Sonlight Core G Week 32 July 25-30, 2016

Sonlight Core G 

Week 32 A (BP Week 22-24)

July 25-30, 2016

"Can Sophie come out and play?"

"Can you come back in an hour, we're still reading."

Hello Friends,

We have made a little progress this week, not as much as I had hoped, but Dd was asked to spend the night at her friends house.  After band on Wed. she went to "L's" Pool Party and then stayed for the night.  I was glad she was going to spend the night, but I had totally forgotten about the "day after" exhaustion that would mean (and did mean) NO homework on Thurs. (So, no lessons on Wed. or Thur.) It seems like I should have learned that lesson by now; but I guess I am a slow learner!!  So true!

Speaking of me being a slow learner---this has been one of those philosophical weeks where I go back to the same homeschooling doubts I've always struggled with.  No matter what year you ask about, I *always* have so much trouble fitting every subject into our schedule.  Science and Writing are the two most likely to get pushed to the side due to the 'only so many hours in the day' schedule.  HOW do people do it??  I certainly can never seem to maintain a perfect balance; at least a balance that pleases me!  I would guess that every homeschooling parent probably has as many of the same worries that I do, and that we all have to accept that we are each doing the very best job that we can in educating our children.  So, next week we will return to our IEW.  We did the SICCA Group "A," I think that is what it was called, now we will pick up where we left off and do the "B."  It is designed for middle school students, but I'd rather start with a program that is too easy than too hard, as that would really add too much strain to teaching.  Hopefully we can benefit from this program; it was fantastic the last time we did it.  Just thought I'd share, once again, that even homeschool families with ONE child don't even feel like they are doing homeschool perfectly, not even close!  I just aim to do my best.

Blog:
Not sure if you've noticed or not, but as my Dd is going to be officially in "high school" now, I need to be keeping track of the hours and minutes of subjects for her future transcript.  So, I am going to be trying to train myself to add in the details on my post to make sure it gets accomplished each week.  No fair judging if we do too much or too little; as we ebb and flow so much that each week is not a good indicator either way!  

Even though I had just put in new straw, the chickens have already tarnished the brand new coop with lots of their muck!  At least we took a picture of it when it was clean and nice, to remember it by.

Chickens:

On Tuesday we went to a 4-H Poultry meeting.  This was the second poultry meeting we went to this summer.  It seems our information was never given to the president of our club, and we weren't getting any of the emails.  Dd, after much thought, decided to not show one of our chickens this year.  She just doesn't feel prepared to stand in front of a judge and share. 

Our chickens are all doing very well.  It is getting much easier to round the chickens up each night, to go into their coop/run.  One night, I had left it to late, and they actually all went in without me!!  They are all doing really well and eating more greens as I've deducted some of the grain in their diet.



Eggs:
Sunday we had 8 eggs in the chicken egg box! awesome! We haven't had to buy eggs in three weeks.

Library:

We went to the downtown library this week-- I just love that library!  We also went to our local library too.

House:

Let's see---last Sunday night after we all got out of the pool we realized our pump wasn't running and the motor was super hot and giving off a horrid smell.  



So, Dh had to research, then order us a new pump.  Then after he put the new one in, the new motor was making really weird, not right, sounds.  We turned it off and investigated the wires and outlets.  Looking closely at the outlet we put the plug into, we saw it was burnt and the plastic melted!!  Dh took off the outlet and found all those wires were very old, and very wrong!  They were small wires twisted together, but they were suppose to be solid wires for the amount of voltage the pool requires. 



 Now Dh has been replacing the wires and outlet boxes and trying to right the problem.  We are very fortunate to not have had a major fire!  Dh has been working on the pool problem most of the week, and will need to order more parts.  In the picture below you can see the new gray pvc outlet line he replaced.  He had to re-wire and put in new outlets, and take out all the old wiring.  He thought it was just going to be a new pump, but it turned out to be a MUCH bigger problem.  He'll be working on this for at least another week.

This is the pump--new one in now.

Our lessons this week:

Bible:

Veritas Press: Gospels: Card 120: completed

The Transfiguration

read with the Bible and Believer's Bible Commentary, the following gospel versions on the Transfiguration:

Matt 17: 1-9, Mark 9: 2-10, Luke 9: 28-36

Journey Through the Bible:

pg 272-273

Survey of the Bible:

pg 159

Having finished Do Hard Things, Dd requested we do her favorite devotional:

The 100 Most Important Bible Verses for Teens:

pg 1-18

Church and Sunday School: 2:30 hours

Science:
Apologia General Science: Module 12: Energy and Life

completed week 1 of 2

Text: 293-311

Student Notebook: 188-195

Experiments: 12.1 and 12.3: completed 

Experiment 12.2 needed a purple cabbage leaf and I continued to forget it when I went to the store...not sure if we will do it next week or not?!


