Monday, February 13, 2017

Homeschool Week 24: Testing The Waters

This week in Bible we covered the stories of Nicodemus and The Woman at the Well.  We learned a new song "Jesus, the Wonderful Friend".  Cruz began learning his new memory work for the month Matthew 18: 1-6.  He has Bible worksheets that go with most of our lessons.  One that we did this week had him write ten things he is thankful for. Here is what Cruz wrote:

family, toys, piano, Bible, church, house, food, me, bed, clothes  

Ben's Math lessons focused on counting 0-60 and writing numbers 0-15.

filling in the missing numbers

Cruz's math lesson focused on subtraction -9.  We begin our weeks by watching a math video that introduces the new lesson and then spend the next few days practicing it.  He takes a test every Friday to see if he has mastered that topic before we move on.

In Language Cruz focused on vocabulary words that end in ed, er, ing.  He also spent two days on "or" words (born, for, orbit, etc)    He took his next assessment test and did well.  He then began Storybook Reader #9. 

He learned about the Table of Contents page and how to use it.

reviewing A-B-C order

suffix review

Ben learned letter N.  His memory verse for the week was Matthew 6: 24- No man can serve two masters.


reviewing the letters and sounds that he has learned so far

picking up the letters in order

Every day he practices tying a shoe.  He is getting better and better at it.

In History we learned about Sacagawea.  She helped Lewis and Clark on their expedition by translating the Indian languages for them.  My boys definitely understand language barriers so learning about the Indians and their languages was something they could relate to.


I love to see how he illustrates his work each week.  I think he does a pretty good job for a first grader.


Our activity for the week was making a buffalo hide map.   We learned that after a successful hunt the Shoshone Indians would draw a map or picture of what had taken place.   This was a way to memorialize the men's bravery and their gratitude for the meat provided.  We used a crumbled up brown paper bag for our "hide" and the boys drew pictures depicting a buffalo hunt on them.






We learned about two States- Minnesota and Oregon.



Science was a lot of fun this week.  Our topic was thermometers.   They learned all about them and how they work.  They especially enjoyed our experiments as we tested to see if things were hot or cold.  Our first experiment had us testing water.  I sat out three mugs filled with hot, warm, and cold water.  The boys took turns moving the thermometer back and forth from the mugs.  Watching it move up and down just fascinated them. 



We put the thermometer outside for several minutes to see how hot it would get and then put it in the freezer for several minutes to see the difference.  They learned about hot air balloons and how they rise.  They also learned about body heat by using their hands to warm a cold thermometer.   We watched a few videos and also did an online activity using an infrared photo album to see the heat in several different objects.  That was very interesting to them.

We ended  the week by doing an experiment that has probably been their most favorite of all for the school year.  It was on expansion and contraction.  We used a bowl, a balloon, and a bottle to show how air expands when it is heated and contracts when it cools down.  We put the balloon over the bottle top and put it in hot water and cold water.  When we placed it in the cold water the balloon would suck down into the bottle.  We then moved it to the hot water and it would pop back out.  I even enjoyed doing this experiment.  It was really fun!

Cruz all ready to test our balloon

down it goes...



out it comes...

I LOVE Ben's face here.  They really enjoyed this week in Science.  Oh how I love these fun moments with my boys!

A video of our experiment.

In Art they drew a baby lamb.



Cruz's journal entries for the week were about "The funniest zoo animal is..." and "My dad's hobby is...".  Here is what he wrote and how he illustrated them-

"The funniest zoo animal is the baboon. It shows it's bottom.  They are very funny."

"My Dad's hobby is watching the news all day and drinking coffee.  He likes to drive the car."

We made a heart tree to add to our school room door. 

The boys cut strips of paper and then we stapled them to form hearts.  I traced their handprints and they cut them out for the tree trunk.  They glued the hearts on the tree.  We did this one night before bedtime.  In the middle of it Cruz looks over at me and asked "Mama, do you ever get tired?".   Oh, if he only knew!


Their finished trees.  I love them!

So, that sums up our week.  It sure was a fun one!  Thanks for following along on our homeschool journey.  We appreciate the prayers and encouragement that you offer us along the way.    

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