Weekly Wrap UP -- 11/17/17 -- lightning in a cloud, Paul Klee art and field trips

We had the most amazing site happen this week.  We saw lightening in a cloud, which I am told is called heat lightening.  The kids were memorized by it and I manage to capture a couple of pictures and a video of it.

practically the entire neighborhood was out watching the amazing scene.

There was no rain during this experience.  

MarioFan and his friend went on a field trip to the Magic House this week.  We go every year when we can get a discount entry fee.

The boys love the Magic house and had a great time working together on all the exhibits. (we go here at least once or twice a year)

We also went to one of our favorite MO state parks, Elephant rocks which is one of only a few sites in the state with igneous rocks.  Here my daughter is examining the rocks and completing her lab work for her science.

For art lessons we are studying Paul Klee using Meet the Masters and additional resources from the library.  The boys completed two projects based on this artist.

I wasn't too impressed with this lesson from Meet the Masters, I have to be honest with you as it seemed so similar to the other ones we have already done.

So I found a different Paul Klee lesson online based on his painting the "Cat and the bird"

Klee's original work  You can find several examples of this art project online.  Since both boys love Cats it was a much bigger success for an art project with meet the masters.

Boys used watercolor pencils for this project

I always do a sample to show the boys and help with the art project.  

Their completed 'Cat and Bird' art project.

In Literature the boys have completed reading Tom Sawyer.  We continued our lectures on learning more about Figurative language.

This week we learned the above 

ON Teacher Pay Teacher I found a figurative language game relating to the book Tom Sawyer! So we played that.

and a game we found on the computer.  But the boys were so good evading the villains that they never had to answer any of the questions:( We now know this option won't work in the future, lol.

We are now moving on to a short lesson on poetry using our Lightning Literature program.

While doing school work we heard some very loud snoring., and this is what we found:)

Our dog Luna snoring away in her bed in the school room,  This is where she goes most of the time:) while we are doing school work.

Weekly Wrap UP -- 11/3/17 Missouri Mines and school update

My husband is working with my daughter on her Science and this year they are tackling Geosciences.  For her lab assignment we took her to the Missouri Mine State Park  They have just finished studying minerals.

A friend had told us about this site last year and we had been meaning to go for a while

It is an abandon mine but it was a large functioning lead mine for about 100 years 

Right now it looks a bit like a ghost town

Doesn't look like much on the outside but the museum was pretty neat

My husband questioning her about the rock samples.  

 While my husband and Firedrake toured the facility.  MarioFan and I did a tour of the place ourselves.  I tried to keep away from my husband and daughter so they could talk and concentrate with out a younger brother distracting her;)

Looking at a drill that takes core samples

Lots of information about the geology of Missouri

The state rock--didn't know we had one!

Galena sample--this site was used for mining Galena and lead ore

Firedrake loved the fluorescent rocks.  Anytime I lost site of him I just had to look here

Lots of geodes on displayed

Caught these two talking in depth a few times.

We even stopped and looked at a few rocks outside the museum 

Afterward we went to the famous Blue Owl restaurant for a late lunch.  Next they are studying igneous rocks and we will be visiting (field trip) one of our favorite state park -- Elephant Rocks:)

Firedrake is wrapping up her history using the Guns Germs and Steel book.  We have supplemented using educational videos as well.  Next we are beginning to use Crash Course World History program, which you can view here.

For Literature she has completed a unit on Poetry from around the world and has begun reading her next book.  We just found out the author of this book just won a Noble peace prize for Literature this year!!

We are mixing Literature with our History this year so she will be learning more about Japan after reading the book with additional History assignments.

MarioFan is continuing to read and learn about Ancient Africa.  We are verging away from our History text as it only talks about ancient Egypt in depth and leaves out everything else that goes on in that continent.  IT has been quite a struggle to find resources that really go into other ancient civilizations in the Africa continent.  After much surfing we found this documentary that is quite good by PBS, called Ancient African civilizations.

There are six episodes in all and we have watched everyone of them.  Now I am trying to find books on some of the civilizations mentioned for further insight

I have searched our local library for any book that discusses ancient civilizations and have checked them all out.  It has been a bit of a struggle piecing it all together as some of these books are quite long and tedious and not something MarioFan would be able to read for very long.  So I am trying to simplify and hit the main points as we go.  We will probably will be on this topic for another week or two, before we move one.

Weekly Wrap UP 11/03/17 Halloween activities and a college visit!

This year was the first time MarioFan was old enough to attend the local Coop's halloween party.  He was so excited.  You must be 13 to attend.

They spent the first part of the party just hanging with friends and being a wall flower.

There were plenty of games to play, although MarioFan only attempted one of them;)  I did catch him dancing once but for the most part he just talked with friends and ate way too much junk food:0

I have to say my husband is wonderful, after taking our daughter to visit her first college campus he drove all day just to make sure she was home in time to attend the Halloween party!  A++ parenting right there!!! More about the college visit at the end of this post

Firedrake with her group of trouble makers;)

The coop party was kind of small this year as there was a break in the group last year:(  Usually the party has over 100 kids attending, but this year it was small with only about 40-50 kids in attendance.  I don't think the kids noticed at all and they all had fun which is the main point.


We also finally got to work on our pumpkin and my husband chose the design this year, although Firedrake is learning how to carve a pumpkin so she can take over the job soon

She handles the scooping our the insides better than I do

Can you figure out what our Pumpkin says?  I will give you a couple of hints it is not Japanese, it is Chinese and it is based on a science fiction TV show.  A family favorite!

Husband and daughter were quite pleased with how it turned out!  On halloween night we had some friends over and we held our traditional spooky halloween dinner before Trick or Treating.   On the menu was spooky treats:)

Spider bread with a weird looking egg sack on its back;)

Spaghetti with meatball eyes

Salad, I tried a few fun  cuts for the veggies:)

Instead of croutons I cut halloween shapes from wheat tortilla and covered them in cheese to add on top of the salad

a special eyeball float:)

After Trick or treating we had a fun dessert

Ghost hot chocolate-- the adult ones may have been spiked with Bailey's Irsh creme 

Kids made a pumpkin brownie

This is MarioFan's last year for Trick or treating, and he chose his costume pretty quickly this year.

Medical doctor

Firedrake is working on her cosplay costume for next May and decided to dress up a little while she passed out the candy to the kids who came knocking on the door.  First year I didn't have to do this job!

She had a great time passing out candy and a local custom is hearing all the jokes the kids tell in order to get their candy.

The last big news of the week was Firedrake had her first visit to a college campus, YIKES.  She was off school on Friday so they drove down to Truman State and spent the day touring the campus, meeting with professors and getting a lay of the land.  I was not able to go so I got all the exciting news when they returned.  Here are a few pictures of their visit!

Checking out a dorm room-- she thought it was very small lol

That was our crazy week in a nutshell.  We got some school work done as well but I will post that next week.