Today has not been the ideal home school day. We got started late, had lots of interruptions and drama, and even a stomach ache. I’m going to review some of my favorite things that we’ve been doing in school. Hopefully by looking at the pictures and talking about the good times, I’ll be ready to have a fresh start tomorrow.
This may be an incredibly long post.
We have been joking for months about wanting to move to Costa Rica. We’ve never actually been there, but it’s one of the top 5 places we want to visit.
When the opportunity came up to research a country for our home school geography fair, our choice was a no-brainer. We not only studied about the country, but also learned a lot about the rainforest. We made a really cool poster of the layers of the rainforest, a painted salt dough map showing the capital and the major landmarks, a carreta, which is an ox cart that they decorate beautifully, and we even ventured into cooking. We made a coconut fudge, which is a Christmas treat in Costa Rica.
In Science, we studied magnetism. The program I’m using this year calls for a lot of guided questions and experimentation so that they can draw their own conclusions. One of the most interesting things we played with were iron filings. When we added a strong magnet underneath, you could actually see the filings line up and arc in the direction of the magnetic field. Very fun.
In February, we participated in t
he state-wide home school capitol day. We went to the state capitol, were recognized in the senate, visited our representatives and toured the grounds. We happened to be there on a day when one of the state reps was lying in state. For those who don’t know what that means; a person’s coffin is placed in an official building, like the capitol, so that the public has a chance to say goodbye to the deceased. Yes, the casket is open. Sigh. Rachel could not get past the dead guy in the middle of the capitol. She must have asked 50 questions about him, until I just had to take her down there to look at him. That seemed to slake the curiosity fountain.
For Dr. Seuss’s birthday, we decorated the class room in red and white crepe paper, listened to the Seussical the musical channel on Pandora, read several of his books, created crazy characters out of striped pipe cleaners and even ate Green Eggs and Ham. I have to admit,the eggs looked vile, but they tasted good!
For March 14, otherwise known as Pi Day, we celebrated by talking about what Pi is, how it is used to determine hat sizes, and we even made Pi bracelets. Later that day, I was cajoled into making actual pie.
Speaking of Math, I have to rave about the program we are using. I have been using it for a year and a half and I’m still finding new things to be impressed by. Just for instance, Jake is able to do several digit subtraction in his head with no problem. Rachel, who is still in Kindergarten but wanted to start Math because Jake is doing it, is able to add and subtract simple numbers in the thousands. She understands place value!!!
Anyway, the best part of the program is that there isn’t a lot of busy work. Most of the drill and practice is done with games instead of flash cards and worksheets, both of which give Jake hives (or so he says). We have a good time playing the games and even the day to day work is fun and makes them think. He was able to blow through his multiplication facts and he really understands the concept of division. He is also pretty proficient in geometry, which is peppered throughout the curriculum.
This spring, we also spent quite a bit of time on plants. We not only planted a garden, but we learned all about the growing process. We first dissected a simple bean and looked at it under a microscope. I have to admit, I was blown away by what is inside of ungerminated beans. You can actually see a tiny little embryo plant ready to start growing. We took this picture through the lens of the microscope, so it’s not the best photo in the world, but you can see a bit of the detail.
We also grew sprouts, which are really tasty and double as a wonderful experiment. They went from seeds to a full jar in about 3 days, so it was almost immediately gratifying as well.
Rachel has particularly liked
doing leaf rubbings on the different trees we have learned about. It hasn’t been Jake’s favorite study, but he does enjoy seeing the progress. Once the vegetables in the garden start coming in, I’m sure that he will be much more excited.
Animals are very much a part of our day in school. We have 2 turtles, a tiger salamander, 2 guinea pigs, a fish, and 2 dogs. Right now we are waiting for a tadpole to arrive as well. My mother always laughed at my need to have tons of animals around. I’m such a sucker that I can’t seem to say no to an animal. We almost had a massive problem when we went to our local nursery the other day. They had baby chicks AND darling little bunnies. I wanted to scoop them all up and take them home. I started dreaming of rabbit hutches in our back yard and fresh eggs from the chicks. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and I remembered that our HOA doesn’t allow chickens and that rabbits would likely die in the summer heat.
But…We play with ou
r current little menagerie enough to make up for any “missing” members. They even get invited along to our snack times.
I have a few more things I wanted to add into this post, so I suppose I’ll make a part two tomorrow. I’m exhausted.
Good night!
