Adding Spice to our Week

This week I was researching kid's Lego challenges online and I found a blog full of ideas called, Lego Quest Kids. J3 loves Lego building, and we needed a little spark in our homeschool week, so I decided to try the most recent Lego challenge for April. They come out with a new challenge at the beginning of each month. B was inspired by it and decided she wanted to do it too! They had to build something that grows and then photograph it in it's environment. The website has submissions from kids all over the world! It was a lot of fun showing my kids the other children's interpretations of the challenge. I did not show them these pictures until AFTER the challenge was complete, because I did not want it to sway their ideas. Also, I loved the photography component of this challenge. I think they had more fun taking the pictures!! They each took about 10! Here's a few pics of what they came up with..... B created a tulip!

J3 created a dandedion! The first picture cracks me up. He said, "Can you find the Lego Dandelion in the dandelion field mom?"

What do you do to add a little spice to the week???

Homeschool Highlights

Hello All! We just finished up our third quarter and are starting with our second week of the forth quarter on Monday. Over the last couple weeks J3 turned 10 years old. He had a Star Wars themed party and Darth Vader (his older brother J1) arrived to battle his guests.

What a great time everybody had!! So glad we decided to do it up for the double digits celebration! In science, we made models of neurons our of construction paper and then labled all the parts. I found this idea on Pinterest. Who would have thought how Pinterest could change the way we homeschool? This is J3's Neuron.....

....and B's....

Also in science, we studied the brain, and tried an experment called the dollar drop. I dropped a dollar bill from on it's side, so it fluttered and fell. Then, the kids took turns trying to catch it. It's hard!!

The book states, "....your nervous system needs time to size up a situation and react." They definately got the point. In highschool this week, J2 has been teaching a dissection class in our co-op every Monday. He will sometimes dissect that weeks specimen with B and J3 as practice for the upcoming class. This week they did a freshwater clam.

Also J3 was so inclined to bake us some chocolate chip cookies! Love when his inclination goes in that delicious direction!

He has entered three of his photos in an art contest that will be held at the end of the month which is exciting and today he took senior pictures for a friend that he will spend the day editing. All great things to add to his portfolio! Now that we are in the home stretch before summer, I'm really going to take the next week getting organized and scheduled. I want to finish strong! Have a great week!

Homeschool Highlights

This week we have had unseasonably nice weather for our area and our homeschool highlights greatly reflect that!

We did some early spring nature study at our arboretum. It's amazing how many changes you notice when you visit the same spot frequently throughout the seasons.....

......like the cattails! A couple years ago we had done a year long Outdoor Challenge on cattails by Handbook of Nature Study Blog. Now we can't help but see what those cattails are up to every time we visit the arboretum.

Notice the bright pink cast? B broke her wrist ice skating two weeks ago. Thankfully, she gets it off in a couple weeks before her cake decorating class starts.

Here's are some signs of spring pics I snapped at the arboretum.

Of course we had to collect specimens!

Also this week, B set up a mini driving range for the boys. I could watch them swinging through the kitchen window and it was cracking me up. I felt bad that B couldn't swing the club due to her wrist and she was retrieving all the balls for them.

For history, we have been working on a project from "Time Travelers: Colonial Life". It's taking some time to finish but it's looking good. It's a Colonial bed. We have the frame done and next week we will make the mattress' to go on top.

Well....that's it for this week. Hope you enjoy the upcoming week!!

Also linking up to the Homeschool Chick!

Homeschool Highlights

This was a week filled with a lot of science and health activities.

We decided to try our hand at a couple of activities I had found and posted onto Pinterest. We made models of both the spine and human blood.

To make the spine all you need is a pool noodle and some thick ponytail holders.
I cut the pool noodle into about 2" pieces with a bread knife to make our vertebrae (24).

Then use a length of rope or cord to string on alternate noodle pieces (vertebrae) and pony tail holders (disks).

Then tie off the end. That's it!!! Easy peasy lemon squeezy!! Don't you love projects like that?!!

You can find the link to where I found this idea here.

For the blood, here are our suplies.....

BTW...the bags are filled with cheerios with red food coloring added to them.
We filled up our jar with water and added the yellow food coloring. I guess this is how blood looks like without the red blood cells added.

