Weekly Report: Silk and Square Roots

(A typical morning at our house)

Ah well...It's Friday. What a week, what a week. A little light on the academics and heavy on the arts and crafts. A BIG SCARY thank you to all who posted these fabulous ideas.

We printed this Halloween banner at cannonpapercraft.com. They have great paper crafts that you can download and print. Cocoa at Chocolate On My Cranium gave us this neat idea.

We also enjoyed making this cute costume mix-up book and the adorably yummy black cat cookies. These fantastic ideas came from Ice Cream (aka Miss Knowitall) at My Ice Cream Diary.

My kids get a kick out of these spiders. I got this super convenient idea from An Ordinary Mom. I loved them because it was a craft we could whip together really fast. (Especially helpful on days when you are REALLY tired from staying up with sick kids) These spiders also tied in with a story we read this week about a spider named Annasi.


We also painted these masks.

Yep, it's beginning to look a lot like Halloween.

This week in SOTW we studied ancient China. We all liked reading the story of how silk was discovered during the Huang Di Dynasty by the empress Lei Zu. For my girls' birthdays this year my mom gave them the BEST present ever. SILKS! They get played with more than anything else at our house. My girls love these play silks and so this story really stuck with them. "Mom, you mean these are made from worms?" You betcha! Learning is so much fun.



We also learned about our sense of smell this week. The kids had fun trying to guess all the different smells I gave them. We also tried tasting things with our noses plugged. It makes a big difference! Elise thought that garlic smelled like chicken. Sam thought that cloves smell like cleaner. Claire thought that vanilla smelled like ice cream.

PLUS the kids have been planning their costumes this week. I can't wait to show them to you next week!

The technicalities:
Scripture Study: Alma 59-61.
"United we stand, divided we fall" This is what I kept thinking about as we read scriptures this week. These are very difficult times for Captain Moroni. His letter to Pahoran illustrates his frustration and depicts their awful circumstances. (You know, another thing I was thinking, I wonder if having to chisel out the letters by hand helped to curb rash language and thinking. You have to know that Moroni's words were carefully chosen.) Pahoran sends a letter back, indicating that he as been forced out of the judgement seat by power hungry king-men. I asked the kids to tell me whether they thought Pahoran was a good man or not, this was the verse that lead us to believe he is a good man:
"And now, in your epistle you have censured me, but it mattereth not; I am not angry, but do rejoice in the greatness of your heart. I, Pahoran, do not seek for power, save only to retain my judgement-seat that I may preserve the rights and the liberty of my people. My soul standeth fast in that liberty in which God hath made us free." Alma 61:9

Samuel:

• Saxon 5/4 lesson 30, Test 5, Investigation 3 "Multiplication Patterns, Area, Squares and Square Roots"
  
• Language Arts: "The Trumpet of the Swan" Every day words lesson 12; 2-3 Quotation rules, comparative and superlative degrees
  
• Spelling: heard, Louis, misunderstand, opinion, intelligent, pearl, yearn, learn
  
• Memorization: Alma 57: 27
  
• Reading: "The Trumpet of the Swan"finished reading and book report.
  
• Journal writing
• Science: How we taste
  
• Piano: "The Juggler"
  
• Art: Halloween projects
  
• Composer:Friedrich Kuhlau
  
• SOTW: Chapter 10: Ancient China
  
• Cub Scouts: Pack Meeting
  

Elise:

• Saxon 2 lessons 24-28 "Addition Facts; Doubles plus one, Reading a thermometer to the nearest ten degrees, Telling Time to the half hour
  
• Language Arts: similes
• Spelling:
  
• Reading: "Junie B. Jones-First Grader: Boo and I Mean It!"
  
• Journal writing: Book report, "Old Hat, New Hat"
  
• Science: How we taste
  
• SOTW: see above
• Piano: "Hey, Mr. Half-note Dot" Yikes! Need to practice
  
• Composer: Friedrich Kuhlau
• Art: Halloween crafts
  
• 50 States Book: Nevada
  

Claire: Letter I activities. Claire has been "practicing" her reading too. She's got quite a few books memorized.

Anna: Feeling much better. The twinkle has returned in her eyes. She is becoming more independent everyday. I just wish she would make it easy for me to wean her. We really have to work on that.