Weekly Updates

Week 7 of Homeschool: We learned our Possessive Pronouns, wrote a key word outline for “A Door in the Wall” then used it to write our own back cover blurb, learned about Leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare, Michelangelo and Copernicus of the Renaissance period, wrote a comic about the reign of Queen Elizabeth, studied more Latin word endings, listened to our dear friend Busbee’s songs and shared stories about the special person he was to us, learned how animals react to environmental change and discovered a bug with leaf-shaped feet in our yard, created our own beautiful versions of classic pieces of art, finished a 100 page comic book entitled “Thin Man and the Boisterous Battle of Blobby (Field), and went to the Crocker Art Museum, where we saw gorgeous pottery, looked for the special floor tile in Crocker’s mansion, and created a flower with art magnets!

Week 6 of Homeschool: We built our own lava lamp, practiced Number Knockout, learned our objective pronouns, lost our first 2 teeth – both on the same day (Francis!), learned about the Hundred Years’ War and the plague, classified sentences, skip counted 9’s and 10’s and practiced counting with dimes, wrote a paper about Charlemagne, used different numbers to make 10, went to the Farm to Fork Festival where we heard Willie Nelson’s son Luke Nelson perform, got ballon creations, and sampled Sacramento faire, found European cities on a map, read a Pete the Cat book and read almost every single word (Francis!), learned about the Nitrogen, Water, and Carbon & Oxygen Cycles, welcomed Fall (Mom’s favorite season) and went to Bishops Pumpkin farm where we rode a train, a carousel, picked sunflowers, petted goats, and took a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch, where we picked our own pumpkins!

Week 5 of Homeschool: We learned about King John and the Magna Carta, played number knockout, learned about the food chain and created food webs with string, met our CC friend’s guinea pigs, learned about the Byzantine Empire and Justinian’s Code, read “The Apple Pie That Papa Baked” and baked an apple pie (from our Machado Orchards apples!), wrote a key word outline and final paper entitled “Augustine, a Brave Bishop,” found European Rivers on the map, studied imperfect tense Latin endings, made a camping checklist, learned our nominative pronouns, added numbers to make 10, read in “A Door in the Wall,” celebrated Grampy’s 77th birthday, and went to Apple Hill for Apple Cider Doughnuts, fresh apple cider, and apple slinkys!

Week 4 of Homeschool: We found Western European countries on the map, wrote a paper about Beowulf, did science experiments to understand why Saturn’s rings are transparent, analyzed sentence structure, read in A Door In The Wall, played piano duets with our teacher (Field), made slime, skip counted the 5’s and 6’s, created art by looking at images upside-down in order to focus on lines and shapes, learned about the Crusades, studied first conjugation Latin endings, made an album of original music called “Wet Lego” (Francis), learned more French words, played number knockout, looked for mountains and lakes on maps, memorized the order of pronouns, learned about 3 types of consumers, and went on a field trip to Machado Orchards, where we ate fruit right off the tree, saw their pie baking operation, and drank apple cider!

 

Week 3 of Homeschool: We colored a map of the globe by biomes, wrote a paper about Charlemagne,  practiced skip counting our 3s and 4s, researched Attila the Hun, started reading A Door in The Wall for our CC book club, practiced writing French greetings and numbers, found European Waters on the map, wrote about our favorite things, practiced first conjugation Latin endings, wrote a chart of verb types, attributes and tenses, learned about the major types of biomes, wrote key word outlines and a paper about the Byzantine Empire (including ly-adverb endings and who/which clauses), learned about William the Conqueror and Feudalism, built a Playmobil Space Shuttle launching pad, and celebrated Francis’ 6th birthday with cake, ice cream, the What’s in the Bible characters, and Dave & Busters games!

Week 2 of Homeschool: We learned sentence classification, studied Latin first conjugation endings, gave a presentation on our trip to the SF Museum of 3D Illusions (Francis), learned about Barbarians coming to Britian and heard the story of Beowulf, had our first piano lesson of the semester (Field), wrote Psalm 3 on a shield and put it under our pillow to help us remember God’s promises at night, learned French greetings (tres bien!), practiced our penmanship, learned about Charlemagne, did our first IEW assignment and created 3 key word outlines and a final draft on the Middle Ages, worked on spelling and punctuation via dictation, memorized the 6 days of creation, learned the continents and oceans, skip-counted 2s, read about Joseph and made our own Joseph with a (Christmas) coat of many colors, learned the difference between sides and vertices, and went to Sunsplash Water Park!

 

 

 

Week 1 of Homeschool: We took first day of school photos (my how they’ve grown!), learned about habitats and made observations of our own backyard habitat, used pattern blocks to solve math equations, built an Ames Room and created optical illusions, studied the Biblical family line of Adam to Noah, opened our Schuletute’s to find fun school supplies and treats (a German tradition from my own childhood in Germany!), learned about barbarians and the Roman Empire and made our own ancient Roman signum, studied Isaiah 53:5 and learned what “chastisement” means, and built our own 3D phone hologram from an old CD case!

Week 37 of Homeschool (our last week of school!): We made a mini-puppet theatre with strings and tension, wrote our own newspaper, read in our Spirit Flyer book, made a working planetarium, worked on resolution in our writing, received awards for t-ball, went to the Inspire Curriculum Showcase, used strings and straws to build turtles, then raced them, learned about the first Roman Prince and the beginnings of Christianity, made an accordion book reflecting on the school year, and went to the Folsom zoo where we saw, tigers, peacocks, eagles and raccoons!

Week 36 of Homeschool: We went to Lake Tahoe and played in the snow, read in Treasure Island, went to the Reno Discovery Museum and flexed our brains in Mindbender Mansion, learned more about Julius Caesar, built a circuit shark game with paper and copper tape, went to Donner Memorial State Park and learned about the plight of the Donner Party, built our own modern sculptures, learned new Spanish words, discovered cool facts about Lake Tahoe (like that is has snowed every month of the year there!), learned about Lake Tahoe’s water Cycle, worked on writing words, and finished Spirit Flyer Book #5!

Week 35 of Homeschool: We collected various leaves and made rubbings, learned how to read clocks, wrote out and discussed Psalm 100, learned about Julius Caesar, played t-ball, learned new Spanish words, worked on Multiplication, learned new Latin words, read more in Spirit Flyer book #5, made paper cupcakes, went to John’s Incredible Pizza and played games, started writing about the art of writing, went to see our cousin in a play, made a very hungry paper caterpillar, and went to our last classes at Fusion Homeschool Academy, replete with bouncy houses, recitals, an ice cream party and a Writer’s Corner at a cafe!