Next add your "red blood cells".

Then add your white blood cells (mini marshmellows and your platelets (purple pom poms) and Viola!! You have human blood! EEEEEWWWWW!

You can find a link to where I found this idea here.
I spent a good portion of the week creating a high school health course for J2. A half credit of health is required to graduate where we live. Since J2 is already taking Advanced Biology (which is all human anatomy)and we can't count any of that towards his health credit I had to really think about what J2 needs in this course. I sat down and asked myself the question, "What do I want J2 to learn before he graduates high school next year that he will take with him for the rest of his life?"

So I created, "Living in Divine Health" for him.

I'll share all the details with you in a later post. Hopefully mid week.

Hope you enjoyed your week!!

Homeschool Highlights

I didn't have time to post our highlights last week due to a pinched nerve in my neck. Starting to finally feel like myself again. Yaaaay!
I have just a few highlights to share from the last couple weeks.

We are wrapping up our lessons on Southwest Indians and we made an Adobe village diorama along with a map of where all the different Native American groups lived.

All of these projects came from the Scolastic book, Southwest Indians - Easy Make and Learn Projects.

We also tried our hand at stenciling some colonial boxes to display at our colonial celebration. B really enjoyed this project.

We also recieved this book that we had oredered from Amazon...

We were so excited to get started that of course we tried the first couple of lessons on getting to know your brush. We are definately going to enjoy this book!

J2 finished reading, All Quiet on the Western Front and The Grapes of Wrath this week. I ordered both movies on Netflix. So far we have watched, All Quiet on the Western Front together. Two words....not good. The movie was so bad that it was hard to focus on anything that was going on. On a positive note, J2 was having to narrarate to J1 and I everything that was going on or how it really happeded in the book. Mission Accomplished!! (by accident) Got to love when that happens! :-)

Have a great week!

Homeschool Highlights

Another week is complete! This week went so much better for us.... thankfully!

This week in Early American history we did an archeological dig.

Along with digging up four layers of "artifacts" you record your findings in a journal.

Here are some of their findings...

We also made pop up cards of the early settlers houses.

Both projects are from Homeschool in the Woods. They are getting excited to display all their projects at out Colonial Celebration (with Dad).

J2 studied for his Advanced Biology test with a buddy :-) Ha! Ha!

Hope you can see him in this pic. He kind of blends in with the couch. Our lizard Bolt! He was great company until he left J2 with a little present on his shoulder!

J2 also worked on his cubist art project that we found over at A Faithful Attempt.
I love the way its turning out. I will be using this project for an homeschool art class I will be teaching this spring. Love that I will have his project to show as an example.

Today, we had our first day of bowling with our group. We have done it every winter for the past 6 years now. It was nice to have some fun with friends to start our week.

Have a wonderful week!!

Homeschool Highlights

This week was a challenging one. No one's head was in the game including mine. We did manage to squeeze in some learning though.

In science, J1 is studying advanced biology and now that we have our slides from Home Training Tools, he decided to have a lab day. He had to view slides of human skin, lung, and the stomach and then draw them under different magnifications.

Since the youngers are doing Sonlights Human Anatomy this year, J1 let them in on the action.

B and J3 also labled and assembled Mr. Bones.

In Early American History, I had found a project where you have the kids draw the character from history you are studying on a piece of poster board. I first cut out the face and armholes to fit them and they colored around that. We did Christopher Columbus. They then planned a talk to give to the family in the voice of Christpher Columbus. They did all their own research and choose one prop to hold that Christopher would have used. J3 carried a telescope and B carried a map of the routes he took. J2 helped them practice before the big presentation and J1 video taped the whole thing for us. They did amazing! We were even able to ask them questions about their characters when they were done. It's great when an idea turns out well!

A new edition to our homeschool schedule is copywork from the Rules of Civility. We are using Homeschool in the Woods Colonial Times program. Each week you print off a handwritting page with one rule and a scripture that backs it up. Love the concept!
This weeks rule was #5...If you cough, sneeze, sigh, or yawn, do it not loud but privately; and speak not in your yawning, but put your handkerchief or hand before your face and turn aside.
Col 3:12....Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering;

I hope to regroup this weekend and get back in the grove next week. Have a great homeschool week!