Week 4

So I'm a bit late posting this but I guess, better late than never.

Last week was a bit rough, mostly my fault for staying up too late for several nights (C. S. Lewis Space trilogy is just too good!) and not resting during the day. But we made it through with only a little bit of reading to catch up on.

Our fav thing of the week was finally getting the timeline up on our hallway wall. Everyone has enjoyed looking at the pics and dates and can't wait for Fridays when we put any new ones up.


I had 1 set of timeline figures from Homeschool in the Woods (yellow lines) and then copied that format and made the rest of the dates myself. I used different colors for each of the different time periods and followed the measurement guidelines given by Terri at Knowledge Quest.

I spent some time before school started going through each book for Year 2 from Ambleside and made my own timeline cards. Most of the info was taken from Wikipedia and didn't take long at all. Someday when I figure it out I'll make it available as a download.

Everyone enjoyed browsing through new library books and we've been reading some of them during circle time.

Emi worked on her reading skills using Bob Books. She is making progress but I'm finding it interesting meeting her needs. She is a very quick learner which means she gets bored easy. She is also a young 1st grader so some things take a bit longer for her to get figured out simply because she lacks the patience to learn it. I did find some great resources for reading practice and phonics work here and for the most part they have engaged her a lot better and spurred her on to try harder. I'm also planning on ordering this adorable reader for her to gain more confidence with.

We've been using Tanglewoods Corebook Health & Safety guide for a weekly focus and this past week was Tooth Care. We read some books from the library and talked a bit about keeping our teeth healthy and then of course we all had to practice it.



Over the past weekend I had a crisis about math study and was concerned that I was focusing too hard on drill work and not enough on math concepts, so I spent some time re-reading what Charlotte Mason had to say on the subject and then going over the links given on Ambleside Online. I decided that I just needed to strive for better balance than I was giving so am currently trying a rotation during the week using Calculadders, Math-It and Quarter Mile Math for drill work; Miquon Math and Family Math for mathematical concepts and Ray's Arithmetic for well, arithmetic. So far it's working o.k. I just can't quite check out of teaching like I'd kind of like to do:)

Don't forget to check out more great posts HERE!

Week 3

Week 3 has come to a close, mostly. I'm still in the process of getting our wall timeline put together, I have the people printed out and ready to mount and finally today got the date strips printed out so maybe tomorrow or next week we will actually get all of it posted on the wall.
Since I'm new to posting our weekly wrap-ups I didn't grab the camera until today so my pics are fairly limited.

Highlights:
Seeing our monarch chrysalis turn into a butterfly!
Playing battleship for math lesson.


We are starting to get into somewhat of a routine around here although not as consistent as I would like. This week we ran late everyday but it still worked out well and I felt more relaxed by spreading out the lessons than trying to cram them all in during the morning hours.
Ali and Tom are doing well with their "daily vitamins" i.e. Calculadders, but we've had to start back at the beginning using Math-it. I'm not using a textbook for math until they have their addition facts down cold and are able to quickly add large numbers. I plan on using the shortcut adding methods suggested in "How Stevie Learned his Math".


Gathered around for circle time

I'm still working on streamlining Circle time and making it more enhancing for the younger kids and will hopefully have things in better order next week.

Egg-citing Levitation experiment......it worked!

Experimenting with different density liquids

It took a bit of help but they did get the concept of battleship and were really enjoying themselves until they bumped their boards and lost the pegs.


Copywork using Italic Handwriting from Penny Gardner

Read more Weekly Wrap-up entries Here.

New Experiences in Nature Study 2

The miraculous happened this morning!
While breakfast was being made one of the children noticed that the chrysalis had changed color and was now almost black. I knew this meant that the butterfly would emerge soon but I wasn't prepared for how soon.
Ali noticed it first, the butterfly sitting outside of the chrysalis, we immediately took it outside to the porch where it could be in the sun and removed the cheesecloth lid. I was a bit worried at first because its wings were so small, in fact they were only half the size of the butterflies body. But it did not take very long before they began to lengthen and spread out as the butterfly shook them.
We spent a lot of the next 2 hours or so watching it grow and move. It would unroll its tongue out and move its legs and continued to shake its wings. After awhile it just sat very, very still and I explained to the kids (who kept wanting to poke it) that butterflies rest with their wings closed.
About 2.5 hours after it emerged and while Ali and Will were watching it took off in flight.

New Experiences in Nature Study

This term in school we are studying insects as suggested in the Ambleside Online rotation. Initially I had planned on using Apologia's "Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day" but felt that it was a bit too much to handle for me as a teacher this year. Instead I downloaded Barb's "Outdoor Hour Challenges" for insects and plan on using them. I also spent some time reading portions of the Handbook of Nature Study to familiarize myself with what insects we should look out for and some places to find them.
As I was browsing through the butterfly section I read how you could find Monarch Caterpillars on milkweed plants especially in the month of September, so on Monday, our nature study day, we walked to the end of our block where I knew there were several uncut milkweed plants. It took us a bit of looking and poking around but just before we were ready to give up we spotted a caterpillar sitting on a leaf.



The kids quickly ran back home and got a jar and some scissors so that we could take it home. Luckily I thought to grab an extra top from another milkweed plant to stick in the big jar at home because this would come in handy very soon.
We brought "stripey" home, put him and a couple stalks of milkweed into a gallon size glass jar, spread some cheesecloth across the top and then waited.....and waited......and waited.
I thought we had killed him somehow when after 24 hours he hadn't so much as moved a muscle, but lo and behold he was in the process of shedding skin. We were able to observe the tail-end of it and then stood in amazement over the next few days as we watched this little caterpillar eat, and eat, and eat and eat.
The boys would try to race the caterpillar at supper time to see if they could eat as much as fast as the caterpillar did; my husband and I would laugh as we watched it's little head tick back and forth while it ate reminding us of a typewriter and my girls got completely grossed out as the bottom of the jar filled with caterpillar droppings!
Once everyday I would boil some water on the stove to add some humidity to the air (not that it was needed much) because we were instructed not to let the air get too dry. We also replenished the food supply a couple of times and cleaned out the droppings as well.
On Saturday I took it out to clean the jar and add fresh milkweed but noticed that the caterpillar was hanging upside down and it's back-end was attached to the stem. I decided to leave it and just see what would happen. Sure enough later on it let go of the stem and just hung so I assumed that it would be changing into a chrysalis soon.
We missed the transformation because it happened while we were at church but you can see how it happens here.



Can you imagine the excitement when we came home and saw no longer a two inch upside down caterpillar but a tiny little jade chrysalis?

Now we wait. According to HNS it will take about 12 days to mature into a butterfly, but the changes to the chrysalis each day are absolutely amazing!

"The monarch chrysalis is, I maintain, the most beautiful gem in Nature's jewel csket; it is an oblong jewel of jade, darker at the upper end and shading to the most exquisite whitish green below; outlining this lower paler portion are shining flecks of gold."
HNS page 307-308