Well, this week on Friday I had a scare. My blood pressure was well over 190/90. Now for one day that would not be bad, but this lasted 4 days. I ended up in ER on Friday and well, from there we figured it was stress that is the culprit. Figures. I guess I do not handle stress the way I use to when I was younger. Anyway, I have been doing some breathing exercises since my release form the ER as well as just repeating my mantra of "God will take care of everything". Well, anyway, my blood pressure is back to normal for the most part. I have been taking it twice a day in the Am and right before I go to bed. The evening is a little higher then the AM, but I am at least close to being back to my normal blood pressure! Yea! I can really feel during the day when it gets to high and so at that point I just take a big breath and relax as best I can.
Anyway, this week was a ton of excitement. I started a new book for Bible. It is called Peril and Peace Volume !: Chronicles of the Ancient Church by Mindy and Brandon Withrow. I just wanted to take a break from what we were doing and start something a little new, fresh and different. I guess we have been in the Old Testament for so long I wanted the kids to have a perspective on the church and our Christian belief system. The book is all about the history of the early Christians and the begriming of Christianity. Oh my goodness, it is fantastic. The kids do not want me to stop reading it. It is a little hard to hear about how all these martyrs were killed for their beliefs, but it is reality and it give us a good perspective on our beliefs and mission today here is sunny California and how we need to stand up for what we believe. I as well as the children are looking forward to reading this book every morning!
Science was SOOOO much fun this week. We are really loving our study on Botany. Apologia is a wonderful science curriculum and I highly recommend it if you are searching for a science curriculum. Anyhow, we are learning about chlorophyll, photosynthesis and about transpiration. You know all those wonderful things that make the plant grow and give us oxygen. We had a wonderful experiment to accomplish this week. It was simply to get an ordinary baggy and an ordinary plant that is either in a pot or in the ground and place the baggy over the top of a leaf and zip it up. The idea is that when a plant takes in water through the root system it uses what it needs and then releases the excess through the "mouths" of the leaves which are called the stomata. Well, it worked great. We waited two days after putting the baggy on a leaf and there is was, about a tablespoon of water in the baggy. We all wowed over this one. I love it so much when experiments work out the way they are suppose to.
History, as always is so very interesting. We are learning about the Minoans and how they came about as well as their fall. One of the things we focused on was the Minotaur and King Minos. I still can not believe that the whole of Crete did not rise up against this blood thirsty king. Yes, I know the Minotaur is a fictional character, but behind every story of this sort there is some sort of truth. The truth lies in the fact that this king killed a heck of a lot of people. The actual Minotaur was probably a bull or lion or something of that sort if there really even was any kind of feeding to animals. But we do have to remember that some of these tales were told to keep people or children in their place. Either way, still a horrible King!!! The end of the Minoans is still a mystery today. Probably a volcanic eruption, but we will never really know.
My children had fun trying to build a maze for the Minotaur out of Legos. You can see by the pictures they had a good time working together (key word, together) and they had a little help from Crackers, our little bird. LOL! We also built a car to help us through the maze. Forget the ball of yarn that was use with Prince Theseus, we need to use an Indiana Jones style car. OK, well, you gotta have fun while learning right??? Right!!! We also built a boat from Legos because we also learned that this early civilization were very good sailors. Now if only we would have built a bull since they were the bull jumpers as you can see by their coloring page. LOL! My son wanted to, but we really had to move onto other subject. You know. Any excuse to play with Legos. Shhh, actually it is a great excuses for me because so many of the project that we have done in the past get thrown into a closet or away. Legos allows us to built it, play with it, take pictures of it and then take it apart! Ahhh, a method to my madness!
Well, overall we had a great week even if it ended up in the ER. SO on to another week. See you on the flip side of next week!
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