Gym/PE:
Swimming at "D" house: 4 hours

Math:

Teaching Textbooks: Algebra I:

Lesson 49 & 51 were done without problem, but she had to do Lesson 50 twice to get her score higher/understanding better.  

History:

Sonlight Timeline and Mapping:

Week 32 completed
Timeline Choice: After spending years loving the SL figures, but wanting more of them, a few years ago I went ahead and bought the big sets from History Through The Ages Timeline Set, from Home School In The Wood Publishing.  For example, the "Resurrection to Revolution" set has 280 black and white figures with name, date, and description text.  I love these!!!!  I've covered over my Sonlight figures with these, as these usually have more description in their text.  I bought mine at Rainbow Resource, no affiliation to any products, just one mom sharing what she likes...

BiblioPlan Advanced Maps:

Down Under-week 18b, Three Asian Countries-week18, and China-week 17 (my printer has died, and we are behind...new one to come soon!)

Having completed our Sonlight books for this week, but I have a few lined up to add into this section/time:

A Glorious Age In Africa: completed

Mystery of History: Middle Ages:Vol II: 

by Linda Lobar - Lessons 80-84

John Huss

Joan of Arc

Inca's of South America

Ottoman Empire

Gutenberg/Printing Press

Reader:

Ink on His Fingers by Vernon: Completed

(Reader on Johannes Gutenberg)

Famous Men of Renaissance and Reformation: by Robert G. Shearer

Petrarch & Giotto Filippo Brunelleschi and Donatello

Read Aloud:

Morning Star of the Reformation by Andy Thomson
**SO enjoying this book!** It is on John Wycliffe, and his story on how he brought the bible to the common man in a day and age when only scholars had access to the Latin bible.  Highly recommend!  Even though this book is listed for younger ages than high school; I find myself enjoying the book and content very much.  

Language Arts:

Word Roots by Critical Thinking Co.

pg 29-31

Foreign Languages:

1. Sign Language: 

A Basic Course in American Sign Language

Jun 1, 1994 | EveryBook

by Tom Humphries and Carol Padden

passed lesson 8, working on 9 & 10

2. Rosetta Stone: French:

20 x 2 = 40 min. this week

Busy Hands:

We bought a dehydrator at Aldi last week ($19.99!!) and Dd put up lots of banana's and now we have a lot of dried banana chips.

Wrote a post card to G&G

Sewing:

Dd is working on two dolls

Dinner:

Dd made some fantastic Tilapia fish, gluten free elbow noodles with carrot and goat cheese sauce---yum!

Cook Out: 
Dd made the hamburgers--though I did the hardest part, taking the frozen bags out of the freezer!  She started the charcoal, got the grill all set, and cooked her hamburgers and hot dogs.  Nicely done!

Dessert:
Made one lovely, gluten-free, chocolate cake!

Music:

Parade at Byron Center (Sat.)

1:1 piano lesson with Mrs. March :30 min.

1:1 violin lesson with Mrs. Reed: :30 min.

Marching Band class on Wed.: 1:30 min.

violin practice: 1:30 hours 

piano practice: 2:00 hours 

sax practice: 7:00 hours 


Fun Readers:
The Selection: Book One: Six hours reading
The Selection: Book Two: The Elite: Six hours reading
The Selection: Book Four: Air: Six hours reading
Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children: thirty min. reading 

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Our Garden July 26, 2016

Our Garden 

July 26, 2016

This is the pile of dirt I've been collecting for a new raised-bed.  Dh hasn't put the frame up yet, but I planted bunches of marigold flowers that had taken over our "tomato/celery/kale bed."  So far, they are all accepted the move.

Our Swiss Chard is coming along.  The volunteer acorn squase keep growing leaves that grow over the chard, and every few days I have to come and cut off those leaves to maintain their light exposure.

Speaking of acorn squash---here is our first one!  

We are still harvesting a lot of lettuce's for our salads, but I've had to buy some at the store as well... I should have bought a LOT more lettuce plants/seeds.  Michele Z. said the lettuce seeds I planted around June 30th wouldn't grow--but, they are!  She also said in August I could plant more (new) lettuce seeds and they would grow for our fall eating.  I better get on that!  August is about here!

These are the June 30th seed crop...the light green lettuce...doing great!

I'm showing you the bald spots...where our kohlrabi use to be, but have been harvested already.  Now we just have some tomato plants in that back spot--which we are eating now.

This is the first week of red tomatoes for Dh's salad!

