Weekly Updates

Week 17 of Homeschool: We built an automaton, read the new Dog Man book 3 times, rewrote the lyrics to The Christmas Song, performed our first piano recital beautifully (Field), roasted chestnuts on an open fire (then made creme de marrons), wrote a short story about a time machine, worked on subtraction, pretended we were in the Odd Squad, made an “Anxious-O-Meter” (to convey our anticipation of Christmas), made a globe and adventure book and learned about geography, and went to see the Sacramento Ballet’s Nutcracker!

Week 16 of Homeschool: We learned about the Islamic empire, made cardamom cinnamon rolls, sent a Christmas card and gift to the Union Gospel Mission, learned about the science of bubbles, wrote musical accompaniment to The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Suess, did a sketch of mommy (Francis), wrote a short history of the Titanic, made Christmas cards with our CC friends to pass out at a nursing home, wrote a new chapter in a new book (El Quincuagésimo Primer Estado – Field), built marble runs, and went to an Inspire craft day and book fair!

 

Week 15 of Homeschool: We wrote what we are thankful for on the leaves of our thankfulness tree, added doubles, structured sentences, made gingerbread and gingersnaps, cracked puzzles with pattern blocks, hiked to Van Maren Park, wrote a foreword to an original graphic novel (Field), composed a piece for piano called Little Melody (Field), and made homemade egg nog!

 

Week 14 of Homeschool: We gave a presentation on the sinking on the Titanic, wore our PJ’s to school (CC), learned about the structure of leaves by tracing the veins with paint, practiced Latin future perfect tense endings, played Amazing Grace and O Christmas Tree on our tin whistles, learned our Tablespoon and teaspoon conversions, got to go inside our very own planetarium and poke holes in the walls to make constellations, learned Eastern European seas, looked at some more indefinite pronouns, learned about some other bodies in our solar system, wrote a poem about an idle writer (Field), created leaf art using fractals to build leaves, learned about the Battle of Waterloo, finally carved our pumpkins, and had an auction and won the grand prize (a $20 bill)!

 

Week 13 of Homeschool: We practiced for our winter piano recital in a mini-performance (Field), looked at some more indefinite pronouns, made a Medieval figure of Justinian, structured sentences, walked a proportional layout of our solar system, learned about the French Revolution, saw mom caroling at Bass Pro Shops and met Rudolf and Mrs. Claus, skip counted the cubes, located European and Asian capitals and countries on a map, made a leaf lantern out of real leaves, practiced Latin future perfect tense endings, wrote a paper about a Samurai, and made the phases of the moon with Oreo cookies!

Week 12 of Homeschool: We counted apple seeds and learned about halves and addition, diagrammed sentences, visited the Planetarium at Sierra College and learned about our solar system, built a modern paper art sculpture, solved puzzles with tangrams, learned about the history of Russia, looked at maps and retraced our recent travels of the Northwest, went fishing for sight words, wrote a story about a baby dragon, memorized the order of planets in our solar system, worked more on addition with doubles, learned geography of Southwest Asia, looked at Latin pluperfect tense word endings, learned about Australia and the Maori Warriors, skip-counted the squares, listened to Kanye’s new album, discussed the Christian faith and learned to play his song “Use This Gospel” on piano, learned our demonstrative pronouns, wrote about the Earl of Huntington, and created pressure in bottles and shot them into the air like rockets!

Week 11 of Homeschool: We learned about the parts of the sun, went zip-lining, diagrammed sentences, learned and wrote French words describing members of a family, made lollipop tags with Philippians 4:6-7 on them for our Classical Conversations Rotating Review, skip counted our 15s, read the entire book of Green Eggs and Ham (Francis!), then ate green eggs and ham, learned about the countries East of China, practiced catching and throwing a frisbee, learned how to find the difference between two numbers, studied Latin Pluperfect Tense words endings, played National Number Knockout, added events to our historical timeline book, added to our travel scrapbook from all our recent travels up the northwest coast, and created presentations of our cruise to present in our Classical Conversations classes!

 

Week 10 of Homeschool: We wrote a paper called The Cruel Vikings, took a field trip through our cruise ship’s galley, learned about the totem poles of Canada’s native peoples, studied reflexive pronouns, learned about aquatic biomes and the marine life of Haystack rock and tsunamis on the Oregon coast, wrote a comic called Screamin’ Sam (Field) after we almost missed or ship in Vancouver (!), learned how to make spicy pasta at a cooking demo on the ship, visited Fort Clatsop, where Lewis and Clark ended their expedition, studied Latin Present Perfect Tense endings, learned about all kinds of canoes, boats and ships, including viking longships and cruise passenger ships, wrote Writing Tips for how to structure writing, learned about European exploration, read an autobiography on Dr. Seuss and counted the total number of individual words used in Green Eggs and Ham, and learned about the glass artist Chihuly at his Seattle museum and watched a demonstration of glass blowing!

 

 

 

Week 9 of Homeschool: We learned present perfect tense Latin word endings, read about Shakespeare and made a paper replica of the Globe Theatre, learned about the power of the sun by making sun prints outside with special chemically-treated paper, counted angles and sides of shapes, learned about 6 forms of pollution, worked on division, started writing a paper about the Vikings, painted with watercolor, worked on writing numbers up to 23, learned about the Tang Dynasty of China and the building of the Grand Canal, started making Christmas Cards to give to the elderly this season, looked at possessive adjectives, skip-counted 13s, and packed for our cruise!

Week 8 of Homeschool: We learned how the Islamic religion began and made an edible desert oasis, played number knockout and incorporated square numbers and numbers to the power of 0, wrote another paper about Charlemagne including a key word outline, who-which clauses, because clauses, -ly dress-ups, and strong verbs, practiced making scrambled eggs and wrote our recipe in our personal cookbook, finished reading A Door In The Wall, worked with doubles in math and counted up to 100, began sentence diagramming with simple, compound sentences, watched a Punch & Judy show and put on our own production, practiced reading and writing, read about classical music composers, and played Out Of This World and learned all about the planets!