CtG - Week 10

Here are a few highlights from our week...

Art

As you can tell from the picture, today was one of those days my blue-eyed boy was NOT in the mood for art. They had to copy a picture of an eye, then they had to look in a mirror and try to draw their own. My son somehow managed to scribble down a little eye-ball though...lol!

Bible
Bible is going well...between the Biblical passages and the Journey pages, it feels a bit repetitive at times. So, we skip around a bit in Journey and try not to cover the same things the Biblical passages covered. I can't wait until we get to Week 12 - I have sooo many fun things planned!!!


History
We haven't really had time to get to many of the projects and activities listed in the history lessons lately. Many of them have been really involved or time consuming. However, this week, I saw the kids were going to be learning about weaving and clay pots, so I figured, this was something we could try and tackle. My brown-eyed girl has recently taken up crocheting. She only knows how to make simple bracelets and necklaces for now, but she is having lots of fun. Pretty soon, she'll be able to move on to other things. Thank goodness for You Tube! I had to watch the intro to a video about a million times before I figured out how to get started...lol! Did I forget to mention that I am not really crafty? Crocheting was one of those things I just never got into, although, it looks kinda fun to me now.  

Anyway, I was in Wal-mart and saw a simple weaving loom and a motorized clay potter's wheel. I didn't think my son would be so much into weaving, so I opted to buy the pottery wheel. It was only $20 and it looked like a fun twist to the traditional 'make your own clay pot by hand' which we had done several times already throughout the last few years.

Well, the pottery wheel was not all it was cracked up to be. It was actually kind-a difficult and took us a loooong time to get started. The end result looked NOTHING like what my daughter started out to make, but ended up settling for what it turned out to be rather than start the whole ordeal all over again. I so wish I would have taken a picture of us. We were both up to our elbows in clay mud.

She is going to try her hand at it again at a later date. My son was NOT interested. He said he'd rather make his the old fashioned way. He has yet to do so and probably never will. Did I ever mention he really doesn't like artsy things? LOL!

Science

We've been a bit relaxed in the area of completing the projects that go with the science lessons lately. Either we had done something similar in the past that was still fresh in our minds or they didn't look very appealing. We hope to jump back in to the science projects soon though. 


Read-Alouds
We are still loving the Star of Light!


With next week being Thanksgiving week, we will take a small break here and there from school. We also have lots of fun things planned :)

Have a happy Thanksgiving!

MFW-ECC - Week 10 - "Honey" the Police Dog

Our Week in Review

Field Trip - Yay!

On Friday, we had the pleasure of meeting "Honey".

Honey is a beautiful 2 year old police narcotics dog. She is trained to sniff out 4 types of drugs. The officer showed us how she does this by hiding something in one of the kids backpacks. She went from pack to pack sniffing. Just as soon as she found the pack containing the "illegal substance" she immediately sat at attention, very still, staring at the pack. It was pretty neat to watch. 

The kids had fun when the officer let each of them take turns throwing Honey her ball.

 They really got a kick out of racing Honey. Boy was she fast!

Art/Music

The art project we chose this week was to make flutes. The kids had a lot of fun decorating and playing their straw flutes. A word of warning though...I would snip off the sharp ends of the flutes and NOT allow the kiddos to walk around with them while playing them. We had one kiddo bump into another, the straw got shoved into his mouth, and he got a pretty good slice at the back of his throat. OUCH! 

Science

We started the week off by watching a short movie from Netflix about biomes. The kids liked it and the narrator is pretty goofy, which is always a plus in my kids' minds. lol!

The kids took turns reading pages 94-95, 100-101, and 102-105 in Living World.  I did take MFW's recommendation and change the wording, however, we still used this opportunity to discuss the lies they may see in textbooks from time to time regarding evolution, apes, and humans.  

Geography

Kids took turns reading pages 24-27 in the Illustrated World Atlas.

We also watched another Netflix show the kids really liked called "Really Wild Animals: Totally Tropical Rainforest". 

Bible

The Auca people we are hearing about in our Nate Saint story, reminded us of the Yanomamo people we read about on Monday. It is so sad to read of the killing and hatred between people, the mistreatment of women, and the child brides. I came across an article in a National Geographic magazine about Child brides when visiting a relative's house a while back. So, so sad and heartbreaking! You can see the full article here. I will warn you though, although there are no graphic pictures, many of the factual issues facing child brides are discussed and are likely to turn your stomach as it did mine. 

We had a GREAT week and were so glad to get out of the house and meet Honey. 


How was your week?

(This post has been linked up at 2 Ladybugs and a Lizard and Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers)