Saturday, March 11, 2017

We Plow Along

Another week has flown by! This was one of those weeks where I didn't touch the camera much. Thank goodness I record everything in lesson planners, otherwise it would be like the week didn't happen without pictures ~ LOL.

Literature in Movies ~ We continued watching movies this week to get more great literature into our learning. This week we watched The Chocolate War and The Book Thief. The kids gave The Chocolate War a thumbs down. They didn't like all of the bullying. Of course, they weren't supposed to like it from that perspective. They liked The Book Thief much better, even though it had lots of death. The death wasn't graphic and you expect a lot of death when a movie is set during wartime. If you are wondering what films we plan to see, I have compiled a list of many movies in this post.

Documentaries ~ The stomach virus has moved through the family one member at a time this week. To keep school going, we watched several documentaries. Our two favorites were Life After People and One Day On Earth (a time capsule of life in a 24 hour period of time around the world).

Art with Grandma ~ We got to do art with Grandma this week. We learned about Henri Matisse and then created our own cut-out artwork. It was lots of fun! Grandma always worries over her art lessons, but she needn't worry. The kids always enjoy the lessons and create wonderful art.


Science ~ Geology is coming along nicely. We spent one morning this week identifying several minerals. We studied the luster, color, hardness (using a scratch test and the Mohs Hardness scale) and texture of each mineral. Plus, we streak tested each mineral. We also studied salt vs. sugar under the microscope. Lastly, my kids showed Rose how you can set steel wool on fire using only a 9 volt battery.

The rest of the week was achieved. There were lessons in math, writing, and reading, as well as workbook pages. There were trials and small triumphs. Our debit cards were compromised through a Paypal hack, so we are currently without bank cards while the bank tries to get our money back. There was lots of dance classes ~ the ever present activity. There were meetings. We went to Goldilocks' first choir concert at her school. So we plowed along. We are now bracing for a winter storm. Crazy!! It has been spring-like for weeks and now here comes 4 to 6 inches of snow. I always say, "when life gives you lemons ~ make lemon cake!"

Blessings, Dawn

7 comments:

  1. Ooo, I love the art! We've got Matisse on our 'to do' list in the spring.
    Thank you for the movie list - I've been trying to gather ideas and needed a good list to start from.

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  2. Wonderful art projects. I am terrible with art. I love the movie list too. We generally watch Shakespeare rather than read it. Its so much easier to understand, and after all, it is a play. I haven't posted in quite a while. We added bottle fed goats and a horse to our little homestead. Hope you are doing well.

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  3. I hope your debit card issue gets sorted soon. What a hassle. So far we've avoided being hacked - and I hope it stays that way. We're really enjoying using movies as lit this year too.

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  4. Oh, yum! Now you have me craving that lemon cake! Looks like it was a wonderful week!

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  5. Snow?! Goodness! We are well into spring and it is glorious :)
    I do hope you get your card situation sorted soon. That happened to us whilst we were living in Ireland and I felt like my undies drawer had been gone through :(

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  6. Ugh! I'm sorry to read about your debit card issues! I hope they get resolved. And we've gone from spring back to winter, here, too. Crazy!!!

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  7. We're bracing for a good 12-18 inches of snow tomorrow! We have yet to set steel wool on fire with a 9 volt battery but I bet that is one experiment my boys would love.

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