MFW Adventures, Week 1 & 2

This is the beginning of Little Man's 3rd grade year. So far, everything has been going pretty good. We had a few days where it was really hard for Little Man to adjust back to school time and let go of summertime. This makes me want to rethink the schooling thing all year around. Ha! Maybe we'll take more breaks through the year. I don't know! It's so hard to not take a summer break. He needs it....I need it! Anyways, now that we are about to start our 3rd week, everything seems to be smoothing out and school seems to be getting more enjoyable.

Now, I'll share week 1 and week 2 of school using My Father's World Adventures. Oh, did I tell you how much I love this curriculum. Well, I'm really enjoying it and I think Little Man is too!

This is the night before school begins. We asked Daddy to move our old futon mattress into the school room so we'd have a soft, squishy place to sit and read. Little Man wanted to be wrapped like a burrito first. I just love it!

Here's Little Man sitting on our squishy reading/work area.

This was our snack on day 1. We started out studying about the Pledge of Allegiance. We read this book and then I asked him to make a pattern on the kabob sticks. He really enjoyed this. He was drooling over the marshmallows....one of his favorite things.

Here's a couple of books that I found at the library. 

I Pledge Allegiance by June Swanson

The Pledge of Allegiance/Scholastic

The Children's Book of America (many different stories by many authors)

Little Man working on the dreaded math. lol

End of day one....Little Man shooting me! Ummmm...was it really that bad son?

We talked about the Statue of Justice and the meaning of it. Left hand holds a scale. This represents the decision between right and wrong. The right hand holds a sword. This represents punishment for crimes. Her eyes are covered with a blindfold. This represents that justice does not favor one person over another.

We started using our Count Up to 100 Days. He adds a star for each day of school. He really seems to like this. We will do some fun things on our hundredth day. Check back when the time comes. I'll be taking more pictures.

And football practice twice a week for 2 hours each time in 100+ degree weather. At least, on this particular night they practiced where there was a little bit of shade.

He's working on geography. We talked about determining North, South, East, and West on a map. He learned about the compass rose. We also talked about determining direction without anything but yourself and the sun. He labeled and colored a U.S. map.

We read some Bible stories out of the Children's Picture Bible. I love this book!

Oh, and here's his competed map. Beautiful!

Working in his "I Can Do All Things" art book. He says he can't draw....ummm, I think he can!

Utilizing our squishy futon mattress!

Oh dear! He's getting a bit frustrated with his math. I have to say that I'm so thankful that not every day is like this....I'm sure he's thankful too!

And he gives up! lol Okay, not really! He was just tired.

On this day, we once again talked about directions on a map and without a map. We looked at the big world map and the globe. We talked about the 7 continents. I had him name them by himself. This was no easy task but he did it.Then he got to label the continents, the Pacific Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean on this map. Then he colored the oceans blue.

More drawing that he still thinks he can't do. Huummm...I think you're doing a great job son!

And for fun, we read this book. You should read it, too. Little Man laughed and laughed.

Little Man discovered a locust out on our sidewalk. I thought it was still alive.

I gently moved the water hose away from it and jumped back fast...thinking it was going to get me. Ha! Yes, these things are neat to look at but please don't touch me. Yuck!

Then we realized that it was only a shell. He wanted to keep it.

We picked my nephew up from school on Friday and kept him for the whole weekend. They had so much fun!

We did an experiment to see if an egg would float in water and/or water and salt.

Floats in salt water....doesn't float in regular water. Oh and Little Man said that he was hoping for something more exciting when it was all said and done. He wants really messy and mixing kind of experiments. Ugh...science is not my thing! Any suggestions anyone?

We read about Columbus and his three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Then Little Man built the ships with his bare hands.

They float and he's excited! We took them to the swimming pool the next morning to sail them across the Atlantic Ocean using only our breath. That was super hard! lol We both were out of breath half way across the pool but then the wind picked up and low and behold, they went the rest of the way on their own. Could that have been divine intervention? Oh, and one of the ships kept taking on water but never sunk. Another miracle?

We have been studying about special names including his own. But the most special of all, Jesus! Here is the beginning of our "Names of Jesus" poster that we will add to all year long. I think he did an awesome job with his coloring. I thought, at first, that he was doing red, white, and blue to go along with our study of the flag and the Pledge of Allegiance but then I saw the green and orange. Then he told me that the white stood for purity because Jesus was pure. Wow! He's really thinking things through before just doing them. I love this about my son!

We also started his calendar book for the month of September. September, he will be looking at cloud formations and recording them in his calendar book. I just happened to have this handy little poster from a field trip where our local weatherman came to talk to the kids. This has really helped in determining what kind of clouds we are looking at.

Ok...I'm not sure if anyone caught it, the calendar is numbered wrong. The first should be on Thursday. This was my fault. And just so you know, all of his work...everything was dated wrong the entire week. I erased all of his calendar dates today and renumbered them. Now, I just have to get my mind to remember that I'm no longer a day ahead of everyone else. lol

More drawing and coloring! Come on son...don't tell me again that you don't know how to draw. I'm just not getting that. Wink! He's done such an awesome job!

His Christopher Columbus notebook page.

Another science experiment, this time, it's about air. Here's Little Man and his daddy racing paper. They can't touch the paper but only fan it with the file I've given each of them. This was a lot of fun! I asked Little Man if this was exciting. In a very cheerful, excited voice he said this was a bunch of fun. Then I told him this was learning and a part of school....he was surprised! 

I also had him take a clear plastic bottle and look inside and tell me what was in it. He said it was empty. I dunked it in a sink full of water and when the bubbles spewed up everywhere, to my surprise, he lit up! I asked him once again, was there anything in there. He said, once again, no...it's empty. So I dunked it in the water again and then told him that nothing is ever empty. That air feels any space that we think is empty. When I dunked it in the water, the air pushed it's way out causing the bubbles. He loved this! He took the bottle away and continued to dunk and empty it out. I really thought this would be boring (as he would say) but to my surprise he thought this was an awesome experiment. Boy, he really surprises me sometimes but I love these surprises.

Whoa!!! It's really flying!

And Little Man wins!!!! Sorry Daddy!

High five...or is that a low five!