MFW: ECC~ Mexico (weeks 5 & 6)

Wow, am I late posting this ;-) We finished Mexico over a week ago and just finished our week off (I am loving this year-round schedule). We start Canada on Monday, so I knew I needed to officially close the book on Mexico.

Math U See: Lessons 18 & 19

All About Spelling: Steps 22 & 23

BJU English: Chapter 3. Senior is loving this and says it is his favorite subject.

Reading: Unfortunately we couldn't find a chapter book on Senior's level to go along with Mexico, so he read a book we already owned. He liked Shiloh and I allowed him to just enjoy reading and didn't give any assignments based on it.

Here are a few of the book basket selections.

I had a happy mommy moment while we were working on our pinata. Senior told Gator-Tot that we had a book about pinatas and asked if he wanted him to read it. They sat down on the couch and enjoyed it together ;-)

ECC Bible: We prayed for Cuba and Haiti. Senior is also continuing to read through Matthew.

ECC Science: The past two weeks has been a study on the desert biome. We found a great Bill Nye DVD from our library on deserts.

This was also a favorite book.

During our study we took our field trip to the botanical gardens and really enjoyed the desert area.


We did an experiment to help Senior understand how animals try and stay cool in the heat of the desert. We had two ice cubes, one in the sun (of course the sun didn't want to cooperate, ha) and another in the shade. Watching ice melt is super fun for a 7 year-old boy ;-)

As predicted, the one in the sun melted first.

The next experiment was to see how burrowing in the sand help keep animals cool. This was a simple but effective demonstration.

We went out and I let the boys pick out some plants to observe. I had plans of recreating an experiment from the Bill Nye video but haven't had the chance (read: I keep forgetting).

ECC Geography: I am now realizing that I didn't take any pictures of our worksheets or us playing the geography game. Senior is LOVING the geography game and already has all the countries in North and Central America memorized! Any tips on how to keep his interest in the game for the next two weeks?

ECC Art & Fun: Week 5 our art project was the clay sun.

Here are the finished suns. Can you tell which one is mine, Senior's, and Gator-Tot's ;-)

Week #6 we took on the pinata. This may just be Senior's favorite homeschool memory! He loved this project even though it took us 4 days to complete it.

Time to decorate!


Gator-Tot was very proud of the finished project (although he never did put his hands in the glue).

The boys also made the tissue paper flowers to decorate the house for the fiesta.



I also found some fiesta decorations at the dollar store so the house was very festive.

The boys had no interest in helping, but I made some whole wheat tortillas for us to enjoy.


I have a confession: even though I had grand plans of a homemade fiesta- it never happened :-( I put it off for almost a week and then we broke down and went to a restaurant. Just tonight, we got around to breaking the pinata. It may have been very late but the boys still had a ton of fun!


Monday we fly to Canada! You probably won't see me post about it for another 3 weeks due to a little vacation we are taking. I am linking up to MFW Highlights @ Discover Their Gifts.