weekly wrap up 1-13-17 School Resumes

Coop resumed this week so we are back to our break neck schedule and on top of it my husband was out of town for business.  Not sure if it is just me or if others find this to be true but it is always hard to get back into the swing of things after a long break.

Before my husband left I had a few hours in my glass studio to complete the flat panel lamp I am making for my son's upcoming birthday (in June-yes I am way early)  This is the lamp assembled 

Next I patina the soldered lines to match the lamp base I had.

Lamp is finished and I am quite happy with it.  Need to get a different light bulb for it as this one was not centered (too high) but I have six months to find the correct bulb:)

Another thing I had to accomplished before my husband left last week was making a tornado tube.  I was trying to be very thrifty and save $ and make my own as it looked so easy on various videos I watched.  In order to save $5.99, I spent over $8 on supplies:(  However the darn thing did eventually worked beautifully.

My husband drilled holes into two bottle caps for me this was the easy part.  I spent $1.50 on obtaining two 1 liter bottles from the store (not something I have around the house)

Next according to multiple videos you simply need to use hot glue to fix them together lining up the holes and wrap with duct tape to secure the two bottles together...and this is where the problem arose.  Yes the hot glue tacks the bottle caps together but when you tried to whirl the joined bottles they break apart and you get water EVERYWHERE!  So we decided to use super glue which cost $2.99, but once again it didn't hold and water flew everywhere:(  So my husband went to buy epoxy glue which cost about $4.50.  Are you totaling up the cost of this:(  However this time it work!!!!)  more on that further down.  

With my husband out of town the kids and I went out to dinner before piano lesson one evening:) 

For our book club we are reading Wizard of Oz and working on a few projects (hence the need for the tornado tube above):)

My friend came up with a computer scavenger hunt "facts about Kansas"  it also proved to be a good lesson on looking for sites that are reputable as many sites are incorrect in their Kansas information.  Great learning opportunity to teach the kids to look at multiple sources before jotting down the first thing you see and not to depend solely on wikipedia;)  

Boys had fun working on this project together and trying to figure out which site was trustworthy.

Next the boys played with the Tornado tube and read a little about  tornados

Next the boys worked on a Map of OZ which I found online and while reading the book will be labeling the map. They are also working on a chart showing examples of the lion's courage, scarecrow brain and tin man heart before the character ever reach Emerald City.  I forgot to take a picture.

Next week the boys will be working on making some characters of the books and planning a skit of a section of the book using their creations in the third week.  We are also hoping to have a movie night to do a compare and contrast of the book versus the movie for the fourth week.

In science MarioFan is still working on learning about simple machines and building examples using our Knex kit.  This week we have been learning about wheels, gears and axels

Building a windmill

bicycle

hand mixer (which I had to explain what it was to my son, oh my)

For History, the kids have completed learning about WWII European campaign and over the holiday break read and watch several movies/documentaries.  Now we are moving on to learn about the Pacific campaign and America's involvement.  We also plan to watch a few movies/documentaries over the next month.

Firedrake's 9th grade history reading will include:

MarioFan's 7th grade history reading will include:

I am also looking into the book called Bomb by Steve Sheinkin

We of course are also reading history books, discussing, and watching documentaries and movies to delve into this topic:)

So that has been our school week in a nutshell:)  Thanks for stopping by:)