A day/week reviewed

Monday

history, bible, math (multiplying decimals), astronomy copywork, game at gramma’s, reading,  A quiet day, shorter than planned, but good

Tuesday

For Grammar, we used the story that he is writing. It’s good for him to see why and how his edits are necessary.
Started Math Mammoth, pay attention a review is on the way!
Science (made a bone)  See this site.    I can’t say the lad was highly enthused with this activity, but he did learn a lot about the structure of the bone.  

History, bible, astronomy (what do you remember about the asteroid belt)
Watched video on bone structure  and found a page where we could label the parts of the bone.

Wednesday: 
Foodbank, art, Canada learning about the MacKenzie river, being amazed at the caribou.  
My son and I watched a few different videos about the MacKenzie river which is Canada’s largest river.  He was stunned by how wide it is.

Thursday
A good day filled with Art, Science, History, bible, math and all sorts of schooling stuff.  🙂

While the lad worked on his schooling, I worked on laundry and cleaning the dining room/living room   Moving furniture and organizing…man the old papers that got tossed!   It was so good but also SO exhausting.   

I managed to get outside to take pictures of my bunnies so I could update my rabbitry website so that was great.  

Friday
Today we had three things in school we wanted to work on.
1. Art (didn’t make it this far as the robotic hand took longer than anticipated)
2. Science: Icebergs, we were learning about icebergs and my lad asked this question “do icebergs melt faster in salt water or fresh water?”    So we thought we’d test out the theory.   Some elves came along for the joy of cold weather!  🙂

3. STEM Science: Robotic Hand

 All in all it was a great week, with learning and growing together.

 Over the course of the week I made progress with my art project.   It’s a bit wet here yet, but I have a tree in the foreground and white fluffy clouds!!! 

My lad keeps telling me how much he likes what I am doing. He gives me helpful advice and helped with cutting out the limbs for the tree.   I wanted to clip the overhanging tree branches but the lad forbade me saying “I like it mom, it makes the tree stick out more”.  He thinks I should add a few green leaves to the tree, but my original plan was to just have a stark tree overshading the foreground, but “mom, it will look dead if you do that.  Dead trees don’t have interesting bark!!!”.   

So what do YOU think????

Homeschooling
Stem: Robotic Hand . Where we make a robotic hand.
Art Series: the Incredible Art Department.  An online free art lesson resource.
26 reasons to love homeschooling. An alphabet of reasons.
B is for Beavers.   A ABC blogging post
Exploring the World Starting with Canada.   A Virtual Curriculum Fair Post

Faith and Life
Poem: Control.  Word prompt post
Pride the Downfall of Egypt.  Devotions from Ezekiel 32.
Connections and Gratitude, Jan 25. Posts and things I am grateful for.
How do we bear one anothers burdens.   Sermon based on mental illness. 
Behold, Assyria like a cedar in Lebanon.  Devotions on Ezekiel 31.
Recipe: Lemon Cinnamon Cookies.
Hymn Study: Precious Lord, Take My Hand.
On Whom Do you Rely?   Closing service at our church

Reviews:
 The Playbook.  Using sports to teach character and life issues.

Linking up at the following:

Homeschool Highlights.
Family Friday Link Ups:
Weekly Wraps Up.
Homeschool blog and tell.
 

I’ve heard that expression a lot this week.  “Mom, thank you for teaching me.”

When I re-taught him the continents and where “Canada” fell into that mix.
When I helped him understand that fractions were actually division statements.
When we looked into a microscope and saw what blood looked like and then saw the blood cells MOVE.
When we sat down together to edit chapter two of his story.

It’s been a bit of an odd thing hearing this so frequently.  I’m guessing the lad missed learning things when I was so ill before Christmas and then having two weeks off over Christmas.

It’s SO good to be feeling mostly back to normal again.   So very very good.

So what has our week looked like?

