Weekly Report 5/8/09

Wet! That sums up this week! We had rain every day with thunderstorms and tornado watches all week. When we had a break in the weather, we went to Waterfest and got wet again! This week was a tiring week too. We had a lot of field trips. On the homefront, my husband came home extremely sick on Monday. It turned out that he has Rocky Mounted Spotted Fever. I have to tell you that it's not easy homeschooling at home with a sick husband who is trying to work from home (aka we had to be very, very quiet).

Literature: We finished reading Lamb's version of Midsummer Night's Dream and watched the BBC animated version. We read some more of the Princess and the Goblin. We listened to more of Wind and the Willows.

Reading: Melissa finally finished Spy for the Night Riders. She ended up liking it even though I had to assign it to get her to read it. This week, I gave her one of my childhood books, Mandy by Julia Edwards (aka Mary Poppins). It still had my name in it from when I was a child. I had her write her name under mine and told her that she could give it to her daughter one day. She read the book in one day! She also read Nixie's Song (Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles). Harrison was in a reading funk this week. He didn't want to read The Two Towers and just wanted to reread Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare. We finally found him a new book. It was a Choose Your Own Adventure type book with a Roleplaying/Fantasy slant.

Writing: We did copywork this week and played a round of Legends of Druidawn. Melissa sent off a few emails to some friends and Harrison did a comparison chart for Deadliest Warrior.

Language Arts: They did Word Roots, Rosetta Stone Spanish, and Typing on the computer. They played some Boggle. We went over some spelling and grammar rules.

Math: Melissa worked on Area and Perimeter and finished up Singapore 3B. Harrison was busy multiplying decimals this week. He did some Challenge Word Problems too. He had a lot of practicing adding and subtracting in his roleplaying book.

Logic: Melissa did some analogies from Logic Countdown. Harrison played strategy games.

Nature Studies: We learned a lot about nature this week! We read some more of Tales of Jasper Jay. We went out and observed the clouds and weather patterns and animal behavior to predict the weather. We took a class on worms and composting. We took a class on Woodpeckers and went bird watching at a county park. We saw four red-headed woodpeckers and two flickers and found evidence of a yellow-bellied sapsucker. We also saw cowbirds, robins, wrens, a bluebird and a chickadee. Great day for our E-bird account. The kids made suet for the birds too.

Science: We went to Waterfest this week. Waterfest is a yearly festival about water and it's uses held by the the local water treatment plant. We didn't get to do all the activities but we enjoyed the ones we did. The kids rode a open air bus through a bus wash and got soaking wet. That was the most favorite activity lol. They did learn things though. They split a water molecule, looked at ecoli under ultra violet light, learned how filters work, climbed all over a fire truck, pet a police dog and police horse, climbed through tunnels and dug for fossils. We also watched Before the Dinosaurs and another Dinosaur documentary that was on the History channel about how the dinosaurs may have been killed off by insects and not the meteor.

Geography: We read more in our Marco Polo book. We also learned about the Chinese New Year and Chinese Operas. We watched Mulan and ate Chinese food with chopsticks. The kids wrote their own Opera based on the legend of Mulan (lots of fighting and acrobatics). We also read about the Netherlands in regards to our Renaissance studies, including the Little Dutch boy, dikes and canals, windmills, tulips, dutch linen and herrings. We did quite a bit of mapwork this week because our studies of Balboa led us on a rabbit trail of the Panama Canal and Melissa wondered if there was a bridge that allowed you to cross over it. This led to a discussion of the Pan American Highway so we traced it's route from Alaska to Argentina. (We also brought in math skills to calculate how long it would take to drive the entire length at speed of 60 MPH and driving 10 hours a day).

History: We continue learning about various explorers. We into more depth with John Cabot and Amerigo Vespucci and learned about Balboa.

Art: We looked at St. Peter's Cathedral designed by Michelangelo. We also made stained glass suncatchers. Melissa practiced photography too.

