Science, Week One...(Tornadoes)

For the first 18 weeks of school we will study Earth Science topics. I use "The Well-Trained Mind" for resource recommendations. I bought "The Usborne Internet-Linked First Encyclopedia of Our World" for our main reference, but everything else we will just rent from the library. Except I also bought "More Mudpies to Magnets" for our experiment ideas. So the kids and I went through the World Encycl. and picked out the topics they were interested in studying this year. First up...

Tornadoes! So this week was all about that....

Here are the books I used to read from:
-"Kingfisher Weather and Climate" book (there were a few facts in there)
-"Tornadoes" by Simon Seymour (full of good info and pictures for their age). This guy wrote a book about everything, so we will be seeing more of his stuff in the next few months!
-For fun we read "Farmer Brown Goes Round and Round." It was a fun fiction book about a tornado.

Other activities:
-I rented "Twister" the movie and showed them a small clip of it...which left them dying to see more!
-I rented a National Geographic DVD called "Tornado Intercept" that was about 50 minutes and they watched and enjoyed the whole thing.
-We 'made' a tornado (directions in Mudpies book, pg. 114). This was a big hit.
-Played "Twister" (because of the name)
-L and K wrote 3 facts they learned, drew a picture, and wrote up an experiment page, all for their science notebooks.

The only thing I would have done extra is rent the Wizard of Oz to watch at the end of the week (all for the tornado, but hey). :)

Oh yeah...Although the kids didn't seem super fearful about us having a tornado and being destroyed :), they did ask lots of 'what if' questions. God brought this verse to my mind and I incorporated the Bible story of Jesus and His disciples in the boat and a storm came up and Jesus calmed it. The kids wrote the main verse on their pictures. The verse was "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him!" (Mark 4:35-41). It was neat after studying how strong and destructive that these tornadoes can be, that God is still in control of it.

So here is the 'tornado' we made...

Luke getting a much closer look...

Recording on their experiment pages...

Finishing up with a game of Twister...

We like to play it this way best, when you race to the end of your color...

And here is a video of our tornado...

History, Week One...

This week we worked on Lessons 1, 2, and 3 in Mystery of History.

Pretest

Lesson 1-Creation

-Read lesson

-L and K made creation booklets

-Will drew his own picture of it

-Watched "The Story of Creation" Beginners Bible video

-L and K made 7 circle 'flashcards', one for each day of creation.

Lesson 2-Adam and Eve (I thought it was interesting that they think that Adam lived about 900 years, which means he lived until Noah was alive(Adam was very old and about to die when Noah was just getting started). So that means that Adam could have passed along a lot of the cool stories about creation and the Garden of Eden to Noah, so that that info was preserved (in his mind) post-flood)

-Read lesson

-Watched the video again

-No activity, but should have let them make their own creation out of clay and name it.

Lesson 3-Jubal and Tubal-Cain (the point of these guys is to show that early people were not all dumb 'cavemen.' They were very intelligent, and these guys in particular were (Jubal) very talented musician who played the harp and flute and taught others to do the same, and (Tubal-Cain) was an iron and bronze maker and also taught others to do the same.)

-Read lesson

-Played 'name that tune' with the kazoo

Wrap-up and review

-Made notecards

-Wall of Fame-added 7 days of creation, Adam and Eve, and Jubal and Tubal-Cain.

-Map work-Found Iraq on the globe, where they think the Garden of Eden may have been (between the Tigris and Euphrates) and transferred several ancient cities onto our map of the Middle East.

And that wraps up week one!

Our First Week of School...

Kendall enjoying math with the counting bears...

Bo stringing beads...

Will working on patterns...

Zoe, don't let us get in your way, missy...

Will helping Bo sort of shapes...

Noah stringin' beads...

First week back was a success! :)

Curriculum...

Here is a run-down of what we are using this year. There is a simple list on the sidebar, but here is more detail:

Sing, Spell, Read, and Write-I have used this since Luke was in kindergarten and have been pleased. I first loved it for Luke because it involves music and singing and he loves those things. It also uses lots of games. It does have a lot of copywork that Luke hated, but K actually loves that part and could give or take the songs. Loves the games though! It's a keeper and I will stick with it for all 5 as long as it keeps working.
Luke-Grand Tour I (almost done and moving to Grand Tour II)
Kendall-Raceway (almost done and moving to Grand Tour I)
Will-All Aboard and will likely make it to On Track before the schoolyear is over

First Language Lessons-Started this with Luke 2 years ago. It is one book that has 1st and 2nd grade in it. Luke is halfway through the 2nd grade part, and K just started the 1st grade part. Luke says he doesn't like it, but it is pretty short and sweet and I like it. It is written by the same lady who wrote The Well-Trained Mind and covers poem memorization, story narration, copywork, all kinds of grammar, among other things. It's not a workbook, but rather just a softback book with the lessons in it but the child uses his own paper/notebook to do all the lessons in. I like it because it's all laid out for me and she is great about reviewing things along the way so it stays fresh in their minds. There is a FLL grade 3 that I plan to use for Luke next year that I have heard is really good.

