Core F Week 15 Feb. 3rd-15, 2014

Core F 

Week 15 

Feb. 3rd-15, 2014

Another snow filled week here in the Antarctic!  I think the weather station said we have already had 44 inches of snow - and it is only the first week of Feb.!  Gracious! I am beginning to think that I could drive in the snow; this has been very good for my nervousness about that and I've grown accustomed to it.  I still hit "my" breaks, on the passengers side when my husband is driving me around.  His idea of when to break, and my instinct of when breaking should start are two different times apparently!!  He is fearless!

Well, my heart is still very heavy, sad, and pained over my Joe.  Over 13 years of day-in, day-out friendship and companionship--loyal and true. As I sit here and type this I can't imagine that I won't have him coming over to visit me.  I don't want to look down beside me, because he won't be there---lovingly looking up at me, patiently waiting his turn, when I will stop pecking and start petting him.  Such a great cat; a cat that seriously only had eyes for me.  The vet asked if my daughter would be upset, and I had to honestly tell her, 'no', that he was "my cat".  He didn't see anyone else in the world (or the house) but me and the way he would look at me was as if I was much more than I am--I could never deserve such affection.  I'll stop talking about him now, or I'll really start crying.  But, this was a really hard week for me.  But, I am relieved he is out of the spiral downwards.  I don't have to see him getting worse and worse and worse--which was torture for me; although he took it in stride--never complained.  I am so thankful that our heavenly Father gave me a cat that showed me such love.

We finally finished our 'slow' audio Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling, and I wanted to say a few things about it.  I don't know why it isn't pushed out there more and recommended b/c it really has some good lessons for middle school or high school students.  It could be that it was written in the 1800's and therefor has the unfortunate wording - has the 'N' word in it a few times.  That really is bothersome, but you can tell that it was really from the time period that it was written.  It also has some sentences and impressions that are of the times regarding woman and men too; but that is only natural with an older book.  If you can look past those things, like we do with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn then you are in for a very unique story. 

Basically it is the evolution of a spoiled rich 15 year old boy into a humbled, hard working young man who understands the value of money and a hard days work.  His transition is one that we would all wish upon our children; or at least I would hope on mine.  But, as a parent it also had some insights that were pertinent.  The boy had been washed overboard, and found in the sea by a ship as they were heading out for a big fishing expedition.  They didn't return back to New England for a few months; just long enough for the boys transformation to take place.  Upon his landing, he telegraphed his parents to come pick him up (and that he was alive!!!!).  When his father arrived, he was amazed to see not his former impudent son, but a new creature entirely--one he could be proud of--not a disgrace like before.  

His father is a billionaire and is quite successful in many aspects of his life.  He confides in his son about his career and tells his son the one type of man that looms above him: "The Learned".  Here is one of the best sections of the book, in my opinion, where he describes how this world belongs more and more to the men who rest their elbows on their chins and READ...get college educations...etc. etc.  How the educated men see him as a "muddler"; someone who is uneducated, but still somehow makes his way through this world making money and succeeding.  He wants more for his son; to gain the knowledge and experience he has to offer his son; PLUS a college education of book learning!  It was such a good little speech!  I really enjoyed it tremendously.  I asked my daughter what she thought of it, and she didn't even really notice this section.  I guess it was more inspiring for us parents whose goals of helping our children to soar are similar to his.  It was a very inspiring story, we listened to it on audio; and I bet I listened to disc 5 about 5 times--over and over again trying to get every morsel and nugget of information out of it that I could.  As Mr. Knightly would say..."Well Done!"

*****

I'm going to try to do this update without my bells and whistles b/c after I typed up my entry it didn't get saved.  I spent over an hour typing, cutting, and pasting getting it just right...now I am just going to try to get it down and not spend any more time on it than necessary to feel like I've accomplished my task.

This week's art from Dd was coloring Star Wars pictures, I'll post them here and there throughout this posting:

 

Bible:
Veritas Press: Genesis Through Joshua
We have finished cards 28, 29, 30, & 31 this week.

We were reading Deut. 34, Joshua 1,2,3,4,5,6; Joshua 21 & Judges 1.  After reading each section our bible we read the matching section in our Believer's Bible Commentary.
We did our sections on Journey Through the Bible, The Greenleaf Guide to the Old Testament, and VP worksheets.  Some weeks we just really click on doing our Bible; and this week was one of those weeks.  



Math: Math U See Zeta: 16 A-E
Skip Counting Family- 8 Family, 3x per day- each day



Photography: Dd is still enjoying taking pictures of birds and natures scenes.
 



