A Peak At Our Week: Session 3 Week 1 - Welcoming in a New Year

In My Life The Last 3 Weeks
Nothing like "ringin' in the new year" with purging the clutter! I wanted to start 2013 off with an organized house so we spent copious amounts of time doing just that. Quality family bonding time! ::wink:: We have 25 bags and 200 or so books and VHS movies for donation, and LOADS of recyclables and  trash ready to load up. Seriously! We're not done with our decluttering, but we certainly got a great start and I'm feeling less, hmm, smothered?

Oh, and our final chicken and duck egg tally for 2012: 1605 eggs! That's a whole lotta laying, don't you think? And the hens took a break to molt for 3 months!

What We're Cooking
Oven-baked Caramel Popcorn (without nuts) for Movie Night! 

Homeschool High School
White Pine attended his first enrichment class at a new STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) charter high school this week. Although he was a little nervous venturing into a new school situation, he really enjoyed his first class learning Google Earth SketchUp to begin planning and creating a city such as an architect would do.

Accomplishments
The Screwtape Letters, Approach Paper: C.S. Lewis, Multiplication of Polynomials, Biology: Evolution, World History: Asia mapwork, Google Earth SketchUp

Homeschool Elementary
Session 3 and a new, slightly revamped daily schedule...and back to the good ol' white board (rather than workbox cards). White boards and wet erase markers are the best! Anyway, I simplified Sugar Maple and Balsam Fir's daily assignments, focusing more on those challenging areas, which means Spelling, Writing and Math.

Have you seen XtraMath? It's a FREE site that offers math fact learning for students and reports for us instructors. My saplings will be using it for the rest of the year to get those facts down.

Would you believe that my saplings ASKED to learn about Chemistry? Whoop! You see - I have a Chemistry lab kit that's been sitting on the shelf for a while, collecting dust, waiting for the day when JUST one of the saplings showed an interest in it. Finally! So, in additional to our Chem X100 kit, we'll be notebooking information from the Chem4Kids website. We focused on states of matter.

And we continued on with the Ancient Greeks in SOTW, reading about how life was different in Athens (where education and arts were important) and Sparta (where bravery, strength and fighting skills were important). Both saplings would chose to live in Athens. ::wink::

Sugar Maple's Accomplishments
The Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero, Creative Writing (on Computer), Cursive, Math: Decimals, Line Segments and CM, Xtra Math: Addition Facts, Chemistry: States of Matter, SOTW: Ancient Greece, Mapwork

Balsam Fir's Accomplishments
A Kiss for Little Bear, Word Work, Creative Writing, Handwriting, Math: Addition/Subtraction, Xtra Math: Addition Facts, Time Bingo, Chemistry: States of Matter, Snap Circuits, SOTW: Ancient Greece, Mapwork

For the Love of Books

Well, The Hobbit was a bust. ::sigh:: So, we moved onto Treasury of Greek Myths: Classic Stories of Gods, Goddesses, Heroes & Monsters by Donna Jo Napoli. With the shorter stories and vibrant drawings, we're all enjoying this one much better! (Note: Some passages may be questionable for your family.) 

And I started reading Stuart Little and Diary of a Wimpy Kid to Balsam Fir before bed while the other two settle down in their own rooms with books.

Places We Went and People We Saw
☃ Basketball (SM) ☃ 3D Architecture Class (WP) ☃ Library (All) ☃ Rec Center (WP) ☃ Overnight with T_ ☃ Christmas with Family (All) ☃

Around the 'Net
SOTW Tips from Mary at Homegrown Learners
Leftovers: Division Game from Education.com
Keeping a Garden Journal by A Natural Nester

Something to Share
Winter has truly settled into Maine during the last couple of weeks. Snow has blanketed the ground and trees and turned us into a "winter wonderland". 

As always, thanks for visiting Our Side of the Mountain. Here's hoping for an awesome 2013! We're linking up to these wonderful blog hops.

It's a Wrap! Session 2 Week 6 - Let the Holidays Begin

In My Life This Week

Poor Sugar Maple woke up Monday morning with a sore throat and coughing. She spent the day in bed watching Netflix movies on my Kindle, reading or napping. Fortunately she felt better after a couple of days and it doesn't seem like she shared with the rest of us. Yet.

What We're Cooking
French Fried Onion Meatloaf from Tilly's Nest! Meatloaf is such an easy dish to prepare, but it's also "blah". Adding dried onions and cheese chunks sure spruced it up for us! 

Homeschool High School
White Pine assembled some really cool DNA strands from colored construction paper that represented guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine nucleotides for a Genetics "modeling" lab. All those G, A, T, and Cs! But mostly he spent the week finishing up his learning goals for English and Algebra.

White Pine and His Paper DNA Models

Accomplishments
Dumas Persuasive Paper, Conrad Author's Profile and Approach Paper, Algebra: Solving for N, Biology: Genetics (DNA/RNA)

Homeschool Elementary
We wrapped up our volcano unit study. Sugar Maple and Balsam Fir put together their lapbooks, reviewed volcanoes and the rock cycle on StudyJams, and made an erupting volcano model. Don't forget to click here to see the creation of our volcano and 2 ways to make "lava" eruptions! Balsam Fir was SUPER DUPER excited with Mt. Boom!

