Week In Review

The first week of school here was fantastic!! Both kids worked really hard this week, explored a ton, enjoyed many hours of more free flowing learning and had fun!

 

Hudson had a great time learning with his preschool week. This week his theme was centered on apples. He practiced colors, letters, numbers, counting and creating in sets of ten, reading short vowel a words, learned the life cycle of an apple, taste tested eight varieties, looked at an apple tree through a magnifying lens and observation, baked apple hand pies, did a load of art, mastered some fun puzzles, watched a video on apple orchards and the harvest, spent some time on Starfall.com and read a lot of books with me!! An excellent week that he loved with full rich days of learning and playing... he could not get enough of!!

 

Holly also enjoyed an amazing week of third grade! She started the week off with brand new curriculum and a mix of some familiar curriculum too. The week starts off in review for math as she masters some skills learned last year, a book study was kicked off with Little House In The Big Woods, she finished up her chemistry unit with a final project in baking bread from a cold yeast start and a warm yeast start and a review test which she rocked, loads of art, many great books, a look at ancient civilization, learning about history and how we learn from it as she created a history pocket and notebook project, learned about becoming an archaeologist, watched a video on archaeology, jumped into the country of France as we start year two of Expedition Earth, she started a poster from her new health program and did some reflection writing. It has been a full week with so much more than listed... a wonderful week!!

 



Triassic Period Diorama

Holly wrapped up the Triassic Period this week in her dinosaur unit this past week and with that she completed her Triassic Period diorama. I asked her to include vegetation and at least three dinosaurs we looks at and one other kind of creature. She used her main dinosaur book we worked with as inspiration and her notes on vegetation and such.

She first painted it out and then the next day started working on her dinosaur choices and vegetation ideas. Holly included an Alwalkeria, Plateosaraus and Gojirasarus. She included also included snakes. For her vegetation she included ginkgo, a conifer, cyad and a horsetail.

It turned out beautifully and honestly she loved creating this! Giving her some perimeters to work within was a nice challenge. This was her first time creating a diorama - so I was a bit easier on her guidelines. When she works on the Jurassic Period one next time I will increase the expectations a little more.

Dinosaur Time Line

Holly has really been looking forward to this new unit study we will spend a few weeks on, dinosaurs!! Each time we wrap up something she asks if the dinosaur study will be next... the time has finally come. She really enjoys dinosaurs and owns a lot of books, movies, toys and games on dinosaurs - items we will use in conjunction with our unit.

To narrow down the concept of 'dinosaurs' we are taking a look specifically at the Mesozoic Era, otherwise this could be to overwhelming and not give much direction in our journey. Within the Mesozoic Era we will visit the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous time frames and learn a bit about the time frame, flora and choose some specific dinosaurs to learn a bit more on. To track our study Holly will keep a notebook on her work and create a timeline in which she will add items to along the way. At the end of each time frame she will create a diorama representing what we have learned. I also have a few art projects and a little sculpture up my sleeve she will enjoy.

Today she started creating her timeline. We spent time looking at several ways to make a time line, this was the option she picked. She designed it with color choices, reasoned her length of time line, used a model from a book we own to get an estimation on the length of each time frame and put it together. It was a great project!

Once completed she started with the Triassic Period and read up on it and learned about the plant life. She added a card on the plant life listing plants found then. A great start to her timeline, a lot more to come!! I'll add some updates on her project as we move through it... should be fun!

Life in Plymouth Colony - History Pockets by Evan Moor

I have been trying to figure out exactly how I wanted to to approach our lesson on Thanksgiving this year. Holly is a bit older and ready for more information, however not quiet old enough to fully comprehend historical accuracy and she is simply not ready for how harsh the real Thanksgiving actually was. We will however begin a brief introduction to that with a book I did pick up that I'll share at a later time. For now though I am thrilled with the program I did decide to use. After reading online, looking at teacher packs online, looking for books online I was feeling a bit bummed that I wasn't finding 'that one great thing'. I headed to our local learning supply store and was so thrilled to find just what I was looking for!!!

Life in Plymouth Colony - History Pockets by Evan Moor. I am not sure why I had not thought to look at an Evan Moor product yet as I am finding that I really do LOVE their products! They speak to me, they speak to my daughter. They are written well, they are fun yet educational -- not to kiddish, yet a kid enjoys them. So far I find their products offer a really nice balance.

History Pockets are new to me - similar to a lapbook in that they have a bunch of small projects that combine as one big project, but are more simple. The book does a series of eight pockets that create a large book. Each pocket is a new subject to cover. I do a reading on the subject with her, we discuss it, she reads a booklet for the pocket and then there are several hands on activities to reinforce what we just learned. These projects then all fit into the pocket of her book. For this book here are the subjects covered:

•      Voyage to the New World.
•      The New World.
•      Building a Village.
•      Home Sweet Home.
•      The Family.
•      Working in Plymouth Colony.
•      Going to School.
•      What Did the Pilgrims Give Us?

Yesterday she completed her first pocket, Voyage To The New World, and it went great! Holly loved how the little activities worked, she related them all back to the reading for the day. She picked up new vocabulary, had a better understanding of their voyage from England to the New World, learned about life on the Mayflower on the way over, what food and drink were like, and how a person made it. It was a great lesson!

Log Cabin

We read the first section of a Pioneer Sampler and Holly was just entranced by it. When were done she asked to keep going - a great sign that this will be a really fun unit study!

After reading and having a nice discussion I set her up with Lincoln Logs to recreate her own log cabin. This was a fun task, hard to keep Hudson busy... but worth it. As she built she had to work at it a bit to get the right system down with her Lincoln Logs - she would build to high on one side and then disassemble part of it to get a different row started. It was a great little learning lesson for her.

She was proud of her log cabin when it was finished.

Pioneer Study & Fort Nisqually

We are officially started on our Pioneer Study. The book we are reading through is called A Pioneer Sampler by Barbara Greenwood. This book follows a fictional family through the daily life of a family in 1840. We have several fun projects planned for this unit... some I am really looking forward to!

To kind of kick it off we decided to visit Fort Nisqually (during the Smithsonian's Museum Day - free tickets), a replica of a fort during the pioneer era, ran by the Hudson Bay Company. The fort we visited is not actually located in the same area as the original however it was a great treat for Holly to see some artifacts, learn about some ways of life and get a feel for the era we are about to embark on.

She really had little idea of what to expect. We have not discussed this era too much so it was an eye opener for her to see their homes, how little they owned, the way they had to travel to buy goods, trap/hunt their food, etc. She enjoyed learning about it and is looking forward to learning a lot more. This is a link to Fort Nisqually.