It's a Wrap! Session 2 Week 3: Gobble! Gobble!

In Our Life This Week

Happy Thanksgiving...a day late! Did you have a wonderful dinner with family and friends? We spent the day with Mimi and Pop, my in-laws, and had a yummy dinner with all the fixin's, and played "Apple to Apples", listened to a few clarinet songs from Sugar Maple, and watched a little football. 

Homeschool High School

White Pine's week was a bit "off". There are times when LIFE takes precedence over school. Not that learning DIDN'T happen, but the TEXT BOOK stuff was less. Taking care of Olive, one of our ducks, was important this week. White Pine is our "Duck Whisperer", so his care of Olive was needed to get her feeling "ducky" again. Administering antibiotics for her respiratory infection hasn't been simple! ::wink:: He did wrap up his 3 experiments though, completed most of his South America unit, and read lots.

Accomplishments
The Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas Approach Paper, Cellular Respiration, Succession, Population and Cell Types/Parts Labs, Bird Anatomy and Care, South American History and Geography

Homeschool Elementary

Math woes. ::sigh:: I guess it's going to be one of those years for Balsam Fir. But I think hope I found a solution for the time being. I really don't want the Saplings to dread a subject even if they must do it. I try hard to find things that will make learning at least tolerable during these "You're not making me, Mom!" phases. He's now working through a Math workbook from Education.com. And he's still progressing: he learned to regroup addition problems this week!

Balsam Fir's Education.com Math workbook and his first double digit addition secret puzzle page with one
carrying problem.

But, he taught himself to tie laces! With his fine motor challenges from SPD, I haven't really pushed learning to tie laces. He'll be 8 in a few months and I know most kids learn sooner, but I figured in his own time...Sunday morning he picked up the Learn to Tie Your Shoes box and within minutes he was a professional! 

Using a Learn to Tie Your Shoes box, Balsam Fir practiced a few times getting the loops and tugs right and then
moved onto sneakers. Isn't that an awesome bow?!

Oh, and do you remember me posting about Sugar Maple taking the Saxon 65 tests to move along quicker in her Math? Well, she finally reached the end of "moving along" (i.e. scoring 85% or higher) with test 14 and started lessons back up this week. She made it through 1/2 the book! Pretty impressive, huh?

We started our Erupt! unit study on volcanoes. (Did you see my planning post here?) We've dropped Apologia Botany until spring. It'll be more interesting to study plants when they're not all "preparing" for the winter. ::wink:: We mostly watched Bill Nye and You Tube videos on volcano basics and studied the layers of the Earth and how eruptions occur.

An Earth's layers flipbook with composition, width and state of matter information, and mini paper volcanoes.

And we continued on with our SOTW, learning about Ancient Egypt. Have I mentioned that I love the pronunciation guide from the activity book? Has that ever come in handy lately! We read about Amenhotep (AH men HO tep), King Tut, Thutmose and Hatshepsut (hat SHEP soot) and filled out our maps.

Ancient Egypt mapwork with places, people and event notes, and more cards added to our wall timeline.

Sugar Maple's Accomplishments
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Last Olympian, Citing Passages, Spelling and Reading Comprehension with Samson, Cursive, Operations with Mixed Fractions, Volcanoes, Ancient Egypt, Dance Mat Typing (11wpm)

Balsam Fir's Acoomplishments
I am the Turkey, Writing (Capitals/Periods/Commas), Sight Words/Spelling with Samson, Handwriting, Double Digit Addition with Carrying, Volcanoes, Ancient Egypt

Helpful Hint

Index cards make really good Math visual tracking aides for younger learners. Balsam Fir uses them when puzzling out multiple digit Math problems. Graph paper is also great for organizing problems when kiddos have to write out the numbers. These simple "tricks" help keep those numbers where they should be!

Balsam Fir lines up the index card to block the tens column, adding up the ones. A simple tracking tool for those
with visual challenges or just learning multiple digit computations.

Places We Went and People We Saw
♦ Basketball Clinic and Parents of Players Meeting (SM)) ♦ Scouts (SM/BF) ♦ Kinderconcert: Brass Quintet (SM/BF) ♦

What We're Cookin'

We brought dessert for Thanksgiving dinner. Sugar Maple whipped up a creamy pumpkin pie, and White Pine baked a sweet pecan pie. (If you'd like the recipes, click here and here!)

Sugar Maple's pumpkin pie and White Pine's pecan pie. Isn't it awesome to have other cooks in the kitchen?

Something to Share

Those of you who know me probably know I don't like to shop. Ever. I shop when it's necessary, getting in and out as quick as possible. So, I had to share this SomeeCard from Facebook because I can't imagine shopping on Black Friday willingly and because I'm posting this ON Black Friday! ::wink::

Thanks for stopping by and reading at Our Side of the Mountain! We're linking up to these fun blog hops. Why not click over and check them out. See you next week!

 
 

The Traveling Trees: November 19-25

In My Life This Week

Road trip! The plan was to meander up to the island on Wednesday for Thanksgiving, stopping here and there, but so much for well-laid plans...A winter storm was coming! (How ironic! A storm before Halloween and a storm before Thanksgiving - does that mean our next one is before Christmas? Hmmm...) So, we skipped school, packed up, put the outside "stuff" away (least it be buried until April), and hit the road. We quickly stopped at DeLorme - the map place - and saw Eartha, the largest globe anywhere, and LL Bean for more water bottles and to see the Christmas lights. The kids travel great! And any road trip without backseat bickering is ALWAYS a success!

Whatcha Makin' Wednesday?

(Join the linky party by clicking the sidebar button.)

We never seem to do our bakin' and cookin' on WEDNESDAY, but several "somethings" get created every week. LOL In prep for Thanksgiving at my sister's house, we made a couple delish New England pumpkin pies.

Homeschool Happenings

Vacation! We packed our Bean backpacks with clothing, hiking odds and ends, and field guides, but NO SCHOOL BOOKS. This week was for hanging out with family and wandering through the woods!

Out-and-About

• Blue Spruce and the Trees helped the scout pack with church clean-up on Saturday then they built adorable sleighs with Santa and reindeer at Lowe's Build and Grow.
• White Pine's buddy "hung out" with him on Saturday and Sunday after the church clean-up, and then the kids from next door popped over too. I'm thankful that they finished raking the leaves off the yard for me!
• White Pine went over to another buddy's house to celebrate his birthday Sunday evening.
• Sugar Maple had Girl Scouts on Monday and another clarinet lesson on Tuesday.
• White Pine and Sugar Maple visited some friends for a couple of hours on Tuesday before we headed out to the island. 

What Worked/Didn't Work For Us

After 12 weeks of schooling, it was relaxing and re-energizing to have most of a week off. (We completed assignments on Monday.) Sometimes you just need a break from the books, although the learning marches on.

Questions/Thoughts

December CAN NOT be next week! Where did Autumn go?! I am glad that the snow has held off except for that weird pre-Halloween storm though.

Photo, Video, Link, or Quote to Share

Balsam Fir has been asking about getting a MOHAWK. He really doesn't have the kind of hair that works well for a MOHAWK - CURLY! - but why not? It's just hair, right? LOL I did keep the sides long enough to buzz everything down though if it doesn't work out! ((wink)) And he lost his very first tooth!

Linking up to These GREAT blog hops:

Too Much THANKSGIVING Fun for TWO Blog Posts

(Didn't see Too Much THANKSGIVING Fun for One Blog Post? Click here and read about our first 3 days!)

Day 4

Don't miss this book! It's not informational, but it's QUITE humorous!

Sugar Maple continued on with her Mayflower Compact copywork while Balsam Fir drew a super cute turkey to go with his Draw Write Now copywork.

We headed back to the Scholastic website and explored "The Thanksgiving Feast" tab and played Thanksgiving Web Quest, an on-line quiz. The quiz was GREAT since it covered all the Scholastic tab information we've been learning!

And then played "Sail on the Mayflower Game". (Print out and play the same game from here!)

Day 5
Paper Doll Play! The script was handed out for the kids to learn their lines...and the props (i.e. paper dolls and houses) were printed, colored and cut out. Plans for turning a cardboard box into a stage were made.

And we had to read some more Turkey books, right? LOL

Linking up to:

Too Much THANKSGIVING Fun for One Blog Post

Thanksgiving is just "around the corner"! Roasted turkey with dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato and green bean casseroles, freshly baked dinner rolls, cranberry sauce, and all the pumpkin pie you can eat with family and friends. Football (maybe) in the afternoon and evening. And those wonderful leftovers the next day. But before all that - it's time to study up on the pilgrims and their voyage in 1620.

Day 1

I read The First Thanksgiving to the kids. This is my favorite book about Thanksgiving! Not only does it describe the voyage for the pilgrims, but it also includes the Pawtuxet and Wampanoag and how Abraham Lincoln set aside the last Thursday in November as a "day of thanksgiving". (And Jean Craighead George is one of my favorite authors.)

Have you seen the Thanksgiving link on the Scholastic website? It's AWESOME! We watched and listened to the videos on the "Voyage on the Mayflower" tab. (Click the sound icon at the end of the descriptions and someone will read the information to you and your kids!) We toured the Mayflower and then took the journey.

And then we watched "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving". 

Day 2
We partook in a Mayflower meal: beef jerky (for dried meat), Saltine crackers (for hard tack or dry biscuits), a block of cheese (for, well, cheese LOL), and water. Sugar Maple and Balsam Fir declared the beef jerky "yucky"! LOL

We discussed what the pilgrims brought on board the Mayflower with them. Although the hold was large for a ship of the Mayflower's size, the 102 Saints and Strangers could not bring many personal items. Food, water, seeds, animals, and tools for the New World were more essential supplies. The kids filled out these worksheets, listing MODERN things they would bring on the Mayflower.

Sugar Maple started her Mayflower Compact copywork while Balsam Fir started his Draw Write Now turkey.

I read Cranberry Thanksgiving, a sweet story about a man with a beard, a special family recipe and forgiving and sharing with others.

We couldn't resist making the "Grandmother's Famous Cranberry Bread" recipe on the back of this book for snack. Much better than beef jerky! LOL

And we watched "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving". Again.


Day 3
We enjoyed A Child's Story of Thanksgiving and Amelia Bedelia Talks Turkey. Have you read any Amelia Bedelia stories? They're a riot! LOL

The kids went to Scholastic again, but this time clicked on "Daily Life" and listened to the information on the different links. (Did you see the timeline at the bottom? More information!)

And continued on with their copywork.

Soon we'll be starting our paper doll play!

Too Much THANKSGIVING Fun for TWO Blog Posts coming up...