Music: We listened to Bach this week. Harrison continued practicing guitar and we listened to several versions of Worried Man Blues this week since he had just learned that song.

Religion: Harrison and I co-read Pilgrim's Progress. We all had a big discussion on evolution and creation and why it's not a conflict for me as it for many of our friends. We didn't make it to church or Awanas this week due to the thunderstorms and sickness

PE: Well, my kids ended up doing quite a bit of pushups this week. Both had some honesty issues that they needed to "work out". They also did gymanstics, trampoline play and several hikes. Melissa had tumbling and Harrison had football and baseball.

Social: I don't usually include social but since it's one that non-homeschoolers worry about....

Both kids had lots of time playing with neighborhood friends in the afternoons and over the weekend (including a sleepover). We didn't have a playdate over this week due to Daddy being sick and didn't go out to one due to the numerous field trips. However, we met several of our friends at Waterfest and did activities with them there. Melissa made a new friend at the Worm class and chatted away with the girls in her tumbling class. She was glad to find that she wasn't only girl whose mother wouldn't allow her to do the cheer program there due to the midriff revealing uniforms. Harrison didn't make a new friend but interact well with his peers in the class. I am working on him with to recognize his annoying behaviors and trying to replace them with less annoying ones. We've made a lot of progress with his table manners and we've finally gotten the use of the fork down pat!! They went to the kids night out program that our church has for families with special needs and played with quite a few of their friends there.

Other: Melissa played vet and detective games with her sleepover friends. She also volunteered at the dog park, filling water dishes, pools, and gathering toys as well as playing with the dogs while she was there. Harrison built several things with K'Nex.

Composting with worms

The kids took a class on composting with worms through the Centennial Campus for Wildlife Education. What a wonderful class. The instructers were energetic and engaging. The class moved quickly and kept the attention span of all the kids. Best of all, it was free! We all learned a lot.


The kids dissected a worm in pairs. After doing the shark, my kids are "pros" at dissection and they did not get grossed out by the smell or the cutting. Each one did the actual dissecting in their pairing.

After opening up the worm and pinning, they learned about the different parts of the worm and their functions.

After dissecting worms, they went out and dug for worms in the woods. They found lots and lots of worms and a few other creepy crawlies too.

They also made their own mini compost bins. First you make a bin by drilling holes in a container. Then you tear some paper and wet it and fill the bin with it. Then you add some worms.

You then feed the worms with veggie and fruit cuttings and egg shells. Harrison insisted on carrots at dinner so he could feed his worms the shavings. They made a small bin at the class but we plan to make a bigger one for our family. Here are directions for anyone interested: http://www.stopwaste.org/home/index.asp?page=445#plastic

Weekly Report 5/1

This week went by really quick!

Literature: We continued listening to Wind and the Willows, picked by back up our evening read aloud (Sisters Grimm) and started The Princess and the Goblin. We watched the Animated Shakespeare Tales version of The Tempest and started reading Lamb's version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Harrison and I co-read his weekly chapter of Pilgrim's Progress.

Reading: Melissa read books four and five in the Spiderwick Chronicles. We did a lot of work of compare and contrast of the characters, the books, and the book against the movie and video game. She read a bit more in Spy for the Night Riders and started reading the Royal Diaries book for Elizabeth. Harrison continued The Two Towers. He started Under Drake's Flag but wasn't interested in it, He also found my stash of Calvin and Hobbes books so now I am doomed. LOL

Writing: We did copywork in our commonplace journals. We played several rounds of Legends of Druidawn with accompanying writing. Melissa worked on her Megalodon report and put up her first blog post. She also wrote her birthday list. Harrison did a compare and contrast sheet on this week's episode of The Deadliest Warrior

Language Arts: They did typing, Spanish, Word Roots. They played a few games of Boggle. We did our normal ad-hoc grammar, spelling, and vocabulary. We also played around with alliteration and abbreviations.

