We're BAAACCCCKKKK!!!

It's been just over three weeks since our last update. We took some much needed R&R and had a lovely three week break from sit down school work. The kids had unlimited access to video games, and pretty much free rein over their time during the break, apart from our regular commitment to karate. I was worried that they would have a hard time adjusting to our routine this week, but they have done so seamlessly!

While school was not "in session", we still did some learning. We made delicious milk chocolate/ white chocolate chip cookies. Jayden did the measuring and Caitlin did the mixing!

We read a TON of books. These were a few of our favorites. The kids learned about Helen Keller. They also learned about braille.

Of course we read through a bunch of Christmas books as well!

In karate, the kids are practicing a series of movements known as kata. In order to earn their first belt promotion to yellow belt, they must be able to perform kata in its entirety. So far they know the first half, they just have to perfect it.

It's been really amazing watching the transformation in the whole class. They have really progressed with their movements. I really love how seriously they take it.

Once they perfect the first half of kata, they will earn a new stripe one their belts.

These pictures were taken Christmas Day. They were beyond exhausted from having woken up at 4:30am, but the excitement was too much, and a nap was out of the question!

  

I'd say this accurately represents what our vacation looked like, especially after Christmas. Caitlin baked with her new Easy Bake Oven.

Jayden played with his new lego sets. He is a huge fan of all things lego!

Caitlin put on enough make up to last a lifetime. I finally convinced her less is more with makeup, lest she get an infection in her eye! (See that awesome vanity table of hers? Fedex delivered it to the wrong home on Christmas Eve. I was pretty bummed and thought we would never see it. On Christmas morning a man called me and told me that he saw my package sitting in front of his building. He brought it into his apartment because he saw it was delivered to the wrong building. He saw my number on the box and called me and I was able to pick it up Christmas morning! Talk about amazing neighbors!)

Jayden is loving Minecraft more than ever! He actually spent a lot of time reading his new Minecraft book this vacation. He is currently taking an online homeschool class which he loves! (More on that in another post)

This mom of twins strolled her babies around town with their new wheels!

 And finally, this boy has been learning to play chess!

This is probably my favorite picture of the entire vacation- my babies snuggled together by the tree, reading together on my iPad. <3

School days

Jayden is nearly finished with his second grade grammar book. I decided that for the remainder of this year, he should work on some fun activities in grammar. May suggested mad libs, which is a great and fun way to practice grammar!

Last week I printed off a couple of mad libs from ClassroomJr.com.

 These are his spelling words for the week.

 

Lately Jayden has been forgetting to check over his work. He forgets to add his name (not important) and the date (important for chronological organization for the evaluator). I've also noticed he is not using his best handwriting. Around the same time I stumbled across this "Check Your Paper" freebie.

I decided to make one similar to that one, but more Jayden-like. I found a Batman picture, and with the magic of Microsoft Word, created this quick little document. I am putting it inside of his workbox and he will check things off (mentally or with a dry erase marker since I laminated it) every time he finishes an assignment.

This week we are working on numbers 1-5 in Spanish.

 

And finally, in math, Jayden worked on measuring in grams.

He is nearly finished with his 2A textbook, which means he will start on his 2B textbook after the holidays!

Science- the Nervous System

In science we are working on the Nervous system.

After reading a little bit about it, we started on the lab. We wanted to see if we could train our nervous system to respond quicker with practice.

 

I totally failed to read the directions carefully and we made a bar graph instead of a line graph. But in the end we recorded our findings. 

The results were skewed because we took a pause midway into the experiment. When we returned to do catch 4, all of our responses took longer than catch 3.

This led to the discussion of how scientists often conduct experiments more than once in order to get more accurate results.

Thanksgiving!

Caitlin asked me if she could make a list of things she is thankful for. Number one was "Mom" and number two is "food". I must be pretty darn special if I beat food!

Just before Thanksgiving we attended a library class which discussed the Mayflower and the New World. Below is a picture of the kids pretending to be various things floating in the ocean.

The New World had to direct the blindfolded Mayflower across the ocean without bumping into any of the floating objects.

The kids made their own Mayflower (you can find the template here).

Caitlin and I made our own cranberry bread too! (recipe here) She worked on measurements.

She was super proud that she got to cut the cranberries in half with a knife.

Then she stirred it up and we put it in the bread maker. 

No after pictures though because I forgot!

History- African Art

Last week we finished up our unit on Ancient Africa (which ran a little longer than expected). We made an art project called "Painted Hands". We learned that in Ancient Africa many people painted their hands, feet, and other body parts, usually adding geometric designs on special occasions.

 I traced the kids' hands and we cut out colorful shapes to paste on.

Jayden's painted hand

Caitlin's painted hand

We really enjoyed the Anansi story we read the previous week and decided to borrow a couple of books from the library.

 We also decided to create our own Anansi spiders.

Once their paper plates dried, the kids used a mixture of foam geometric shapes, as well as cut outs to create his face.

Then we stapled on some pipe cleaners for legs.

Voila!