Week 26: Wrapping Up the Winter Olympics

Do you ever have one of those weeks where you feel like you haven’t accomplished a whole lot, but when you actually look back, you’re really surprised at how much you actually DID accomplish?  That was what it was like for us this week.  As I uploaded the pictures I took throughout the week, I kept saying to myself, “oh yeah…I forgot we did that too.”

First off, I’m going to brag (prematurely).  Two weeks ago the boys had an assignment to plant some “crops”.  The lesson recommended dried beans, as they tend to grow easy and fast.  In addition to the beans though, I figured I’d let the boys plant some other seeds that I had found in the garage (cucumbers, broccoli, carrots).   I am proud to say that in just two weeks, we have had to replant the seedlings into larger pots.  Eventually, when the weather warms up a bit, we’ll transplant them to a spot in the backyard…assuming they continue to grow. 

Before we transplanted:

Ty learned how to make a ‘thank you’ card in Bible class.  And yes, there was glitter!

The theme for Cam’s Phonics/English class this week was weather.  Those of you that know Cam, know that he was in his element this week.  That boy just LOVES learning about extreme weather.  The first thing he learned about was tornados.  We had to make a tornado using water bottles taped together.  He played with that all.  day.  long.  And then some.  I had to take it away at one point because he was too busy playing, and not doing his lessons.

In Heritage Studies, the boys made their own wigwams:

In Math class, Cam was learning about dimensional objects.  Here he is making a pyramid out of toothpicks and gumdrops:

In Ty’s Math class, he made an ocean diorama:

On Tuesday, I took the boys to get their hair cut.  Ty, of course, wanted to be “spikey”.

I also had all of the kids work on a Get Well card for Grandma Donna.  Here is a picture of all four kids working on it:

The teenagers putting the glue down (sprinkled with colored rice):

I forgot to take a picture of the final product.  When we stop by the hospital to see Grandma Donna, I’ll take a picture of it then.

On Wednesday, we stopped by Aunt Jan’s house to drop off her baby shower gift (and Cam got to play with Sadie again).  After that, we headed to the ice rink.  Unfortunately, I forgot the boys’ jackets, so they only skated for about 30 minutes.  After the rink, we went across the street to the hospital to visit with Grandma Donna.  Since Grandma was still in a lot of pain from her knee surgery, we didn’t stay very long.

Ty’s Snack of the Week this week was called, “Apple Surprise”.  It’s an apple slice wrapped in a biscuit, and sprinkled with cinnamon.

And finally, on Friday we wrapped up our Winter Olympics Unit Study.  The boys and I had a lot of fun with this.  We concentrated on the  winter sports, the different countries/flags that won Gold, and we located various places around the world where some athletes live.  Here is a shot of Cam’s lapbook (Ty’s looks almost the same):

I actually printed out the name and country of the gold winners for each sport, along with their flag.  I had the boys paste it inside of each ‘booklet’.

After we finished the lapbooks, we made our own gold medals.

It was at that point that Cam informed me that he needed a ‘step’ to accept his gold, that Ty had to hold the US flag, and that he had to kiss his gold medal.  I guess he’s been paying attention after all.

We celebrated Friday by eating lunch in our classroom while we watched the brand new Lego movie!