Sept. 16-20th, 2013 Trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan

Sept. 16-20th, 2013  

Trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan

Monday Dd and Dh went to Bloomington to support Giz as she got her knee replaced.  That sounds weird--'knee replaced'??!!!  It went well and the whole family; except me and my mother were there.  I stayed at home to have one last day alone with my mother before she headed back to Maine on Tuesday.

Tuesday we took Dd to the Greene's house for the morning while Dh and I took my mother to the airport.  We went to the airport hours early and got all settled in our station plenty early so we would be sure to avoid the rushing and crowds.

Wednesday we drove to Holland, MI. and enjoyed seeing this cool town.  Then we drove on to our final destination--Grand Rapids.  We picked a hotel that allowed our dog, Sophie to come along with us!  So great to have our Sophie with us and not to have to worry about how she was doing.

Michigan was simply BEAUTIFUL!  I really thought it was gorgeous!  Lots of trees and big woods.  Way more land than people; which is really lovely!

Thursday we toured this and that --- and then went to Smokey Bones Resturant to celebrate Dh and my 15th year of being married.

Friday we went to Kirt Park, which is on Lake Michigan---wow, was it great!!!!  http://www.holland.org/listings/Kirk-Park/234/

Dd was looking for little rocks on the shore and having a great time getting her feet wet.  Then a woman came with her lab and asked if her dog and our dog could play.  They played catch with a tennis ball; running into the waves and swimming after the ball together.  Then the next thing you know Dd is also in the water!  It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so cold in the water and outside as well.  But, Dd did find lots of little pebbles in the water--well, about 10-15 of them.  Then we headed back home; and arrived after 9pm!  What a week.

Sat. we unpacked and Sunday we got back in the van and headed to southern Indiana to visit Giz who requested a visit.  We brought her down two roasts and a tomato dish.  She didn't like the tomato dish; but she loved the roast!  Hopefully the roast will last her a few days.

Reader:

Li Lun, Lad of Courage (The Newbery Honor Roll) by Carolyn Treffinger and Kurt Wiese

Dd's reader this week--Li Lun, Lad of Courage

Read Aloud:

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

Case for Christ for Kids (Case for... Series for Kids) by Lee Strobel,

The Case for Christ--by Lee Strobel

"Standard"--Bible Study - for our family Bible Study - these are the pamphet books for the adult bible study from Giz and Grampy's church...we just love these.  I don't have all the info about them memorized.

Who Is My Neighbor? (And Why Does He Need Me?) -- Biblical Worldview of Servanthood (What We Believe, Volume 3... by John Hay and David Webb

Apologia's:  What We Believe-Who Is My Neighbor? pg 237-263

 

 

 

DVD's:

 

Five Mile Creek - The Complete First Season

 Journey back to the booming Australian gold rush of the 1860s, a wild Outback frontier, and the spirited pioneers who aim to tame it. Now for the first time on DVD, enjoy every episode of the trailblazing first season of FIVE MILE CREEK, which chronicles a story of outlaw bushrangers, ruthless government troops, and the challenges of making an emerging stagecoach line a rip-roaring success. Filmed entirely on location -- your whole family can experience the adventure, courage, and heart of these enterprising young settlers as they meet one incredible challenge after another.~~

Sept. 7th-15th, 2013 Rebecca Mattox visits us in Indiana

Sept. 7th-15th, 2013  Rebecca Mattox visits us in Indiana

Well, we had a visitor here from my side of the family!  That is something that just practically never happens.  My mom visited; she had stopped by a few years ago for a really short visit so this was really different.  So, we didn't do our normal week or anything "normal" at all--except we still went to the library twice this week and went for walks around our neighborhood trail.  I wanted to give mom all my attention and focus on her completely.  It was interesting to hear about how things were going for her in her life and catch up a little. 

Sunday (9-7-13) was our LHE co-op Family Picnic/Get Together at the Avon Park and we all had a great time.  We were thankful for the Greene family for sitting with us and keeping us chatty.

On Thursday our LHE Co-op started back up and I taught my  new art class.  Dd had her new schedule.  She has a Puppetry Class---they will preform at the end of the semester to a song, I imagine.  Then she has a Gym class; and lastly she has a Catapult -- Storm the Castle class.  I'm helping to teach the catapult class too---and they built a catapult on the first class out of raw materials.  My friend, Julia brought cardboard, index cards, plastic spoons, rubber bands, paper clips, cardboard egg carton sections.....and they did it!  Very cool!

Thursday night we all went to work at the food pantry: The Giving Tree.

