Weekly Wrap up 9/22/17 School progress

We are in the full brute of school and everyone is getting use to their schedules.  We have our days filled and most of our evenings are filled with extracurricular activities.  Here is an update on what we all are doing

Firedrake is struggling to mange Public School, where she is only going part time.  It has proven to be a bit harder adjustment then any of us realized.  Luckily the school is really trying hard to help her and she is doing well in her classes.  She is finding the number of kids, there are over 30 kids in one of her classes, and in the hallways a bit overwhelming.  She is also used to having more involvement in topic discussions and more give and take in lectures so being talked at instead of more active participation is proving a bit unnerving for her.  Firedrake participated in her first intruder alert drill and fire drill of the school year.  Both experiences caused her great anxiety, but it is unfortunately the world we live in today.

We made the decision drop creative writing class and have a study hall period so that she could make use of the Math ACLAB.  She found the creative writing class repetitive of what she already knows and lost interest in the class.  We figured spending extra time in the Math ACLAB was a better use of her time although there is no credit earned for that period.  But since she earned credits in 8th grade we are still on track for graduating:).

My husband has taking on teaching Geoscience and teaching mapping skills.

lab work this week was learning how to use open street maps and how to input data

Next looking how this can be use world wide.  Part of my husband interests and job lies in this area so he was happy to teach it to our daughter and she thought it was neat!

MarioFan has begun his world history book and I found an amazing resource for putting together a notebook timeline.  We have never done a timeline before as it always seem like too much work to me.  But this site has put it all together and even better it is completely FREE!  Check out Raising a Self Reliant Child blog!  If you are a Christian homeschooler you might want to skip the first few pages!

We are reviewing the history of mankind and the great migration theories.

We plan to add to our timeline after reading our history book.   

For the past two weeks we learned about the hunter gather tribes of early man and I was able to remind our son that we were lucky enough to visit one of the last remaining hunter gathering tribes in Africa when we took a trip to Tanzania.  Please visit this post to read up on our adventure in Tanzania (2012) with the Hadzabe tribe!  I still remember it very foundly, plus MarioFan is so little in those pictures!

In science we are digging more into what is a cell and the parts of a cell.  Our first lab experiment was learning about osmosis and the cell wall and membrane.

We weighed each egg and documented it

Then measured the circumference of each egg

Then choose 6 different fluids in which to set the egg.   Originally  one of the liquids my son chose was milk, forgetting that this experiment was to take two weeks it got a bit smelly so after the first week we switch that egg to OJ:)

After the first week we re weighed the eggs and remeasured them documenting our results 

already noticing a difference in the eggs placed in more acidic liquid (7UP, vinegar and OJ)

After the second week we check and measured the eggs again and documented our results.

breaking open the eggs to look at the osmosis  that happened on the inside.  

Next MarioFan examined 5 different plant cells and animal cell slides and drew what he saw!

Next week we are making animal and plant cell models! and learning about all the parts of the cells!

Keeping busy as usual!  Full steam ahead!!