Learning Log 39

Music
Peter, Elsie, Kimball, and Anna all went to their piano and string lessons at Bows and Bridges.  They also practiced their songs at home.  On Saturday they participated in a recital.  They performed duets they have been working on and played in quartets.  They all did a great job!


Language Arts
Peter read the 3rd book in Percy Jackson series. Peter entered a long journal entry catching up on all our adventures.
Elsie wrote 3 times in her journal about her experiences watching our chickens hatch.  She also did three pages of cursive handwriting.  She read the 4th & 5th (which is the last) book of Percy Jackson, started Kane Chronicles. 
Kimball read 30 pages out of How the Body Works.  He read and learned about the lungs and how they pump oxygen and also about other organs.  He memorized another stanza from Godfrey Gordon Gustof Gore, and copied another stanza of the poem into his notebook.  He also did some copywork from King Arthur and wrote a note to his friend and wrote a list of what he likes to do.
Anna read 1 1/2 chapters from Days Go By, about 7 pages.  She also did some copywork and wrote down a riddle and a scripture.  She also wrote a note to her grandpa and grandma.
We all had a fun time participating in Poetry and Tea.  Everyone shared a poem they liked and got a little money if it was memorized.  We had Hibiscus tea and ate chocolate chip cookies and worked on manners as well.

Math
Peter started chapter 9 and learned more about the Cartesian Coordinate system.  He studied slope intercept formulas and how to simplify the equations to find similar slopes.  He also plotted out right triangles and found parallel slopes.
Elsie started and finished chapter 6 and took the test.  She learned about the Rule of Four and how to apply it when adding fractions with different denominators.  She reviewed multiplying multiple digits.
Kimball finished chapter 6 and took the test, learning how to divide by 9s.  He reviewed subtraction with regrouping.
Anna finished chapter 14 and took the test, which she got 100% on.  She started on chapter 15, learning what numbers add to 10.  She reviewed other math facts she has learned as well.

Science
We all watched our eggs in the incubator hatch all week.  It was fascinating.  We learned abut pipping and how a chick absorbs the yolk after it has pipped in its egg and then hatches within 24 hours.  We saw them hatch and got to hold them a few hours later.  14 of the 23 eggs hatched.  We took the rest of the eggs and dissected them.  4 of the unhatched eggs didn't even look fertilized.  1 looked fertilized, but all we could see was a dot.  2 of the eggs died within the first few days, but we couldn't see any bird formation.  The last 2 died within hours from hatching.  The yolk was halfway or mostly absorbed.  That part was kind of sad.

Tech
Peter finished his Minecraft assignments and finished up the course.  He wrote a story about his adventures in Minecraft and took pictures in Minecraft to illustrate it.  The other kids watched him as he learned and did this.  Elsie built a rollercoaster in Minecraft. 

Learning Log 38

Language Arts
Kimball finished the Just So Stories, so he read The Cat Who Walks by Himself, and finished how The Beginning of the Armadillos.  He copies 4 sentences from King Arthur and another stanza from Godfrey Gordon Gustof Gore. He also did "just fun" writing, and wrote some sentences. Peter read the 1st and 2nd books in the Percy Jackson series. He wrote a poem to me (his mom) for Mother's Day.  Elsie read the 2nd and 3rd books from the Percy Jackson Series.  Elsie wrote a note to her mom for Mother's Day.  She also did several pages of her cursive handwriting practice sheets.  Anna read 1 1/2 chapters from Days Go By.  She also copied a couple sentences from the magazine about bees we are going through. 

Math
Kimball finished chapter 5 and took the test, and started on chapter 6.  In chapter 5 he learned what parallel and perpendicular lines are.  In chapter 6 he learned how to divide by 9s.  He also reviewed subtraction with regrouping, and other division math facts he has learned so far. 
Peter finished chapter 8 for math, about the cartisian coordinate system, and finding the slope and intercept from an equation.  He reviewed solving for the unknown from equations.  He also took the test.  Elsie finished chapter 5 and took the test.  She also found her math test book, which had been lost, so she took several tests to catch up to where she was.  Anna worked on chapter 14 for math.  She reviewed previous math problems she had been working on, and worked on her addition facts that are 1 number away from doubles (7+8).  We also did some "bee" math together.  Anna learned how to draw a hexagon; Peter, Elsie, and Kimball learned how to find the area of a hexagon; and Peter did a large story problem and figured out how many and at what cost it would be to tile a certain area using hexagon tiles.  We learned new terms such as regular polygons and apothem.  Anna learned what a perimeter and area were.

