Thursday: Read Demi's Gandhi in honor of his birthday, and started Japan with Look What Came From Japan by Miles Harvey and Japan by Karen Jacobsen (a rather disappointing entry in the usually valuable New True Book series). Spelling and math.
Friday: E had Art Class
Tomorrow I'm taking both the kids to see Rapunzel at the Children's Theatre, and in the evening E is going to see Barrage with her dad.
Showing posts with label india. Show all posts
Showing posts with label india. Show all posts
Friday, October 3, 2008
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
27-28
This week has been a mess with caring for my parents' (ailing) dogs and our neighbors' dog...but here goes:
Monday: Celebrated Johnny Appleseed's birthday (even though it was actually last Friday) -- read The Story of Johnny Appleseed by Aliki, and assigned E to read Who Was Johnny Appleseed? by Joan Holub on her own. I also baked an apple pie. This was meant to be a shared experience but, let's face it, peeling and coring a dozen apples lacks the allure of cooking a full multi-course Indian meal. So I did almost all of it myself, but for the eating of course! I read selections from the January '08 issue of Calliope magazine, "Spark Along the Indus", and E went through this neat interactive virtual adventure at Mohenjo-Daro. She did her math on the way to my parents' vet to pick up their doggies.
Today I read the chapter on India in What Your Second Grader Needs to Know by E. D. Hirsch Jr., and then Scott Russell Sanders' The Floating House. Then we made a model of a canal lock from Carol A. Johmann's Going West!: Journey on a Wagon Train to Settle a Frontier Town
(my advice: do the demonstration in the bathtub...it leaked) and I played and sang "The Erie Canal" which I found in From Sea to Shining Sea by Amy Cohn. After taking a break to take care of the neighbors' dog (during which T let him out and he ran away) I read How's the Weather? by Melvin and Gilda Berger, and gave E a weather map reading activity sheet I found, um, somewhere on the internet. After lunch, spelling and math. I was hoping to build a barometer with the kids this afternoon, but went out to catch the neighbors' dog instead. Sigh.
Monday: Celebrated Johnny Appleseed's birthday (even though it was actually last Friday) -- read The Story of Johnny Appleseed by Aliki, and assigned E to read Who Was Johnny Appleseed? by Joan Holub on her own. I also baked an apple pie. This was meant to be a shared experience but, let's face it, peeling and coring a dozen apples lacks the allure of cooking a full multi-course Indian meal. So I did almost all of it myself, but for the eating of course! I read selections from the January '08 issue of Calliope magazine, "Spark Along the Indus", and E went through this neat interactive virtual adventure at Mohenjo-Daro. She did her math on the way to my parents' vet to pick up their doggies.
Today I read the chapter on India in What Your Second Grader Needs to Know by E. D. Hirsch Jr., and then Scott Russell Sanders' The Floating House. Then we made a model of a canal lock from Carol A. Johmann's Going West!: Journey on a Wagon Train to Settle a Frontier Town
(my advice: do the demonstration in the bathtub...it leaked) and I played and sang "The Erie Canal" which I found in From Sea to Shining Sea by Amy Cohn. After taking a break to take care of the neighbors' dog (during which T let him out and he ran away) I read How's the Weather? by Melvin and Gilda Berger, and gave E a weather map reading activity sheet I found, um, somewhere on the internet. After lunch, spelling and math. I was hoping to build a barometer with the kids this afternoon, but went out to catch the neighbors' dog instead. Sigh.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
24-26
My computer's been acting up.
Wednesday: piano lesson and then we went to the beach for a "not back-to-school party" with other area homeschoolers. Lots of fun!
Thursday: should have gotten more done, but I was in a very very bad mood due to the computer. Started Westward Expansion with The Amazing Impossible Erie Canal by Cheryl Harness, and E did spelling and math. We also watched part of an extremely lame movie about ancient India. Very disappointing.
Friday: art class for E and tumbling for T, then in the afternoon E and I made an elaborate and yummy Indian dinner.
Wednesday: piano lesson and then we went to the beach for a "not back-to-school party" with other area homeschoolers. Lots of fun!
Thursday: should have gotten more done, but I was in a very very bad mood due to the computer. Started Westward Expansion with The Amazing Impossible Erie Canal by Cheryl Harness, and E did spelling and math. We also watched part of an extremely lame movie about ancient India. Very disappointing.
Friday: art class for E and tumbling for T, then in the afternoon E and I made an elaborate and yummy Indian dinner.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
22-23
Monday: 1st day of fall! We read: Fall by Ron Hirschi, and started looking at animal migration with Amazing Animal Journeys by Liam O'Donnell, and Wings of Light by Stephen R. Swinburne. I also gave them some fall-related mazes. We read Down Comes the Rain by Franklyn M. Branley, and E read Welcome From India by David Cumming to T. I read Rum Pum Pum by Maggie Duff and E had spelling and math.
Today: Read The 512 Ants on Sullivan Street by Carol A. Losi, How Do Birds Find Their Way? by Roma Gans, Why Do Leaves Change Color? by Betsy Maestro, Weather Forecasting by Gail Gibbons, and Monsoon by Uma Krishnaswami and The Gifts of Wali Dad by Aaron Shepard. Math and Spelling.
Today: Read The 512 Ants on Sullivan Street by Carol A. Losi, How Do Birds Find Their Way? by Roma Gans, Why Do Leaves Change Color? by Betsy Maestro, Weather Forecasting by Gail Gibbons, and Monsoon by Uma Krishnaswami and The Gifts of Wali Dad by Aaron Shepard. Math and Spelling.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
19-20
Wednesday: E had a really great piano lesson, then we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house. In the afternoon she read Toliver's Secret by Esther Wood Brady.
Today: We've added a temperature component to the Weather Station--Alan hung a big themometer outside our office window, underneath the eaves, so it's out of direct sunlight. We are graphing the morning and mid-day temperatures with bar graphs, and we'll overlay a line graph of the day's recorded highs as reported in the paper. Read Heat Wave at Mud Flat by James Stevenson, Feel the Wind by Arthur Dorros, and Twister by Darleen Bailey Beard. Then after a break we read Buddha by Susan L. Roth, Samsara Dog by Helen Manos, and Foolish Rabbit's Big Mistake by Rafe Martin. E completed some worksheets about the water cycle that I got from the Discovery Education website, and had a math and spelling lesson.
Today: We've added a temperature component to the Weather Station--Alan hung a big themometer outside our office window, underneath the eaves, so it's out of direct sunlight. We are graphing the morning and mid-day temperatures with bar graphs, and we'll overlay a line graph of the day's recorded highs as reported in the paper. Read Heat Wave at Mud Flat by James Stevenson, Feel the Wind by Arthur Dorros, and Twister by Darleen Bailey Beard. Then after a break we read Buddha by Susan L. Roth, Samsara Dog by Helen Manos, and Foolish Rabbit's Big Mistake by Rafe Martin. E completed some worksheets about the water cycle that I got from the Discovery Education website, and had a math and spelling lesson.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
17-18
Monday: Watched two short video clips from Discovery Education about clouds and the water cycle. (We get this service free through our public television station) Then read India ABCs by Marcie Aboff, The Children of India by Jules Hermes, and Savitri by Aaron Shepard. E had a spelling lesson. After dinner she presented her interpretive dance of the life cycle of a flower, which was fun. That night after the kids were asleep, I put up a Weather Station in the hall. Right now it has a page for each day, with little pictures of the three main types of clouds (cirrus, cumulus and stratus) and the different types of precipitation and weather conditions (wind, snow, rain and sun). The pictures are velcro-backed so they can stick to the pages for each day, and the kids can put up the weather conditions for that day. We'll be adding to it as we get more into weather.
This morning (after playing with the new weather station!) we read We Hate Rain! by James Stevenson and Where Do Puddles Go? by Fay Robinson (I should say that E had already read this book and yesterday after viewing the videos, she ran into the kitchen to show T how to prove that air has water vapor in it (put a glass of ice water out and watch the condensation form). Then Water, Water Everywhere by Mark J. Rauzon and The Cloud Book by Tomie de Paola. After this we went outside to look at the clouds (and hang up laundry). The kids were having so much fun outside (our first beautiful fall day) so I let them play for a while. When they came back in, we got back to India with This is My Faith: Hinduism by Holly Wallace, Sacred River by Ted Lewin, and The Monkey and the Crocodile by Paul Galdone. We had a spelling lesson and a math lesson after lunch and then we went to the library. I also gave E Jinny Johnson's Maps and Mapping to read on her own.
This morning (after playing with the new weather station!) we read We Hate Rain! by James Stevenson and Where Do Puddles Go? by Fay Robinson (I should say that E had already read this book and yesterday after viewing the videos, she ran into the kitchen to show T how to prove that air has water vapor in it (put a glass of ice water out and watch the condensation form). Then Water, Water Everywhere by Mark J. Rauzon and The Cloud Book by Tomie de Paola. After this we went outside to look at the clouds (and hang up laundry). The kids were having so much fun outside (our first beautiful fall day) so I let them play for a while. When they came back in, we got back to India with This is My Faith: Hinduism by Holly Wallace, Sacred River by Ted Lewin, and The Monkey and the Crocodile by Paul Galdone. We had a spelling lesson and a math lesson after lunch and then we went to the library. I also gave E Jinny Johnson's Maps and Mapping to read on her own.
