Our eighth week in review: October 18-22

First of all, the plumbing repair was quick and relatively inexpensive in the grand scheme of repairs.  The threads, yes threads, of one pipe leading to the shower head came off inside the pipe! Who knew?  So we have a working shower again in the master bath.  The ceiling repair and associated ceiling painting in the kitchen, family room, and entry hall are another matter...

I can't believe we're up to eight weeks already!  Good gravy, another week and we'd be ready for report cards!

Math
Ding dong, percents are dead LOL  Much more interesting math is at hand----ratios, proportions, you name it!  We'll start with Patty Paper Geometry next week.

Science
It was a hands-on kind of week.  In addition to taking the Chapter 4 assessment in CPO Earth Science,  Daisy completed the writing portion of Investigation 4A (Weather Cycle--see separate post forthcoming), had a blast with Investigation 4B (relative humidity--see separate post also forthcoming), enjoyed her first class at the local state park, and is working on a ground water and wells demo/project (will also be a separate post but it's not yet done). 

Here is an in-action shot of a portion of Investigation 4B---Daisy laughed so hard while spinning our homemade sling psychrometer!

History
We have finished Egypt!  This week included Ramses II, who Daisy called "the vain pharoh" due to the large number of his statues spread all over Egypt,



a mapping activity from the K12 student pages comparing the range and spread of the Old Kingdom, Intermediate Period, New Kingdom and modern day,

completing the Egypt portion of a Comparing Cultures chart from the K12 student pages,

reading the post-Ramses chapters in The Ancient Egyptian World (chapters 20, 22, and 23),

leading up to Cleopatra

The books pictured are (left to right) Cleopatra: Egypt's Last and Greatest Queen , a DK Discovery book (old cover) and Cleopatra VII: Daughter of the Nile (Royal Diaries) which she had already read many times. I love our library system.

On Monday, we will explore the traveling Cleopatra exhibit at  The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia!  I was going to buy tickets ahead to secure our time slot but they want a freaking $4+ "fee" for each ticket!  No way---we'll just take whatever time slot is available once we arrive.  We'll explore the rest of the museum as well, so that will be school Monday :)

English/Language Arts
Grammar:  more adjectives (comparative and superlative, little vs few, demonstrative, interrogative and indefinite)

Writing:  She continued in the NaNoWriMo workbook plus wrote a new short story and a very long letter to a friend who moved to Atlanta last year.

Literature: In the past three days, Daisy has read an unabridged Little Women and The Adventures of Robin Hood, one from her sister's collection and one from her brother's collection.  We reviewed the types of meter from Building Poems and analyzed the meter in various poems.

French
Woot, verbs!  Avoir and etre (imagine the accent), so now we can ask where things are and who has them LOL  Using the Galore Park French I (French Prep) in combination with Older Sister's French 1 books works well.

Other fun stuff

Nutcracker rehearsals have started in addition to the weekly three classes.  Yesterday Daisy enjoyed a hayride/botany class as part of the Earth Explorers program through the closest state park.  She met a homeschooled 10yo girl :)  Hopefully that girl (and others) will participate in other classes Daisy has chosen. 

The best of the week:  I was able to attend an ice cream social for newbie homeschoolers through the local homeschool group!  I talked informally with several great women before a panel discussion led by seasoned homeschooling moms.  I also met someone else new to homeschooling with an 11 yo girl---hopefully our girls will be able to meet at an ice-skating activity next Friday.  Not only do I have a great online support group through the WTM forums, but I am now gaining an IRL group.  Life is good :)

The worst of the week:  all unrelated to homeschooling----the plumbing issue, brake work today on the little car, a broken-in-two-parts teen's cell phone, an overwhelmed senior who has been exploding due to frustration and stress.  But all shall pass.  Eventually!

And looking ahead to next week: which actually starts tonight with a trip to a corn maze in Strasburg PA with Older Sister's Girl Scout troop and families (flashlights! bonfire! smores!), a 50th birthday party for a friend tomorrow (adults only!!!!),  on Sunday the town's annual Halloween parade (ds's marching band will perform) and subsequent trick-or-treating down Main Street, our field trip to The Franklin Institute Monday...I'm tired just thinking about all the fun things to do!

I hope you all had a great week and will have a super weekend :)

Wordless Wednesday---my kitchen ceiling, sigh

The reason why the plumber's truck is in the driveway:

Our seventh week in review: October 11-18

This week has been an unusual mishmash of full, accomplished-feeling days with unsettled half-days. 

Tuesday morning was my monthly coffee with long-time friends, when we meet sans kids (except for infants) and talk about everything under the sun.  Mike wasn't able to work from home that morning as he had to meet with clients, so Daisy went down the street to play with her youngest cousin for a few hours.  She began work on her NaNoWriMo workbook while there.  We only "did" school for two hours that afternoon as we also prepped for hosting Girl Scouts that evening.

Wednesday was PSAT day.  Older Sister took it this year as practice, so we had to get her to school by 8am as usual and then pick her up at 11:30.  Way to mess up the day!  No organized schooling was accomplished after 11am.

Math
Word problem torture continued, with more percent of and percent off and rate problems.  I am so mean.  But Friday we did do some MOEMS contest problems!  Patty Paper Geometry has been ordered.

Science
Stupid supply order hasn't yet arrived today (Friday---ordered last Wednesday----it's on the UPS truck in town somewhere), so that threw off my entire schedule for the week.  We spent this week covering the water cycle (Chapter 4, CPO Earth Science), watching a fab Bill Nye dvd on Monday, reading and discussing section 4.2 and the chapter connection on caves.  We obsessed over Investigation 4A, the slowest ever water cycle simulation.   A combination of not enough sun and cool house temperatures teamed to produce v.e.r.y.s.l.o.w. evaporation and condensation of water in our salt and fresh water GeoBoxes.  Possibly unexciting pictures to follow.

History
Another fun week of Egypt!  We studied Hatshepsut, a female pharoh

Amenhotep aka Akhenaten and the family including Nefertiti

and his boy Tutankhaten/Tutankhamen

The resources pictured above were used in conjunction with K12's Human Odyssey Vol. 1 (chapters 8 and 9) and Oxford Press's The Ancient Egyptian World (chapters 11, 13, 14, 15, and 16).    That DK Tut book is fabulous, btw.  Daisy has been reading bits and pieces to me for the past hour.

We also revisited the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology's website at http://www.penn.museum/ to explore their collections online.  Daisy thought it was so cool to see the artifacts pictured in her books on their website.  We'll be visiting them in person hopefully before Thanksgiving!  I also need to book our timed tickets to see the touring Cleopatra exhibit at the Franklin Institute (see http://www.fi.edu/ )

Language Arts
In Voyages in English 6 (2006 edition), we covered the use of sensory language in writing, simile and metaphor, and misused words (lie/lay, sit/set, your/you're etc).  We moved into adjectives in grammar---descriptive adjectives, definite and indefinite articles (yawn), numerical adjectives (ditto), adjectives as subject complements and comparative and superlative adjectives.

Daisy began reading The Golden Goblet Thursday and should be finished today.  She is not enjoying the storyline nor the writing style but is slogging through.  She would prefer a female protagonist.

We started meter in Building Poems and spent an afternoon trying to fit normal speech into iambic pentameter.  Seriously. 

As I mentioned at the top, work has begun on the NaNoWriMo workbook.  She is a braver person than I.  The thought of creative writing makes me twitch.

French
Sigh.  This is hard!  Reading in French is coming much easier to both of us than speaking it.  Older Sister laughs at our accents and attempts to help us correct them.  I expect we'll improve with practice.  Right?  This week we continued talking about items in a classroom and the verb avoir.  I'm having the dickens of a time trying to remember genders of nouns as I keep getting them mixed up with German genders...

Other fun stuff
At Girl Scouts this week, the girls started and completed the Earth Explorers badge.  We have the perfect backyard for that badge, the reason I volunteered to host and plan, with a creek at the bottom and 30' or so of native plants/trees before the grassy part.  They used that portion of the yard for activity 1 (Be an Ecologist) and activity 8 (learn how to ID 5 native plants).  We discussed how the space had changed from the past and how it might change in the future (activity 2: Traveling Through Time).  For activity 4 (Reading the Ringes) Mike cut slices from a small fallen tree as we didn't have a stump nearby.  Once back inside we discussed adaptation of plants and animals in extreme climates (activity 7).  Finally, the girls played a food web/food chain game I made using index cards (activity 5).

For exercise, Daisy had a in-studio ballet performance on Sunday and her usual three classes.  The Nutcracker cast was posted this week and rehearsals begin on Saturday.  Production week will be a little hairy as it is also tech week for Older Sister's high school production of A Christmas Carol!

She and Older Sister played flute together.  Daisy also started making Halloween crafty decorations for this year.  We picked up some pumpkins ($1 and $2 each!) on the way home from the RenFaire last week, and Mike and Daisy have been making their plans for carving.
Best of the week: definitely the history discussions we have as Daisy does her reading (including the one we're having now!)  I probably should have her writing more, though I'm afraid that would slow down her thoughts as she makes connections and draws conclusions. 

Worst of the week: stupid PSAT day in the middle of the week!  In frustrating college news, Older Brother spent his day off school (seniors are off on PSAT day) with Mike visiting Johns Hopkins and American University.  No change expressed in college preferences as of yet.  No headway made on the Common Application.  Mike will be bottling his latest homebrew this weekend...

