My Prince & Princess

Our themes this week in MFW have been Rocks and Jewels. Today's activity was making a crown. I wasn't sure how I was going to convince Corbyn to make a crown but he wasn't at all hesitant about making one to be a Prince. lol :-)

I took 11x14 sheets of poster paper for the "cardboard" and folded them in half long-ways and cut them, so I had 2 strips for each crown. I taped the strips together with clear packing tape (my kids are super-hard on stuff... scotch would NEVER hold long lol). Then measured heads and trimmed the strips to fit.


Fold the strips in half and draw the desired design on one side and cut out. Ta-Da! Lol Zoë wanted hearts, Corbyn wanted snowmen. lol Very unique. :-)


Let them paint them and let it dry. Once they were dry, we hot-glued gems, beads, pom-poms, googly eyes, etc on them wherever they wanted. Then we taped the ends together. :-)

Zoë enjoyed school today - homeschooling isn't so bad, after all -- she gets to make Princess crowns. LOL

Bloody Monday

I love Science Fundays. But I always ALWAYS feel so unproductive, inefficient, incomplete afterwards.I always have SO MUCH I want to do, teach, experience and it seems we never ever have the time to do all the great things or go as in depth as I want. I feel I have just never taught enough, I have let everyone (esp the moms) down, that it's not a good educational use of 2 hours. I need a whole DAY!! maybe two!

Yet, moms still bring their kids, my kids love it, and there seems to be some learning I guess.

Anyway- today's Forensic Science Theme was blood. (we learned a bit about blood, but didn't get into the forensic as much as I wanted)

LAB #1

Make Fake blood

We started with Corn Syrup and red food coloring.

Then we talked about different things to add to change the consistency and transparency to make it look real.

I used info/ingredients ideas from THIS FAKE BLOOD website. Check it out! Make Your own fake blood!! It's GREAT!!

Each boy's blood was a little different. While making it, they'd ask "is this right? Does it look like it's supposed to?" I told them, this is their blood and they need to add the different ingredient to make it how THEY like it and how they think blood looks. (so Connor asked if he can make his green like alien blood)

After that we cleaned up-- a bit. Then talked about some terms. I love scientific words. I love how you can tell what a words means even if you don't know it, if you know what the different root words that make it mean.

For those playing along at home:

1. hematology: from the Greek αἷμα haima "blood" and 'ology'= The Study Of

2. Cytology: rom Greek κύτος, kytos, "a hollow container", and 'ology'= The Study Of

3. Leukocytes: "leuco-" being Greek for white, CYTES- from cyto- which we just learned.

- also Leukemia.

4. Erythroctyes: from Greek erythros for "red" and the CYTES

5. Blood plasma: The liquid part of the blood that carries the cells. *Gavin said "if we were in a river, we'd represent the blood cells and the river that carried us would be like the plasma

6. Blood Platelets: the substance in the blood cells that cause it to clot.

-- hemaphilia- we already knew that the 'philia' means 'love'. 'hema' we learned today. (blood). People with this disorder do not have enough clotting ability and bleed/briuse too much/easily, with out forming scabs, etc

7. Phlebotomy: PHLEB from the greek meaning vein. 'tomy' from the greek tomia- "to cut'. It was a term for BLOOD LETTING- which we discussed.

-- related word ANATOMY. from Gk. anatomia, from anatome "dissection," from ana- "up" & Tomia- Cutting Up.

8. Agglutinate: from the greek gluten,meaning 'glue', glutenate-meaning 'to glue'. It is therm used for the clumping of the red blood cells in our Blood Typing Test

--related words GLUTEN (they recognized that word from Gluten Free Foods they see at Trader Joe's,

** be careful, if calling someone 'glutenous' because they have nature of glue/behave like glue, do not accidentally tell they are gluttonous (tendency to overeat way too much)

After that we washed our hands and got out the Eldoncards for blood typing.

We talked a bit about how to dispose of our needles (anything with blood). I have a COOL RED BIO-HAZARD/Sharps container for just this purpose!!!

(what does it say about me that I am giddy with excitement to have my very own red plastic bio-hazard material disposal container??)

