Weekly Wrap-Up: The One with all the Water

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When you tell a story, you’re really supposed to save the most exciting part until last, right?  Well, just consider me a bad story-teller then, because, I’ve gotta start with what happened this morning…though I’m not sure that “exciting” is the right word for it.

A little background, first.  Thursday afternoon, I noticed a leak from under our refrigerator — nothing major, but something that Brian needed to look at.  He spent yesterday afternoon replacing some water lines behind the fridge.  He checked it last night.  No leaks.  He said he checked it this morning before he left for work.  No leaks.

About 15 minutes after he left for work this morning, Megan came running up to my room, saying that there was water all over the kitchen floor.  She was not exaggerating.  There was probably already three or four gallons of water in the floor.  What a mess!  I finally got the water shut off after a couple of frantic calls to Brian.  (I knew what to do, btw, it just didn’t seem like the water was off.  I didn’t know it took it a little while to run out.)

One of the water lines had popped off behind the fridge.  Megan and I spent about an hour mopping up water with towels, the mop and the Shop-Vac.  I can only imagine how bad it would have been if she hadn’t gotten up to get a drink.  At the rate the water was flowing, I’d have definitely been making a call to our insurance company and filing a claim.  I am so thankful that she got up when she did.

In school news, it didn’t feel like we’d done much until I looked back on the week and some of the pictures I made.  We actually did some fun things.  Maybe we’re getting out of our winter rut.

In chemistry, we’ve been talking about atoms.  That’s kind of a hard concept to teach, especially to elementary-aged kids, but I think, with repetition, it’s finally starting to sink in.  On Thursday, we drew and labeled the parts of an atom (carbon and nitrogen atoms, to be exact):

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Brianna’s drawing turned out much better than mine:

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I purposely kept the colors for the neutrons, protons and electrons the same color as our model last week.  I thought that might help the kids remember them better (as long as I can remember which color I made the neutrons and which color I made the protons!)

Then, we made atomic cookies (from Christian Kids Explore Chemistry):

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We didn’t do them exactly like we were supposed to because that would have meant 18-21 M&M’s on each cookie.  That’s a lot of M&M’s.  I should have gotten mini’s.  As it was, we did some cookies as the nucleus, with protons and neutrons, and some as the extra-nuclear region, which just the electrons.  And we did some as just sugar cookies with M&M’s on them with the extras.  😉

In history, Josh, Megan and I are studying American history.  This week, we started bridging what we learned in Story of the World, Vol. 2 with what we’ll be studying through SOTW, Vol. 3 and Truthquest by reading The Light and the Glory for Children

I made some simple notebooking pages in Microsoft Word.  Then, as I read to Josh and Megan this week, I told them they could draw a picture about whatever interested them most from the chapter, then, they could tell me about their drawing and I’d write down their narration.  This worked great!  It kept them focused on the reading and, with a little coaching to get a few pertinent historical details, created a nice, personalized summary of the chapters that we read.

notebooking pages

Last week, Josh and Megan finished up their handwriting books.  That’s when I realized that I’d failed to order them the next book in the series.  We have a local Christian bookstore that has a limited supply of homeschool materials.  They had one copy each of Book D and Book E.  I needed Book C.  Figures.  Not to be deterred, I decided that I’d just pull out the bound composition books that I got at a great price during Wal-mart’s back-to-school sale and they could start journaling.

I figured that, with as well as they’re both doing with All About Spelling, they’re perfectly capable of writing in a journal each day, though, for the record, I won’t be checking it for spelling or grammar errors.  It will just be for them to practice getting their thoughts on paper.  The first few pages are general “about me” stuff.  As we go along, I’ll probably use some story starter type ideas, but try to give them as much freedom as possible.

I told them that we’ll only write on the front of each page, so the backs and any left-over space on the front is theirs to use as they’d like.  They love it!  Megan has begged, each day, to do the journals before some of our other work.  Josh has drawn incredibly detailed scenes in his extra space each day.  It’s so rewarding to see them so excited about it.

Oh, and since this is the One with all the Water, I should tell you about our other experience today.  We had a major thunderstorm earlier this afternoon with tons of hail stones.  I’ve never seen so much hail pile up so quickly.  Brian’s parents came and got Josh and Brianna for the weekend (and Megan and her cousin went to my mom’s house…so Brian and I are a-l-o-n-e for the weekend!!  Squee!) and they thought, at first, that it was patches of snow.  Here’s a couple of pictures outside my front door during the storm:

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This is a giant pile of hail stones in my flower bed:

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At the time I’m writing this, that was about 3 hours ago and most of that pile is still there.  And, this is a cup Josh went and scooped up from the yard:

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Crazy, crazy weather.

That’s pretty much our week in a nutshell.  How was your week? Be sure to post about it and sign up with MckLinky. If this is your first time to join us, be sure to read the Weekly Wrap-Up guidelines.

**Remember, be sure to link directly to your Weekly Wrap-Up post so that others can find it easily when they visit your blog and be sure to post a link back here so that your readers can find the Wrap-Up and join us.

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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.

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15 Comments

  1. The link to Simple Notebooking didn't work – can you re-post it? I have just started notebooking, and I think I am making it into more work than it needs to be (and consequently it is never getting done), so the word SIMPLE really jumped out at me.

    Bummer about the fridge! Hope the insurance company fixes what was damaged.

  2. Thanks for letting me know, Deb. Blogger and I have been having issues this afternoon. Grr! I got it fixed though.

    And, thankfully, Megan noticed the water before it got too bad, so I didn't have to call the insurance.

  3. Wow, a waterfall, hail, and atomic cookies? You've had an exciting week.

    Glad you caught the leak in time. The deductible to replace a floor is no joke. I know. LOL

  4. What an exciting week! Just love your atomic cookies and great pictures of the hail storm. So sorry to hear about the flood in your kitchen. Having been through a flood from an appliance twice in our home I know it is NO fun.

  5. Thanks for sharing such a great idea – I love the cookies. I think I finally understand, lol! Can't wait to try it.

  6. Kris, I accidentally entered the wrong link. Clicked it before I checked. The second one is correct. Thanks.

    Jess

  7. I just put The Light and the Glory on hold at the library for myself! I think I have the kid version in my basement. I'll check out that link you posted. Thanks!

  8. What a great week! I love the atom cookies! Don't you love when a homeschool lesson comes up you didn't plan for – like the hail?! We had hail a few weeks ago & it was my boys 1st time seeing hail so we did a lesson! Have a great weekend! 🙂
    Nicole

  9. We discovered "Christian Kids Explore Biology" a few years ago at a homeschool convention. I LOVED IT! Now that my kids are in high school (homeschool still) biology was much easier because they had a great foundation.

    Love the cookies and love your blog!
    http://www.respitehouse.com

  10. So glad the leak wasn't worse.

    I still think that you should come do some hands-on projects with our kids. I'm still working on that.

  11. I think this simple notebooking idea will be a great addition to the read aloud time I spend with the kiddos. I know they listen pretty well, but this will be "proof".

    THANK YOU for posting your week, which was choc full, of, well, CHOCOLATE!

  12. I'll take a dozen of those atomic cookies please! Yum. You guys accomplished so much, give yourself a pat on the back 🙂

    Yay for Megan, she deserves an award!

  13. Thanks for the linky love! 🙂
    I think I want to jump to chemistry now, just so we can make atom cookies! 🙂

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