What we are using

19 February 2010

Week 21 - Fire, French, and Art


This week was a challenge. For my third straight week, I had a migraine and accomplished less than I had hoped.

I am focusing my process improvement efforts on our science right now so we had two days out of four with hands-on science. Here is a picture of one of my science lessons on energy and force and this is a link to my post about the first science lesson of the week.


I love doing science through inquiry and my kids are learning a great deal. Right now my philosophy of science is that before they can do the math involved in real science the science is basically composed of experiences, vocabulary to describe those experiences, and learning to answer questions using the scientific method. These are most of the books I used to prepare for this week's science lessons.

In not-K this week, LB decided to illustrate a story in KidPix. Her story is The Dirty Duckling based on The Ugly Duckling. She drew a picture for each scene (or verse as she called them) and then told me what to say. I narrated it what she wanted as she recorded it then add the voice to the picture. She's making a slide show of it so that it will be a mini-movie of her story with her pictures and my voice. I was surprised at how well she was able to draw on the computer and enchanted by her story. Hopefully we can finish it this week - she has 8 slides already.

Last week we started using Miquon finally. I had tried it with CC, but was never able to get more than a few worksheets into any of the books. It was just too unorganized for me to use. This time, I started following the lessons in the First Grade Diary - I know that its now how the book was intended to be used. It is working out great so far. We did lessons from Miquon most days this week with great success.

Here is the spider web she made. After trying for a long time to figure out how to make ovals on the geoboard, she had the brilliant idea that she could make a square spider web. In addition to Miquon, she's progressing with ETConline. She finally made it past the short-a and onto short-i.

For Third Grade this week, CC completed Level 1, Unit 2 of Rosetta Stone French. She is halfway through! She also completed Investigation 4 and lessons 41 and 42 of Saxon 5/4, 3 chapters of Life of Fred Pre-Algebra, and a Problemoid. She read through The Train of States book by Peter Sis again in preparation for starting Pennsylvania in her states book, but became interested in Kentucky and Bluegrass instead. We spent an hour or so listening to BlueGrass on the internet, and she determined that BlueGrass must have been a heavy influence on her favorite singer - Laurie Berkner.

We started Peter Pan as a morning read aloud, and both the kids love it. We're also reading Mary, Queen of Scots from the Royal Diaries series. It is the first diary style book we've read, and we decided to read it a short bit at a time. The girls have started looking forward to seeing how Queen Mary's day was at the end of their days. CC also did copywork most days this week.


Since I had a migraine, the girls got a day off from school and played quite a bit.


This is LB's water color and salt picture of outerspace.



This is LB's picture of a map showing a poor fox lost in the city.



Here is CC's picture of a Chinese style dragon.



And this creature is a combination of a Robin, Eagle, Baboon.

5 comments:

Daisy said...

Sorry about your migraine. Those are the pits.

I love your educational philosophy in regards to science. We need more hands-on around here. I'm tired of all the book work.

We are HUGE bluegrass fans here. Course I'm an Alabama girl so what can I say. Give me some Steeldrivers and I'm very happy.

As always, I enjoy reading about your week.

Kristine said...

Wow, what a wonderful week! I want to come to your house for science, it all looks so fun! I hope the migraine goes away soon, I get them too, so can sympathize. You got a *lot* more done than I would have with a headache!

Robin Johnson said...

I'm so sorry about your migraine.
It doesn't seem to be slowing down the joy or learning at your home. I would have loved to see the entire ping pong ball experiment. That's the stuff family legacy is made of.

laughinglioness.lisa@gmail.com said...

I loved the pics- fabulous art and I'm looking closely at the science books = ). Kudos to you on being so intentional about science!
I sure hope you feel better soon!!

P.s. I'm stil off coffee and I've started reading bio = )

Liza Q said...

That Robin/Eagle/Baboon is pretty awesome!! Hope that you are feeling much better this week.