Today we decided to make a Colonial Mob Cap although Goosey decided that she didn't like how it fit :oP I thought it looked cute for our end of unit celebration which is coming up here real quick! I cut out the circle for her and then cut the slits with a rotary cutter. Then she threaded a ribbon all around and pulled to make the cap. It was really easy to make! Goosey also made wax seals. We did a simplified version by using a candle and carefully dripped the wax onto paper and then created a stamp by using a block of clay. For part of Speedy's end of unit project, he has been researching how wax seals are made and why they were used. We ordered a wax sealing kit so that should be interesting to see the difference when using a real set rather than just a regular candle (I think there is a whole science behind that)!
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This week we continued with our study of Colonial America and Native Americans. The kids continued on with their unit celebration projects. Goosey built a teepee which she made by tying 6 dowels together at the top and then took half a circle of fabric and placed it around the dowels. She still needs to add final touches on there by decorating the fabric piece and then she'll glue the top of the fabric onto the top of the dowels so it will stay in place. This week we worked on more science experiments. We have seen the ivory soap bar in the microwave experiment all around the internet and we finally bought the soap to try it! We placed half a bar in the microwave for about 30 seconds and this was the result.... After it cooled off, Goosey said it felt like a paper towel almost. It was a successful experiment that we ended up doing it twice! :oP For geography we followed one of the creative activities from Map Travelers and researched how chocolate was made since one of Ghana's exports is cocoa. Speedy found this really neat site from Hersheys that shows the process. My kids will tell you the best part of this assignment was sampling some chocolates!
Aside from science, this week has been busy with just everyday life but much to the dismay of my kids, we managed to fit school in somehow! For TOG we concentrated on Native American games. Goosey made a Shuttlecock. The description of what exactly that is, is here. She made it by using newspaper rolled into a ball and then wrapped more newspaper into a stick shape and she added some feathers on the end. Then she taped everything together really tight. We decided it looked similar to a badminton birdie! She also made a 9 Men Morris colonial game out of wood and decided to try her hand at Speedy's woodburning tools. Speedy decided to make a Native American ring and stick game. It just consists of a dowel, string, and a ring. You tie one end of the string to the dowel and the other to the ring. To play, you hold the stick, swing the ring, and try to get the ring on the stick. For our country study, we decided to continue our journey in Africa by visiting
Egypt. We made paper mache Egyptian Masks which esstentially is paper mache and then decorated to look like an Egyptian mask. We had leftover golden looking chocolate wrappers from Christmas that we just used. We ended our Egyptian journey by watching Prince of Egypt. We had a science week this week! Rosey just completed her science fair with CC. She did her board and experiment on learning styles and if people tend to favor just one or more styles. Her conclusion was that most people favor 2 which was different than her hypothesis. For the actual science fair she placed 3rd out of about 15 kids-yay!! :o) Speedy worked on his experiments from Apologia's Physical Science involving eggs! The experiments were to see the differences between speed and velocity.
A few people have asked how I plan for TOG so I thought I would post about what we do. We've only been at this a few weeks but it is moving good so far. I start by looking at the required books for all the grade levels that I'm teaching a couple of weeks before we will start that certain week and I see what our library has. We are fortunate that our library has a good system so I will check out any book (both required and also
alternate titles) that is on the schedule for the grade level I am teaching, in my case upper grammar and rhetoric. If there are books that I could not find, I will see what books we have on our shelf that could pertain to that certain topic. Once I get all my books in, I will go through them and see which ones I would like my kids to read and write the assignments onto their planner page (this is also where I will fill in their other subjects such as math, geography study, and anything else). If there are several books that I like then I will place them aside and give the choice to my kids on planning day. Our planning days are usually on Sundays so we will gather together for either tea or hot chocolate, which has been the trend lately. I will give them each their planner and go over the books they are to read and assignments that need to get done. If there were several books that I have found, I will have them look through them and pick which ones they want to read. Then we will talk about what projects they can work on for the week. I will give them some ideas based off of what is assigned in TOG in their activities section in the grid and sometimes they will pick something out of there or sometimes I will have another book on hand with different projects or they have even bounced off an idea and took it a little deeper. I like these planning meetings for this reason, my kids are taking a responsibility and choosing what they would like to pursue in addition to whatever readings I require. I think it tends to make the school days go a little easier because it was something that they chose. So far this is how I have been planning and I know as time goes on I may find an easier system. I think once we start the next unit, I will probably do more planning in