Weekly Roundup - August 20-24

Last Saturday, we changed the salt mixture for our chicken mummy.  Here is how it looked when we brushed off the salt that it was in.

On Monday Ethan had a math test, and he made a 100!  He was so excited to get to eat off of the "Made the Grade!" plate again.  Isaac was upset that he didn't have a math test, and begged me to give him one.  I told him that he will have one sometime this week!  Here is Isaac working on his math.

Tuesday Isaac woke up sick, and so we didn't get a lot of schoolwork done.  Ethan did his math and handwriting, and we read 2 chapters in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, our current read-aloud.  We also went outside once Isaac started feeling better and had our science lesson on organizing living things into the Plant or Animal Kingdom.

After our science lesson, the boys wanted to pull out their excavation kits and work on them.  Isaac has a triceratops kit and Ethan has a crystal kit.  I have never seen these two so excited as they get when they start to uncover their "treasure".

Ethan read from Frog and Toad Are Friends and once Isaac started feeling better he did his math lesson and read The Legend of the Bluebonnet.

 

Wednesday was one of those days that seemed to drag on forever,  but we got everything done (even Song School Latin and Salsa Spanish!).  I don't ever have to ask the boys to do either of those.  They love them both.  Isaac sometimes has trouble maintaining his focus during his seatwork.  Well, it's actually more accurate to say that more than once I had to tell him to stop hanging head first out of the chair and do his math!

 

We took a day off on Thursday to spend time with one of the boys' good friends that they have been missing.  It was great to get to spend time with him before he starts back to school next week.  I did have Ethan practice writing his numbers and Isaac do some math in the evening.  We finished reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

 

Friday began with a trip to the doctor for annual checkups.  Both boys are perfectly healthy.  Ethan passed his vision and hearing test.  He is in the 45th percentile for weight and the 49th percentile for height.  Isaac is in the 61st percentile for weight and the 57th percentile for height.  I talked with the doctor a little about Isaac's attention issues, and he agreed with our stance of just waiting to see for now.  He said that a lot of times it is an age/maturity issue and he will grow out of it, but he did give us a couple of options of things we could try if we wanted to see if it helped.  One was Focus Factor, a dietary supplement, and the other was giving him a little coffee or Sunkist in the mornings. 

 

We had an early lunch after we got home, and then we started on our schoolwork.  Isaac took both a math and spelling test, and made a 100 on both.  He also did a lesson in Explode the Code 6.  Ethan did handwriting, reading, and math.  We made a lapbook piece on Sargon for history.  In science, we continued talking about the plant and animal kingdoms, focusing on the difference in how plants and animals obtain energy.  The boys watched an epsiode of Salsa Spanish and Isaac worked on his online history class.  We have a free trial of Veritas Press's Old Testament and Ancient Egypt course.  He has finished 28 lessons and has a 97 in the class.  The free trial will be over soon, but he is enjoying it for now.  Isaac finished the day by reading Prairie School by Avi.

Mummies and Chickens, Oh my!

This week we started what is without a doubt the most anticipated project so far: the chicken mummy.  My boys are having a blast with the mummies, and I often find them reading one of our many books about mummies (Magic Tree House, Tut's Mummy, and too many others to mention!). 

For our mummy, I decided to use a cornish hen.  This was mainly to keep it a smaller project and make it more manageable with the amount of salt, baking soda, and baking powder we are going to be using throughout this project.  Yesterday we washed and dried our hen, then we rinsed it well with rubbing alcohol and dried it again.

Here are the boys reading the instructions and the hen wrapped in paper towel.

We filled a large plastic (zip-close) bag halfway with the mixture of salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon (to make it smell nice), put the hen in the bag, and then added the rest of the salt mixture.  The salt mixture is to try to get the salt closer to the acidic Natron salt that was used by the ancient Egyptians. I've read that you can also using washing soda.  We sealed the bag, and put it inside another large bag.

Today we checked our mummy and changed the salt mixture, as a lot of moisture had been absorbed into the powder.  This is what our mummy looked like when we brushed off the excess salt mixture.

The only thing we smelled was the cinnamon.  So far, this project has been a lot easier than I expected.  We will check on our mummy again in a couple of days and probably change the salt mixture again at that time.

Weekly Roundup

Last weekend we went on a "field trip" to a local college to watch "Egypt: Secrets of the Mummies" and see the exhibit on Ancient Egypt.  We had a great time, even though the mummies were "gross" according to the boys!  

 They were a little afraid of the sphinx!

 They only needed help with a couple of these, and they were things we hadn't talked about.  They did a great job!

We also went to the Discovery Science Place before eating dinner and finishing up our trip with Ice Age: Continental Drift.  It was an awesome day, and we all loved spending the day out together.

The boys are continuing to do great on their schoolwork, and the rest of the week was pretty normal, except for this:

Our first trip to the ER for stitches.  He did great, and the only time he got really upset was when he found out he needed the stitches.  He's doing fine now.

We got our Baby Mammoth DVD in the mail, so we all watched that on Friday night.  It was very interesting, and we are looking forward to watching Raising the Mammoth soon.