MFW Adventures Week 4

Our 4th week in Adventures is sadly over.  The focus of this week included Jesus as the Light of the World, Native Americans Indians, and the stars. It was another amazing week.

Bible: Our memory verse this week was John 8:12. We talked about how Jesus is the light of the world and that we would never be in darkness as long as we follow him. The kids each chose someone to pray for this week that doesn't follow the light of Jesus. Emily chose her great grandfather and Ashley chose her grandfather on my side of the family.  The girls didn't think twice on who they would pray for. They colored their stars and added them to our yearbook. We made candles to burn during our meals this week to remind us that Jesus is the Light of the World. The kids really enjoyed this project. We used a candle making kit that I picked up from amazon. This was their favorite project this week.

History: The North American Indians were our focus this week. We used the book North American Indians and a variety of picture books. We learned all about the Great Plains and Southwest Indians.  To represent tribes living on the East, we made paper wigwams. For the Plains tribes we made paper tepees.

Here were some of our reads this week.

We made two projects from Easy Make & Learn Projects : Colonial America. First we completed the Roanoke mini scroll book. Instead of stapling it together and making it into a little book, we pasted it into our yearbooks under projects. I felt this was an important topic to cover this week, as My Father's World (MFW) did not touch on it. Next we make the candle making slider. As you can see in the picture below, you can pull the slider up and down to watch the women dip the candles in the bowl of wax. We actually make candles this way last year.  I highly reccomend it if you have older kids.

We started using the Life in Colonial America Coloring book this week.  It looks like it will be a great resource this year.  We started out with coloring the page about Roanoke Island. I really like how the book explaines this time in history.

The girls enjoyed using the Draw and Write Book Three again. It is the perfect book for this weeks history topics. There were so many pages to pick from. Emily decided to draw an Anazazi village.  Ashley drew tepees and discussed what the paintings on them ment.

In an effort to get ready for next weeks history topic, we made another map from Interactive 3-D Maps: American History. The map explains about Henry Hudson and his travels to American. He then explored the Husdon rivers in Mass. The kids were not into coloring them this week, so here is the end result.

Science: This week we looked at the solar system and gravity. May kids love to watch school videos on our history and science topics. This week we watched videos about our solar system and the sun. We are planning to go to our local science and space museum. We focused a lot at the end of last year on the solar system and the planets within it. So this was just a little review for us.

I like to start school in phases, so this week we added some additional materials.  Here is what we added.

Reading: Now that our school week is in full force, we started our reading material. Ashley is reading stories from Days Go By, while Emily is reading More Days Go By. These are books from the Amish Pathway Readers (APR) series. These are perfect readers for my girls to read independently. We also use the workbooks that accompany the readers for vocabulary and Comprehension.

Grammer and LA: I had a hard time deciding what Language Arts program to use this year.  I went with Climbing to Good English from Pathway Publishers. I'm sad to report that it is not working for us at all.  I'm back to the drawing board. I would love any suggestions that you might have at a 2-3rd grade level.  We completed First Language Lessons level one last year. We really enjoyed it, as there was not much writing. I'm thinking of going to pick up level two.

Spelling: We picked back up with All About Spelling 1.  We started it at the end of the last school year.  We completed lesson 15 and 16 this week.  The girls seem to really enjoy this program.  With this program we use the tiles to spell the words. We do not have a written spelling test. For the dictation portion, I make sure we use some of the words in our other writings for the week. We might use the words in our draw and write pictures, or our topic summaries. We will start Rod and Staff Spelling grade 2 next week, which will allow for a weekly spelling test.

Additional Math: Since Emily can us all the extra practice possible to store information into her long term memory, we have started using Teaching Textbooks Level 3 along side her Saxon Math 3. This is a program that she can us independently on the computer. Emily likes that the program teaches her the lesson and if she gets an answer wrong, the programs shows her how to get the correct answer.  I am able to review her work each day. If she doesn't score 95% or higher, I can delete that lesson and she can do it over. She is doing this 3 times a week right now.

" This post is linked to Homeschool Highlights in MFW "

Brown Sugar Granola

1/2 cup margarine (1 stick)

1 cup raw brown sugar

1/4 cup water

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 cups rolled oats

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup dried fruit (optional)

1/2 cup nuts or seeds (optional)

In a large 4 quart saucepan melt the margarine, sugar and water together. Stir it well and let it simmer for a few minutes (2 or 3 minutes should be enough). Add the salt, oatmeal and cinnamon to the big pot. Remove the pot from the stove and stir up the granola. You want to coat the oats with the brown sugar and margarine, so keep stirring until everything is moistened. Put the granola onto a cookie sheet, the kind with sides. Bake it at 375° for 10 minutes. It should be a nice golden brown. Remove the pan from the oven and allow the granola to cool right there in the pan. When it is cool, break it up into small pieces and transfer it to clean coffee can, or other type of canister. Add the nuts and/or dried fruit when you put it into the canister. Serve for breakfast in a bowl with milk or yogurt. Very tasty.

