Girls Week 3: Jamestown, cells & energy

MATH

Jessie did an excellent job with her first challenge and problem solving set in NEM 1.  On Thursday, she began unit 2 on fractions.  Much of the basic information was review except for using cross multiplication to compare fractions.

Violet finished up her first unit in Singapore 5A textbook and began working on the corresponding section in the Intensive Practice this week.  She continues to do an excellent job solving her word problems in her review section of CWP 4 using bar diagrams.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Jessie continues to work through The Church History by Eusebius for Omnibus primary.  This week, we took a couple of days to try one of the progymnasmata exercises, and she wrote an encomium on Origen.  For Omnibus Secondary, we've started The Fellowship of the Ring by Tolkien.  In CW Diogenes, she learned what the paradigm and summary paragraphs of the maxim outline are and practiced writing a few of each.  In grammar, she did very well on her unit 1 test and began working on sentence types and word order in unit 2.

Violet continues to progress through The Swiss Family Robinson by Wyss for literature and began reading Blackthorn Winter by Wilson this week as well.  In addition to her dictation, she analyzed the fable "The Wind and the Sun" using Theon's six components of a scene and rewrote the story for CW Homer.  She also did very well on her first grammar test and has started learning about sentence types in unit 2.  She aced her spelling test for the second week in a row.

LATIN / GREEK / LOGIC

Jessie completed lesson 4 and began lesson 5 of Latin Alive this week.  She also completed the second lesson of Elementary Greek 2 and did her logic work in the first Critical Thinking in US History book and The Art of Argument.

Violet completed lesson 2 of LfC B and did her regular lessons in Building Thinking Skills 2, Mind Benders B1, and Think-a-Grams A1.

HISTORY
This week in history was all about Jamestown.

 Both of the girls read several chapters from Guerber's The Story of the Thirteen Colonies and outlined selected chapters from the text on the colony.

 Jessie read John Smith:English Explorer and Colonist by Mello, and Violet read John Smith Escapes Again by Schanzer.  They each wrote a chronological narrative account of Smith's life of 5 and 3 paragraphs respectively.

Violet mapped Smith's explorations (yes the bottom map is upside down) from 1606 on.  Jessie mapped those as well as his earlier travels.  Both also wrote a brief summary of Pocahontas as well.

Since Violet had been grumbling about missing out on all of Benny's fun activities,

I let each of the girls spend one day building paper models of Jamestown, which I had downloaded for free several years ago.

SCIENCE

Jessie studied cells this week in BJU Life Science learning the basics of cell theory, how they were discovered, and the characteristics of living organisms.

She had two labs scheduled for the week.  On her own, she investigated the pH of various substances.  The second lab, I had to postpone until Saturday.  We'll be using Biuret solution to test for the presence of proteins.  Because the solution is a strong acid, I didn't want to do the lab with a non-napping toddler running underfoot.  By waiting until Saturday, DH can keep him occupied while we work.
Violet studied conduction, convection, radiation, and geothermal energy this week with several activities.

She mixed cold and hot water to study convection.

She measured the difference in temperature of water in a black versus white cup from solar radiation.

She raised the temperature of water by 4 degrees by pouring is over some oven heated rocks.

ART

Everyone had the same art lesson this week.  The idea was to introduce the kids to oil pastels and their ability to blend and layer.  We used this online lesson plan.

Each of the hands is uniquely layered with two colors and then the remaining negative space was filled in with a single layer of color.

For music we covered violins, violas, and cellos this week and added the cards to our orchestra folders.

Week 3: Jamestown, whales, and caterpillars

MATH

Benny finished his first unit in his 2A Intensive Practice book this week.  We started unit 2 in the textbook and workbook covering addition and subtraction.  He's worked on adding without regrouping and subtracting without borrowing with bigger numbers and learned how to set the problems up in a vertical manner to add or subtract the individual places.  In Miquon he spent the week focused on subtraction.

 LANGUAGE ARTS

Benny has continued to read aloud to me from Osborne's Dark Day in the Deep Sea.  We continue to progress through The Wheel on the School by DeJong for literature.  He aced two more spelling tests this week and has now completed 5 lessons in SWO B.  For copywork this week, he wrote some more state names, the days of the week, and the months of the year.  The latter two being the topics that he covered for his grammar lessons as well.

HISTORY

This week was all about Jamestown.  We read the section covering Jamestown from SOTW 3 and completed the corresponding map.  We spent two days reading John Smith Escapes Again by Schanzer, which I highly recommend.  There is a lot of detail, but the style of writing and the abundance of pictures and maps are amazing.  Benny even picked it back up to look at when it wasn't history time (which has never happened before with a history book).  We also read a very brief biography of Pocahontas.  (It wasn't my first choice, but the other books were checked out.)

I hid small containers of peanut butter chips around the living room for Benny to hunt for gold. 

SCIENCE

For science this week, we studied abyssal animals and submersibles then began learning about whales.

 

Her we squeezed a 2 liter bottle and watched the balloon inside to illustrate the effects of water pressure at greater depths. 

Here we made our own submersible, lowered it by taking on water, and raised it by blowing in air.  Both of these activities came from Oceans for Every Kid by Van Cleave.

We started chapter 2 on whales and learned the two different types of whales, what a fluke is, and how whales swim differently from fish.  For fun we laid belly down on the bed with our feet hanging off the edge.  Then I called out either whale or fish, and we had to move our feet either vertical or horizontal.  Judging by the amount of laughter, I'd say Benny had fun.