We read the instructions (outloud and on their own). 3 of us went through with pricking ourselves. (2 decided to wait until they accidentally get cut and then will get their cards out.)

we talked a bit about the the different blood types and the antigens that make the. Got out magnifying glasses to get a better look at the agglutinated blood.

Then we went outside with knives and our blood to try to make blood drips from a knife (walking) at different heights. to compare shape/angle, etc. but with the wind and the fact that our fake blood was a bit too thick it wasn;t working. So I gave up.

I changed to a different lab I had. Comparing blood drops made on different surfaces.

I had the following surfaces:

1. Carpet Square (I used an old bath rug- the ones you have in front of the tub to step on after a bath/shower)
2. ceramic tile
3. glass (from a picture fame we never used yet)
4. cardboard
5. cloth/fabric
6. sponge

When dropped onto a non-porous surface a blood drop remains round with smooth edges.

When dropped on a porous surface the drop will have jagged edges. the more pourous, the more spear-out & jagged.

They dropped blood onto the different surfaces and then drew pictures of what it looked like. (they used the magnifying glass for this one, too).

(below) on glass. non-porous. nice round & smooth-->

(below) Cardboard- see the edges started to break & jag from the porousness of the cardboard?


(below)- and, of course, a sponge is very porous- lots of spreading of the blood drop

I had 2 other labs and a few more things about blood to talk about. But we had to end it there as C&K had auditions to attend.

I did send home a worksheet/lab with Landon and my boys will do it tomorrow. I want to do the newspaper one again. I will have to do it inside I guess. [probably in the garage]

News from Kaber's Clan

Hi, this is Kimberly from All About {my} Boys- reporting in the Homeschooled Hooligans' Blog!

A few things.

first, here is the code for our wonderful new button Danielle made:

<br /> <a href="http://homeschooledhooligans.blogspot.com/"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ0xf7GHoJKMzdMBZGn3B1TekXXn5ySMhvtzfZxA12uT8mEi90DG0tpDxPhDzdqWdnZ5vtuOMsdQKveTA24p25NB3c_Aq6aF-aFl2c2bl5G8tn_TK_jv-VqUWPS4kuYRwrmL3WwdMjwhex/s1600/Image3.jpg" width="135" height="135" target="_blank" /></a> <br />

Second: Just wanted to let you all know our J-Term is going along well! We are doing Forensic Sciences as a group and then Ki and & are learning about Theater/Acting and Connor and Gavin are doing Computer Programming. They all seem to REALLY enjoy it! Check out my blog for more posts about J-Term.

This week we processed a crime scene (complete with bullets, "blood", a "victim", fingerprints, and more), we took impressions for comparison, analyzed Mystery Powders, and more!

Gavin tried to register for a college class, but all the ones he wanted were full. He's on a waiting list.

Here is what we did with shoe prints and Crime-Cast!

SHOE PRINTS1. I cleared out an area of dirt in the garden next to the Orange Tree.
2. I put on an older shoe and stepped in the dirt, leaving a print.3. I called the CSI crew out to take a cast of the clue. Ki mixed the Cast Material.4. Connor Poured it.


5. We waited 30 minutes and Ki lifted it out of the ground.

5.5 We went inside, learned a few Acronyms ( ICPO, ATF, CIA, LAPD, etc)- the boys each researched 2 of them online and wrote a few sentences. Ki researches NCIS (as he likes that TV show)6. The cast dried inside the house over night and today C&K cleaned the dirt off of it.




7. Connor quickly found the match, though he looked at all the shoes, he was easily able to distinguish the non-matches.

KANGAROOS

KANGAROOS & ZEBRAS
These lessons we've been stuck on for weeks because daddy was on nights (off during the day then I was too tired to school at 4pm when daddy would go to work) and last week Z and I were sick. This week even though Daddy and CJ are sick, I'm DETERMINED to get through these. lol This was our main event, our big activity of the lessons - Kangaroo juice container pencil holders. Yup, it's as easy as it sounds. lol Hopefully, the link will be the correct one... Kangaroo ... because it's really cool that it came as a three-part cut out. That way the kids got to have somewhat of a visual. :-) So, cover the frozen juice container with brown paper, let the kids colour the kangaroo while the glue on the brown paper dries, then cut it out and glue it on. :-) EASY (that's why I love it!). lol
We learned that Kangaroos come in LOTS of different sizes and shapes, their babies are born hairless and about an inch long and the joey stays in the pouch for a long time.