Spelling Power and Dictation-Last year I used a spelling book that was really a waste of mine and Luke's time. I got some direction from a smart friend (B!!) and went with this book for spelling this year. It's a totally different approach than we were used to last year, but makes so much more sense to me. Pretty much I see now that 'busywork' workbooks that use spelling words don't really help them learn to spell words. This book has spelling words for 1st-6th grade, and you go at your own pace, not moving on until the child can spell the words correctly without missing them! I introduce the list of words at the beginning of the week and spend 15 minutes each day doing different exercises to practice them, then test on Friday. The dictation helps them spell those same words correctly in 'real life' sentences.

Moving With Math-I am using the 1st grade for Kendall this year and starting Will in the Kindergarten book, even though he isn't K yet. I plan to take 2 years to go through this book slowly. It's worked fine and uses lots of manipulatives which the kids love, but I don't like the layout for the teacher b/c it's too much flipping around and blabber. I think it was made more for 'real' schools and lots of the activities require a whole class, etc. So...I will use the K and 1st level for all 5 kids since I already have it, but when they get to 2nd I will switch to...

Horizons Math-...like I did for Luke this year. Love the layout. Very simple, but yet tough enough for him.

Handwriting Without Tears-Have used this all along and plan to continue. I know there are a lot of different thoughts about which style is best, but this is what we started out with and what we will continue to use. Luke did the cursive book last year because he was very eager to, but we need to do it again probably.

(History and Science...we use the classical approach in that we will cycle through the same material every 4 years, so that by the time the kids graduate from high school they will have been introduced to the same material 3 times, but at a deeper level each time. I'm not really sure if that's what 'classical approach' means exactly, but that's my small understanding of it.)

History-We have used "Story of the World" in the past, but this year switched to "Mystery of History" and so far are loving it. I like the way it's written and I like how each chapter has activity ideas for each age level. We do our history all together and are doing the 'ancients' this year, starting back with Creation and working our way up to Christ's birth. That's another thing I like better about MOH than SOTW...it includes more of the Bible stories as part of history, which I think is so interesting to see how it all ties in together.

Science-We are using ideas from "The Well-Trained Mind." This year we are doing Earth Science for 18 weeks and then we will do Astronomy for 18 weeks. We have several children encyclopedia-type reference books, but other than that we just get books from the library to supplement and also use "More Mudpies to Magnets" for experiment and activity ideas. It's so much more fun than a science textbook!

Critical Thinking Company-This is the first year I've used any of their stuff. We have Mind-Benders, which are challenging to Luke but he is loving them, and some Think-A-Minutes, and a couple other things. They really do make the brain work!

Scholastic Success With Maps-These are just small little workbooks, but introduce them to reading maps and Luke enjoyed it last year, so he is getting the 2nd grade one (still waiting for my order to come in!) and K is enjoying the 1st grade one. Fun thing.

Bible-Each morning I read to them out of "The Child's Story Bible," which I really love. Also the kids will get homework when CBS starts up (Community Bible Study) that we will work on each day.

I was going to put links and pictures of the books, but no can do right now. If anyone wants to know any more detail about a certain thing, just ask me.

I am very pleased with what we are using this year and am so thankful for other homeschool moms that I get such good advice and ideas from.

Where It All Happens...

This is our first year of doing school in our bonus room upstairs. Until now it has always been in the dining room, but it was just getting too crowded in there! So after one week of school I am thrilled to say that I am so happy we moved it upstairs. I love all the space, and being away from the temptation to sneak away to do dishes or laundry is helping me stay more focused on the job at hand.

Luke's desk is in the left corner and Kendall's in the right corner....

I must say that K has the best seat in the house...

The perfect thing I was looking for...found it at IKEA of course. It reaches the whole way across our long wall....

Bo and Noah's table, full of fun stuff for them (3 little baskets for $3.99 at IKEA)....

They usually only are allowed in here one at a time because it stays calmer that way. The other one will play in their room or the playroom downstairs and keep rotating around. So far it's working out well and the boys are learning to stay with a 'project' longer than 2 minutes... :)

That is Will's desk there under the map. This is his first year at a desk. He likes it but rarely uses the chair. He likes to do everything standing up I've noticed...

You can see a little junk here in the left corner...stuff that needs to go up to the attic. There always seems to be one pile left no matter how good the rest of a room looks....

And that is that. Loving it. Wanting a big cozy rug for the middle of the floor, but waiting til I can find one pretty cheap.

2009-2010 School Year...

Bo and Noah are 3 and aren't doing any schooling this year...

Luke and Will are both July birthdays, so could be in one grade higher than they are, but we've chosen to keep them back a grade so they will be older in their grade rather than younger (it will only matter I guess if they ever go to 'real' school).

What?! A Second Blog?!

Yes, I believe I'm going to start a second blog. I am not sure that folks who read my regular blog want to hear about all things homeschooling, but I do want to record things we do this year as we homeschool...hence this blog. I need to come up with a much more clever blog name and address, and need to put pictures and a good design on, but hey, at least it is created now. I think this is how my first blog started. I created it, wrote a first trial post and let it sit for months before I finally started writing in it on a regular basis. Anyway...