Fall 2015 - 2nd 8 weeks

Our second set of 8 weeks was full of a lot more field trips than the first 8 weeks.  I posted a couple of them already.  I will add the rest separate from this post as well.  Most of the field trips were music related - not for any particular reason.  It just worked out that way.

But for now, I'll recap our schooling at home.

Hayden
Hayden finished up the first of his readers (All Around the Farm) in his Learning Language Arts Through Literature curriculum, passed the assessment of that section, and began the first story in his second reader.  Here are a few of the activities that he did:

Put pictures from one of the stories in the order in which they occurred, and
wrote a sentence about each one.

Discussed real vs. make believe.  Then chose a pair of pictures (one real, one
make believe) and wrote 2 sentences about each one.

Compound words

Word Family Flip Books

Wrote a story based on a picture.

Books/Stories Hayden read for Language Arts:
Hound Dog Takes the Job by Yuriko Nichols
Cat Visits the Town by Yuriko Nichols
Cat Was Wrong by Yuriko Nichols
The Best Work in the World by Yuriko Nichols
The Bravest Dog Ever by Natalie Standiford
The Fire Cat by Esther Averill
A Stitch in Time by Yuriko Nichols

For math, Hayden worked more on subtraction for a while.  Then we moved on to problem solving, and measuring perimeters and lengths.  He also learned how to draw diagonals using a T-square and a 30-60 triangle.

Playing subtraction games

Working on perimeter problems

Subtraction Word Problems

Drawing horizontal and vertical lines using a T-square.

Review and practice worksheet

Sawyer

Sawyer began using the blue book in Learning Language Arts Through Literature this 8 weeks of school.  We did the first couple of lessons, and then skipped to the first assessment and on to Lesson 9 which was more his speed.  Here are a few of the activities that Sawyer worked on:

The Lion and the Mouse "sequence of events" story folder.

Searching out letter sounds.

Finding words with whatever ending sound I told him.

Fun stacking the caps after reading Caps for Sale.

Getting help from Hayden reading words and having a spelling bee of sorts.

Grouping words with the same last ending sound.

Books/Stories Sawyer read for Language Arts:

Who Took the Farmer's Hat? by Joan L. Nodset

The Lion and the Mouse by Aesop

Nat Ran, Ann Ran (LLATL reader)

The Fat Cat (LLATL reader)

Quin and the Quiz (LLATL reader)

Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina

Oh! What is on the Rug! (LLATL reader)

Mr. Rabbits Thanksgiving Dinner (Story Folder in LLATL)

Sawyer completed his Right Start Math Level A book this 8 weeks.  It was very rewarding for him to be able to say that he's completed 77 lessons in math, close that book, and move on to the next one.  This last 8 weeks, he worked on telling time, measuring lengths, weight, & volume, tessalations, fractions, and beginning geometry.

Writing down hours on a clock.

Matching digital to analog times.

Putting the clocks in order.

Lining up paper strips in order from longest to shortest.

Using different units of measurement to measure out the strips.

Matching same length strips.

Measuring the weights of tiles to compare and calculate missing weights for balancing.

Determining the missing amounts.

Comparing volumes of water in different sized containers.

Putting together a fraction puzzle.

Basket Time
Basket time has turned out to be a great time for us.  The boys love taking turns reading aloud, and of course, we are always having fun activities during this time.  We switch around subjects weekly to keep it interesting as well as to allow us to cover all that we want to cover without feeling overwhelmed.  The subjects that we were able to cover this 8 weeks were:  Story of the World, China in World Geography, and Human Anatomy.

Books We Read During Basket Time

Hayden:  

Go Dog Go by P.D. Eastman

Put Me in the Zoo by Robert Lopshire

Flying Giants by Monica Hughes

Eddie Elephant's Exciting Egg Sitting by Barbara de Rubertis

Magic School Bus and the Case of the Missing Bones by Eva Moore (chapter book)

Sawyer:

Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss

Just a Little Sick by Mercer Mayer

Going to the Firehouse by Mercer Mayer

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura J. Numeroff

Dear Dragon Goes Camping by Margaret Hillert

The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss

It's Fall, Dear Dragon by Margaret Hillert

I'm a Frog! by Mo Willems

Human Anatomy

We talked about the nervous and circulatory systems this set of 8 weeks.  The boys learned about how the cerebrospinal fluid protects the brain by performing an egg experiment and how neurons transmit messages to each other.  They also learned the 4 main components of blood, what their functions are, and how blood is pumped by the heart.

After shaking his "brain" without the protection of cerebrospinal fluid, it was
obliterated.

Sawyer's "brain" stayed intact even after falling from
enormous heights because it DID have cerebrospinal fluid
to protect it from slamming against the "skull".

That didn't stop him from trying over and over to crack the brain.

Using dots as the "neurons" and different colored pencils to draw lines connecting
the "neurons" to each other, the boys could get an idea of how many messages their
neurons transmit to others.

Filling in a worksheet on the 4 main components of blood.

This was our model of a heart pump. By pushing down on the balloon
stretched across the top, it created a vacuum, pushing the water/blood
up the straw and out to the "next chamber".

The boys created a model of blood using different items as the parts of blood:
corn syrup for plasma, red hots for red blood cells, lima beans for white blood
cells, and lentils for the platelets.

We mixed up the 4 parts together.  After the blood sat on our mantle for a while,
the red hots gave the corn syrup a reddish tint, similar to how the red blood cells
seem to tint our plasma.

Story of the World

Our time with Story of the World was pretty minimal this 8 weeks.  Our selection of activities/projects didn't go as planned, and I ended up forfeiting most of my ideas and doing map studies instead.   Most of what we read about had to do with Ancient Egypt anyway, which we studied in depth just last year.  

We located Egypt and Sumer, the countries where people
first learned to write, and we traced the Nile River.  We also
marked where Cheop's Great pyramid and the Sphinx were built.

On another map, we relocated Sumer after reading more about the Sumerians
and how the country was made up of city-states.  We read about Sargon floating
down the Euprates River, then traced the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. 

World Geography

China was our country to study this time.  We learned a lot about the Chinese New Year, the zodiac, their music, and their food.  

Books We Read:

Children Just Like Me (pg. 48) by Barnabas and Anabel Kindersley

Count Your Way To China by Jim Haskins

Lon Po Po by Ed Young

My First Chinese New Year by Karen Katz

Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel

Marco Polo for Kids by Janis Herbert

Ms. Frizzles Adventures:  Imperial China by Joanna Cole

We listened to this lady play the pipa.  The boys were not fond of the sound
this instrument made, but it was still pretty impressive the way she played it.

Then we listened to this 14 year old girl play what I think is the guzheng.  It
sounded very similar to the hammered dulcimer except that she plucked and
strummed the strings with her fingers.  We liked this one better than the other!

We made paper lanterns decorated with dragons.

We painted our names in Chinese in the style of calligraphy.

I actually wrote the symbols in pencil on the paper, and they traced them with
the black paint.

Finished names:  Sawyer's on the left and Hayden's on the right

Figuring out our zodiac animal signs.  Sawyer was disappointed to find out that
he is a rat.  Not the pig as he was hoping.  Hahaha!

Hayden discovered he is a dog.  Loyal and good natured.  :)

We had some typical Chinese-American food:  spring rolls and pot stickers.

We made Chinese stir-fried rice and beef & broccoli for dinner.
We found these kid chopsticks in the Asian market down the road
from our house.  That place was so much fun to go into!

And so ends our second 8 weeks of school!