Homeschool Highlights #3

Last week I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue with this, but I can see the benefits of writing a weekly post and while I am still getting used to this, I have actually been looking forward to it this week.
Here is what I will do: I will give a brief recap of what we did, but I may post in more detail later. I really want to continue to share in my usual topical style, but writing a weekly will enable me to write more freely about our week without being limited to a topic. I don't have my posts written for this week yet, but at the end of this post I will let you know what is coming up, (like I did last week).
This week:

• Dylan, Mali and Elli all were sick with a fever. (Jordan, Nathan and I all had it the week before). So, we did not get to all that I had planned this week (or last).

• We wrapped up a very long soccer season. Three of my boys play soccer and two of those boys volunteer their time to ref games at the YMCA. I can't say no to the Sports Programmer who schedules all of these games (he is my husband *Ü*). Between practices, games and refereeing, we have been busy. While soccer may be over, there is no end in sight for sports. Nathan and Dylan start basketball this coming week and we are considering ice hockey for Jordan.

• I had some exciting news. I won the #2 grand finale giveaway at 1+1+1=1. I was so surprised, and even more surprised when it arrived in less than 48 hours. Here is what I won:

A Strider Running Bike!

I really, really wanted to win this. I have wanted one for awhile now and I love the concept of this bike. (I said I would be willing to share about it and while I am sharing about it here, this is not my official post about it). For now, I want to share how excited I am that I won this and how I tied this into school for my oldest this week as a Product Assembly Project.
I have been working on giving Jordan projects that are geared towards his interests/abilities and mechanical things is one of them. So, as much as I wanted to put this together as soon as it showed up on our doorstep, I waited until he could assemble it.

Jordan assembling the Strider bike.

My 2 year old and 4 year old love this bike and are gaining confidence as they learn to balance while riding around the house. As soon as they get the hang of it, we will take it to the gym and then I will share more about it.

This week (continuing on):

• I posted my review of the Workbox System and was asked about what I include in the older kids' workboxes. I am going to start sharing in my weekly post some of the things I put in them.

Our daily boxes look like this:

1. Bible - the boys read a proverb a day (the proverb that corresponds to the date), they then journal about what they learned (always in box #1)
2. Reader
3. Language Lessons
4. Writing
5. Phonics/Spelling
6. Vocab (Greek roots/prefixes)
7. Handwriting
8. Math
9. Notebooking pages for Science or History/assignments
10. A hands on or creative project

I rarely fill more than 9 or 10 boxes. Science, Nutrition, Prepare and Pray and History are done together during our group time (with the occasional assignment thrown in there).

Here is one project that I included in Jordan's box this week:

An Erector Set made a great mechanical project

Jordan is very mechanical, so this was right up his alley. I can't do projects like this every day (or even every week) but I do have some great ideas for projects that I can do and will hopefully share those next week. They are really going to like what I have in mind and I think it will be a perfect way to challenge them. I think you will like it too.

This week (continuing again):

• I posted our lesson on the First Week of History (Creation) and Creation for the little ones and we finished up our lessons on The Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, and the Fall. I will share more about that in an upcoming post.

• We worked in our Christian Kids Explore Chemistry book and completed Lesson 3: Matter. This tied in nicely with our study of Creation (God created matter and energy on day 1). We learned that everything in this physical world can be placed into two categories: matter or energy.

• We talked about states of matter (solid, liquid and gas) and properties of matter (such as color, odor, taste, etc.) and did an experiment to figure out a way to separate salt that was mixed with sand (ours happened to be blue). We added water to the salt/sand mixture to dissolve the salt and then poured the mixture into a filter lined funnel to filter out the sand.

Separating compounds by filtration.

We then poured the water into a pie pan and let the water evaporate over several days, thus separating the salt from the sand.

This week we will move on to lesson 4 and learn about elements.

I was hoping to start a new spelling program this week, but I had to do a lot of cutting and preparation for it. So, we will start All About Spelling this coming week.

And I really, really want to start Nature Study with my older kids. So much to do!

Coming up this week:

• Crew Reviews: My Access Home Edition and ABC Teach
• History: The Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve and the Fall
• Tot School: Signing Time
• Preschool Corner: Letter X
• Nature Explorers Club: Squirrels

Did you see that I have a new button? I have a new header too, and I love seeing my kids up there. *Ü*

Hope you all have a great week!