Week 5

 For history this week we learned about Charles V. He became the Holy Roman Emperor but then the empire was kind of too large and unwieldy so he ended up dividing it between his son and his brother. 

We went on a couple of long bike rides this week. The river trail going west from our house is finally open again after being closed for a couple years for the construction of a new bridge. 

Our 10th birthday was last week. We went to Evermore with our family on Saturday and that was really fun. The animal show was cool. On Sunday we had a birthday barbecue at the park and had hamburgers and played games. 

Mali: I've been reading the silly animal tales books for my reading time. I also read a new book I got for my birthday, Aqualicious. I did my spelling practice. I did math lessons. I am working on review of third grade math right now since I finally finished the third grade lessons. I am a little behind. I did some drawing and painting. 

Mali: I am reading the Dogman books I got for my birthday. I did my language arts lessons. I did math lessons, including Equal Number Sentences and Investigating Even and Odd Numbers. I painted a ceramic skull that my mom bought from the craft store.  I also did TTRS.

Eurasian Eagle Owl

Guillotine time!

About to lose my head - oh no!

We wanted pie instead of birthday cake this year

Presents!

A dragon drawn by Mali

Participating in the Crafty Kids Club meeting

Mali's cool black/white gradient skull

Max painting his skull's eye sockets with a q-tip--looked

kinda creepy

One of Mali's digital doodles this week

Week 4

 Mali: This week I finished the Henry and Mudge book I was reading. I also read some other books. I worked on my flashcards. I did some lessons in Spelling You See. I started doing TTRS for typing and spelling practice, too. I started Xtra Math to help me with my math facts. I finished a section in my math units. We learned more about the middle east for geography. I made a potholder. I made some more slime. 

Max: This week I spent a lot of time practicing and learning long division. It is hard to keep all the steps straight and sometimes the problems take so long. I did XtraMath to practice my math facts. I started doing TTRS for typing practice. I finished up Unit 3 in my language arts program. I read two Dogman books that we got from the library. I am also reading Stickdog. 

Mali's delicious banana split

Week 3

 Max: I read two Dogman books this week. I really like them. I started back up in my language arts workbook again and did some contractions and spelling and homophone practice. In Math I worked on learning long division and I started using XtraMath to practice my math facts. We went to the park. We tie dyed tee-shirts and handkerchiefs. I practiced piano. 

Mali: I read a Henry and Mudge book. I did some math lessons. I started back up with my Spelling You See workbooks. We went to the park and tie dyed. I did some more drawings on the iPad in Procreate. 

Playing Throw Throw Burrito

Playing multiplication/skip counting Speed with the Fours deck

One of Mali's designs on Procreate from this week

Week 1 & 2

 We went to the aquarium. Our membership is expiring soon so we wanted to be sure and go at least one more time before it expires. We talked to an employee there about water conservation. Toilets use a lot of water, often 5-7 gallons per flush! We really liked seeing the otters swimming around. 

Max: In math I am working on division, including division with remainders. I finished the book series I was reading so I started reading Dogman. I really like it. 

Mali: In math I am working on directions, shapes, and lines of symmetry. I have been reading the Pinkalicious series of books. I like them. 

We have played a lot of games lately. Guesstures, Wits & Wagers, lots of different UNO games, Trash Pandas, Exploding Kittens, and Flip 4! 

Week 39

 This week in Science we learned about phylogenies. Phuylogenies tell which species are more closely related to other species.You can go back and see which ones have a common ancestor. Some interesting things we learned is that hyenas are more closely related to cats than they are to dogs, even though they have a lot of similar traits. Also we learned about homologous and convergent traints. Homologous traits came from an ancestor common to both species but convergent traits evolved independently for that species. A common example of that is wings for bats and birds. They evolved wings independently, bats and birds don't share a common winged ancestor. Also, we learned that you have to go waaaay back in the history of carnivores to find a common ancestor for cats and raccoons. A long time ago there was a split and you have the cats & relatives (hyenas, ,mongooses, and linsangs) on one branch and the raccoons, skunks, bears, walruses, and dogs on the other branch. Pretty neat. 

We have both been working on practicing our compositions for our recital that is happening next week. Max's song is called Felice Pinguino which means Happy Penguin in Italian. Mali's song is called Baby Bluebirds. We had to perform them for people outside of our household to practice and help us get ready for the recital. 

In Geography we learned about Iraq and Kuwait. 

We went to the Hogle Zoo. It was a really nice day and there was a baby Colobus monkey and also a baby Titi monkey and a pretty young gorilla. So fun to see the babies.

This shows how the ancestor of whales used to have nostrils at the end of its nose and 

gradually it moved up to be on top of the head

All of these organisms evolved from a common tetrapod 

(four footed) ancestor and you can see the ways the bones have changed but still have the same bones. 

We had parent day for our last day of music class and mom told me 

to lay down so she could put all these instruments on me.

Mali at the zoo

Baby titi monkey

Rhino statue at the zoo

baby colobus monkey

Max compared to a black, grizzly, and polar bear

Mali compared to a black, grizzly, and polar bear

Noni "helping" Mali with her language arts practice. 

Maybe he knew it mentioned cats?

Week 38

 Mali: I am still working on measurements for math. I've been learning about volume measurements. Gallons and cups and also cubic centimeters. I started reading a collection of Biscuit stories. He is a really cute puppy and the stories are fun. I finished the yellow fairy book but wanted to take a break from the series so we are reading something else. 

Max: I started the third book in my Spaced Out series. I am doing subtraction of big numbers, into the 10,000s. So I am getting lots of practice with regrouping. I finished my essay comparing polar bears and black bears in my language arts lesson. 

We played Konexi

We went to Doctor Strange on my mom's birthday and we all dressed up as Marvel characters.

Picnic at the park on Mom's birthday

Mali on the jungle gym

Mali at Lagoon