Science- Genes and Growth

In Science we worked on a genetics lab and a fingerprint lab. The kids learned that half of their genes come from dad and the other half are from mom. We talked about how unique everyone is, because apart from identical twins, there are no two people who look exactly alike.
The first lab had them looking at the differences and similarities between them (the kids) and us (Juan and I).


Then they had to count how many similarities they shared with each parent.

The features on Caitlin’s lab favored Juan, while the features on Jayden’s lab favored me.
The second lab that we worked on had to do with fingerprints. It was a disaster! The kids either didn't press their fingers in the spot fully or they did it sideways. Jayden was pissed that his fingers were dirty. Caitlin was marking fingerprints on the carpet. So at the end, when they were supposed to examine what kind of fingerprints they had, the prints looked like a smudged mess. But they had fun! :)

Language Arts/ Math/Spanish/Etc.

Last week we did a lot of review to get us back into school mode.
For Language Arts, Jayden worked on reviewing words with a suffix.

He worked on topic sentences and putting sentences in order.

And he also worked on action verbs.

At the end of last week Jayden finished his unit on mass and scored 100% on his test!

Caitlin is still working on her handwriting skills. We write sentences down for her in her notebook and have her read them to us. Then she writes them. She is thrilled that she is at the end of her notebook, and can’t wait to start a new one!

She has been requesting more school work and I am happy to grant this request! She now has daily worksheets to occupy her.
Caitlin does calendar worksheets (FREE download at Confessions of a Homeschooler).

She has also been doing Math worksheets from Education Creations.

And finally, both kids reviewed numbers 1-5 in Spanish with a fun color by number worksheet from MixMinder.com.
Jayden’s

Caitlin’s

They are happily building with their new Lego sets. Jayden has even taken to calling himself “The Lego Master”.

Gymnastics!

Caitlin just joined a weekly gymnastics class. She has been dying to join a gymnastics class for a really long time. We finally found one that works with our schedule!
She jumped on the trampoline.

They did some basic stretches.

Caitlin worked on the bars, pulling her teeny self up and wrapping her feet on the bar in front of her.

She also walked on the small (pictured below) and big balance beams.

She was ecstatic that her friends were also in her class. On the drive home she said, "This is the day I've been waiting for my whole life!"

Christmas <3

Although we stayed home for the holidays, we took a ton of pictures to share so that our family could see what our day was like! Thank you so much to everyone who helped make our children's Christmas special!

 

I hope your holidays were as wonderful as ours!