Week in Review - 14 November 2014

It is mid-November; the days are short. I am thankful for my new coffee maker. Coffee keeps me going. I will sometimes drink just hot water. I started that when I lived in Asia and it was cold and the buildings were cement and so it was cold to the bones. It is not that cold here and our house does stay nice and warm.

So what did we do this week besides drink coffee?

We went on a nature walk. I know not the season or weather but we did it. Miss K filled her bag and ended up with some things in the bag that she did not plan on putting in. Check here to see what was in her bag.

J discovered all his art supplies this week. He brought them downstairs and so the kids had fun drawing the other morning.

He said he missed his art classes from Seattle. I need to contact the art teacher here to see when she is offering classes.

One of the activities that I had Miss K do this week is one for finger strength and fine motor. She was pushing/pressing Wiki sticks onto a piece of paper. To check how she pushed I turn the paper over and see if the Wiki sticks stick.

J amazes me at times with the things he is able to build with Legos. I have tried to build and it looks like a bunch of bricks stuck together. The other day he came down and showed me what he had built -- the Ruins of Ephesus.

He took a few photos but I don't know that we got a good overall photo. It was two boards together and in moving them Ephesus had further ruins.

J wants to start a Lego link with a theme. Let me know if you are interested. He has already come up with some themes. We will host it here on the blog.


In the midst of all those other activities we did the book learning -- maths, history, grammar, reading, spelling (we finished Sequential Spelling Book 3 -- why do they do 180 days?), geography and science.

We are doing Life Science this year and using BJUP. I wanted to give some time to transition to that type of learning as we prepare for high school. Life science and biology are not his favourite science. He would rather mix some chemicals or build something or try to create an explosion. He just didn't see why he had to learn the cell cycle. He even asked me if I remembered any of this. That is totally not a fair question -- doesn't matter you still need to take this class and to take this you need to learn this.

We paused and reviewed the cell cycle today and drew it.

That helped a bit to understand the cell cycle but there is nothing like eating it to really learn it.

We iced cookies because that was what we found at the store this morning and then decorated them to show the cell cycle. I picked the sprinkles and put them in piles so he could arrange them on the cookies. He did say that helped him as he ate metaphase and telophase. Yeah, me I found something that was exciting and helped him to learn life science. Thanks to some time on Pinterest last night and a quick trip to the store this morning.

That about wraps up our week. We have a busy weekend with some events at church, houseguests from a church in the USA arriving, and my online grocery order coming. That might become my new love.

Beth