Sweet Music of Lewis and Clark

This week we learned about Betsy Ross and made US flags.  What little kid doesn't love 50 star stickers?

Next was Lewis and Clark.  I wanted to make terrain of the US continent and have our toy cowboys and natives represent Lewis, Clark, Sacagawea, and the other natives, but I just didn't have enough salt to have an impressive landscape (our rocky mountains were pathetic.)  When I do something like this again, I am going to get a bucket load of salt dough.

For science we continued to learn about sound.  We learned about echos and music.  We even made our  own symphony with homemade instruments.  Maracas out of rice and paper cups, pan pipes out of straws, and guitars out of shoe boxes and rubber bands….ah the sweet melodies.

Our field trip was amazing…grandma and grandpa took us to the CIRCUS!  The first circus of my thirty long years.  It was in a small city, but it was an incredible show not lacking in any way, and since it was  a small venue, we got REALY good seats :)

Presidents Sound off

I know we took a month off for the holidays, but we moved too, so I think we should be forgiven.  Now we are back and back strong.  All my boys love math time (or coloring time for my younger boys) Although, Daniel bites off the ends of the markers, and ends up a ink mess every day.  Now each boy has their own markers….at least they're nontoxic!

This week, we studied presidents, so we talked about the difference between the president of the church, and the president of the United States, however Maxwell didn't think this was the funnest activity since we just posted things on the wall.

We talked about the different jobs that the President of the United States has, and put hats on Obama representing all his jobs.  It was kind of weird teaching so much about Obama since I'm a conservative and not in tune with Obama's politics.  Too bad Maxwell can't be president someday…born in Canada…well, maybe Prime Minister eh?

For science, we learned about sound.  We made sound waves out of streamers, watched rice dance on speakers, made cup telephones, listen to rubber bands through different mediums, and acted out lightning and thunder.  They loved it.

For our field trip we went to the church history museum which was fun since they had a kid's exhibit on. Maxwell insisted that these were the REAL gold plates, and I couldn't convince him otherwise.  They spent forever there having fun…a little too long since whenI came out my meter had ran out,  and the police was there giving me a ticket!  He had pity on me when he saw me all a fluster with three little munchkins in toe….hallelujah! 

The US Government

This week we made pomander balls, Even Daniel liked making them and it was very cute how Maxwell made the orange into a little man with faces and hair of spices.  

We also talked about the government and  made government mobiles with the white house, congress, and supreme court.

For our field trip, Dustin (daddy) became a US citizen!  Could there be a better field trip for learning about the US?

We are overly busy, and I think that this post will be it until after the holidays, so...
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Back in the groove of things

Our vacation lasted a little longer then planned, but we are back and Maxwell is asking "when are we going to begin our day?" When I want to start our schedule in the morning...since I don't always do it right after breakfast....I say "It's time to begin our day" so in other words, Maxwell was really asking "when are you going to start school?"

This week we talked about George Washington and how he started our government.  Don't I have the cutest Washington wigged boys ever?

We learned how they needed to make a lot of new laws for the new country, so we decided to make our own laws.  These are Maxwell's laws:

-You can't steal (after Maxwell said this I said..."this is for fun you can make up silly fun laws if you want"....these are the laws he then made....)

-You have to jump in the ocean

-You have to give presents that are yours to somebody else

-boys and girls both have to wear dresses when they are small but dads can't wear dresses (I think this one originated when we talked about what the colonists wore, and I told him that little babies all wore dresses...)

-You must clean the kitchen every day

-There must be lights on the outside of the house every night so the thieves don't come in that are on the bad team

-you shouldn't take apart things that are not yours

-you have to brush your teeth with your finger every night

-you must love people

-if there are poor people you must give them money

This month we are talking about service in our devotionals and we all washed each other's feet like Jesus did.  It was cute.

Well, we are not completely in the swing of things again, but we are on our way.  And we weren't completely brain dead for our vacation either.  We went to a few science museums and zoos.  Nothing like hands on learning.  Right?

Yankee Doodle Learns his math

I know it's only Tuesday, but this is the end of my school week, because I am going on vacation for the next two weeks!  We learned about Yankee Doodle this week and the song and the historical story behind the song, and made three cornered hats and hummed the tune on kazoos.  Maxwell informed me that this was the best activity we had ever done.  Hyrum loved it too.

For science we learned about simple machines...ie ramps, levers, and pulleys.  They loved the pulley thing so much, they've been playing with them ever since.

What I'm excited to announce is that Maxwell finished his first Math workbook.  He has now done 160 pages of Math!!!  Time for a little diversity...I bought him an abacus...we'll see how that goes.

Well...I'm off....see you in a couple of weeks! :) :) :)

Secret Messages

This week, we had lots of fun.  We talked about how the patriots sometimes had to write to each other in secret so the British wouldn't know their plans.  We made secret messages out of lemon juice that you can only read when you burn the lemon on the paper (it actually worked!) and then put the messages in envelopes that we sealed with wax.  My boys almost started fires, but we are all burn free.

We also talked about the Declaration of Independence.  We made our own home-made ink and our own quills and we wrote our own declaration of Independence. The first photo is Maxwell squishing berries for the ink.

For Remembrance Day we made origami poppies...and lots of other origami things.  I have to say that Canadians don't do Thanksgiving right, but they sure are better at celebrating remembrance day.

I have started Maxwell journaling his school day.  I had a realization that the most important secular things I should teach my kids consistently are math and writing.  Everything else will come easy enough, but without constant practice, math and writing skills are not acquired. So now I've stepped up a notch on my writing expectations for Maxwell.  I ask him what he has learned that day, write what he has said in a yellow marker, and have him trace over what I wrote with a purple marker.  Gradually I will ween him off tracing, but at this point, he just needs to practice his letters.

Oh we went to the Rigby TV museum for our field trip as well.  Not that new looking, but interesting none the less. (The TV was invented in Rigby Idaho!)

Pink ovens and Tea parties

No, I'm not wanting my boys to be girly, I promise.  But this week we learned about the Boston Tea Party, so I bought a little tea party set, and we acted everything out.  We were Red Coats sometimes talking about how to take advantage of the ungrateful Patriots, and we were Patriots sometimes, complaining about not having our freedom and throwing out our tea.  Maxwell had us include prisons, tar and feathering, and battles, so be assured it wasn't your girly tea party.

For science this week, we talked about energy; stored energy vs released energy and transfer of energy.  We talked about how a balloon is stored sound energy and popped them (I use balloons a lot, don't I) we talked about how we can be storing energy or releasing it, and a few other things.  The Four Year Plan where I get most of my ideas (link on the side of this site) suggested using an Easy Bake Oven to talk about energy.  I went to the thrift store and actually found one!  I burnt the brownies, and I don't know if the kids got anything out of it, but Maxwell sure thinks that pink oven is pretty cool.

We went to the coolest science center this week in Boise.  It had tons of cool experiments.  It had robots that you could control, skeletons that you could control, weather that you could control, and tons of other  interactive exhibits.  We spent hours there and didn't explore everything.  It's called the Discovery center and it's by the university. I Highly Recommend it.