Looking ahead to next week:  We'll do Investigation 4B and a Ground Water and Wells activity (done as a lab), plus probably Investigation 5A whatever that might be.  It looks like we'll be wrapping up Egypt, unless more Cleopatra resources on request come in at the library.

By the way, I posted the pictures from last Friday's field trip to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire yesterday :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire field trip

Last week we visited the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire on their Elementary School Day.  The activities were geared to the 3rd-6th grade crowd yet there were kids in attendance of all ages from public schools, private schools and homeschools.  Mike said the crowd was much lighter than during the Middle School Days he had attended with Older Brother and Older Sister two and four years ago.  This was our first event with the local homeschooling group and won't be our last.

After Daisy was grossed out by the sword swallower, we watched the pottery demonstration.  It was fascinating to watch him throw a pot without looking at his own hands!  At the same time, there was a craftsman handcarving a wooden spoon.  Had the wooden spoons been for sale, I would have purchased one immediately.

We walked through all of the shopping areas, checking out the handiwork and the wide assortment of "made in" items.  Despite stopping at every single stall and booth, Daisy resisted the call to spend her money.  She instead chose to have some fun at the games.

First she tried her hand at the crossbow:

Then she tried the regular bow.  This was a much stronger bow than Older Brother's old one and took much effort to shoot:

Finally, she climbed the two Jacob's Ladders.  The easy side was quite easy and she clambered up that ladder.  Next she tried the more difficult side.  I was sure she'd tip over onto the hay below:

but she rang the bell!  Huzzah!

After the games, we wandered through the food stalls as Mike enjoyed a pickle-on-a-stick:

Daisy ate chicken nuggets and curly fries <rolling eyes> and Mike had a bratwurst basket.  I was going to get a chicken cheesesteak after we watched the human chess game and visited some more stalls.  We were on a mission from Older Sister to find a good mask for her.  The Homecoming Dance at her school is themed "masquerade" this year.  She and I were planning on trying to make a mask...  I was thrilled we found a great black with gold mask instead!  Daisy tried a few one while I agonized over the choices for Older Sister:

There wasn't enough time to get my lunch before grabbing seats for the final jousting event.  We had pretty good seats near the middle of the arena

where we were able to watch the Queen address the two knights

and their "seconds"

Great excitement!

I couldn't get pictures of the swordplay that followed the jousting as all the kids in front of us stood to watch it.  We were able to watch it, though.

After all the excitement, we went in search of my chicken cheesesteak.  Alas, that shop was closed!  I consoled myself with The Most Amazing Caramel Apple ever, dipped in caramel and rolled in teeny chocolate chips and chopped peanuts, for only $1.00.  Calories well spent, imho.

I think we'll return to the RenFaire next year!  Mike wants to go in costume...

Wordless Wednesday----Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire shopping

While on a hunt for a mask for Older Sister, Daisy tried on a few!

Our sixth week in review: 10/4-10/8

Another four day week for us because today (Friday) is our big field trip to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire!  <insert happy dancing>  We are all set to enjoy the shows, demonstrations, food and the gorgeous weather----pictures will be up over the weekend :)

It was a pretty good week with only one FAIL...

Math
Chugging along with percents.  I've been making her do problems backwards and forwards, solving using either using decimals or fractions.  Daisy became much quicker by the end of the week at deciding which method to use.  There is a light at the end of the percent tunnel ;)  No fun math this week due to the Faire.

Science
If you're a good blog reader, you'll have noticed that I've been putting up separate posts for labs we've been doing (that's ok, go check now...)  This week we continued with Chapter 3 (Physical Science Connections) in CPO Earth Science:

(Monday) Section 3.3 Density and Buoyance, see separate Density Column demo blog post

(Tuesday) Physics Connection about the science behind hot air balloons plus the chapter activity (modeling radiation of heat energy from the Sun to the Earth).  The pictures didn't turn out well for the activity, alas.

(Wednesday) Daisy took the Chapter 3 assessment (aka test) orally.  So far, no problems at all with retention.  I love CPO.

(Thursday) We began Chapter 4: Water and the Water Cycle by reading and discussing 4.1 Water on Earth's Surface and started Investigation 4A: The Water Cycle.  This lab requires 4 days of observations so she'll be checking the set-up through the weekend.   As a preview:

(And yes, that is a telescope in the corner of the home office.)

History
This week we covered the 1st and 2nd intermediate periods (Ancient Egyptian World chapters 8 and 10), hieroglypics (AEW chapter 4,  Dig magazine March 2010 issue, Write Like an Egyptian through the UPenn Museum), the Rosetta Stone (The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone), and daily life of regular Egyptians (AEW chapters 9, 12, 17, 19, 23).   Some additional books were used for visual reference.

