Today, Sonic and I started on some Norse myths. I know everybody uses D'Aulaire's, but we're using a version written by Mary Pope Osborne of the Magic Treehouse series.
We're also continuing with A Child's History of the World which DS loves.
In English, just chugging away at Galore Park. For science, same thing...almost done with Galore Park's Junior Science Book 1. Plan is to finish book two of both in the spring.
So, going to veer a bit off-topic and talk about Eid-ul-Adha. I had made my first batch ever of marshmallow cream fondant earlier this week so I could make daisies for my daughter's Girl Scout daisy troop. (On brownies...natch.)
They turned out 1000x better than I thought they would...as I'm not crafty, and my idea of decorating is to add sprinkles.
Thing is, even though I made a small batch using a 7 oz. jar of marshmallow cream, I still had a ton left over.
Enter the Eid-ul-Adha picnic.
I decided to make sheep for a cake. Now, all over the internet it says how difficult it is to make black fondant. Amazon could not get me some in time...so what to do. Well, a year ago, my eldest had wanted a kitty litter cake...and one of the decorations for that involves nuking tootsie rolls until soft. So, I decided to try and nuke some tootsie rolls to serve for the black part of the sheep. It turned out really good. Added bonus is that both the marshmallow fondant and the tootsie rolls are yummy...and gelatin free.
Score!
Here's the recipe I used for marshmallow fondant.
1 7 oz. jar of Marshmallow Fluff
1 lb. box of powdered sugar
1-2 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)
butter or Crisco for your hands
So I buttered a large bowl and my hands and plopped in the marshmallow cream. Then I added the vanilla and about 1/2 the powdered sugar. You knead like crazy (I did it in the bowl) until it resembles play dough and is not sticky. I think I used about 3/4s of a box of powdered sugar. Refrigerate it for a day or two until you need it. I put mine in a buttered bowl with plastic wrap (sprayed with Pam) on top.
I think some Moms really like the general weekly guidelines of Oak Meadow. I'm discovering that I probably would do better with a daily schedule. Why? I am so good in getting daily math done. I know it needs to be done every day. I have a rough idea how much we need to do. So we do it. Not a problem. For other stuff, I'm really sporadic. While I had hoped we'd have certain Science days....certain Social Studies days...it just isn't happening. So, hopefully over the weekend I'll be working on a more detailed schedule.
Math-wise, DS finished up chapter four of Math-in-Focus. I then switched us to Math Mammoth 4A for now...as there are only two more chapters left in 4A.
English-wise, we're continuing with Galore Park Jr. 1. We did our first BraveWriter Friday Freewrite today, and it went really well.
DS is reading "Harriet the Spy" and loving it.
We've continued with Galore Park Jr. Science, but I've been a total slacker on OM science and any sort of hands on.
We finished the Native American creation stories in OM3, and began to work on our report on the Calusa Native Americans. We continued with this series. Most of them, our library had, but we had to buy this one from Amazon. Honestly, I'm learning so much that I don't mind at all. :)
Found this great resource for drawing. It is perfect for Native American studies. We do the copywork in cursive...and in Waldorf-y colored pencils. :) The Oak Meadow drawing lessons haven't really been working for us. I think we came too late...or just haven't spent the time on them. As my goal is for my kids to just have an art-filled environment, this works just fine for now.
So, today we made dragon bread (well, dragon pretzel) in honor of Michaelmas. I had planned to use an old Annie's pretzel mix I had, but the yeast was dead, so I used this recipe instead. It only took about half the dough to make our dragon. We followed the Annie's instructions for baking (and for forming...no flour, just a Pam-sprayed counter). It was easy and tasty. We put the M&Ms on before baking...and some of the dye came off. We then brushed him with melted butter and sprinkled cinnamon sugar all over him. Tasty!
We talked about angels in the Qur'an...and Jibreel (Gabriel) and Mikail (Michael) are the only two whose names are mentioned. We talked about how believing in angels (malaki) is one of the tenants of our faith. We also talked about some of the lore of Michaelmas and how it used to signify the start of Autumn in much of Europe. Happy Michaelmas!
Forgot to post this last week. So, we're looking at creation myths in OM3. Week six involved one from the Cherokee Nation called "The Coming of Crow." DS illustrated it, and did the copywork from it.
In Science, we continued in Galore Park Jr.'s science book--which had to do with anatomy and nutrition. DS really seems to like this. We also watched a bunch of Magic School Bus videos.
In English, I'm not a fan of the slooow OM English in either 3 or 4, so we used the Galore Park Jr. English book. I really like the program. DS read the book, "The Lemonade War" and we did some partnership writing.
We've also been doing stuff from all of the Scholastic Teacher Express printables.
Finally remembered to start again with Egyptian Arabic. It was mainly a "mumkin" week (May I have?).
OK, it's week five? Oops, I thought we were on week four. It was a good week. We did a bunch of different things this week.
In OM3, we continued with the stories and read about a girl of the Kush people (south of Egypt.) DH illustrated a picture from the story and we watched a brief National Geographic clip about the Kush.
In OM4, week four of the lesson guide, we researched animals of south Florida--both those that live here now, and in the past. Found out that 10,000+ years ago, Florida was much larger. DS illustrated some of the animals in his lesson book.
In Galore Park Junior, we read a story about an Indian girl and did the exercises.
DS finished, "The Search for Delicious," so I had him write a "real" book report on it. His answers were as short as possible, so I decided to use the BraveWriter partnership writing technique and basically was his scribe. I asked the questions for the book report, and then wrote his answers. That seemed to work really well--he gave really well thought-out answers. So, I think we're going to do more partnership writing, and then add in some copywork to help him work on writing speed/skill.
Created a copywork sheet for DS to learn the Tashahuud in English/Arabic. While DH can read Arabic, I don't know it well enough to help him with his Arabic script, so we used transliteration. I used this copywork program.
Decided that when possible, we're going to do "fun" math on Fridays--so RightStart games, codes/puzzles, etc. Today, DS did a riddle that involved multiplication tables. You find the answer to the problem which equals a letter. Eventually, you fill out the entire answer. "What shape does a Tyrannosaurus like best?" "A Rex-Tangle." LOL :)
Oh! Finally, I found this neat Steiner verse which I really like. We may use it next week.
So, we've almost made it one month! This week, we used the story in OM3 about the founding of Carthage. DS made a map drawing of the Mediterranean ocean, and put on where Tyre and Carthage should be. We used this for reference: http://www.utexas.edu/courses/greeksahoy!/greece_phoenicia.jpg
We also watched this video about the Phoenician alphabet. Some of the letter sounds as well as reading from right to left reminded DS about Arabic.
We started recorder using the 9-Note recorder method. So far, so good. The first lessons focus on B, A, and G...and then have a bunch of songs with those notes. We'll do that and then possibly at the end of next week, add in E.
Math-in-Focus continues with no issues. Started some logic too.
As for OM4, we've done the Language Arts associated with it and DS started reading, "The Search for Delicious."
I think I'm failing at the OM4 art lessons, though. DS has zero experience with drawing lessons, so he's struggling with the approach. Not sure what to do right now about that.