Homemade Pancake Mix

Dry Ingredients:

• 2 cups dry buttermilk powder
• 8 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ cups sugar
• 8 tsp baking powder
• 4 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp salt

Mix all ingredients together and pour into an airtight container. Store in a cool,dry place. Keeps for about 6 months.
Recipe:

• 1 ½ cup pancake mix
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 cup water

Mix all ingredients. Makes about 10-4”pancakes.
*Tip: You can add fresh blueberries, chocolate chips, bananas, pecans, or just about anything you like to these
pancakes.

MFW Adventures Week 3

Our third week of school is sadly over.  We had an amazing week! Jake is back from granny's house and he truly loved school this week. Who wouldn't love this program?

I think more than anything, he loved our new school mate. Henry is a 13 week Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. He is a true joy to our family.

 
Bible: The focus for our scripture reading this week was Jesus Saves. The kids spend the week  memorizing John 3:16. We discussed the verses that were read and about how Jesus guides us that we should live like him. Our family really took this weeks lesson to heart. The kids reacted very different after their time-outs this week. We sat and talked with them that Jesus would not have broken the family rules and disobeyed his parents. Throughout the days, we would speak to them before they crossed the line and asked if Jesus would be doing what they were. It worked wonders, they would stop. The kids enjoyed creating window art and with the name Jesus on it.

History: We traveled back in time and spent the week at Jamestown with Captain John Smith and Pocahontas.  We read about John Smith and his role in the establishment of Jamestown.   The kids loved the story from American Pioneers and Patriots.  The story talked about the mother going to the river to wash the table napkins. My younger two (5yrs and 7yrs) giggled about having to wash the clothes and bath in the river. 

This gave me the idea for us to make our own laundry soap.  All you need is Water, Borax, Washing Soda, and a bar of body soap. Boil 4 cups water, then add 1/3 shredded bar of soap. Once the soap is dissolved, add 1/2 cup borax and 1/2 washing soad. Once that is dissolved, pour into a large container that has 6 cups of hot water. Stir and then add 1 gallon cold water.  Stir and let sit for 24 hours.  Done!

It comes out in a gel form.  I blended it down into a liquid and added it to a gallon milk carton.  Here is the finished product in a milk carton. It makes 1 1/2 gallons of laundry soap.  This was so easy and cheap. I'm doing this from now on.  You can add your own essential oils if you want too.

This was the movie that we watched this week.  The kids highly enjoy that we have lots of movies to watch about our history topics.  It really seems to help them understand our lessons. It also sparks a lot of questions.

We made another map from Interactive 3-D Maps: American History. It shows the route taken by the three ships carrying settlers who founded Jamestown.  Through the  material within this book, we learned about the true first settlement in North America at Roanoke Island. Boy did I get a lot of questions from the kids about the settlement of Roanoke Island. What happen to them? Did they suffer? Were they taken by Indians? Next week we will complete the Roanoke Mini-Schroll Book.

We made our first project from Easy Make & Learn Projects : Colonial America. This is another amazing book that goes along wonderfully with My Father's World Adventures.  For this project we make a 3-D map of Jamestown.

Once again we used the Draw and Write Book three this week. Emily decided to draw Pocahontas.

Our favorite book from the book basket this week was Adventures in Colonial America, Jamestown (New World Adventure). My kids enjoyed the book so much that we read the entire story in one day. Normally we would have read the book over 2-3 days. We have many others from this series and I hope the kids enjoy them just as much. Another favorite was The Settling of Jamestown.

We completed Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims as our read-aloud. The kids enjoyed the story so much, they asked to keep reading. We were to complete the book over the next two weeks, but who can say no when you kids want you to read! I was amazing at how much Jake loved this book.  He called it the boy book.  He liked that the book did not focus much  on Pocahontas. I have to make sure that I find more "boy books" that he will enjoy this year that go along with our studies. I get so focused on the girls stuff, I forget that he is officially schooling now. 

The kids are looking forward to our book basket next week, where we will learn more about the Indians.  We will be making a wigwam like Squanto would have lived in. I think Jake will really love this. He is really going to make this school year fun! 

Science: Air, air, and more air. We learned about air pressure and how it effects things.  The kids love experiments that include anything to do with food, and that includes juice boxes.

For our second experiment we watched how air pressure can trick us. We put a ruler on the table and tapped it. It easily fell down, just as the kids thought it would.  Then, we laid a piece of newspaper over the ruler, we had to push much harder to make the ruler fall. The kids were amazed and couldn't stop giggling at their results. They learned that the air pressure was much stronger when adding the newspaper.

To complete the last task , we filled a glass up with water, added a piece of cardboard on top of it, and turned it over. What do you think happened? Yes, giggles and more giggles. The water did not pour out.  Magic, as they called it.



" This post is linked to Homeschool Highlights in MFW "

My Father's World Adventures Week 2

Today we wrapped up our 2nd week. It was a bit of a quiet week since Jake was off visiting with his greadma's. He rode the train for the first time, and boy was he excited.

I really have to say that we are truely enjoying this program. The kids are loving school, which makes my life so much easier.

Bible: We discussed the meaning of Jesus. It is a Greek word that means the Lord saves. we discussed the fall of man in Genesis and God’s plan of redemption through Christ in Isaiah.

History - I read on another blog how a mother wrote down the 5 W's of journalism (who, what, when, where, why) on the board, and then the children answers each question orally while she wrote it down. The children then copy from the board. This is a wonderful Charlollet Mason style of teaching (oral presentation and copy work). So this was our style of teaching this week for history. I was amazed at how well the girls did. We learned about Christopher Columbus.

We made another map from Interactive 3-D Maps: American History that shows the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria leaving Spain and heading to San Salvador.

We used the Draw-Write-Now book 2 for art this week. It includes drawings and copy work for Columbus. Emily chose to draw and write about Christopher coming ashore, while Ashley wrote and drew the three ships.

The girls enjoyed making the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria out of foil. Since Jake was out of town visiting with his grandma, Emily was happy to make two. We then set them off to sail at a local creek. I think this was the highlight of the week. To end the week we watched "Animalted Hero Classics: Christopher Columbus".

Science - This week we studied air. The kids took turns fanning each other to see that, even though they can't see the air, it is all around us. We had a race where we used cardboard to fan a piece of paper across a finish line. We discussed how the cardboard moves the air, and the air moves the paper.

Next, we used some objects around the house to see if there was any air inside of them.

My Father's World Adventures Week 1

Here they are on their very first day of school!

We had a wonderful first week of school! Surprisingly, we were able to stick to our "schedule" pretty closely.

Bible - This year will take us through the names of Christ. We looked up the meaning of the our names and Jesus too. I wrote each of the kids a personal letter on how their dad came up with their names. Yes, in our family daddy always picks the name. Boy did they love those letters. They enjoyed learning why dad chose the name that he did for them.

History - We discussed the meaning of each word in the Pledge of Allegiance. This was an over view for us, as we learned them last year in our sign language class. To go along with that, we walked through an overview of the 50 states and 7 continents. We discussed a “rose compass” and general map reading. We even enjoyed a nice red, white, and blue snack for the day. We had yogurt with berries. We read about Leif Ericsson and the Vikings. We created our timelines and added the first 3 pictures, including Leif. We read and looked through lots of books on the vikings.

I picked up a great resource that was reccomended by a friend called Interactive 3-D Maps: American History . We created the Viking map from it that showed the route Erik the Red took from Iceland to Greenland and the route Leif Ericsson took from Greenland to Newfoundland. The girls had loads of fun making it, but Jake couldn't stop playing with the little ships since we finished it. This book was a great hit and there are lots of other maps that we will use from it this year.

At the end of our week Jake and Max watched the movie of "Lyle the Kindly Viking". They always love Veggie Tale movies, so it was a big hit.

On the other hand, the girls watched, "vikings Journey to New Worlds". This was a great video for older children. I really enjoyed it as well.

Science - we conducted a simple experiment to go through the scientific process of come up with theories, conduct experiments, and observe their results. Our experiment was to see if adding salt to water would help an egg to float in it.

I have to say, we had a great first week of school.

Planning for 2011-2012

I love the summer. Our time is spent swimming, enjoying our family and friends, and just being outside. It is also my favorite time of year to plan for the upcoming school year!

We have chosen to go with My father's World Adventures. I check out other homeschooling mom’s blogs to see how they liked the program and got a wonderful visual of what we would be working on. It looks like a wonderful program and we can't wait to get started.