I know of one person that reads this blog (thank you Pat!!) and my lone reader expressed that she has missed reading my posts here. So, I am going to do my best to catch us up. As I posted previously, our family has been very busy lately. Seems like we are trying to cram everything in before we add another little one to our family very soon. On top of being busy, I am just plain tired. I am 35 weeks pregnant and feeling every bit of it. I am doing good to get through a normal school day, much less devote any attention to this blog. But alas, I am back.
We just completed Week Nine of MFW. Here is the run down of what we have been learning since Week Six
WEEK SEVEN:
Geography -
The kids go their passports stamped as we "flew" north to study Canada. We spent some time just learning about the physical features of Canada, its provinces and territories, and the diverse people that live there. The kids researched and wrote a short report on the Northern Lights. We also continued playing the North American Geography game. We are all getting better and better at locating all the countries on the North American continent. For music this week, we learned the song "Going Over the Sea" which is a fun little song.
Science -
We learned this week about Long-term changes in an ecosystem, then about food chains, which led to a discussion on scavengers and decomposers. Ew!
Read-Aloud -
We are still reading Cameron Townsend. Fascinating book about the organization he founded called
Wycliffe Bible Translators. Even more fascinating because we know people today that work with this organization and with
JAARS as well.
Poetry -
This week we learned about free verse and imagery through the poem "I Would Love to be a Horse" We also learned about the ponies of Chinoteague Islands. Julia especially loved this poem because she is a lover of horses!
WEEK EIGHT:
Geography -
We spent another week in Canada. We expanded on our Canadian learning from last week. The kids researched and wrote a short report on the Inuits. We ended our week by making a Canadian Blueberry Dessert in which we shared with our Life Group. We are rocking the Geography game!! Isaac, Julia, and myself can now name every single country in North and Central America! I have to admit, that before this I couldn't have made a guess on a lot of the Central America games but probably would have gotten a lot wrong. I love this part of home schooling. I get to re-learn everything right along with the kids.
Science -
We read in the Living World book about Plant Life. We tried a celery experiment in which we were to remove the xylem on one stalk of celery but leave the other one along, then place both in glasses of water and wait to see what happens. Well, we must have not removed all of the xylem because nothing really happened differently on one versus the other. Oh well, we tried. The rest of the week we learned about animal life and even animal reproduction which was an interesting discussion. Thankfully we have already had the "talk" with both of them, so this was nothing new to them. We ended the week learned about relationships among living things and how plants and animals might depend on the other.
WEEK NINE:
Geography -
We left Canada and the North American continent to travel south to South America this week. We spent the majority of this week learning things like river and bodies of water in South America, mountain ranges, countries, etc. We started the South America geography game and because South America has so many fewer countries to learn we already almost have them all memorized. We are mainly focusing our studies on Brazil right now. Both Isaac and Julia asked if we could watch
Rio at the end of our Brazil study. Why not? For music this week, we learned two songs.
Brown Girl in the Ring and
Ciranda.
Science -
I have to admit I have not been doing as many of the fun science projects and experiments lately. Have I mentioned that I am largely pregnant and overwhelmingly tired right now?!! We have read a lot about the tropical rainforests though and located where the rainforests are located around the globe. We were supposed to do a greenhouse experiment and a potato plant experiment, but we didn't get around to it.
Read-Aloud -
This week we began a new book at Nate Saint. The kids like learning about all of the connections between Nate's story and Cameron's story. Though Nate's story will have a tragic and sad ending, his life was dedicated to serving the Lord at all costs.
Poetry -
We learned about flattery and dialog through the poem "The Spider and the Fly" We related this poem to "The Fox and the Crow" and even related this lesson to stranger danger.
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I have found lately that I have been trying to cram too much into our school days. To help alleviate that stress, we began flip-flopping work stations and one on one lessons each week. So one week we will do group work and work stations (spanish, journal, ETC, handwriting, math, reading, etc.) and the next week we will do group work and one on one lessons (language arts, math, writing, spelling) This seems to be working out better for us. The less stress the better!!! Here is a quick update on what each of the kids have been learning....
Isaac -
In math, Isaac has been learning to find the area of a rectangle and a square, to solve for unknowns, skip counting by 9 and multiplying by 9. For Language Arts, Isaac has worked on things like letter writing, dictation, memorization, etc. In writing, he has learned to organize his writing and how to use more elaborate and colorful words when writing. We are still reinforcing the use of complete sentences and correct spelling. And being a boy, we are trying to focus on better handwriting. Anyone who reads this and has some good tips to help by 3rd grade boy with his handwriting and time management skills, I am all ears!!! On a completely different note... this doesn't have much to do with our actual school day but lately Isaac has been enthralled with all of the Indian in the Cupboard books. In the last 3 weeks he has read 4 out of the 5 books in the series. I can not tell you how much I LOVE that my children LOVE to read. It warms my heart to see my kids curled up with a good book.
Julia -
For math, Julia has been working on adding by 2, 8, and 9 and also learning to solve for the unknown. She is really doing well in math and seems to catch on the concepts quickly. For Language Arts, Julia has been learning things like correct usage of there and their, has and have. She has also been writing stories, and making/reporting on observations. In writing, Julia has learned to write a persuasive advertisement and learned to plan out and write a story about Tom the Turkey. Very cute story! Julia is also flying through her Spelling book. Soon she will be finished and although it isn't recommended to start Spelling Power at this age, I think I will go ahead and start her. She can handle it!
Caleb -
Poor Caleb! I have totally been a slacker the past few weeks. I haven't done much of formal schooling with him. Again... tired and pregnant! We will get back to it next week.
Phew! I caught us up. Sorry I don't have any fun pictures to go along with this post. Maybe, just maybe I will be more "on the ball" next week.
