Weekly Wrap-up: It's arrived!

EVERYDAY LIFE

Spring arrived this week! Ah-maz-ing! With warmer days, the snow melted fast creating a new 'pond' right where our driveway used to be...and I found out that Sam's rubber boots no longer fit by the dripping wet, winter boots lined up in the foyer. (What 9-year-old can resist a big ol' puddle to wade in.) But I'll take it! There's nothing quite like opening windows, even briefly, to let fresh air flow through the house after being shut up for months.

Even 'the girls' got to stretch those wings. Olive and Opal, the ducks, went swimming in the frigid brook, and Ony, Speckles, Musty, Sassy, Lil' Rhodie, Rhodie, Ava, Nutmeg, Butterfly, and Amber found the only patch of visible brown grass to scratch up. They rewarded us with finally laying eggs again.

But oh my! the road is a muddy mess. I'm going to need an alignment!

Total Bag Count: 14

MENU
✿ Hamburgers & Pasta and Veggie Salad ✿
✿ Scrambled Eggs, Hickory Smoked Bacon, Fresh Pineapple & Biscuits ✿
✿ Spaghetti with Ground Chicken Meat Sauce & Steamed Green Beans✿
✿ Marinated Beef Strips with Broccoli & Baked Fries ✿
✿ Boston Cream Pie Ice Box Cake ✿

SCHOOL SNIPPETS
Sam does "van school" while Cati is at Jazz and Concert Band and her clarinet lessons. I keep most of his work in a binder, slipping Easy Grammar inside and his current reading book. (I keep pencils and a hand sharpener in the van.) Do you ever do school-on-the-road?

Cati wrote Name Poems and Word Patterns poems this week. She's getting close to finishing up her study of basic 'formula' poetry. (I'd share the unit with you, but it's something I have from my student teaching in 1998 and it was OLD then.) She's also only 12 lessons away from finishing up Saxon 76.

In U.S. History we watched NROC on WWI and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR and The New Deal. We skipped art study this week and spent more time outside...and began to 'spring clean'.

At STEM school, Jake switched his Physics research topic from 4D to antimatter, continued to build a steam-powered power plant, focusing on the turbines, commuted projectiles for Math to get a ball into a basket without practicing, and "learned the things he hasn't" in Astronomy. (I'm not sure what that means!)

BOOKS
Mom- Seeing A Large Cat by Elizabeth Peters
Cati - The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
Sam - Invisible Stanley by Jeff Brown 

PEOPLE & PLACES
✿ Jazz and Concert Band & Clarinet Lesson (Cati) ✿
✿ Cub Scouts (Sam & Jake) ✿
✿ Wayback Wednesday at Movie Theatre: Back to the Future (All) ✿
✿ Boy Scout Camping (Jake) ✿

FAVORITES

I got a chuckle out of this Lego Pain Scale from Facebook. Those of you with Lego enthusiatists will understand all too well.

ON THE 'NET

How to Have a Perfectly Clean House
50 Best Unschooling/Self-directed Learning Posts in 2013

As always, special thanks to these weekly wrap-ups:

Weekly Wrap-up: Dreaming of Spring

EVERYDAY LIFE

But I'm ready to start planning our garden and buying our seeds. I've been pondering creating another raised bed from concrete blocks. The kids have BIG gardening ambitions, but the 24x16 garden last year was a flop when we got busy with summer; we could only keep up with the 12x6 raised bed. Square Foot Gardening is much more reasonable (and enjoyable) for us.

Photo Credit

I've been knitting up dish cloths all week. They're quick, useful things! (Find instructions here.) I love the earthy colors I chose to knit them up in. I'm still pondering what to create next, but I might try a reusable mesh bag for groceries or library trips or the lake this summer. It requires CROCHETING and I haven't attempted that. You Tube!

Total Bag Count: 6

I'm about 14 bags behind on the Declutter Challenge. In my defense, I did start a year ago throwing out and donating unused items, and it's really just too cold to tackle the garage which REALLY needs a purge-and-organize.

