Homeschool Days November 2020

 Here is a look at some of our homeschool activities during the month of November.

starting our school days with the Pledge of Allegiance

Cruz doing his devotion

                               We studied the countries of Madagascar, the Maldives, and New Caledonia. 

Cruz read and did a book study on Escape from the Slave Traders.  It is part of the Trailblazer Book series.  This one was on the life of David Livingstone and his work in Africa.

                          Ben read these two books by Clyde Robert Bulla (one of our favorite authors!)

                              Ben also read about the States of Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska.

He drew a sunflower as his art project for Kansas and we also had a movie night and watched The Wizard of Oz. 

                            Ben working on math and Cruz doing a spelling lesson in his workbook.

                                                  Practicing his spelling words on the board.

                                                  Cruz writing a paper for his IEW class. 

Our U.S. History unit topic was The Nation's Early Years.  We learned how the colonies united, formed a government, elected it's first President, established The Bill of Rights, the War of 1812, and the westward movement.  We did a study on Lewis and Clark and also the Star Spangled Banner.  We learned about patriotic heroes and symbols.  The boys each had to pick their favorite symbol and illustrate it.  Ben chose the flag and Cruz chose the bald eagle.  

In Science we covered two topics- the respiratory system and the circulatory system. We did several experiments with each.  Here are a few of them.

    This experiment was on vital lung capacity to see how much air we normally breath in and out.

                              We made a diaphragm model to see how the breathing process works.  

 

We did a thorough study of blood while learning about the circulatory system.  We made a model of blood using corn syrup for plasma, red hot candies for red blood cells, a white jelly bean for white blood cells, and candy sprinkles for platelets.  As we learned about each of the four basic components, we would add it to our model.  

                                                  Afterwards, it was a sweet treat to enjoy.   

            We learned about blood types and used a test that came in our experiment kit box to test Cruz.

                                              I recruited David to help with that experiment. 

Cruz was very excited to find out his blood type until it was actually time to prick his finger. We ended up having to prick him twice but he did great.

                                                                              His result- O+

                                                  proudly showing his two bandaged fingers

A highlight of the month was getting to go on a field trip to the zoo with a local school that the boys participate in for extra curricular classes. They were divided into small groups according to age which gave them a fun outing with their friends. 

                                                  me and the boys at the Guatemala City zoo

                                      checking out the iguana that was sunning close-by

 

                                                                Ben playing with turtles

Lastly, A sweet note Ben wrote on our white board one day.  Homeschooling is a hard job but little moments like this keep me going.  

                                           Hello December!  How did you get here so fast???