Week # 7

Privet!  We had a very fun and very busy week.  Along with our usual school activites, Artsy Girl began her American Heritage Girl meetings this week.  Since I am treasurer and helping to get this program started, I have stayed up many late nights.  It's ok though...it's for the girls to have fun and make lasting friendships!

Anyway, we took a detour this week for Soccer Boy from our Letter of the Week program (courtesy of Erica from Confessions of a Homeschooler).  We spent all week learning about camping and making our camping lapbook (courtesy of Jolanthe from Homeschool Creations).  He enjoyed this activity very much.  I really like making lapbooks, he seems to really learn by putting his book together.  He cut, matched, glued, learned beginning letter sounds and finally we made our own firepit out of a CD, sticks, rocks, and tissue paper.  We plan on having a mock campout in the living room tonight with homemade s'mores...yum!

It's off to Russia this week for Artsy Girl.  We headed straight to the largest country in the world.  We watched clips of the Nutcracker and learned all about Peter Tchaikovsky.  We watched a video on Siberia.  We learned all about some of the animals from Russia and she did a book report on endangered monk seals.  We studied about Peter Faberge and the history of the famous Faberge Eggs.  She even made her own replica.  We learned about Communism and Democracy.  We spent some time learning about Russian art by the famous Kandinsky and she made her own version of his abstract painting, "Squares with Concentric Circles".  We continued our Math and spent all week learning about nouns in English.  We began a unit on Rainbows in Science with several hands-on projects.  She really enjoyed this...doesn't every little girl like rainbows:)  She finished her study of Daniel in Bible and really enjoyed reading about him in the lions den.  I think that about covers it.  Oh, we also made homemade pretzels that were supposed to be made last week with our study of Germany (just ran out of time).  They were yummy, the kids loved making them!  We're off next week, as I will be out of town.  We will resume shortly as we head off to Italy (my favorite!).

Weeks # 5&6!

Guten tag, since we had the Labor Day holiday, I decided to combine two shorter weeks.
So, these two weeks are all about the letters F and G for Soccer Boy.  We learned all about foxes, fish, firemen, gorillas, gumballs and goats.  We counted, sorted, colored, cut, glued and finally made our own little fox for "F" and goat for "G" to add to our alphabet tree.  We continued reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom as he really loves this book and read about a day in the life of a fireman (especially fitting with the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11th this weekend).

Artsy Girl was off to Germany to explore the land of over 150 castles.  We visited the amazing fairytale castle, Neuschwanstein Castle.  We read extensively about the Holocaust and Artsy Girl read a biography about Anne Frank.  We talked about what it would be like to go into hiding for two years and to ultimately be separated from our family.  We also learned about Ludwig Van Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach.  We listened to some of their most famous musical pieces and read about their lives.  Beethoven composed his most famous symphonies after he lost his hearing!  She was surprised that she had heard all these musical compositions and didn't know who had written them.  We completed the German craft of pressed flowers and put our flowers into a frame...very cute craft.  We also learned about the German artist, Klee, and made a replica of his "The Golden Fish" painting.  In Bible, we began learning about the story of Daniel which will continue into next week.  In Math, she completed a math review of the things we have learned so far and did fantastic.  She may complain about Math, but she is doing very well in it.  In Science, we began learning about seeds.  We looked at some various seed coverings (testas) from a sunflower, bean and coconut.  We even planted a sunflower seed to watch the process of germination.  In English/Grammar/Spelling, she completed the section on the writing process by writing a story about our trip to Magic Springs in Arkansas.  Stay tuned next week, we are off to Russia!