Snapshot Summary, April 1-8, 2012 week 24/Easter Week

Snapshot Summary, April 1-8

1
April Fool's
Cupcakes and red juice for dinner?
We do like to have some fun on April Fool's day, but I am very particular about the kind of fun. It cannot be mean-spirited or make the recipient of the joke feel bad. There is no pleasure in making others feel frustrated or uncomfortable. We do like to have fun, however. 

This year we made meatloaf cupcakes with mashed potato frosting and jello "juice" as part of our dinner. Quentin really did think they were cupcakes at first and thought I had lost my mind giving them to him for dinner. No worries, he had Fudge Mocha cake for dessert.

2
Monday
Mostly Math

Comparing Greater Than/Less Than
We used our number crunching alligator to compare numbers on a number line (Quentin) and to compare fractions (James).

Bean Sticks and Rafts
Quentin and I made some bean sticks, for 10's and rafts, for 100's, to add to our math manipulatives. I think that having them count out the beans themselves and putting them in cups of 10 and bowls of 100 is very useful at first and I much prefer them to manipulatives that already have their amounts set. Once the counting becomes monotonous, they are ready to have some set-amount manipulatives to work with. I like to make bean sticks and rafts before using the blocks because they are so close to counting the beans themselves. These bean sticks and rafts can be used for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
Sam is working on first degree relations with one placeholder, basic equations and inequalities in algebra. Math is not his strongest subject, so he is going slowly at this. Alex, because of his autism, is still working on basic math skills.

Bird's Nests Orange Sweet Rolls
We made bird's nest orange rolls. The cool thing about these is you put raw dyed eggs on the dough before you bake them and the come out hard "boiled.' For some reason, the boys always eat the eggs first and then the sweet roll, so I get some protein in them before the sugar.

3
Tuesday
Finally Fine Arts
and a little science, too.

(top left) James, age 11, (top right) Quentin, age 7
(bottom left) Alex. age 17, (bottom middle) Phyllis (mom), (bottom right) Katie , age 20

Acrylics Painting, Lesson 1; Cupcake

It has been a long time since we have done some art work. Katie and I made our pictures a couple of weeks ago but found that our acrylics were too thick. I picked up some paint thinner (and I do recommend the low odor paint thinner!) and had the boys try it this week. I was very pleased with their results, following the tutorial at Hodgepodge.

Planting Seeds

We also planted radish seeds for a science experiment/graphing project. We put 30 seeds in the dark and left 30 seeds in the light. They should sprout some time this week and we can finish our project on environmental factors in genetics next week.
Sam and Alex learned about sound and the nature of waves and completed a test for the unit. They also finished up learning about the basic chemistry of life (including a test on it) and began learning more about genetics.

Monk's Pretzels

We always like to make soft pretzels during Easter week because they used to be given out by monk's to children who memorized their scriptures. The dough's folds are supposed to resemble arms crossed in prayer.

4
Wednesday
Hands-on History

Lewis and Clark and The Corps of Discovery
We finished up our Lewis and Clark studies. We watched videos, played games, pretended to be part of the Corps of Discovery and orally narrated what we had learned. We are continuing to read The Little Town on the Prairie and Diary of an Early American Boy, Noah Blake, 1805 before bedtime. Sam worked on the Industrial Revolution and slavery in the Caribbean this week in history. We all will be completing a project on the Industrial Revolution next week.

I made bunny buns.

 We had a picnic dinner, but it was soon abandoned...

 in favor of rolling down hills...

 stick sword fights...

 and general mayhem...

until evening fell.

5
Thursday
Generally Geography

 Postcard-Geography Album
We learned about the Hoosier state, Indiana this week and Quentin made another page for our Postcard-Geography album. We are getting close to finishing our album, having completed pages for 41 states. I am starting to complete pages for states we don't have postcards for yet, in hopes that we might get them someday. We still need postcards for these states: Alaska, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Utah, Vermont and Wyoming.  If you live in any of these states and would like to help us with this project, please leave a comment on how I can get in touch with you.

Sam learned abut the physical geography of Ohio and Tennessee this week and sketched maps of these states.

James and Quentin make Resurrection Rolls, which go into the oven with something inside and while they cook, you read about Christ's body being laid in the tomb and when the stone was rolled back the tomb was empty. By this time, the rolls are done and they discover that the rolls are also empty, like Jesus' tomb at Easter. We have done them before, so they knew what to expect, but it is a nice reminder, and a nice treat.

6
Friday
Reading, Writing and Dying Eggs

April 8, Easter

 Happy Easter!