Weekly Wrap Up! 1st Week of 2015

Howdy!!  I know have been MIA for over 6 months (well except the super brief, 2 day, attempt at daily posting in November...what was I thinking?).  To be honest, it has been a mixture of not knowing where my head is, to not having 2 hands to type with, and not feeling like I had anything worth posting about!

But, we are back, with REAL Montessori (or at least Montessori inspired) schooling.  Last semester we used workbooks and curriculum.  So, we are finishing up on those and transitioning into more Montessori lessons again.  I'm ready!  

We started out this year with a new theme for our calendar.  We use the Calendar Connections from 1+1+1=1, and we are using the cards that focus on the Arctic and Antarctic.  Seems about right, since the high yesterday was all of like 4 degrees, and the windchill was below zero ALL.DAY.LONG.

Our discussions have included ice, glaciers, icebergs, and polar lights.  We've also talked about latitude and longitude, hemispheres, and the arctic circle.  

We used these wonderful Arctic Animals set from from Trillium Montessori. 

And I was thrilled when Mini Cooper, completely on her own, went and found a journal and wanted to draw pictures and copy the names so she could remember her work!!

We had a refresher course with our Little People animals and the Article and Noun presentation.  I also presented Grammar Box 2 (which I see I have no photos of).

Working through Grammar List 1.  We enjoyed the discussion of what some of the words meant.  We even watched a Youtube video of a wringer to learn what that was!

Explorer completely enjoyed getting to work on the Continent puzzle.  We also sang the Continent song, which she loved.  We used this to talk about where Antarctica was at.

Mini Cooper had a really fun day when she spelled her first word!!  She is certainly at a language sensitive period.  Always wanting to know how to spell things and write them down. She had no idea it would be possible that she could spell her own word!

When we started pulling out the Montessori Materials, it apparently brought inspiration to the sensorial materials.  The girls spent a lot of time building together this week.

For Christmas, Charger got this super cool Snap Circuts set!  We will be working on this a lot!  

We made the fan fly!  Super cool!

We learned about how ice melts by using a fun experiment I found from Art and Creativity.  First, we sprinkled it with salt, and then we put food coloring on it.

You could then watch the salt make tunnels through the ice as we watched the food coloring go through the tunnels.

The kids spent a good hour watching their ice cubes melt, adding food coloring, and experimenting.  Mustang was adding salt to get hers to melt faster and even pulled out a magnifying glass so she could get a better look.  Very fun experiment.  

One last little fun activity the big kids have been doing is to play the Oregon Trail.  This was a flashback for me and we've all been enjoying trying to get to Oregon without having our oxen stolen, our friends die, or to get sick from dysentery.  Lots of strategizing, planing, and discussion has come from this game!

All in all, it's been a great week back!  I hope yours was as well!  See you next week :).

God Bless,

Lisa

We're going to link up:

TOS Review: BrainFood Learning Fascinating World of Insects DVD

When parents Bryce and Jennifer Mooney went looking for videos for their two boys, they wanted to find content that educated them, while at the same time entertained them.  When they didn't find what they were looking for, they decided to create what they were looking for.  And so, BrainFood Learning was born.  

BrainFood Learning has produced the Fascinating World Of...DVD series, of which there are currently three volumes.  Fascinating World of Mammals, Fascinating World of Birds, and Fascinating World of Insects. As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, we were sent the Fascinating World of Insects.  It couldn't have come at a better time!

Over the summer, we have been studying insects.  It started out when we made our trip to the zoo earlier this summer, but we have tried to learn a little during our summer play.  We even recently found a caterpillar in our garden that we brought in and watched until it was a butterfly.  

The Fascinating World of Insects introduces viewers to over 10 different types of insects.  These include not just your 'common' bugs of ladybugs and butterflies, but also some unique ones like the rhino beetle and the water strider (I'd never heard of a water strider before!).