Music
Kimball, Peter, Elsie, and Anna practiced their songs on the cello, viola, or violin, as well as the piano.  They also went to Bows and Bridges for their lessons.  They are working on songs for the recital in a couple weeks. 

Science
We went to the Rock and Gem show and signed up to be apart of our local Rock and Gem Club!  We had a great time looking at rocks, and the kids bought some quarts crystals which are in the shape of hexagons!  We learned what blue calcite is and watched how gems are shaped and manually formed.  Kimball bought a couple opals because they are his birthstone, and all the kids had fun collecting rocks from vendors who gave sweet donations.  It was a lot of fun!

History
We learned about some great men in Greek history.  We learned about the battle of Marathon and Pheidipedes' death, Pisistratus the Tyrant (and how he really wasn't much of a tyrant at all), and Lycurgus and Draco.  We also learned that Sir Edmund Hillary was a bee keeper, which is why he had the time to climb Mt Everest.  We learned about other famous people in history and how they contributed to "bee knowledge" or had bee hobbies,  such as Hippocrates, Thomas Jefferson, and Maria Von Trapp. 

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Kimball read two Just So Stories: How the Rhinocerous Got its Skin and How the Leopard Got its Spots.  He also copied sentences from King Arthur and a stanza from Godfrey Gordon Gustof Gore.  Elsie read the book Percy Jackson Lightening Thief (375 pages).  She wrote 
Anna read 2 chapters in her Days Go By book:  We Want a Dog and Just One Dog.  In the chapters, the 2 brothers learned how to compromise.  She wrote sweet letters to her parents and she wrote about how bees and wasps are different.  Peter typed up his science results, hyposthesis and conclusion for science.  He finished reading Treasure Island for his reading and read a couple Norse Myths. 
As a family, for math we learned how many bees it takes to make a 16 ounce jar of honey.  It takes 1,165.  It takes 1 bee to make 1/12 of a teaspoon.  For Math Kimball finished chapter 3, learning to divide by 10s, and finished chapter 4 as well, where he learned to divide by 9s.  He also started chapter 5 a little, where he is learning about parallel and perpendicular lines.  He also reviewed long addition and other division facts.  Elsie finished chapter 4 and did most of chapter 5.  She learned how to add fractions with different denominators by finding the common factor.  She also reviewed rounding and basic addition and subtraction with fractions.  Peter finished chapter 7 and started chapter 8 about slope intercept equations and graphing.  He reviewed solving for the unknown in some algebra equations. Anna finished a chapter in math, 13, and started on chapter 14. 
For music, all the kids went to their Bows and Bridges lessons for piano and their string instrument.   They also did their practicing every day.  Peter, Kimball, and Elsie had their quintet practice at our home and then had their final homeschool choir concert on Friday.  It was a great concert, and they all played their instruments well and sang beautifully!
For science, we learned more about bees, and we made our own beeswax chap-stick.  We filled out a ven diagram about bees and wasps.  We learned how countries have used bees in warfare and how they use beeswax today.  We also learned how to prune grapes and perennials and raspeberries, and how to thin peas as they worked at their grandma's garden. 
For Tech Peter did his next assignment in Minecraft where he had to get some ideas for a story.  He wrote about his main character and where his setting is going to be, as to what timeframe.  Elsie and Anna filled out most of the online work to sell there things at our local Gardener's Market.  They just need to finish some of their products so they can take a picture of them to sell.  Kimball realized that the Gardener's Market would not be a good place to sell his products he wants to sell.  We discussed that we need to sell to the correct market consumers are located. 

