Week in Review - Funnel Cake, Ancient Minoans, and Chemical Reactions (Week 6)

We had another 4 day school week!  My husband received 4 free tickets for an amusement park in our state so we took my daughter and one of her friends there on Monday.  The girls were SO excited!  Amber's friend spent the night on Sunday and they made special t-shirts and bags to wear to the amusement park.  It's amazing what two teenage girls can do with a tie-dye kit and iron-on transfer paper!  The girls had an absolute blast and rode a grand total of 21 times on rides.  They rode ALL of the big roller coasters - and actually ran from ride to ride when the park first opened.

My husband and I took a FAR more leisurely pace around the park.  Neither one of us have any desire to ride any scary rides, fast rides, or rides that spin in circles.  We both loved rides when we were younger but now, well, the boat ride and the train ride were more our speed.  We had a lovely day just talking and resting (we spent most of the day resting out at the picnic area).  The only bummer part was that my seasonal allergies really kicked in because we were outside all day.  Definitely, the highlight of my day was having my very favorite "fair food" -

funnel cake!

My boys had a really fun Monday, too.  They spent the day with my mother-in-law and her boyfriend at a county fair. 

I started Tuesday way behind since we got home so late on Monday night and I never really got caught up with school preparations and grading until Wednesday night.  I was also still recovering from my allergy attack.  I've gone through so many tissues this week!  We still had a very productive week - I just felt a bit frazzled...and quite snuffly.

In history, we finished our Ancient Mesopotamia lapbooks this week.

Our readings focused on Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Minoans.  We watched another video in the Time Life Lost Civilization series, Ancient Aegean.  I highly recommend this series, we have watched two videos in the series now and found both highly educational and interesting.  Next week, we begin focusing exclusively on Ancient Egypt for several weeks.  We all find Ancient Egypt fascinating here so the next few weeks should be great.

In science, Amber has been studying for her Module 3 test on Monday.  She is finding Biology to be a challenging course.  With our short week this week, we are behind on two labs so we plan on doing those on Saturday. 

I am working through Real Science 4 Kids Chemistry with my boys.  So far, we have finished the first three chapters.  This week, we reviewed again with the Jeopardy-style game that I made.  Friday was experiments day!  We used ideas from Cool Chemistry Concoctions: 50 Formulas that Fizz, Foam, Splatter, & Ooze and the Polymers 101 kit from the Academy of Science for Kids.

We made Oceans of Motion.

We made Moo-vable Milk.

We tried Capsule Critters in three different temperatures of water to see which one would open first.

We performed a Cool Magic Trick using polymer powder and water.  The boys were amazed that they could immediately turn the cup upside down after adding water to the polymer powder.

Our very favorite experiment, though, was Fire Extinguisher.  In this experiment, we put a candle in a bowl and made a baking soda moat around it.  Then, we poured vinegar onto the baking soda and watched the chemical reaction take place.  After a few moments, the carbon dioxide gas extinguished the flame!  We liked this experiment so much, we did it twice.

With another 4 day week, our weekly art class was bumped off our schedule again but the boys did complete a bark painting as part of their Spanish class.  The boys and I are really enjoying La Classe Divertida Level 1.

That was our Week in Review!  To read about what other homeschoolers have been doing this past week, check out the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.