Zoë is getting better at reading even if she does resist it. I folded a piece of lined paper longways and made a list of the words she's learned through the school year. The words filled 2 columns on the first side of the page and over half of both columns on the back side of the page. I was amazed. lol I really did not think we'd covered that many words. I'm very proud of her. When she puts in a little effort she does a fantastic job (don't we all??).

Corbyn's still just hanging out with us. Some days it seems like he's a little sponge and some days he just wants to go back to bed. lol He has his workbooks he prefers some days, but I can tell that he's picked up on quite a few letter sounds and because of the Elephant lesson, he can point to Sri Lanka on the world map. lol (Isn't that kind of a fun country to say.. Sri Lanka.. I'm amused too easily lol.. anyway...)

That's what's going on in the Rogers Canyon Christian Academy. ♥ I'm lovin' it -- even if we aren't consistent in book work. LOL

HELLO 2011

Is anyone still homeschooling these days? Is everyone too busy to post here? I know the last 6 months of my life have been completely insane...so I'm cutting everyone a break...LOL! I'd like to see a post for each author once a month if possible and you ladies feel free to hold ME to that as well, OK?
As for the Homeschooling MeYeRs, we are trying something COMPLETELY new this year. Last school year ('09-'10) took much longer than planned. As in we didn't finish that school year until November of '10. YIKES...however, since we have switched to the year round schooling to accommodate our ever changing schedule that tries to accommodate Dan's work schedule, it's all good. So, we've been on break since the week of Thanksgiving and are restarting today after a move, the holidays and some good family time together. The new things that we are doing are as follows...

I am buying NO BOXED CURRICULA this year (this should THRILL you, Kim *winks* )

I am using up the FREE resources that I've downloaded or been given, or things that I have previously purchased and haven't used yet.

I am going to write/create/find more of my own teaching plans...anatomy class, anyone?

I am going to work on having MORE hands on activities...science experiments, music class, more structured PE time, going and SEEING things, not just reading or hearing about things (for all the boys, but especially for Pat)

We are going to take more "educational" family field trips, serve the community together and get involved in something besides our own life.

I am not teaching English this year....no grammar, no book reports and no diagramming sentences. We will be reading, reading, and reading....mostly from the classics and we are going to let the GOOD English seep into their brains without horrible worksheets and boring book reports. We will be using narration and dictation as our guides for retention and understanding. Oh and enjoying a free spelling program I found online since D and P both struggle with spelling sometimes.

We are starting movie/book month themes. We will read books and watch movies from particular categories each month. So excited about this one! For instance, this month is comedy. We will be watching, listening to and reading some of the greats; Bill Cosby, Mark Lowry, Red Skelton, Abbott and Costello and more. I've got some super audio broadcasts downloading and waiting for them. Add some good belly laugh movies and before you can say, "I love homeschooling!" we are having fun AND learning a bit of history AND sharpening our comedy skills.

I found a great deal ($4) on some math books/DVDs at the local used book store this fall and am excited to get started on using it since the boys have been just trudging through math this past year. So this year, they get to watch a 10-15 minutes lesson on math, do just a few practice problems and badda-bing, DONE with math for the day : ) It's a thing of beauty

Derek will be working on his alphabet lap books, working his way through the 100's of preschool/kindergarten resources that I have, playing math games, using flashcards, memory and other learning games and sitting in on the big boys' lessons when the mood strikes. He will do nature study alongside of them as well.

We will be joining Jodi and James several times a week to work through the 2nd year of My Father's World with them and I'll have the boys do the supplemental (6th -8th grade) work at home. They LOVED doing MFW last year and are looking forward to it again.

I think that's about it for now. So excited about this new school year! I know I always say that this school year is the best one, but this past one really had some super high HIGHS and a few lows. It was a good year, but it just stretched on for too long. So this 'year' we are trying to cram everything in by mid July. Then we can have a short break and begin again in late August. Phew, I can't even start thinking about next school year yet...LOL! Hope all is well in your homeschooling universe. Be well, learn and love much!

Blessings from my homeschool to yours,

Kristy and the Man Crew