Weekly Wrap-Up: The One With a Show

It was an exciting week at our house. It was show week for Kayleigh at The Little Gym. She danced her little heart out. (I might have had to bribe her with ice cream afterward to make this happen.) All of her adoring fans came out to support her. Thankfully she danced anyway. The promise of ice cream outweighed her dislike at being the center of attention. If you're good readers, I'll share her mad dancing skills at the end of my post.

Now on to the schooling...

Mackenzie's Happenings

Mackenzie is still living large in the land of "not much to do." Yet still she gripes. I'm seriously over the "tween angst." In fact, I might write a blog post of all the random things that set hormonal tweens off. I've actually been compiling photos of these items (or people as the case may be.) So if you see a picture of a dinner plate on my blog one day, that's why.

As punishment for the drama, I took a photo of her doing math. When she saw the camera she said, "Don't take a picture of me doing math. I'd like to forget about math." So of course, I took the picture. Now had she had said, "Please don't take a photo of me doing math..." I'd have still taken the picture. =o) I can't help it. It's what I do.

So there she is doing math. Dreaded fractions and word problems at that. She should be grateful that she is able sip on a refreshing glass of ice water while doing math. Some children are forced to do their math while feeling parched because they are only allowed liquid refreshment at certain times of the day.

In the world of science, we're finishing up our unit on the senses. She didn't gripe terribly about this and we're basically done except for two experiments. One required a sunny day and we've had nothing but rain. The other requires me to gather lots of items for tasting. That will wait until Kayleigh, who's also "studying" the senses, gets to taste. I'd rather only have to gather and prepare once. ThankYouVeryMuch!

We were mostly working on sight this week and did a couple of activities. We tested her vision. About what we expected. So was mine. Perfect 20/20 baby! Our favorite activity was testing our night and color vision. If you've got some colored pencils, a piece of paper, and a poorly lit room you are ready to go. Take your supplies into that poorly lit room, grab a pencil, look at it, and then write down the color that you think you're holding on that piece of paper. When you're done, turn on the lights and have a good laugh at the results.

 

If she thinks her load is heavy this week, wait til next week. Check out my sidebar. Lots of reviews coming up. Ha! Actually it won't be too bad. Just things like typing and some map work. I know she'll LOVE the mapping. Maybe not so much the typing drill.

In the land of the broken ankle, she's still hobbling around in her walking cast. We're hoping that it comes off on Tuesday so that we can start our summer fun. Like maybe a trip to Water Country on Wednesday. Fingers crossed!

Kayleigh's Happenings

Kayleigh's been busy finishing up some crafty stuff from last weeks letter P activities and pressing on to Q. And dancing of course.

I had to have her do this peacock craft that we didn't do last week. It was too cute not to do. All you need are some washable markers, a coffee filter, blue or green construction paper, fancy-smancy cocktail toothpicks, googly eyes, paint, and a spray bottle. Preferably one that sprays a light mist. She was hooked when she saw the spray bottle. The spray bottle that comes with the Baby Alive Beautiful Now baby works great! lol

You just color the filter in peacock-like colors, mist it with water, and wash them run together and turn beautiful. While that's drying, cut out the body, glue on some eyes and a beak. Or you could draw them. Add legs too if you'd like. Tape your fancy-smancy tooth picks behind the head to make those feathery looking things. The technical term is a crest or crown but I prefer feathery looking things because I feel that is more accurate. =o) When the tail feathers are dry, glue that body onto it. Then dip that little munchkins thumb and make thumbprints to represent those eyespot looking things. The technical name for those is ocelli. But again, I'm going to go for the more accurate description cuz that is how I roll. None of those highfalutin, nonsensical words for me.

Isn't it just the cutest thing? The peacock I mean. I know it's hard to focus on it, what with that precious little face behind it, but I'm talking about the peacock people.

All About Reading and Raising Rock Stars Preschool

It was all about Q this week. Q, q, Q, q. I'm going to call out AAR on their choice for representing Q. It was a picture of a Duck. Now I know that they're going for the word quack but you just can't use an animal to represent the letters 16 times and then jump to a sound. It's not right. Kayleigh knows that duck starts with D. She knows it deep in her core.  I vote for quail. If quail is good enough for Fisher-Price to use in their ABC Zoo, then it should be good enough for AAR. I'm just saying. (Disclaimer: Despite the use of Nanny goat and Quack, we are still totally in love with All About Reading. For realz. We love it. I can't wait to be able to buy the next level because it looks like even more fun. Woot!)

Our skill in AAR was, once again, syllables. We broke down people's names into "parts" and clapped them out. She loved this. Absolutely loved this. She still does it at random moments. She doesn't always do it correctly but she sure tries. lol Our craft involved a duck quacking of course. And paint. She always loves the paint. And to point out that duck DOES NOT start with Q. Or q.



Our Raising Rock Stars verse was 1 Thessalonians 5:19, "Quench not the spirit." Easy to remember. Hard to explain. She sort of gets it. LOL

We finished up our Q activities and our P craft from last week.  As you can imagine, the verse was not long enough to suit her fancy. She debated about allowing to hang on the closet door with her other verses because "it's going to be embarrassed that it's not long." I managed to convince her that while it might be small, it's still good advice to have. LOL

We also read a long list of books about queens from the library. I tried to get her to dress like a queen for school but she was having none of that. Normally she loves to dress up but apparently not when it is my idea. The little stinker. LOL

Sonlight 

We are still reading about our 5 Senses in the Flip Flap Body Book . Kayleigh just adores this book and  we are having fun with it. Lots of stuff to add in.

For sound we played a sound matching game. I put different items into plastic eggs and she had to shake them and match the sounds. She loved, loved, loved doing that.

For smell we had a cut and paste page that required her to color the objects that you could smell. We went around and "tested" each object first and then colored the ones we could smell with Mr. Sketch Scented Markers. Naturally we had to smell all of the markers first.

We had the most fun with the sense of touch. We used our sense of touch to play our 3D Feel and Find game from GuideCraft. We tested hot (warm) and cold items and then sorted them on a printable. And finally we used our sense of touch by playing with Water Beads .

First we touched them when they were dry. Kayleigh described how they felt to her. Hard, small, round, and rough. Then we added the water and waited. Or attempted to wait.  Truth be told, she was checking them every 10 minutes. Or sooner.

To say that she loves this thing is the understatement of the century. She is gaga for them. She can't keep away from them. Once they were hydrated she said that they feel "slippery, soft, round, and plump." She has taken to carrying them around in a ziplock container incase she has an emergency need to run her fingers through her "balls." She's holding them on her lap next to me as I type. If you haven't tried them with your child yet, you should. We added some spoons and little plastic cups for more play. I'm going to be looking for some small, plastic tubes to use with them too cuz that will be lots of fun.

In other news

She started her fourth You Can Read unit. It contains the word mom so you know she loves it. LOL We've also been introducing our Math-U-See blocks for some math activities, worked in Explode the Code, played a lot of UNO MOO, and had a few tea parties. Or 100.

 

Now on to the show...

The end!  Shew!!!

 

Brain Fluid...We Like It!!

Mackenzie has been studying the nervous system these last few weeks and we've been wrapping it up by focusing on the brain. The topic of the brain has been fascinating. The brain is truly a testimony to the perfection and intricacy of God's amazing design of our bodies.

Some interesting facts that we learned:

**The brains neurons cannot repair themselves.  Uh-oh!!!!

**While recent evidence shows that people can add a few neurons to their brains over their lifetime, the neurons that you have at birth will be the large majority of what you have to sustain you your entire life.

**The skull, while an important part of God's plan for protection for this fragile organ, is rough on the inside.  Rough enough to cut the brain.  (Who knew?  Well probably Derek Shepard. lol)

Wow!  This organ is vital to our daily lives, clearly it's important to take care of it.  It just re-enforces our stance on the importance of wearing helmets when participating in activities involving wheels or flying down a mountain.

Thankfully, our skull is only our first line of defense for our almighty brains.  God, in His infinite wisdom, also carefully packaged our wonderful brains in cerebrospinal fluid.  Or as I refer to it, brain fluid.  This amazing fluid, between the brain and skull, cushions and cradles the brain and keeps it in place.  It also helps to distribute the force of an impact on our brains when we take a blow to our heads.

Have you ever hit your head so hard that you can feel your brain sloshing around in there? Not fun but thank goodness for that fluid, now that I know about the rough inside of my skull.

So today we did an experiment to show just how important that fluid is. We used 2 eggs, a plastic Easter egg slightly bigger than the eggs, and corn syrup.

This is your brain.

This is your brain inside a skull without cerebrospinal fluid.

This is your brain experiencing an impact of the unpleasant variety.

Awww Snap!!!
And the inside of this skull was smooth.

This is your brain inside of a skull with cerebrospinal fluid.
(If there are holes in your egg, tape them up.  You don't want your brain to leak.)

This is your brain experiencing another impact of the unpleasant variety.
Poor brain!

Hooray for brain fluid!!!

Weekly Wrap-Up: The Good and the Bad

The Good:

We are finished with our Sonlight studies for the year.  Woot!  We ended after week 18 so we'll pick that up again in August.  Russia was the last country that we studied so I think we might make some kind of Russian craft or cook a Russian dish.

I've also decided that we are finished with some of our extras like Latin, composer study, and probably spelling

The Bad:  

We'll miss our Sonlight books.  I'm sure she'll spend a lot of time rereading books from other cores.  She alway does.  We are still going to finish up math and science in their entirety.  That shouldn't be too much longer.  I still haven't made up my mind about grammar yet, so we'll keep going for now.

The Good:

We made a impromptu trip to Mount Vernon.  That made my camera happy.

The mansion beyond the green

The back of the mansion

George and Martha's final resting place

The Pioneer Farm

And the funky 16-sided barn

The Bad:

Mackenzie can't walk and read a map at the same time.  So she twisted her ankle a bit.  Turns out this was a bit of foreshadowing of the rest of our week.

Drama follows wherever we go

The Good:

It was recital week at our co-op.  We enjoyed our friend's choir concert and Mackenzie rocked her piano recital.  And there was a little art show with their artwork.  

 

  

The Bad: 

When I went to record her second piece I apparently didn't hit the record button after all.  So I only have one song.  I'm heart broken because it was a really difficult piece and she played it to perfection.  I'm going to record her playing it here but it's just not the same.  Wahhhhh!!

But you can enjoy her rendition of Hunters' Chorus by von Weber.

The Good:

Piano and art end for the year next week.  I'm excited to have on less place to be.

The Bad:

We love Ms. Lewis and will miss her over the summer.  She's the best piano teacher EVER!

The Good:

We had a fun day at Busch Garden's celebration our friend's birthday.

The Bad:

The Birthday Boy wound up feeling a little under the weather.  =o(

The Good:

Mackenzie made a bit of cash courtesy of the tooth fairy.

The Bad:

She lost it while in bed and she looked like this when she came down the stairs to tell us.  Small heart attack.

The Good:

My dad and his wife came into town for Mackenzie's piano recital.  She was so excited.  And we got to take them to see our new house-in-progress.  The realtor was busy and told us we could go walk around without her anyway.

The Bad:

While we were inside the builder came in.  Awkward!  But he was cool with it.  (Although I'm not sure that he didn't give the realtor the business later. lol)  He showed us different things, had us pick locations for phone/computer/cable jacks (ugh! more decisions), and answered all of our questions.  And he posed for a picture with me.  Cuz I need it for my book.

His last name is Smith too.  I should've asked for a family discount.

The Bad:

Mackenzie slipped on the stairs last night and had to go to the ER because we though it might be broken.  Being that actually doctors don't ever set foot in the ERs around here anymore (please note my eye roll and angry huff), we're still not sure if it was broken.  She'll have to go to an orthopedic doctor next week to find out for sure.  In the meantime she has a temporary cast, crutches, and orders to stay put.

The Good: 

This happened after her recital and after she had to ride the brand new coaster at Busch Gardens.

She was an emotional wreck last night but has her emotions under control today.  Poor dear! And her friend stopped by with treats and books to cheer her up.