ART
Two lessons from our art curriculum completed, some modeling work, three art appreciation lessons (appreciating background), an introduction to the life, personality, and work of Beethoven has been fairly simple and perhaps not a big part of the school day, but impactful all the same. If one is to groan about the classical music station being on yet again, one ought to at least be able to groan out the proper names of the composers. And so, the first three weeks of school are a success!
PE/HEALTH
Completed Presidential Fitness Test, charted own results against "healthy range" averages.
Completed summer quarter rock climbing class, several hikes, runs, and informal team sports events (kick ball, sword fighting). Spent an entire day climbing Smith Rocks in Oregon with a climbing guide, starting at 5.4 climbs and finishing with 5.9 climbing and practice rappelling.
Swam and practiced diving.
LANGUAGE ARTS
Reviewed nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, the articles, and pronouns.
Completed one formal writing lesson as well as several smaller writing assignments.
Work on cursive is progressing.
Reading: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1080L) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, funny and interesting; Flush (830L) Carl Hiassen, hilarious; A Wrinkle in Time (740 L) A Wind in the Door (790L) Madeleine L'Engle, first was great and a fast read, second was boring; The Mysterious Benedict Society (840 L) Trenton Lee Stewart, awesome, really good; The Cay (860L) by Theodore Taylor, easy to read, good to talk about; The Book of Three (770L) by Lloyd Alexander, scary (good scary) and exciting; Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransomme, calm and nice to read; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (880L) JK Rowling, exciting and scary to read by yourself; The Breadwinner (lexile 630), Parvana's Journey (lexile 640), Mud City (lexile 740) all by Deborah Ellis, really good, wish there were more.
MATH
A review of material covered last year in beginning algebra is progressing, with factoring, PI, infinite and finite numbers, ratios, and the integers covered so far.
Review of fractions (multiplying and dividing), and percents is ongoing as an extra math lesson.
Practice with logic and story problems is a daily and enjoyable part of the school schedule. A weekly hands on math lab (one involving 30 feet of butcher paper, crayons, and a series of rectangles to divide with various numbers of straight lines) has been quite fun.
SCIENCE
Science thus far has been limited to simple nature observation and a weekly class learning about scientists, scientific current events, and studies. Articles about insect eggs and the dangers of and ways of dealing with space trash were read and reported on, both verbally and in writing.
Several trees and a couple of types of mushrooms were identified. Ecosystems of the high desert and the coastal wetlands and forests were explored.
SOCIAL STUDIES
Reading, narration, and illustrating of the beginning of civilizations was completed. Experiments with simple tools and possible evolution of tool making were spontaneously devised and carried through.
Geography study included a review of the world- oceans and continents, basic geographic terms, map reading- then narrowed in focus to North America.
A mini study about Uruguay was completed, including making dulce de leche candy-sauce.
Showing posts with label geography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label geography. Show all posts
Friday, September 24, 2010
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Week 1: After
Luckily I'm considering these first two weeks our gear-up weeks, or else I would probably be feeling pretty badly about how our week went, school-wise. We were still in summer-mode, mostly, and still working on fruit, still meeting at the park for homeschool playdate, still lazing around. Plus I had two migraines (two! and I've only had ever had migraines when I'm pregnant, which I'm not, so what is that about? threw us all off sides, anyway!). So, there are the excuses, make of them what you will.
Circle is a resounding success. Smart enough for Avery, silly enough for Miles, wholesome enough for me. I think two hymns in a row almost is a little much, but the boys look forward to "Circle Game" as Miles calls it, and even baby Ansel sits in his Bumbo chair in the middle and smiles and coos and laughs.
Stickeen was a good story for oral reading. Short enough to easily finish in a week, exciting and descriptive. We have a good sense of what glaciers are like, and we're suckers for heartwarming stories about dogs. The reading was easy enough that it was fun for Avery, with still the challenge some new words (mostly Alaskan Native words). I had planned on modeling, and making Stickeen figures, but that didn't happen.
Cursive is fine. Well, the amount of time practicing takes right now is good. Shortish sentences for awhile, building up. We've got a copywork/Character lesson book started, with "Honor thy Father and thy Mother." Character Training is going well so far, too. Simple- a story, tied in with the quote or verse for cursive practice that week, talking about the trait, a project.
Grammar is simple and easy with Simply Grammar, but I'm glad I also bought Word Play, though we skipped that this week. Between the two I think there'll be enough variety to be interesting and educational instead of just review. Maybe. I think next year we'll need a more formal, more challenging approach to grammar.
