Week Four - Recovery Mode

So we held Monster's birthday party on the weekend which wiped the boys and I out ~ and the sugar I ate on Saturday meant an insomniac night for me Saturday night as I have been off sugar for three weeks so we enjoyed a slower paced school week.  There are NO photographs from Monday as we stuck to the basics and kept the day simple.

Here are some photographic highlights from the rest of the week though.

Our crystal experiment from Monster's chemistry set seems to have failed (or at least is taking a REALLY long time) so I decided to set up some easier and faster crystal experiments for this week using Borax and Epsom Salt. 

I have no photographs of the process of the Borax experiment due to the poison factor and also because I allowed Munchkin to watch. Therefore I set up the experiment and the three boys simply observed.

For the Epsom Salt experiment, Monkey got to be the scientist since Monster gets to do the experiments when we use the chemistry set. 

Measuring the Epsom Salt... 

Dissolving the salts in hot water... 

We transferred the mixture to a larger container... 

Monster spent a good portion of the week enjoying this AWESOME Lego kit he received as a birthday gift from one of his friends! 

We had HUGE success with the Borax crystals... top photo was taken in the evening before the boys went to bed and the bottom photo is from the following morning.

Success with the Epsom Salt as well... this is what we found in the morning after pouring off the excess fluid!  SO much fun... 

All three boys (Munchkin included) enjoy their learning time on the computer.  Here Monkey is working on his Reading Eggs level for the day and both Monkey and Monster spend 15 minutes on Khan Academy on Fridays as well. 

Munchkin and I worked on this puzzle on Friday to see how many pieces are missing still. 

Writing for Monster this week was birthday thank you notes. 

 Books for the week.

Lots of reading and read alouds.

Monster and I finished two Jackie French read alouds this week... one Australian history and one Ancient Egypt.  Both were AMAZING!

Monkey did daily reading with his early readers and has branched into the yellow and blue levels and I also read aloud a Boy Versus Beast book one evening.  There is one photo of Munchkin's read alouds and that is all unfortunately... this is due to him going to bed early a couple of nights one week, and daddy reading to him one other night and I forgot to photograph that book.

Oh and Monster and I finished another Our Australian Girl book on Friday night but I forgot to photograph it before the big download so that will have to feature belatedly next week!

Last but not least... the puzzle project!  Monster is keen to finish and pick another one to work on. Such a GREAT thing to focus on while I'm reading aloud his history books!

Week Three ~ Settling In

A rather large Huntsman spider was spotted in the kitchen in the middle of the night Sunday night/early Monday morning which we trapped in a container for release the next day.  The boys were thrilled to check him out and it sparked some natural learning experiences first thing after breakfast Monday morning.

This book is one of Monkey's favourites... we have borrowed it numerous times... read and re-read it... and he used it for some artistic inspiration. 

Using the three pages I have photographed above as reference... 

And his brand new set of textas/markers 

He created these drawings.  They have not been traced... he copied them free hand while looking at the book.  I was rather impressed when I realized what he was doing and really wish the photographs were better.  The drawings are most definitely going in his portfolio for this year. 

Tuesday was science experiment day and as promised we picked something from the chemistry set their uncle sent for Christmas.  An easy experiment to start with... growing crystals with two different chemical compounds. 

Monkey and Munchkin got the wooden train set out (which they haven't played with in ages) and together built this track.  

Monster and Monkey worked on their geography colouring books and we read about Australia in our geography book that we are using this year.  The boys are definitely VERY different when it comes to colouring... Monkey LOVES to colour and is choosing to colour not only the country we are studying, but other countries as well, hence the picture of the Egypt page.  Monster on the other hand, does NOT like to colour, and it is going to be a struggle and a chore to get him to finish this project this year.  So I will let him work slowly as long as I can see noticeable progress each week... 

This is the same track as the photo above, but with some additions by Monster.  It blew me away that all three boys put so much time and effort into the train set this week. 

Lots of progress on the puzzle this week, and we finished two history read alouds as well (see below). I imagine Monster will be done with this puzzle in another week. 

Monster finished a science book he was reading independently. 

We finished both of these history books during our puzzle time in the evening. 

 Various read alouds for all three boys along with some character development reading.