Dissecting Animals, Thomas Edison, Tesla, The Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Henry Ford, and a few Christmas Parties----WHEW!

WOW!  What a WEEK!

We dissected THREE animals this week.  We started our study of invertebrates, and we looked at a real sponge, and dissected a worm, a clam, and a starfish!  Who says you have to forgo anything as a homeschool group :)  My niece whose a born animal whisperer, joined our biology group and was told by all the girls back home that she was sure to throw up, but guess what; dissection isn't actually gross, and she was just as fascinated as the boys.

We learned about Thomas Edison.  HOMESCHOOLED Thomas Edison.  Love his story.  Love all the Troll Associate books about famous people when they were young.  Found a bunch at a thrift store and they are AWESOME. Thomas Edison: GREAT business man.  Great PR skills

I had to include Tesla.  Because of my husband I know how ingenious he was. BAD business man.  No PR skills. Result: No one knows about him, no kids are taught about him, and a little home school mom pities him.

I gave my boys a plasma ball to celebrate these men, but it broke the next day.  I'm hoping Dustin can fix it.

We aslo studied the Wright brothers.  We got out a book I found at the thrift store:

Best. Plane. Book. EVER!!!  I can't rave about this book enough.  IT IS SO COOL! All the airplanes (112 of them) are awesome and can be made without even looking at instructions because they are so easy and my boys can do them by themselves and they all WORK (really well.)

Definitely getting this book again!

Then we Learned about Lindbergh (lucky LINDY) and Amelia Earhart and Maxwell got the idea of making an ocean for us to cross out of a blue blanket.

(The books are islands)

AND we learned about Henry Ford this week---because we hadn't crammed in enough as is!---a great book about him was "Eat My Dust."

We had the best activity EVER.  A cookie car assembly line---oh yah---where each boy was given a specific thing to decorate on the car-cookie.

And I thought I would add this photo of our homeschool supervisor, because he's just so cute.

PS-found some cool books about immigrants-"An Ellis Island Christmas" and "A Place to Grow."

Dissolving Eggshells and Trying to catch up in History

For science this week we learned about semipermeable membranes, but I never used the word "semipermeable."  I thought it a little too advanced for my crowd.  We showed how water passed in and out of an egg (a cell) once the shell was dissolved.  We showed how some things passed through plastic, but other things didn't.

I'm quite behind in history.  It's hard to skip things.  It's hard to not spend the time I want to on things.  Oh well.  The secret to being a homeschool mom is to be flexible. 

We learned about the impressionists this week.  There were some cute books about them at the Library.  A lot actually.  "Camille and the Sunflowers" and "The magical garden of Claude Monet" were a couple of my favourites.  We painted "Starry Night." for our activity.

We also learned about immigrants.  I had wanted to spend way more time on this.  I want to read more books too.  I don't think I'm done with this subject.  We dressed up as Lady Liberty to celebrate immigrants, and I let them light candles for their torches, and Hyrum singed his hair!

We studied the invention of the camera as well.  It was hard to explain how cameras old and new work, even though I had a couple books to help me.  I went to Brainpop.com to help me out.  Our homeschool organization has paid for brainpop and brainpop jr. this year.  BOOYAH! 

We looked up cameras and sure enough there were some movies about them.  Brainpop is a little advanced for my guys, but I think some of it clicked.  Brainpop Jr. is perfect for my little men, and when I am sick or when I'm completely frazzled (doesn't happen too often lately) I let them have full reign of Brainpop Jr. I LOVE it!  Even today Maxwell said "if you cut a starfish in half, they will both grow back and you will have two starfish"  I asked him where he learned that and he said "Brainpop of course."

I'm against having cyber learning as a curriculum for young kids, but for the odd exception, it's heaven sent.

As our activity for cameras, we played with UV paper which works like photo paper, but the chemical changes made by the light can be stopped by simply putting it in lemon water.

Queen Victoria and Finally Starting Science

This week was one of those weeks when I kept finding myself wishing there were more hours in the day. BUSY.

I finally started our science club this week.  I've actually missed it.  It does take the most work (preparation wise) but it's worth it.  This year's group has all new boys in it because my old group all moved!  I think it will be good. They are closer in age to Maxwell then the group before.

We are doing biology this year, and we have a lot to cover in a short amount of time because we started so late.  This week we learned about cells.  We got the microscope out and looked at real cells.  We made a couple of cell models.  One out of a plate and cracker (the nucleus) and another out of jello where a grape was the nucleus.

We studied Queen Victoria this week. BTW "The Young Victoria" is one of my absolute favourite movies---a must watch.  We made decoupage boxes made with pictures from the Victorian era as our activity.

The homeschool organization here had a "Person of Eminence" day, and Maxwell chose Victoria as his person.   When we got there, we realized that we were supposed to dress up as our person.---oops---not that I would have wanted Maxwell dressed as Queen Victoria anyway!  Maxwell did really well on his presentation.  I was glad that he chose her because she kind of sums up the industrial revolution in one person.  Here's our friend giving his report on Benjamin Franklin:

We also learned about Charles Dickens, but we never ended up doing our activity for him because we were too busy reading.  We read children's versions of Oliver Twist, Little Dorrit, David Copperfield, and of course A Christmas Carol.  We also read the two Tree House books about Dickens.  Can I just say again that I LOVE Mary Pope Osborne?!