Spelling was simple. I like the system, but the words I chose for him, expecting them to be not-too-hard were way-too-easy. Still, he's never had spelling as a subject before, so I don't want to go too hard. I think we'll do a bunch orally at the beginning of the week, more than 20, so we work through this part of the book at an accelerated pace, without actually skipping anything, until we get 20 challenging words or definitions for the week. The McGuffey Speller is so old fashioned that a lot of the words aren't in common usage any more, so I anticipate a good amount of easy to spell words will end up in the spelling list just because of their novelty, vocabulary-wise.
Latin was barely started. Rather than try to start where we flailed about and stopped last year, I decided to start again fresh this year. I think I'll actually wait til after our vacation, coming up here. I do like Lively Latin, but you do need to work it every day, and we're still a little too summery and every-which-way yet to settle in.
Math Puzzlers. Mathmania is a dud. They're too silly, too babyish. For some reason I always expect Highlights to come through for me, but they always fall short, one way or another. I need to find some good, cheap books of logic puzzles and diagramming puzzles.
Life of Fred is our favorite Math thing so far. So funny and sweet, and it's a clever lesson in English and Math all at once. Short chapters, few questions, lots of humor. He loves it and so do I! He's working through Fractions right now. Actually, this is more read aloud time, because, as it turns out, even though I already know how to deal with fractions, the story is so engaging and sweet we all (even Miles) want to hear what happens next! He finished the first section, but didn't try crossing the bridge yet.
Avery worked on the "twos" for oral math. Review, speed, review, memorize. Over and over.
Calculus by and for Young People is okay. Not so gentle as I thought it would be, it's more of a mouthful than I thought. But good stuff, great to work with on Math Lab day, if we're going to do it together. We worked on the first lesson but didn't finish it- I wasn't anticipating his nerves and didn't set aside enough time to be there with him, paying attention. An older kid or one more comfortable with reading mathematical notation would maybe not be intimidated and have more fun just jumping in, but all those numbers and notations are a little off-putting to Avery right now. I am glad we lucked out and somehow got the actual worktext instead of the CD-Rom set- I have a feeling we'd never get to them if we had to go on the computer and print stuff off.
Man and Animals Main Lesson Block was simple, not muddied with trying to stuff other subjects into the theme. Just pure and calm. I'm really glad I put all that time getting comfortable with the lesson before we started! It would have been a disaster if I weren't comfortable with it. Not one you can fake, I think.
History's great. I really like Joy Hakim's A History of US. Highly recommend it. I imagine we'll use it again, in a few years, when we study US History again. I'll probably buy the middle school lesson books to go with them, then. For fourth grade the reading is not hard, and is interesting and comprehensive enough that I don't feel the need to add in a ton of other historical text reading, so far anyway. We are just sort of skimming along this year. We didn't get to watercolor painting, which I had planned to tie in to the Inuit lesson, but Avery did write a nice paragraph in the US History lesson book, and paste in a map of the Arctic regions.
Science. Dud week. No Nature story, no nature hike, no nature journals. No science lab. Avery did read a lot about cells, and watch a couple short video things online, and do a little activity, we talked about cells. We ran out of time, with screaming babies, before he had a chance to draw a cell in his Anatomy lesson book.
Art. Double dud. We have the Artistic Pursuits Modern Artists book to use this year, but we were so short of time, and he so didn't want to do it, that we just skipped it. He did the first lesson last year, anyway. Does that count? Even Handwork, embroidery, which Avery was asking for everyday this past week, didn't ever quite happen. Ergh!
Form drawing was a success. It was, really for the first time, FUN and not just tolerable for Avery. I didn't belabor a story, but kept that quite simple and open-ended. He took the form along himself, and made lovely work out of it. Pretty cool for a kid who "hates art" right now.
Guitar. A lesson. A few practices, and lots and lots of struggles about practicing. Seems there's always something more pressing, more interesting, more important than practicing. Anybody have any tips about that?
PE. Lots of running and playing, working and climbing around. No lessons yet, no soccer yet. Still summer. Avery did research bicycle safety, and explain some things to me. A Dad in the homeschool community hear was killed last weekend in a mountain biking accident, and while we didn't know him personally we are still touched by the tragedy of the loss for that family, and a little research about bike safety seemed in order.
Circle is a resounding success. Smart enough for Avery, silly enough for Miles, wholesome enough for me. I think two hymns in a row almost is a little much, but the boys look forward to "Circle Game" as Miles calls it, and even baby Ansel sits in his Bumbo chair in the middle and smiles and coos and laughs.
Stickeen was a good story for oral reading. Short enough to easily finish in a week, exciting and descriptive. We have a good sense of what glaciers are like, and we're suckers for heartwarming stories about dogs. The reading was easy enough that it was fun for Avery, with still the challenge some new words (mostly Alaskan Native words). I had planned on modeling, and making Stickeen figures, but that didn't happen.
