A little bit of this...and a little bit of that

I changed our unit week plan just a bit this week.  We did a hodge podge of activities.  Everyday the kids read, did Life of Fred or Hands on Equations, experimented with a Mind Blowing Science kit, played games, started the Write your own novel project, watched educational videos, and did tons of art projects.  They had a great week and it was just the kind of week we needed, since almost everyone was sick. 

I found a great new blog with several art projects I wanted to try- A Faithful Attempt

We did these Oil Pastel Resists- the top two, in order show what happens with too little chalk and too much chalk.  The bottom one Tera did again and it turned out with a somewhat better contrast.  Daniel's is the really dark one- he said he liked it because he felt it was a night time picture.  :)

  Black Cat Collage I absolutely love the way these turned out. 

Daniel and Tera's ad for their favorite book-one of the first exercises in the National Novel Writing Month project.  These were in sketchbooks I found at Ollie's.  A friend and I were complaining about not being able to find notebooks with college rule at the bottom and a blank space at the top.  I found these for 99 cents.  I will definitely go back and stock up. 

 They worked all week on a Chemistry Science kit called Mind Blowing Science, their grandma got them last year for Christmas.  They learned about acids/bases, made jiggly crystals and all kinds of fun stuff.  The best part....they did it all by themselves. 

We learned how to wrap presents...to enter in the fair next year.  Tera made a greeting card as well, but Daniel is still working out his idea.  

We finished this project on Friday...my favorite of the week.  This is an 8th grade project, so I was a little nervous about how they would turn out.  They were fabulous!

Autumn Birch Trees

 

This is what happens when Mommy is sick and siblings are entertaining the little one. 

Although, I was sick this week, we got a lot accomplished.  Most of it, I just facilitated.  A perk of having older students.  Life and school can still carry on, if Mommy is sick.  I'm starting to feel better, although I did end up taking a nap most of this week. 

Random

Last week, I wrote about getting the better of this week.  Well, I did try!  Michael started running a fever on Sunday, which finally broke totally sometime late Monday night.  Tera and Daniel went to their first swim lesson and stopped with Daddy for ice cream on the way home.  By the time they got home, my head was killing me.  Then, Tera followed later that afternoon.  So we have been a bunch of sick people this week.  We missed a field trip and piano this week.  I napped most afternoons and so did Michael.  He had all but given up naps until he got sick and started asking to go to bed.  JP is now sounding croaky and as of yet, Daniel has stayed well.  He's usually the first one to go.  We were supposed to have a unit week on Feudal Japan, but it just wasn't coming together like I had hoped.  So, I had planned on doing a hodge podge of stuff for school.  We did all kinds of things- I'll write about later.  But it was a pretty successful week, I think.  We ended up taking today off, just because it's been a long week.  So I guess we did get the better of it after all.

This is what I've been having a lot for dinners...roasted veggies.  Mostly potato, sweet potato, carrots and garlic. 
 We are studying ecosystems and here are some play-doh coral reefs the kids made last week.

 They also experimented making their own sand out of oyster shells from the beach.   

JP's habernero harvest this year has been out of this world.  This is the last of it (we think).  Apparently, he has a lot of people at work who love them.  A wife of a co-worker is from Mexico and had her husband ask JP for more because she loved them so much.

The better of me...

Some weeks, I get the better of it...then some weeks, it gets the better of me.  This would be one of those weeks. 

My week started early.  I had an 8:15 appt. for my annual OB-GYN physical.  I was diagnosed through an out patient surgery last month with Interstitial Cystitis.  (don't really click there if you don't like descriptions of medical conditions).  At the conclusion of my appt., my doctor said she suspected that I may have endometriosis as well.  Whoopee!  I came home to do research and found that these two conditions are called "the Evil Twins".  I would agree with that title.  I came home quite depressed.  Medications and radical change of diet seem to be in my near future.  I decided to take a natural supplement on my own with my doctor's approval called Quercetin, which is supposed to help patients with IC.  I've already started to change my diet.  This week I've been eating very simply.  I'm avoiding dairy, meat, processed foods, tomatoes, onions and citrus  in addition to already having given up caffeine, carbonated drinks and chocolate.  I will be eating mostly an almost vegan diet except for an occasional egg and butter.  I'm definitely not a big meat eater, but this is definitely a big step for me.  Especially since I'll be eating my own thing and cooking something quite different for my family.  I'm sure I'll be very inconsistent while I'm trying to figure out all the ins and outs of these diet plans. 

Tuesday, we had co-op with art and games.

  
I came home to find these people on their way:

My brother and family stopped in to see us on the way to the mountains.  What a wonderful surprise!

On Wednesday, some friends came over for more art.   Thursday, I left early to take Tera to piano, so we could stop and get groceries to feed the above people lunch.  Piano, then a couple more errands, then home.  John and Christy stopped back by on their way home.  Thursday night, I helped a friend package these: (strike that, Wednesday night we packaged--see, this week did get the better of me)

 I had a fun time packaging and talking...it was the closest we've ever had to a girl's night out. 

Now it's Friday....we've had school, the chimney cleaned, house picked up, babysitting activities planned out for tomorrow, everyone has eaten and are now watching a movie. I'm hoping Michael doesn't have another disobedient outburst that I've been dealing with the entire week from overstimulation and no naps.

 

I'm sitting here half comatose thinking about another busy week coming up...and hoping I get the better of it next time. 

Art, art and more art!

We've been on an art kick lately...and I really like that.  Our new artist for the month is Rembrandt.  So we started by reading some information about him.  We learned he drew/painted over 100 portraits of himself.

The assignment:

Look in a mirror and draw your face with a blank expression.

Results:  Daniel was sad because I told him to stop erasing, can you tell by the sad eyes?

Angry faces


   3-D Hand art Trace hand with pencil then start making straight lines across your paper.  When you come to part of your hand, make an arc.  Then, continue your straight line where you left off on the other side of the hand.  Voila...3-D hands!

More line art with friends

and Compass Art Drawings