Friday, September 12, 2008
16
Today E had her first art class at the art museum! It's a 3 hour class that meets every Friday. They spend an hour or so in the galleries, looking at representative works and then go into the studio to study and produce their own works. This particular section is focusing on modern art. E had a lot of fun. T got to go to a sort of tumbling/play gym thing at the library, which he enjoyed, too, and he did some amazing acrobatics! After lunch we watched a video "Families of India". E will do her life cycle presentation tonight after dinner.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
13
Today we backtracked a little in history and read How We Crossed the West: The Adventures of Lewis and Clark by Rosalyn Schanzer. I also gave E the Kids Discover magazine's Lewis and Clark edition (Volume 6, Issue 9) and told her to read through it on her own. Then we read Once a Mouse... by Marcia Brown, I is for India by Prodeepta Das, and To market! To market! by Anushka Ravishankar. E had a spelling lesson and we found the flag of India and the country on our big world map. The kids colored flags of India, and we learned some Indian words and practiced writing Namaste in Hindi script. (from India: a Literature-Based Multicultural Unit by Betsy Franco) After lunch, E worked on several math problems having to do with subtraction with renaming. Went to the library.
E has told me that for her life cycle project due Friday she is going to present the life cycle of a flower using interpretive dance...should be fun!
E has told me that for her life cycle project due Friday she is going to present the life cycle of a flower using interpretive dance...should be fun!
Monday, September 8, 2008
12
On Saturday we found one of the butterflies dead at the bottom of the cage, so we spent a good long while looking at various parts under the microscope, which was cool. On Sunday, we found another one dead so we decided it was time to set them free. It was really neat to see them fly out and really stretch their wings, and we saw a couple of them later at some of our flowers, so the kids didn't feel so bad about it.
Today we finished off life cycles reading Bobbie Kalman and Jacqueline Langille's What is a Life Cycle?, and I gave E a "homework assignment": she has to present or demonstrate the life cycle of an animal or plant or insect (but not the butterfly) in any medium she chooses, to be worked on in her own time, due Friday. I figure "homework" is kind of an oxymoron in homeschooling, but she will likely have such assignments some day, so I plan to throw one at her occasionally so she can get the hang of them. We also read On the Same Day in March: A Tour of the World's Weather by Marilyn Singer, and the rather long but beautifully illustrated Taj Mahal by Caroline Arnold. After her spelling lesson, she did the "A" page in her new cursive handwriting workbook, and after lunch she worked a page of math problems dealing with "addition with renaming".
Today we finished off life cycles reading Bobbie Kalman and Jacqueline Langille's What is a Life Cycle?, and I gave E a "homework assignment": she has to present or demonstrate the life cycle of an animal or plant or insect (but not the butterfly) in any medium she chooses, to be worked on in her own time, due Friday. I figure "homework" is kind of an oxymoron in homeschooling, but she will likely have such assignments some day, so I plan to throw one at her occasionally so she can get the hang of them. We also read On the Same Day in March: A Tour of the World's Weather by Marilyn Singer, and the rather long but beautifully illustrated Taj Mahal by Caroline Arnold. After her spelling lesson, she did the "A" page in her new cursive handwriting workbook, and after lunch she worked a page of math problems dealing with "addition with renaming".
Friday, September 5, 2008
10-11
Yesterday: Read Sisters of Scituate Light by Stephen Krensky, By the Dawn's Early Light by Steven Kroll, and The Star-Spangled Banner illustrated by Peter Spier. Then Count Your Way through India by Jim Haskins, India by Elaine Landau, and Helen Cowcher's Tigress. E had a spelling lesson and did a review in her math book so I could see what we need to freshen up on before plunging into multiplication. All the butterflies have emerged and we have seen them eating with their proboscis'.
Today: went over the math problems E missed and then did an art project, making caterpillars out of egg cartons. E is looking up two words from yesterday's spelling lesson (bout and rout) and writing the definitions in her notebook.
Today: went over the math problems E missed and then did an art project, making caterpillars out of egg cartons. E is looking up two words from yesterday's spelling lesson (bout and rout) and writing the definitions in her notebook.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
8
Read Flash, Crash, Rumble, and Roll by Franklyn M. Branley and Sergio and the Hurricane by Alexandra Wallner, then Look What Came From India by Miles Harvey. Started on the War of 1812 with The War of 1812 by Lucia Raatma. That was all I intended to read today, but when we got to the part about the USS Constitution, E got very excited and told me all about the book she read on her own: The Story of Old Ironsides by Norman Richards. I was amazed at how much she remembered from the book! She wanted me to read it to her so I did. After lunch, she read a book to T: Angelina and the Butterfly by Katharine Hollabird, and had a spelling lesson. All our caterpillars have become crysalids and got moved into the butterfly habitat over the weekend. We also spent some time looking at a really fabulous huge stick insect on our screen door.