Week in Review: Wee Gillis, Migraines and Flag of Scotland Built From Legos

Pardon the corporate jargon but last week’s key learning was “learning happens all the time”. Praise God for the opportunity to homeschool first and for most. Last week was a struggle for both mom and student with a healthy dash of only child homeschooling guilt on my part. But let us start at the beginning….

We started the week learning about earth’s core in Co-Op. TS came home with a model of the earth made of clay and our job was to cut into the layers and discuss it as a family. It was so AWESOME!

However by midnight I felt like my planet was cracking in half. I had a blinding migraine headache. It was not your typical sinus relative migraine this happened after I took new allergy meds. First I had the chills, and then the migraine and the pièce de résistance I broke out in bumps and hives all over. After talking to the allergist apparently I had an allergic reaction to the allergy meds. So much for Mom being proactive and preventing down town.

The most I could handle was Read-A-Loud of Bring Me Some Apples and I'll Make You a Pie: A Story About Edna Lewis. We then drew “What-Ifs” of the story.
The week got better as we had a wonderful time on a nature walk and started Wee Gillis. In order to get fine motor skills into this unit I incorporated Legos. I built the flag of Scotland out of Legos, took a picture of it and challenged TS to rebuild it from the picture.
He had a BLAST! Now he wants to do all the flags of the world. Hmmmmmmmm let me work on that.

For Math we did more Horizons but also worked more on graphing. Then we read Stuart J. Murphy’s Lemonade for Sale introducing bar graphs. We took a Slinky and graphed how many stairs we could get it to go down. (I had so much fun with this….)

Additionally we:
• Daily Journal
• Handwriting Without Tears
• Redefined Chore Expectation Chart
• Workbook Reading Comprehension

I am now designing basic Capitalization Rules Chart Jedi style.

Blessings!

Lego Education Rocks!

The good people in the Education Division of Lego forwarded me my FREE Lego Education kit from the spring. We moved and it didn't get forwarded via the regular mail. After clearing my email box I realized "Hey, where are my free Legos?" So I sent a quick email and three days later free Legos.

We were to late for the contest but had a good time building some of the challenges.

Thanks Lego you live up to your name.

Lego Defined: The name 'LEGO' is an abbreviation of the two Danish words "leg godt", meaning "play well".

Free Menu Planning E-Book

We all love free right? I really need to get back to planning weekly menus. It saves time and gas. (Less trips to the grocery story.) Enjoy!

Wordless Wednesday-A Nature Walk Collection

The Week In Review: October Week 2

We are in our second month of using Sue Patrick's Workbox System. We love this system. Using this system I can plan work that is challenging followed by something fun and met all our milestones. It also keeps me from running too far off track with something "oh just for fun".

This week we finished FIAR Mr. Gumpy's Motorcar. I finally stopped calling it Mr. Grumpy's about day three. Ironhide liked the book and his officially review was "It wasn't Glorious Flight but it was OK."

• Workbooks: We learned about constants and vowels.
  
• Horizons Math: Completed double digit math and graphing experiments. We choose to document Slinky and Steps.
  
• Art: In art co-op we studied Monet.
  
• Music: We discussed Vivaldi's Spring Concerto.
  
• Science: In co-op we discuss Creation and the Sun.
  
• Cool Science: We completed a Mad Science flask experiment of explosion. Thanks Chick-fil-a for the cools kids meal science tools.

Baking Soda+Vinegar+Lime Jello= Gooey Slimcano

• Fieldtrip: Our co-op got to visit the Capital and received tickets to the Congressional Gallery. That my friends is a separate blog.
  

Well those are the highlights.

FIAR:Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car

Lapbook Resources

Homeschool Share

The Homeschool Mom (THM)

Wordless Wednesday-Mr. President

Kid Question of the Day #6: Who is that lady on the Stabucks symbol?

So today on my weekly post co-op Starbuck run Ironhide asked the following:

Who is that lady on the Stabucks symbol? Is it lady liberty?

So as we pull up to the drive-thru window and I ask our friendly Stabbuck partner the question of the day. He says roll down the window and I will explan all. (This guy, we will call him Derrick, is the best. He always has a smile and a natural joy about him even when the drive thru line is wrapped around the building and the machines are not working.)

"The name of the company Starbucks in based on a character from the book Moby-Dick, "Starbo," the name of a mining camp on Mount Rainier. Combining the Moby-Dick idea with "Starbo" resulted in the company being named for the Pequod's first mate, Starbuck.

The company logo is a two-tailed princess siren, not a mermaid. Because Seattle is a sailor's city and the marine inspired name of the company they need a symbol that means good luck."

Ironhide's response "Cool let's go read Moby Dick tonight."

Okay now I have some explaining to do. LOL