Fleur de Lis Homeschool Blog: 06/01/2016

Sunday, June 26, 2016

Chicken Coop June 20-26th, 2016 Almost Done!

Chicken Coop

June 20-26th, 2016 Almost Done!

Finishing the walls

Three panels of roof on!

Roof done!

Working on the gate:

Buried wire and it should be safe from any animals that try to dig under

Inside the coop: Painting going on!

First we painted everything with Kilz to seal it all up

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SL Core G Week 28 B Middle Ages (88th week on Core G!) June 20-26, 2016

SL Core G Week 28 B

Middle Ages

(88th week on Core G!)

June 20-26, 2016

Dd made Dh a Father's Day card...with the help of those funny minions! This is from some of that paper she soaked in tea and tried to make look aged. She worked hard to make the paper look this bad!

Hello Friends! This was finally an academic week! I was really feeling low about our slow pace, and having a week where we actually accomplished some work makes me feel so much better!!!

We worked with Mrs. March, and she changed Dd's sax/piano lessons from Tuesday to Wednesdays from now on. That means one less day of driving for an hour and a half for a thirty minute lesson. Now she will have her lesson with Mrs. March and then have her band practice--back to back! That is awesome for my schedule; so very much better!!!! Dd's violin lesson with Mrs. Reed is going well too! We have really accepted that it is 99% likely Dd will not be able to get into the intermediate orchestra after just a few months of violin. Dd says she will keep working on learning the violin and then perhaps NEXT year she can get in. That is definitely more likely to happen, and I don't have to feel pressured to make her practice more now for that! Musically this week went well, and Dd cut back a bit on her practicing this week. She needed a bit of time off.

Dd helping Dh put the new door he built up in the run. He had a lot of fun making this door.

We all have been working on the chicken coop---and are getting so very close to being done with it! Who knew it would be this big of a project?!! and how expensive it would turn out to be!! At least our coop is very well built and will stand up to most animal attacks, and last for years to come!

I let Dd pick the paint for the inside of the coop. She picked a dark and a light blue. She did a good job helping.

Weather and Chickens:

It has been very hot, and our grass is brown and dry in many places. Each day I bring the two chicken tractors out for the chickens to eat the grass and weeds, but the yard isn't doing very well with the dry, dry grass. The chickens are still eating a lot of bagged food; they certainly eat a LOT!

Dd certainly tries hard to teach our kitty, Agnes, to cuddle.

Our lessons:

Bible:
Veritas Press Gospels

Card 116: Completed

Apostles Sent Out

Matt 10: 5-15, Mark 6:7-13, and Luke 9:1-6

Read with Bible and Believer's Bible Commentary

Student Workbook pages completed for cards 114, 115, 116

Journey Through the Bible:

pg 259

Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations

Alex Harris, Brett Harris

Do Hard Things by Harris

ps 167-182

Trying to continue to use this book like a devotional. We just read one or two sections each day--something to chew on!

Math:
Teaching Textbooks Algebra I

Two days for lesson 39, Two days for the Test 5

*slow and steady, Algebra is hard for us!

Foreign Languages:

1. Sign Language:

Test for 3 & 4: passed Monday

Test for 5 & 6: passed Friday

taught lesson 7 on Friday

2. Rosetta Stone: French

60 minutes this week

Sonlight (SL) Reading:
Reader:

The Samurai's Tale by Erik C. Haugaard

I read this in the times Dd wasn't reading it. She had thought she wasn't liking it, as she was reading other samurai books, but finally came around to liking it. I think it helped that I started reading it last week and really enjoyed it very much! It always seems to help Dd if I've read it and liked it--plus I can discuss the book so much better. I recommend this book; thought it was very well done.

SL Read Aloud:

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

We are still reading this, but we listened to it on audio a few years back and really liked it then (and now!). Such a fun mystery!

Dd read her SL assignments for Kingfisher and Favorite Poems Old and New.

SL Timeline and Mapping for Week 27: Completed

Language Arts:

Easy Grammar, Plus

pg 291-295

Wrote Thank You note to G & G

Ten Minute Writings--having Dd write for ten minutes each day on whatever she wants, until we can start back on our writing program.

Science:

Apologia General Science: Module 10: complete

all the readings, study guide, test, and experiments for this experiment. I made a few posts on the specific experiments we did this module.

