Week in Review: August 12-16, 2013

This week has been a great week! All of my students worked very diligently and we accomplished so much! Caden read 10 minutes every day and reviewed his math facts by playing games and using the online math drill from Math U See. He is working on multiplying by 5, 10, and 9. After he masters those facts he will move on to counting by 3's and multiplying by 3.

Alivia worked through unit 13 of Preparing Hearts for His Glory.
She loved learning about Daniel and Esther and for science read more about dinosaurs. She is really liking to be able to work independently. This is what using Heart of Dakota allows my older girls to do. The directions are written directly to the student. They can read and get on with their school without waiting for me to be available. In Preparing Hearts there are several boxes (subjects) which require the teacher to be present, but Alivia has been consistently reading the teacher's instructions and then completing the assignments on her own. She is working on division in Math U See level Delta.

Alexis finished unit 3 and started unit 4 of Creation to Christ. She learned about Jacob and Esau in history. We are reading the book The Golden Bull together as a read aloud. EVERYONE in the family is enjoying this title. Honestly it is a fast read and we have been reading several chapters aloud every evening. Here is a picture of her painting and poem copy work. She really enjoys painting and likes to be super creative on almost all of her assignments.

Mackenzie finished unit 1 of Revival to Revolution this week. She is discovering that as you get older, your assignments require more time and effort. The reading is getting more in depth. A few of her subjects are actually going to count as high school credit for her this year. Science is one of those subjects. Caden really enjoys learning right along side her as they create projects and then do experiments with them. Mackenzie is completing the advanced version. She has science assignments every day of the week and will complete many projects which will help her understand science concepts and principles for physical science. Here is a picture and a video clip of the first project in Exploration Education:

 

Haha! OK that's not how the project is really supposed to be used, but it was just too tempting not to try it!

This year the kids all earned free tickets to the Indiana State Fair from 4H and from the library reading program. We went on Sunday, August 18, the very last day of the fair. This really is an educational activity. We learned so much and we had fun learning in the process. Caden really enjoyed the "Get Animated" exhibit. It was all about how movies are made and had several hands-on activities to try. The one he enjoyed the most was making stop motion videos. He has been doing this for several months so it was fun to try an activity at the fair which he really enjoyed.

Throughout the fair were these Wonder Trail activities. The kids recorded their answers to the questions from each exhibit on their paper. After they completed at least 8 exhibits they received a free water bottle. This really helped us to see many different parts of the fair. There was so much to see and do that I'm very sure we didn't see it all. This also was a great activity to do as an alternative to riding the rides (which my pocket book really liked).

A giant mustache for a mustache crazy girl!

We met Miss Indiana State Fair after she had just been crowned. We were her first photo op!

Sinbad the Pirate was a free show which we watched. These 5 pirates (and 1 monkey) did several diving tricks into a 9.5 feet deep pool. One of the platforms was 80 feet in the air!

World's largest popcorn ball

Cheese sculpture