Anderson Arctic Adventures: February

Nick offered to carry Rilie around and he thought it was hilarious!

This semester, Alvin and Alex have been diving into personal projects. This week and last week, they wanted to work on science experiments that I never get too. It's been a good lesson in reading and following directions, realizing the book is incorrect, and then figuring out what they should change.

Alex found this one! He was learning about absorption and watching the colors get sucked up the stalk.

It was supposed to work in 2 hours. It ended up taking 2 days. Each day, Alex drew a picture and wrote his observations in his book. I was proud of him for not scrapping the project when it "didn't work". We just waited it out and noted that it does not work in 2 hours.

(Page 2 of 2)

Translation: "I only see colors at the bottom. I waited for 4 hours and no change, so I cut the end off the bottom. The next night, I see the colors in the veins."

Before anyone worries about his writing ability: I've read that many children's brains (particularly male brains) don't mature for written language until some time between 8-10 years old (especially right-brain learners). Therefore, I don't have a formal writing program. We work on spelling, grammar rules, and penmanship... that's it! If he asks me how to spell a word, I tell him. He asked how to spell, "veins", the rest was his accomplishment! So, I'm very proud of what he came up.

Thumb Print Art

For two weeks, Alex worked on thumb print art.

(THANKS TASHA!)

Alvin's Pinwheel

Alvin struggles with reading... reading instructions for an experiment is VERY challenging.

Still, Alvin has always surprised us with his ability to compensate and figure things out.

He usually asks for clarification once or twice.

Once again, we couldn't get the project to work. We'd blow and blow and the pinwheel wouldn't turn! Alvin decided to go outside. It was windy, between him blowing and the wind, he got it moving. He noted it in his book. He talks about being like Leonardo daVinci, often.

Jackson loves being a part of everything! Tonight, he focused his efforts into throwing shrimp salad around the dining room. It would only take a moment: he would be on the table, serving spoon in hand, ready to fling, and someone would stop him. Did he cry, no. He would laugh, manically! You could see it in his face, "You stopped me this time, but I'll be back!" We decided you can only get away with being a MAD scientist bent on taking over the world between 1 - 2 years old.

Don't let those sleepy eyes fool you...

Feeding himself yogurt.

What childhood is complete without licking brownie batter?

Nick thinks I am corrupting the children.

(He does not like batter)

Turtle Brownies:

FB has a recipe floating around. It sounded simple enough so we tried it.

Brownies, pretzels, and caramel sauce. It sounded fantastic! It tasted really good, but the texture of the pretzels got old after awhile. I think next time, we'll just do brownies and caramel sauce.

School and Memory Work:

Each week, we memorize 7 new facts from history timeline, geography, Latin grammar rules, math, history sentence, English grammar rules, and science. This is what my board looks like most weeks. Memory Work is going very well. I'm coming up with more creative ways to teach it visually and kinesthetically.

We spent a week on the Industrial Revolution, 2 weeks on WWI, and we're finishing our third week on WWII.

Snow

This is the third time it has snowed this winter. It looks like it will stay!

The boys have been sledding in the front yard, building snowmen, and just having fun!

Star Gazer Box

Alvin's wanted to make this for a couple months! You black out a box, hang foil balls (stars), leave the opening slight open for light, and look through a tube in the side. It teaches them how star clusters look close together, but aren't. He had to make adjustments, after three days he finally got it to work correctly.

He was very proud!