We did not get home until noon on Monday and I had a lot of prep work to get done for a staff meeting. Everyone was exhausted, so school did not really happen. Aidan did his math because it was a series of Kahn Academy videos and practice problems. Lilly slept. She woke up from her late nap with a fever of 103! Dinner and bed for everyone was about all I could handle!
Tuesday we all slept in, we did most of Monday and Tuesdays work. It was rough! It was really only a couple of hours of school work, but getting the kids to focus was a problem. We stopped before we got to do science, which means they missed out on the really fun stuff.
Wednesday we picked up with science first and my attempt at making school fun failed! I tried to do a fun science demonstration. You stick your hand in ice water, then you take it out and coat it in butter, lard, margarine - something to imitate blubber. Then you put your hand back in the water. Your hand should not be as cold. Well, it failed. I gave the kids rubber gloves that were way too big and they were not at all interested in coating their hands in butter. I did get this great picture of Lilly sticking her hand in the water!
Thursday Lilly continued to sleep off the last of her cold. She did not wake until 1pm! I had to leave at 3:30 so she got another break from school.
But Friday! Friday made up for all of the bad days this week! It made it all worth it! It was a day of making connections and watching lightbulbs go off. Some of those lightbulbs had to shine through some surly attitudes, but I saw them!
First - we finished up our study on the world's biomes. (If you want to see what we did for science this past year, you can find the posts here at Sandbox to Socrates. There are a few more that will go up once a month for the rest of the year.) As we looked at the Wetland habitats we came across a funny little animal called the axolotl. The kids were excited because this was one of the weird animals they talked about in VBS this summer, and we had seen one at the zoo! They love this funny looking little creature!
Second, as we studied the Wetlands further we came across the term delta. Aidan remembered the Nile Delta from our ancient history studies. He also happened to cover the letter Delta in his Greek this week. Finally, on Friday, we were covering the Jewish religion in our geography/world religions study. We read about the Jewish captivity in Egypt and were able to find Egypt on a map by looking for - guess what? The Nile Delta! They love how it all interweaves so neatly, even if they don't say it. You can see it in their faces!
Third, this week for geography we studied Israel, its location, climate, history, and people. I included the section from our World Religions book on Judaism in this week's studies. We read about Abraham and Moses. For AWANAS, Lilly is studying the story of Moses and working on a long Bible verse to go with the story. For our history timeline, today was the Exodus! We are also working our way through the Narnia books and that has included some discussion of World War II. Today, Aidan and I talked a little bit about the Holocaust. It is a tough subject, but I think we had a nice introduction to the topic and we will be ready to talk about it in more detail as we study World War II later this year. I did not plan for any of this to overlap so neatly! I just love that it did!
Finally, through gritted teeth and frustration that I was making her do something she "knows," Lilly was able to do all of her addition facts from memory! Up until now we had been relying heavily on our manipulatives and pictures in her book. She would not look at me because she was mad about having to recite them, but she did them all without counting!! Math and reading are hard for her, she is my artistic child. Today was HUGE!
Our bad week turned out to be pretty amazing. This is one of those weeks when we really see the benefits of homeschooling. The kids got to spend that extra 12 hours with their Aunt and Uncle, then we caught up on sleep, and we could still do a little schoolwork, even with sickies. In addition, knowing everything they are studying allows me to help them make these connections, which in turn helps cement things in their brains. Sometimes I work hard to plan them and make them work, but I love it when they just happen!
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