And at co-op Maxwell made a candle and Hyrum keeps making cute crafts.  Every homeschool mom NEEDS a co-op!

Back to Normal

We are back in Canada.  Our Idaho house is officially SOLD.  Whew!

While were still in Idaho we learned about Jane Austen.  We read a Usborne version of Pride and Prejudice.  Maxwell was not interested.  He was making duct tape wallets while listening.  Is it some genetic thing that boys don't like Jane Austen?  I LOVE Austen books. Oh well.  We made silhouettes as a memento.

Then we got back to Canada, and I was sick so not much to post.  We went to our co-op here.  Maxwell goes to a cooking class, a math class and my theatre class.  The other boys just go to a preschoolish class.  Maxwell made an apple crumble at the cooking class.

We also learned about Samuel Morse.  A great graphic novel about him is "Samuel Morse and the Telegraph" by Seidman.  I bought a Morse code kit, but it was just a glorified buzzer.  Next time around I think I'll get some walky talkies that buzz and see if my boys can send messages with Morse code.  I'ld like them to memorize it someday (my husband grew up on a boat, so we think it's still useful.)  ...---...

Halloween, accomplishments, and Travels

This week Maxwell finished his Handwriting Without Tears book and his Dick and Jane book. FYI, I haven't been able to find any new editions of the Dick and Jane curriculum beyond the primer books, and so I've had to buy the 1950 originals off amazon.

Hyrum has finished his workbook too.  This is about all I brought with me from Cardston.  Maxwell only has a few math worksheets left.  I miss Rightstart math, which I left behind.  I bought a couple of things, but really----I need to be back in Cardston to do school effectively.

This week we have travelled and travelled.  I didn't let that stop things completely.  We still learned a bit about Florence Nightingale.  We read a ValueTales (I love that series) about Florence while on the road, and then we brought out some doctor/nurse kits to play with in the car.

Of course, it was Halloween, and we were able to celebrate it at Grandma T's house.

Aren't they cute?

Steam Boats!

For the industrial revolution, we actually made steam powered put put boats!!!  Be impressed. Be very impressed.

I've wanted to make a put put boat since last year when Maxwell wanted to make one for the science fair, but we couldn't figure out how to find the materials needed or how to do it.  Then, I found this website: http://www.sciencetoymaker.org/boat/index.htm which uses every-day materials, and easy to follow instructions!  Yippee!

It's an activity meant for 14 year olds, but we've never let that stop us in the past, and although it took us ALL DAY, and Hyrum and Daniel lost interest in making them, we made four WORKING pop pop boats!!!

We learned about Alexander Graham Bell this week as well. There is a well written children's chapter book called "Alexander Graham Bell" a Discovery Book by Garrard publishing.  It was so well done, that I want to get more Discovery books, although they are from the 1960s and 70s.

We made cup telephones to celebrate Bell, and it was fun to see how a simple toy could entertain them so much.  FYI everyone called the telephone a toy when Bell first showed it off.

Also, FYI: Bell taught Helen Keller a bit, and this inspired an impromptu learning about her.  We watched "miracle worker" as part of this, and Hyrum (our temper tantrum king) couldn't stand watching someone else constantly having temper tantrums. Ironic.

At co-op they learned about Mexico and Audubon again. Science was supposed to happen this week, but my boys had too much fun with cousins, and I never got to it.

Oh, and for my records, there's a cute book called "an Illustrated Timeline of Inventions and Inventors."

School's back with the Industrial Revolution

Being surrounded by good books (I acquired a library card here in Idaho) I can now comfortably resume school regardless of location.

This week we started learning about the industrial revolution.  We learned how it was a time of factories and inventions.

I asked Maxwell to go find some junk and make an invention.  I unleashed a giant.  Maxwell is always building something, but with the little nudge from me, he was in creation heaven.  He got his cousin on board and started inventing Robots that "have never been in this world before" which is Maxwell's definition of an invention.

And Hyrum, whose interests slightly differ, created with another cousin, the costume invention of a Halloween King:

We also talked about trains and their importance in the industrial revolution, and they each got a new train toy (sometimes a new toy is enough of an activity.)

A cute informative picture book about Steam engine trains is "Jingle the Brass."

And we talked about how prevalent child labor was during that time and how bad the working conditions were. A good book that will make you cry is "Working Children" by Saller.  Our activity was to watch Newsies!  Newsies was my favorite movie as a tween----Christian Bale back when he did musicals ahhhh---Dustin mentioned batman, and they were waiting the entire movie for this New York cowboy to turn into batman.  Sorry boys.

We read a children's book, "Kid Blink Beats The World," that tells the real story of the Newsies as well.

We went to co-op again.  Maxwell goes to a Knights of Freedom class where they are learning about John Audubon, and a World class where they learned about Ireland.  All the boys go to an art class, and Hyrum and Daniel go to a nature class and animal class (story times basically.)

Not sure what playing marbles has to do with Audubon but I came in and took a picture anyway.