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Homeschool, Photos

This week in homeschooling: We embark upon a lengthy project

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Our regular learning activities haven’t varied all that much from the norm over the last few weeks. We’re reading “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows,” and Pete is reading a Tom Swift book. Poppy is working on exponents in math, and Pete has joined a math club that meets once a month. We talked about crystals in science, and all of our experiments failed. (That part wasn’t very exciting.)

We did, however, add a few new things to our repertoire this week.

There are a ton of opportunities for hiking and exploring nature in our area. Because of some anxiety issues on my part — no bathrooms! bears! tickborne diseases! no bathrooms! — I haven’t done a terrific job taking advantage of that. I’m going to make an effort to change that, though, by planning a (maybe) weekly hike into our schedule.

This week the kids and I went for a short hike on some nearby national forest land. I couldn’t find the trail I’d intended for us to hike, and judging by the ruggedness of the path and the number of people on mountain bikes we saw (10) as compared to other people on foot (2), I’m pretty sure the one we ended up on was primarily a mountain-biking trail. But we crossed a small creek via a very small fallen tree, we stumbled upon a lake, and I was pretty much OK save for a small moment of panic.

Midway through our hike, Pete said: “You know, I’m actually enjoying this.” I actually did too, pal.

I'm thinking about adding a weekly hike to our #homeschool curriculum.

A photo posted by Nichole (@nicholebutterscotch) on

On Tuesday my friend Robin shared on instagram that she was going to participate in Elle Luna’s 100-day project. Robin is an artist, so it makes sense that she would sign on to create some sort of art every day for 100 days. I am not an artist, but I do have a couple of kids who love to do art projects. And so I decided that the for the next 100 days, the kids and I would do an art project.

Perhaps it wasn’t wise to decide on a whim to do something for 100 days in a row, but so far Poppy, Pete and I have had fun with our projects. Here’s what we’ve done thus far:

We used tissue paper and water to create today's #100artsydayswiththebutterscotchsundaekids works. #the100dayproject

A photo posted by Nichole (@nicholebutterscotch) on

Looking for more homeschooling stories? Check out the weekly wrap-up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers!

Homeschool

This week in homeschooling: If you give a kid a hammer and a geode

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We’ve reached that time of year when it feels like we’re doing the same thing over and over every week in our homeschooling adventure. Which I guess we kind of are, but it varies a little bit. Right? Right. I’ll keep telling myself that.

Here are the small derivations in the routine that we did this week.

STEM

Science
This week we started learning about crystals. We tried to make some with baking soda and hot water, but it didn’t work very well. We currently have a jar of sugar water sitting on the counter, and I’m hoping that rock candy will start forming on the string dangling within pretty soon. It’s been two days, though, and I don’t see anything yet.

We also smashed a geode with a hammer and examined the sparkly, crystalized insides.

We also smashed a geode with a hammer.
Oooooo sparkly!

Math
Pete had his first math test in his new curriculum this week. He did well on it, but he would’ve aced it if he’d taken a few seconds to review his work. That’s something we both need to work on.

Language Arts

Reading
We are four chapters from the end of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” And those of you who’ve read it know what that means. It means that Poppy will soon be saying “Are you going to cry again?” 🙁

Pete has been reading a “Moby Dog,” a Wishbone adventure. He says there aren’t any whales in it at all. It doesn’t even start with “Call me Wishbone”!

Memorization
We’re up to Nixon on the presidential-memorization project. Pete keeps getting stuck on Eisenhower. Totally understandable.

Extracurricular

Tae kwon do
Yesterday Pete finally earned the last stripe that he needed to test for his blue belt in tae kwon do! I’m very proud of him. I know tae kwon do isn’t his favorite activity — that would be playing a video game whilst eating a cheeseburger — but he’s been focusing and putting a lot of effort into it over the last few weeks.

Co-op
Poppy made Malva pudding, a deliciously indulgent South African dish, in her Desserts Around the World class. Pete made a bow and an arrow using PVC pipe and a few other materials in Ninja class. I’m not sure what they did in Mad Scientist class this week.

Wanna read more about homeschooling? Check out the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers weekly linky thing!

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This week in homeschooling: Spelling lists, futuristic ’50s novels and a hint of Nixon

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Poppy has brought to my attention the fact that I have been inconsistent in my This Week in Homeschooling updates. So today I’m going to post one, just for her. No promises about improved consistency on my part in the future, though, Poppy.

Language Arts

Reading

We’re nearing the end of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” I still can’t remember who the half-blood prince is, and I’m trying to make myself refrain from googling it.

Poppy and I read “May B” for our mother-daughter book club this week — we all agreed that it was a dark & difficult story — and also finished “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” and Raina Telgemeier’s “Smile.”

tomswiftPete has been without an assigned reading book until today, when I went downstairs and grabbed a copy of “Tom Swift and His Giant Robot” that my father-in-law picked up for him at a flea market a few years ago. Pete’s career plans currently involve building robots and inventing things, so I’m guessing he’s going to enjoy Tom Swift.

Spelling

Both kids are still doing well with Spelling City. I’m using a list of fifth-grade spelling words from K12reader.com for Poppy, and Pete is working off the Dolch sight words list.

Writing

Poppy is still working independently through her writing curriculum. I check in on her progress periodically, but she’s doing a pretty good job following the book’s instructions.

Pete and I got back to work on his writing this week. He wrote a paragraph about his plans for the weekend (it involves a good deal of candy) as well as an acrostic poem about Easter.

Memorization

The kids are working on memorizing all of the US presidents. We’re up to Nixon so far.

Math

Pete is working on memorizing multiplication facts. We’ve had some very lovely days this week, weather-wise, so I wanted to find some ways to take our school outside. One of my favorites was Multiplication.com’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Outdoor Math game. I made a grid of numbers with chalk in the driveway, and the kids took turns tossing a pair of pebbles onto it and telling me what the product of the two numbers would be.

featured_multiplication

We opted not to make it a competition, but competitively minded kids might enjoy playing in teams and keeping score.

Geography

We focused on Virginia this week. We did zero fun projects to go along with our study.

Co-op classes

Pete and Poppy are taking a “Mad Scientist” class together at co-op this semester, and from the sound of it they’ve mostly been working with chemical reactions. Pete is also taking a Ninja class, in which he’s learning some Japanese history and making marshmallow blow guns. Poppy’s other class is Desserts Around the World. They made luqaimat with rosewater syrup this week. It’s an Arabic doughnut typically made for Ramadan, and they were crazy delicious.

Wanna read more about homeschooling? Check out the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers weekly linky thing!