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We had an extraordinary time this week because we moved our homeschooling down to "Nonny and Poppy's" home and went on some field trips!  We had a great time and felt pretty spoiled. The first place we hit was a new butterfly biosphere.  We had such an enjoyable time seeing all the different butterflies:  the Blue Morpho, the Halloween, and the Zebra.  A couple of the butterflies landed on both Elsie and Peter.  We also enjoyed looking at the chrysalises and seeing the newly "hatched" butterflies.  Outside the biosphere, we had the opportunity to hold some cave cockroaches.  Even Anna and Adam were brave enough to have them crawl on their hands.  One of our favorite things was a huge, heavy ball of "dung" we were invited to push to see how we measured up to the massive strength of a dung beetle.  With the help of Nonny and Poppy, all the Jeppson's (except Adam who was holding our phone and recording the event) we were able to push 881 pounds and set the daily record!
 We also went to a university museum and saw a bunch of taxidermy animals: giraffes, elephants, musk ox, lions, lots of birds, and more.  We also watched a short video that explained how bringing the wolf back into Yellowstone changed the habitat drastically, encouraging more plant growth and diversity as well as more mammals and birds.  Peter really liked looking at an exhibit showing the difference and similarities in build between Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthals, as well as modern day apes. 
The children loved learning about water and how to manipulate its movement and learn about water pressure at a children's museum we went to as well, and they played in a "rainforest" playground and learned interesting facts about rainforest animals.  Adam and Anna learned about their different senses.  We went to a little farm and the younger kids got to ride on horses around in a circle.  Anna loved this, and Adam was a little nervous, but got comfortable after a while.  He thought the horses were going a little fast.  We went on a horse-drawn wagon ride.  This was really exciting for Elsie because the Wagon Master let her take the reigns and drive the team.  She loves horses and was in heaven!   
We also went to a Tulip festival and had a picnic while we looked at all the tulips.  We had learned about how bees pollinate flowers, and the pistil and stamen parts of a flower.  Anna had a lot of fun taking a q-tip and being a pollinator herself, as she mixed the pollen from the stamen and put it on the stigma part of the pistil. 
The kids practiced their instruments only 2 times during the week, one time at Nonny and Poppy's, and one time on Friday.  Instead, we learned some about art and went to an art museum.  We saw Patrick Dougherty sculptures made from willow sticks and Danae Mattes' art using clay as a medium.  We learned there are all kinds of ways and mediums to use to create art.  We also learned about the 150th year celebrating the transcontinental railroad and saw lots of old photos about the building of the railroad.
Peter went with Poppy during some of our field tripping to a Waste Treatment place where they turn sewage into compost.  He learned how they are planning on reusing the water that they use in the process to cool down the serves at a Facebook Server Farm that will be moving in soon.   He also learned how to take the pH readings of soil he had gathered at intervals up our local canyon for a science project he is working on. 
Peter read 150 more pages of Treasure Island, Elsie read another 100 + pages of A Tale of Two Castles, Kimball read several books outloud to Adam and 20 pages from a Weird But True book.  Anna read another chapter out of her Days Go By book called "No Ride for Peter".  Peter, Elsie, and Kimball also wrote about their field trips.  Kimball wrote facts about things that he learned about butterflies, and he four sentences about his favorite field trip.  Elsie and Anna wrote a letter to dad saying how much they missed him.  Elsie also wrote about the butterfly biosphere.  Peter also wrote out a ingredients and instructions for a recipe he invented called "French Toast Bread".
For math we learned about the Fibonacci Series and how it relates to the golden mean.  The kids wrote out as much to the series as they could in a given amount of time.  We learned that a beehive also uses the golden mean as the ratio of workers to drones.  We watched a youtube video by ViHart explaining the Fibonacci series as well.  All the kids worked on their math as well.  Elsie found her math book(!) and did a few pages of math learning about adding and subtracting fractions, in chapter 4.  Kimball did 8 pages in chapter 3 of Delta, learning how to divide.  Peter finished chaper 6 and took the test and started on chapter 7.  He is learning how positive and negative slopes and how to put the slope of a line into an equation/formula.  He is also learning about rise over run and reviewed solving for the unknown.
For business we reviewed the importance of customer service.  We discussed businesses we've been to with good customer service, and what we noticed how we personally were treated.  We thought of ways we could give customer service in our own business.  We also discussed how important it is to keep up with market changes.  We watched a short video about how to adjust to a marketing change, and how as a business owner it takes creativity to adjust. 

Learning Log 35

The children had a big week in music this week!  They went to their Bows and Bridges piano and string lessons, and did their practicing during the week.  They are picking their recital pieces for next month and polishing the songs off.  They also had quartet practice on Monday and practiced their song they are accompanying the homeschool choir with.  Elsie also had a couple other practices for small group performances for the choir as well.  On Friday they had two performances at a nursing and retirement home.  They sang some really fun songs, such as Shew Fly, and several songs in different languages.  One was in Italian, another in Spanish, and another was the national song of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  They also sang a couple beautiful Easter songs as well.  Overall, it was a great performance and beautiful music.  I was proud of my kids and so delighted to hear them exposed to such beautiful music.
For Math Peter finished chapter 5, took the test, and started on chapter 6.  Chapter 5 was about learning the value of each quadrant on a graph and finding and plotting points.  He also reviewed solving for the unknown, adding and subtracting fractions, and turning fractions into percentages and decimals.  Chapter 6 was about plotting lines onto a graph. Elsie lost her math book.  She worked hard on reviewing her math facts, and playing on Timez Attack.  She also learned about the Fibonacci series and read a library book about him.  Kimball started on his new book, Delta, learning how to divide.  He did the first chapter and reviewed his multiplication math facts on Timez Attack.  Anna finished chapter 11 and did chapter 12.  During chapter 12 she learned how to add doubles and she practiced writing out the numbers and learning to read them.  She also practiced her other math facts, shapes, and counting by 2s. 
For Language Arts we read about Emily Dickinson and read some of her poems about nature.  Kimball read 3 Just So Stories:  How the Camel got its Hump, How the Whale got its Throat, and How the Leopard Got its Spots.  He also read 10 pages from How the Body Works.  He copied 2 stanzas from Godfrey Gordon Gustof Gorr, and 3 sentences from King Arthur.  Peter read 150 pages of Treasure Island, and is loving it.  He tried his hand at writing an Aesop fable about a bee. Elsie started A Tale of Two Castles, and read about 100 pages.  She also listened to part of Anne of Green Gables read out loud to her.  She did several pages of practicing her cursive handwriting.  She started a story about a seed that turns into a tree.  Anna read another chapter in her Days Go By primer called "Prince".  She also worked hard on copying a verse from a song about bees called "In Our Lovely Deseret". 
For Science we read a story called A Bee Story and we learned all sorts of interesting facts about a bees life in a hive.  We also read about a 10 year old that has her own hive.  We went to a honey business in our community and saw a hive behind glass.  We were able to pick out the drones from the workers.  We also watched a little video about how honey is processed from the hive.  In Peter's Pyramid Project class he played a game and reviewed all the fallacy's he had learned from The Fallacy Detective.  He listened to a guest speaker who works at Space Dynamics Lab talk to them about fuels and how different metals burn and how they give off different lights at different heats.  He learned how this is helpful to planes in war.  He learned about different combustibles.
We also learned about some of Roman Mythology.  We learned about the Titans and how their reign ended.  We also learned about Prometheus and how he helped mankind, and a couple other Roman heroes.
We were not able to get to Business much this week because of all the music performances the kids attended and prepared for.   Anna did set up a shop in the kitchen and waited for customers.  She did not get very many.  Disheartened, she discussed it with the family. We thought she needed to do a better job advertising.  So the next time she set up a shop, she made a big banner to let everyone know.  However, it was so poorly spelled, nobody could tell what it said.  Another lesson on good advertising!  Peter worked on Minecraft and built a rollercoaster and he did some archeology.  He supbmitted the assignments as well. 
 

Learning Log 33-34

For Tech class this week the kids helped their dad take apart a flat screen t.v.  They children started  by unscrewing the television, and saw how the screen looked and felt.  They learned there are these sticky things behind the circuit boards that help cool them down.  There were 3 circuit boards.  It had an LED screen, and they helped displace the LED light bulbs from the top of the screen. 
The kids all practiced their piano and respective string instrument, and they went to their music lessons at bows and bridges.  Anna is excited to be playing part of "Boil 'em Cabbages Down" on her violin.  Elsie is working on Minuet 3, as well as a new choir piece she is planning on accompanying on her violin, and the quintet choir piece, Beautiful Savior.   Kimball is working hard on his cello playing his quintet piece.  He is learning all sorts of new fingering.  Peter is also working on on both his instruments.  They all had their quintet practice (minus Anna) and went to choir practice.
For Math, Kimball finished chapter 30, but did not take the test.  He learned that there are 2000 pounds in a ton and 5280 feet in a mile.  He did a bunch of conversion problems, and reviewed other conversion facts as well.  Peter finished chapter 4 and took the test out of his Algebra book.  He is reviewing the distributive property of multiplication.  He also reviewed factoring and solving for the unknown, and rewrote fractions into percentages.  Elsie started chapter 4 out of her math book and worked on adding and subtracting fractions with the same denominator using manipulatives and visually drawing things out.  She reviewed division and multiplication facts as well.  Anna did most of chapter 11 where she reviewed shapes and addition facts she has worked on already.  She also reviewed counting by twos and solving for the unknown.  She took a unit test as well.

Kimball read 50 pages from DK's How the Body Works.  He learned how goose bumps work, among other things.  He copied a stanza from a poem he is memorizing, and copied two sentences from King Arthur, and he typed a story about How the Popcorn got its Pop.Peter finished reading a biography about Isaac Newton.  He also finished polishing up his essay.  He ended up having to write an extra paragraph and rearrange his writing a bit.  He also learned how to end his essay with a clincher.  Elsie finished reading Princess and the Goblin, she reread an Usborne Illustrated Adventure Stories, and a Harriet Tubman Value Tale.  She copied a poem from Cecily Barker she wants to memorize and worked on her cursive handwriting, doing 4 worksheets.  Anna read a chapter and a bit from her Days Go By book.  She also copied a sentence from Shakespeare about bees and wrote a note to her neighbor friend.
For Science we studied and read about bees.  We made honey candy and we went to the Red Butte Gardens in search for bees and beauty.  We found lots of daffodils, hyacinth, and some pansies, and some tiny bees that loved the pussy willows and some huge bumblebees.  We all studied and drew in our nature journals.  

Learning Log 32

Another week down!  For tech this week the kids helped their dad finish the incubator.  Peter and Kimball helped attached buttons that turned gears that turned pvc pipe that would turn the eggs.  Another button turned the light on inside the cooler to regulate the temperature.  Then their dad connected the thermometer information to their tablet.  All the kids enjoyed watching practice eggs turn and the temperature on the tablet ebb and flow.  Elsie worked on sewing the pillows/sachets she is wants to sell.  She timed herself to see how long it takes her to make one.  Anna made receipts for her business and worked on her merchandise.  Peter also worked on MineCraft and built his restaurant, Pete's Pizza.
The kids all worked hard at their music again this week.  On Monday they practiced the song in their quintet, Beautiful Savior.  They also practiced their songs from Bows and Bridges and went to their practices Tuesday and Thursday.  Anna is playing her first song with both hands together.  Kimball is working hard to conquer his song on the piano, and his cello songs.  The quintet song they are playing is requiring a lot of practicing from him!  Peter and Elsie are doing great on their instruments as well.  Peter is playing an awesome Happy Farmer on the piano!  Elsie got a 34 out of 35 on her violin adjudication playing Minuette2.  I am proud of all their hard work!  On Friday the kids went to their choir practice and practiced their songs as well as their quintet part they are playing.  On Saturday Kimball also went to an extra cello practice with a different teacher to get help on his songs.  He is working hard.
For Science we finished our book about the ocean shore animals.  We learned about squids and how they follow the moon and that they are related to bivalves and octapus.  We also learned that they have both a pen and ink!  The kids also watched a couple WildKratz about octapus and dolphins.  Elsie also went to her girls science class and learned what biomes are and what kind of biomes we have where we live.  She also saw a gall and learned what it was and she practiced nature journaling.  Peter went to Forensics and they practiced mind games to help them think and remember to keep a perspective wide and not focus on a small piece of evidence.
The kids all worked on their math this week as well.  Kimball learned what prime and composite numbers were and finished chapter 29 as well as took the test.  He reviewed adding and subtracting with regrouping, multi-digit multiplication, and writing out numbers in word format.  Anna finished her chapter 10, adding with 8s, and took the test.  She started on chapter 11, learning shapes and how to count by 2a.  Elsie started and finished chapter 3 and took the test.  She learned how to add and subtract fractions with a common denominator.  She also reviewed how to find the perimeter of the triangles and rectangles.  Peter finished chapter 3 about solving for the unknown and started on chapter 4.  He learned about the distributive property in equations.  He also reviewed the Lowest Common Multiple to simplify fractions and decimals to solve equations.  In Pyramid Project class he gave an oral report on the number 8, focusing on the chess board and music octaves as expressions of the number.  He finished reading the chapter about #8 in The Beginners Guide to Constructing the Universe for his report.
Kimball read 50 pages of the DK How Money Works.  He decided it was too hard to understand and started reading DK's How the Body Works at the end of the week, and read about 10 pages.  He also did a lot of copy work, copying sentences from Robin Hood and The Sword and the Stone.  He also copied a stanza from a poem he wants to start memorizing.  Anna read 10 pages from Days Go By, a Pathway reader.  She also copied a stanza from a poem she is working on memorizing, and she wrote one note to her neighbor friend.  Elsie read about 70 pages from The Princess and the Goblin.  She also read the Illustrated Adventure Stories from Usborne.  She loved the story of Don Quixote, and her next favorite was The Count of Monte Cristo.  She listened on cd 5 Little Peppers and How they Grew.  She wrote a poem about a weeking willow and finished her story about a girl who goes on a mission to the moon in journal format.  Peter read 20 pages out of a biography about Isaac Newton.  He also finished writing an essay, but has yet to proof read it.  On Wednesday we all gathered together and shared a poem with pizza, whether it was one we found, one we memorized, or one we wrote.  They also listened as I read the first 2 parts of The Rhime of the Ancient Mariner to them.