Weekly Review -- Year 4 Week #10

  I don't know why it always seems to happen that way but I flipped the calendar on Sunday and just stared at our line up for the week.  I had no idea we had so many activities planned for one week!



Zoo on Monday

Karate on Tuesday

Oceanography class on Wednesday

Science fair on Thursday

Living history museum Friday and Tween group Friday night (If we make it back from the museum on time)


I was tired before the week started!!  We knew we'd focus on learning through life and through our field trips and not so much with our books this week.  We had so much fun though and I could see them learning in everything we did.  They even found ways to squeeze in some traditional schoolwork most days!

Life Skills-- We all worked hard to get an exceptionally large yard raked last weekend and earned some money in the process.  Evan and Alec learned how to use the leaf blower and control it to get the leaves where they wanted to go.  They took turns raking, picking up sticks, and trekking large tarps of leaves out into the woods.  We all also worked together to split and stack wood.  We cleaned off the patio and started stacking wood for winter working together to make the job go faster.  All three boys spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen this week as well.  Alec made some sea life sugar cookies for his science fair project.  He mixed the dough, helped roll the dough out, decorated them, and was in charge of both the oven temperature and the timer.  Evan helped make Mofo Makasaoka   (a fried bread that they eat in Madagascar).  He measured and mixed the ingredients, dipped the bread and learned how to safely fry in hot oil.  He did an amazing job!  Ian helped make chili for our supper one night and even decided to try it; turns out he really likes chili!

Math-- All three boys spent some time adding up all their money and adding their "paycheck" to their stash.  The younger two boys bought themselves some stuffed animals at the zoo and we talked about tax, how much money they had and how much they'd have left after buying themselves their animals.  At this point they have all bought their Christmas gifts for one another and can either save or spend their money.  Alec completed a "fun" Halloween page with points on a coordinate grid that he had gotten trick or treating downtown for math one day.  All three boys completed a good 4 pages in their math workbooks as well as some extra math sheets.  Evan worked some more with fact family houses and the older two boys colored in some pages from our Quilt Math book.   Ian got in quite a bit of extra math practice one night while working on some drafting with my husband.  Ian has been asking to start another woodworking project and so they sat together one night to draft the garage that Ian wants to build for his toy trucks.  He had to measure, multiply, and even divide fractions.  They talked about parallel lines, vertices, line segments and turning fractions into decimals.

Science-- We had an amazing day at the zoo on Monday with my sister and nephews.  We got to see many unusual animals like the serval, Indian flying fox, pygmy loris, and water monitor lizard.  We got to hear the lion chuff and roar as well as see his teeth and tongue.  We saw the porcupine puffing up his quills and watched the bat (flying fox) creep along the ceiling beam.  We watched the meerkats and laughed over all their antics; especially as they followed Alec's dance moves trying to get to him and his hands, running up to the window.  The monitor lizard kept trying to climb up the window right in front of us and kept falling into his water.  The boys all attended an oceanography class this week.  Since it was such a nice day we had class outside and scoured around in water looking for animals.  We then had a lab indoors where we got to get up close and personal with lots of sea creatures.  Alec read his new Zoobooks magazine learning about dolphins this month.  All three boys spent a fun day at our homeschool science fair teaching everyone about their topics and visiting all the other tables to learn about everyone else's projects, try out some new/ fun foods and have some hands on fun.   Alec was so interested in learning about the periodic table of elements that he came home, downloaded an app to his Kindle and spent the rest of the night quizzing himself on the abbreviations of all the elements (it's called Periodic Table Lite).  
Monitor lizard climbing the glass in front of us at the zoo

Searching for sea life around the rocks 

Checking out the skate and how it feels 

Learning from other homeschoolers 




Reading-- We listened to more of our book on CD So You Want to Be a Jedi.  Alec finished up Seaborne and started reading Trouble According to Humphrey as well as The Fire Within (which he read in 24 hours).  Evan read Super Fly Guy, Fly Guy and the Frankenfly, and Prince Fly Guy.  Ian finished up Nasty, Stinky Sneakers and we went back to reading Divergent together.  He doesn't seem as enthused about reading Divergent as he was about reading The Hunger Games and I've been trying to suggest other books he might prefer instead but he insists he wants to finish Divergent.  Maybe if we go back to tandem reading it would be better; he's been reading most of Divergent alone and I'm wondering if he's not comprehending as much.  It's so hard to tell; could be that it's just not as interesting to him I don't know. I did buy him the next Diary of  Wimpy Kid: Old school  so he can always read that too if he wants another break from Divergent.