Each bug is introduced with both its common name and scientific name.  We also learn the anatomy of each bug, for example did you know that a mosquito sucks your blood with its proboscis?  Yeah, me neither.  It also includes a few bits of information about the bugs, such as the fact that fireflies that live west of Kansas don't flash.  It doesn't tell us why not.  I'm glad our fireflies light up!

The Fascinating World of Insects also goes into greater detail about how bugs live, how they adapt, their life cycles, and also discusses how they are studied!

As we did our insect lessons, it was really nice to have this DVD to help out when it was a bit too hot to go out and look for insects in our yard.  

It really came in handy one day when we were blessed to find this dead and dried out bug in our basement (yes only a homeschooling mom would feel blessed to find a dead bug in her basement).  The kids wanted to know what kind of bug it was!  

They had decided it was either a ladybug-because it has 4 small spots on its back-or, it was a female rhino beetle.  

After watching the DVD section on rhino beetles, and observed it's awesome up close graphics, we were able to verify we had a female rhino beetle.

BrainFood Learning also has free study guides to go with their DVDs that are currently available on their website.  The insect study guide includes an outline, sorting games, and two quizzes to test your knowledge from the DVD.  I was very pleased when we went over the quizzes and my children knew the answers!  Charger, especially, was shouting out answers before I could complete the sentence, so I am quite sure that the DVD worked and my children did, indeed, learn.

Overall, we all enjoyed the Fascinating World of Insects.  I asked them what they thought and Charger told me he liked finding out that the rhino beetle is the strongest insect in the world.  Mustang and Mini Cooper simply said they liked it.  

 I appreciated that I had a fun way to teach what an entomologist does, what pollination is, what a proboscis does and what adaptation means.  These are things that are hard to explain, but Fascinating World of Insects not only teaches my children, but does it in a way that they think they are just having fun watching TV.  

The DVD's are very user friendly and you can choose to watch the entire DVD at once, or you can pick to watch just one of the insect chapters at a time-great for when you are doing more in depth studies on different insects.  

The Fascinating World of... DVD's are geared for ages 3-11 and I would say that is about right.  Some of the information is a bit above my 3 year old, but she was still very entertained and picked up the things that were at her level.  Mustang is 7 and really caught on to the harder scientific names and terms.  I have to say that it was obvious Charger, my 5 1/2 year old boy, got the most out of this DVD.

The Fascinating World of Insects retails for $14.99 plus shipping and can be purchased from the BrainFood Learning website.

To learn more, you can watch the trailer for this DVD, or read more on the BrainFood Learning website.  Also be sure to check out the rest of the Crew's reviews for this DVD, the Mammals, and the Bird DVD.  

Field Trip: Nitro Joe

The library in the big city near (ish) us has a really neat program this summer.  Each Friday, we can join them for a presentation or field trip for FREE!  They have an awesome line up of events, and I am determined to go to nearly all of them with the kids.  So, pretty much every week this summer we will be headed out to learn.  This is my very favorite way to learn, so I am really excited about our summer!!

This last week was the first week of the summer program, and we had the opportunity to watch a free science show.  It was very cool.

Nitro Joe, as he calls himself, provided a very entertaining and educational show for the kids.  He used a lot of fire :).

A little blurry, but here he is throwing the fire!

Everyone wanted to help out with the show. Mustang brought her backpack :).

Blowing up a balloon with hydrogen that is being made from breaking down aluminum foil!

Freezing a quarter with dry ice.  It was great, because he would come around to show us up close what he was doing!

Dry ice turned into soda?  I think I got that right!

Blowing bubbles with dry ice and baby shampoo.  Can you see Explorer?  

And, he was even willing to pose for a photo with us afterwards!

Certainly a super fun field trip!!  We are so thankful we got to go and watch!

This week we are off to an island that holds log cabins we will get to tour.  Are you taking any field trips?  Hope your summer is going well no matter where you are going (or staying).

God Bless,
Lisa

Summer School

Mustang found not one, but TWO little tree frogs.  At least, that's what she determined they were after looking them up in the encyclopedia.  Now, she's trying to figure out what kind of a habitat they need so that she could try and keep them alive should she catch them again.  Without the habitat, she had to let them go.  

But, we spent a good hour observing, holding, running after, and learning about frogs today.

And, believe it or not, that IS school.  

Hope you are finding some great opportunities to learn in your own backyard!

God Bless,

Lisa

TOS Review: Apologia Zoology 3 Land Animals of the 6th Day

Last fall I started to look into the Montessori Elementary Albums and learned about the Great Lessons.  Now, if you don't know about Montessori, the Great Lessons are a (IMO) fairy tale type story to explain how the earth came about.  For once, I was not loving the Montessori lessons.

This sent me off with a very important mission:  To find a curricula that teaches how the earth and animals were created exactly how the Bible explains it.  My biggest criteria is curricula that teaches that humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time.

My children have had very little contact with dinosaurs.  We have very few books that talk about them, and we have very few dinosaur toys.  This is because I have purposely avoided books that mention 'millions of years ago.'  Literally, if they are a book for children and contain that sentence-out the door they go.  I just don't want to have to backtrack in the area of explaining how some people think the earth was created until my children have a FIRM understanding of Biblical Creation.

So, when we were offered the chance to review Apologia's science books, I was pretty much begging for Zoology 3-Land Animals of the 6th Day.  The one where they talk about dinosaurs and people living at the same time.  Yay! To be fair, the book only has about one chapter on dinosaurs, but I wanted a curricula that came from a Biblical Creation and Worldview.  I am happy to report I think I have found it!

We were sent for review a copy of the Zoology 3 Textbook Exploring Creation with Land Animals of the Sixth Day and the Zoology 3 Junior Notebooking Journal.

Eager to get started with our new science, I read through the first chapter online since it is the sample chapter available on the Apologia website.  You can read by choosing Zoology 3 from the list on this page.  As soon as the book arrived, it was added into our daily schedule.  The Notebooking Journal includes a really nice suggested schedule for completing the work.  I appreciated having a guide for my lesson planning.  They suggest 2 lesson periods a week.  We found it was better for us to have science 3 days a week, but to do a little less on each day.

The Zoology 3 book is beautiful!  Vivid photos, easy to turn pages, easy to read font.  The content for us was perfect-just enough to keep Mustang interested, not so much that she was overwhelmed.  I do think this is because we spread out our lessons a bit, though.  Some days, the suggested lesson plans had a lot of reading.

At the end of each lesson, there are 5 sections that are usually part of the chapter.

• What Do You Remember?  asks the student to recall information from the reading.  
• Map It!  has students place animals on a map to show where they are from.  
• Track It!  {in most of the lessons} students match footprints to animals and their habitats.  
• Notebook Activities, really these are throughout the chapter and not just at the end.  
• Experiment, of course this is the best part-hands on learning to help internalize the lesson. {Mustang's working on an experiment above}.

The entire first chapter of the Junior Notebooking Journal is also available online for you to see.  Choose the link that says Junior Journal Sample on this page.  Because the Apologia Science books are adaptable for grades K-6, Apologia has designed two notebooks.  We chose the Junior Journal since Mustang is in about 2nd grade.

The journal is also well laid out.  It is spiral bound, which is really nice for writing, coloring, and gluing into the book.  I love that, at the end of our lessons we will have a nice record of Mustang's learning that she can look back at and use to help remind her of what she learned.

Probably my favorite part of the lessons is that every few pages, Mustang was asked to verbalize what had just been read.  The book also provides statistics on how much more one retains if students have to talk about their learning.

Well, actually, my real favorite is the part where there are Bible verses to back up statements, and that Creation is taught not as a theory, but as fact.