Photo Credit

MENU
✿ Scrambled Eggs with Broccoli and Jack Cheese & Blueberry Pancakes with Maple Syrup ✿
✿ Beef Au Jus Sandwiches on Homemade Herbed Bread & Steamed Carrots and Peaches ✿
✿ Cheese Pizza & Fresh Strawberries ✿
✿ Chicken Cordon Bleu & Herbed Biscuits and Peas ✿

SCHOOL SNIPPETS
Sam has discovered that reading isn't so bad! He's rereading the Flat Stanley series, but I'm just pleased as punch that he seems to be ENJOYING it! He's moving along in Horizons Math 2, working on his understanding of place value, time and regrouping.  We started body systems in Life Science this week.

Cati is reluctantly continuing her Daily Grams. She's finding the whole thing monotonous and boring so I'm tempted to drop it, but she doesn't want to BEGIN anything else. It's too early in the year to discontinue a whole subject! She's already completed her year of Life Science and is almost there with Saxon Math 76. 

They watched vidoes on the 1870-1900s in American History, learning about economic changes and social upheaval during the 'Gilded Age' and Teddy Rooveselt, and solved some mysteries in Art Fraud Detective: Spot the Difference, Solve the Crime!, studying paintings by Pieter de Hooch, Hendrick ter Brugghen and Marinus van Reymerswaele.

In STEM school, Jake printed out his finished 3D plans for a steam-powered 'power plant' (to run a Lego train set), solved quadratic equations, learned quantum physics, and continued his (mostly) winning streak in Chess.

BOOKS
Mom - The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin & Seeing a Large Cat by Elizabeth Peters
Cati - The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
Sam - Flat Stanley & Invisible Stanley by Jeff Brown

PEOPLE & PLACES
✿ Concert Band & Clarinet Lesson (Cati) ✿ 
✿ Boy, Girl & Cub Scouts (All) ✿  
✿  Garage & Dunkin Donuts ✿ 

FAVORITES
I have this big, old TV in my bedroom. Would you believe that with the proper connections the XBOX will connect to it and play my "Big Bang Theory" DVDs? The kiddos aren't thrilled with my 'borrowing' the XBOX though.

Photo Credit

As always, special thanks to these weekly wrap-ups:

Weekly Wrap-up: One Step at a Time

Cabin Fever. :sigh:

With winter lingering on, I couldn't wait to get outside anymore. I downloaded this awesome app for my Smartphone called Runkeeper. It uses GPS to map where and distance, and includes pace and an estimation of how many calories burned. I logged in 6.08 miles of walking the last 1 1/2 weeks. Considering I had to deal with an achy leg due to neurological testing, icy roads, and messy weather, I'm happy with that. I even dragged the kids and dogs along! Seeing those miles add up is a great incentive!

Have you read The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin? Awesome!

School Snippets

• Jake is building a steam-powered 'power plant' that will run a Lego train, gave a presentation in Social Studies, and is studying Mars for another oral and computer presentation
• Cati and Sam studied Quinten Massys and Raphael in Art Fraud Detectives: Spot the Differences, Solve the Crime!
• Both went swimming (in a heated pool)
• Cati played clarinet in a band concert
• Cati read The Fellowship of the Ring, and Sam read The Magic Finger and started Flat Stanley (again)
• Cati wrote terse verses for poetry and worked on her collection of inspirational sayings 
• Sam spend HOURS building and redesigning a Lego boat, then added a Technics motor and made it RC, and tested it in the bathtub for speed and maneuverability 
• Sam worked on time (minutes), fact families, place value, and word problems  

Cati and I finished our 2nd knitted scarves. What do you think?

She started another scarf, peach and cream striped this time, and I'm going to make some dishclothes. I'm using this You Tube video tutorial for the dishclothes. Again, for beginners.

I've joined a decluttering challenge called "40 Bags in 40 Days" here. She has some useful printables if you're up for some simplifying. I'm not sure I'll get to 40 bags as I've been doing this for a year, but there's always stuff that can go, right? TBC (Total Bag Count): 3

Instead of buying pre-packaged bars for my oldest son's school snacks, I made Jordan Marsh Muffins this week. You can find the recipe here at Cooks.com. I made blueberry, raspberry and strawberry muffins from berries we or my Mom picked last season and froze, and omitted the sprinkle of sugar on top. Perfect for snacking!

Photo Credit

As always, special thanks to these weekly wrap-ups:

 

Review: Girls of American History - Literature and Unit Study Guides for American Girl Books

Have you seen The American Girls Collection of historical fiction books for kids? It's been a FAVORITE of my Cati for years. I wouldn't be surprised if she's read through the series 3, 4 or 5 times. So, when Justine Gamble from Girls of American History: A Multi-Sensory Curriculum wanted product reviewers, we signed up for Addy!

"...Read it, Hear it, See it, Write it, and Do it.." - Justine Gamble from Girls of American History

What We Reviewed

Girls of American History Curriculum Unit 5: The Civil War - A Literature Guide and Unit Study for Addy, An American Girl - Time Period 1864

Published by Justine Gamble 2012

Individual Literature Studies $7.95 / Full Set $72.00 (prices subject to change)
Free Samples Available Here

Quick Peek
• Multi-sensory Approach to Learning
• Using Popular Literature
• Suggested Weekly Schedule
• Required and Suggested Reading List
• Field Trip and Craft Lists
• Templates
• On-line Additional Resources

Planning and Preparing

The first thing I did was download the 17 page literature and study guide, print it and slip the pages into a plastic report cover. I recommend these covers as they keep print-outs protected during use and are inexpensive to purchase and reuse.

I used the Overview of Content to gather books (from the library) and arts and crafts supplies. There were also additional resource and reading lists, suggested field trips (none in our area), and a weekly plans and schedule graph. All handy, quick resources to plan your unit study!

A lapbook was suggested to go along with the multi-sensory study, and, as ALWAYS, I downloaded from my favorite lapbook resource on-line. And because Cati doesn't enjoy the cutting-out-and-folding-mini-books part of lapbooks, I did that for her (while watching TV in the evenings). There were also suggestions for craft activities, which we already had 2 kits of.

What We Did

Everything was placed in a handy-dandy plastic basket, and Cati independently worked on the study during her leisure times. As a 6th grader, she was ready to "spread her wings" and take charge of some of her learning...and this literature study was easy enough for her to follow and implement with only a minimum amount of guidance from me. We made a schedule together - one book and one section of the lapbook per week. Definitely doable with her core classes, heavy band schedule, and scouting commitments!

She worked on these studies several times a week, sometimes skipping a few weeks as life happened. It was easy for her to pick-up where she left off and continue on. We borrowed the required reading books from our library, so no purchase was necessary. (Since this is a popular series of books, most libraries should have copies available.)  She's looking forward to completing her study with the Emancipation Party suggested in the study guide. It includes recipe suggestions and time-period games.

What We Didn't Do

Follow the weekly plans and schedule graph. Although a wonderful resource for planning your studies, Cati opted to work at her own pace, reading additional books, watching You Tube videos, doing additional crafts. Definitely a curriculum that can be tweaked to fit whatever your learners' needs and interest take them! 

She hasn't finished the unit study at this time. She's completed a number of weeks, but sometimes studies take longer than planned when following interests. Learning shoudn't be rushed! Fortunately, Girls of American History can be done both as a main history study AND as a supplemental study over different lengths of time.

Our Thoughts

Girls of American History is suggested for grades 2-6. Being in 6th grade, Cati found the unit study suggestions and work too simple. She's read the books before and are below her ability level; each one takes her about about 45 minutes to read. She wanted "more" from Girls of American History, but fortunately it's an easy guide to tweak, adding more detailed, in-dept work from other sources. Our suggested grade levels are advanced 1st - average 4th.