Sunday we went to the Plainfield Christian Church.  It had changed it's service a lot since the last time we had gone there--- I specifically chose that church b/c in the past you could go in and hear a wonderful, moving sermon and go out without much interaction--which I knew my mother would SO appreciate the limited interaction; and then *this* time they had incorporated a 'greet your neighbor' time and a 'form small circles, and say prayers together' time--which isn't what I thought my mother would like!!!  eek!  But, she took it all like a champ and didn't complain or walk out!  The sermon was on Honoring your parents; which was timely!

"Artist of the Week" and "Composer of the Week"

"Artist of the Week" and "Composer of the Week" process--- a friend of mine asked about the details of our artist study, so after I typed it out I thought I might as well post it on here too---maybe someone else could benefit?!  We love it. 

Each week (usually) we have 1 "Artist of the Week" and 1 "Composer of the Week".  Here are my really un-fancy; uncomplicated guidelines.  I'm sure anyway you do it, it can be beneficial to your lessons---as long as you do it!

Van Gogh (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists) by Mike Venezia

I really don't do any big deal--- I own a lot of those "Getting to Know the Greatest Artist..." by Mike Venezia and I read half of the book on Monday --generally pages 1-18 and then we look at other books I own of that artist work Tues or Wed (if I have more art books on that artist) or I just show the paintings or artwork a few times during the week--and then I finish up the second half of the book either Thursday or Friday--generally pages 18--32. I try to spread out the artist and the art work throughout the week to get that info into the "long term memory" folders in the brain----silly memory tricks, I know!

Any of these basic biographies give a good general description of the artists life and some of the artists most famous works.  It is great to have another book with more illustrations of their artwork; but that doesn't always happen.

I've been trying to get my daughter to tell me back or write down the main things from the artist.  Like when she was talking about Georgia O'Keefe I made sure she got WHY she painted flowers so big; and WHY that was important...What was Georgia KNOWN for ....

What is Degas KNOWN for....
What is Van Gogh KNOWN for....

I leave out a few books with that artist work around for her to look at during the week---and encourage her to look at these books and she what she likes about this particular artist...or what she doesn't like, if that is the case.  I tell her what I like--specifically too.

just to get the main idea and concepts understood.... but, I don't do any real homework or prep work on my end.  If you don't own art books you could just pick an artist for the week and look them up on the internet and look at the images there--and lots of info is available.  I just like books in my hand.  Or you could check them out from your library. 


The composers---we do the "Meet the Greatest Composers" series:

Meet the Great Composers Book 1 (Learning Link) by June Montgomery and Maurice Hison

We finished book 1, and are about to start book 2:

Meet the Great Composers: Book 2 (Learning Link) by Maurice Hinson

The Composer books are exactly the same--they have all the text right there for you to read; and they have the disc for you to listen to their music, and tell you which tract to play.  I also have a LOT of books on composers and my daughter knows if she wants to find out MORE, all she has to do is go to that section in our family library and read up on that composer.  We (especially, me) love to listen to classical music!!!  It is so interesting to find out the life story behind each musician and listen to their music.


Adding the "Artist of the Week" and "Composer of the Week" to our lessons has definitely taken just about an hour of time to our week---but has made my daughter SOOOO HAPPY!!!  She really, really LOVES that we do this!!!  It is like we are playing a board game in the middle of our lessons!  She really thinks this is "not lessons"; but pure joy and fun!  It really is seen by her as a treat; and helps her attitude greatly!

Sept. 2-6th, 2013 In Between Core E & F

Sept. 2-6th, 2013 
In Between Core E & F

This was an unusual week for more than a few different reasons:

1) I had a migraine, or was working on a migraine each morning that built up during the day until I was miserable each late afternoon and evening.  Wednesday, I had the worst migraine of the year...it was HORRIBLE.

2)We were between Sonlight Cores; we finished Core E and took a break this week before starting on Core F.

3)We had 2 big field trips planned for this week--one with our large homeschool group (HBHE) and one with our small homeschool group (LHE).

4)I had PLANS to really clean and tidy my house for my mother's visit----but, with my headache's and migraines; that did NOT happen.  I didn't even get my yard mowed yet!

Our Field Trips this week:

Wednesday we went to the Indianapolis Zoo



Dolphin Show

I took about 10 pictures, TRYING to get a shot of the dolphins jumping up in the air hitting the red ball with their noses; and my camera is so slow--and awful--that I never could time it right!!!  But, I included a few of my attempts for you all to get a chuckle at my attempts!!!!  At least you can see the splash in this picture.

In this picture, I didn't get the dolphin--again; but you can still see the red ball swinging!

 


 Pet the Sharks

In this tank, we get to touch the sharks with 2 fingers---gently!