Top L. to R. Front Page of Lapbook and Back Page of Lapbook. Bottom L. to R. Center
Section with Flap up and Center Section with Flap Down

We finished a tad bit of SOTW on Ancient Greece: Minoans, Mycenaeans, Dorians. And, ahem, watched "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief". It's about mythology, right? ::wink::

Sugar Maple's Accomplishments
The Story of Helen Keller (Hickok), Personal Letter, Creative Writing, Writing Process, Idioms, Cursive, Volcanoes, Word Processing, Ancient Greece, Mapwork, Band Practice, Pasta Ornaments

Balsam Fir's Accomplishments
Little Bear (Minarkik), Creative Writing Notebook (Complete Sentences/Main Idea), Handwriting, Rounding Up, Subtraction with Borrowing, Volcanoes, Ancient Greece, Mapwork

For the Love of Books

With the movie "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" coming out soon - or did it release already ::laugh:: - Blue Spruce dug up his copy of the book and I started reading it to the saplings. None of the saplings nor myself have read this book so it's a new "adventure" for us. Have you read it? I'm still undecided as to whether it's a good read ALOUD book or not.

With Our Hands
Fiori Pasta Snowflake Ornaments from Katy Elliot! Using pasta and Tacky Glue, we created snowflake shapes and let them dry. After 2-3 light coats of white spray paint, we "painted" them with Tacky Glue and covered them with silver glitter. Sparkly!

Sugar Maple Making Fiori Pasta Snowflake Ornaments

Places We Went and People We Saw
☃ Library (SM) ☃ Scouts (All) ☃ Band Concert (SM) ☃ Girl Scout Nursing Home Singalong and Holiday Party (SM) ☃ Boy Scout Camp In (WP) ☃

Helpful Homeschool Hint

Having maps for Geography is a great resource to have! Not only do we label places and landforms, but we also jot down historical notes. Tying events to places can be a very powerful learning tool! Education Place has some great, but simple outline maps to print out for free! 

Around the 'Net
☃ Advent Christmas Lanterns from The Tiger Chronicles
☃ Gift Boxes and Envelope Templates to Print Out and Assemble from Katilbalina
☃ Printable Paper Grinch from The Flying Dachshund

Well, that's a wrap! I've got a few more posts lined up for December so don't forget to come back. Linking up to these fun blog hops! Click over and check them out! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Weekly Wrap-up: Session 1 Week 5

Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.
-John Muir

In Our Life This Week

Ready for more van adventures? ::sigh:: Would you believe that BOTH my headlights burned out at the same time? So, I googled how to replace them and off to VIP Balsam Fir and I went. And yes, my 7-year-old did some most of the work for me. It's nice to have a mechanic in the house!

Oh, and if you're wondering why Balsam Fir is wearing a blue latex glove, well, it's because you can't touch headlight bulbs with your bare hands. The oils in our skin will either blow the bulb or shorten its "life". The things you learn, huh?

Homeschool Elementary
In Botany this week we learned about pollination and started to fill out a mini book from Homeschool Share, and watched You tube videos from Make Me Genius and We Love You Mr. Bee. And continued to observe our bean plant inside our Plant Box Maze and watch phototropism in "action".

Story of the World? Child's History of the World? I was able to get a copy of CHOW from a friend last week, so this week I started reading it aloud to the Saplings to let them decide between the 2 books. Their verdict? CHOW! SOTW! Yep! One likes CHOW; one likes SOTW. How do I choose which to continue?

This week's handicraft project was drink coasters. Now, I can't share photos because they're Christmas presents for family members who may be reading this. If you'd like to see what we did, click here, but not family, OK?

Sugar Maple
★ English - Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (Riordan), Spelling with Samson, Cursive, Vocabulary,Compound Words, Synoyms, Summary/Outline, Personal Narrative
★ Math - Multiplication Table, Horizontal/Vertical/Oblique Lines, 3 Factor Multiplication, Timed Multiplication Drill, Test 2
★ Botany - Pollination (Self/Cross/Animal/Man/Nature)
★ World History - World Geography, Stone/Bronze Age
★ Extras - Girl Scout Bake Sale, Handicraft, Soccer, Clarinet/Band, Baked Tollhouse Cookies, Spanish, ZooWhiz, Gardening, Presidential Debate

Balsam Fir
★ English - Nate the Great and the Snowy Trail (Sharmat), Plural Nouns, Spelling with Samson, Handwriting, Combining Sentences with AND
★ Math - Missing Addends, Charts, Measurement (cm/liters),
★ Botany - Pollination (Self/Cross/Animal/Man/Nature)
★ World History - World Geography, Stone/Bronze Age
★ Extras - Cub Scouts, Handicraft, Soccer, Van Repair, Spanish, School House Rock CD, "Mighty Machines" (Netflix), River Crossing Game, Origami

Homeschool High

White Pine and I had a goal-update meeting this week. (It's really neat to be discussing school this way WITH him!) We set goals before school started based on our required number of school days and the lessons in his textbooks. He happens to be a little behind his goals in English and Math, quite a bit behind in Biology, and right on schedule for World History. So, we made some adjustments to get him caught up. It was a "buckle down" week for him!

★ English - Walden (Thoreau), Approach Paper, Author Profile, Creative Writing Essay
★ Algebra - Test 2, Surface Area, Angles
★ Biology - Chapter 3 Self-test, Biosphere, Ecology, Cycles of Matter, Properties of Water, Biomes, Greenhouse Effect
★ World History - African Religion/Culture, World Geography
★ Extras - Soccer, Boy Scouts

Something to Share

October is Sensory Processing Disorder Awareness Month. Our Balsam Fir has SPD and every day can be a challenge to experience life without being overwhelmed. Read his SENSATIONAL story here or find out more about SPD here.

Well, that's a wrap from Our Side of the Mountain! Thanks for stopping by! Check back later this weekend to read about our Friday Field Trip! Have a great week!