Homeschool Highlights: 3/23/20 - 3/27/20

This week was a hard week. We had a family friend pass away. The lady that let us borrow her bag of Peru souvenirs fell off of a ladder this week and passed away. She was such a wonderful lady, so funny and sweet and full of kindness and joy. She will be greatly missed. And we can't even have a funeral right now. They are going to bury her and then have a service in April - hopefully everything will be on the way back to normal by then.

Rod is still in Texas working. He should be home in 2 - 3 weeks. They are considered necessary workers (gas workers) and have to have permits to be out! We miss him, especially in light of everything that is going on.

Also, from now on Homeschool Highlights will link up before noon. It's hard for me to get it linked up early in the morning!

In geography this week, we traveled to Nigeria. We completed our country fact sheet, mapping sheet, flag sheet, and Children Just Like Me worksheet.

We made Nigerian drums out of tin cans and paper bags.

We did a quicksand experiment using cornstarch. We used army men to show how quickly you can sink in the quicksand if you're standing up and if you fight it. If you lay flat, you don't sink as quickly. The kids loved the way this felt!

When they put some in their hand and rolled it into a ball, it became hard. They held out their hands and it turned to liquid! Then they squeezed again and it became hard again. They thought this was so neat.

We only have 7 countries left to "visit" this year. We have really had fun with Expedition Earth!

In science, we started a gardening unit to finish out the school year. On Monday we kicked off the study by making "dirt pudding" and showing the layers of the soil.

(Kind of hard to see but we had graham crackers, golden Oreos, pudding, Oreos, chocolate chips and gummy worms.)

We also started our seeds for our garden this year. We seeded out carrots, onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, okra, sweet corn, watermelon, strawberries, cantaloupe, black-eyed peas, and squash. I still need to seed out the cucumbers, lettuce, and a few other things but we ran out of trays!

The kids loved being involved in this. They each had their own tray and chose what to put in it. We used craft sticks are markers to remember what we planted.

We did a few soil tests on the soil in our garden plot. We added vinegar to one soil sample and baking soda and water to another. The soil didn't react to either one, which means our soil probably has a neutral pH balance of 7. That's great news!

with vinegar

with baking soda

We are doing an earthworm test later today.

Zeke had a "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" theme this week for Tot School. He played in some rainbow colored rice. We hid laminated cards with the animals from the book in the rice. He found the pictures and put them with their match. We do two cards at a time, and he does great!

He also painted the animals from the book the correct colors. We are laminating them and making his own book.

He loves painting!

We did a lot of playing outside, cleaning inside, and watching TV. I ordered our curriculum for next year - Volume 1 of KONOS - and I've been looking through it. It's tough being ordered to stay home. We live in Louisiana, which has the fasted spread of COVID-19 in the world. That's sort of scary, but we do live very rural which I'm hoping will help us not to catch it. It's been nice having the big kids home from public school - they help with Zeke a LOT.

Random shots from the week:

Zeke loves this hammock and he loves being outside.

Mercie started a cross-stitch of our cat.

I don't like this picture of me (it's not flattering at all!) but I do like how one of the kids captured Zeke and I talking. So sweet! 

How was your week?

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