Crazy hair night

It was crazy hair night last night at AWANA. Here is what we came up with:

The girls got lots of comments about their hair. Kara got lots of recommendations to use lots of conditioner when she took a shower.

A comment by Kara

Ellie was working on writing a letter to her great-grandma K today. As she was pondering what to write, she asked if Grandma K reads our blog.

I said, "No, she doesn't have a computer."

Kara says, "Why Mom? Is that because she knows everything?"

Apparently the computer is only used for finding information. :-)

Weekly Update

This update will be for the last 2 weeks since I didn't write one last week (mainly because I worked last weekend). Last Thursday we took the day off from school and read the book House of Love, a Lamplighter publication. It was a great book and the kids didn't even want me to eat lunch so I could continue reading. It is a fairly lengthy book so we finished it on Monday.

Math: Ellie did several lessons and took a test. She only missed 1 on the test pertaining to milliliters/liters. She has a hard time remembering how many milliliters are in a liter and other metric conversions so we really need to work on those. Thursday she had a really bad attitude about math. After 45 minutes or so of "working" on her math, she came out for a snack and I assumed she was done. When I asked her about it, she said she was on problem number 4!!!!!! So I asked her what she was doing the whole time. After much prodding and pulling of teeth, she admitted that she was just sitting there thinking about how much she didn't want to do her math! So as a consequence she folded 3 large baskets of laundry (her bad attitude continued, hence the total of 3 baskets). The other days she didn't have a bad attitude about her math.
Kara reviewed her math facts again last week and this week we started Saxon Math 2. It is pretty much review right now so we are still averaging 2 lessons per day. I was explaining to her what an AB pattern was and she just looked at me and said, "Mom, I learned that already in Kindergarten!!!" That was the end of that math lesson. :-)

English: Ellie did several lessons. We usually do a few lessons in one sitting since we don't get to it every day. We are currently learning about adjectives. Kara did a few lessons in FLL.

Handwriting: Kara did a couple of the copywork selections from FLL and several of her pages from Daily Handwriting. Her handwriting was getting sloppy again so I am watching this a bit more closely and when she actually tries, she has great handwriting. As someone posted somewhere once--you get what you inspect not what you expect. So true.

Latin: Ellie finished lesson 17. We hadn't been very good about saying her recitations every day, but we've picked that up. She knows them pretty well thankfully.

History: We read chapters 23 and 24 from SOTW about the Greek gods (a review for us) and about the war between the Greeks and the Persians. We also are reading a library book about the building of the Parthenon and the Athenians contribution of architecture. It is quite a fascinating study. The Parthenon is held together by gravity--no mortar, nails, etc.

Spelling: Kara continues in SWO B. Ellie didn't do any spelling. She is such a natural speller that mostly we just correct any misspellings in her writing.

Reading: Kara is reading like crazy. She read 2 books from the library that I picked out and she has read several others. She is trying to fill out several McDonald's redemption certificates since she likes the current Happy Meal toys. Another week or 2 an she'll be done with OPGTR. Ellie finished Pinocchio and is currently reading Around the World in 80 Days.

Science: We continued our chapter on space rocks. They learned the difference between asteroids, meteoroids, meteorites and comets.

Art/Music: We listened to several selections from Mozart. The girls also colored their own Van Gogh painting. This was our last week on Mozart and Van Gogh so we'll move on to new artists next week. We also really need to get back into doing the How Great Thou Art lessons.

Wild Rice--Quinoa Pilaf

I made this for supper last week to go along with our stuffed chicken. It was really good, although the next time I make it I think I'll use a little less chicken broth since I think I would like the quinoa a little drier. Quinoa can be found at your local health food store.

1 T canola oil
1/3 c finely chopped onion
1/3 c finely chopped celery
1/4 c pistachio nuts or almonds, chopped
1 c quinoa, rinsed and drained (don't skip the rinsing step or your quinoa will be bitter)
3 c chicken stock or vegetable broth
1 c cooked wild rice
coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Place the oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and celery and saute for 5-6 min or until the vegetables begin to soften. Stir in the nuts and quinoa and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add the chicken broth and bring to a boil; reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 18-20 minutes. Stir in the wild rice, cover and continue cooking for 2-3 minutes or until the mixture is hot. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as desired.

Darin's birthday

Darin is almost 5!!! I can hardly believe it. I remember clearly the day he was born. We went in to the hospital in the morning for an induction and watched movies all day as they waited for my labor to start. It did at 6pm, and I had one long contraction until he was born at 8:18pm. He sure is a cutie. We celebrated his birthday tonight since Dan was home today. Darin will be 5 on Tuesday.

Eagles

I took the kids this morning to the Soar with the Eagles festival at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha. We had a good time (well, except for when Natalie threw a fit) and learned a lot about eagles and birds of prey. There were a ton of people there and we want to go back sometime when there aren't hoards of people. There were several other learning opportunities that we didn't get to do because of time and the amount of people. They had a very large tent (sort of heated--we still froze) outside that housed several different shows (not at the same time). We went to one about birds of prey. The man and woman that put on the show were from Georgia (they must have been freezing here) and we were able to see some owls, a redtail hawk, a vulture, a bald eagle and a few other flying creatures.

We learned that vultures are very important since they help keep the earth clean by eating the roadkill, etc. Their heads have very few feathers since they put their heads in the dead animal. After they eat, they like to bathe and then lie in the sun (in order to kill the germs). We also learned that the owl cannot move his eyes which is why he was designed to rotate his head 300 degrees. They also fly silently since their feathers are notched. An eagle's vision is so good that he can read a newspaper from 1/2 to 1 mile away.

Here are a few pics from our outing today.

Weekly Update

History: This week we read chapter 22 from SOTW and learned the differences between the Spartans and the Athenians. The Spartans were trained to be soldiers and were uneducated. The Athenians valued education and were a democracy.
Math: Ellie did 3 lessons and a test this week. Kara finished her math book last week so this week we just worked on reviewing math facts. I think we'll do this again next week as she doesn't have them solidified yet.
English: Kara started copywork this week from FLL and has most of the poem "The Days of the Week" memorized. Ellie did a lesson from R & S and had a test. She so far hasn't had any problems with the material.
Science: We began our chapter on space rocks this week. They learned that the center of a comet is called a nucleus and that comets are like dirty snowballs. They also learned that shooting stars are comet dust burning up as the earth passes through a comet's orbit. They are looking forward to the Perseid meteor shower in August (last year I got them up in the middle of the night to watch it).
Handwriting: Kara did 3 pages of handwriting this week. She is almost finished with this.
Reading: Kara finished "The Hundred Dresses" this week. Ellie wrote her book report on the differences between "The Wizard of Oz" movie and the book.
Latin: Ellie finished lesson 16 this week.
Art/Music: We decided to take Friday off since none of us really felt like doing much and we knew we would be going to the Eagle center on Saturday. They did listen to the final CD of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" while they were playing school downstairs. Funny how they didn't feel like doing school; however, they were more than happy to play school for several hours yesterday. :)

Here is a pic of Kara reading: