We are lingering on the pioneers and settling California for a bit in California History. Our co-op has a Pioneer party scheduled for next week. Even though one had nothing to do with the other, the timing has ended up being perfect! We SHOULD have hit all of this pioneer/gold rush days in January but with illnesses and breaks, we just arriving to it!
We watched a great PBS documentary on the Donner Party and we are continuing with our read aloud, "Be The Great Horn Spoon". Jake finished his Cobblestone reader "California Trail" and we have started the introduction material for "Patty Reed's Doll". I can't wait to get started with that book! Jake and I drew out a map of half of the U.S. to track the typical California Trail and then the one the Donner-Reed Party took. We are going to move a wagon traing along the trail as he reads the book. Not too shabby for freehand drawing, I say! Our California is a little anorexic but we need to tighten our belt here anyway! :)
What is a home schoolers kitchen if it doesn't have some science experiment set up, right?? We have our root viewer that Jake started a month and a half still going, although, the carrot and onion seeds haven't produced any plants. The radish seeds have taken off! We also have baggies of radish seeds in various states of wet/dryness to see what happens to the seeds in different environments. We are inadvertently growing pink-dotted mold in these said baggies too. Gross and cool all at the same time!
Josh is chugging along in World History, Intro to Physics and Math. Here he is trying out Time4Learning website. He's working on exponents (and is not very thrilled about the picture taking, as always).
In addition to beginning "Archimedes and the Door of Science" book, he also began "Where the Red Fern Grows" book this week. We didn't get to it last year in 6th grade, so I figured we'd squeeze it in now. He's not very thrilled about it as he knows it's going to end sadly. This is his 15th and 16th books for this school year (so far)!
Jake is continuing with Ramona Quimby, Age 8. He's digging her style and loving this story! I just hope he doesn't pick up any ideas! Oh boy!
As part of his monthly Little Passports package, Jake received a "artifact" from Egypt (if you don't know about Little Passports, it's a monthly package club that sends your kids neat packages from a different country each month and they get to learn about the country, its culture and geography. It's pretty cool!). So, Jake decided on Thursday night he wanted to unearth his pyramid. It was pretty fun! He really got into it, too, thinking he had discovered the latest Egyptian find! (I'm not sure why Blogger reversed the order of these pictures.. sorry about that!)
Much to the delight of both boys, the iPad entered into our educational time last week. They brushed up on fractions, took their spelling test with a neat app., tested their knowledge of world and U.S. geography with Stack the States app, Stack the Countries app, and GeoQuiz. Their favorite is probably Presidents vs. Aliens though. Man, that game really challenges you to know your presidential facts! I even enjoy it!
We cancelled our trip to Marshall Gold Discovery park, not knowing if it would rain, and my need for a day at home to prepare for a birthday party sleepover. We also got to hang out with two of my brothers and my nephew and then Josh, Chris and I got the chance to see "The Hunger Games". They did a great job! They left out some details but stayed close to the main events. Chris hasn't finished the first book let alone the series yet, and he really enjoyed the movie! We left Jake with Nana so we could preview it before letting him watch it. They did a good job of displaying the violence in a way that wasn't horribly jolting or traumatic and that is saying a lot because lets face it.. at its core, The Hunger Games is violent. It was a very busy, crazy, fun week!
Happy Birthday to our oldest!! I can't believe how big he is! Oy Vey! Both boys are such a joy and blessing! So glad they are in our life!
I'm linking up with Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers for their Weekly Wrap-up!
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