South Korea

We spent a little over a week learning all about South Korea with our Expedition Earth curriculum as our guide. I found many books at the library, a couple of DVDs, poetry, music, artwork and more -- making for a great week!

Holly really enjoyed the video on South Korea best. She learned about female divers who dive for sea creatures to sell.... only women do this, a career they've had their entire lives. The gals they interviewed were in their 50's and 60's. Pretty cool!!! The changing face of South Korea, new technologies and world influences however are causing the new generation to not follow their families paths in careers as history had once dictated, including this one. This generation will most likely be the last to continue this tradition/career, one of many dying careers.

The weeks work included reading up on South Korea and a small discussion on North Korea (the best we could for her age), making some various art work, a fan, learning about their culture, listening to some music, animals of the region, map work and writing. Another fun week... we are now off to Japan!

Little Learning

This year Hudson has become a big part of our learning environment. I can no longer do simple stations of activities, he desires to be a part of what is happening at the table in general. I am working very hard to accommodate him and still keep things on his level. He is not afraid to try things, enjoys art tremendously, is very interested in letters and numbers more than ever and pours over books all day long.

With that knowledge I have decided that even though he is only 2 1/2 we will move forward with more letters and numbers. He can identify all letters in upper and lower case but lately wants to know what 'they say', his words.This means he is ready for phonics, basic but phonics none the less. So, we are beginning some small projects to work on the order of letters, review them in different fonts and now sounds... which he LOVES!!!

Aside from this we are mastering counting to 10 and number recognition. Many little games or transfer work to master this. Beading, pattern work, memory games and one to one counting -- all through ten only. As well, he is enjoy an abundance of art and scissor work in which he is getting pretty good at. I still put out some activity stations for him each day and work with him side by side and we read many, many books a day.

There is a LOT of learning happening during our schooling hours for Hudson and I can tell he loves it!

Here he is working on sorting his lowercase letters and gluing them into a Letter Book. He then read the whole book and told you all about how his project. Hudson adored having a final product to share with Daddy and has it tucked away in his books now.

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.

Apple Lapbook & Lesson

After out visit to Lattin's Cider Mill yesterday we had to have a good school day of apples. Holly enjoyed it so much and has asked to do the same with pumpkins in a few weeks... I'll be organizing that very soon. In the mean time today was filled a lot of apple fun - inspecting an apple, revisiting the parts of an apple, seed estimation, tasting various kinds and comparing, watching a video on the apple industry and orchards, discussing the health benefits of apples, reading a few books, apple stamping, sentence organizing and writing, an experiment and more!

With all of these projects on tap I had Holly work on a lapbook - a great way to keep all of her work. A lapbook seems to break up the daily grind of reading, writing & recording. She loves them and so do I. This is a pretty basic lapbook but one that Holly could do all by herself with little help from me... meaning she feels very proud when she is finished!

Animal Map

A fun way we kicked off the state study that Holly is starting is by creating a large map of the animals in the United States. I had found a great printable already completed from Confessions of a Homeschooler that broke down animals in regions of our country. While a general poster would have been fun, I think this visual of seeing them in certain areas of our country worked a lot better for Holly.

We started by tracing our country from a large wall map we own onto butcher paper. Then Holly cut it out, I helped in the great lakes area... it was complicated and took a while to cut the whole map out. She is not used to cutting something so large on paper that tends to roll up on you while you are working. After it was cut out we took the sheets of animals and she broke them down into areas ( I had premixed them up). Using her skills from mapping she placed them in their respective regions of West, South West, Mid West, South East and North East. Next we trimmed them all out and she glued them down nicely. She really took her time on this project, it was a couple of hours from start to finish - however, it turned out beautifully! Something to be proud of and she really got a good idea of where some animals might live in various regions of our country. A different way to look at a map of the United States.

State Study

This year Holly is working on a State Study, really a brief introduction to each state - where it is located, what might be important in that state, some land marks, looking at geographical features and a basic little over view. For this project I purchased the 50 States in 50 Days curriculum from Currclick however we are not doing this in 50 days.The plan for now is 2-3 states a week unless she just digs this and wants to do more, but I am not looking to rush through it either.

Along with this study we will be enjoying puzzles of the United State of America, some art projects, fun with flashcards, poster coloring and tourism brochures. The brochures are actually to be cut up and used for a collage she will make of each state - the state in photos! So far, Holly is really enjoying this and she is excited to see it all completed she said.