Pinterest

I'm going to keep updating this post to add all the things I do from ideas I pinned on Pinterest.  Link

Today, I made the kids owl sandwiches and we made Harry Potter cupcakes for tomorrow's "Harrathon".  We are finishing book 6 tonight, so tomorrow, we are going to watch movies 1-6!  The kids are so excited!

Anyway, here are my version of the ideas I got from Pinterest:

Owl Sandwiches

We skipped the cute cucumber and pretzel trees, because neither kid likes cucumbers, and I didn't have any pretzels.

Harry Potter Cupcakes

This first tray was made by the 9 yr. old.  There are Arthur Weasley, Tom the Barman, Marcus Flint, Vincent Crabbe, Neville Longbottom, Professor Quirrel, Sirius, Lily Potter, Rookwood, Flitwick, Borgin, Ollivander & Viktor Krum among them.

These next two cupcake photos belong to the 7 yr. old.  I'm not sure which is which, but I know there is a Molly Weasley, a Lucius Malfoy, a Hermione, Buckbeak, Bellatrix Lestrange, Voldemort and a Ginny Weasley in there.

These are mine- from top to bottom:  Tonks, Luna Lovegood, Madame Pomfrey, Snape, Hagrid, Lee Jordan, Fred & George with the fireworks they set off upon leaving Hogwarts between them, Harry, a Snitch and Ron.

Updated 2/20/12:

Harry Potter Spell Books.  I didn't put them in little photo albums like on Pinterest, but I laminated them and put rings on them.  I need to get smaller rings, but I used what I had for now.

Updated 2/27/12: 

I did a couple of the language arts paint chip projects from Pinterest- making contractions and synonyms.  It was kind of weird to walk out of Lowe's with that many paint chips, but we did it!

Updated 3/1/12:

They have to guess what's inside the box after 3 clues.

Hanging bookmarks.  Andrew insisted that I needed one of myself.  He took the photo of me, and both of them thought it was hilarious that my belly button was showing.

Updated 3/4/12:

Slice potatoes almost all the way through.  Put sliced garlic in between some of the slices, drizzle with butter and olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake.  Delicious!

Updated 3/5/12:

We made synonym rolls!  The boys loved this project!

Updated 3/11/12:

Glow in the dark bath!  Such fun!

Updated 3/13/12:

Angry Verbs stories:

Andrew's story

I had asked for one full page, but Ed really got into this assignment and did 4 pages.

Here's a close up of the first two pages.

Updated 3/16/12:

Pot of gold Rolos at the end of Twizzler rainbow.  Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Cinnamon roll pancakes.  Need to try again because my cinnamon mixture was too runny.  The kids liked them, though.

Angry Birds snacks.

Andrew doesn't like Baby Bel cheese, so he got yellow birds made from tortilla chips.  I used slices of prune instead of nori, also.

Updated 3/19:

Star Wars breakfast, with a few modifications:

No matter what I do, I can't get this picture to load right side up.

Updated 3/30/12:

Music notes and rests, learning the count:

Scrabble tiles in chicky eggs.  They made words out of the letters.

Updated 4/3/12:

Breggfast!

Updated 6/10/12:

I didn't know whether to put this on the Food Edition or not, so I just put it here.  I made Jamie Oliver's flavored water recipes.

The citrus one was yummy and popular, but the strawberry mint one was not that great. I think it would taste better with iced tea.  Anyway, I kept forgetting to take pictures today, so here's what's left of a batch of the citrus water:

It's been rough.

The transition back into a routine has not gone well.  There have been lots of meltdowns and temper tantrums by kids and Mom.  This has led to a signing of the Continuing Homeschool Agreement (à la Big Bang Theory), by which no one is allowed to complain or argue about any aspect of school.  Three strikes and we're signing up for public school.  I might just actually do it, too.  I'm really, really tired of the attitudes.

Anyway, here's the nutshell of the past couple of weeks:

Language Arts:

We've been working on some more sentence analysis in Practice Island.  We worked a lot with contractions and using apostrophes to demonstrate possession.

Both boys read and did book reports on Galileo's Leaning Tower Experiment.  They are now reading Frindle for book club.

In handwriting, we've been practicing writing words in all cursive and have learned capital A & B.  I made them write some of their spelling words in cursive, and you would have thought I was making them scrub the entire house with lye.

Spelling words have included contractions, words with the root post and words with the root port.

In poetry, we talked a little bit more about personification, simile and metaphor.  We've been reviewing all our poems and have begun learning The Eagle by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Still listening to Inkheart in the car.  I think we're on disc 11 of 14, though, so we're getting near the end. What will be next?

Math:


Really ugly!  We started working on multiple digit multiplication in MUS.  This is the first time math has been the slightest bit challenging for either of them, and the resistance is enormous.  They understand the concept- they just don't want to do the careful work of lining up the numbers in the correct place value columns.  I have to say, Eddie has had a better attitude about it, but Andrew understands the lining up of numbers better.  We suffered through a few lessons, and then I decided to take a break from it and review some stuff before moving on.  So, we are reviewing multiplication facts, time & measurement, place value, skip counting, addition and subtraction of larger numbers, etc.  until such time as I can muster the courage to go back to multiple digit multiplication.

History:


We learned about Isaac Newton, John Locke and the concepts of modern farming in SOTW.   To go along with these lessons we read Why Doesn't the Earth Fall Up? by Vicki Cobb and Century Farm: One Hundred Years on a Family Farm by Cris Peterson. We also read The Farewell Symphony by Anna Hardwell Celenza, about Joseph Haydn, traveling to Prince Nicholas of Esterhazy's summer home to be the court music master.  We also listened to SOTW about Peter the Great and his war with Sweden and read Peter the Great by Diane Stanley and The Sea King's Daughter: a Russian Legend by Aaron Shepard.

They wanted to collaborate on this, but Eddie wrote the first page and Andrew wrote the second.

       Here's Andrew's Peter the Great narration:

Science:

We've been learning about mixtures and solutions and how some things will dissolve and others will not.  We're observing how some things will un-mix easily, and others will not.  We've done a few experiments to observe these phenomena:

French:

We are learning weather words and expressions, along reviewing the months and the seasons and talking about what kind of weather goes with each season.

Latin:  

We've learned nihil sub sole novum, vita sine libris mors est and circa.

Music:

They worked on the song Flowers and May Day.  We reviewed the count of the notes and learned about 3/4 time.

Health:  

They completed a worksheet about foods that contain fats, and talked about the importance of a balanced diet.  First, I had them draw a picture of what they think they look like right now.  Then, they had to read some hyperbolic scenarios of unhealthy diets.  Finally, they were asked to draw a picture of what they would look like in one year if they ate only those unhealthy foods.  Ed, as usual, put his own spin on the assignment (WARNING- There is cartoon nudity!):

P. E.

We've been taking long walks to playgrounds in this beautiful weather.  We also did some more of the exercise video from the library, as well as some stretching.  They went to another Swim & Gym, too.

Eddie learned to dive for a dive ring.

Andrew enjoyed himself after the lesson.

They had to go to various stations to practice fitness skills.

Then they ran an obstacle course. 

Ed pretended these were barbells

Andrew got into the hoola hoops.

Art:

We did Lessons 11 & 12 in Artisitic Pursuits, which were about shape and form.  They made pictures out of flat shapes and then they made the animals to demonstrate how art can show form.

The boys are still going to Chess Club, Book Club, Cub Scouts and Sunday School, so lots of extra activities there.  

We went on some cool field trips lately, too:  

First we explored the new aquarium:

Then we went to Gray's Armory with the Cub Scouts.  That was a very interesting place. 

These were things sent back from WWI.

Digging for treasure at the shooting range.

The Ballroom.

These next pictures show the area that was a Speakeasy during Prohibition.

Eddie wanted to go to the Art Museum for his birthday so that he and his brother could scope out the medieval armor.  We had to vote on our favorite swords and daggers.  

Eddie was trying to pose like a mummy in these pictures!

So, all in all, it has been a busy few weeks.  I think we will start to get our groove back soon and power on through the rest of the year.  Let's just hope math starts going a little better, or Mommy's gonna need a vacation soon!