History

Last week we worked on "The Return of Assyria" from Story of the World.

We started by reading the chapter and going over comprehension questions.

We read about how the Assyrians wanted to grow their empire again. They attacked everyone around them and were very harsh to the cities that they defeated, especially those who rebelled against them.

Jayden did some map work and they both colored a picture that  showed the Assyrians ready for battle.

Their coloring page looked like this, only it was black and white for coloring.

Using Lego blocks, the kids crafted an Assyrian Seige Tower as well as the big city wall that seige towers were designed to knock down.

In this chapter one of the things we learned is Ashurbanipal- an Assyrian king- was the first king to build a library. He collected many books for his library at Nineveh. Each kids made their own book to add to his collection!

Jayden's story was about Minecraft.

Caitlin's story was about a rat and cat. 

Science

We finally wrapped up our cnidarian unit!

First we reviewed what cnidaria look like and read about some examples of them.

 Then the kids filled out their worksheets.

Our next unit in science has us working on worms... yay? I have to admit that I have been dragging my feet on starting this unit. We have to dig up our own worms... Cait would gladly go out and get it done but Jayden isn't a fan of the dirt. Perhaps we can get away with buying some! The thought of storing them in my house really creeps me out though...

All of us have been doing our best to become healthier. This includes improving our eating habits. I found a pretty cool idea on Pinterest about growing your own romaine lettuce. The kids and I decided to make this a science project. It's super easy and it works!

All you have to do is take the stump of your romaine lettuce. Wash it off and sit it in an inch of water.

Change the water every day. (I haven't been remembering to do this daily so the stump is getting a little bit brown--oops!)

It's been 9 days and look what we have!

I have been terrible at taking care of this thing, so we probably won't eat it. I only just thought to put it in sunlight... again-oops! In my defense I've heard you can either raise children or raise plants. Plants die on me pretty quickly but my kids are still alive, so I guess I'm doing alright!

Next time I go grocery shopping I will get a new head of romaine lettuce. Hopefully we will have warmer, sunnier days to come, and our little plant will grow!

Library crafts & reading

Jayden has been asking questions about the Theory of Evolution, so we took a quick trip to the library to check out their collection of books. While there, the kids did some crafts and played.

Caitlin is learning that the English language has some tricks up its sleeve!

She was reading "Ice Cream Soup" to me. She came across the word "know" and sounded it out as "Ca-no". I told her the English language is crazy and it makes no sense but it's pronounced "no". She said "What the heck mom! Maybe we need to learn a new language... or maybe English people should learn how to spell!"

 She was pretty pissed about it and complained for a good 5 minutes!

These are the books we ended up borrowing:

Sledding with friends

Last week the kids went sledding. On ice. While I was in an air cast boot for my sprained ankle. I can't count the number of panic attacks I had!

Overall the kids had fun, but by the end Jayden was pretty pissed. Either he kept slipping down the hill, or his sled would slip down the hill without him. I could tell he was done so I had him sit in the car while I chatted with him through the window and kept an eye on my little daredevil girl. I hope next time I can get on a sled and join them!

Gymnastics and Baseball

Gymnastics class is coming to a close soon. Cait has had a really great time doing it!

Jayden has about a month left of baseball clinics. We've had a couple of rough weeks with the coaches, but things went really well last weekend.

 Remember that  sign that said I couldn't go beyond a certain point? Well screw that. I went.

 Then I ran back to the other side and snapped a few more pictures.