Saturday, November 19, 2011

Schoolwork accomplished:
(Weekend Catch-Up Day since Thursday was an entire day of lifeskills)
*Multiplication Page with word problems too.
*Decimals worksheet
*Read a short piece on Galileo
*lifeskills
*drawings of people and a Bible story.
*Silent Reading-Huck Finn

Friday, November 18, 2011

Schoolwork Accomplished:

*Silent Reading: Finished The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, re-reading The Rip Roaring Mystery on the African Safari by Carolee Marsh
*Helping Justin and Timothy with school
*She rewrote and added to her summary of chapters 1-10 of Eight Cousins.
*Discussed and read more from the American Revolutionary War for Kids.  Talked about ways to non-violently protest. 
*Outdoor play & photography practice
*


*Timothy did three pages in his math workbook and practiced reading with Leanna.  He also worked in his draw and write book with her, writing and drawing. 
*Justin attempted some math, but needed more help than I could give at the time, so he worked on a Cowboy Woody story with pictures.  This time he wrote his own letters and sounded out some of the words. 

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Schoolwork Accomplished:

*Leanna:
*Wrote a summary of the first three chapters of Eight Cousins.  Then she made corrections.  Then she continued writing it. 
*She did a page on subject and verb agreement. 
*Wrote short stories for read and draw book.
*George Washington Copywork-3 pages
*Decimal number line and we orally did several online worksheets.
*We also looked at some famous paintings online and admired them. 



*Timothy-Did 3 pages in his math workbook.  We read Chinta the Chinchilla together. He did 6 pages in his Consonants workbook. 
*Justin-did 2 pages in his math workbook. 
*Jacob-colored a page and decorated a Christmas tree picture.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Schoolwork Accomplished:
Leanna:
 *baking math page completed (Yay!)
*Ocean research with Exploring Ocean Life(read info, colored pages, quizzed herself)
*Prepositional Phrases page from Writing Well: Grade 5
*Make a story book
*Began to Make a graph:
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/default.aspx

I read half a chapter of Little House In the Big Woods to the boys. 
Timothy-2 pages in his math workbook.
*Justin-2 pages in his math workbook.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Schoolwork Accomplished:

* Silent Reading: The Mystery of  National Yellowstone Park by Carolee Marsh
*Tv Program on Mcdonalds-nutrition
*G. Washington Copywork-3 pages
*math workbook-we attempted baking fraction math in her workbook, but she wasn't getting it and I have to find a better way to explain.  So we did a bit with Roman Numerals, she struggled through that.
*We read two chapters in Eight Cousins.
*She did a postcard to send to the USO to send cheer to soldiers.  




*We walked to the bank and D&D and subway, then home again.  Then we stopped at the playground and they played with a couple kids there.
*Justin and I counted the rows of potato smiles on the baking sheet.  We noted how to count by fours, how many total, and multiplication-six rows of four.  I called Timothy did to do the same, though he was less enthusiastic and didn't seem to get the multiplication.
*We got 12 munchkins and I let each child (except Jacob) tell me how to fairly divide them up between four kids.
*Timothy went through Hop On Pop with me and we wrote down all the words he can read easily from the book.  I didn't count them if he needed too much prompting. 
*

Revolutionary War Stuff

Ideas from this blog:
http://homeschooljournal-bergblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/american-revolution.html


Narration Variations

I also want to show you some interesting variations of narrations that can be done for history topics. Katie (several years ago) wrote a newspaper article about an incident in the Revolutionary War. She typed it out on the computer in a column and then stained the paper with a tea bag to make it look aged.

She even made it look more like a newspaper clipping by including a piece of article on the opposite side, and some ink stains, which were not uncommon in those days of printing.

Another similiar type of narration is to make a letter as if from a soldier to his family, including some factual information. This also was typed on the computer in a handwriting type font and aged with tea bags.

The third example is more of a cultural narration, a recipe written as they were then and made to look like a piece of aged torn paper.

Next Fall...
Ideas we will explore when we start school in the fall:

Examining the problems of Eyewittness Accounts.

Maps, of course.

Reporting the events that lead up to the Revolutionary War and the events within it.

Tea (tasting) Party

Define Liberty...it was what the war was about, so what is it?

Facts about the 18th Century -what was it like then?

Spies and spying-how hard it is to retain oral information -could you remember facts you heard correctly?

Codes and Cyphers

Paper Doll of a Revolutionary figure

A Revolutionary figure's pocket...what would you find there? Can you match the item to the person?

Paul Revere's Ride

Battle of Bunker Hill Reenactment

You're the General...what would you have done?

Winter Encampment Writing Exercise

Gunnery Drills

Sketch of George Washington's Portrait

Make an Almanac.

Music of the period.

 

American Revolution; Troubles in Boston, First Contiental Congress, The Shot Heard 'Round the World

This week I decided to start our history lesson by showing the episode of Andy Griffith (Andy Discovers America) in with there is a discussion about history. Here is the part of the episode where Andy ignites the children' interest in American history.

After this fun introduction, we read this version of Longfellow's Paul Revere's Ride.

I copied the map on the inside cover of the book, and they colored the routes, Revere, Dawes and Prescott took.

They took turns building the Old North Church and putting lanterns in them.

And then we decided to have our own Tea Party Teatime.

Quentin decided to make placecards.

 James decided to make a game to play.

Suddenly they were all caught up in the excitement and happily working on their own projects, needing no direction from me.

For the teatime, I poured the hot water into a bowl instead of a teapot (If you do this, be careful not to have the water boiling, or it might break a glass bowl. Our kids don't like their tea too hot, so it worked out well for this.) I floated a (washed) plastic boat with teabags in it. The steam coming off the water lended to the atmosphere.

 One by one we became Sons of Liberty and dumped the tea from the boat into the water.

And once the tea was dumped, we shared the teatime snack Katie had made for us...

homemade caramel popcorn, or sweetened parched corn, as they would have called it.

I ladled out cups of tea from the bowl...