Cursive is fine. Well, the amount of time practicing takes right now is good. Shortish sentences for awhile, building up. We've got a copywork/Character lesson book started, with "Honor thy Father and thy Mother." Character Training is going well so far, too. Simple- a story, tied in with the quote or verse for cursive practice that week, talking about the trait, a project.
Grammar is simple and easy with Simply Grammar, but I'm glad I also bought Word Play, though we skipped that this week. Between the two I think there'll be enough variety to be interesting and educational instead of just review. Maybe. I think next year we'll need a more formal, more challenging approach to grammar.
Spelling was simple. I like the system, but the words I chose for him, expecting them to be not-too-hard were way-too-easy. Still, he's never had spelling as a subject before, so I don't want to go too hard. I think we'll do a bunch orally at the beginning of the week, more than 20, so we work through this part of the book at an accelerated pace, without actually skipping anything, until we get 20 challenging words or definitions for the week. The McGuffey Speller is so old fashioned that a lot of the words aren't in common usage any more, so I anticipate a good amount of easy to spell words will end up in the spelling list just because of their novelty, vocabulary-wise.
Latin was barely started. Rather than try to start where we flailed about and stopped last year, I decided to start again fresh this year. I think I'll actually wait til after our vacation, coming up here. I do like Lively Latin, but you do need to work it every day, and we're still a little too summery and every-which-way yet to settle in.
Math Puzzlers. Mathmania is a dud. They're too silly, too babyish. For some reason I always expect Highlights to come through for me, but they always fall short, one way or another. I need to find some good, cheap books of logic puzzles and diagramming puzzles.
Life of Fred is our favorite Math thing so far. So funny and sweet, and it's a clever lesson in English and Math all at once. Short chapters, few questions, lots of humor. He loves it and so do I! He's working through Fractions right now. Actually, this is more read aloud time, because, as it turns out, even though I already know how to deal with fractions, the story is so engaging and sweet we all (even Miles) want to hear what happens next! He finished the first section, but didn't try crossing the bridge yet.
Avery worked on the "twos" for oral math. Review, speed, review, memorize. Over and over.
Calculus by and for Young People is okay. Not so gentle as I thought it would be, it's more of a mouthful than I thought. But good stuff, great to work with on Math Lab day, if we're going to do it together. We worked on the first lesson but didn't finish it- I wasn't anticipating his nerves and didn't set aside enough time to be there with him, paying attention. An older kid or one more comfortable with reading mathematical notation would maybe not be intimidated and have more fun just jumping in, but all those numbers and notations are a little off-putting to Avery right now. I am glad we lucked out and somehow got the actual worktext instead of the CD-Rom set- I have a feeling we'd never get to them if we had to go on the computer and print stuff off.
Man and Animals Main Lesson Block was simple, not muddied with trying to stuff other subjects into the theme. Just pure and calm. I'm really glad I put all that time getting comfortable with the lesson before we started! It would have been a disaster if I weren't comfortable with it. Not one you can fake, I think.
History's great. I really like Joy Hakim's A History of US. Highly recommend it. I imagine we'll use it again, in a few years, when we study US History again. I'll probably buy the middle school lesson books to go with them, then. For fourth grade the reading is not hard, and is interesting and comprehensive enough that I don't feel the need to add in a ton of other historical text reading, so far anyway. We are just sort of skimming along this year. We didn't get to watercolor painting, which I had planned to tie in to the Inuit lesson, but Avery did write a nice paragraph in the US History lesson book, and paste in a map of the Arctic regions.
Science. Dud week. No Nature story, no nature hike, no nature journals. No science lab. Avery did read a lot about cells, and watch a couple short video things online, and do a little activity, we talked about cells. We ran out of time, with screaming babies, before he had a chance to draw a cell in his Anatomy lesson book.
Art. Double dud. We have the Artistic Pursuits Modern Artists book to use this year, but we were so short of time, and he so didn't want to do it, that we just skipped it. He did the first lesson last year, anyway. Does that count? Even Handwork, embroidery, which Avery was asking for everyday this past week, didn't ever quite happen. Ergh!
Form drawing was a success. It was, really for the first time, FUN and not just tolerable for Avery. I didn't belabor a story, but kept that quite simple and open-ended. He took the form along himself, and made lovely work out of it. Pretty cool for a kid who "hates art" right now.
Guitar. A lesson. A few practices, and lots and lots of struggles about practicing. Seems there's always something more pressing, more interesting, more important than practicing. Anybody have any tips about that?