Math: Melissa did review work on angles, area, and perimeter. H is working on multiplying decimals. He also did challenge word problems for money. They both played Timez Attack this week to keep up their times table speed. They did a lot of hands on math with Druidawn.

Logic: Harrison worked on inferences and Melissa worked on analogies.

Nature Studies: Melissa's 4-H group went to visit a beekeeper. We learned a lot about bees and got to do some taste tests on different types of honey! We went to Prairie Ridge ecostation and did some bird banding and a tree study. We read some more of Tales of Jasper Jay and observed the birds around our yard. We saw mockingbirds fight, a Red-tail hawk soar above us and a gorgeous house finch.

Science: We read about Copernicus and reviewed our knowledge of the earth's rotation. We watched a documentary on Megalodons. We learned had some health lessons on body alignment and posture and skin care in the sun.

Geography: We practiced map reading skills with our Legends of Druidawn game. We did our weekly mapwork on the globe for a change of pace. We read more of our Marco Polo book and studied Chinese Architecture and the practice of Feng Shui. We learned about Chinese inventions and the importance of tea in Chinese Culture.

History: We read about early explorers: John Cabot and Amerigo Vespucci. H also watched several Time Commander episodes and this week's episode of Deadliest Warrior on Knights vs. Pirates.

Music: Harrison is working on Worried Man Blues by Woody Guthrie. We also listened to Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky.

Art: We finished our Michelangelo Biography and used the Moses statue for our narration. Harrison worked on drawing circles.

Other Fine Arts: We went to see the Carolina Ballet perform Swan Lake. The kids wrote and performed a skit as part of their tree study. Their tree was the American Holly so they used that as Hollywood and did the tree Oscars. It very funny.

PE: Melissa had tumbling and Harrison had football and baseball. They both went to gymnastics class. At home, we went on evening hike, jumped on trampoline, and did Wii Fit.

Wordless Wednesday: The Joy of Playing Outfield

Bird Banding

Today we went on another field trip to Prairie Ridge Ecostation. The kids got to follow the museum's scientist around to check the bird nets. They put nets out in various places and when birds get caught in them, they take them out and attach a band to the leg.

We checked four nets and found one bird, this female summer tanager. It took awhile to loosen her from the net and I donated my water bottle to feed her. I dipped my finger in the bottle and dropped in her mouth. Once she had some water, we put her in a canvas bag, to help calm her as well as for ease of transportation. The nets were rolled up for rest of day and we took bird back to banding station. At the station, the bird was identified, weighed, measured, banded, and logged and then set free.

Weekly Report 4/24

We enjoyed our one week of Spring here in the sunny South. Now it appears that Summer is soon to be in session. It is going to be 90 degrees for the next three days!!! I am ready for our park playdate to move to shadier park LOL.

School-wise we made some progress towards acclimating Melissa into our routine. Things went smoothly this week for most part, even with me working and two field trips!


Literature: We read The Tempest by Shakespeare from Tales of Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb. Harrison and I co-read his weekly Pilgrim's Progress chapter. We listened to another chapter of The Wind and the Willows. We have not picked up our evening read-alouds in weeks though. I have to get that routine started again.

Reading: Melissa read all The Seeing Stone and most of Lucinda's Secret (Spiderwick Chronicles Book #2 and 3) and continues Spy for the Night Rider. Apparently, one chapter is so interesting that she keeps rereading it. She also started reading a book called Dolphin Song but I am not sure if that one will make it to conclusion. Harrison continues Two Towers and read all of Twenty and Ten. The bulk of his attention has been reading the background information to our Legends of Druidawn game.

Writing: The bulk of our writing this week has centered around the Legends of Druidawn game. Harrison, who normally hates anything that involves picking up a pencil, is obsessed with writing for this game. I would recommend it for reluctant writers who like to read fantasy novels. He wrote his character sketch and has written his account of the game as a story. He's also worked on copywork and has been chatting with his pen pal about the game.
Melissa worked on her Megalodon report, wrote another email to a stable, emailed with a friend about horses, did her copywork, as well as her Druidawn character sketch and story work.

