Ending a Schooling Week...

Ending this week seems to leave me more tired than normal...

We did three week's worth of science lessons. 

He completed the final project for Swiss Family Robinson.
We picked his next choice of literature from the library, Frankenstein.  

He has read three chapters of the book as of this morning. I am having to read quickly to catch up to him so we can discuss it. He is happy to report to me this morning, that if he continues to read at this rate, he thinks he can finish the book within a week. I was happy to report back to him that even if he continues to finish the book within a week, we will continue to use the 3 weeks of lessons I had planned for this novel to review, complete character descriptions and analyzing dialogue and deeper meaning, vocabulary development, comparative essays, and so much more.  His response was a happy groan of approval. It amazes me how fond he is of comprehension and vocabulary development activities reading.

I found an interesting website that had several premade lessons for vocabulary and comprehension for Frankenstein.

In science this week, we did almost the entire plant unit, which is about 4 or 5 weeks long worth of lessons and activities. Monocots, dicots, plant identification, seed types, pollination, and so forth....with lots of activities.

This is a plant I have had since my eldest child was a baby. It has travelled through 5 moves with me. This is the first time in the 18 years I have had this plant that I have ever witnessed it flower, which was kind of impressive to me. It was a perfect live specimen for the child to view for plant diagramming visually without dissecting this one.

He was the beginning of his terrarium. The dirt and rocks are in the bottle.

Better picture. He had evened out the dirt layer here.

The poor, pitiful looking turnip seeds.

Poking a hole in the dirt for the seed to be placed inside.

Here he is putting the bottle on it. I did add enough water in between shots. He ate the popcorn in the background.

Finished product - all taped up.



In the window to collect the sunlight. 

 This was some cuttings we took today from a blackberry vine to propagate later this weekend...or try to...they are in water now to preserve them until we have time to get to them....

This was from one of the science lessons...identification of plant parts. We did a more difficult version worksheet and had more of this that was much more complex with the plant dissection the other day. This was more of a reminder activity. It also was a great activity to use as an excuse to pull up weeds in the flowerbed. This was my model of the activity and overview with him. 

This was seaweed and some kelp brought back from Pawley's Island where we visited earlier this past week, thanks to some kind friends.  

His turn for plant/weed ID.

Notice the addition of dirt to these!! :)

We also took cuttings of a gum tree today and a blueberry vine. I am not sure how to propagate the gum yet, but we will do the blueberry in the same manner as the blackberry and be watchful!! 

We also put the pits of the nectarine and peaches in the refrigerator in the soil to prepare them in baggie containers and planted the multi-colored carrots seeds we ordered from overseas. We checked the new lettuce plants that are starting to bloom and the second round of cabbage starting to come up. Tomorrow we have to finish checking on the tomato slips we started in soil and preserve some of the cowpea leaves and sweet potato leaves for winter use. Busy, busy day ahead of us...