Friday Wrap-Up ~ Almost Time for Our December Break!

I can't believe December is right around the corner! The kids are looking forward to taking most of the month off from school. We will only be doing Tuesday school with our homeschool friend. I must admit, I am looking forward to it, too. We have been going strong almost every day since the beginning of August.

In our little corner of the world, the wildfires are still raging, and there is still no to little rain in sight. The air quality is keeping us indoors ALL of the time. We are getting a bit restless. Thank goodness for dance. The kids get lots of their energy out at classes and rehearsals. I, however, miss my walks. We are keeping busy indoors.

Science ~ We wrapped up several experiments this week. The first was our mummy experiment that we started back at the end of October. We carved designs into apples and covered the apples in a combination of baking soda, salt and powdered bleach. We started a control apple in a zip lock bag by itself. Then we waited the better part of a month. On opening day, we were pleasantly surprised.

Our mummy apples were preserved but spongy. The flesh was completely white. Our control apple was rotten in places and covered in mold on one side. 

We also completed our red cabbage pH indicator strips and used them. We boiled red cabbage and cut up coffee filters into strips. We then dyed our strips with the cabbage liquid and set them to dry. We also made our control liquids. We made a control base with ammonia and distilled water and a control acid with vinegar and distilled water. After a few days we conducted our experiments.  We dipped our strips into diluted milk, bleach, coffee, wine vinegar, tea and lemon. The strips changed colors. We determined by the color change whether or not the item was a base or acid. The activity worked out great.

Art~ The kids are busy making Christmas gifts in art with Miss Laura. I can't wait to see what they produce. Elijah made a very detailed Shrinky Dink. He drew the Celtic knot free hand. I am so amazed by his attention to detail. It would make a lovely piece of jewelry. It is about the size of a half dollar.

Grandma also conducted another one of her awesome art classes for my kids and their twin friends who are also homeschooled. We learned all about book illustrations. The kids looked through many picture books from their childhoods and shared memories of their favorite picture books. They realized that the illustrations in picture books are very important. We picked Shel Silverstein for an in-depth study. Then they learned about Shel Silverstein's life and looked through several of his books to find poems they liked. They each chose a poem that he had not illustrated. We photocopied the poems and they pasted it onto the page and illustrated it. 

Dean with one of his favorite childhood books, The Story of Ferdinand

We are trying to find a good stopping point for the rest of our subjects. We will be continuing art, science and geography in December. I am sure there will be lots of music, too. Next week, we are really going to have to read lots more of Hitty Her First Hundred Years in order to complete it. We also are a bit farther behind in math than I would like to be before break. However, we are not likely to get too much farther ahead, since it is also tech week for the Nutcracker and the Mouse King. C'est la vie!

Blessings, Dawn