Writing and Halloween

 Okay, so here I go again (do you realize that I've kept this blog thing up for a REALLY long time?)

So history-we did end up learning more about Florence Nightingale. I love that woman! While teaching about her, I realized I don't have a specific time to teach about Marie Curry, and that bugs. I'm not sure what to do, because I'm so behind anyway.

Well, anyway we did bring out doctor kits to celebrate her.

We learned about Queen Victoria. One of my FAVOURITE shows of all time is Young Victoria, so of course we had to watch it. And we also made decoupage boxes as our activity.

Then of course Charles Dickens. He is the epitome of Industrial Revolution life. As our activity, we tried to make Victorian silhouette art. We really did. But it didn't work out at all. So then we just watched "Oliver!"  There was a really meaningful moment for me while watching the film. In the middle, when Bill Sikes hits Nancy, my boys were really disturbed, and one of them said "a husband wouldn't actually hit his wife. Right?"

How blessed am I? 

So we also learned about the Impressionists. I kind of feel that I've failed my kids at some level. I can't remember not knowing who Van Gogh, Monet, or Renoir were. I've always known. I lived in a house that taught me, and then I went on to be a Art Historian, and I don't even teach my children. I talk about it once every four years? Yeah, not very effective.

Oh well. We painted Van Gogh art as our activity.

We also learned about Alexander Graham Bell. I always feel a little uncomfortable about him because I know how the deaf community feels about him. It's a good opportunity to talk about how everyone is trying their best, but that doesn't mean they make good choices, and at times can hurt people.

As our activity they got walkie-talkies. BIG hit!

I was quite lazy this week, and I only did WW1. I'm not to that point in history's timeline, I know, but it was Remembrance Day, so I jumped ahead so we could talk about it on 11/11 11am. We always focus on that Christmas when the soldiers stopped fighting and realized that they were all people. War is so stupid. Horrible and stupid.

As our activity we made poppies.

Do you like Daniel's poppy costume?

For science, we kept on learning the different classes of animals.

First we learned about fish. We made a "swim bladder," did a couple harmless experiments on real fish, and dissected a fish...which was not harmless.

The next week we learned about Amphibians. We tried to jump as far as frogs can jump, we had a pollywog handout, and we dissected a frog. Do Canadians call them pollywogs, or is it just my English mother that drilled that into me?

For art, all the kids did Halloween art. I thought it was super cute:

And also for art that was NOT made by Janet, Abraham made this drawing of what he wanted his costume to look like and then he made it! all by himself! LOVE IT!

He was so cute when we went trick or treating. He would put the candy through the Jack-o-lantern holes.

And Maxwell out did himself again this year and made a Starwars Death Star. He programmed an Arduino to light up a bunch of LEDs and shoot off a laser to sink up with the Death Star firing.   

And I had fun too. We almost weren't able to go trick or treating this year because of COVID, and I've never felt so blessed to go!

CORE SUBJECTS:

Abraham: In math he's moving right along. He was so ahead, we took it easy this week. He's been learning his days of the week and months of year and recently has been doing the commutative property.

He's also been learning about place value and how they relate to each other.

Sorry it's sideways. I didn't bother to fix it, but hey, I promised math, and I'm delivering math!

He's also continuing with his Handwriting without Tears grade one book.

And he's plugging along with Logic of English. I must say, they do a TON of phonemic awareness, and Abraham is remembering all the different sounds each letter they've taught has, so far so good.

William: Will just did him math's 1/4 year test. He couldn't do one: The one that asked how to say "5 minutes before the hour." ALL my boys HATED this concept. I didn't push it, and he got the rest done well.

He also finished reviewing his times tables for the year. We went out on a date to celebrate.

For writing, we've been doing "Write Into Winter." His entrees are hilarious. One says "In 50 years, I will be 58. I will probably have a wife. There will be crazy new inventions. hopefully I will have gone to Legoland more times." LOL!! and another says "A funny story from when I was young. A mirror fell on me and part of the mirror cut my head and made a wound. Then they put a bandaid on me. Then I grabbed my poopy diaper and put it on my head and my parents freaked out."

And he's continued with All About Reading and is at the stage where he is doing compound words. He is getting sick of AAR because they have him read so many books, and it is so hard for him. I'm not done with the program yet. We are going to keep on trudging through for now. Besides, I've already bought the next level!!

Daniel: He has been learning about ratios, cross multiplication, and similar triangles. He had the assignment to go outside and measure his shadows compared to tall objects shadows. He also found out how tall our trailer is by looking at the top of the roof through a mirror on the ground.

And for something more concrete as an example, Daniel was also learning about factorials. Here's his work with some triangle factorials:

There's an awesome book about factorials that I acquired some how, which teaches it in a fun way:

He's been doing write into winter as well. Here's his "What will it be like in 50 years."...uum I can't find it right now. Sorry.

Hyrum: For math, he's been going over the order of operations:

And he's done with all the greatest common factor, and Least Common Multiple things. 

And for English, he's continued with his grammar:

Also, he's begun writing a murder mystery party for writing. He's super excited about it, but keeps changing everything about it, so we'll see where this goes.

And as for MY WRITING (yes, I'm writing a book about my mom's life) it was crazy incredible. I went on a writer's retreat with some of my Cardston Writer friends, and we were only supposed to be gone one night, but then we got snowed in! And then we spent three nights!

But I don't regret it one bit! It was one of the most spiritual and insightful weekends of my life, and I will never forget it!! I feel so grateful for all those who came and all the help and companionship there. 

Crazy thing is, as I was writing about difficult things about my mom's childhood, I got facebook messages, and it was from my cousin once removed's partner who has been doing family history about my mom's dad and found SO much! He found newspaper clippings about him and his first wife, and his christening. It's been incredible!!!

I know I'm barely coherent on this blog, but I think a lot more about what I write in this book of mine, and it's better. I promise.

And in closing, yes we already got that dog, and it's name is Zoey, and things are going better than I hoped with her.