Language Arts: We did Rosetta Stone Spanish, typing, and Word Roots. One of our favorite things right now is playing Babble. One of the kids will start the game and find as many words as they can and then the other takes over and finds some more and then I try to finish the game.



We also did the spelling bee last Saturday. Harrison got first place for third grade and Melissa got third place for fourth grade. Now before you think she is a great speller, I have to admit there was a huge disparity between the level she got out at and where the final two ended. On the otherhand, Melissa has made great improvements with her spelling in the short time we've been homeschooling her. I have introduced a few spelling rules and continue working with her using SWR.

Math: Melissa did the chapters on graphs and time from Singapore 3B. Harrison continued working on subtracting decimals in 4B and played Lure of the Labyrinth. They both did chapter 19 (dividing by zero) and a bridge from Life of Fred.

Nature Studies: We finished Tale of Reddy Woodpecker and started Tale of Jasper Jay, both by Arthur Scott Bailey. We compared the blue jay and the bluebird (again) and did some bird behavior observations here at home and on our nature walks while collecting data for E-bird. We also took a trip to the NC Museum of Natural Science to study their marine life and bird exhibits.
Melissa had a pen pal email her a report about a horse breed (I believe it was Friesians?) and critiqued it.


Science: Our main science project this week was our shark dissection. It fit in well with Melissa's research project on Megalodons. To follow up we visited the historic ocean life and current marine life exhibits at the Nature Museum. They also had fun this week playing Plant Tycoon and Spore.

Geography: We continued our Marco Polo book. This week we studied the three main religion/philosophies of China: Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. We even tried out the practice of qigong. We also read about Mongolia, Kublai Khan and his niece Khutulun, and Musk Deer and musk perfume. We did our normal mapwork too.

History: This week was all about the reign of Queen Elizabeth. We read about her, Mary (Queen of Scotland), the Spanish Armada and Admiral Drake, William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Sir Sidney Phillip, Sir Walter Raleigh and the Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth. Harrison watched an episode of The Deadliest Warrior on Apache vs Ninja.

Civics: We had an interesting discussion on taxes and what they pay for as we admired the new signs that have gone up in our downtown area.

Art History: We continued reading Michelangelo's biography and our picture study this week was of his painting in the Sistine Chapel called The Last Judgment.

Music: Harrison continued guitar lessons and practices. He is now on the fourth string. We all played "Find the Beat."

PE: Harrison had football and baseball games/practice this week. Melissa had tumbling and a cheer clinic. They both had gymnastics class. They also tried out for the Junior Olympics but only the winner got to move on. Melissa was 3rd and Harrison 5th. We had a lot of trampoline jumping and few after dinner walks that turned into hikes.


Another highlight was our company had a bowling outing for the employees and families. Harrison decided to play with the adults instead of the bumper lane that was set for the kids. He did surprisingly well.

Religion: Awanas, Church, memory work, devotions, etc.

Other: They both played Virtual Villagers this week. Harrison played Empire Earth with his father and Melissa's godfather but ended up killing everyone when he closed the game to go play (as the game was hosted from his computer).

Shark Dissection

Today, we had our first dissection opportunity! Melissa loves ocean animals and currently aspires to be a marine biologist. So of course, we jumped at the chance to dissect a dog shark.


The kid worked in pairs. They teamed oldest kids with youngest. Melissa was middle of the pack so she got paired with same age boy.

The boy's father commented that Melissa definitely didn't approach this like a "girly" girl but jumped in with full enthusiasm.

She didn't get grossed out by the glorious guts.

or the lovely smell of formaldehyde.

Harrison didn't want to do the dissection initially and chose to observe casually. However, by the end of the session, he was excited about it and can't wait to do it again.

Which will be soon. We brought the shark home to show daddy and plan to boil the head to remove the jaw this evening. Anyone want some shark head soup?