Weekly Wrap-Up ~ Aliens, Horses, and a bit of Physics!

This past week was pretty quiet here, the temperatures were very low and kept us inside a lot. We are really looking forward to spring! The positive part of being at home more is that we are getting more schoolwork done. The main subjects are getting done daily and finished by lunch time by everyone which lets us work on our projects and "together" subjects in the afternoons.

Both Andre and Celeste finished their research project/lapbooks. Adrienne is putting the final touches on hers this weekend.

Andre had chose Aliens for his research. He is very interested in learning about the mysteries and theories around UFOs, aliens, and more. He read a lot and watched many episodes of Ancient Aliens from the History Channel. He put together a small lapbook with a few mini books: the anatomy of an alien, close encounters (explaining the difference between them), mysterious places (Bermuda Triangle and the Zone of Silence), his drawings of aliens, and the drawings made by his family of UFOs. He is planning on adding two more mini books to explain the Crystal Skulls and the Nazca lines seen on the cover of his lapbook.  
I am encouraging him to write more for his lapbook and reseach. He still doesn't enjoy writing, but has a lot of information to share. We also worked on presentation which he could improve on. Overall, I am happy and he is too with this project. I watched a lot of the Ancient Aliens episodes with him and enjoyed talking about various theories with him.

Celeste also finished her lapbook. This is the first one that she completed almost all on her own and she is very proud of it. She even brought it to the librarian to show her! She included mini books about horse breeds, what horses are used for, the difference between pony, donkey, and mule. She also had a book list, a mini book with drawings of horses made by her family, and a colouring page showing the horses colours. She decorated with stickers too!

She really enjoyed working on this, so we'll be doing another lapbook very soon on the Ballet and ballerinas. I have been collecting library books and dvds on that subject.

This week we also worked on Science a little bit more, covering gears and cranks. Adrienne built a cogwheel train and we tested it on an inclined plane. She also built a jumping jack with a crank drive. That experiment didn't work as well, but I was very impressed with her patience with it. I would have given up much faster than she did!

In Canadian History, we took a little pause to compare life in the late 1800s - early 1900s in Canada and in Europe. We wrote short form points as we read and will compile everything next week into a final chart.

In World Geography, we are in Africa still and really enjoying it! We read about deserts this week and I started reading aloud from African Tales from Barefoot Books (I love Barefoot Books!). 

There's our week! Adrienne and Andre started running on our treadmill, using a couch to 5K app. I guess that can count as P.E.!!

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