Monthly Archives: April 2016

Homeschool

This week in homeschooling: If you give a kid a hammer and a geode

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We’ve reached that time of year when it feels like we’re doing the same thing over and over every week in our homeschooling adventure. Which I guess we kind of are, but it varies a little bit. Right? Right. I’ll keep telling myself that.

Here are the small derivations in the routine that we did this week.

STEM

Science
This week we started learning about crystals. We tried to make some with baking soda and hot water, but it didn’t work very well. We currently have a jar of sugar water sitting on the counter, and I’m hoping that rock candy will start forming on the string dangling within pretty soon. It’s been two days, though, and I don’t see anything yet.

We also smashed a geode with a hammer and examined the sparkly, crystalized insides.

We also smashed a geode with a hammer.
Oooooo sparkly!

Math
Pete had his first math test in his new curriculum this week. He did well on it, but he would’ve aced it if he’d taken a few seconds to review his work. That’s something we both need to work on.

Language Arts

Reading
We are four chapters from the end of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” And those of you who’ve read it know what that means. It means that Poppy will soon be saying “Are you going to cry again?” 🙁

Pete has been reading a “Moby Dog,” a Wishbone adventure. He says there aren’t any whales in it at all. It doesn’t even start with “Call me Wishbone”!

Memorization
We’re up to Nixon on the presidential-memorization project. Pete keeps getting stuck on Eisenhower. Totally understandable.

Extracurricular

Tae kwon do
Yesterday Pete finally earned the last stripe that he needed to test for his blue belt in tae kwon do! I’m very proud of him. I know tae kwon do isn’t his favorite activity — that would be playing a video game whilst eating a cheeseburger — but he’s been focusing and putting a lot of effort into it over the last few weeks.

Co-op
Poppy made Malva pudding, a deliciously indulgent South African dish, in her Desserts Around the World class. Pete made a bow and an arrow using PVC pipe and a few other materials in Ninja class. I’m not sure what they did in Mad Scientist class this week.

Wanna read more about homeschooling? Check out the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers weekly linky thing!

in brief

That’s a win in my book

Pete: “My friend Chuck has six cats, and I’ve patted all of them. Even the one who’s missing an eye. That’s a very intimidating cat. He looked at me with his one remaining eye and went ‘Mrrrrrrrroowwwww.’ ”

Poppy: “I met that cat, but I didn’t want to look at his face. How did he lose an eye?”

Pete: “Chuck said he got in a fight with the snake. He won the fight, but he lost an eye.”

Poppy: “I wouldn’t call that a win.”

Pete: “Well, he’s still alive.”

menu plan Monday

Poppy is not happy about tonight’s menu

Monday: Chicken with mustard cream sauce
It’s Poppy’s night to work with me in the kitchen, and she’s supposed to get to choose what we make. She wanted either tacos (which she won’t even eat) or mac & cheese again, though, so I told her I’d be picking for her this week. We’ll be making this Chicken with Mustard Cream Sauce recipe from Let’s Dish Recipes.
Tuesday: Black bean nachos
Poppy has soccer practice and Rockford’s golf league starts this week, so we’ll all be home for dinner at different times throughout the evening. DIY nachos seemed like a good meal for that sort of evening. We’ll see how it actually works out.

Wednesday: Coconut-lime chicken
I pin recipes on Pinterest pretty often, but I rarely get around to making them. So starting this week we’ll be celebrating Pinterest Wednesdays, on which we make a meal from my I’d Eat That board.

Thursday: Cheeseburgers
Pete decided that he’d like to learn how to make cheeseburgers this week. I’ll probably roast them in the oven.

Friday: Pizza
Weather permitting, we’ll be grilling some BBQ chicken and cheese pizzas this week.

Still hungry? Check out OrgJunkie for more menu plans.