Weekly Wrap Up -- 10/27/17 Meiosis activities

This week in Science MarioFan and I have been learning more about the Meiosis process and working on our poster.

First we watch several videos on Chromosomal cross over

Then we used licorice sticks and recreated each step

working on understanding Chromosomal cross over and how that will better help us understand genetics in the next chapter of our science book.

Of course after your done you must eat your science project!!!

We finished making our Meiosis poster and now have it hanging up in our school room.  This one was much harder to construct than the mitosis poster;)

This time around we decided to just use markers 

Hanging up in the school room 

up close pictures of the Meiosis I

and then Meiosis II

IN our mini Literature coop we have been working on figurative language

For art we are learning about Norman Rockwell.  Here we are learning about the Saturday evening post 

Working on their projects

Their art work completed

The boys learned about the portraits -- The four Freedoms that Rockwell did during WWII which helped to raise money for the war

Famous paintings

We used this book to learn more about the artist

boys working on their second art project which included a picture of them in the art work:) 

Second art work completed.  Trying to capture the essence of Rockwell's work.:)

 This week our larger coop had a hayride for our fall activity and this Friday the boys will be going to the Halloween party.  Neither is sure they will wear their costume at the party

Enjoying an evening picnic at the park.  We had a fire going the the kids made smores and played

Boys went on a hay ride around the park at night.  The night was practically pitch black so they said they couldn't really see anything but enjoyed it as it was a parent free ride:)

My latest completed stain glass project for my Husband.  He has been asking for a map of Africa for years for his office and I finally got around to making one.  I designed this pattern by myself as I couldn't really find one I liked online:)  This is more of a vegetative map of Africa, lol.

Next I am working on a couple of Christmas project in my stain glass room, but I can't show those off till after the holidays;)

Weekly wrap Up 10/20/17-- Mitosis and Christmas cake

Another busy week of school but we are trying to add in some fun stuff too:)

Once a month for the last several months a local movie theater is showing Japanese anime movies by Hayao Miyazaki.  We have made it to all the movies except one so far.  So far we have seen Kiki's Delivery Service, Nausicaa The Valley of the Wind, Castle in the sky and Spirited Away.  There are two more scheduled before the end of the year.  

I have to add this photo.  I walked into the school room and saw the kids at their computers practically sitting in the same position.

It made me laugh!  OH and this is how their father sits;)

We had our first parent teacher meeting of the school year at PS.  I still find it really weird walking into school, along with all the other parents, lol.  We meet with her teachers (she only goes part time and takes two classes)  Firedrake is doing well, so far has a A in both classes (algebra and psychology) and both teachers are impressed with her work ethic.  Although both teachers did note she gets frustrated when the other kids are not up to Firedrakes standards, lol.  Firedrake does not like it when other kids aren't doing their load of the work and prefers to work alone, rather than in groups.


I forgot to post the project that Firedrake has been working on last week.  While reading Guns, Germs and Steel she is learning about where and how plants and animals are domesticated.  I had her print out pictures of the ancient animal (if we could find one) and located where they originated from.  She has been working on adding the pictures to our wall map in our school room.  The book also discuss why only 14 animals have been domesticated in the entire world!

I think I might have MarioFan add in ancient domesticated plants since we are reading about ancient farming in our history right now:)  

MarioFan is learning about ancient Egypt in our history book and I am read some additional books.

We haven't done as many history activities this year as We done so much  before, i.e. build pyramids, mummified an orange etc... 

 For Science we are learning about Mitosis (Next week we learn more about Meiosis)

This week we worked on understanding how the cell duplicates and becomes two new cells.

We made a poster to explain the process to hang up in our school room 

Our finished work.  Next week we hope to have the Meiosis completed on the other side of our poster.

I finally got to work on making our English Christmas cake this past weekend.  It is a type of fruit cake that needs time to cure in order to maximize it flavor.  IT is the only kind of fruit cake my family will eat.  I also make one every year for my Mother to have when they visit at Thanksgiving.  I got this wonderful recipe from my friend in England and I did a post about it here and here if you want to try it at home:)

I made three this year so I have an extra one that I will probably give to a friend.

Mmmm it looks so good right out of the oven and I have to wrap it and put it away quickly  or my family starts swarming around taking nibbles of it, lol

That is our week in a nutshell, keeping busy as usual:)!

Weekly wrap up 10/13/17 -- Painting class and school

This week my daughter and I took a painting class.  It is something we do every once in a while as a Mother/Daughter activity.  Since last week my Son and Husband had a boys night out day daughter and I treated ourselves to a night out:).  My husband and I think it is very important to connect individually with each child occasionally.

This is what we were attempting to do that night

Half way though and enjoying our creative night out

Finished pieces.  We are both quite pleased with our results:)

School wise MarioFan and his friend (we are doing this class together) are learning about Points of View in our Literature discussions.  Once again I found an amazing site with so many free resources that we are using!  I am so grateful that I can find so many wonderful free resources.  I try to give credit to right person, if there is ever a mistake let me know but these are the sites that I found the resources on

I found these posters free on this site.  Love Teacher pay teacher site, I can often find free resources on there.  I do buy low cost items occasionally too:)

I found tons of worksheets free on this site including a quiz:)  The boys are working on some of these worksheets and the quiz.  I also found a free game using 1st, 2nd and 3rd person points of view.  I can not at this time find the link:(from where I found the game.

This game takes advertising slogans and the boys sort them into envelops based on 1st, 2nd and 3rd person.  It was quite challenging and we had a few tough ones that we all disagreed with on the answer guide but it was a great way to discuss this subject.

 In addition to this the boys are continuing to read and discuss the book Tom Sawyer for literature class.

For art lesson we are continuing to work on Marc Chagall art.  This week's art project focused on one of Chagall's famous pictures.  We discussed the art work in more detail and then tried our hand at this project using the site listed below.

I and the Village by Marc Chagall -- our inspiration art work
I found this site that had a great idea for artist project.

learning more about the history of this artist.

examining his famous portrait (I did a sample to give the boys an idea)

Boys completed work.  Both boys found working with water colors a bit harder as they both like to use too much water:)  But I thought they did a good job

For Science MarioFan is learning about Photosynthesis (again) and we did a few experiments.

Found another freebie here

Printed out the model of the leaf and stages of photosynthesis
and MarioFan constructed his own model

While we are working on constructing our various models we are always talking about each component and step I find it helps to reinforce what we are learning plus then he can show it to my husband when he gets home and review what he has learned:)

 We did several experiment using leaves

Here we are doing an experiment to see how leaves breathe.  By submerging a leaf into lukewarm water and placing it in the sun for an hour or two 

hard to see but there are bubbles coming out of the leaf which means the leaf is exhaling oxygen (the rock on the leaf is simply to hold it down into the water)  Hard to see in the picture but it was very clear in person:)

Next we took several leaves of different colors and boiled them for five minutes
For this to work you must chose leaves that are from a tree, does not work well if the leaves have fallen off the tree, FYI

Then submerge one leaf in a test tube and covered it with rubbing alcohol

We waited a few hour and check our results.  the alcohol changed color  based on the color of the leaf
(we chose fall leaves, one yellow, red, green and one a mix of colors)

Next we took a green leaf and rubbed it onto a paper towel 

used rubbing alcohol to just touch the paper towel and allow it to travel though the leaf rubbings.  We let this set for about ten minutes

After it dried we where able to see the different colors pigment that was in the leaf.  We saw brown, green and yellow quite clearly in this sample.

Another busy yet successful week.  :)