Read Aloud's:

The Land I Lost-completed
There should be a warning with this book, as the protagonist is very un-American and see's animals so drastically different than we do.  It was harsh to our senses to read these chapters, and apparent we were in another culture that thought and lived very opposed to how we relate to animals.

Whatever Happened to Penny Candy-completed 
We finished this up...no raves from Dd.

Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (in Old English)- in process

SL assigned "Articles" (in IG):
Religion in Modern China
India Land of the Devout
Hinduism: From Here to Nirvana

100 Gateway Cities
we read sections from South East Asia

Dh read some at night: in process
The Case for Christmas by Lee Strobel



Computer Odd's:
CNN Student News

Rosetta Stone French--30 minutes

EHN / World Book :
30 minute sessions- 5 sessions





 Science:
Apologia: Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures: 
WHALES (pg.s 47-50)





Language Arts:
SL Language Arts pages-Week 5,6, and part of week 7

Following Narnia-IEW
Outline for Magicians Nephew

Vocabulary for Following Narnia:
vengeance, ostentatious, abominably

Fix-It- IEW
Week 29-completed

AAS 5: Step 26 passed

Daily Grams
Day 16-20 (pg per day)



Dd's Reader's:

Just So Stories - The Original Classic Edition by Rudyard Kipling

Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

The Gold-Threaded Dress by Carolyn Marsden

The Gold-Threaded Dress by Carolyn Marsden-completed

The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 3) by Rick Riordan

Titan's Curse-Percy Jackson-Rick Riordan-completed (she had started this book last week)

The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 5) by Rick Riordan

The Last Olympian-Percy Jackson-completed (she read this whole book within the week! and on her free time at night and in the mornings before our lessons started)

LHE Co-Op:
Dd has 3 classes each Thursday:
1) Mission to Mars
2) Gym
3) Drama




 
Artist of the Week:
Pieter Brugel

Pieter Bruegel (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists) by Mike Venezia

Pieter Bruegel (Great Artists) by Adam G. Klein

What Makes a Bruegel a Bruegel? by Richard Muhlberger

This is a fine example of how buying art books at used books stores is--you can have 3 books on Peiter Bruegel, which are all really book, btw, and none on another equally great artist!  It is really the luck of what is available.  But, we really liked all three of these books.



 Poet of the Week:
John Keats

Classic Poetry: An Illustrated Collection by Michael Rosen

Norton Anthology of Poetry by Alexander Allison

The Poets' Corner: The One-and-Only Poetry Book for the Whole Family by John Lithgow

Since John Keats was such a prolific poet, we had LOTS to read this week!!!  I think I might have drowned Dd in poetry this week.  The book by John Lithgow had a nice summary on John Keats, which was more than the brief paragraphs the other two books provided.  For once, I think we really did a super good job on having a week of poetry.




Composer of the Week:
Fanny Mendelson Hensel

Meet the Great Composers, Bk 2: Book & CD (Learning Link) (Paperback) - Common by By (author) June Montgomery

Upwards Basketball: Practices on Monday and games on Saturday mornings.  Dd lost game 6 of 8; but played a good game.  But, they had won the first 5 games--so it was a good rounding out to have a loss in there.




How to make a Marshmallow Catapult:

Since I was in a Catapult class that make a catapult out of wooden skewers, plastic spoon, masking tape, large marshmallows, small marshmallows, rubber bands and it was so much fun I brought home the materials and had Dd make her own catapult and test it out!!!




The necessary materials---plus masking tape--if you want to make one of this catapults at your home too.




 

First make the triangle base below, then make the triangle come up and meet in the middle as shown above.



 

One of the bases will have two posts coming up out of it, one for the top triangle, and one to hold your --- (take your remaining skewer and measure where to tape your plastic spoon so that it will long enough so that it will shoot well, then once you've measured it, then tape the spoon to the skewer.  Then put a rubber band through the two opposing sides of the top triangle so the spoon has somewhere to hang, then put your spoon through and push into it's base and test it out with small marshmallows.  In our class one student used TWO rubber bands and his catapult shot farthest of all, so you can experiment with how long to make your spoon or how many bands, or whichever you want.  After a few shots our marshmallows gave way and we had to help by holding our catapult as we shot it.  But, it was still fun to do!

 

 And the fun begins---blasting the small marshmallows all around the room!!!

ETA: then the next day the marshmallow gets harder and works even better.

....