Gingerbread, Christmas Tree, and More Crystals!

Math:

This week we did more lessons on CTC math. I (Kaylee) am learning about different ways of solving problems- using diagrams, solving it in two parts, or solving them by solving a simple problem before the main problem. I (Landen) am learning about measuring distance in feet, yards, inches, and centimeters.

Language Arts:

We continued reading more from our book, The Lion of Mars. It is very interesting. In the story, on Mars, there are different settlements- US, French, Russia, etc. We learned that when people first started living on Mars, they made a rule that if you had any talents that could be useful on Mars, and you wanted to move there, you had to bring an orphan baby with you. They called it the Nanny Program. They had to drop the baby off at the US settlement (where the story is told), regardless where it lived on Earth, and then go to their own settlement. It was cool to learn about living on Mars. They got supplies from a robot-driven supply ship from Earth. They grew algae, which supplied their food and oxygen where they lived.

Science:

Spa Chemistry (Kaylee):

This week I made some candles. I forgot to put the wicks in the molds before I melted the wax, and so the wax was cooling while I stuck the wicks in the molds. If I took much longer, the wax would've been to hard to pour, but luckily I was fast enough!

Elementary Science (Landen):

I started the process for a new crystal. I measured and mixed the solution and placed it in a warm location. This one is in a geo mold. It will be cool to see how it turns out.

Tech:

Digital Photography (Kaylee):

This week I watched a Focusing Q&A quiz on CreativeLive. I answered along with the teacher's audience, and I got most of the answers right! I'm learning a lot!

Digital Art (Landen):

This week I used an engine for VisScratch. VisScratch is a visual novel engine on Scratch! If you don't know what a visual novel is, it's a project where you answer questions that effect the outcome of the game. It's like one of those choose-your-own-adventure books, but online. Most of the code was already done in the engine, but I changed some things, like the name, and I coded the game. I also put my name in the credits section in the project. You can find my What Color Do You Like More project here.

Elective:

Culinary Arts (Kaylee):

This week I made a Gingerbread Pull-Apart dessert from my Radish kit! I learned about the flavors of gingerbread: molasses, nutmeg, cinnamon, and, of course, ginger.

This picture is before rising. After rising, the balls were bigger.

Snowmen, cake, and crystals!

Language Arts

This week we read more of our book, the Lion of Mars. We did our copy work and learned about writing letters (as the commander, Sai, was writing letters to the US Terrestrial Command).

Science

Spa Chemistry (Kaylee):

This week I made some candles. I used candle dye this time, not soap dye, as last time the soap dye didn't mix with the candle wax.

Elementary Science (Landen):

It has now been a full week since I started growing my crystal, so I rinsed it off and dried it.

Christmas Crystals

Math

This week we played a game called Assassins. We took ten slips of paper and wrote one number between 1 and 100 on each paper. Then, we each took a playing card and multiplied the numbers on the card together. If we had the answer on one of our slips of paper, we've scored a hit! If we scored 3 hits, we would win. I (Kaylee) won!

Language Arts

This week we are beginning our December book, The Lion of Mars. It's about space and is recorded in 2091- 70 years in the future!

Science

Spa Chemistry (Kaylee):

This week I made some more soap.

I melted clear glycerin in a bowl and left a metal spoon in the (hot) soap base. I was uncapping the lid to the color dye and was about to add it to the glycerin, when I looked at the soap base and noticed it was getting solid. It hardens quickly! I tried to lift the spoon and see if it was completely hardened. The spoon was hardened into the glycerin, and when I pulled, the soap base came up with it!

Eventually I got it off the spoon and re-melted it

Elementary Science (Landen):

This week I mined some diamonds. Just kidding! 😆 I started growing some crystals!

First I added the crystal base to some crystal solution I mixed up. Then I let it sit in the warmest room in the house- Kaylee's and Emberly's room- and waited for it to grow. It will take about a week and a half until it is fully formed. 

Every day at 12:00 p.m., I check the crystal to see how it is growing. On the second day, I noticed some crystal forming around the top of the container. This is called "crystal climbing." I cleaned off the top of the container and put a little donut-shaped cut-out around the top to block the crystal flakes from growing over the sides and getting blue dye over Kaylee's room.

When it is fully formed, it will be a glow in the dark crystal! I can't wait!

Tech

Digital Photography (Kaylee):

This week I learned about focusing points. The teacher on Creative Live taught about when to zoom in, when to zoom out, and when to keep it normal. Then I went out to our backyard, which seemed like an ordinary, boring yard- and found that there are lots of interesting places to explore!

I took a picture of a sunset, with our tree blackened in the fading light.

Then I found some strange berries- don't eat them- in a far corner of the yard.

Before sunset, I took a picture lying down on the grass, looking up at the leaves.

I found these pretty flowers near the red berries and snapped a photo.

There's this beautiful bush in a different corner that has been brown all summer long, but in the fall, it's turned beautiful.

This one was the hardest. I took a close-up picture of the bush and tried many different positions before finally deciding on this one.

Finally, I took a picture later in the afternoon of the same tree as the one one earlier with the bright green leaves.

Digital Art (Landen):

This week I did a screen shot of our family and then I painted over it to make this work of art.

After I painted it, I deleted the picture in the background and this is what I ended up with:

Elective

Culinary Arts (Kaylee):

This week I made some pecan pie brownies from my Thanksgiving Twists Radish pack! Thing is, I made a Thanksgiving Twist on my Thanksgiving Twist treat... if that makes sense! Instead of pecans, I put pretzels!

We enjoyed it with cool vanilla ice cream.

P.E. (Landen): 

I practiced basketball and had a game on Saturday. It was hard. The other team's players were so much taller than the rest of us. We lost 22-42. I played against one of my church friends. The game was rough. Their shortest player was about as tall as me. The other players were even taller. I hope we'll win next week!

Arts and Crafts (Emberly):

It's almost Christmas time, so this week I made some paper ornaments!

First, Mom and I cut out some circles from brown paper bags and folded them in half.

Then we glued them together to make this ornament! It was so much fun and a bit hard, too!