We also made Egyptian flatbread from Great Ancient Egypt Projects You Can Build Yourself, which was our FAIL of the week.  Blech!  They would have been greatly improved by more oil or salt.  Or sugar and egg!

Grammar
Finished up pronouns with indefinite pronouns and the always-fun double negatives.  Daisy took the test to end the week.

Literature
As shown above, she read The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone for history.

We moved further into poetry, studying alliteration, assonance and consonance using

We had a lot of fun reading the selections from both books aloud, identifying the various sounds and doing the exercises in Figuratively Speaking.  I have to dig out all of our poetry books from the attic, basement, and various kids' bookcases.

French

What have I gotten myself into?  One day we listened to the audio selection 10 times and still could not understand how to say one thing as the speaking was moving waaaaay too quickly.  Older Sister rescued us when she was home!  I like how this text is arranged, with a dialogue (also on CD), with vocab and grammar information, followed by a few exercises.

We're reviewing the previous day's lesson and audio selection each day before moving onto the new information.  Daisy's having a good time and so far I haven't confused German pronounciation too much with the French... Next week she's going to start writing some exercises.  I've also decided to purchase the CD containing additional exercises and tests, to make sure she (and I) are really understanding the French.  My eventual goal is for Daisy to comfortably pass out of French 1 as a high school freshman.

Other
We spent a long time reading the PA RenFaire website!  We'll be attending the special elementary school day (geared for grades 3-6)---here's the information about the day.

Best of the Week:  fun with poetry!

Worst of the Week: that awful flatbread.  Yuck.  The activity book is fabulous, btw, but probably geared to slightly younger than Daisy.

Looking ahead to next week: a ballet performance on Sunday (a special in-studio event tied with a fundraiser at a schmancy restaurant downtown), Girl Scouts at our house Tuesday night (I've got to get those badge activities planned out....), a shortened day on Wednesday (Older Sister will be finished at 11:30 after taking the PSAT), finishing up one lab, doing another AND an activity from one of the skill & practice sheets that I'm turning into a lab-------watch for separate blog posts!  Whew!

And will Older Brother get an application or two submitted.....??????  Will I have hair left?????  Will there be homebrew left in the basement?????  Stay tuned!

Thrifty Thursday---coupon plans and a free rain barrel!

In an attempt to regain at least a part of my pre-homeschooling life, I'm going to post a "my frugal life" update each Thursday.  Why Thursday?  Well, that's when the grocery chains update the online ads for the next cycle, which begin on Fridays, AND the day the local free paper is available.  Some weeks the local paper is a great source for coupons! 

I just checked the online coupon previews and the Smart Source for this Sunday doesn't contain anything that would make me go check the newspaper boxes downtown.  The ads for Pathmark and SuperFresh are equally disappointing.  The turkey promo doesn't start until next week, bummer.  ShopRite isn't starting until 10/17!

Acme's ad isn't up yet but online chatter shows a ConAgra buy $25/get $10 oyno.   I have 3 gallons of Wesson canola oil and about 40 boxes of Swiss Miss hot cocoa (yum, mocha!) for the kids from last winter's ConAgra fest---------I rolled those cats all week long, spending maybe $5 total out-of-pocket including non-ConAgra items (veg, fruit, dairy).  That was a fun week!  But this time, nothing is jumping out at me.  The sale prices on items we'd use (Wesson, Pillsbury flour, Pam spray) seem high, and without good coupons the price spread between the regular shelf price and the sale-price-after-coupons isn't large enough to work out to free items.  But I've been wrong before, so I'll reserve judgement until reports come back tomorrow from early Acme shoppers.

Last night I was one of 25 lucky city residents to receive a free 55gal rain barrel!  A few weeks ago, an email was sent from the city advertising a free storm water management seminar through the county extension service.  The first 25 residents to register would receive a free rain barrel, with others receiving info on how to make one themselves.  I called within 45 minutes of the email being sent and was 24 of 25!!  I'm so happy I decided to look at email that day during lunch as I've been wanting a rain barrel for YEARS.   I'd love to have several in the back, one by the hops and herbs and two connected in series by the veggie garden, just for starters.

Check out this beauty:

We'll put it up on cinder blocks and use the bottom outlet for a hose.  The midsection outlet will be used eventually to connect this barrel to another.  We'll chose one of the top outlets for an overflow hose to direct excess water away from the house.  The top of the barrel is a fixed lid with three screened holes---no insects to worry about.

There's only about 4 weeks left for this rain barrel season....but we'll be well-equipped for next spring!