was experimenting with Toe by Toe with William because I wanted to find something else that worked besides Barton, well, that experiment's over.
Toe by Toe is not for a little guy who has not had any other training in how to read. It doesn't actually teach anything. I truly believe it helps those who just need to work on their fluency, but that's not all that William needed. I gave it a good 8 or 9 months. It's time to move on.
Behold:
I've heard about All about Reading for a long time. I knew it was neck and neck with Barton in it's popularity for teaching dyslexic children, (Susan Barton ignored me when I asked her about it when I met her) so I finally caved and bought it.
So far, it's delightful. I've decided to teach Abraham and William at the same time. Both of them know their letters and sounds, so we're just doing the phonemic awareness stuff that's mixed in with their pre-reading program, which means we're going to fly through that level.
So far they are having a blast. They beg me to teach them.
As for other things I wanted to mention, we got a car that was meant for Maxwell to learn to drive in (aka cheap) but it was so cheap it already broke down!
Also, the city had its community awareness day, which they had tons of fun at, and Hyrum won a prize that's worth over $250 in gift certificates!
And Epic had their Christmas parties
And last but not least....it was Christmas!!!
(That's Abraham being a nativity sheep by the way)
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