Learning Log #37

For science this week the kids had a fun time making solar ovens out of pizza boxes.  We discussed solar energy and they warmed up pizza in their ovens.  We are also watching our robin egg very closely.  About every other day we take it out of the incubator for a few seconds and Mike shines a light through it.  We were able to see the yolk attach to the wall of the egg and the first veins form.
Adam had a fun time playing games with the family outside for his P.E.  We played tag, hide-and-go seek, and sardines.  He is riding his bike around everywhere as well.
The kids continue to practice their instruments almost every day.  They are working hard on learning their songs.  We also started our first practices of a family string quartet, and we played our song for their grandma for her birthday.  It was a different kind of practicing as they all learned how to play their songs together, syncranized.
For tech this week Kimball learned how to join a Minecraft server.  He also learned how to join a zoom meeting and he joined his older brother and friends for an evening of Magic the Gathering.  Elsie played with my cell phone and explored what features it has for photography.  She took some beautiful spring pictures with it outside.
We tried a new curriculum this week, one I am helping to create.  Much of the curriculum was review for the kids, but it was very helpful to the group I am working with, and the kids had fun.  For Language Arts, Elsie and Kimball reviewed what a noun (proper and common), verb, adverb, adjectives, and pronouns are.  They read short stories (some fables, written by me) and discussed them with one another.   Anna and Adam went over the first 5 sounds of the alphabet.  For writing, all the children learned and applied how to draw a portrait of themselves.  They all worked really hard and created beautiful portraits.  Anna and Adam wrote them names and ages (Anna in full sentences), and Elsie and Kimball wrote 3 things they liked about themselves.  We also all wrote sentences of what we liked about each other (I wrote for Adam).  Kimball developed his three things he liked about himself into a paragraph.  Elsie wrote several paragraphs, one of her writings was a 3 paragraph essay explaining a memory of hers that helped develop a quality she likes about herself.  For reading, Anna read The Little Brute Family to herself, and 3 beginning books about animals:  What Animals Eat, How Animals Hide, and Where Animals Live.  Elsie read about 5 chapters of Winn Dixie out-loud to Anna and read church magazines on her own.  Kimball reread the book Fortunately, The Milk to himself. 
For Math the children did mostly review.  Elsie and Kimball reviewed long digit multiplication using lots of story problems.  Kimball also did some long digit adding and subtracting facts as well.  Elsie felt like she got faster at her multiplication math facts by doing the review.  Anna practiced her addition and subtraction math facts.  She also reviewed Joseph LeGrange who helped develop the metric system.  She measured several things around out kitchen using centimeters.  Adam reviewed number recognition from 1-10 and making pairs of numbers to make 10.  He also practiced other math facts he has learned and we discussed the times of the day.
I read outloud a Value Tale about being responsible.  We talked a lot all week about being responsible and respectful, especially when it comes to learning and taking care of our bodies.