School Summary - Georgia, Farming, Russia, and Persia

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A Summary of October 20-31
Reading the title of this post may give you an idea of how much material we covered these two weeks. Our fall weather has been lovely, very mild so the younglings have wanted to be outside. They've been diligent to get their schoolwork done though.
Here's what we did:

Things that were scheduled:

Math

Language Arts (Grammar, Reading, and Writing)

For Grammar, we use Rod and Staff English which comes with a textbook as well as additional worksheets. To fit everything in, at the beginning of the year they often have a textbook lesson plus a worksheet. They've gotten to the point in the year where they only have to do one or the other. They are very happy about having less on the schedule to complete.
Soprano finished Sarah, Plain and Tall for reading and began her next book, Island of the Blue Dolphins while Tenor finished Island of the Blue Dophins and began Carry On, Mr. Bowditch. I think they'll both like their new books.

Electives:

Typing, Greek (Tenor), Spanish (Tenor), Home Ec (Soprano)

Argh! Somehow we got behind on Home Ec. We have a lot of cooking lessons to catch up on. We made some drop biscuits, banana bread, and cinnamon raisin muffins sans raisins.

My Father's World Exploration to 1850

These two weeks we finished out American colonies' with Georgia and then talked about farming practices and changes during that time. Then we headed back to Eurasia to learn Peter the Great and the Ottoman Empire (yup, it was still around.)

Bible: This year we're doing an in-depth study of the book of James and attempting to memorize the entire book. We finished chapter 1. They did a week of study in the Bible study book and learned 2:1-4.

Science: We learned about invertebrates, arthropods, insects, arachnids, and crustaceans using AIG's The World of Animals.

They made insect models

and a water skipper model

We pretended to be butterflies emerging from their chrysalis stage.

It's too cold now for us to raise butterflies. So we got some painted lady butterflies back in August.

We made some tasty models of a spider and scorpion. We substituted licorice for the bendable wire.

Tenor's spider

Tenor's scorpion

Soprano's spider with fangs

Soprano's scorpion

They went to a program on crabs at the local library's environmental center.

We also kept feeding and checking in our grow-a-frog (from Home Science Tools). Here's Herbie:

History: We learned about the beginning of the Georgia colony, but we skipped baking peach cobbler. We read about John Locke and Isaac Newton and how farming practices were changing for the better.

After reading about Peter the Great's attempt to westernize Russia (the younglings got a kick out of him carrying around scissors to cut beards and robes down), we talked about where the Ottoman Empire was. We tried to make Turkish Delight using the Story of the World activity book recipe but it never set. I'm hoping it'll show up in our local grocery store a little closer to Christmas.

The younglings also acted out some shadow puppet theater for us.

I added in some map work from Story of the World (Russia Looks West, East and West Collide). I also added a timeline piece from Homeschool in the Woods (John Locke).

Other MFW: 

Music: We finished Mendelssohn's biography. After another week reading about some of Isaac Watts' 600 hymns, we had our first week dedicated to his "Am I a Soldier of the Cross?".

Art: More drawing lessons on self-portraits and faces. We also read about some important English artists.

Extras:

Web:

You can see them all in my Youtube playlist for weeks 1-14.
The Weta at Answers in Genesis  

Cockroaches at Answers in Genesis

Isaac Newton biography

Butterfly study guide

Videos:

Eyewitness: Butterfly and Moth by Dorling Kindersley
Eyewitness: Insect by Dorling Kindersley
Newton: A Tale of Two Isaacs by Devine Entertainment

Favorite Books: 

Chirping Crickets by Melvin Berger
From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman
Honey in a Hive by Ann Rockwell
The Beetle Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta
The Life and Times of the Ant by Charles Micucci
The Life and Times of the Honeybee by Charles Micucci
This is Your Life Cycle by Heather Lynn Miller
What to Expect When You're Expecting Larvae by Bridget Heos
I Didn't Know That Spiders Have Fangs by Claire Llewellyn
One Riddle, One Answer by Lauren Thompson
Ten Kings and the Worlds They Ruled by Milton Meltzer