MFW-ECC - Weeks 32&33 - Australia and Antartica and Easter!

Our Week in Review

These past 2 weeks have been a bit of a blur as well. Last year around this time, I had more time to sit down, relax, and blog. This year though, I am feeling more and more pressed for time. I'm thinking a schedule change is in order for the next school year. :-D  

It's hard to believe we only have 1 more week of ECC :-O I am looking forward to next year with CtG though. I think it will be even better than ECC. I am so excited!!!

Field Trip

We went on a field trip to the beautiful Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center.

Only HALF of our group :)

The boat tour

Yes, the roly polies were all the rage!!!

I think we can fit just. one. more...lol!

beautiful gardens

Science

In this experiment, we learned about icebergs. Just a small portion of an iceberg is above water while the majority of it it hidden below the water.

Resurrection Day!

This year, we celebrated at my sister's house. She has a 2 week old son and it was just easier for everyone to come to her. 

Their church put on an Easter festival Saturday. The kids ate hotdogs and popcorn, had their faces painted, played some games, went on an egg hunt, and took pictures with the Bunny. (And yes, they know the Easter Bunny is not real just like they know Veggietales characters and Transformers are not real . They've known that since day 1 and in my opinion, have not missed out on any of the fun :) 

A and cousin N

The hunt is on!

Easter chick

cousin L

cousin lil' J

I hope you had a great week as well!

MFW-ECC - Week 24 - 1,2,3, FOUR really cool volcano experiments!

Our Week in Review

Art/Music

My daughter had a friend spend the night, so we waiting till the weekend to complete the stone inlay art activity. They had a blast! With girls, you can never add too many jewels and beads :)

Science

This experiment shows how frozen water can crack rocks.

The carton was filled completely to the top with water. Next, we placed it in the freezer. The kids didn't really think anything was going to happen.

The next day when we took it out of the freezer, the carton was bulging out on every side and even split open. This process showed the kids when water freezes, the water molecules spread apart causing the carton (and even rocks) to split and/or crack.

This next experiment showed how liquid rock can shape the earth.

Each child will need:
1 tube of cheap toothpaste (we found the blue color worked best as far as visibility)
empty yogurt container
dirt
(1)An adult cuts a small hole just large enough to fit the top of a tube of toothpaste.
(2)Tape the bottom of the cup covering the hole.
(3)Fill the cup 2/3 full with dirt.
(4)Over a plate, paper, napkin (or foil) - remove the tape and insert the opened tube of toothpaste into the hole. 
(5)Squeeze away! 

As the magma (toothpaste) pushes up the earth's surface (dirt), it moves upward into a new formation. If you keep pushing up, the 'magma' forms a volcano when it reaches the surface.

I saw this next really cool experiment on Pinterest, but it offered very little in the 'how to' area. After some tweaking, we figured out how to do it safely with the supplies we had around the house. 


Volcano in a cup

 To try this yourself, you will need:
sand
small mason jar (you do not need the lid)
piece of wax (I just used one of those Scentsy meltable candle wax squares)
small fraying pan
water

(1)Pour a shallow amount of hot water into the frying pan and bring to a boil. 

(2)Put the wax in the bottom of the mason jar and cover it with completely sand. 

(3)Fill the remainder of the jar with cold water (not all the way to the top though).

(4)Place the jar in the boiling water and watch for what happens next.

 

As the wax begins to melt, a few air bubbles will begin to escape up from the bottom. Next, the wax bursts through and bubbles up. *Watch out for the splashing boiling water. It can be hot so I had my kids watch from a few feet back.*

Turn off the stove. Carefully remove the jar from the pan and wipe the condensation off to get a better look. The kids thought this entire experiment was SO COOL! 


The hot magma (wax) burst through the earth (sand) just like a volcano creating the red hot lava as well as the ash/smoke plume.

Geography


Last week, we just had time to make our mountains. On Monday, the kids were able to finish sprucing up their mountains.

At the end of the week, we exploded our volcanoes :)

For this experiment you will need:
volcano (or some sort of cup/container)
warm water 
vinegar (add in red or orange food coloring for added effect)
baking soda
dishwashing soap

(1)Fill the volcano/cup almost full with warm water.
(2)Add a few squirts of dishwashing liquid (helps create better lava)
(3)Add 2 tablespoons of baking soda
(4)Pour in the colored vinegar and watch out! The more vinegar you use, the more lava you will have. I didn't realize we were almost out of vinegar or we would have used more :(

Now, we didn't get to try this next experiment because I could NOT find any local stores with 6% hydrogen-peroxide. Grrr! The only thing I found was 3% which this blogger said will not work. IF we come across some soon, we will try it. In case you are able to find some, here is the link for you to try with your kids. It is supposed to create waaay better lava ;)

Image taken from http://preschoolpowolpackets.blogspot.com. Click here to be taken directly to the site with the directions oh how to complete this experiment :)

Bible

Well, we finished up Amy Carmichael. What an amazing woman!




