Week 2: Making adjustments, part 1

MATH

Benny had another great week in math.  He finished up his first unit in his Singapore textbook and workbook and began working on the corresponding section in his IP book.  In Miquon we compared sides of an equation to figure out what was missing.  For example, if the page had 4+3+5=4+____, then he would figure out that 3+5 was missing and write 8 in the blank. 

LANGUAGE ARTS

We decided to mix up his copywork a little this week for some more variety.  He copied the first four states from our fifty state geography song, his full address from his grammar work, and John 3:16 from his memory work.  He finished reading Days With Frog and Toad by Lobel to me and started on Dark Day in the Deep Sea by Osbourne.  Together we're still reading aloud The Wheel on the School by DeJong.  For grammar this week, we continued discussing nouns including proper nouns for places and common nouns for things.  In spelling he aced his second chapter test in SWO B and began working on lesson 3.
HISTORY

We read The Discovery of the Americas by Maestro as a quick review of explorers from last year.  Then we focused on Canada, reading Story of the World 3 by Bauer to learn about Champlain and Henry Hudson by Carmer.  Benny really enjoyed the latter book, which is written from the perspective on Hudson's son John.  We also mapped the routes of the two explorers.

We practiced our map making skills by completing a map of his bedroom.

Every good sailor needs to master some basic knots, so I taught him four knots using Colonial Kids by Carlson to refresh my memory.

SCIENCE

This week in science, we learned about deep ocean currents, tides, why the ocean is salty, and the different ocean zones.

Here we used food coloring in hot and cold water to show that cold water is more dense and will sink below warmer water.

We mixed up our own salty water and then evaporated the water off outside to recover the salt using directions from Oceans for Every Kid by Van Cleave.  We also tried shining a flashlight through tissue paper, standard paper, construction paper, and card stock to compare the amount of light that each allowed through.  Naturally, the thicker the paper the less light was seen, which we then compared back to the different ocean zones to show why the ocean is darker as the depth increases.

GEOGRAPHY

Benny continues to work on his US geography.  We've gotten through Hawaii in our fifty states song.  He's memorized the located of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana so far using The Little Man in the Map by Martonyi.  Friday, we built our US puzzle for fun.

ART & MUSIC

This week's art lesson was inspired by these directions.  I thought it was a fun way to review line elements and introduce some color basics.  I gave Benny yellow, light blue, medium blue, and white washable paint (instead of watercolor) to start and we practiced paint mixing to get four different shades of green for his triangular trees.  Then I pulled out the remaining paint colors and gave him free reign to finish his picture as he pleased.  He continued mixing colors for the sky, ground, and tree trunks.

For music, we read a few pages from The Story of the Orchestra by Levine introducing the orchestra and the string section.

HENRY'S PRESCHOOL

For Bible, we learned about God creating Adam and Eve, continued working on Genesis 1:1, and singing "This is the Day" and "Do You Know Who Made the World" using the online plans I linked to last week.

Our theme for the week was frogs.  We read Froggy Gets Dressed by London and several other books in the Froggy series.  Henry loves them, and there's just enough repetition that he'll try "reading" them to himself.  We also read An Extraordinary Egg by Lionni, Too Many Frogs by Asher, and A Frog in the Bog by Wilson; and put together a paper bag frog puppet using these directions. 

We added yellow, brown, and green circles to our color caterpillar and practiced our new colors with M&Ms.  I also laid out different colors of construction paper and allowed Henry to direct me to the different colors.

 Our gross motor skill was kicking balls which naturally led to hitting the ball with a stick (apparently that is more fun).

 For fine motor skills, I let him eat some cheerios for snack one day using a pair of plastic tweezers.  He also did a few cutting, coloring, and sticker pages from his Kumon books.

There was also lots of bubble play (with protests any time I tried to take pictures).