Happy Friday! I hope you have all had a wonderful week. It’s been a busy one here and I fully expect next week to be the same. After that, we’ll be able to settle in to a bit more of a routine. I think. I hope.
While you’re reading this, I’m busy helping my friends at Geography Matters man their booth at the CSTHEA Homeschool Fair in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I hope that some of you will stop by and say hello.
I want to share a few highlights from our week, then, open up the links for you to share your 2013-2014 homeschool curriculum. I’ve updated my homeschool curriculum page and I invite you to click over and see what I’ll be using with my two middle school – Two? How can that be?? – students this year.
We are, of course, still enjoying our Trail Guide to Learning studies. We’re reading about George Washington Carver, which is an extremely interesting biography. It’s one of those that we don’t want to put down. I also decided to choose one of the middle school supplement books as a read-aloud.
I’m not sure I got the right book with the right unit, but that’s okay. For me, it was more about introducing the kids to higher level reading than they could manage on their own. We’re reading The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sherlock Holmes). Megan complains about it because it’s hard to understand, which it is a little bit. I’m really enjoying it, though.
Josh hasn’t complained. I’m not sure if that means he’s interested and doesn’t want to admit it, or he just doesn’t want to agree with Megan about something. Either are equally plausible. I would ask, but right now I’m just enjoying hoping that maybe, just maybe, he, too, finds it interesting.
We did a great science experiment this week. You’ve probably seen it before – the baking soda and vinegar blowing up the balloon thing. This one had a twist, though. We boiled purple cabbage until the water turned blue. We added two cups of that to the vinegar before adding the baking soda. As soon as it hit the vinegar, the water turned pink.
(We were supposed to use a clear 2-liter bottle, but, hey, you use what you’ve got…and, of course, I had a Chick-Fil-A gallon jug!)
Once we added the baking soda and the fizzing started, the water turned blue again. Do you know why? Fun stuff! I love great experiments that get the kids excited about learning.
That’s it for me this week. I’ve got a busy day ahead (or mostly behind by the time you read this). Feel free to link to both your regular Weekly Wrap-Up and your curriculum page if you’ve got both. I look forward to seeing what you’ll all be using this year!
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I had a look at your trail guide review – thanks for doing such a thorough one. Even though I’m sorted for next year I was able to pick up hints and tips that I could apply to our learning.
Have fun at the fair, I’d loved to have popped in and said hello!! (you’ll have to come host one in the UK!)
We’ve done this experiment! It is very cool!
Thanks for hosting!
What great science experiments! We’ve done similar with our older kids, and look forward to revisting them with our younger guys. Thank for hosting this party every week, it’s so much fun to recap our days.