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In addition to Five-in-a-Row unit studies, here's what's on tap for this month: Language Arts
Math
Science
History
Fine Arts
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I have great intentions. At least once every two weeks, I come across some information that I want to post to my blog. And then I forget. And the next thing I know it's been 6 months since my last post. Today I was passing around information on Barnes and Noble's Summer Reading Program which entitles students 1 free book for reading 8 books. More info: Barnes and Noble Summer Reading Program
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MATH MUS finishing up addition, telling time, logic, word problems
LANGUAGE ARTS Parts of speech, copy work, similes, reading
SCIENCE Starting- weather unit
SOCIAL STUDIES Pilgrims/Native Americans/Thanksgiving
Somehow this evening, dd has developed a keen interest in "saving the animals" so we'll probably explore the evils of factory farming a bit this week. I'm looking for some good materials. We explored the PETA site this evening, but I filtered what she could see since their site is very eye-opening but more graphic than what I thought she was ready for.
FIAR We are rowing Cranberry Thanksgiving this week. Next week we are "rowing" Sarah Morton's Day.
READ ALOUD We are still reading The Little Prince. At the rate we're going, she'll be old enough to understand the metaphors before we finish it. We saw the play last month and really enjoyed it. No matter what, we're starting Love, Ruby Lavender before Thanksgiving.
AND WHAT ABOUT MOM? I haven't read a book in about a month. I've started several but haven't been able to get into any of them. I'm hoping either Fannie Flagg or Carl Hiassen can get me out of my reading funk. |
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This is inspired by a post from the FIAR board.
Had we chosen not to homeschool...
My dd and I would rarely see dh because of his work schedule. We wouldn't have fresh, homecooked meals except on the weekends (if at all). I would not have learned how to bake bread. Our breakfasts would consist of cereal and fruit bars. We'd never get to the aquarium since it's so crowded on the weekends. I would be spending more on useless stuff just because I'd have the money. I wouldn't be able to sing in the church choir since rehearsals are in the evenings. My dd would know all of the Cheetah Girls, Bratz, etc. by name. My dd would probably prefer pop and rap over Ella Jenkins. I would still think that slice-and-bake cookies are considered homemade. I wouldn't have a face to go with the names of her "best friends." We wouldn't get to go on frequent field trips. My dd would have to actually get dressed for school. I'd have to spend more money on work clothes. I wouldn't get to see the twinkle in my dd's eye when she says, "My mom's my teacher."
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LANGUAGE ARTS Proper nouns, common nouns, plural nouns
MATH MUS lessons 10-12
SCIENCE Rock wrap up Life cycle of apples
SOCIAL STUDIES Famous people from our state
UNIT STUDY FIAR- Bee Tree supplemented by Magic School Bus Goes Inside a Bee Hive
AND WHAT ABOUT MOM? Finished Can't Wait to Get to Heaven last week- I can't say enough good things about that book.
This week I'm back to CSI- this time one of the books in the CSI: NY series. I'm happy to report that I found a good home for my complete (original) CSI books. One of the city schools needed it for their library since they are trying to encourage the high school students to read about a variety of subjects. Since a lot of the students are interested in the show (and therefore forensic science) the books will help them reach their targeted number of books for the year.
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MATH MUS- Lesson 10
LANGUAGE ARTS Common nouns and proper nouns Vocabulary (Great worksheets from Ed Helper)
SCIENCE Rocks, rocks, and more rocks
Last week we tried an experiment with some quartz that I found at the teaching supply store. Supposedly if you strike them together repeatedly, they will spark. Well, I struck and struck and hit and did everything else but to no avail.
And to think, I was voted MOST SCIENTIFIC in school!
We still have a few unidentified rocks which I'm going to have to take to the science museum for classification.
SOCIAL STUDIES We will be continuing with our state history unit. We also have another field trip planned.
UNIT STUDY This week we will be doing a FIAR unit study on How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World: Monday: English breakfast and unit-based geography Tuesday: French lunch and unit-based science Wednesday: Homemade Apple Cake (Will also use Magic School Bus book on the science of baking.) Thursday: Jamaican food and unit-based art Friday: Italian food and unit-based humor
And yes, we will mill our own wheat- just like in the book.
