Thursday, January 31, 2013

CtG - Week 16


Here are a few highlights from our week...


Bible and History

Everything went really well for Week 16. Nothing too earth shattering to report this week though. I didn't even get around to taking a single picture :(

The kids have been reviewing the 10 Commandments as well as Psalm 23 and are pretty good at remembering both.

We sang (and did the hand motions) to the song '12 Men Went to Spy on Canaan'. Here is a link to a video if you don't happen to know the song. We also had grapes for our snack this week.

We are absolutely loving Treasures of the Snow! These read-alouds are totally awesome and so relevant and relatable for kids. I highly recommend them to everyone. My little brother, who recently started attending public school, has said...out of everything...he missed the stories the most :-D



Science

We were not been able to get to the weenie roast experiment. We wanted to...even got our box all set up, but the weather would not cooperate. It has been rainy and cloudy all week. I should also mention -  we are in the winter season here, so even if we did have some sun, it has been rather chilly, so I am not sure how well our solar weenies would have cooked anyway.

We completed the activity to measure the distance between the planets and the sun. Even paced off several hundred steps. Then the kids got bored after the 4th or 5th planet and they were done. They got the jist of it and that is all that matters :)



I hope you had a great week as well!

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

CtG - Weeks 13, 14, & 15...Whew! Oh, and cute Biblical LEGO movies.

Well, life caught up with us and I got behind on my posting.

So, here is a condensed version of weeks 13, 14, and 15.

Art
We haven't spent a whole lot of time on art these past few weeks. My brown-eyed girl took an art class over the summer and learned all about primary and secondary colors. So, we just had her bring out her color wheel she made at art camp. She taught us all about it. I think she liked that she knew a few things that her brother didn't ;)



Bible
We finished up the plagues and the 10 Commandments. The kids enjoyed the popcorn manna. 


Of course, we had to add a little twist to things ;)
I could eat the white cheddar flavored 'manna' all day long!


Even the Lego people enjoyed their manna...lol!


Speaking of Legos - We broke out one of the gifts (Wars of Humanity: Episodes 1 and 2) the kiddos got in their treasure boxes this past Christmas. We are saving Jericho for a later date.

Now, these are not professional DVD's from the makers of Lego. I think my kids and I could do something like this if we had the time and resources, but they are great and very funny. My kids loved them! We purchased these from Vision Forum.



History


We also finished up the Tabernacle. The kids definitely needed some help when it came to cutting out the tiny pieces as well as gluing them together. Actually, we found that tape worked much better and we didn't have to wait for anything to dry. 

It's not exactly made the way MFW suggests, but it works and we used what we had :)

Note to self...rinse out the cartons next time before saving them. My ding-dong self just put the cartons up in my laundry room until we needed them. I ended up throwing one of them out (b/c it was just too nasty smelling when I cut the top off and I was NOT about to clean up what was in there...EWWW!). Luckily, we had just finished off another carton of milk that morning, so we used that one instead.





Science

Our 1st experiment was a total flop.


The colors completely mixed together despite doing exactly what the directions stated.


So, we pulled up Pinterest and tried an experiment from there that I had pinned quite a while back.
It worked great!

We altered this one a bit to just use what we had on hand. Here is the link in case you'd like to try this density experiment as well.  

We omitted the lamp oil and rubbing alcohol (b/c I didn't have either on hand) and turned our clear dish soap blue using food coloring. It worked and the kids got the jist of it :)

We also did an experiment about germs. After a few days, the glass with just the water and bouillon cube had a germ colony growing in it. Of course, I totally forgot about the cups sitting in the window and after a week or so, all 3 had germ colonies growing in them. I guess the salt and vinegar will only work for so long...lol!

The last experiment we completed was the yeast experiment. When we added corn syrup, sugar, and cornstarch to the different cups of yeast and water mixture, sure enough, the corn syrup mixture started bubbling first followed by the sugar and cornstarch. The corn syrup had the most bubbles as well. I explained to my kids that the bubbles are like the 'wastes' or by-products given off as the yeasts munch on the glucose. One of them likened it to farting, or more lady-like terms...pooting. Then the experiment went down hill from there...Oh to have the mind of a kid again!


Well, that's it in a nutshell. I hope you guys had a great past few weeks as well :)