PE. Lots of running and playing, working and climbing around. No lessons yet, no soccer yet. Still summer. Avery did research bicycle safety, and explain some things to me. A Dad in the homeschool community hear was killed last weekend in a mountain biking accident, and while we didn't know him personally we are still touched by the tragedy of the loss for that family, and a little research about bike safety seemed in order.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Geography
Geography has always just been something I've integrated into our day- we have maps on the walls, a globe or three and atlases, we go on hikes and use compasses, we plot our trips, we've made maps of our street and looked up places we've heard and read about. We've made land and water forms out of play dough, we've climbed mountains and surveyed the land from on high.
But....
I've been feeling a need for a little more.
Next year we'll start with ancient civilizations, and I plan on working through historical maps of the world and the regions we study, but this year calls for an over view, something fun and light, some review of basic knowledge, and some interesting ways to use that knowledge.
So:
We will, of course, be locating the areas we learn about on the map. And we're going all over this year- First Peoples of North America, Vikings, Marco Polo, the New World Explorers, Manifest Destiny.
I also bought this cool book "Earthsearch" and Avery will work through that- it's a Klutz book, so it'll be fun and not too serious, but there's some good stuff in there about garbage and population, resource allotment, exploration, and the interconnectedness of humanity.
Here's the 36 week plan, with fingers sort of crossed that Avery really likes this book and goes ahead of schedule, stopping here and there to try out the suggested activities and games and make up his own:
1-2: review oceans and continents
review compass & map skills, plot journey, lead group hike
3: Earthsearch intro- page 6
4: 7-12 Lives of a Pop Can
5: 13-14 Garbage- make a chart with pictures of what is recyclable here, how long things take to break down, etc.
6: 15-21 Paper- set up a paper reduce-reuse-recycle program for our home
7: 22-23 Germs
8: 24-26 enlist others in creating a "dot map" of our own to study germ movements
9: 27-30 "lines" on the globe
10: 33-37 play "Get Lost" game
11: 38-41 make a tennis ball earth (round-flat distortion)
12: 43-46 make contour map of hand
13: 47-50 inclinometer
14: 51-54 earth's axis
15: 56-58 how did the earth get started?
16: 59-61 solar system model- outside
17: 62-64 earth's shell
18-19: review land & water forms
20: 65-67 earthquakes
21: 68-71 land formation
22: 72-75 land formation
23: 76 arable land-apple model
24: 77-79 human evolution
25: 80-83 population growth
26: 84-85 counting millions
27: 86-87 calorie allotment
28: 88-89 group game- m&ms/wealth/food
29: 90-92 skin color
30: 93-95 shared air
31: 96-97 we're all related
32: 98-99 ocean currents
33: 100-101 world market
34: 102-103 Geobear activity- come up with something similar
35-36: review basic themes, terminologies, facts
But....
I've been feeling a need for a little more.
Next year we'll start with ancient civilizations, and I plan on working through historical maps of the world and the regions we study, but this year calls for an over view, something fun and light, some review of basic knowledge, and some interesting ways to use that knowledge.
So:
We will, of course, be locating the areas we learn about on the map. And we're going all over this year- First Peoples of North America, Vikings, Marco Polo, the New World Explorers, Manifest Destiny.
I also bought this cool book "Earthsearch" and Avery will work through that- it's a Klutz book, so it'll be fun and not too serious, but there's some good stuff in there about garbage and population, resource allotment, exploration, and the interconnectedness of humanity.
Here's the 36 week plan, with fingers sort of crossed that Avery really likes this book and goes ahead of schedule, stopping here and there to try out the suggested activities and games and make up his own:
1-2: review oceans and continents
review compass & map skills, plot journey, lead group hike
3: Earthsearch intro- page 6
4: 7-12 Lives of a Pop Can
5: 13-14 Garbage- make a chart with pictures of what is recyclable here, how long things take to break down, etc.
6: 15-21 Paper- set up a paper reduce-reuse-recycle program for our home
7: 22-23 Germs
8: 24-26 enlist others in creating a "dot map" of our own to study germ movements
9: 27-30 "lines" on the globe
10: 33-37 play "Get Lost" game
11: 38-41 make a tennis ball earth (round-flat distortion)
12: 43-46 make contour map of hand
13: 47-50 inclinometer
14: 51-54 earth's axis
15: 56-58 how did the earth get started?
16: 59-61 solar system model- outside
17: 62-64 earth's shell
18-19: review land & water forms
20: 65-67 earthquakes
21: 68-71 land formation
22: 72-75 land formation
23: 76 arable land-apple model
24: 77-79 human evolution
25: 80-83 population growth
26: 84-85 counting millions
27: 86-87 calorie allotment
28: 88-89 group game- m&ms/wealth/food
29: 90-92 skin color
30: 93-95 shared air
31: 96-97 we're all related
32: 98-99 ocean currents
33: 100-101 world market
34: 102-103 Geobear activity- come up with something similar
35-36: review basic themes, terminologies, facts
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)