AND WHAT ABOUT MOM? This week I'm reading Can't Wait to Get to Heaven by Fannie Flagg. |
We were successful in getting the magnetite to attract metal objects. This week we'll be playing with pumice- and if I can't get that to float then I'm hanging up my hat!
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Nothing grand this week. Just continuing with a few units.
MATH +9, finding the missing values
LANGUAGE ARTS parts of speech, plural nouns
SCIENCE rocks and fossils with some hands-on activites purchased at the teaching supply store
SOCIAL STUDIES Georgia history and facts
I found a book at the bookstore which had lots of great Georgia-related activities, but it cost more than I had planned to spend. Google to the rescue! We're gathering items for a Georgia lapbook. Included will be: coloring pages of the state, the state flag, state bird, state butterfly, state song and state flower. We also have a brief story about the state flower- the Cherokee Rose- and the Trail of Tears.
Unit study based on "Martin's Hats" as we discuss community workers, careers, and aspirations.
And What About Mom?
This week I'm reading Cocktails for Three by Madeline Wickham (currently known as Sophie Kinsella of Shopaholic fame). |
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Here's some of what we are doing this week:
LANGUAGE ARTS Parts of speech Homophones
MATH Math U See- Adding 9
SOCIAL STUDIES Local (city) history Apt. 3 unit study (Ezra Jack Keats)
SCIENCE Sedimentary rocks
DEVOTIONS Devotions for girls Max Lucado's Children's Bible Deuteronomy 6:5
LOOKING AHEAD TO NEXT WEEK State history/geography
AND WHAT ABOUT MOM? This week I'm reading the latest CSI book: Snake Eyes
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Just returned to my (apparently) abandoned blog. It seemed like such a fun and fabulous idea that I can't believe I lasted only 3 months. Oh well.
This seems like the perfect time to start anew and post our plans for this school year, but alas, I have dishes to wash. |
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The fieldtrip to Fernbank's Chocolate exhibit was very interesting. The lesson plan that they provided on their website provided the necessary foundation to be able to really understand the exhibit. A word of advice- Bring your own chocolate. After viewing room after room of chocolate you will be craving chocolate.
Fernbank, of course, predicted the onset of chocolate cravings and set up a chocolate shop at the end of the exhibit. They have all kinds of chocolate from Godiva to Green and Black's to Endangered Species, etc. There are also cute chocolate related trinkets and books. Now of course, a museum is not a museum unless it has an incredible price mark-up. A bar of Green and Black's organic chocolate was going for approx. $5.95 while a standard Godiva chocolate bar was $2.95. In other words, there was a 50-100% mark-up. Actually one item I saw was marked up 150%. But I'm just a cheapskate and I digress. The exhibit was fabulous and I plan to make many return visits.
We've also been to Center for Puppetry Arts to see Rainforest Adventures. This was to kick-off our study of rainforests. When I have more time, I'll post a list of books.
This is all to say that I haven't posted in awhile because we've been busy.
Women's History Month:
We will learn about Sojourner Truth, Helen Keller, Anne Frank, Susan B. Anthony, and Mother Teresa.
Math: addition, subtraction, fractions Language Arts: reading, parts of speech Science: animals and plants of the rainforest Social Studies: Women's History
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Posted in Lesson Plans
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I've been so caught up in our other units and field trips that I completely forgot that President's Day is coming. Here are some ideas and activities that I have found:
From the Core Knowledge website is a unit on the Presidents of Mt. Rushmore. This is a kindergarten level unit, however, it's a good introduction for older students as well.
If you are a member of edhelper.com, you can download a unit on Abraham Lincoln which includes reading comprehension, vocabulary, writing, and math activities. Ed Helper also has coloring books, stories, and worksheets for President's Day. |
Posted in Lesson Plans
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LANGUAGE ARTS- parts of speech, folk tales
SCIENCE- safari animals
SOCIAL STUDIES- black history, Africa, history of chocolate
MATH- fractions, critical thinking
THE ARTS- Valentine's crafts, African music, spirituals
This week we are also listening, reading, and playing.
By the way, I have made 2 more delicious loaves of bread. One was "chocolate chip cookie" bread and the other a mixture of white and whole wheat. |
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First of all, let me say that I had never made my own bread nor had I ever watched anyone make bread until last night. I had no frame of reference. I am, however, an overachiever and a bit of a perfectionist. Oh- and impulsive too. That said, here's my story.
I was so excited when I cashed in the credit card rewards points to obtain a $100 gift card from Williams-Sonoma. Over the past week I had had a sudden and intense urge to make my own bread. I just couldn't go another day with store bought bread.
The gift card arrived in 3 business days and off I went to the mall to get my breadmaker and some other kitchen items. I got home late so I decided to try out the delayed start function. At about midnight, I read the directions and began to follow them. I read that the measurements had to be exact and that the yeast could not touch the water so I was very diligent and intense about following these directions.
I was so diligent that I was afraid that any jiggling of the pan would result in yeast getting into the water. I was very careful. A little too careful, I suppose. I set the timer so that the bread would be ready at 8:30 this morning.
In the middle of the night I heard quite a racket. I never knew how much noise it would take to knead dough. I'd read on a message board that some people set their breadmakers to have fresh bread for breakfast. I quickly came to the conclusion that they must have big houses. Who could sleep with that racket??
This morning the house was filled with the wonderful aroma of fresh bread. Mmmmmm. I went downstairs...... opened the breadmaker... and found this:
It was so hard I had to break it up to get it out of the dish. Yes, those white clumps that you see are flour and yeast.
Apparently in my effort not to have a single grain of yeast end up in the water, I didn't put the pan all the way down in the breadmaker. So as you see, the batter didn't get fully mixed. And the yeast was still on top. And the inside was mush. But guess what? The crust tasted great! My dd said, "Even though it's a mistake it tastes really good."
I tossed the loaf and made another one. And this time it looked like
Yummy!!!!! (phew) BTW, the slice on top is buttered- not a clump of flour this time. How do you like my new bread knife?
So tonight I'm trying to decide if I want to do pizza dough or try a sweet bread. Decisions, decisions, decisions. |
Posted in Lesson Plans
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We will have 2 unit studies going on this week. The first, Chocolate!!!! The Fernbank Museum has a great educator packet full of information, ideas, and handouts on one of my favorite topics- chocolate.
Here's our booklist:
We'll be doing a mini-lesson on Safari Animals. With this we'll do an "introduction to Africa."
For Black History Month: Week 1: The history of black history Week 2: African-Americans "firsts" Week 3: African-Americans in the arts Week 4: African-Americans writers | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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We had a wonderful time at the GA Aquarium. Here are some pix I took.
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Sea Nettle 
Pharaoh Cuttlefish
The Moving Sidewalk Tunnel 
Sawfish
Garden Eels
Having a snack and a nap|
Not sure how much work will get done this week, but we'll be doing a lot of learning and having fun. Monday- continuation of sea animals (science), oceans and continents (social studies), adding and subtracting (math), and reading Tuesday- field trip to aquarium Wednesday- field trip to the Alliance Theater to see "The Stinky Cheese Man" Thursday- Black History Month kick off Friday- introduction to safari animals (science), Africa (social studies), math, reading, Valentine arts and crafts |
Posted in Lesson Plans
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This week is basically a continuation of last week's lessons. We are reading The Night of the Moonjellies by Shasha and will be going on a couple of field trips- one music based and one history based.
For art, we will be painting a small map of the world to tie in with the continents and oceans theme and for our aquarium journal. We'll also create a colorful tally sheet to log the areas from which some of the main attractions come and then make a graph (which we have studied in math) when we get back. |
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We have finished studying the different types of houses found around the world. Below are a couple of the pages from the book that we created.
The cover below is a house in the style of the Painted Mud Houses found in Egypt.
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Posted in Lesson Plans
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In preparation for our upcoming visit to the Georgia Aquarium we are studying oceans and ocean animals. Two books that we read today: Oceans by Katharine Jones Carter and The Aquarium Book by George Ancona. Zora is particularly interested in ocean life as it pertains to Finding Nemo.
While browsing through the county library's site, I saw links to various schools' reading lists. Of particular interest was the Lovett School's site since this is a school which charges $13,800 for kindergarten. What I found was not only a list of their vocabulary words for the week, but also webpages for each of their classes. What a wealth of information! There was a link to Mathematic University, a site with online math games for K-6 and great teacher resources. Lovett's site also includes a newletter describing the various projects and assignments for the week. Thank you Lovett School. |