Week In Review

Well another week is behind us.  We accomplished a pretty full week of school.  :-)  Here are the highlights from our week.

Ok - first the exciting stuff from this week!  Remember the skull that we found?

Well we started our research to figure out what kind of skull it was on Monday.  I had the kids think of all the animals that it could be and why.  They thought of horses and cows (because some live next door), hog (because we have seen some), beaver (because we saw one that was victim of road kill a few miles from our house), and dog and coyote as well.

On Tuesday I found skull pictures of all those different animals and we looked at them to see if they could fit.  Of course we quickly concluded that it was not a beaver (LOL) and it decided it could not be a dog or coyote because the teeth were too blunt.  The teeth fit that of a cow or horse, or possibly a hog. 

So our plans for Wednesday were to look at more pictures of those skulls and see if we could determine what kind of animal it was.

BUT - our Daisy brought home the lower jaw on Wednesday morning!!  (you can see her in the picture - she wasn't too happy that I took it away from her - LOL!)

LOOK AT THAT TUSK!!  I knew as soon as I picked it up that our skull belonged to a hog!!  So all our research changed to just researching a hog skull.  I found some wonderful websites to help us.

We determined by the teeth that 1) the hog was about 4 years old when it died due to the fact that the 3rd cusp of that last molar is showing, but not all the way through the gum line and 2) this is a hybrid hog, or ferrel hog, because it has the hybrid tooth that only those hogs has (the little tooth behind the tusk).  These hybrid hogs are a cross breed of a domesticated hog with wild Russian boars.

Here is the full skull put together (you can see how the hog is missing the front part of the top skull...this is what was making classification of the skull so difficult before we got the lower jaw).

We also had this other bone that Daisy brought home and determined it is most likely the hog's humerous bone.  It fits the measurements for an adult hog humerous bone! :-)

These next couple of pictures our pictures that PaPa got a couple of years ago coming home.  This hog family was crossing the road.  (and to get an idea how close this was to our house...see the house in the background - that is our house!)  

 

Here is a close up of the boar of that family!  BIG GUY!!

 

So we can't wait to get our bones and our research journal to the Dallas Zoo so we can get some points in the nature exchange program!  And I think the nature exchange program has sparked enough interest in my kids that they are excited about the next adventure!  :-)

Well Tuesday we got a bit of a late start to school because we woke up to a surprise - SLEET!  It was not in the forecast so we were all going "huh?"  Even though it was ice and not snow the kids were still super excited about it and wanted to play in it.  So they bundled up and went and played for a bit (they stayed out until I made them come in because their noses and cheeks could not get any redder!)

Aaron had a really good week of school.  Wednesday and Thursday when he came in for school he went straight to his box and got his Cars alphabet workbook and did his two pages with no prompting, no instruction.  And then on one day he asked if he could have one of the white boards because he wanted to write his alphabet.  

Here is a picture of the GOOD JOB that he did!

Of course Alyssa wanted to do the white board do and wanted me to take a picture of her girl she drew.

She also wanted me to write the alphabet so she could trace it.  She did trace a couple of letters :-) but then she started just doodling.

And in all that picture taking I got a shot of Seth working on his English workbook!

And I had to get a picture of this!  He was working on compound words - using picture clues.  I just LOVED his 'boxnut'!!!  :-)

In History we studied when George Washington became president.  One of the suggested activities was to make johnny cakes.  We decided to do that for breakfast this morning (Saturday).  The kids really liked them!

And the last thing I want to share this week are some more (yes more) updates made to the school house!!  My hubby was super super sweet last weekend and bought me a new desk and organization unit!!  (excuse the pink blanket over the window - the sun was shining in that morning and blinding Alyssa)

Here is the desk!

Here is the organization unit - that came with the fabric bins!!

We also decided that due to the fact that we have chairs in the room we really didn't need the bench.  So I took off the fabric cushion and stood the crates up on end to make another organization unit to go under the window (the bins, as you can see need to be cleaned out, I haven't gotten to the organization yet).

A view from the door!

And my hubby also introduced me to an app on my ipad that makes it into another monitor display for my computer!!!

In this picture I have my powerpoint on my ipad with my Word document (notes for the powerpoint) on my main monitor.

And here I decided to open up my laptop to use the laptop screen so that I had 3 monitors to move around one!!  This way I could see the information that I found on the internet on one screen, with my powerpoint on another screen, as I type my lesson notes on the third.  (And if you couldn't figure it out - this was for co-op classes that I am teaching!)

That's it for our week!  

Until next time,

Kellie