Volcanoes

I'm not going to lie, it's been a challenge to find the motivation and time to teach the kids while studying. Last couple of weeks have been a challenge with multiple tests. Time management has been a big challenge. I do find that when I lesson plan a few weeks ahead of time, it helps. I know what resources I need.

I am also still trying to find my groove. It seems as though I keephttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1054651735358591781 modifying. After six months of home schooling, you would think that I would have some idea. I am giving lapbooks a try. It seems so organized and gives you a general idea of what targets need to be hit.

This week we are learning about volcanoes. I haven't been able to find any lapbooks, but I have a general idea what I'm going to do. Our vocabulary words will be magma, lava, ash, crater, vent, volcanologist, and of course volcano. We will also label the parts of a volcano. We may identify different types of volcanoes, just so they know they are more than one. Our geography for this week will be Pacific Ocean, Washington and perhaps Hawaii.

We kicked off this lesson by designing a volcano from a soda bottle and modeling clay.



The kids made the volcano erupt using baking soda and vinegar (very simple chemistry).

Unit 1, Dinosaurs

After we got our Oriental Trading Company order, the girls decided to abandon Harry Potter, and learn about Dinosaurs. I sorta knew that was going to happen! 

Okay, I'll be updating this post as we go, not creating new posts, so once we're done all the info will be in one easy post. 

Today is our pre-start. We're jumping in tomorrow, but we're dipping our toe in today. So I booted up Netflix, and got them watching Walking With Dinosaurs from BBC. They are watching with their sketch pads, in case they feel like drawing what they see. Poor Pia is upset that she "can't" draw dinos. I can't wait until she discovers she can :)

Our letter for this unit is M, and our vocabulary list:

herbivore

carnivore

omnivore

scale

reptile

bones

extinct

plates

Jurassic
Triassic 
Cretaceous

Note, I changed up the vocabulary list.

I'm blogging as we go right now!

Ok, to start, we labelled all the dinos we got from our OTC order. Then we picked one that we liked the most, which is the Triceratops. While I was googling for info on these, Nana was writing out her vocabulary words, and Pia was doing Mm tracing/writing sheets, and early writing exercises. I got those here - really adorable, free print sheets. We also used Mm sheets from here.

While googling, I found another awesome site for all things Dino - here. They have information sheets, coloring pages, math sheets, etc. I printed out a few different ones, in preparation for our posters - we will be creating posters for each dino for information retention. 

After we finished up our letters/vocabulary, we moved onto math for Nana, and more Mm work for Pia. Pia did an M letter search, from the first school site, and some M coloring. Nana did some simple dino addition (numbers, no pics) from the learning page site. After we successfully completed those, I printed out coloring pages of a Triceratops for our posters. We colored and cut those out and set them aside. Next, we headed outside with our dino fact sheet - we talked about how much space a Triceratops would take up, and counted off their length together. They especially loved this part! 

Once back inside, I had Nana work in her phonics workbook, doing a few word searches/writing practices. Pia worked on some more early writing exercises. Now we're breaking for lunch!

Ancient Egypt

We started by reading Ms. Frizzle's Adventure's Ancient Egypt and The Best Book of Mummies.
It lead to so many subjects. We identified it on our map and pinned the Egyptian flag (I have mini magnet flags), and since it's in Northern Africa, I introduced the continents of the world. 

Because the Egyptians' beliefs in many gods and goddesses, we discussed the difference between facts, opinions and beliefs

Vocab/Spelling words for this unit:
Egypt
Africa
Nile River
scribe
mummy
tomb
pharaoh
god
goddess
Cairo

I still have many activities to do. The kids are excited about making a pyramid. You can make it with sugar cubes, but I'm going the easy way and just the template on the Crayola provided. I also plan on having the kids decode hieroglyphics.

Check in!

I know we've been absent lately, but it's summer, and we're enjoying it!!

But, school time is looming, so I've been doing a lot of prep work for us, and I'm set to begin next week.

After a lot of thought/research, this is our plan:

I sat down with my girls, and we chose 26 topics that interest them. I then tied a letter into each "unit" - because we're also doing Pre-K for my 4 year old. And letter learning can't hurt the 1st grader. I honestly don't know how long each unit will last - it depends on how it goes and if we veer off in other directions. I imagine if they are super interested in something within a unit, I can write a new unit on that topic. I'm going into this with the promise to myself to be flexible. And which unit we work on is completely up to the girls.

I like workbooks. I know a lot of hsers don't, but I do. I'm using them in my own way, as a follow up to what I teach, but I'm still going to use them.

Here are the units/letters we're doing. Some of the letters tie in nicely, some only make sense to me. As I complete each unit, I'll post the details with links/books/printables/tips/crafts. I will also link them up on the sidebar for easy navigation.