Music:

1 Violin Lesson

1 Band Lesson

1 hour of sax

6 hours of violin, sax and piano

**Instrument Fitting**

This week our band had a class offered for "Instrument Fitting" where the students took a big test on their musical ability, and then got to try out ALL the band instruments! It was really interesting. Dd hadn't ever got to try a Tenor Sax, and thought if she had before she probably would have picked that over the Alto Sax. She got to try everything from the flute to the tuba!

Exercise and Fun:

Capture the Flag/bond fire at the "V" families house. We were invited to the "V" house, with five other families, for a big Capture the Flag game, grilled hot dogs, and then the kids sat around a bond fire making S'mores. We are so thankful to have found some great fellowship!

Swimming:

Lots of swimming this week! Our pool finally got over 80 degrees!

BUSY HANDS:

Dd got a prize for doing her Rosetta Stone for two weeks, it was a knife/fire starter. She used it on Sunday night to start a bond fire by using only it! Then she got out our fire/cooking tripod and baked beans and weenie's for our Sunday dinner!

On Wednesday she got the charcoal grill out and grilled hamburgers and asparagus for our dinner.

Thursday she made GF Snicker Doodle cookies.

Saturday she made regular Snicker Doodle cookies for the Capture the Flag game we were invited to on Saturday.

Crocheting:
Monday and Tuesday Dd made herself a little purse/bag for her new camera (yard sale). She wanted someway to have it carry-able for her upcoming trip.

Drawing

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Apologia General Science Experiment 10.4 Turgor Pressure

Apologia General Science Experiment 10.4

Turgor Pressure

This was another experiment we have done before, most often with Queen Anne's Lace (weed/flower), but we were happy to do it again. First the glass of water, add food coloring, then add a plant that would show the veins change as they absorb the colored water.

Turgor Pressure: The Pressure inside a plant cell due to the increasing size of the central vacuole.

Plant cells are usually the shape of a square (unlike animal cells). A plant cell has a membrane around it, and a cell wall srrounding the outside of the membrane. The cell wall is a stiff or rigid structure that has holes in it. These holes are important because they allow nutrients to pass through so they can travel to and from the membrane. In the center of the cell is an organelle called the central vacuole--which is like a water balloon that increases with size as it fills with water. The added water will push the organelles and dytoplasm in the cell against the cell wall. The cell wall will push back against this force, and that explands the central vacuole. This pushing back and forth causes the cell to become rigid or stiff. When water is in decline the plant wilts and bends.

It would have been nice to show the leaves of the celery plant after the week, as they were really beautiful with their blue-purple lines were they had absorbed the dye, but it was a busy week!

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Apologia General Science 10.3 Vegetative Reproduction

Apologia General Science 10.3

Vegetative Reproduction

This was another easy experiment, and one that you can easily see the changes/growth. I pulled some vines from our yard, and put them in this glass jar. After a few days we could see the freshly sprouted white root hairs growing out of the vines. I've done this often with house plants, so we are very familiar with this process of Vegetative Reproduction already.

Vegetative Reproduction: The process by which one part of a plant can form new roots and develop into a complete plant.

The banana ziplock experiment was beside the vines---doing their changes beside each other.

Here is the same plant...now with LOTS of root hairs! This experiment was easy to do!

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Apologia General Science 10.2 Yeast Is A Decomposer

Apologia General Science 10.2

Yeast Is A Decomposer

This was a really easy experiment! We were comparing two ziplock bags---one with yeast on a banana, and one banana without anything on it. As the days went by the banana with the yeast got more and more mushy as it quickly decomposed.

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Apologia General Science Experiment 10.1 Factors That Affect Bacterial Growth

Apologia General Science Experiment 10.1

Factors That Affect Bacterial Growth

We mixed hot tap water with a chicken bouillon square. Then we divvied up that water into four glasses.

We added the salt to one glass, the vinegar to one glass, left one glass alone, put one glass in the refrigerator, and added yeast to one glass....that last one was a mistake. Dd had mixed up the different experiments we were to do during the week, and thought one glass was to have yeast added to it. So, we put it up on the window sill to see how it would do with the rest of the glasses.

As you can imagine the salt and yeast got VERY cloudy as each day went by. The chicken bouillon "fed" the bacteria already present in our glasses (and through the dust settling in the air). As the bacteria was being fed it reproduced and multiplied. As the bacteria grew, so did the cloudiness of our water.