And last, but not least....

I tried another hairstyle on A. She loves her hair curly, but I do not like using a lot of heat and product on her hair. We've also tried sponge rollers, but those curls always fall out just a short time later. 

These bantu knots really worked though and her curls lasted all day! 

The next day, she still had the wavy hair look going on which she really liked as well.

Don't ya just love these curls?!? Wanna try it yourself? Check out this tutorial over at Girly Do Hairstyles.

I hope you had a great week as well!

This post has been linked up over at Discover Their Gifts

MFW-ECC - Week 19 - Farewell Africa!

This week was much better...thank you Jesus! 

I didn't get around to blogging much of it (as you can tell from this post), but I did manage to snap LOTS of pictures.

The kids had a BLAST doing some African face painting...

S opted for the tribal warrior look

A wanted to look like a cheetah...not bad! She did it all by herself too :)

J refuses to do any face or even hand painting (always has), but he did manage to paint a penguin. Shhhh! Don't tell him, but I think his penguin makes a better crow or black bird instead ;)

 The kids even made their own eggs and sausages all by themselves...

A had her tap, jazz, and ballet open houses...

J and Dad played a little golf...

A got her fingernails and toenails painted...

Purple...with sparkles! Her favorite color :)

And last, but not least, J and S had their very first Christmas band concert :)

A very FULL, but FUN week!

I hope you all have a very merry Christmas :)

MFW-ECC - Week 11 - Head Hunters, story spoilers, and an 'egg'speriment

Our Week in Review

Before I jump into this week's review, let me start off by saying, the Nate Saint Bible notes you are supposed to read from the MFW manual each day this week will spoil the Nate Saint Christian Heroes chapter book you read each day...specifically starting with Wednesday's Bible notes. I did not like the fact the chapters and Nate Saint Bible notes were not better aligned. The first few Bible notes seemed redundant as well. Knowing what I know now, so as not to spoil the story or be overly redundant, I would follow this plan instead...

  Day 1 - Read chapter 11 as indicated in the lesson plans then do Monday's Bible notes on Nate Saint and plane activity as indicated in the lesson plans.

Day 2 - Read chapter 12 as indicated in lesson plans only.

Day 3 - Read chapter 13 then read Day 2's Nate Saint Bible notes.

Day 4 - Read chapter 14 and 15 then read Day 3's Nate Saint Bible notes as a recap.

Day 5 - Read chapter 16 (it's very short) then read Day 4 and 5's Nate Saint Bible notes.

Geography

We decided to wait until this week to make our Brazilian treats. On Monday, we made Brigaderiros...4 simple ingredients to toss into the pot, then we kept stirring and stirring and stirring and stirring, well, you get the idea. No joking, I think we stirred for 20 minutes!

I really didn't think the kids were going to like them, but they surprised me...S, A, Dad, and my other brother (J) gobbled them up. J ate his 1st one, but wanted no more. I licked my fingers and that was enough for me ;)  

Science

The kids took turns reading pages 106-109 in Living World. We decided to look up some videos to go long with what we read. Short videos depicting the Argus pheasant dance can be found here and the Peacock dance here. Chameleon color change here.


We learned about eggs and God's design for bird reproduction through laying eggs. We also learned of the egg arch shape and how its shape is one of the sturdiest and strongest shapes in architecture. The kids, as well as myself, were quite surprised at how hard it was to break the egg. 

It was only until we fractured or made a tiny crack in the egg that we were able to break them by squeezing.

The next part of our 'egg'speriment, as J called it, was to see how much weight our egg arches could hold.

12 workbooks and 2 spiral notebooks later and the back 2 egg arches collapsed.

The 'popping' sound of the shells made us all jump. LOL!

Bible

{We consider the read-alouds as part of Bible.} As we were reading Chapter 11 in 'Nate Saint' this week, the kids were intrigued with shrunken heads and wanted to know more. Before delving more into the subject, I took the time to explain how sad it was that people were killed for this and how sad it was for the Jivaro people to not know the one true God who could save them from this kind of life and treatment of others. With that being said, we looked up pictures of shrunken heads on the Internet. Of course then the kids wanted to know how they shrunk heads.  I found a short article here and we discussed a few of the elements they saw in the pictures...not everything though :-/


The kiddos also had fun flying (or *trying* to fly) their little yellow Nate Saint planes.

I hope you had a great week as well!

(This post has been linked up at Discover Their Gifts and Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers)