Week 8 - Our Week of Productivity

This week was extremely productive.  Yeah!  Luckily, we seemed to work hard enough to get a little bit ahead of our planned schedule.  I have a busy work week next week, so we will probably be taking full advantage of our head start.  I think much of our productivity has been due to our new organizational system.  I've been making a list on the whiteboard for each day and for each person.  The boys love to erase their tasks and I am less likely to skip something if it is written down and in my face.

Olivia was our star of the week.  She has been a potty training superstar!

 

 

History/Geography

Our lessons have been very brief readings on North America, South America, Africa and Asia.  The pictures in the books are very cartoonish, so we've been watching tourism videos on major landmarks (mostly from Asia).  We watched a video about rice fields in China, the Great Wall of China, St. Basil's in Moscow, Angel Falls in Venezuela, and (our favorite) climbing Mount Everest.

 

Luke used his map to help reassemble the Africa puzzle.  My in-laws got it for him from South Africa.  It is handmade and each piece is a different country.

Language Arts & Spelling

Although spelling is not Luke's favorite subject, it is probably one of his best.  I pulled out our old whiteboard so that he could do some of his writing on it.  In Language Arts, he worked on possessives and using an apostrophe. 

When working on his possessives, Luke added a little extra note :)
 

Co-op

We love our co-op!  All three kids are meeting new friends and love their teachers.  By the time we head home, all four of us are exhausted.  My engineering class had a fun competition this week.  We have a paramedic/fire fighter coming to our next class, so we discussed the definition of safety.  For our project, we divided into two teams and designed safety devices for water balloons.  Once they were done, we went outside and threw them against a brick wall to see how well they worked.  Luke was very happy to rub in the fact that his team beat my team!  He is also taking a history class titled "Story of the World".  They are learning about different explorers right now.  He came home and went on a treasure hunt with his map he made it class.

 

My group of 5,6 and 7 year olds designed this device together.  Inside each cup is a wad of newspaper.  Part of their requirements was to leave the face exposed so their balloon could breathe.
 

He said each of the shapes was a different continent.  In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean is a ship of explorers.

Ben School

Ben worked on the letter H this week. 

H is for Horse!

 

I love his excitement for doing anything school related.  He really wants to be like his big brother.  I made a uppercase/lowercase matching set with clothespins and index cards.  I liked that he could work independently in his room on a lesson while I helped Luke with his math and Olivia played in her room.

Each clothespin has a lowercase letter on it.

He is also working on learning more sight words.  We started on "at" this week.  He really can't wait to learn to read!

 

Ben's caterpillar is growing!

 

Ben was "reading" a bedtime story to Olivia.

Ben's big accomplishment this week was learning to spell our last name.  He practiced writing it on the white board and soon had it memorized! 

 

 

 

Family Fun

We had lots of family fun activities this week.  On Sunday, we made a big pot of chili in the slow cooker and bought real hot dogs (all beef from the deli) to make chili dogs.  When we came home from church, we ate them and watched the football game.  Eating in front of the TV is a big treat in our house, so the kids were really excited.

I had to add oranges to salvage the nutrition of the meal!

  On Friday, Aaron was off so we met my sister and niece at the zoo.  Because the weather was cooler, the animals were much more active and entertaining.  Everyone came home completely exhausted and took nice, long naps.  Ahhhh!

Up close with a crocodile

Cousins!

The polar bear swam right over our heads!  It was really beautiful!
 

On Saturday, we went to a block party celebration and saw Paws.  The boys suddenly clammed up as they gaped in awe.

 

 

That evening, we went up to Aaron's office to watch a movie on the big screen of the conference room.  We brought food from our favorite Mexican restaurant and lined up the recliners like a movie theatre.