We also learned about whales hearing and breathing and completed the activity from the Apologia text of demonstrating how sound waves can travel over a long piece of string.

GEOGRAPHY, ART, & MUSIC

Benny is up to Indiana in his fifty state song and learned the location of North and South Dakota using The Little Man in the Map.  We read about the violin, and he practiced using oil pastels to complete a hand drawing similar to the girls.

HENRY'S PRESCHOOL

Henry's preschool was a little more laid back this week because I had a lot of other projects going on.  We read several books on caterpillar's including The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Carle, The Caterpillar and the Polliwog by Kent, and  Gotta Go! Gotta Go! by Swope.  We added the color red, orange, and purple to our colorful caterpillar,

worked on fine motor skills by building peg puzzles,

and made it more challenging by using tweezers on the pegs.

He had so much fun puzzle building that he and Jessie built our 4 piece floor puzzle together one afternoon.

WW: A Great Imagination

Since Benny couldn't go out fishing in the rain, he decided to make the best of it inside the house.

 The soft makes a great boat...

 just have to haul in the lobster pot...

 looks like he caught something...

too bad we can't fix it for dinner.

Making adjustments, part 2

We moved up to a full schedule this week adding in music, Violet's new Latin curriculum, and Jessie's vocab and Greek. We're still adjusting to the new schedule and relearning to stay focused amidst the noise around us.

MATH

Jessie finished up the regular lessons in chapter 1 of NEM this week and completed the corresponding workbook page.  She covered least common multiple, number patterns, variables, and basic number laws.  Completing one workbook page proved to be a bit too much and has made Friday very long.  She did finally finish her work.  We'll see how her workbook pages go next week.  The topics are zipping by, and I may need to find a way to add in additional practice.

Violet continues to progress in Singapore 5A. I'm seriously considering moving her math lesson to a slightly later time in the morning. She's been making a ton of mistakes, but then can easily correct them an hour or so later when I ask her to fix them.  Anyway, her main topic for the week was order of operation.


LANGUAGE ARTS


Jessie finished up The Hobbit by Tolkien this week as part of her Omnibus Secondary assignments.  We still need to have our literary analysis discussion, but I've pushed that back to Saturday.  We're continuing through The Church History by Eusebius for Omnibus primary.  Some of the testimonies of the courage of the martyrs was amazing.  I can't say our discussions are deep or profound, but we're starting to get the hang of it.  In CW, we learned the headings for the classical style of developing a maxim and practiced paraphrasing maxims.  Grammar included lots of diagramming with direct and indirect objects as well as nouns of address and appositives.

Violet finished reading The Sign of the Beaver by Speare and continues to work her way through The Swiss Family Robinson by Wyss.  She completed her daily dictation and rewrote the fable,  "Belling the Cat", for CW Homer.  Her grammar included types of sentences, subjects, predicates, and beginner diagramming review.  She only missed one of her spelling words from lesson 2 of SWO G!

GEOGRAPHY

This week, I had the girls review the states using the level 1 game from Sheppard's software.  Violet identified the states by region while Jessie did the whole country at once.  Both enjoyed themselves and played multiple times.

HISTORY

This week in history, we briefly covered Don Quixote using the Truthquest guide.  Then we started topic 4 with the Spanish friars in Central and southwest America, the missions they founded, and their love for the Indians and the land where they served.  Each of the girls outlined a short section from The Light and the Glory by Marshall.  We did have a brief discussion of bias since the book has a view of providential history, but it was the only resource that I felt really addressed the topic.  Then we moved on to Canada where Jessie read and wrote a one paragraph summary from Champlain: A Life of Courage by Jacobs and Violet summarized a short section from The Story of the Thirteen Colonies by Guerber covering his basic information. 

Both girls read Beyond the Sea of Ice by Goodman covering the voyages of Henry Hudson.  In addition to studying the routes he took, we discussed the differences between the attitudes of the French and English concerning the Indians they encountered and the corresponding responses of the Indians.  We also discussed the qualities of a good leader and discussed what Hudson did well and not so well.  Then each wrote a basic chronological narration of his travels.  We mapped the Spanish settlements mentioned in the reading on the Spanish, the settlements and routes of Champlain, and the four routes of Hudson.

SCIENCE

Jessie spent the week in BJU Life Science studying chapter 2 on classification.

For lab work, she compared the similarities and differences between our two types of apple trees and used the guide in the textbook to classify insects, a few practice ones from pictures and then a few live specimen the kids captured the night before.

Violet finished up unit 1 in God's Design for the Physical World:  Heat and Energy by completing a review crossword and the unit quiz.  Then she began studying heat. 

We practiced measuring different air and liquid temperatures and then compared the heat capacity of water and oil by measuring the temperature change in a half a cup over two minutes at the same heat level.  (Note to self, use the low setting next time, so the oil doesn't pop and surpass the temperature capacity of the thermometer.)

LATIN & GREEK

Jessie completed chapter 2 in Latin Alive 1 and scored very well on the oral quiz I gave her. She also completed most of chapter 3 this week. In Greek, she learned the uncial (uppercase) Greek letters. Violet completed lesson 1 of LfC B, did an excellent job with the translating in her History Reader, and aced her chapter test on Friday.

ART & MUSIC

 

 

Both girls set up their orchestra folders this week for music after we read the introductory information from The Story of the Orchestra by Levine.
Violet had a fall themed activity focused on using the line elements using these online directions.
Jessie is still working on sketching the outlines from pictures. This week she sketched the ducks on the cover page from the Usbourne book we used last week. Next week, we'll switch gears and have our first go at shading using oil pastels.