First Week of Homeschooling 1-5-15

In my state, a portfolio is required so I'm going to use this blog as my portfolio.
Monday
The kids LOVE it!!! :) We had fun! We started off with chores and then calendar. Then we moved on to math. They both completed their worksheets and then we played a math game. The kids LOVE the math games.

They each had chips representing 1s, 10s, and 100s. Then they rolled a die and would remove that many chips. If they didn't have that many ones then they had to borrow from the tens or the hundreds by trading them in for tens or ones chips. The first child to get to 0 wins! :) 

Then we moved on to vocabulary. The kids learned boggy, treacherous, and sly today. Then I read the first chapter of The Trumpeter Swan by E.B. White. The kids had to point out their vocabulary words when I read them and tell me what they mean. :) Then they had to do their copywork and memory work. They are currently working on a poem for memorization. :)

Finally, history! We read the first section of chapter 1 which basically just had the kids pretend to be on a flying carpet as they toured how much the Roman Empire covered. Then they painted it on newspapers I taped together. :)

Finally, they went to the local university for a 2.5 hour class for homeschoolers on math and science. They learned about Owls for an hour -- including dissecting an owl pellet. The second half was called Method to the Madness which was about the scientific method. Fun fun!!! :)



Tuesday
Today was just as much fun as yesterday. :)

We started with math again. 1st grader is working on number bonds and 3rd grader is working on subtraction and borrowing.
After that we did music. I love these CDs!!! We're currently studying Vivaldi. It's cool because it's a story told from a fictional character who lived at the time period and knew Vivaldi. It has multiple voices and sound effects while still introducing the students to Vivaldi's music.

Then we moved on to science. Today's question... Does gas/air take up space? The kids blew bubbles into water with a straw. We talked about the air taking up space and having to escape through the bubbles.

I blew up a balloon. We talked about how it was taking up space and force was causing the balloon to stretch.

then we put empty bottles into water open end down. The water couldn't go into the bottles because the air was already taking up all the space. Then, I took a pin and poked a hole in the bottom of one of the bottles and we watched it fill up with water as the air escaped through the bottle.

Conclusion: Air/gas takes up space.

We went over the new vocabulary words - clout, dignity, peninsula, courting.
Then we read the second chapter of The Trumpet of the Swan.
Afterwards, we talked about some basic facts of Trumpeter Swans.

We figured out the wing span and nest size of the trumpeter swan

See, I had to get all the way back into the pantry to get it. We just used wax paper This wasn't planned so I had to use what I had. I have decided I need more string to hang stuff from. Wax paper doesn't tape well. :)

Here was the Trumpeter Swan Handout.

I also gave the kids a guide to a few animals mentioned in the book (and a few not mentioned) that have different names when referring to the male, female, baby, and groups. If you'd like to see it you can find it here.

The kids also had to draw a narration cards. These are activities the kids do twice a week. They draw a card from a can. Today they got "Draw a mural of your favorite scene from the reading."

In history we studied the Fall of Rome so we added that to our timeline. Our first piece to the timeline is on the wall. It's so exciting!!!

As always, 20 minutes of reading to themselves ended our school day.



Wednesday
Like all the others, we started with Calendar and then Math. :)
Ryanne worked on more addition and number bonds.
Collin worked some more on subtraction. He also did another subtraction game with dice and poker chips. This one was completely different than the others though.

We each got 10 chips representing 100. Then we rolled a die and had to choose if that was ones, tens, or hundreds. So, if I rolled a 6 then I would decide if it was worth 600, 60, or 6. I would take away that many chips and would change in for tens or ones if needed. We had 7 turns. If we didn't have enough to hand in that many chips then we got back whatever we rolled times 100. The person closest to 0 after 7 turns won. It was actually kind of fun! :)

After that, we went over our vocabulary words for the day - intruder, idyllic, onerous, irksome, escapade, capers, preening

We read chapter 3 of The Trumpet and the Swan. Then we listened to how a Trumpeter Swan sounds compared to a French horn. You can hear the Trumpeter Swan here and the French horn here.

Then the kids did their copy work and then underlined all the nouns in red and circled the possessive nouns in blue. Then the kids worked on their memory work while I prepared lunches.

After lunch we did science. Our question was, Does air have weight?
We figured it out by creating a balance scale with string, tape, paperclips, a ruler, and balloons. :)

Finally, for history, we looked up pictures of Rome and the architecture. Then, the kids built a Roman building out of cookie dough.

My kids built Rome in a day! YAY! Then we put it in the oven to fall. haha! It came out as a giant cookie. We were making guesses of what it would do. One of the kids thought it would good just as it was. I explained to her it would probably melt and then cook as a giant cookie. I was right. haha! So, Rome fell. ;)

Thursday
We started with our normal calendar and math. I got a picture of us doing math. No game today... just worksheets. Well, sometimes the worksheets have games. For example, Collin used the math problems to figure out the code for a secret message at the bottom of the page...?

After that we went over our new vocabulary words - poetical, adjacent, element, vigilant - then we reviewed some of the older words from the week.
We read chapter 4 of The Trumpet of the Swan. Then we watched these videos:
http://youtu.be/f6IRr8Bl4Tg
http://youtu.be/h-2qX-72Drw
The kids drew a narration card. Today they just had to tell me in their own words what we read.

In science they had to work on their science journals. They drew pictures and wrote in their journals about what they learned about air this week.

In history we read from the Usborne Encyclopedia. No, it is not your typical encyclopedia. See:

Finally, we watched first half of a documentary that pretty much goes over the dark ages which is what we're learning about in history this year. So, it's sort of an introduction to the course. It's called The Dark Ages and can be found on youtube here.

Ignore the laundry. At least it's CLEAN!!! :) I plug the computer into the TV so the kids aren't gathered around my computer but can actually sit on the couches comfortably and watch a show. I folded laundry and watched the documentary with them. We only got 40 minutes in and will finish watching it tomorrow. 

After that we went to the library where the kids did reading games on their computers for almost an hour while I got some supplies for next week. :)

Friday

I took no pictures today. The kids did their math, they took a vocabulary test and a history test. I also gave them new vocab words for the new week. We read Chapter 5 in The Trumpet of the Swan. We also finished watching the history documentary. The kids also learned about wiring a radio. :)