Homeschool Wrap Up Week 31

This week was a bit of a light week in our homeschool.  Nick had to take a standardized test that took up two days.  Our state no longer requires testing, but we are looking at  the possibility of him playing soccer next year and one of the school's requirements for homeschoolers is to provide standardized test scores to prove academic eligibility for sports.  I chose to use Seton Testing service and the Stanford 10 Test because he could take the tests completely online.  We received test codes the morning of the test and had from 9 am to 5 pm to complete the test.  The separate sections were not timed, he could take as long as he wanted to.  I did not look at all the questions to the tests because it made him nervous to have me looking over his shoulder, but I will say that the math questions that I saw I considered hard!! But we finished the full battery Tuesday afternoon and I had access to test results by Wednesday evening. Having him doing his tests though derailed everyone else's homeschool  work a bit.

Week 30 in our Homeschool

P.E.: We ran 3 days and rode bikes one day.

Bible: We read 4 chapters in the book of Mark.

Poetry: We did not work on any new poems this week.

Read Aloud: We started a new morning read aloud this week from YWAM Heroes of History series on Orville Wright (upcoming review.) We read 4 chapters of this book.  In the afternoon we are still reading Shepherd, Potter, Spy, and the Star Namer.  I read 7 chapters of that this week.  In the evening we are reading The Terrestria Chronicles book 3 The Search for Everyman.

E.C.C: We finished this week.  We read the sections about Antarctica and reviewed the location of all of the countries we have learned.  We know many more then when we started so that is a good thing.  I sold this curriculum and sent it off to it's new owner.  I don't think I did it justice.  There was quite a bit I liked, but I just did not have the time to invest into beefing it out to be as much as I wanted it to be (if that makes sense!)

History: We watched 4 episodes of Drive Thru History The Gospels this week leaving us with one to go.  I did not have the girls watch the episode on The Crucifixion with us.  We have really enjoyed this series and I would love to buy more of these, just trying to decide which one to start with.

Nature Study: We are studying our caterpillars!  They grew so much over the week and Saturday they went to the top of the cup to make their chrysalis.

Art: Did not get to do an art project this week.  I am hoping to do two next week.

Math: Nick did not do any math this week.  Alex did 4 lessons of Teaching Textbooks 7, and the others completed 4 lessons in their MLFLE.

MFW K: Emmie started o n "j" for jewel.

Language Arts: Lily completed three lessons in Eclectic Foundations B.  Anthony and Christian completed 4 lessons in Readers in Residence.  We are loving this curriculum!

Spelling/Reading: Anthony and Christian completed step 7 in AAS Level 4.  Lily completed lesson in AAR Level 3.

Other Activities this Week:

Monday Christian had a soccer game.  It was a good game and they played really hard but they lost in a shootout (Christian scored a goal though!) ending our spring soccer season.

Alex also had a game and they won, continuing his season.

Tuesday the girls had gymnastics then we ate at the park and hung out til it was time for the game to start.  Nick walked over to church for senior high youth.  It was a really good soccer game. The team we played had beat us 14-0 and 13-0 the last two times we played them.  They played really hard (Alex spent a lot of time on the ground saving goals for the two quarters he was goalie) and at the end of the 4th quarter it was tied 2-2 so it went to a shootout.  Alex was our goalie and out of 5 shots only let one in.  Our guys scored three so we won!  They were very proud!  The team tried to pick Alex up and put him on their shoulders but he is ginormous and they couldn't get him up very well, it was really funny to watch though.

I am thankful that the season is over!

Wednesday I was supposed to take Chelsea to the doctor but there were bad storms in the area so we rescheduled (it is a long drive with not many places to stop if you need to because of weather!) That afternoon was our last day of Kid's Club.  We were supposed to have an outside party with water games but the weather was still nasty so we had to stay indoors.

Thursday we had a 4 H meeting.

Friday the CenterPoint Volunteer Fire Department put on a fire safety program for our homeschool group.  They brought a trailer that is set up like a house.  So after watching a video the kids went in two at a time and they pumped fake smoke in.  They had to roll out of bed, crawl across the floor and check to see if the door was hot, and then make their escape.  They could either go down a ladder or come back down the stairs.  They also showed them their fire trucks and had a fireman put on all his gear.  They put some of the kids on a backboard, and had a bag of goodies for them.  It was a really good program for the kids.

We played on the playground and ate a picnic lunch while we were there, then headed off to do grocery shopping.

Friday night Art's work had a management outing, so Nick babysat while we went to that for a couple of hours.

Saturday we had awful weather! Lots of rain, wind, and storms, but no tornadoes or flooding.

Some random things for this week

Our new tinker crate was a hand.  Anthony spent Saturday morning building it.

There is a den of foxes down the road from us.  We have been watching them every time we have driven by, there are 5 of them.  My pictures are not very good.

Our chickens are now two weeks old.  They have lots of feathers and can fly a little bit.  Our new rabbits do not do well being let out of their cage to hop around.  We had to keep chasing them back out of the woods.

Christian made this really cool LEGO 5th Wheel and Pick up truck to tow it.  This was not a LEGO set it was made using random pieces and a YouTube video.  He added a few things to make it his own, like the satellite dish on top. He worked really hard on this!

This is a side view of the truck and 5th wheel

 This is the top view with the slides closed

 This is a top view with the slides open

 This is the bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower

 This is the kitchen with a counter, cabinets, and stove

 This is hard to see but it is a table and couch with people sitting on them

 This is the bedroom with a dog sitting on the bed

 This is a closer shot of the truck hitched to the camper

 This is the back with a ladder and license plate

 This is a picture with the door open and the steps pulled down

Pretty cool huh!

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!

April Nature Seekers 4 H Meeting

One of the county contests we do every year is B Day and it stands for Bait Casting, Bicycles, and BB Shooting.  A couple of girls from my club have never participated in this contest before, so I thought it would be a good idea to have a meeting covering at least part of the contest.  I can't teach the BB shooting part, and the bicycle is just practicing riding a course, so I chose Bait Casting.  For the Bait casting part they have to take a test identifying certain fish and fish anatomy, and cast their fishing poles into the center of a ring.

So first we worked on fish ID.  I used the Beginning Fishing book and Arkansas Sports Fish booklet from Game and Fish for the children to look up the fish in. Cloverbuds and Juniors only have to ID 5 fish: crappie, trout, catfish. bigmouth bass, and a bream.  Seniors have to do 10. 

Then we looked at the different parts of a fish (on a diagram I did not bring any live fish!)


After that we worked on casting.  Alex was a big help demonstrating to all of the children how to properly cast their poles. 

Since we were at the park by the nature trail we of course had to walk it one time.  We did not see anything especially exciting but it is a nice walk and it was a pretty day to be walking!