Homeschool Week 19: Fremont and The Ranch

So for the record I skipped last weeks recap. It totally slipped my mind and to be honest it was a very easy week. No big projects to speak of. So we are moving on to week 19!.

Language Arts: Phi read chapters 10-15 of By the Great Horn Spoon. The story is a lot of fun with a lot of language of the time mixed in. It makes it a little harder for Phi to follow along but she is still doing a great job. This week we did 3 different pages in the novel study guide. We studied how mining destroyed much of California's landscape and how we are still dealing with the mercury dumped in the water by the miners. She drew a picture of a gold mining cradle. We got to play a choose your own adventure like game on-line to see if Phi could make it during the Gold Rush. She couldn't. I couldn't either.

Math: We are now into adding and subtracting fractions with like denominators and simplifying the answers. We are doing okay with this. We had 4 worksheets and we got through them with little difficulty.

Social Studies: We studied all about the Mexican American War. This week really solidified my love for California history because without us knowing it the lesson hit super close to home. After answering the textbook questions she had to pick one person from the war to research and write an essay about. She chose John C. Fremont.  Who strangely looks like Joey.

So weird. The coincidences don't end there. As we were researching Fremont's attack on Santa Barbara is is documented that he and his troops rested at what is today Rancho de Ciervo. The same ranch my parents lived on for 10 years, and the ranch my Pops still manages today.

Rancho de Ciervo

We called my Pops and he knew all about it. He told us that the trail they used is still there. There was also a big oak tree called "Fremont Tree", but it fell down a few years ago. We plan to hike up there and check out the trail soon.

Science: We are reviewing solar and lunar eclipses. We read from our e-book and answered some questions. The project for the week was to create something that demonstrates a lunar and solar eclipse. Phi and Poppa came up with this.

Very cool project! They used a girl scout cookie case box (we have a lot of those right now) chopsticks, styrofoam balls, construction paper, glitter, glue and a flashlight as the sun. I love how Phi painted the earth and how the even covered and labeled the outside! Great job!