Week In Review- MFW Weeks 5 and 6

I am trying to play catch up so once again I am going to be bundling a few weeks together.  We have been having tons of fun with MFW so far.  I am so excited about what the year holds for us.

To begin, in Week 5 we talked about Jesus the Light of the World, Mayflower and Pilgrims, and Stars.  I am doing a light version of their Bible lessons, because we do the AWANA program, I really want to focus on those verses for memorization.  We did discuss Jesus being the light of the world and what that means to us.

For History, we are learning about the Pilgrims and what it must have been like for them to be on the Mayflower for so long.  We also did a cool project, which was making an oiled window.  That was pretty interesting to see how that must have looked in their houses instead of the glass windows we have today.

In Science we learned about Proxima Centauri and Betelgeuse.  I had never heard of these before but they are stars.  Proxima Centauri is our second closest star (the sun being our closest star) and Betelgeuse is 600 times larger than the sun.  Very cool stuff for a 9 year old boy!  We had a lot of fun measuring it all out in our backyard!   We also talked about the Big Dipper, unfortunately we have yet been able to see it.  They tend to be in bed when its dark and the few times we have been out its been too cloudy to see!  Someday they will see it though!

I am standing where the sun is, and Elijah is way down there by the big red ball which is Betelgeuse.  

We finished reading Squanto this week as well. My boys loved that story!  It was a great pick, Elijah is actually reading it again on his own.

Now for week 6 we talked about Jesus the Bread of Life, New Netherlands (New York), and Bread.  Once again doing a light version of Bible.  We talked about how God took care of his people in the wilderness by giving them manna from heaven.

In History we learned about the Pioneers from Holland and how they settled in New York, which they called New Amsterdam.   We made butter, so much fun!!  Except my kiddos ran out of steam and I ended up shaking both jars of cream. Which is really hard work!  We looked up what butter churns are and talked about how that is probably what they used in stead of shaking them with their hands.   Elijah really enjoyed his butter, once we added salt of course.  Noah tried one taste of it unsalted and didn't like it and then wouldn't try it after I salted it.

Once I told him he had to shake if for like 15 minutes, this is the look he gave me.  

These kids crack me up!  I didn't realize how funny this picture was until I posted it here!

For Science was talked about yeast and what its purpose is.  We did two different experiments, and had I known I would have done them side by side.  But for the first one we did yeast and water with sugar poured into a bottle with a balloon on top.  The second one was yeast and water with salt poured into a bottle with a balloon on top.  It was fun to hear what they thought would happen.  Elijah knew that the one with sugar would blow the balloon up but wasn't sure what would happen with the salt.

The progression of our yeast experiment, using sugar.

After about 5 minutes

After about 10 minutes

After about 40 minutes

After a total of about an hour.  

I did not take pictures of the salt one, but it pretty much stayed like the first picture.  I also realized that I am lacking in picture taking!  I really need to do a better job!

This week for our read aloud we began The Courage of Sarah Noble.  So far they are liking it.

I will be adding a Kindergarten Week in Review soon!