For now, here's our list:

Apple – A

Dinosaurs – M

Food Groups – N

Public Service Workers – R

Zoo Animals – D

Farming – C

Harry Potter - P

Royalty – Q

Butterflies - U

Space – S

Oceans - I

Flowers/Plants – K

Water - H

Machines - Z

Bodies - B

Earth - L

Cooking - F

Pirates - J

USA - O

Bugs - G

Birds - X

Christmas - W

Valentines - V

Thanksgiving - Y

Weather – E

Travel – T

Within each unit we will touch on several things, relevant to the girls ages. Colors, shapes, letters and early phonics for Pia (age 4), reading, spelling, phonics, geography, math, science for Nana (age 6). Each unit will have a vocabulary sheet with 9 words. These are *not* the sight words that we will be using throughout the year, but additional, more challenging words to learn and recognize.

So, that's our plan. I'm sure it will change 100 times over the school year, and I'm sure we'll hit some bumps in the road. It's ok though, I can't wait!

Units in progress

These are ongoing units I'm working on.

Princess/Castles - incorporating real castles, and princesses, their history.

Space - planets, astronauts, stars, etc.

Harry Potter - my kids both love this, so we're going to use it as a base to explore England.

Presidents - our past and present. Incorporate money in here.

Food Groups - not only what they are, but nutrition, and where our food comes from.

Zoo Animals - this will likely be broken up into several units, focusing on animals by country.

Farming - farm animals and crops. Incorporating a visit to either a farm or farmers market.

Dinosaurs - roar! I'm almost done with this one, and will post soon.

Public Service - touch a bit on how government is set up, but focus on Public servants - firefighters, policemen, sanitation, construction, etc. Try to visit one of these places.

Our Earth - this will come after the space unit. Focus on what the earth is made of, how we treat our earth, different eco systems of the earth. Want to incorporate the program Life in here, at least part of it.

Seasons - I'm unsure if we'll break this up by season, or talk about all at once.

This page will change a lot - I'll add as I come up with new ideas, and delete as I post lesson plans.

Apple Unit (Updated)

This is the first one I've put together, and it's still very much a work in progress.

First, we're going to head to the library and pick out a book about apples (maybe focus on Johnny Appleseed). After we've read the book together, we'll talk about our unit words, and what the book means, find the author and illustrator.

Apple unit words: Apple, Red, Stem, Seed, Sour, Fruit, Tree, Yellow, Green

Before heading out, we're going to create a budget for our apple purchases. Then we'll head to the store and look at all the different kinds of apples, and choose several different kinds within our budget. We'll weigh them together, and write the names down together. Nana will pay for them, staying in budget. (Lesson: Life Skills)

Alternatively, depending on the time of year, we'll find an apple picking farm. We'll visit, and pick our own apples. Talk to the proprietor about planting apple trees, what sort of climate apples like, what sort of bugs/animals like apples, and the different stages of an apples life. Also planning and remaining in the budget. (Lessons: Science, Life Skills)

Once we get home, we're going to practice writing the names of the apples, and finding our unit words in a word search (I have this file, if anyone wants it). For Pia, I have Aa writing sheets and a letter book. We'll also do a craft with apples, cutting out the stem, leaves and apple, and gluing them together. (Lesson: Writing, Spelling)

Then we're going to list the apples, and hop on the computer, to find out where they originally came from. We'll find those places on a map, and talk about what those places are like. (Lesson: Geography)

We'll pick our favorite place of those locations, and research how the apple seed got there, and the history of the area. (Lesson: History)

Next, we'll sort the apples by color, or stem length. We'll count, sort and categorize them. We'll create different patterns and write about our favorite attributes of an apple. (Lesson: Writing, Sorting, Counting, Patterns)

Next, we'll print out charts for the life of an apple seed, and review it (I still can't find what I need - maybe a book). Along with this will be coloring pages and an alphabet connect the dots for apples. Once we've completed learning about the life stages of an apple seed, we'll cut open our first apple and (attempt to) dissect a seed. (Lesson: Science)

Then, we'll take the cut apple, and work on fractions. We'll cut an apple in half, then in quarters, discussing different fractions and combinations. (Lesson: Math)

We'll leave one apple out, and check on it every hour to see what happens when an apple is left out. We'll write about what we see, using descriptive language. We'll record what we think will happen, and later review to see if it's correct. We'll hop back on the internet, to figure out why apples turn brown. (Lesson: Science, Writing, Critical Thinking)

With the remaining apples, we'll get into the kitchen, and create apple sauce. We'll work on measuring, reading a recipe and kitchen safety. We'll also wash all our dirty dishes and enjoy our product! While our sauce is cooking, we'll work on some Apple Math sheets I've created (if you want a copy, let me know!). (Lessons: Math, Life Skills, Reading)

Unit Based Learning

There are many, many, many different ways to home school. We've decided on unit based learning and teaching. For now, I anticipate that each unit will take two weeks. I'm planning out many different units, and Nana will be choosing which unit she wants to do.

My plan is to take the basic principles from TEKS, and work them into each unit. So we'll cover writing, spelling, reading, math, science, history, geography and the like on a level she can understand in a fun way. I'll be posting each of my units here, and once we complete them, I'll post again with my comments and evaluations. You can use anything you like from the blog and adapt it to work with your family. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them as best as I can. I'm still very new at this.