advance so that way if there is a book that I would really like to get that is not available at the library, I have time to order it. This has been our first week back to school where all the activities are in full swing. I was a bit worried with the curriculum switch but it has gone surprisingly well. We've stayed on task for the most part. :oP We are still learning about Colonial America and will be for the next few weeks and will end with our unit study. Speedy has kept up with his readings for TOG. He has been enjoying the readings out of the Story of Architecture Book and has attempted to make some rock candy, hopefully with more success than I have had when we tried it years ago. He followed a recipe from a book we had on hand. We are still trying to get into a routine with our weekly discussions and I'm hoping that over time it will get easier to schedule in. Rosey has been busy with her science fair project that is due next week for CC. She decided to test if people favor different learning styles. Goosey was busy making her colonial rope bed for the cats. She also made as a Christmas gift for me, an easier version of a tin punch! She used aluminum foil to wrap around a jar and poked holes in the foil to create the word JOY. A tin punch was actually a craft during the Colonial Period. For our countries, we visited Morocco by having mint tea (the national drink) and learned about their ways of serving it. We found a neat video about it on youtube (the link is here). The kids also created a patterned rug but on a sheet of graph paper. Right before we "left" Morocco, we decided to watch the first episode of Young Indiana Jones after my kids vetoed Casablanca after the first 10 mins. To our
surprise, the Young Indiana Jones episode was filmed in Morocco so that went really well! So, Goosey is very hands on and thinks "big"! At our planning meeting I presented some of the hands on crafts that she can make for the week in which she choose a rope bed. Fast forward to the middle of the week when I showed her the "paper" 2D rope bed I had in mind. She quickly prompted me with an "oh no! That's not what I had in mind! I'm making one out of wood for the cat!" So this is her project for the week. It came out pretty good minus one wooden leg that was cut a little short but we compensated by gluing a scrap piece of wood. I helped her with the sawing but the plans were hers and she completed it on her own. If you would like to make one, this is how we did it... I cut 2 pieces of wood that were 24 inches long (they were scraps we already had in the garage) and 2 pieces of wood that were about 11 inches long (again we just used scraps we had). The legs were 5inches long. To assemble, she nailed the sides together and then angled the legs and nailed those on the bottom for more stability. Trying to get the nails in to hold the rope was a bit more tricky. She decided to nail in nails along the top rails of the bed and just not nail them in all the way. After experimenting with the rope we had on hand, she decided to just use yarn but double it up. She wound the yarn back and forth and then weaved the end pieces through and tightened as she went along. For the matress we had no straw on hand so she just made a foam matress to lay on top which covered the nails that are sticking up. Our cats love it and you can even use it for an American Girl Doll or any doll for that matter.
We just completed our first full week back to school with Tapestry of Grace and our other subjects as well. Just a quick update, we did a mid-semester switch on curriculums for 2 of my kids, Speedy switched from Challenge 1 Classical Conversations and Goosey switched from TRISMS History Makers, to Tapestry of Grace (Rosey is still doing Challenge B Classical Conversations). So far, even though it is only the 1st week, I can say our switch has been good. It seems to be a nice fit. We are in the 13 colonies portion of US History (TOG Year 2 Unit 3). This week for TOG we have been using SOTW as our history "text" book and we tested the difference between "fools" gold and real gold. Goosey decided to make a pomander ball and after reading "Eating the Plates", she was inspired to make Hot Indian Pudding which I must say wasn't all that bad (it tasted much better than I thought). Speedy has been reading through all of his books and we had our first rhetoric discussion yesterday. For geography, we've been using a curriculum that I created, Map Travelers, and our studies have taken us all the way to Kenya Africa! My kids filled out their info sheets and postcard and after reading books about Kenya, we watched the movie Born Free. We then decided to try our hand at making a mancala game. Goosey was quick to find the many "little" objects that were required for the playing pieces so you can see our little smorgasbord of trinkets! The game is pretty easy to make, all you need is an egg carton and 36 little objects. You can use the lid like we did taped to the ends as the mancala "cup" or just use any containers placed at the ends. If you are really feeling creative, you can even paint the egg carton (my kids were just anxious to play the game)! We are now ready to begin our next week with our planning meeting complete with hot cocoa (which my kids will tell you is the best part of the school week)!
Happy New Year everyone! Today we slowly eased back into our school schedule and back into our regular routine.
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SearchAuthorWelcome to our little space on the web!! I'm a mom homeschooling my kids and blogging about our school days. My kids are 19, 17, and 14 years old and we share a household with 2 crazy cats, an African grey parrot, 2 hermit crabs, and a turtle. Curriculum we are Using...Goosey-14 year old
-Map Travelers -Tapestry of Grace Year 1 -Math U See Geometry -Physical Science -Easy Grammar -Bible Road Trip Year 2 Archives
January 2016
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