Apologia's Zoology 3 Land Animals of the Sixth Day has certainly been well received here.  We already have plans to move on to Botany or Astronomy when we are done with Zoology 3 (and then we will probably come back and get Zoology 1, 2).  I guess we have plans to try them all!  I highly recommend you join us!  I will add, that the suggested age is K-6 and while Charger is in Kindergarten, I would not have used this book for him.  Mustang is a 7 year old 1st/2nd grader, who is a good reader (3rd/4th), and is currently interested in animals.  For her, this is an excellent fit.

Zoology 3 Land Animals of the Sixth Day Textbook retails for $39.00.
Zoology 3 Land Animals of the Sixth Day Junior Notebooking Journal retails for $24.00.
Zoology 3 Land Animals of the Sixth Day Notebooking Journal {also available, but not reviewed} for $24.00.  They are all available from the Apologia website.  

Now, Apologia Science was a great fit for us, but I know one size does not fit all.  Click to read more reviews from the Schoolhouse Review Crew and see what other families thought!

Thanks for stopping by!!

Happy Schooling and God Bless,

Disclosure:  

Disclaimer:  As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, we received a copy of  Zoology 3 textbook and Junior Notebook Journal.  We agreed to use the program in our home and write this review.  All opinions expressed are our own.  We were not compensated in any other way.  I am disclosing this as part of the FTC regulations.

Montessori Science: All About Horses

Hi!  It has been a little while since I posted.  I've been busy planning the new school year and decluttering the house.  Hopefully your summer is going well!  We school through the summer but still took a week off for the 4th.  It was nice!  

A few weeks ago we learned about horses.  It worked out nicely that the Just Montessori  culture curriculum we loosely follow, and Mustang's interest both came to horses at the same time.  She had her name before her love of horses, but it seems to fit her well!

What started Mustang's interest was a movie called Horse Crazy.   It's an adorable film about three little kids who go in search of wild Mustangs.  Highly recommend it! 

We read The Little Fellow by Marguerite Henry.  Excellent living book about a young horse in the pasture.   We also read about the Assateague Island Wild Ponies in the Creation Magazine that we were reviewing.  

I purchased the horse definition set from Montessori Print Shop.  It includes three part cards, booklets, and definition book.  

Charger did a great job with the 3 part cards.

Making a parts of a horse book.  I had him glue the labels on since his writing isn't that advanced yet.

Mustang wrote her labels.

I also had her read and match definitions.

We enjoyed exploring the parts of a horse puzzle and the control chart.

Exploring the horse Toob.

Matching and gluing horses.

Clipping legs on the horse.  I found this idea from Just Montessori.

Mustang spent a lot of time exploring the Usborne book of Riding and Pony care that I found at a yard sale.  She loves to read about what she is interested in.  

It was a fun unit and I think that we all enjoyed it!  Thanks for stopping by to read about it.

God Bless!

We're linked up at:

Montessori Science: Parts of a Seed Unit

We have been studying the parts of a seed in our botany and culture lessons.

We read a couple of books:

From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons 

and Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert (not affiliate links)

Matching seeds to packets.

I found the little boxes at Hobby Lobby.

I got the idea for this tray from Just Montessori.

We stuck beans in paper towels to watch them grow...which they didn't.  So, we went outside and took a few sprouts from the field (this was about a month ago!).

We were able to see the little plan growing right out of the seed.  

This is a corn seed.

We were also able to see this maple tree growing out of its seed, then use the leaves to identify that it was a maple tree.

Charger and Mustang put together seed booklets from Homeschool Share.

Everyone made parts of seed booklets.

Even Mini Cooper!

I used my copier to cut off the words so that Mustang could practice her handwriting.

I found these books at Montessori WorkJobs.

Charger, Mini Cooper, and I worked on three part cards, also FREE from Montessori Workjobs.

The parts of seed puzzle from Kid Advance was a nice addition-oops we have it backwards!

Overall it was a great unit!  Thanks for stopping by to read our recap!

God Bless!!

We're linked up: