Week 21 - The Crusades, Knights, and Robin Hood

Here are a few highlights from our week...

Well, things are getting back on track. We are really trying to get back into the swing of things and get a good routine going again not only with school, but chores and gardening as well. Yay for gardening and warmer days!!!

Art 

We had a foam sword activity left over from a lesson I taught at church, so the kids made those along with their Coat of Arms shields. They had a lot of fun putting on mock battles and did a wonderful job on their swords and shields.

Reading

This week, we started reading from John Bunyan's Dangerous Journey (Pilgrim's Progress). Both of my kids had read simplified versions of this book separately in previous years, so it will be nice to be able to go through this with them all-together this time around. With all the history and Bible read a-louds called for in MFW, my voice was beginning to conk out on me. So, it was a blessing to come across this book as a read a-loud through video - complete with pictures and all. I let the kids follow along in the actual book as well since the pictures are much more vivid.

Monday - p7 - Slough of Despond

Tuesday - p32 - The Interpreter's House

Wednesday - p42 - The Hill Difficulty

Thursday - p52 - The Fight with Apollyon

Bible

Netflix has a video called Torchlighters: The John Bunyan Story that would be a great addition to Monday's Trial and Triumph reading about John Bunyan.

You can also listen to St. Bernard of Clairvaux - "O Sacred Head Now Wounded"



History

We finished the castle!

We also watched a few videos this week about:
castle life, nasty knights: castle defenses, nasty knights: templar, Medieval Scottish Wedding, and the Magna Carta.

Netflix has the animated Disney story of Robin Hood as a 'watch it now', so...we watched it ;)

We also watched short Mickey Mouse video clip of their rendition of the William Tell Overture.



Science

We are on to astronomy now and will be here for the remainder of the school year. My blue eyed boy has been taking an astronomy class through our home school co-op, so he has been working on several extra astronomy assignments since the school year started.

I purchased solar system craft kits. As we get to each planet in our lessons, we are going to paint that particular planet. At the end of the school year, we are going to put the solar system model together.

Extras

Over the weekend, we spent lots of time doing things the kids wanted to do. We went on a field trip to the Houston Museum of Health and Science. We met a lot of new homeschoolers and the kids had a great time going through the exhibits as well as running around at the park. It was the perfect time to go because all of the exhibits were about the Human Body which is what we just finished learning about in science :) 

We played several basketball and shooting games, water balloon games, and made a huge slip n slide. We put soap and water all over it, used their large inflatable pool/beach float, and flew down the path. Well, I didn't. It was still a little too chilly for me to get that wet, but Dad and the kids did...lol!

My son helped Dad cook some amazing baby back ribs and my daughter and I spent the entire day sewing. Of course, I haven't sewn in YEARS, so the early part of my day was spent reading, watching videos, and reacquainting myself with the machine and sewing. it slowly came back to me as the day went on. And boy does my back hurt!!! My brown eyed girl has been begging me for quite some time to learn to sew, so with all the rain on Saturday, that was the perfect time to stay indoors and teach her. She did really well! She made several outfits for her doll, made a pillow and bedding for her doll, and made some sort of bag as outlined in her little sewing book she got last Christmas.

Review of Week 21

I love that my kids love to read!

A is still working on The Courage of Sarah Noble. She sort of got side tracked on a new series called That's Nat!. She absolutely loves them! They are all Christian based about a little school aged girl named Natalie.

J is my speed reader. He reads books faster than I can get my hands on em. He's already gone through his new series, The Sugar Creek Gang, also Christian based. He finished up Farmer Boy a day or two ago and is about half way through Mountain Born already.

Yes, I know several of these books are read-alouds for MFW, but we just never seem to find the time to get to them with everything else we have going on. So, the kids read these in their spare time.

A is getting much better at her math facts. She loves when I hide the flashcards and she finds them one at a time and answers them. 

J and S are learning things I know I never did in the 3rd grade math...like equations... and they are pretty good at them too.

The state studies are going ok. A loves everything about them. She could color for hours. J pretty much does the bare minimum...state flag, state abbreviation, and state capitol. Every now and then he feels like going all out.

The kids enjoyed learning about Robert Fulton. They wondered how he was able to keep the water out of his diving ship while he attached a bomb to another boat. Hmmm...I guess we'll be looking that up this weekend on the internet :)