Learning Log 29

This week for school the kids started off the week at a homeschool ski day up at Beaver Mountain.  They had a lot of fun and enjoyed the sunshine up in the mountains.  They finished out the remainder of the week finishing strong on their school.  They all worked on their math.  Elsie started working on chapter one of her new book Epsilon.  She started to learn about fractions and how to find a fraction of a fraction using manipulatives.  Kimball finished chapter 27, where he learned to write out long numbers.  He also practiced putting numbers in standard placevalue notation, and he reviewed multidigit multiplication.  Peter finished chapter 1 and started chapter 2 of Algebra.  He is reviewing the order of operation to solve equations using the anachronime Please Excuse My Dead Aunt Sally. Anna continued to work on chapter 9, where she is learning to add 9s.  It is coming slow and steady.  She has also done some review, such as counting by 10s, and worked on some story problems.  I also read Sir Cumfrance and the Round Table to Anna and she learned what a circumfrance, diameter, and radius are.
The kids also read a little and did some writing.  This is something we are trying to get better at.   Peter read a little from the book The Man Who Counted.  He wrote an outline for an essay and the first paragraph for it.  Elsie finished A Wind in the Willows, reading about 70 pages.  She also worked on her story she is writing through journal entries from a fictional character that goes to space.  She did about 3 pages of her handwriting, practicing her cursive and writing the states and their capitals.  She also did about 4 pages out of her spelling book.  Kimball read about 40 pages out of his book about the Solar System.  He also copied several versus from the Bible and studied the spelling of the words.  Anna finished her First Steps book!  She read about 10 pages from her book and is ready to continue her adventure in reading.  She wrote a letter to a neighbor and copied a sentence from a book she likes.  I also read a couple books to her, one was called Tim and Ginger, and another was St. George and the Dragon.  I also read part of Winnie the Pooh.
The kids also did some science.  I read to them out of a book about the ocean and we learned about Seastars, Coral reefs, sea fans, and anemones.  We looked at pictures of them and discussed how they grow, eat, and live.  For Peter's forensic science class he watched 2 cases from the defendant and prosecution, and decided who was right and who was wrong based on the evidence.   
For their tech/business course, their "business teacher" was sick, so they did tech on their own.  Elsie started a science class for girls through the Maker's Club and she learned how a 3-D printer work.  She also learned there are negative and positive sides on a circuit board, and she was shown how to solder.  All the kids watched and helped take apart our flat-screen tv that broke.  They learned how flat the screen is and that there are 3 circuit boards in the tv.  My husband taught them that the biggest circuit board holds all the smarts to the tv, another board is for the display, and the third board distributes electricity to the other boards.  Peter also worked on Minecraft and took a test stating what he would sell and details about the restaurant he is going to build. 
For music, all the kids practiced and went to their lessons for piano and strings.  On Saturday they competed in the Strings Festival.  Kimball played Go Tell Aunt Rhody on the cello, Anna played Twinkle Little Star Variation A, Elsie played Minuet 2 on violin, and Peter played Judas Maccabeus on the viola.  They all did a great job!  I was really proud of them.   Anna was really nervous, and I was proud of her for being so brave.