Homeschool Week 8: On A Roll

Cruz is a big help when it comes to teaching Ben.  It is so sweet to watch him try to teach his brother or show him how something is done.  Most of the time Ben takes his instructions well but there are also times that he likes to remind Cruz that he is not the teacher.  His mama is.  In other words, leave me alone!  ha

We started our school week by Cruz telling me "mama, you don't have to teach Ben any school today.  I will do it for you."  Those were sweet, precious words.  If only it were really that easy. 

Cruz helping Ben

Our Bible lessons for the week covered the stories of Isaac and Ishmael, the Offering of Isaac, and A Bride For Isaac.  Our doctrinal drill was on God.  Cruz is continuing to learn Psalm 34: 8-13. We practice it each day.  

In Math Cruz was learning to solve for the unknown.  He has a math test every Friday.  Ben was counting his numbers to 20 and learning to write the number 7.  

Our Health lesson was on the importance of fresh air and sunshine.  We painted paper plates and made a sun craft to hang on our window.

The boys also cut magazine pictures that show people enjoying the outdoors.

Cruz's Health poster

Our History lessons focused on the pilgrim children's lives and also the first Thanksgiving.  The boys enjoyed learning about some of the things the pilgrim kids did.  We finished our read aloud book Squanto Friend of the Pilgrims.

a pilgrim girl gathering vegetables from the garden

Our History activity for the week was making homemade pickles.  Our lesson called them "cow cumbers" and said it was a favorite treat of the pilgrim kids.  My boys loved helping me make them.

They turned out sweet and delicious.

We learned about two States- New York and Virginia.  

David surprised us with these flag puzzles he recently found in town.  Ever since the Olympics the boys have had an interest in flags so you can imagine how much they loved seeing these.

Science is always a blast.  This week we learned about inclined planes.  The boys just preferred to call them ramps.  We built a ramp and I let them take turns rolling their Hot Wheels down it while I read and introduced the topic of the week.  

Our first activity was called "Rolling Away".  We chose five balls of different sizes.  We tested them to see which ball would roll the farthest.  We used tape to mark the spot where each ball landed.  We tested the balls on our rug and then again on the tile floor to see if there was a difference.

Ben testing our balls on the rug

Cruz testing our balls on the tile

Our next activity was called "Painting on an Incline".  We dipped marbles in paint and let them roll down a piece of paper.  They really loved this!

Painting can get so messy but it is a lot of fun.  I try to do some type of painting activity with them each week because they enjoy it so much.

their finished artwork

Lastly they had a fun time making graham cracker ramps and rolling marshmallows down them.

When they finished playing I added some peanut butter and raisins to their crackers and marshmallows and let them make their own sandwiches.  When you add in a cup of milk it made a healthy snack.

In Art we drew a wolf pup. 

When Cruz finished he looked at his and said "something went wrong!"  He didn't think it turned out like it was supposed to.

Poor Ben never questioned his result. ha

It is a lot of extra work to blog our school life each week but I do it for several reasons.  First I want our friends and family back home to see what the boys are doing.  It also keeps me on track and gives me some accountability.  Mostly I do it as a record for the boys someday.  Last year I took all of my posts from Cruz's kindergarten year and had a memory book made for him.  He likes to look at it from time to time.  I think it is a great keepsake.  I plan to make him another book this year.  So, bear with me on these long school posts.   While we are making these fun school memories I am trying hard to record them.  If not, this tired mama would probably forget everything. 

After eight full weeks of school I decided it was time for a little break so we are taking a few days off this week.  We will be doing a field trip to see some interesting Guatemala sites.  I am excited!  The boys are excited!  David, well, maybe he'll get excited, ha.  I'll be sure to take a few pictures and share them with you soon.