Learning Log 28

This week has been an exciting one for our household because the children's aunt, my sister, got married!  We spent Friday and Saturday celebrating in festivities.  I had a lot of fun seeing cousins, siblings, Aunts, Uncles, necies and nephews.  I also loved watching my children play with their cousins and meeting their great aunts and uncles!  The wedding was beautiful, and I will post more about it later.  Needless to say, our thoughts were easily distracted from school, but we persevered!
Elsie finished her Delta math book this week!  She took the unit test and then the final test, which reviewed everything she has learned about division.  Mom has yet to correct the test, but Elsie is excited to be done and on to the next book!  Peter started his Algebra book this week.  He took a readiness test for Algebra and aced it.  Then he started on chapter 1 learning and reviewing negatives, and solving for the unknown using negatives, exponents, addition and subtraction, etc.  He also reviewed how to divide fractions.   Kimball took the test for chapter 26 and started on chapter 27.  He learned how to read and write out big numbers, such as 287,436,234.  He is learning his spelling of numbers as well.  He said he also learned that there are 14 quarts in a gallon.  He reviewed multiplication as well.  Anna started a new chapter on adding 9s.  She practiced building the problem with manipulatives and found the pattern to adding 9s.
The kids all did some reading this week.  Elsie read about 50 pages in The Wind in the Willows and started The Princess and the Goblin.  Kimball read 140 pages about the Solar System and read a few pages of Dinotopia aloud to me.  Anna read a chapter from First Steps called Peter Finds a Name.  It's about a boy who names the family's baby horse.  She is almost done with the book, and is excited about that!  Peter read about 50 pages from A Man Who Counted.  He is less enthralled in the book, but is persevering.  The kids all wrote as well.  Anna worked on some copywork and is paying close attention to the spelling and the correct forming of her letters.  Elise thought of a bunch of ideas to write a story about space, and picked one.  She wrote about 60 words. The story unfolds itself through entries of a diary of a woman that goes to space.  She also started a long poem written in iambic pentameter.  Every 2 lines are dedicated to each state, but she has only written about 10 or so states.  Kimball also tried his hand at his own writing, but stuck to nonfiction.  He wrote about a bunch of space facts he has learned from his readings, and wrote about 150 words.  He also did some copywork and studied the spelling and structure of scentences, and he did several handwriting worksheets.  Peter wrote about 100 words in his science fiction story.  He also learned about essays and how to write an outline for one.  He will work on an outline of his own this coming week.  For science we studied the formation of the earth through glaciers (and had a great snowball fight to feel how snow at warmer temperatures is easily compacted and manipulated).  We also learned about coral reefs and how they form land formations called atolls.  We watched a clip from Wild Kratts about them as well.  We also learned about the crust of the earth and how thin it is compared to the earth in it's entirety.  Peter also learned about the brain in his Pyramid Project class.  They did brain games and learned how our brain is influenced.  In his Forensic class they learned how blood spatter convicts criminals.
The kids all went to Bows and Bridges for their music for both their instruments.  They practiced the piano and their prospective string instrument.  They only have one more week before the string festival, and they are working hard at their performance pieces.
Peter worked on his Minecraft class and read a story about a boy who started a business and then he took a quiz on it.  He learned that it is really important to have a unique business that finds a niche in the community to serve other people.  Elsie, Kimball, and Anna also worked on their business class.  We discussed what we sold during the week and how hard it was.  We also learned about the importance of time management, and we learned how to set effective goals.  We also discussed the importance of retaining customers and encouraging loyalty and different ways we can provide the customers with a voice about how they like our product and services.