Homeschool Week 18

Both boys continue to happily plug away at their math programs.  I never thought I would stray from Abeka math, it worked so well with ds1 and ds2.  But my younger boys just aren’t keen on workbooks and so far Mathletics is working well with both of them.  We are also using a few computer programs for math fact drills.

Snuggies and computer math lessons go hand in hand.

In science we are still studying the human body.  I rented The Magic School Bus Inside The Human Body from Netflix and it has been the star of our science lessons for the week.

It’s like a drive-in theater for computers lol.  Just pull up a desk chair!  The DVD has three episodes of The Magic School Bus cartoon show (which I didn’t even know existed) that center on the human body.  Both boys have enjoyed watching and learning about bones, germs and muscles.  We also made a model of blood for a lesson from RSO Life Science.

  Here the boys are coloring a picture of the components of blood and a super close-up of the model.  This exercise really helped them get that blood has parts, and that each part has a special role to play.

Ds3 is still learning about two US states a week.  I found a couple of neat sites that drill state abbreviations and locations and had him play them a little.  I was pleasantly surprised at how well he did!  He has picked up on the pattern for the abbreviations and knew many that we haven’t covered yet.  He also did really well locating states on a map, even more than just the east coast ones we have already covered (and the Gulf Coast region where we live.)  Some of this stuff is actually sinking in lol.

In SOTW we read about ancient Greece and the boys wrote their names using letters from the Greek alphabet.

They really enjoyed that assignment!

For art this week we learned about Paul Cezanne and the boys arranged items from around the house to paint their own still life pictures.

Ds3 picked some fruit and our cat Smokey for his arrangement.  Believe it or not, Smokey didn’t move a bit during the whole ordeal.

My artists at work.

Ds4’s is on the left.  I had them title and sign their masterpieces.  I am very pleased with how productive our schooling has been since returning from holiday break.  We have one more full week of school, then we are off for our trip to Disney World!  Ds2 commented at dinner last night that I am the most excited of all of us about this trip.  It’s true, I AM!  I so need a vacation, a getaway, a distraction.  Only 8 more days to go!

I am linking this post to Weekly Wrapup at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.