weekly wrap up 11/27/15 (catch up)

Happy Thanksgiving!  We are enjoying a week off from school and went out to dinner for Thanksgiving this year!  Today we taking it easy and recuperating:)  I am a bit behind posting some of what the kids have been doing for school so I thought I would do a catch up post this week:)

MarioFan completed his Thomas Edison unit study and is moving on to learning about Alexander Graham Bell.  We are also continuing to take our FutureLearn course on electricity.

we completed reading this book and did all the experiments inside 

The book comes with it's own animation machine

Which MarioFan assembled and tried out 

There were several strips to try out.  We learned that Edison opened up many shops with these machines inside and charge .25cents for the public to view the moving photos.  

Next MarioFan and I tried to draw a few strips of our own and see how it works.  Neither of us are great artist;) LOL

FireDrake is continuing to work on her biology book by E.O. Wilson and was finally able to do the edible cell lab that we have been waiting to do for so loooong, lol.  After examining the many different versions out there and with this coming up so soon after halloween we decided to go a slightly healthier route.  We made a fruit pizza edible cell!

First Firedrake filled out a form labeling the parts of the cell and wrote down what fruit would represent what part of the cell.

She made a large round sugar cookie as a base  

bake it and then poured on vanilla yogurt.  Each part was label for what it represented in the cell:)

Finished edible cell, a slightly healthier version:)

Next she sat down with her brother and Dad and explained all the parts of the cell and what each meant and then we ate it:)!  which of course is the best part:)!

In History lessons we have moved on to learn more about immigration in the early 1900's and how it affected the growth of America and the Industrial revolution.

Here are a few of the books we are looking at along with videos and movies of  the time such as Gangs of New York.
I also plan on discussing child labor and overall poor working conditions at this time for many of the immigrants.

My parents stopped by for a weekend  a week or so ago for a short visit so my husband and I took them out to dinner at one of the amazing restaurants we had found recently on our date nights.  We haven't seen them since this summer so we had a very good visit catching up.  Wish we all lived a bit closer!

Hope you all are having a wonderful Thanksgiving break!  we get back to work on Monday!

Weekly wrap up 11/20/15

This week has been all about football!  We received free football tickets to see the St. Louis Rams this past Sunday.  We figured we better go as next year there may not be a football team in St. Louis!  The kids and I have never been to a live football game so we were excited (well maybe not Firedrake who thinks all sports are boring). In addition to getting free tickets MarioFan was lucky enough to met the St Louis Rams Punter Johnny Hekker!  He was very sweet at the children's gym class where we met him and allowed the kids to take pictures!

MarioFan was very excited to met a Football player although it doesn't show like it here:)

We didn't have the best seat at the football but who can complain when it is free right?

We were in the nosebleed section but we could see the entire field

MarioFan was asking lots of questions about the game and as long as he had food he paid pretty good attention to the game.  However once the food was gone he lost interest and we left at half time:)  At least the Rams scored while we were there and we later heard they won the game:)  MarioFan loved seeing Johnny Rekker on the field and cheer loudly for a good kick!

Firedrake is not a sports fan and chose to spend the entire time drawing:)  

We have moved on to begin learning about the Industrial revolution that happened in America.  We are looking at the very fast pace changes that occurred in the mid 1800's.  This past week we learned about the Transcontinental railroad.

Some of our resources.  Plus we are watching videos 

As we continue to learn about the railroads and the impact on the new nation we are adding it to our poster.  I also found a poem about the building of the railroad which we added to the poster!

We have been taking a look of at the causes and effects of the Industrial Revolution and made a poster to jot down our thoughts to help us remember that what going on in that time period and it will also be a guide line to what we will be learning about in the next few weeks!

Thats our week in a glance!  Hope you had a good week too

Weekly Wrap Up 11-13-15

We belong to an amazing homeschool group!  Recently however one of the leaders lost their child very suddenly at the beginning of the year. The homeschool group remembered this amazing young man on his birthday this month.  This is the first time my kids have ever heard of someone dying that they know so we have had lots of discussions about it.  Holding this memorial for Jessie at the coop help many of the kids cope and it certainly did for my kids. Many activities were planned

Jessie favorite color was red and he loved releasing balloons into the air, so it was one of the activities planned. Don't worry the balloons are made of cornstarch as well as the string and it is environmentally friendly:)

Inside the balloon was Jessie's favorite bible verse and should anyone find this balloon there is a number to contact our homeschool community

His older brother made a video about Jessie and his amazing love of life

Over a 160 balloons were released this day 

Many of the kids wore red to show support for Jessie

ON the count of 3 all the balloons were released and we yelled Happy Birthday to Jessie

Then we watched the balloons float away!

It was heard not to choke up watching the balloons float away

His mother, one of the group leaders put up an memorial table and the kids could sign a book or draw a picture to remember Jessie.

Jessie was able to donate several organs to other people which I know made his family very happy 

lots of memories for Jessie's family.  

This mother is a dedicated homeschool leader in our community and I know many people were so worried she may not feel comfortable coming back to the community.  However she has decided to return and we were all thrilled to see her again after her time off and were able to talk to her about her wonderful son and how much we all miss him.  It has been a hard week for all but also a sweet way to remember such a remarkable young man and in turn be there for his family while they mourned the loss of their youngest child.

weekly update 11/4/15

This post is all about the activities we did for Halloween.  I never did get the decorations done outside:(  We did have some good news this week Firedrake is off her crutches!  YAY!  she is still on a walking boot for another 3 weeks but then should be good to go back to regular shoes.  The Doctor said her broken foot is healing very nicely and she shouldn't have any problems in the future, whew!  She still finds walking long distance to be too much but at least she was able to participate in the halloween festivities which she was very worried about!

We went to  Fright Feast at Six Flags to redeem our season passes.  We stayed for about three hours before Firedrake 's foot began to hurt!  I think in that span of time the kids got to ride two rides:(  It was super crowded being the second to last weekend the park was open this season.

ON Oct 31st we finally carved our pumpkins.  MarioFan went with the plug in's for his pumpkin.  I have had these for years and the kids always loved them! 

his scary creation!

This year Firedrake opted to carve her own pumpkin!

She even clean out the insides, something I still don't like to do:)

Father and daughter working side by side.  

My husband made a storm trooper pumpkin!  Guess who is excited about the new Star Wars movie coming out...he has already purchased tickets for December!

Firedrake pumpkin!  I thought it was excellent for her first try!

She was quite proud of herself!

This year's costumes--MarioFan chose a Union solider 

Firedrake went as a vengeful spirit

Luna the dog went as a Princess!

We were invited to our neighbor's block party this year.  My husband made his wonderful chili and I made Brain cupcakes.  You have to use your imagination:)

All the neighbors brought their candy over to hand out

And there was tons of food.  One of the neighbor's brew their own beer so we sample some seasonal flavors.  I am not a beer drinker so I passed on this experience. 

Another neighbor put together a hay ride for the children and drove them around the neighborhood. 

Firedrake was able to go trick or treating with her friends, but soon her foot tired out and I got a phone call to pick her up.  I was very impressed that the girls stayed with Firedrake until I reached her and then they continued on their Trick or treating.  I had originally told Firedrake that this was the last year for trick or treating but because of her foot and not being able to go as far as the other girls I have agreed that she should have one more year of trick or treating.