Homeschool Highlights Weeks 12-13 (2018-19)

Here is a look at what we have been doing in school lately-

Our current Bible study theme is "What Jesus Did".  We will continue with that same theme over the next few weeks.   They memorized Isaiah 55: 6-7.  We studied and prayed for two people groups- the Ge of China and Huarijio of Mexico.

In Math Ben is learning his addition facts and Cruz is working on the multiplication facts.  We watch a video lesson each Monday morning that explains the lesson for the week.  We then spend the rest of the week working on that new concept.  They take a test every Friday to make sure they have mastered it before we move on.  We use Math U See for our math curriculum. 

Ben working on a recent math sheet.

In History we have been learning about the Canaanites, Philistines, and the Phoenicians.  We use The Usborne Book of World History and A Child's History of the World as our books.  There is a lot of reading with the Sonlight program.  I had read on their facebook support page about an audio book for A Child's History of the World.  I ordered it and love it.  It it nice to just press the "play" button and let someone else do the reading every now and then.

Both boys do keyboarding every day.  We use Keyboarding Without Tears.  Here is Ben during a recent lesson doing a "Build A Keyboard" activity.  It was helping him learn where all of the letters are.

Cruz doing a recent keyboarding lesson.

Cruz doing a grammar worksheet. 

In Cruz's reading time he has read about the States of Oregon and Nevada.  He read the book The Paint Brush Kid (which he loved) and began reading The Littles.

Here are a few photos of Ben during some recent language lessons-

matching the rhyming words

unscrambling sentences

finding the capitalization and punctuation errors

working on ending sounds

writing his word lists

reading practice

In Science we have been studying animals from Australia, New Guinea, and New Zealand.  After our daily lessons the boys have to cut and paste animals from the different regions.  Here are some of the animals we recently learned about.  We also watch videos about each of these and it is probably their favorite thing.  The videos really make the lessons come to life.

I can just say the words "Science experiment" and they both start squealing.  It is the last thing we do on Fridays and it is the best way to close out our school week.  They look forward to it all week long!  Our last two experiment topics have been "Taking in Water" and "Frozen Water".  Here are some of the experiments we tried-

We tested several things to see which ones took in water and which ones kept it out.  Before we start an experiment we always make a guess of the results.  After we finish we compare our guesses to the actual result to see if we were right.  In this experiment we dropped water on a paper towel, a sheet of paper, a tissue, some wax paper, some plastic wrap, and a sponge to see which ones took in water.

testing it out

Another experiment was called "Rising Water".  Do you think water can climb upward?  That was the question we asked ourselves.  We put a rolled up paper towel into a cup of water and then watched it climb. 

So simple, yet so fun.

We did the same experiment again but this time used colored water.

It was cool to see how the colors blended together at the top to make new colors.

We learned about how plants drink.  We did an experiment called "Climbing Through Celery".  We put a few drops of food coloring into a glass of water.  We cut the end off a stalk of celery and placed it into the water and left it there.

We observed it each day.  This photo was taken on the third day.  You can see how the colored water had risen up the stalk.  This is always a fun experiment to do.

One of our experiments from the Frozen Water theme was called "Melting Ice".  We used three ice cubes, a bowl of hot water, a bowl of cold water, and an empty saucer.  We placed an ice cube in each to test which one would melt the fastest.  We timed this experiment for extra fun. 

watching our ice cubes melt

Another experiment was called "Melting Without Heating".  We put an ice cube on a saucer and pressed a spoon handle on it.  Ice always melts when it is pressed.

We also poured salt on an ice cube.  The salt mixes with the ice.  Salty ice melts quickly because it melts at cooler temperatures than plain ice.

Lastly, we did an experiment called "Taking Up Space".  We filled a plastic cup full of water and put the lid on it.  We placed it in the freezer and left it overnight.  We learned that ice takes up more space than water.  It pushed the lid up (here it is shown without the lid) and the bottom bulged out.  This one really amazed them.

Our Art lesson was called "Art in Palaces".  We learned about Minoan fresco paintings.  The boys had to make one of their own.  They both chose to draw a bull.

We used a black oil pastel to draw the border and outline of our animal.

We then used watercolor crayons to color in the spaces. 

Lastly, we brushed the colored areas with water to blend the colors.

Ben's artwork

 Cruz's artwork

We have two more full weeks of school before our upcoming move.  I plan to work hard and finish strong.