Over the past two weeks we (finally) moved past the history of ancient Israel in Winter Promise's Quest for the Ancient World and are now studying ancient China. We have all perked up quite a bit during our history reading each day - we were definitely ready to move on to another topic in history. We've watched two highly recommended videos so far about ancient China:
- Lost Treasures of the Ancient World: Ancient China
- Ancient China: Ancient Civilizations for Children.
I am hoping to do a hands-on project next week to go along with our ancient China study. We haven't done any hands-on projects to go along with history in quite a while.
All three of my children are progressing well in their respective science courses. Amber will be finishing Module 10 next week in Apologia Biology. She is enjoying the course a ton more now that she is studying material that she finds interesting. She'll be getting together with a friend who is also taking Biology this year to dissect the earthworm and the fish later this month. I'm so glad I don't have to be her lab partner!
Mason is adjusting well to taking his first textbook science course. I LOVE Apologia General Science. Mason is still adjusting to the work but seems to find it interesting overall. I was so proud of him for getting a B on his first-ever science test!
Duncan and I are enjoying Bob Jones Science 3. This week, we finished the chapter on minerals. As part of the chapter, we conducted a hands-on activity to determine which fruit juices had iron in them.
If the fruit juice had iron in it, the tea was supposed to become cloudy when we added the fruit juice. Duncan and I had trouble determining if the tea looked "cloudy" or not, though. Not every hands-on science experiment goes well here!
We finished our read-aloud this week - Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
. We all ADORED this book. I highly, highly recommend this book if you haven't shared it with your children yet! It actually made me sad that I didn't discover this great book when I was younger. We'll start reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 
on Monday. After several read-aloud bombs tied in with our history program this year, I've just chucked the suggested history read-alouds and we're just enjoying great children's literature instead during our read-aloud time. Thankfully, ALL of my kids (even my 14 year old) are enjoying read-aloud time again.
Since my kids tend to keep busy hands during our read-alouds, they all manage to make some pretty great handicrafts in that trapped time. Duncan completed his largest Perler bead project this week. He was so proud of his creation!
My children worked on their latest art lesson over the past two weeks. The focus of this art lesson was on designing, drawing, and painting their own carousel animal. After watching the lesson on video, my children spent quite a bit of time looking through the library books about carousel art that I checked out from the library. After looking at many carousel animals, they began sketching out their projects.
Today, they finished their projects by painting them and adding sparkly jewels at the end. Interestingly, for the carousel animals project none of my children chose to draw a traditional carousel horse!
Mason chose to do a carousel pig. He said that he wanted to draw a pig from the very beginning but I told him he had to find an example in one of the carousel animals books. He did and he got to draw his carousel pig!
Duncan found a carousel llama that he really liked. I was able to find a llama in one of our "how to draw" books to help him with his project. Duncan's project turned out SO well - he was so proud of his project!
Amber chose a sea dragon for her carousel animal - she liked the imaginary creature immediately when she saw it an antique carousel animals book. She chose to work with acrylics for her painting. I thought she did a wonderful job of blending one color into another.
Amber and Mason were so excited for tonight. Tonight was the second of the three Friday nights of the Edge Games. The Edge Games are a mini-Olympics for the junior high youth groups and friends held at our main church campus. Last week, there were about 340 young people at the games! It's a fabulous time for all of the kids in a safe atmosphere with a great message. Amber, Mason, and all of their youth group from our smaller church campus are on Team Iceland. They were encouraged to wear as much white as possible to the games. This week, Amber made Iceland t-shirts for her youth group.
Mason really got into the spirit with a white duck tape hat! I'm sure they're having a great time while I'm writing this post!
That was our Weeks in Review! To read about what other homeschoolers were doing this past week, visit The Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.
Mason is adjusting well to taking his first textbook science course. I LOVE Apologia General Science. Mason is still adjusting to the work but seems to find it interesting overall. I was so proud of him for getting a B on his first-ever science test!
Duncan and I are enjoying Bob Jones Science 3. This week, we finished the chapter on minerals. As part of the chapter, we conducted a hands-on activity to determine which fruit juices had iron in them.
We finished our read-aloud this week - Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
. We all ADORED this book. I highly, highly recommend this book if you haven't shared it with your children yet! It actually made me sad that I didn't discover this great book when I was younger. We'll start reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Monday. After several read-aloud bombs tied in with our history program this year, I've just chucked the suggested history read-alouds and we're just enjoying great children's literature instead during our read-aloud time. Thankfully, ALL of my kids (even my 14 year old) are enjoying read-aloud time again. Since my kids tend to keep busy hands during our read-alouds, they all manage to make some pretty great handicrafts in that trapped time. Duncan completed his largest Perler bead project this week. He was so proud of his creation!
Mason chose to do a carousel pig. He said that he wanted to draw a pig from the very beginning but I told him he had to find an example in one of the carousel animals books. He did and he got to draw his carousel pig!
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