Saturday, August 25, 2012

Weekly Wrap-Up: The One with A LOT of Science



That's right we did a lot of science. In the form of experiments.

Mackenzie


We're finishing up the last lesson in our Apologia Anatomy from last year as well as finishing our first lesson in Apologia's Swimming Creatures.

In anatomy we were studying growth and development and all of that. Including DNA. So we made an edible DNA strand that we saw all over pinterest.

It was simple. It was fun. And tasty.

The directions are HERE. (P.S. We are now done with anatomy. So only one science lesson for us.)

We also worked on our Try This! and project activities from lesson one of Swimming Creatures of the 5th Day. We did them co-op style with our friends who are studying the same thing. They didn't get to do any of their science experiments last year so we're making them this year. lol

One of their projects is to make an Ocean Diorama. Each lesson they will add examples of the types of animals they studied. This week they created the box and put in some animals from the abyss.  They also had a demonstration of how water pressure effects your body using a ballon and a 2-liter bottle. They made "wind currents" using a tub of water and mini fans. The book suggested using hair dryers for that. Water and hair dryers? LOL No thanks. Lastly they demonstrated how water temperature can effect currents.


She has 3 more lessons left in MUS Epsilon and one more in Growing with Grammar. Then she can start her next level. Yay! IEW continues to go well. She's loving those keyword outlines. We'll start lesson 2 next week.

In the world of home ec, she baked my husband and I some yummy carrot cake cupcakes. From scratch. Cuz we both turned 41 this week. I'm a day older. And wiser. lol



Kayleigh



The first thing I want to share is this: Progress. We are off the dreaded "starter level." Thank goodness. We were so happy we thought about throwing a party in celebration.

I'd like to say that she made some great reading progress but I can't. I'm not sure what they're trying to teach them other than typing skills. And maybe spelling. I'd kind of hoped to teach her to read before we tackled spelling. But at least there were no tears. But that might be because she only did one round of the new level. lol But I'm choosing to remain hopeful.

Naturally, we read a lot. Which is good because we like that. Sonlight had some fun suggestions to go along with some of our stories. When we read The Greedy Farmer from The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book she was comparing liquid volume by pouring milk into cups of different sizes. I'm not going to lie and tell you that she gave a hoot about the mini-math lesson. She was only into the pouring and the drinking of the milk. When we read Tiger Tries to Cheat she had a blast acting out the story with some of her stuffies. She also built the Tower of Babel with blocks but I didn't catch a picture of that. Sorry.

We worked on lowercase b in All About Reading pre-1. She did her little craft, practiced blending with the puppet, and I finally got around to making a salt box for letter tracing like I've been planning in my head for months. Because it was so hard to to find the 30 seconds that it took to prepare. In my defense, the real issue was remember to by a box for it. A 97 cent pencil box from Walmart did the trick. She loved it and used it to draw every letter except for b. lol J was a favorite for this activity. Who wants to place a bet that when she gets to J, she won't want to write it? The odds are in your favor.


We had a blast with our Language Lessons for Little Ones this week. We read a poem about caterpillars and butterflies so I decided to turn it into a little science lesson. (I told you we did a lot of science.) We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and talked about the life cycle of a butterfly. Then we made a life cycle craft using various band aids. How cool is that? Pinterest rocks!! And now I have a lot more band aids in the house.


This week in Handwriting Without Tears , we learned about Mat Man. And body parts. And counting. So versatile. lol We sang the song, built Mat Man, and then she drew him. Everybody loves the Mat Man song.


We did do math. I just didn't photograph any of it. =o)

Oh, I forgot to share our Bible verse for this week. Colossians 3:20. I love it! It's never a favorite of the kids though. I can't figure out why. lol

So how did your week go?

Photobucket
Linking up to: Weekly Wrap-Up, Collage Friday, Preschool Corner, and The Homeschool Mother's Journal.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

How fun to do science with friends! We're revisiting Botany next year (Cati's 2nd and Sam's 1st time) and I've got Post-its all over the book for different videos, mini books and activities. Botany is our favorite Apologia book! But we haven't done Anatomy yet.

Now, the linky thing at the bottom of my posts...I go into HTML (editing a blog post) after copying the link from a blog and paste them in one after another with no spaces between the end of one>< are like that.) And then go in and size them after jpg or png and a space with width="60" height="60" (or any number you want). Does any of this make sense? LOL I figured it out by mistake! Each week I just copy and paste the previous week's linky HTML into the new wrap-up so I don't have to do it all over again.

Melissa said...

Looks like another fun week!! Happy birthday to you and your hubby!!

Becky Marie said...

I'm going to have to find a way to get The Very Hungry Caterpillar into our curriculum this year. That looks like so much fun! Its great to see what you've used with SL Week 3.

Traci's Teaching Times said...

Happy birthday to you & your hubby, hope they were great. Those cupcakes sound yummy. My daughter baked red velvet cake for our youth group meeting last night. She told her daddy she is going to bake him a blue velvet one.

Erika said...

Such a fun week! We love science experiments over here, too. :) Happy Birthday to you!

Kerry said...

I finally broke down and found that 30 seconds to make a salt box this past week too! I love the Caterpillar craft. I will have to remember that it's one of my little guys favorite books.

Ambra said...

What is the deal with the salt box? I actually have the darn box and haven't found the 30 seconds to pour salt into it! You have inspired me to do it this week! :)

Miranda Hupp said...

What a fun week!

We start school on Monday. I'm not sure who is more excited me or the kids. :)

Jennifer said...

Science experiments- fun!

Sara @ Embracing Destiny said...

Love those dioramas! I think we're going to have to try that. I know my girls would love it.

Happy belated birthday!

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