Spring 2015 Field Trips

We had 3 major field trips in the last couple of months.  One was historical, one was scientific, and one was ecological and just plain fun!

Fort Clinch State Park 

We are fortunate enough to be located very close to this piece of Florida history.  My guys are a bit too young to really grasp the whole concept of time in history, but there is still a lot of cool stuff that hit home with them at this fortress which was home base for Union soldiers during the Civil War.

Florida Museum of Natural History

Another awesome place close enough for us to visit on occasion is the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, Florida.  The boys learned about butterflies mostly on this trip - their life cycle, the types of plants the different species are attracted to, how they defend themselves, what they eat, etc.  But, there is SO much more at this museum as well.  What we thought was going to be a 2-hour stay ended up being an entire day's worth of exploring and learning!

Steve Trash - Rockin' Eco Hero

Now this guy was really entertaining.  And with a great message.  You can find out all about him here.  The pictures here aren't as great as the ones above because I took them with my phone, but you get an idea of how much the kids enjoyed the show.  They learned that the magic words are "reduce, reuse, recycle!", that trash is not always trash, and that magic is amazing!

Spring 2015 - 4th 8 Weeks

Our plans changed a bit halfway through this round of 8 weeks.  We decided to put our house up for sale, and as a result, we had to not only be out of the house a lot, but we also couldn't do a lot of crazy projects that we normally would have done (for fear of making a ginormous mess that I wouldn't be able to clean up in time for a showing).

So, we spent a lot of time out of the house, did a lot of field trips, and got in our language arts and math when we were home.

Hayden
Hayden's math and language arts is becoming less exciting to photograph, but he sure is moving along.  Apparently, I didn't even take any pictures during his language arts lessons, but it's all that typical 2nd grade grammar and whatnot that you would expect:  parts of speech, syllables, suffixes, homonyms, etc.  He read through 5 of the readers from his curriculum and another book - Corduroy by Don Freeman.  He's also become fascinated with learning about dogs and cats, and he's been checking out every book that you can imagine to read about the different breeds, how to take care of them, where they live, etc.  I love how he uses books to learn about whatever he is interested in.

Those two pictures pretty much explain his math.  It's been mostly learning multiplication lately.  At the beginning of the 8 weeks, he dove into subtraction so much that I'm sure if he never sees another subtraction problem again, it'll be too soon.  

Sawyer

There weren't a lot of pictures of Sawyer's activities either.  He did a lot of reading, too, though.  He finished up his first set of emergent readers, and he started in on the second level where there are more digraphs - consonant blends - to sound out.

Word Wheel with /-ig/ words.

All the emergent readers from the first section of his curriculum.

Math was a little more fun for him this time around. Creating a calendar, learning to trade when adding, telling time, and counting money is much more interesting for him.

Using base 10 cards to add large numbers.

Putting minutes around the clock.

Matching digital to analog time.

Flipping cards over and making the clock match the time noted.

Writing

We did a lot of writing this 8 weeks.  They worked on constructing sentences properly.

Combining nouns and verbs to construct good sentences.

They each wrote a letter to their Aunt Molly after learning the parts of a friendly letter.

Learning the parts of a friendly letter.

"Dear Aunt Molly,  I hope you feel better.  Anthony
is coming tonight.  What is going on in the hospital?
We're learning about astronomy.  We were astronauts
for a day.  We even ate astronaut pudding and astronaut
ice cream!  Love, Sawyer"

"Dear Aunt Molly, How are you doing?  I am building
cool things with Legos.  We are learning about astronomy.
In astronomy, we got to be astronauts for the day.  We got
to pick up stuff with gloves.  I hope you feel better soon!
Love, Hayden"

(So, I guess those letters are spoiler alerts for what we actually got to do in astronomy, but oh well.  Hahaha!)

The poetry was probably the best part of the writing.  They did a great job.  We read this book called Words, Wit, and Wonder:  Writing Your Own Poem by Nancy Loewen that did a fabulous job of explaining different types of poetry in a kid friendly way with lots of fun pictures (this is essential for Sawyer especially).  I was really impressed with their willingness to write their rough drafts, cross out and erase things that didn't sound write, and then rewrite their edited versions on a nice piece of paper BEFORE illustrating them.  (Doesn't sound like a big deal, but really, it's a BIG deal).

Here are a few samples of their completed works:

Sawyer's acrostic

Hayden's acrostic

Disclaimer:  please excuse my children's crude sense of humor in the next set of poems.

Sawyer's stanzas

Hayden's stanzas

Astronomy
We didn't get as far in our studies of outer space as we had hoped.  This is the subject that suffered because of our house hunting/house selling.  But, the boys did get some lessons out of it. We can always come back to it if they want, and they can always do as much reading and studying in depth on their own if their little hearts so desire.  So, here is what we WERE able to accomplish:

Measuring the distance of each of the planets from the sun.

Astronauts for a day:  here the boys see what it's like to try to work with objects
with gloves, similar to astronauts in their suits working out in space.

We made astronaut pudding also (and bought astronaut ice cream)!

Writing a letter upside down, astronaut style.  The only difference is that since there IS
gravity here, their arms got really tired writing this way.

We made basic straw rockets after learning about the different types of spaceships and rockets.

Learning about the parts of the Sun.

We used a cantaloupe to label those parts.

Art project after learning about the sun.

Everyone participated.  :)

Making the solar flares coming out from the sun into space.

We made play dough Earths after learning about our home planet.

The inside of the Earth

Playtime on the moon's surface.  This was, by far, the messiest thing I've ever let the
boys do during school.  Holy cow.

Oreo Phases of the Moon
Don't let his face fool you.  He was actually very excited about this lesson.

Learning about comets and meteors.  This was one of two "comets" that we made.
The first I forgot to take pictures of.  This was supposed to symbolize the nucleus
of the comet which is made of dust particles, ice, and gases.

We also kept a working notebook of what we learned about.  It was kind of like a cross between a lap book and a notebook.  No pictures of that either, but the boys kept things like the letter that they wrote as an astronaut, the layers of the Earth and Sun, how the Earth and moon rotate and revolve around the Sun, etc.

Books we read for Astronomy:

Awesome Astronomy by Raman Prinja

Usborne Complete Book of Astronomy & Space by Lisa Miles and Alistair Smith

Floating in Space by Franklyn Branley

The Best Book of Spaceships by Ian Graham

Rockets by Gregory L. Vogt

The Sun by Seymour Simon

If You Decide To Go To The Moon by Faith McNulty

Asteroids, Comets, and Meteoroids by Fran Howard

Black Holes by Dana Meachen Rau

Field Trips
We had a few field trips that helped to round out our 8 weeks of fun and education.  These will be posted separately.  Thanks for sticking with us on our homeschooling expeditions!