Show & Tell: Adventures Week 8

Today we wrapped up our 8th week of school, and I am happy to report that it went much better than Week 7 did!

In history this week, we learned about Benjamin Franklin.  I was shocked (get it?) to learn about all of this man's inventions and accomplishments.  He did far more than fly a kite during an electrical storm, which is frankly (did you catch that one, too?) all I knew about him before this week.  I think Hannah has enjoyed everyone we have learned about in history so far this year, but Benjamin Franklin is the person that reminds me most of her.  She is constantly creating and inventing and thinking outside the box, and she loves to write books.  I have no doubt they would have been the very best of friends if they had lived at the same time.  Here is the Benjamin Franklin notebook page she made for her United States notebook:

On the left, she drew Ben Franklin flying a kite.  On the right, she drew his hand holding a copy of Poor Richard's Almanack.

 We learned that Ben Franklin was a printer and that he published an annual almanac called Poor Richard's Almanack, so we made an abridged version of it to put in Hannah's United States notebook.

That was really all I had in mind for hands-on history this week, so imagine how delighted I was when I saw Hannah flying a homemade kite Monday afternoon during her free time!

See what I mean about thinking outside the box?  I see a Wal-Mart bag and wonder what I could put in it.  Hannah sees a Wal-Mart bag and wonders what she could turn it into!

Meanwhile, Millie rode her scooter with her jacket on because it was, after all, in the high 70s here!  :D

In language arts, it felt a little like the beginning of the school year.  We started a new unit in Rod & Staff grammar (nouns) and we moved on to Level 2 in All About Spelling.

She is also working on memorizing a poem that she chose.  I printed it out and had her illustrate it, then I ran it through the laminator.  She uses it as her placemat, which will hopefully help her memorize it since she sees it so often.  We'll see if that's the case!  ;)

She said the illustration is her laying down at night looking up at the stars.

We had a wonderful time of sharing in Bible this week.  We moved on to a new name for Jesus (the Rock), and we read the story of the wise man and the foolish man from Matthew 7.  Hannah had a hard time understanding how an entire building could be ruined if the foundation wasn't strong, so we headed into the kitchen for an explanation.  First, I had her stand up a stack of Unifix cubes (the house) on the kitchen counter (the rock).  Then I gave her a measuring cup and told her to attack the foundation, so she began beating the kitchen counter.  The "house" stood firm.

Then we took the same "house" and put it in a bowl of sugar (sand).  I told Hannah to attack the foundation of this house.  (She had to use her fingers since the measuring cup wouldn't fit.)  Immediately the house fell to the ground because its foundation wasn't strong enough to handle the attack.

Then we spent some time talking about our friends Chad and Melissa who recently found out their 8-year-old daughter Kristina has clear cell sarcoma.  I guess no cancer is good, but this one is especially bad.  We talked about how they have built their house on the Rock of Jesus; he is the foundation of their life.  So right now they're going through a tough time and their hearts are sad and anxious, but their house will not be destroyed because their foundation—their faith in Jesus—is strong enough to weather the storm.

Math called for a little hands-on fun this week as we got out the balance scale to compare the weights of different objects.

Here's Hannah comparing the weight of a small doll to that of a toy truck.  And see that adorable baby girl?  That's my cousin's baby that I get to keep for a couple of hours every Wednesday morning.  She is simply scrumptious!!

Turns out Hannah isn't the only one who likes Singapore Math!

Okay, one more because it isn't every day we have a baby in the house!

And finally, I'll include the highlights from co-op this week.  It was Hannah's turn to give a 5-minute presentation about her 4-H project this year, which is entomology.  The first chapter of her 4-H book covers insect anatomy, so we decided to do an edible insect.  (Stick around long enough and you'll see that I can turn anything into an edible project!)  We used Skittles for the head, Bottlecaps for the thorax, Jolly Ranchers for the abdomen, licorice for the antennae, and pretzel sticks for the legs.

Here are the girls with their completed models the night before co-op.

Here's Millie's bug.

And here's Hannah's bug.

Hannah was able to identify the parts of an insect as she told her friends how to assemble theirs, plus she knew that there were three pair of jointed legs that came off of the thorax, and the abdomen was the largest part of its body.  Not too bad!

Here are the kids assembling their "Buggy Wuggy Cupcakes," as Hannah named them.

Another member chose rabbits for her project, and she brought them to the meeting.  The girls thought this was very cool!

And after co-op was finished, some of the families went on a field trip to the Fire Museum in Beaumont.

The kids got to play fireman as they "drove" the firetruck and pushed all the buttons to control the lights.

They even got to wear fireman gear!

We met the firehouse dog, Rosco, who was never lacking for attention.  He even taught the kids how to stop, drop, and roll!

The kids went into this house to play.  As soon as they heard the smoke detector beep, they had to get out of the house . . .

. . . and run to their safe meeting place to call 9-1-1.

None of them had any idea who this guy was.  Does that mean I'm getting old?!

The poles are all blocked off to prevent accidents, but this gave the kids an idea of how it worked. 

In the old days, this hose carriage was hitched up to one horse . . .

. . . and this water carriage was hitched up to another.  We saw old video footage of the horses racing to the fire with the carriages in tow.  It looked like they were going so fast until we saw some kids on bicycles following them with no problem!

This was an old ladder truck from 1909.  Notice the trampoline on the side.  It was originally pulled by horses . . .

. . . but it was eventually converted so a truck could pull it.

And finally we reached the age where horses became obsolete—at least for firefighting!

And here are all the kids in front of the humongous fire hydrant across the street from the museum.

You may not have read last week's wrap-up because I was veeerrryyy late posting it, but it's right here if you want to go back and read it.  Just be warned:  there were a few struggles that I wrote about, so it's not all fun and bubbly!  Or if you'd like to see what others did this week, head on over to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers for Kris' Weekly Wrap-Up.