Melt down today, Happy dance tomorrow

Life is always moving.  So just earlier this week I was having doubts in my homeschooling but then today the mailman once again made me happy.

We received our Apologia Science kit!  One decision I made this week was to stop trying to do so much myself and take some help where it is given.  So I ordered a science program rather than trying to piece something together myself.

I decided to go with Apologia Physical Science.  DS has plenty of time to get to the other sciences before graduation so starting with something a little easier would be good for both of us.

So I ordered this


and this 


and this 



all from www.homesciencetools.com


My DD used Apologia, so I knew it was challenging and wasn't sure DS was up to it.  But I think we now have a good plan and the audio mp3 should help us.  I'm thinking we can listen to it in the car and at other places when we can't sit in front of the computer.  I'm not planning to use it in place of the book, but as a repeat as needed kind of thing.

When we got home this morning (I'll have another post about where we went) the box was on the porch and I made DS carry it in and he said, "You're making me carry my own box of doom?" LOL Dramatic maybe?  But then he opened it and was oooing and aahhing over all the stuff.  So maybe not so bad after all huh?

We'll see!

What have we been up to?

Well, I haven't been blogging much. I need to get back into The Homeschool Mother's Journal on Fridays.  I'll try to do that this week.

But right now we are in transition waiting for new math to arrive and trying to find our way around biology.  We haven't gotten very far.  My son doesn't have a good memory (unless it has to do with Star Wars) and so I'm backing up a bit and trying out some hands on activities to help cement these concepts in his brain.

Biology begins with the smallest organisms so I found some projects to build atoms, molecules and cells.

Here is what we are using:


I downloaded them from Currclick.  They have several titles and I downloaded many of them when they were on sale.

Now, for an atom model  I got instructions here.


For marshamallow molecules I found a post here.



I would love to buy these, but the above are more accessible.


For cell models I found this and this.



I found more middle/high school ideas here.


Disclaimer: All these photos are from the original sites, they are not mine.  
But when we make ours I will post pictures!

YAY! We did it!

We finally finished our Apologia Physical Science, and I uploaded it for sale
on e-bay today!
It took us a year and a half to do it, but we did it. Let's hope it doesn't take us that long for biology.

The Whole World in His Hands

We missed our co-op class yesterday and 7yo ds "Dash" was dissapointed to miss making a model of the earth out of dough in our Astronomy class. So we got out the electric skillet and supplies and made our own dough in different colors and made this model. Here's what he made. This is the outside...

Here is the inside depicting the inner core- pink; the outer core - yellow; the mantle - white and the crust - blue and green.

I think he did a great job and now he knows the layers of the earth!