Otherwise, Girls of American History are a go-to for students who love the American Girl series of historical fiction! Super easy to print-out, implement and use, and can be changed up in a variety of ways to meet individual learners. You can focus on a specific girl and period of time, or get the 12 unit set, a complete study of American history that can be finished in two school years.

For more information, click on the following links:

Website

FAQ

Testimonials 

Order

 Disclosure: A Great Balancing Act was given a PDF download of the Girls of American History Unit 5 The Civil War literature study and subscriber access on-line for our honest review. All thoughts are our own.

A Peek at Our Week: Getting Back on Track

In My Life This Week
Again, it seems like I spend most of my weeks doing the same things. Not that that is a bad thing, right? LOL I have started walking regularly now that the temperatures are cooler. The dogs get all giddy when they see me putting my walking sneakers on (since they're my usual walking partners). It's been nice getting out again, traipsing through the woods with the leaves crunching underneath my feet.

Things I Worked On
✾ Scrubbing "green stuff" off the house's vinyl siding ✾

What We're Cooking
New England Pumpkin Pie! Do you have One-Pie canned pumpkin where you live? It's the recipe right on the back of the can! Best ever! (But you can find the recipe here.) I think it's the molasses that makes it New England. 

Now, just because I don't follow recipes exactly most of the time: I used skim milk in this recipe and no butter to make it low in fat, and used 3/4 c sugar instead of 1 c and would probably do 2/3 c next time. And, of course, I used my own roasted and pureed pumpkin that I made last week.

High School Happenings
Jake's summary this week: definition of a community, Nash Equilibrium for Game Theory, types of energy and its effects, histograms vs. box plots (graphing), Chinese writing and speaking, narrative edit, atoms and what they are, and working his video game story with a partner.

Homeschool Happenings

Last Friday I realized that we've hadn't completed U.S. History in almost 2 weeks. Oops! I made a point of getting in our "America: The Story of Us" videos this week. Only we made another oops! and played the wrong disc! The kids didn't want to stop learning about the Depression and Dust Bowl and WWII, so we just continued on, skipping the Civil War. (We'll get back to that.)

Both kids are doing a Poetry unit for writing, but in different ways. Cati is doing formula poetry (or poetry that has specific guidelines such as Haiku) and Sam is doing copywork (currently from A Child's Garden of Verses). It's easier on this Mama to keep their subjects similar, but tweaked for their ability levels.

Here's a sample of Cati's poetry work, which includes putting her final type-written poems into a mini book:

And Sam's copywork: 

We notebook through science using either traditional textbooks or on-line resources. Cati studied bacteria and viruses this week, and Sam studied plants and then the different species of living things. We'll be starting an experiment on testing disinfectants next week! (Such information is good this time of year! :cough: :sneeze:)

We spent Friday morning at H__ Hill nearby, enjoying the mountainous and lake views. This hill was a special spot of the Quakers who settled this town long ago, and there's a special area where people can leave stones with messages for loved ones near a carved wooden statue of Jesus and a child. It is wasn't so cold we could have enjoyed a picnic lunch!

Accomplishments
The Serpent's Shadow (C) & Mummies in the Morning (S)
Easy Grammar - Verb/Verb Phrases (C)
Daily Grams - Days 23-25 (C) & Days 32-37 (S)
Spelling Power - Delayed Recall Test / List 30-31 (C) & List 9 (S)
Poetry Unit - Diamante and Parts of Speech (C) & Copywork (S)
Greek Word Roots - pyro, photo, graph, para, phone
Saxon - Test 9/10/11 (C) & Math-U-See - 11X, Test 11, 12A-B (S)
Life Science - Bacteria and Viruses (C) & Amphibians, Birds, Mammals, and Insects (S)
US History - "Bust", "WWII"
Art Detectives - Botticelli, Vermeer, Watteau

People and Places

✾ Boy Scout Camperee (J) ✾ Hangin' out with the S__ Family (All) ✾ Scouts (J/S) ✾ Jazz and Concert Band (C) ✾

Something to Share

As ALWAYS, linking up to these WONDERFUL blogs: