Weekly Wrap Up :: Week 18

We are fully back to our regular school routine now, even Adrienne. Her unschooling experiment is done and we both learned a lot from it.
In case you haven't read my last post, we will be moving in the near future from South Western Ontario to Prince Edward Island for my husband's work. This will be the biggest move we have done as a family (I don't count my move from France to Canada!). We are all looking forward to it and somedays feel like Celeste who said "can we go NOW?"!! We do have a house to sell first, but my husband will be there as of the end of February and we will be following not too long after hopefully.

Back to our routine, with two days completed last week and this week a full week.

Smurfette helped Celeste with her schoolwork ;)

We completed all the main subjects, language arts and math and also managed to include science, world geography and cultures, history, and a new small literature study.

Here are some highlights:

In Geography, we studied India this week. We learned about their culture and religion with the help of the books in the photo above. Adrienne and Andre completed  notebook pages about the country, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism. We also listened to some traditional Hindu music on youtube. We will be trying some food next week before moving on to Greece. The video below is one that we listened to:



  
Adrienne is back to her regular schedule, which includes high school biology. This week, she learned about DNA. We used a simple kit from Home Science Tools to help us visualize what we learned.

Andre and Celeste finished their study of the human body with a fun study of fingerprints!

We also had a lot of fun, even though we spent some time decluttering and cleaning our house! We went to see The Adventures of Tintin, which we loved! We have enjoyed the books over the years, I used to read them when I was little, both Andre and Adrienne like them too. We saw it in 3D, which we don't normally like, but it was fine this time.

The girls have been having fun with their AG dolls. We gave this book to Celeste at Christmas and it has been a great inspiration. They made most of the food you see with foam sheets. You can get big packs inexpensively at most craft stores.

There's our week back in a short post! How was your start of the new year?
If you would like to read more weekly wrap up posts by other homeschoolers, visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Your Science Experiment in Space: YouTube Space Lab!

"YouTube Space Lab is about space. We believe that space is more exciting and accessible than ever. On this channel, you can discover space by watching the amazing videos we find from across YouTube. If you're 14-18 years old, we're also challenging you to come up with a science experiment which could be streamed live on YouTube from the International Space Station, along with other great prizes. Some incredible partners and a distinguished panel of expert judges from around the world are helping to make this happen." from the YouTube Space Lab.

Check it out!

Dash the Snail

We have been having a lot of fun studying this little snail. We found him last week near the library. Celeste wanted to bring it home and I agreed because I remembered that our science curriculum included a snail study.

After bringing him home, we made him his own little habitat. We used a peach container at first, then he moved up to a small pet habitat.

We take the snail out of the habitat every day while we do our science and observe it. We learned all about the different body parts and that a snail is both male and female. We saw its mouth. We haven't been able to observe it eating yet, but it does eat the cucumber slices we put in its habitat. We measured it too, it's 4 cm in length.

Andre named it "Dash" because of the marks it leaves on the paper:

It's been a lot of fun to be able to observe Dash! We will release it very soon in the same spot where we found it last week. For now, it is enjoying daily exercice on paper. Andre wishes we could find a second snail so that maybe they would race!

I have a few books coming from the library and will share the ones that we really enjoyed soon with you.

Weekly Wrap-Up :: Week 6

The routine has set in now and most days go pretty smoothly. Life is never perfect, but we do enjoy our days together!

After the Battle of Britain parade with the Air Cadets, on Sunday, we spent time at a local nature area. It was a beautiful day and even if we didn't stay very long, it was nice to spend time together looking for birds, flowers, fungus and enjoying the walk.

In our homeschool, this week, we continued on our Math and Language Arts subjects. Adrienne and Andre had a light week with their Lightning Literature again, it was only reading assignments.
Math is going very well for all 3 kids. Celeste is much quicker at understanding Math than with her reading! Adrienne started last week to tutor our neighbour in Math.

In Science, Celeste learned about cells. We used an egg in an experiment. She is really liking the hands-on experiments of this curriculum (R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey) . Andre joins us for Science, and also does his own.

Next week, we will jump to the mollusk section since we found a snail this week while we were walking to the library. We are keeping it for a little while so we can observe it, it's our new "school pet"!

In Geography, we studied United Kingdom. We made mini scones with jam and tea one afternoon. We also completed some map work and created flashcards with the names of countries and capitals of some European countries. We continued to learn about different religions, ancient ones this week: Celts and Norse. 

I used this site for the worksheet that Celeste is working on in the above photo: homeschool creations. It's a wonderful site with lots of great printables!
I also printed colouring pages from education.com, they have a lot of different landmarks to print and colour. We did the Big Ben with double decker bus and Stonehenge:

It was another good week, we took Wednesday off so not quite a full week. We had plans to go to our homeschool park day, but the weather had other plans, so instead we went shopping for boy clothes. It's not his favourite thing to do, but was needed, all last year's fall clothes are too short. I think that he will soon be as tall as Adrienne! Here is a photo from last Sunday, at the parade in their Air Cadets uniform.

How was your week?

If you would like to read other wrap-up posts, you can visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Wordless Wednesday :: Science at Home: Snail!

Book Review : Charles Darwin :: Giants of Science Series

Charles Darwin by Kathleen Krull is part of her series called "Giants of Science". I have mentioned this books before here (bottom of the post) and here. My kids love them, especially my son (he's 12).

Today, I finished reading aloud Charles Darwin to Andre and we both really enjoyed this one, even though we have read quite a few books on Darwin already. Kathleen Krull writes in a way that entertains us but at the same time we still learn a lot. Her scientist biographies include many of the details we usually encounter in other books, but they also include interesting and "quirky" facts. In this one about Darwin for example, she mentons often his health issues. I am sharing with a short paragraph to give you a taste. My son loved this particular one:

"Darwin claimed he lost two of his barnacle years to illness - boils, insomonia, a "swimming head", what we today might call panic attacks. Stomach problems were common, even fashionable, among Victorian intellectuals. But Darwin's stomach took the prize - throbbing worse than ever, with spells of vomiting and extreme flatulence that lasted for weeks."

Here is another one that, as homeschoolers, we really appreciated. This quote was found closer to the beginning of the book, where the author writes about Darwin's childhood:

"Charles was not a good student. Once the headmaster even yelled at him and humilated him in front of the whole school for wasting his time. But for almost seven years, he was stuck at Shrewsbury School. "Nothing could have been worse for the development of my mind"."

The book often includes quotes from Darwin and other scientists or family members. It also refers to many of the books he wrote. We also found a list of sources at the back of the book with other book titles (some for young readers) and web sites.

The books in the Giants of Science are not long and would be great for ages 10 and up. I read these aloud because I enjoy them. I think they would be a great addition to a homeschool science curriculum.

Kathleen Krull has also written many other biographies and other books for children. You can see a list of her books here.

Weekly Wrap-Up ~ Three Weeks Worth!

We have been busy! I will try to condense three weeks worth of wrap-ups in one post, without putting hundreds of photos!

Starting with our regular subjects, we are finished with some and took an inventory of what still needed to be done with a count of lessons for each subject. Here are some highlights:

Andre is now finished his Math Teaching Textbooks 6 and after a two week break, he started Teaching Textbooks 7. Celeste also started Saxon Math 2! I thought I would never go back to Saxon but I decided to give it a try with her. Miquon Math and its discovery-based style worked out nicely, but I felt that she now needs a bit more in this subject. We'll see how it goes, we are giving it a try since we already had it (from Andre). Adrienne has about 50 lessons left in her Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra.

Andre is also finished with his Growing with Grammar 6 and is now taking a break, since I don't have the next one yet. He has been working on his writing for the last couple of months with the help of Write Source 2000. Adrienne is also well on her way with Growing with Grammar 8 and with her writing. She has been using Format Writing and I can see a big improvement since last year in her essays.

One subject that we are definitely behind in is spelling! We are using Sequential Spelling but have missed many days. We will work through the summer on it. It only takes a few minutes a day.

Now, for what happened in the last three weeks...

We finished our study of Canadian History too! This took us all the way to our current time and we wrapped it up with a brief study of our government and politics, since Voting Day was on May 2. We also learned about the Census which is happening this month in Canada. I had requested teachers materials from the government (free), which are also available for download here.  These materials are for various ages and we were able to all work together. My kids enjoyed the activity where they were acting as town planner and had to study the census data given to decide the best locations for a playground, a seniors centre, and a health care centre. They also liked the colouring pages!

In World Geography, we finished our study of Asia and are now learning about Australia. Adrienne has always been interested in Australia, so we'll make sure to spend a little extra time studying it! We are adding some library books, more are coming, especially on Dreamtime! The next unit in our geography study is the last one, Antarctica.

