Our First Week

We've completed our first week of the 2014-15 school year! 

This week I wanted to ease the kids back into the routine so we didn't just jump in with a full load.  During our Table Time the girls didn't do any of their core subjects.  Instead, I told them to pick a topic and research it during the week and prepare to present their findings to the family on Friday.  I didn't give them any parameters.  I wanted to see what they would come up with.  Also, one of my goals with this was to get them to dig through our nonfiction book shelves.  They hardly ever touch that shelf and I wanted them to see what wonderful things are found there.

Primus chose to study about bears.  Secundus chose to study about tigers.  It was interesting to me to see the different ways they went about it.  Primus, who doesn't like to write, drew several pictures with pencil as she went and labeled them with facts she learned.  Secundus, on the other hand, drew only one tiger picture and colored it with crayons.  For the rest of her report she copied down word-for-word a few sentences about her animal that she read.

Other than the research project, we did literature, watched some history videos (Liberty's Kids and Horrible Histories), watched some Bill Nye the Science Guy, and did some investigations with eggs. 

Our science exploring with eggs was prompted by this video.  Did you know you can stand on a carton of eggs and not crack them?  I also realized that the kids have never seen what happens when you let an egg sit in vinegar for a while.  That was really fun to see the shell was dissolved the next day.  After playing with it and bouncing it for a while, I let Secundus try to cut it with a knife so they could see if the inside changed too.  It was really funny when the membrane popped like a water balloon on her!

One week down, 36 to go!  Tomorrow the real work begins as we pile on the full load.