This whole week was all about the human body. We started our study last week and will finish it in 2 weeks (after Easter). I'm loving this unit. Everyone is interested and learning a lot. We are using all the resources we can. We have quite a few for the human body.
We are continuing on with our My Body book. Adding to our cut-outs every day or two.
This week we added our muscles, heart, and brain.
We learned about the skin by making a strange eatable skin mold. A little too much sugar and red dye for my taste buds, but it was a lot of fun. I found the recipe at Oklahoma After School Network.
We also read Your Skin and Mine by Paul Showers.
We read a number of books this week. Muscles by Seymour Simon.
Hear Your Heart by Paul Showers. GREAT book.
We also read A Drop of Blood by Paul Showers. Equally as great. I love the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science books.
We tried to put together this cool 'Visible Man.'
That is, until I realized it was a TRUE model and needed cement and everything!
We still had fun looking at all the body parts, but we are going to have to put the model together sometime in the future (it's a bit above us now).
I also found this super cool online website that helps with learning all about the skeleton. Charger, especially, loved it!
This next week we are playing the game 'get ready for Easter.' And also 'look through what we have to do to finish our work by the end of April (last week of May at the latest). So, I don't know if there will be a wrap up or not!
Like I mentioned in my little girl's post, I'm a bit behind on my wrap ups. I may never catch up, so I'll just move forward like it never happened (except the part where I skip from week 10 to week 13). I figure I could go into all the reasons I got behind, but I think I'll just stick with the part where I'm 30 weeks prego and am homeschooling 4 kids. That seems good enough for me ;).
I also appears that I have all of four photos to show you from this week. But, hey, that is 400% better then the zero I had a few weeks ago, so at least we have improvement, right? Right. So let's see...
History
Our biggest activity this week was learning about Abraham Lincoln. We've been reading a little page about each president and we finally made it to Lincoln. I decided that we should spend more then 5 minutes learning about him, so I checked out Abraham Lincoln by Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire.
Really, I just chose it because it had cute pictures, but it turned out to be a gem {maybe if I had noticed the part that it was a Caldecott award winner before we read it I would have been clued in}! Man, am I glad we got to read it!! It's super awesome and the kids loved it!! Of course, it totally avoids parts like... Mary Todd Lincoln was a bit nuts...and....Abraham Lincoln got shot....but overall, it had a ton of fun info.
We will probably read another Lincoln book this week that fills in the (kinda important and memorable) gaps. I highly recommend this one, though! Science We're still using our Space calendar cards and the kids begged me to bring out the planets model that we have. I can't blame them, it's really cool.
The lights were actually off when I took this (cause the sun lights up). I can't believe how bright my flash is!
We also watched Bill Nye's The Planets {Yes, I'm a Creationist, but this is what our library had. Thankfully, he just talked about the current properties of the planets-which is what I was hoping for}.
Math
I introduced triple addends with the beads. I love how simple Montessori Math is to explain, understand, and work through! We also started the multiplication layouts, but no photo. Actually, we don't technically have enough beads to do the entire layout at once. I'm hoping it won't scar the kids forever. I've now got more beads on my want list!
Both Mustang and Charger have finished the basic addition strip board and charts. Mustang knows her addition facts well, and Charger is working on memorizing them. We've been working on IXL to solidify their memorization (instead of flash cards and games). They are doing well and love it. (We received our subscription free last fall for doing a review).
Language Arts/Reading
Charger has been asking to work on his Primary Arts of Language (PAL) a lot lately. Though, I guess in this particular photo it looks like he is interested in the glue. He is solidly reading now, though still needs help with bigger words.
I'm always amazed when I realize that I {by the grace of God} taught 2 kids how to read. It really does help with confidence to believe that this homeschooling thing really is working out!
Everything Else
I signed both Mustang and Charger up for baseball and softball. For the month of June they will each have 2 ball games a week, and I'll have a new baby. Should be interesting, but it's actually local (which is rare) and Mustang has been begging to get out of the house and make new friends. Hope she likes it! Charger is one verse away from finishing his AWANA book and Mustang just has a couple more. I was actually concerned they wouldn't finish since we missed a ton last fall when I was sick and then this winter with all the snow. So, I'm really excited that they are going to finish! I've also finally started getting ready for the new baby. Hard to believe that if she were to come as early as Charger did (I hope not!) she could be here in just 5 weeks. Eeek! At least with the 5th child you know you don't need much :). I hope your week has gone well!! We are planning to start our human body unit next week. It will be our LAST unit before our 2 month baby break, so I'm just amazed it is coming so soon! Have a great weekend and God Bless! Lisa
Things we used this week (amazon affiliate links in this widget).
I've been a little quiet, I know. We've actually been doing school, we've just been very busy and I've had to choose between school planning and school blogging. Obviously, you can see what I chose :). Over that time we did a colors theme and a construction theme. Maybe at some point I will get a chance to blog about them, but I am not going to try and catch up right now. Our theme this week was.....you guessed it-SPRING. I'm creative like that. It doesn't completely look like spring outside, but the calendar says that's what it is, so we will go with it.
Books about Spring
There are tons of great spring themed books. I chose spring is Here from our local library (link below). It is really cute! Planting a Rainbow is one that we own, so it was an easy choice.
Spring themed activities
After we read Planting a Rainbow, we checked out some seeds.
Explorer used them to build towers.
My mom found us these cool butterfly picks years ago and we finally got to use them!
Roll and graph flowers free from 3 Dinosaurs. Mini Cooper LOVES graphing right now.
We looked at sunflowers and discussed their parts. *Please excuse sideways photo!! I have photo editing software, it has been edited, but for some reason once uploaded is at an angle :(. * These are a freebie from Just Montessori.
The girls each ordered the life cycle of a sunflower. This is a freebie from Making Learning Fun.
I pulled out our homemade playdough and some wooden spring flowers and butterflies that I have. I also have a fence. The girls spent about an hour or so on more then one day creating their spring creations.
Learning Toys with a Spring Theme
I picked up this Lauri Horses and Ponies pack at a thrift store for $1.00. It has been a HUGE hit. Everyone wants to play with it. Well worth my $1.00.
I also FINALLY purchased this Guidecraft flower match game. Used my Zulily credits and only paid 94 cents (including shipping). Let me tell you, I love this game!! The girls do, too.
We also dressed the bear. But first, Explorer chose to sort all the pieces. (I guess this isn't necessarily spring).
Practical Life
I put out a new hair brushing station this week. Yes, most people would just use their bathrooms, but our house doesn't have low mirrors in the bathroom (I need to work on that!). Mini Cooper spent a TON of time here. She even went and got the entire hair bow basket and tried on all the bows. She is used to me doing her hair, but maybe it's time to start letting her do it. She really enjoyed this. Explorer, on the other hand, wasn't interested at all.
And, that's the stuff I caught on camera. Next week we will be learning a bit about the human body. I hope I can stay on track and share it with you.
Well, it was bound to happen. A week where there was more life then school. But, well, that's life, right? :)
Our week started with our annual gym night at the gymnastics center in town. This is the night that all the kids look forward to and talk about all year long! They get 3 hours to run, jump and play on all the gymnastics equipment. The parents get 3 hours to sit, talk, eat some yummy snacks, and let their kids run wild. It's really a great night! (Yes. This is homeschool socialization).
Sunday night we went to Mustang's Spirit Squad recital. To mark the end of their season, the team hosted a pizza and awards night, and then the girls performed their routines for all their family and friends that wanted to come and see. Mustang received a certificate for participation. Sorry that the picture on the right is a bit blurry, I had to crop it close so that the other girls on the team weren't in the picture.
The rest of us enjoyed pizza, snacks, hanging out with other families, and a performance. (Also considered homeschool socialization, ha ha).
On a not as happy note, we received word that our Great-Grandpa passed away on Wednesday night. He lived far away, so we will not be attending his funeral. But, we have spent a lot of time this week remembering him and discussing what happens when we die. We, thankfully, have the hope of knowing that he knew Jesus as his Lord and Savior, and someday we can see him again if we, too, know Jesus as Savior. So, we've had some conversations about how one gets to Heaven, too. It's been a good week of discussions.
For the 'official' school front, we were able to spend 2 days doing work.
This week we learned about Vincent Van Gogh. I found a wonderful book (left) of huge and colorful prints of his work. It was great for giving the kids a true chance to view and appreciate his paintings.
We started watching a biography about Van Gogh and really enjoyed it (but we need to finish it on Monday-it was kinda long!). I learned a lot of things I never knew about Van Gogh. Did I mention that I LOVE homeschooling my kids? I learn so much!! :)
The booklet to the right is free from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I added this booklet to their workplans. Mustang chose to do it right away, so this is her book.
One of our two days of school included 'outdoor learning' AKA soak up the 72 degree day in March! Well worth it!
We've continued with our calendar days about space. The space cards are from 1+1+1=1. This has been a blessing, because on his days off school. Charger has begun his own learning about space exploration, space stations, rockets, and more.
He brought me his homemade NASA station (interesting because I didn't even know he had seen a picture of it). Apparently Daddy had shown him a few photos online that I didn't know of.
I have to be honest I was rather impressed. No one told him to make this, or how to do it. On the right you see the space station control center-with a window to see out to the rocket launching. Not sure if that's exactly how it looks in real life, but Charger thinks it should.
To encourage his interest, I picked up a nice stack of books at the library this week. He seemed very interested, but has yet to start reading them. He has been more interested in building instead. So, we may end up reading a few of these together this coming week.
Mustang turned her free days to reading American Girl books. I'm always pleased at the history she learns from reading them. These were her picks for the week.
We did get some math in. I thought I'd show you this photo just in case you have a kid that just doesn't do well with the Montessori layouts. If you have the strip board, you know that all the little sticks are supposed to come out of the boxes and layout next to it. He refuses to take them out of the boxes and say that it's too much work-he will just take out the one he wants wen he needs it. You also know that the idea is to put the rug UNDER the work-not wadded up next to them. But, he got a rug, right? LOL!! Good news is that he completed his subtraction problems and got them correct.
Mustang used the gold beads for a review of various math problems.
We continued reading Leprechaun in Late Winter (Magic Treehouse) and read about Franklin Pierce, but pretty much this was our week. I hope to get back on track this next week and hopefully spend 4 days doing school. But, overall, I am quite pleased with the learning that went on this week.
I hope your week went well, too.
Thanks for stopping by!
God Bless,
Lisa
Things we used this week (Amazon widget contains affiliate links).
