Homeschool Days August 2022

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

 

They begin the day with a personal devotion.  This is usually done while I am cooking breakfast and has to be completed before we start school at 8:00.  During this time they also practice their Awana memory verse for the week.

 

In addition to personal devotions, as a family we are listening to a Bible chapter a day while we eat breakfast.  During August we began working our way through the book of Acts.  We end it with a short discussion for comprehension purposes. 

 

We are using this book this school year as a prayer guide.  It coordinates with our American History study.  We will spend one week praying for a different American Indian group.  So far we have prayed for the Maya, Taino & Arawak, Powhatan, Aztec, and Wampanoag peoples.

 

We are reading from these two books in History.

 

These are the literature books we read in August.  

We are using Sonlight for History, Bible, and Literature.

 

The boys busy at work during a recent school day.

 

Ben doing a typing lesson.  

We are using The Good and the Beautiful.

 

Cruz ready for his weekly online IEW writing class. 

We do daily grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and math lessons also, but I did not take any photos of those.  What I did take a lot of photos of was Science.  Doing two Science curriculums this year means double everything, including experiments.  Boy, did we do a lot of Science experiments during the month of August!!  We use Apologia.  Ben is doing Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures, and Cruz is doing General Science.

 

Cruz doing a Science notebook activity.

 

An experiment on density.

 

Ben did an experiment on air pressure to learn what happens to your lungs when you dive down into the depths of the ocean.

 

Ben watching videos about the ocean.

 

Cruz using a lemon and tarnished pennies to learn about chemical reactions.

 

After putting the pennies in the lemon he then covered them with salt and a few drops of water and let them sit overnight.  He had to observe the changes and write a lab report on it.  This year, in addition to doing the experiments, he is having to write formal lab reports for each of them.  He is not a big fan but it is helping him process and understand the science behind the experiment.

 

an experiment on air pressure

 

Ben doing a crossword puzzle to review Science vocabulary.

 

Cruz used straws and string to make a mechanical hand.

 

 Ben doing an experiment to see which is heavier, cold water or hot water.

 

Cruz doing an experiement on density. He added one teaspoon of salt at a time to a glass of water to see how many it would take to make an egg float.

 

He did a module on the History of Science and learned about many early scientists and their work.  He had to make a timeline and add each of them to it.

 

His finished timeline.  He was happy when he finally completed it.

 

Glad that is over!

 

Ben had a unit on whales and loved it!  Here he is doing an experiment using a paper megaphone to understand how toothed whales use sound to determine what kind of objects are near.

 

Here he is learning about ocean water and how water freezes.  He put water in two cups but added salt to only one.  He checked them periodically and noticed that the plain water froze much faster than the salt water. This was to help him understand how some ocean animals can survive in cold waters.

 

Cruz learning about the surface tension of water.

 

Ben adding photos of different whale types to his Science notebook.

 

He also began a year long project called an ocean box.  He first painted a box blue to represent the ocean.  All throughout the school year as he learns about different types of swimming creatures he will make them out of modeling clay and add them to his box.  I look forward to seeing how it evolves throughout the year.

 

making a whale out of modeling clay

 

His first animal to add to his box was a dolphin.

We ended his study of whales by watching the movie Free Willy.  It was a great way to close out a wonderful study.

 

Science has been an adventure so far and definitely keeping us busy.

 

They started back taking afternoon extracurricular activities at Encounter Academy.  This quarter they are doing P.E. on Wednesday afternoons and Awana on Friday.  Here is Ben before his first Awana class of the school year.  They also had their first field trip recently with Encounter.  They went to a Mayan museum in Guatemala City and had a very fun day.

Ben also started taking tennis lessons.   

My days are full!!  I feel like I am either doing school or planning for school.  It's a full time job but I love it!