We also did some Art and Music Appreciation over the last three weeks. We listened to Richard Wagner and admired John James Audubon's work.

In Science, we are wrapping up our study of Physics. We now have 3 topics left to cover (lights, optics, and electronics). We covered sound and electricity over these last two weeks. I had picked up a documentary at the library to add to our study. We really enjoyed it, it was a nice change from reading. I will be looking for more from this series at our library. The series is from Disney, called the Science of Disney Imagineering. It is geared to grades 5 to 8, but Celeste enjoyed watching it too. We watched the Electricity one. You can see a little video about the series below:






We also had a lot of fun these last couple of weeks, the weather has been better..even hot! We enjoyed our time outside, going for walks, playing in the driveway, having popsicles and much more!

We attended the Science Rendezvous at the local University (see previous post). We celebrated my birthday by visiting Point Pelee National Park and so, I will leave you with a few of my favourite photos from that day:

This post is part of the Weekly Wrap-Up hosted by Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. Visit her blog to read more posts by other homeschool families!

Science Rendezvous 2011 ~ University of Windsor

We participated in the Science Rendezvous for the second year on Saturday. Science Rendezvous is a free science festival for all ages that started in Ontario in 2008. You can read more about this fun and educational event here: Science Rendezvous 2011.
Here are a few photos from our day:

Using a metal detector at the Archaeological booth

Digging using archeological tools

Robots!

CSI booth, identifying hair samples and dusting fingerprints

the stacking cups game (always fun!)

more stacking cups fun

the community garden at the university
we helped by planting cucumber seeds and zucchini seeds

the community garden at the university

Great Backyard Bird Count ~ February 18 to 21

The Great Backyard Bird Count starts next Friday! We participated last year (you can see our post here), counting birds at our neighbour's feeder from our bedroom window. We spent 15 minutes a day for three days counting how many birds and recording which types of birds we saw. We then submitted our findings to the GBBC site.

Here is the description of the activity from their site:

"The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual four-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent. Anyone can participate, from beginning bird watchers to experts. It takes as little as 15 minutes on one day, or you can count for as long as you like each day of the event. It’s free, fun, and easy—and it helps the birds."



The site is filled with helpful resources! There are special pages for kids (games, colouring pages, puzzles...), links to online bird guides, and more. I especially like the checklist that you can create by entering your location (postal code, zip code, or city). It lists all the birds that you could see in your area for this time of year. There are also more resources under  "For Educators".  

Let me know if you participate too!

Book Sharing Monday :: Here There Be Monsters: The Legendary Kraken and the Giant Skid

What a fascinating book! I found it at our library and thought that it might interest Adrienne for her project about pirates. The legendary kraken and pirates go together, no?! We are not finished with this book yet, but I wanted to share it anyway. 

"Here There Be Monsters: The Legendary Kraken and the Giant Squid" is written by HP Newquist.

The book is divided into four parts. The first one explains some of the Tales of the sea serpent throughout history. There are beautiful illustrations throughout the entire book, ancient maps, photos of ancient pottery, photographs, and old drawings.

The second part's title is What was imagined might be real, this section explains more about history and how towards 1870 more of the beasts were found dead on beaches around the world and the effect on science and people.
The third part is A real-life monster, scientists discover more about these creatures and this chapter explains more about the giant squids, describing every part. The parrot-like beak on the giant squid might be weird, we learned, but the inside of its mouth is "like something from a horror movie. Architeuthis has a tongue-like muscle covered with rows of tiny, sharp blades, also made of chitin (chitin is hard bony substance)." There's many more interesting facts about the giant squid in this part!

Finally, the last part is called The monster rises  and here is the subtitle which says it all "the myth of the kraken and the portrayal of the giant squid as a huge predator have been kept alive in front of movie cameras-and in the pages of books-for a long time." This part talks about movies and books, but also about the expeditions and their results.
Here is a great site to see photos from a dissection done by New Zealand scientists of a colossal squid (which is different than the giant squid), and a giant squid: A Close Look at the Colossal Squid. Check out the photo of the colossal squid's tentacles with the hooks (it's the 5th picture), the beak is next!  
The short video below is footage from a colossal squid captured in 2007. In the video, they explained that the squid wouldn't have survived if they let it go, so they brought in on board.

If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, please leave a link to your post in the mr. linky below. Happy Reading!