Writing-- The older two boys copied a Draw Write Now page and picture into their writing books learning a bit about alligators and wolves.  Evan worked on a few pages in his Star Wars writing books learning about er, ir, ur, blends.  All three boys asked to start writing up their Christmas lists and since family members have been asking for ideas I thought that was good timing.

History-- We read another couple of chapters in Cracker! and Who Was George Washington.  We then spent a day at Plimoth Plantation.  It's a living history museum and we had a wonderful time learning about the pilgrims, Indians and the first Thanksgiving.  It's a wonderful way to see what life was really like living and working in a 17th century colonial English village.



Socialization-- with Halloween this past weekend the boys spent lots of time with family showing off their costumes and trick or treating.  They met lots of new homeschoolers through our oceanography class and spent lots of time talking to people at our science fair about their own projects and all the others that interested them.  We got to interact with many of the period players at Plimoth Plantation asking about life in the 17th century.


Phys. Ed-- We raked all weekend, stacked wood and walked A LOT this week.  We spent a day walking around the zoo, another day walking around our science fair, and, of course, a long day of walking around Plimoth.  They attended their karate class this week too.  Ian spent an afternoon playing basketball and all three boys spent some fun time at the park with friends.

Geography-- The boys watched Little Travelers :Bali this week. It prompted a discussion of where Bali was and we all searched the map until we found it.  We also talked about all the countries and areas that each of the zoo animals came from.  We got a mini geography lesson about our state during our Oceanology class; complete with drawing, labels and a look at what makes the water around us so special.

Art--  Alec and I spent an afternoon enjoying our new art book-- Spot the Differences Art Masterpiece Mysteries.  We went through the first 4 works of art studying Amrosius Bosschaert's Bouquet of Flowers on a Ledge, Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Hunters in the Snow, Gustave Caillebotte's Rue de Paris, and Vittore Carpaccio's Young Knight in a Landscape.  We had to much fun!!  All three boys were pretty creative in finding activities for their science fair projects and participating in other craft projects at the fair.  They made rain "sticks," owl bookmarks,  and toothpick/marshmallow bridges.


Comments

  1. Wow, was that all in one week?! You rock

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    1. Yep, and it probably explains why I want to fall asleep at 6 o'clock on a Friday night. :)

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  2. What a very busy learning week. I bet you are all ready for an early bed time. I am always shocked when I realize our week is going to be that busy too.
    Blessings, Dawn

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  3. My daughter and son love the Percy Jackson series of books. They are 12 and 10. My daughter didn't like Divergent (the book) but loved the movie! I want to go to your school, lol! Looks like fun! I wish we had a zoo nearby, but its an hour and a half away...

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    1. Yeah my son loved the movie so I thought we'd start the book (it's how he ended up reading Hunger Games)... but so far he thinks the book is a bit slow and boring. We love Percy Jackson and even went on to read the Kane Chronicles. We're pretty lucky that we have a good 5 zoos all within an hour/ hour and half drive of us. Some are very small; like the zoo we went to this week; I think we walked the whole thing in an hour. But some are quite large and will take us most of the day.

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  4. Visiting from Weekly Wrap Up! My kiddos love field trips. We've only been able to get 2 in this year since our schedules are packed with downsizing our house to move, but I have some good ones planned for the Winter.

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    1. Thanks for visiting! We're always looking for new field trip ideas; we just love how much we can learn.

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  5. It does look like a very fun and full week! How wonderful to be able to visit the Plimoth Plantation this month!

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    1. They said it is their most popular time of year for visits and we could tell. The first few hours we were there the Plantation was mobbed with groups upon groups of school students. Luckily it thinned out quite a bit after lunch and we had more one on one time with the actors and curators to ask questions. It was so much fun and the perfect tie in with Thanksgiving. We even learned of a few new pie recipes to try.

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