 






Aquariums












Fruit Bat Exhibit

Dd's favorite part of the zoo trip was the Dolphin show, petting the sharks, the bird houses, and the bats!





Howler Monkey's

Various Bird Houses

  

This bird landed on me!  How sweet!

Elephants

We hadn't been to our zoo in about 2 years; b/c we had been so often.  Well!  They had really improved and added LOTS of new things!  I was especially happy with the new bird habitats and a Fruit Bat exhibit.  The bird habitats were walk through spaces that were full of birds that flew past, around, and one even landed and stayed on my shoulder for a while!  That was a lovely treat!  We had a great time at the zoo!  I could type for pages.

Thursday we went to the Hunter's Bee Farm--

Here are some of the bees!

 


 


 





 

 

Since we didn't get the tour we were suppose to get; we got to make a bee's wax candle and fill up a honey bee jar with honey instead----I'd rather have had the tour; I bet the tour would have been very interesting.

Dd favorite part of the field trip was making the candle and getting to push the button to get her own jar of honey.

The person who was suppose to give our tour was unable to be there on our tour day---some family emergency; so we had a replacement.  It was suppose to be a real tour and I'm assuming it was suppose to be 'educational'; but unfortunately it really wasn't very educational...in my opinion.  They did show us each step in the process, of how they bring in the wooden boxes and how they separate the Bee Pollen and the Wax and what they do with each part.  Each of us got to make our own candle from a triangle shaped bee's wax sheet and a wick, that we rolled up into a finished candle.  We also got to put an empty plastic honey bear container under a nozzle and push a button that then filled the little jar up with honey for us to take home with us.  We also got to pick out 2 honey sticks from their many different flavored honey stick assortments that were for sale in their gift shop.  They sell lots of honey, make lots of bees wax candles, some deodorants and lotions with the bees wax---okay, I shouldn't start naming what all they make b/c they have a whole store full of all their products!!!  candy, lollipops, .......

Here are our lessons for this week:

 Bible:

Who Is My Neighbor? (And Why Does He Need Me?) -- Biblical Worldview of Servanthood (What We Believe, Volume 3... by John Hay and David Webb

Apologia: Who Is My Neighbor: (What We Believe Series) pg. 230-237

Case for Christ for Kids (Case for... Series for Kids) by Lee Strobel, Rob Suggs and Robert Elmer

The Case for Christ for Kids by Lee Strobel pg. 1-42

The Elements:
The Elements: Continuing on with our latest obsession--The Elements!  The University of Nottingham has a website with the "Periodic Table of Video's" and we watch some of these each day.  This week we watched:

Tc-Technetium
Ru-Ruthenium
Rh-Rhodium
Pd-Palladium
Ag-Silver

http://www.periodicvideos.com/

Foreign Language:

Rosetta Stone French Level 1-5 Set by Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone-French

3x this week= 30-45 minutes....good week!

Math:

Math-U-See Epsilon Teacher Kit (Complete Kit) by Steven P. Demme

Math U See: Epsilon: WE FINISHED EPSILON!

Lesson 30 A, B, C, D, E, F, A1

We started Nov.12, 2012--Sept.6, 2013!!! 10 months! 

Mind you we do every single page, and also print out extra pages from the online "worksheet generator" at Math U See's website whenever we have a lesson that is particularly difficult and we need to work on it longer than 1 week. 

Audio:

The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 3) Publisher: Listening Library (Audio); Unabridged edition... by Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson series; book 3: The Titan's Curse -in process

Reader:

Little House on the Prairie (Little House, No 2) by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingles Wilder--in process

Art:

Sand Art--a Cross--it looks like a stained glass cross.

Sewing- Dd sewed up some of Dh's clothes!

Beading: 2 necklaces and 1 bracelet---really, really nice...hint, I am wearing one now!

Walks:

Only one walk this week; and it wasn't with pitiful me!  I was out of commission this week; with the exception of the 'Have To's' which consisted of the field trips; so Dh took Dd and dog, Sophie for a walk this week.  I'm hoping next week I'll be feeling better and be able to take them both for walks again in the mornings.

Fun book:

The Kingdom of Fantasy (Geronimo Stilton) by Geronimo Stilton

Geronimo Stilton: The Kingdom of Fantasy-finished







Prizes:
With the completion of math--Epsilon, and completion of Core E, Dd got 3 prizes the past 2 weeks: here are her prizes:



Core E Prizes:
1) LEGO The Lord of the Rings Hobbit Shelob Attacks   




2)  LEGO The Hobbit Escape from Mirkwood Spiders



Math Prize:

LEGO LOTR 79006 The Council of Elrond 


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