WW1, WW2, and lots of Dissections

 Lots to catch up on. Let's start with the least exciting, since usually I leave that for last....here's math:

Abraham has been chugging along. He is doing geometry with Rightstart. I feel like he is understanding it quite well. The thing I love about Rightstart is that they focus on the student to start thinking like a mathematician. Here Abraham is with a work sheet where they gently guide him to coming up with the equation (n-1) + (n+1) = n squared. 

Here is a worksheet of Abraham discovering WHY a parallelogram's area is width times height.

 And once you know that, they show how it's related to the area of triangles, so now he knows how to find the area of triangles:

And then you can break other shapes into triangles to figure out their areas:

And he really understands it. Here he is just stating HOW to find the areas of trapezoids and triangles to find the area of the octagon:

Now for William: he's been going through his VideoText. He's reviewed his order of operations.

But then it wanted to review fractions, and William had forgotten too much, so we went way back to Rightstart fractions (they have a separate book, just for this) and reviewed for a bit. Of course this involved hands on manipulatives and card games because.....Rightstart.

Answering questions that I gave him on my awesome white-board-table I made:

Can you see the  monster eating the larger number? Hahahaha

And he even did some Rightstart fraction worksheets.

And THEN he was ready to go back to VideoText and he added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided fractions easily.

Daniel has been doing math sporadically on Khan Academy "SAT prep course" but soon he will be doing math with BYUI (most likely.) YES you heard that right, Daniel is almost signed up for COLLEGE!! 

The Stake President just needs to press "go" and he's IN!

Hyrum hasn't done official math (I'm actually going to try and push him to do math next semester, but he's worried that he won't have any time since he's working full time in order to raise money for his mission.)
HOWEVER programming is a little like math, right? and he's getting a 98% in his programming class right now. In fact, he's been doing so good at his college classes he got...

A SCHOLARSHIP!!! 

He didn't even apply for this. He just got it because he's been getting all "A"s.

And now....

ENGLISH

Okay, English for Abraham has been going really well. He finally got through ALL OF ALL ABOUT READING!!!! I am DONE teaching my kids how to read!!!! Do you even comprehend what an accomplishment this is?!? All dyslexic. Two with ADHD (at least two...) This is huge. Be impressed. Be very impressed.

THEY ARE ALL READING FOR FUN!!!!!

Do you hear that Lindy from the past? Do you hear that you have hope? 

Here is a photo to commemorate the occasion. 

I think it's interesting how AAR does their last few lessons. They group the words by origin. They do greek influences and break words into their parts of meaning.

Then they try and explain why French words do what they do...I still hate French.

And then they go over why Italian words do what they do. Italian is much better than French IMO.

They also go over simple literature knowledge like what is first, second, and third person.

 

Now, he's doing All About Spelling, and I've just been reviewing the first book really fast so we can start on the second. This has beed easy for him.

The simple words are a little too simple for him, so he makes them into sentences to challenge himself, and he thinks his sentences are so funny if he can fit as many spelling words into them as possible. 

ALSO Abraham participated in a poem reading competition. He did....so much better at home than at the competition! He recited "Nobody" by Shel Silverstein. I think it freaked him out that he was supposed to know the name and author, because we hadn't gone over that, and all the cute hand gestures and facial expressions he was doing at home went out the window. He still did it though, and I was proud of him.

 After everyone did their poems, a professional gave them tips on how to improve.

William has been doing All About Spelling as well. He has been reviewing all three books so he can start on book four with the refreshing that he needs. I wish I had more to show you, but William loves to write all his words and sentences with a "frixion" pen that disappears when you heat it up, and then he takes a flame to it all and makes it all disappear! Then he might put it in the freezer for the ink to reappear, but it will have several days of words and sentences on it, and so it's useless except to torch again so he will have a blank page to do it all over again.

The stinker.

And even though I'm not teaching MY kids Barton, I saw this gem and thought I would put it here just because it's so true:

And for all of my kids, Abraham, William, Daniel, and Hyrum have been doing my DEBATE CLUB!

Yes, I finally started. Debating really is just like doing essays, and we have been learning logical fallacies and ethics.

I think the teenagers have been liking it. Anyway, it's been a good experience so far. They do not get to choose their topics. Nor do they chose whether they are for or against, which hopefully helps them open up their minds.

One debate club was PIE DAY! So of course we ate pied to celebrate, and it all got eaten quickly with that many teenage boys. And Abraham pointed out that pie spelled backwards is 3.14.  PIE=314 do you see?

Okay, now that we have the  Reading Writing and Arithmetic out of the way....let's go over history/social studies:

We continued the industrial revolution by talking about the huge influx of immigrant through Ellis Island, and we also learned about Angel Island. Sadly, this is the first time I've personally ever learned about Angel Island that I can remember. It's like Ellis Island, but it's on the west coast and served mostly Asian immigrants. While Ellis Island turned away only 2% of immigrants, Angel island turned away almost 22%. I think it was important to compare the two and talk about them both.

Then we learned about the Wright brothers. We made balsa wood planes as our activity. (We learned a lot about HOW planes worked as part of this.)

Then we learned about Henry Ford. BOY! I didn't know all the bad stuff about him! How he spied on his workers in their homes, stopped unions and things. Well, we listened to both sides of the story and who knows. We made our very own "assembly line" with care cookies. They all loved this activity!

We also learned about Alexander Graham Bell who ALSO was not a wonderful person. It's good to know the good, bad, and ugly I suppose.

Then we REALLY learned about some not-so-wonderful people= the robber barons. We learned about Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Morgan, but kind of lumped them together. As our activity, we played MONOPOLY! of course.

See those Proffitt boys there? They have been joining us for our history. I really love them.

Then we learned about Teddy Roosevelt, and his efforts to SQUASH the robber barons. I tell you what: He deserves to be on Mount Rushmore. 

It was perfect timing to talk about Teddy Roosevelt, because it was right when Trump was having a tizzy fit about the Panama Canal. So we kind of turned our Roosevelt lessons into Panama Canal/current events lessons.

Then we learned about World War One. Everyone REALLY loved learning about this, so we went a little more in depth than I usually do. The Proffitts really got into it and brought us "rations" to eat like the soldiers did. Of course we made poppies as our activity.

By far, their favourite thing they learned was that "zombies" (aka soldiers that rose up after being gassed) attacked. You have to watch the Youtube movie to understand:

By the way, the channel "simple History" has some good videos, especially about WW1. And don't worry, we DID talk about Canadians during the war (and when talking about Bell, I mentioned that some people claim he's Canadian....I'm getting Canadian history in there a bit, I promise!)

We then talked about the Arminian Genocide. I had NEVER learned about this before a few years ago, but then wisps of it entered my conscience until I was encouraged to learn more from a friend. I had no idea it was during/after WW1 or that it was carried out by the muslim Turks. This time around, I'm going to teach more about the different genocides (Rwanda, Cambodia, Ukraine) and instead of doing the "PG" version of the holocaust (with Diary of Anne Frank and "Number the Stars") I'm going to go more in depth. They need to know.

We learned about the Russian revolution which made the way for Lenin by killing all the princesses. But we didn't do an activity for this. We did watch a "truth vs fiction" about the Anastasia movie. We focused in on Rasputin for this lesson.

Then we learned about "Lucky Lindy" and Amelia Earhart. We made paper airplanes as our activity.

Then we learned about the invention of MOVIES! We watched "Journey to the Moon" and we made our own movies. 

Here's one (of many...but I can't find the rest)

I encouraged them to do stop motion because I thought it reinforced how movies work.

Then we learned about the Prohibition, but we did talk about the good and the bad. No one talks about how the Prohibition did actually lower drinking over all and there was less domestic abuse. We also talked about the town in Whiteclay, Nebraska that was all white people selling to Native people who lived on the Pine Ridge reservation, where there was no alcohol and how it ruined the Native people's lives. I suggest everyone to look into that story.

We had homemade root beer as our activity.

Those are my "drunk" boys.

Anyway...then we learned about "women's suffrage." We even watched the song from Mary Poppins. Thankfully, we had a girl there, and so it wasn't JUST boys learning about how women got their rights. We made picket signs as our activity.

Then we learned about Gandhi. Again, someone who had a "good-bad-ugly" history, but we focused almost entirely on the good. We of course watched the full length film about him, and we made clothes as our activity.

Then we learned about the Great depression. We watched Kit the American Girl which is so good at teaching about the depression, and I put "hobo" signs around the neighbourhood for them to find. I have a few good kids' books about the dust bowl. I love my books. 

Then we learned about the New Deal that did NOT solve the Great depression. I think it's important to realize that when the USA became so socialized, that it didn't help unemployment, it didn't make anyone richer, and it made it so never again could the borders be as open as they used to be.

Then we learned about the Great depression in Germany and how it paved the way for Hitler. We watched Duck Tales to understand inflation. HONESTLY! It's the perfect way to learn about it! Everyone should watch these episodes! "Land of Tralala" and "Dough Ray Me" 

And now NOW we are learning about WW2. We have touched on the causes, the holocaust and Pearl Harbour, but we have so much more to learn. We started reading the book "Man's search for Meaning" and we made gas masks as our activity. I told them about how my mom LOVED her gas mask.

And I think that about does it for social studies, except we DID do some current events. We talked a bit about tariffs and Trumps' remarks about the "51st state" uggggghhhh yet he really wants us to beef up our boarder and for us to make our military stronger?! Get your message straight Buddy! 

And we talked about our new "Prime Minister" and how he got in. I found this awesome YouTuber, JJ McCullough that explains everything so clearly (and bounces in his seat as he talks, which I find endearing for some reason) so we watched some of his videos.

And....did I tell you how ALL of my kids now have all the provinces/territories in Canada AND their capitals MEMORIZED? Well they do.

Now it's on to learning where all the 50 states are. NOT because we want to be their 51 first state!!!! But because we live 15 minutes from there and, let's be real--by going to BYUI they might marry and stay there.

I don't know if you can understand Daniel, but here he is going through Canada's map:

Okay...now I think we're ready to go over 

SCIENCE

We have been learning the systems of the body. Last time I told you about the muscular system and the skeletal system, now let's cover the other systems!

First we learned about the nervous system. Dustin got me this awesome model of the brain which really helped explain things. I feel like I was so much better at knowing about the brain now that I've taken all those psychology classes. Especially my cognitive psychology class---by the way, of subject but I'm on the waiting list for my master's program! Keep your fingers crossed!---

We talked about memory, and how you have a better memory if you can put things into a picture or story. That was what all these shapes is about. Also, I had all of my crew make "brain hats" that are really awesome that map out where everything is in your brain. And also, we have a cat now...not sure if I've mentioned that before....but she likes to be in the centre of things. Especially when I'm trying to get ready for things.

And now for the dissections. I again got my butcher friend to help me out. Here is me planning all the different dissections I'm going to need:

For the excretory system, we digested kidneys. I will never forget four years ago when we did this and soon after I got huge kidney stones. As I was cutting one of the kidneys open, I accidentally squirted Abraham with what was most likely urine from the kidney! He won't forget that any time soon! 

And since the skin's sweat is part of the excretory system, we talked about skin too and talked about our unique finger prints.

Then we learned about the respiratory system. I got lungs connected to the heart and trachea. This was absolutely the most involved and bloody dissection of the year, and one kid started dry heaving. THAT's never happened before!!! We saved the hear for next class, but we tried to fill up the lungs with air. It didn't work quite as well as it did four years ago.

Then we learned about the circulatory system. This is when we dissected the heart. We also did other things, like seeing if we were as fast as a heart beat at moving liquid from one place to another. 

And we learned a bit about blood. (I went over time...I always do...) I taught them about blood types and I had three blood test kits. I had two people get their blood tested, but they were both O-. I thought I did the test wrong. What are the chances that both kids (William and Rosina) would have O-, the most rare kind of blood?! But the next week, we tested one more kid, and they ended up to be A+, so I think I did it right. I made the mistake of saying "If William and Rosy get married, all of their kids would be O-" which made William give a huge smile and say "I didn't say it!" since he has a crush on Rosina. Rosina had no comment.

The next week we learned about the digestive system. I just got a liver from the store. We learned about how long the small intestines are. That's what this photo is supposed to show.

And we also talked about the importance of teeth as part of digestion, which is a good excuse to get out disclosure tablets, which the kids LOVE.

And we did an experiment with the liver that worked really well. We basically made a volcano from liver parts and hydrogen peroxide and then we proved it turned into oxygen by reigniting some fire with the oxygen.

That leaves just the reproduction system left.

My little group was NOT about to get an anatomy lesson about the reproduction system. In fact, I always put up this poster:

And my little people almost died of embarrassment from it. I had to explain quite sternly that there was nothing naughty about it, and gave a little lecture about when things were not naughty, but they still were squeamish. 

SO I strictly stayed to DNA and heredity when talking about the reproductive system.

I had them make a DNA strand from themselves, and I think this is by far the BEST way to explain DNA and how it replicates. 

Also, we talked about dominant and recessive. I even had them get into pairs and roll dice to find out if their genes went into their "babies" that they made together! Hahahaha

Oh, and that's Abraham in that photo up there, with his DNA he made out of candy.

NOW that we've gone over the main subjects of school, here are other things going on. 

Art-my boys have loved going to Art (and literature for that matter) with Janette.

And they love doing art on their own too. Abraham's really gotten into drawing BDXs and is now considering getting a job as a Disney Imainegeer.

That last one is of an art project Abraham had me help him do which was a paper mache lamp. 

And my kids finally did some gymnastics. 

That last one is of Granny Wendy's husband going to the top!! He has to be in his 70s or 80s!!!

Then there were holidays: 

The Chinese New Year: (thank you Janet)

Valentines' Day (thank you Becky)

And St. Patrick's Day

Other learning includes Crunch labs WHICH THEY LOVE!!!! Mark Rober is a master teacher.

Duo Lingo

Friends teaching Abraham how to crochet

Young Men's teaching the boys how to put designs on hoodies

Dad who 3d printed them a Settler's of Catan

And little outings despite the cold

I also increased my education by going to writers week and learning from "actual" authors.

And last but not least, we continued to learn about life, death, and love. we had stayed in Victoria until after the funeral. It was such a beautiful death. I know that might seem irreverent, but he was surrounded by love and family. I will never forget when he passed. And hour or so later, I realized I had to go to the store to get medicine before they closed,  and when I came back, the stretcher was coming into the house and it all seemed so cold and harsh, but the family had gathered everyone and they had written goodbye messages on a sheet for Grandpa and then the path was lined with family holding candles all the way to the herse. Hinkley played on the guitar and we all sang Grandpa's favourite hymns.

It turned out that the therapy the McKays need is to make beautiful things, and so the whole family busied themselves by making the most beautiful "celebration of life"-NOT a funeral- that you have ever seen. 

Even still, we had time to paint rocks and go to the aquarium.

And I finally got that photo I've wanted forever: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob:

And there you go! That's what we've been up to.