After a few days we took a piece of paper and wrote "HELLO." Then we put the paper behind each glass to determine how clear or cloudy each glass had become. The glasses in the window sill seemed more cloudy than the glass in the refrigerator. Our house was particularly hot, since it is late June and no air conditioning being on.

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Sunday, June 19, 2016

Core G Week 28 "A" June 13-19, 2016 Three Rivers Parade

Sonlight Core G

Week 28 "A"

June 13-19, 2016

Three Rivers Parade

Dd is in Northern Lights Homeschool Band, and they had their first parade of the year on Thursday.

Hello Friends!

This week some daisies started blooming, and one Tiger Lilly also opened up! It sure is fun watching the cycle of blooms change. We saw Sandhill Cranes twice this week too. Then, of course, all our normal birds and critters have been around too. This is a great time of year, warm but too dry for the mosquitoes! They should be here very soon if I remember July correctly!

I was in the very middle of the gym, so none of the pictures really show how big it was! I took a few pictures before the sale started and it got chaotic.

This week (Monday) was the annual Used Book Sale at the Homeschool Building! I paid for two, six foot tables, and filled them to the brim! Plus the floor space under them! I found a lot of the Apologia science books I was wanting to buy, and many future Sonlight books I was needing too!!! I really am SO thankful for how well I scored in finding our materials. By the time to subtract the amount of money I made from the money I spent, I only spent a bit over one hundred dollars! I am very, very pleased! I hope I can sell more next year and try to get more of our books this way.

I only found one Core H for sale, and it was a 2013, but I wanted an early version (book questions all in one place), but had to buy it at the end of the day as I had no other option. Then on Tuesday I had to bring Dd back to the Homeschool Building for her sax/piano lesson with Mrs. March and found a 2008 Core H for sale in their store! So in 24 hours time I bought TWO Core H's! I figure I can sell one of them next year at the sale!

I think we will do Core H next, then Core 100, then Core 300. I will try to fit in all or part of Core 530. That is the plan for now.

See the lady with the piece of paper on her back? That is what you do, you write what you are looking for on a piece of paper, and put it on your back and people will tell you where they might have seen what it is your wanting....helpful!

Wednesday Dd had her band practice--the last practice before their first parade, which was on Thursday at Three Rivers. They had over 200 students in the band, plus two color guards. They did awesome!!! Words just don't do it justice! They have a whole chorographed routine they do, and it is very high energy. They look so impressive in their uniforms, too!

This is the organization, the band is called the Northern Lights.

http://www.wmhfa.org/

Dh has been making a lot of progress on the chicken coop!

We had so much activity this week that we had to do our science experiments on Saturday, and Dd had lessons to finish up on her own too. I'm afraid it is difficult for her to manage her time with all the marching band and music things going on. She is trying to prepare for the violin/intermediate orchestra try-outs that are in the end of July as well. I've advised doing two short violin practices each day to try and speed up her process of figuring out the violin, but this is a long shot. We leave it in the Lord's hands if that door is opened or not.

Our lessons this week:

\Bible: Veritas Press: Gospels

Card 115: The Sermon on the Mount: completed

Believer's Bible Commentary, Second Edition

Believer's Bible Commentary, Second Edition

William MacDonald

(Matthew 5-7 with bible and Believer's Bible Commentary)

Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations

Do Hard Things
Do Hard Things by Harris

pg's 154-167

Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1 Kit, Version 2.0

Greg Sabouri, Shawn Sabouri

Math: Teaching Textbooks: Algebra I

Dd is struggling again with Algebra, she did lesson 39, then redid it again to do better...then lesson 27, and redid it for a better score, then watched lesson 28's lesson twice trying to figure it out.

Rosetta Stone French:

five lessons this week (10 min's each)

Fun Audio:

A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story

A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story

Linda Sue Park

Long Walk to Water by Park

We read this with Core F, then bought the audio and listened to it, but that was a few years ago now and Dd didn't remember it. So, for our 1 1/2 hour drive down to Three Rivers, and 1 1/2 hour drive back home we listened to it again. We finished it during another drive this week...our band class is a 45 minute drive (each way) so we can fit in audio's fairly easily! This is such an inspirational story about perseverance...love it!

Music:

violin - one lesson with Mrs. Reed, and practicing twice daily

sax- band practice on Wed.

sax- private lesson with Mrs. March

and daily practicing

This is a Baritone!

BARITONE!

This Wednesday, Mrs. March let Dd bring home the band's Baritone (think enormous saxophone)! She played and played and played it this week! So exciting!