Monday: 

• Most of his schooling he did before he got to grammas, why you ask?   Because my lad has taken up the cause of sewing lately and his gramma helps with cutting out pieces.   They sit and sew and chat together.  Little stuffies are born.  Veritas Press history and bible, math, human body, astronomy, all done.
• He did his reading at Gramma’s and played a game (chess I think though it might have been sorry).

Tuesday:

• Learning about Canada … we started with where Canada was in the world.   On the 3rd largest continent, 4th most populous continent, two mountain ranges, a great plain etc.   All the basics.
• We worked on difficult angles in triangles and learned a disconcerting fact, the lad is VERY determined that fractions aren’t a division question or problem, they are just parts of numbers.  Still working that one through.  🙂 I’m going to guess though it’s a terminology issue though as he does his fractions quite easily and he has a tendency to be very particular about words and how they are used.
• We had a great deal of fun editing the second chapter of his book.   Complete with misspellings and horrid punctuation.  He knows better with the punctuation but is too lazy while he’s writing to worry on it because “I can always edit it with you mom”.     (me rolling eyes)
•  
  

  Wednesday

• Foodbank day so no on-line materials done.   He’s required to do his
  schoolwork and to help when asked.  Today he mostly did his schooling
  but also helped with putting away potatoes, onions and tossing mis-given
  food (food that should have tossed but went to foodbank instead)
• Math…
  today fractions into mixed numbers, percentages and decimals.   I was
  mixed up with my percentages today (head not into math) so we had an
  animated discussion about how if I was teaching in a school I would
  deserve a stern talking to.  🙂
• at home we did our astronomy
  because “Mom, I know you like to learn this too but if I read it
  out-loud to you it takes too long!!”
• Our breakfast book “Tirzah”
  we read at lunch time since breakfast didn’t happen at home today.  We
  scavenged at the foodbank.  🙂
• Excitement prevailed when … Mom
  scratched open a scab and we looked at blood under the microscope.  BOY
  fun times!!   Dad even got in on the action.   We managed to even get
  it hooked up to the computer which was cool.

Thursday

•  Astronomy was a source of fascination today.  We have picked up our
  study in Apologia’s Astronomy course again.  Today we were learning
  about real-life comets.   This video fascinated and elicited an “OH WOW” from the lad.   We spent longer with the wow factor that we didn’t move on as far as I had planned

• We started an art project based on the Canadian Rockies.   The
  project we wanted to do didn’t pan out much to my lad’s delight, so he
  did what he really wanted to do.. a mountain that will be coloured using
  pencil shading.   He’s gotten the outline done, we’ll work on it more
  tomorrow, and I started an experiment in using tissue paper to create an
  abstract mountain art. 
• He worked on the grammar part of
  chapter one of his book.. ACED it.  🙂   It was like a test to see if he
  could see what changes we made and why we made them.   When it came to
  making one of his sentences run more smoothly we had a good discussion
  about what sounded better and why.
• Math was a lesson I pulled up
  from Khan academy but I couldn’t find any practice tests to go with it
  so kinda just said “That’ll do” (he didn’t complain one iota!)   We are
  looking at a different free math program called MEP Math.   A quick look
  has me thinking it makes more sense… easier to figure than Khan
  anyways.  Anyone familiar with it that can give me some ins and outs?
• Here’s the start to my abstract art project.   It’s
  going to be few layers thick I think.. I want to do a silhouette on it, add some sticky out flowers and a boat to it as well..it’s a way for my
  boy to see different art in action without worry that something he will
  do will be a bomb (and ergo wasted time in his opinion and therefore a hard nut to crack at times).    Be mindful
  of this…. it is still a work in progress FAR from done.

Friday

•  I LOVE our Fridays.   So relaxed yet busy.  
• Today we enjoyed the cats being silly with the birds at the feeder.   You should have seen his tail switching and twitching and the jumping at the windows.

• we made a DaVinci clock and worked more on our art projects.

• we also fed the snake whose been out wandering today.  She eats MUCH less in the winter than she does the rest of the year so we only feed her when she’s out and about wandering.   She doesn’t eat as much at one time either.  

Reviews
 Out of the Spin Cycle: Devotions to help the busy mom.
Trials, tears and triumphs.   I reviewed this for a friend.
SchoolhouseTeachers.com.   Homeschool Crew Review

Word Prompt
Monkey in the Middle

Devotions
 Sidon Be warned.
King of Tyre, Lamented, Destroyed.

Variety
Art Series: Beatrix Potter: A great art book all about Beatrix Potter
 Recipe: Scotch Scones.  I like them the lads are less enamored.
Introducing Blogging the Alphabet.   A linky Amanda and I are hosting.
Hymn Study: God of our Fathers.
Field Trip: Ontario Science Centre.  
Connections and Thankfulness. blog posts I liked and things I am grateful for
2017‘s here, what’s in Store. goals for the new year

                                 Linking up at the people below.

Since I’ve been battling illness yet this week, our schooling is still not back on track.

I have been trying though to do a bit more.

We’ve done a bit of reading in our history encyclopedia, story of the world, wolf keepers (which is a great read!), wonders of the ancient world and coyotes.

The lad is continuing re-reading the Warrior Cat series.   I’ve spent sometime listening to book 12 of the Ranger’s Apprentice Series.  I’ve also scheduled a few blog posts.

In our reading we came across some interesting “let’s learn more ideas”.  

To that end we’ve learned about Japan’s Keyhole graves.   You can see a link all about them here.

We learned a bit about St. Peter’s Basilica as we tried to build a 3D model of it.

We listened to some coyote noises.

We also then hunted up what some of those noises meant. Adirondack Almanack helped.

Most days the lad did his Veritas History and Bible, and worked through his smarts.   More about them here, Working through our Smarts.    We’ve struggled to get in a whole lot more.   I could tell he’s getting on the mend as Thursday and Friday he was begging his dad to take him out pokemon go-ing and these last two weeks that hasn’t come up at all.   SO YEAH!!!!!   Perhaps we’re going to kick this bug after-all eh!  🙂

What else?

OH… I can’t forget to tell you about this COOL virtual tour of St. Peter’s.   Check it out here!

The rest of the time the lad played computer games, read, tidied his room and chilled out.   He continued with doing his archery, karate and Cadet meeting.   I did a lot of sitting, handling digestive upset due to a new med, got some blood work done (learned I’m a bit anemic) and generally worked to get better.   I did some blogging, sleeping, TV watching and eating of tootsie rolls (see crave).

Since I’ve been mostly chair bound and getting more mentally alert (another yeah!!!) I’ve been doing some blogging.   I also switched blogs.   I used to do most of my blogging on Weebly, but lately it’s having issues with my server and I said “nuts to this” and have moved back to my blogger account full time.  I will have the LONG job of copying over my posts from there, but what’s a gal to do eh?

But back to the point at hand:

Word Prompts posts 

These are just FUN to do.  They are normally short and sweet, and let’s me feel creative.  🙂
What I crave.   Five minute Friday post
Weather.  Inspired by my international student
Decorate.   Tis the season you know?
Lesson.   Illness teaches much.

Life and Faith

Field Trip to Fort York.   A trip to Fort York in Toronto.
God sought a man.   Ezekiel 22
God’s sword is out.  Ezekiel 21
Book Club: The book of Negroes.   What the title says.  Good book.
Sunday Sermon: Keep awake, be alert.
Hymn Study: Rejoice, rejoice, believers.

Homeschooling and Reviews

Alpha-Mania Adventures. Prereaders phonics and phonemes program.
Working through our Smart books.   What this part of our dailies is.
Art Series: Draw, paint, print like the great artists.   GREAT BOOK for doing art lessons.
Seasonal Books to Enjoy.   Two fun books.