Monday, November 21, 2016

Homeschool Week 14: Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving week everyone!  We have plans to do school today and tomorrow and then take the rest of the week off.  We'll spend these two days reviewing and then hopefully enjoy our little break.

We have been focusing a lot on the Thanksgiving story lately.  It was the topic of our Bible lessons all last week.  My main point to stress was the fact that the pilgrims wanted freedom to worship God.  It gave me an opportunity to talk to the boys about other parts of the world and look at those countries on the map where you cannot freely share Christ or worship him.  We talked about how people were often times put in jail or even murdered for being a Christian.  I wish I would have recorded some of the precious prayers that my boys prayed last week for missionaries and Christians in those parts of the world.  Be still my heart!

Each morning we did a craft to go with the part of the Thanksgiving story we were learning that day.  We made a Thanksgiving Book from a unit study idea I saw on a blog named Meet Penny.  I printed out the sheets with no pictures so I could do handprint pictures instead.  They turned out really cute and they will be a great keepsake to have.  Here are some pages from our books-
Pages from Cruz's Thanksgiving book.  They include a horn of plenty, handprint pilgrim boy, handprint Mayflower, Plymouth Rock, handprint Indian, handprint corn, and a handprint turkey that the Pilgrims hunted.  Our last two pages for today and tomorrow will include a Thanksgiving feast coloring sheet and a praying hands craft with a list of things they are thankful for written inside.  Once completed I will form a booklet with all of the sheets and their other Thanksgiving craft pages all together. 

Ben's Thanksgiving book pages

In math Ben learned the number ten and reviewed writing all numbers 0-10.  He is counting to 30 but with a chart can go all the way to 100.  He is also learning to skip count by 10.

"you want me to count how far???"

no problem!

Cruz's math lesson was on rectangles, squares, and skip counting by 5.   We usually play at least one math game each day.  His favorites are Uno, Sum Swamp, and Wrap-ups.  At the end of our math class I usually have him work one lesson on XtraMath to review math facts.  He likes doing that.

In language Ben learned the letter E.  He also learned the concepts of  inside and outside, many and few, next to, between, and through. 

Ben doing an alphabet match up game.  We use our magnetic letters a lot.

His memory verse for the week was Proverbs 20:11- Even a child is known by his doings.

Cruz's language lessons were on short vowel u.  He completed his storybook reader #5 and made a 99 on his weekly assessment test.  He has a daily spelling test as well as a weekly list of vocabulary words to read, spell, and write.   In grammar he began learning compound words and reviewed his other grammar skills learned so far.  He also got a brief introduction to some letter clusters that he will begin learning more on week 16.  A few examples are "or" as in orbit, "ew" as in new, "ou" as in out, "oy" as in boy, and "oi" as in oil. 

working on sentence structure


taking his assessment test on Friday

Our History lessons were on Paul Revere and his midnight ride.

Paul Revere



Our activity for the week was called Lantern Signals.  Paul Revere had followed a plan using lanterns as signals in the church tower so we used flashlights to make our own signals within our family.  

the boys playing in their tent making flashlight signals

We learned about the State of Indiana.

In our read aloud time we began reading a chapter a day in this book.

In Science we had another week of rocks specifically studying sedimentary and metamorphic rocks.  Like all weeks we watched a few videos on the subject.  One of our activities was called The Acid Test.  We took the rocks we collected last week, added a few new ones to the pile, and put them to the test.  We filled five cups with white vinegar and tested each rock to see which type it was.  Rocks that were more sedimentary in origin (limestone) would form bubbles and fizz.  That was really cool to watch and Cruz was fascinated (David and I were a little fascinated too, ha). 

getting our supplies ready to test our rocks





One of my best purchases for science has been those magnifying glasses.  They use them all the time!

we also tested a piece of chalk



my happy little geologist

Another Science activity we did was make edible rock cookies.  The melted (metamorphic rock) version of these were very delicious and will be something we make again as a treat.  We all enjoyed eating them.

mixing chocolate chips, marshmallows, and peanut butter to make rock cookies

If you like chocolate and peanut butter you should try these.  Here is the recipe and idea below:

fun, easy, and delicious!

In Health we learned about taking care of our ears.  We learned the parts of the ear and how the ears work.  For an activity I had Cruz think about some of his favorite sounds and then draw one of them.  He drew a tiger roaring.  Both of my boys are crazy about tigers!

In Art we did several Thanksgiving themed crafts from our Abeka Art books.  My boys would sit, color, paint, glue, cut, and make crafts all day long.  I am glad because I sure like it too.

gluing toothpicks to make a wood cabin

Ben did not have this art sheet so I drew him a cabin to color and then he got to glue on some toothpicks.

 these were fun

making a horn of plenty


sprinkling orange glitter on his knuckle print pumpkins


a chicken leg, mashed potatoes with butter (made from a Kleenex), and string beans

some of our Thanksgiving crafts

We are looking forward to a Thanksgiving celebration with some other missionary families.  We will miss our families back home but are thankful to be able to celebrate with other families. We hope each of you have a wonderful week and a joyous holiday too.  Pray for those who will be alone this Thanksgiving, for those who have lost loved ones and are spending the holiday without them, and for those who are off serving our country so we can enjoy the freedoms we have.   Today and every day let's live a life of thanksgiving and gratitude. 


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