Our first 2023 week back to homeschool

We had a really fun winter break, but it was finally time to get back to homeschool. 

We are studying paleontology in science this year. One of the topics this week was dinosaur egg fossils. A fun activity that the curriculum suggested after the egg lesson was to do an egg drop. 

I gave them a day to come up with their ideas for the drop. It was really fun that both girls came up with completely different ways to approach this assignment. 

Madeline went first. I had them drop them from the top of the stairs, over the ledge into the hallway below. 

Madeline hoping for the best....

I was pretty sure that Maddy's egg would be just fine with how packed inside so many layers of blankets it was.

She had the egg nestled in many layers of blankets, towels, and a pillow....

The egg was finally surrounded by wet toilet paper. She unwrapped it carefully, and we found that the egg was just fine!

Abi went with making a hot air balloon/ parachute. She created the basket with popsicle sticks, wrapped the egg in dry toilet paper and put it in a sock, and then placed the sock on the basket. She put tape just over the sock so that when it was dropping and would lift a bit, the tape would keep it in the basket. The basket was attached to a garbage bag with yarn. 

It fell fast and hit the ground hard! We were all expecting the egg to be harmed. 

But it survived!!

We also played a fossil battleship game after talking about the "fossil wars". 

Another fun activity was that for our speech course they had to come up with a poem or speech (famous or one that they wrote) that they could present together. It had to have three parts: one for Maddy, one for Abi, and one that they would have to say together. Maddy ended up writing the poem, and they used stick puppets that they made a few months ago for a different presentation to represent the different characters speaking in the poem. They did a great job, and Maddy's poem was really well written and creative. 

It was a good week and I'm glad to be back in our routine. 

October Poetry Teatimes

The first poetry teatime was caramel apples and apple cider with Whittier.

The next one was Halloween themed with halloween poems, hot cocoa, and ghost cookies. 

Terms 2 and 3 in school

Once we were settled into our new home we were finally able to do school in our new schoolroom. It felt like the first day all over again. 

I enjoyed having my white board again as I tend to enjoy going a little crazy on it during lessons. 

We finished up our history unit on William Wallace and my girls' ancestor Robert the Bruce.

I felt like the best way to teach about Dante's Inferno without reading the entire poem to them would be to draw the story on the white board. It was fun, but looks a bit crazy. 

We did a game when we learning about the Black Plague. Each bag had colored tiles in it and represented different towns. We played pilgrims going through each town. The color of tile we pulled out of the bag determined if we caught the plague or not and how many people we infected. 

Maddie's next project was Princess/ Prince and the Pauper. We read the Mickey and Barbie versions and then watched the Barbie movie. 

In science we switched to an energy unit. We read a book about Edison and kept track of things we learned about him. We also read a book about Tesla later in the unit to compare their stories. 

Maddie's next project was Hansel and Gretel. We read three different versions and then she made her own story as well as a candy house. 

We learned about a few different artists over the last few terms: Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and Raphael. 

When we were learning about the Sistine Chapel I copied an idea I saw on the show Road to Avonlea and had the girls draw pictures under their desks. 

I loved reading this book about Joan of Arc during both terms. She was amazing. 

When we talked about the War of the Roses, they each took a side and used our castle blocks and this trebuchet they built with Doug (Da Vinci's design) to battle. 

We got out our bells again. 

Another few fun read alouds...

I made a mess of the board again when we were wrapping up our history unit. 

Then we had our end of term test. 

Maddie and I finished reading this book together that was part of her language arts. 

Last Friday they turned in their last work: Abi's unit 6 language arts and Maddie's Thanksgiving themed story and I graded their math... and then term 3 was done!

Now we will be on winter break until January! That's the fun of only taking half the summer off!