Our broccolli is coming along...slowly!

This bed is only peppers--maybe 3-4 different kinds of peppers.  Dh has been getting some peppers in his salads for 2-3 weeks now, but I did take some small ones at first.

The 'tomato/celery/kale' garden bed is still over-stuffed; even though I removed gobs of marigold plants!  At least some of the celery and kale can breath a bit better now.  I should probably remove some more marigolds...I filled quite a few pots, as well as the 'to-be' raised bed.

Here are the seven pots I've filled with the excess marigolds!  They all seem to be accepting the move as well. 

You can actually see the dirt, from my removal of the marigolds.  The celery seems like it is starting it's decline---I seem to have missed the sweet spot of prime eating.  It is still okay, but not as tender as I hoped.  You can also see the kale--last weekend I mixed up a LOT of kale chips, which were very good and repeatable.  

Here is our messy herb/lettuce/marigold bed.  We used some lettuce seed packets from our library's seed share, but some of the lettuce had a bitter taste that I wasn't sure about.  There is still some spinach and good lettuce coming up in there, but I need to weed out that weird lettuce soon.  I think I'll plant some new lettuce there.  I'd like to transplant some of those over-zealous marigolds out of the bed, so I can use more space for eat-able foods.  I haven't had too much trouble with bugs, which was WHY I had planted so much marigold!

Our precious chickens have wandered into our garden a few times this week, and I had to chase them out.  They haven't been much a problem...luckily!

The chickens are always wandering around the outside fence of the garden.  I wrapped a metal cage around my grape plant that is planted on the outside of the fence, and they leave it alone.  I don't mind them pecking at the outside leaves.

The profile pix of the tomato plants...really tall!

Why am I sharing this well lid?  I found five baby rabbits in a little hoe there this week.  I kept putting back one wild baby (2x) this week.  When a storm was coming I got out one of my umbrella to shield the nest; but apparently the rabbit mom didn't like the umbrella and moved the babies by the morning.

Now you know why I have a huge umbrella in my yard!  I've moved it around now that the bunnies are gone.  I guess I could mow again--- I had such a great reason not to mow--I was just "protecting" those bunnies!  But, now I don't know where those cute bunnies are and am afraid of finding them the wrong way.

This little side garden is doing okay too.  I'm still getting a little bit of lettuce, but which it was more.  The black raspberry plant we brought from Indiana has some berries getting close to ripping.  

  

A Painted Lady butterfly found our ragged cone-flower.  This week I have seen so many butterflies---especially those yellow Tiger Swallow-tale butterfly.

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Apologia General Science Experiment 12.3 Body Temperature

Apologia General Science 

Experiment 12.3 Body Temperature

Our first step was to take Dd's temperature, then go outside and soak up some major heat and re-take her temperature.  

We used the "Tempa Dot" and our normal thermometer to take her temperature.

After being outside, in the intense heat for 15-20 minutes, her temperature went up one degree.

Then we went to our very chilly basement, and Dd laid on the cold concrete floor.  After 15-20 minutes chilling we took her temperature again.  Her temp dropped down a degree.

Purpose:
Because we are ENDOTHERMIC, our internal temperatures don't rise or fall too much, but stay relatively the same temperature.  We use our energy to regulate our body's temperature.  This quality is unique to us mammals, but many other creatures are ECTOTHERMIC--- they are cold-blooded and their temperature does get effected by the outside temperatures.

Ectothermic organisms require less food than endothermic organisms.  We mammals require a lot of calories to maintain our stable internal temperatures.

This was an easy experiment.

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Apologia General Science Experiment 12.1 What Combustion Needs

Apologia General Science 

Experiment 12.1 What Combustion Needs

These are the things we needed for the experiment.  Dd decided to add blue food color to the liquid in the bowl, for fun, towards the end, for fun!  You don't need to though!

First Dd lite the candle, then put a glass over the flame/candle to see how it would react.

The flame is using up the oxygen in the glass.

Once the oxygen was gone, the candle went out.

Next Dd added in a cup of vinegar...maybe 1 1/2 cups.

Then she lite the candle again, and it burned.

Then she added teaspoons of baking soda.

As the vinegar mixed with the baking soda, carbon dioxide was formed, and without oxygen, the candle went out.

For fun, Dd added blue food coloring to watch it spread out.

Dd lite another candle and tried to re-light the candle, but the bowl was still full of carbon dioxide, and would NOT light!  The match went out as soon as it got below the surface of the bowl.

Dd swished the air around in the bowl and cleared out the carbon dioxide, then tried another match, and it did light.

We've done this experiment with dry-ice and it works just the same.  It is easier to gather vinegar and baking soda than dry-ice!  

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