Lesson Plan - Week 15

McG - McGuffey's Primer     FP - Forest People

Posts Outlining Activities From This Week's Lesson Plan:

• How we do reading and writing
• Homeschool group activities

This was last week's lesson plan, but things didn't happen as planned, plus Trevor and I both came down with pretty bad colds, so we covered it in two weeks instead of one.  LOVE the flexibility of homeschooling, even though I struggle with getting off schedule =)

This big change this week is that we have started using McGuffey's Primer.  So far I am absolutely loving it!  The lessons are so short, but they are actual sentences for Trevor to read, plus there is so much to talk about such as punctuation, how to change your voice when you read a question, simple comprehension questions, etc.  We are continuing to take a few spelling words from The Writing Road to Reading each week and use them to practice spelling, writing, and reading.  We review words and phonograms from previous weeks both orally and written.  Then we do our McGuffey lesson.  I think Trevor is really enjoying seeing that he can read more than stand alone words.  Lastly, he does a sheet of copywork that I created to go with the McGuffey lesson.  I really should do a post outlining exactly how we do reading and writing...maybe I'll get to that later this week =)

What are you learning in your home this week?  I'd love for you to share!

Happy Learning!

Book Review - Big Book of History

I recently received the Big Book of Historyto review from New Leaf Publishing Group.  I was very excited to look through this book (really, a 15 food fold-out time-line that folds up nicely into a book =) because I already own The Timechart History of the World (which is the same idea) and love it.  The Big Book of History, though is designed for elementary age children and is written from a decidedly Christian perspective, so I was excited to see what it would be like!

First, let me write just a bit about the book itself before going into my comments about it.  The book starts at Biblical creation (dating that at 4004B.C.) and goes to today (the book was written in 2011).  It has four different colored lines running through each of the pages, each one designating a different classification of history.  The four classifications are: Biblical/Christianity, World Events, Inventions/Technology, and Civilization/Empires.  For the Biblical years of the time-line, it is mostly just things from the Bible put into each of those classifications, with a few items from other parts of the world here and there.  As time goes on, they tell more of other parts of the world, focusing on America at the end of the time-line.

Before I start my critique, let me first say that I would definitely recommend this book to any family who has a elementary age child.  The focus on the Bible as truth is commendable and just putting events in order is always helpful =)  This book was obviously designed for elementary age kids who would rather look at pictures and read snippets of information than read any lengthy amount, so if that is your child (as I suspect most would be!), then this really, truly would be a great book for you!

Since this is supposed to be a review I would be remiss to not also voice my critiques.  To elaborate on my point above about pictures and snippets of information, honestly I found the book to be distracting for this reason.  I would expect a time-line to mostly be, well, a time-line, but this book is mostly large pictures with notes, lists, Biblical info, or interesting facts next to them.  While it was interesting, I found it very hard to focus on the actual flow of events found on the time-line.  Even within the time-line portion, there are swirls and arrows pointing off of it to one of the pictures, and while it's interesting to look at, I just don't think that our children need that to be able to learn from a book (or at least shouldn't need that!)

Also, this is a very streamlined capture of history, which there is nothing wrong with having in a book, but if you are a family who is learning history chronologically and is desiring to learn how all areas of the world (recorded in the Bible and not) fit together, you will not find that here in much detail.  I was hoping to see more breakdown of what was going on in different parts of the world, but really it's just 'Biblical' vs 'The Rest of the World' all in one clump.

I think this would be a nice book to have on hand and would be fun for your child to browse through to learn interesting facts about random things.  This could be used for your child to quickly run through Biblical history (so long as they can focus on the time-line and not get sidetracked by all the swirls and arrows pointing them away towards the pictures!) and to do a fly over review of post-Biblical history.  If you are looking for a great comprehensive teaching tool for your child to be able to refer back to over and over, finding something new to discover each time, sadly this is not the book you are looking for.  I really wanted to love this book, but honestly I just like it.  Maybe my expectations were too high, or maybe it's just not my teaching style, I'm not sure, but it might be your style!  The information is solid, so if this sounds interesting to you and you don't mind my critiques of it, Big Book of History might be a great addition to your library!

Happy Reading!

Visiting Your Favorite Summer Spot

Inspired by another great idea from The Kids' Nature Book, the kids and I headed out to the beach.  "What?  In the winter?"  Yes!  The book challenged us to think of our favorite summer spot and go visit it!  We love going to a local beach on a small lake in the summer, so that is where we went.

Before we left, we talked about what the beach was like in the summer time.  We used words like warm, bright, sandy, water, etc.  Then I had Trevor draw a picture of the beach in the summertime using these descriptive words to help him know what to draw.

The kids playing at the beach in the summertime.

Then we bundled up and headed out.  When we got there, or course it was very different!  First of all, there were no other people there (of course =).  Also, it was white instead of green (for the trees and grass), the sand was still there, but it was harder instead of nice a soft.  Of course it was cold and windy instead of warm.  We noticed that the sun was still shining and the water was in the same place.  The birds though, were missing, and the water looked different.  Instead of it dancing on the shore, it was frozen around the edges so that it didn't move!  We noticed how the water was hard for a few feet around the edges, but once you looked out a little more, the water still moved.

The kids playing at the same beach in the wintertime.

When we got home we drew how the beach looked.  If you look closely you might be able to notice how there are birds in the summer drawing and none in the winter drawing.  There are people in the summer drawing and none in the winter drawing.  The sun is bigger and brighter in the summer drawing (trying to show warmth).  The sky is a brighter blue in the summer drawing and you can't tell at all, but he colored white over the water's edge in the winter drawing to depict snow and ice.

The kids both really enjoyed cracking off pieces of ice and throwing them into the water.  I think they would have stayed there all day, but it really was very cold, so we only stayed out for a few minutes.  It was a fun activity to do and I think comparing one particular place to itself in a different season was a great way to help a young one understand how the cold air really changes a lot outside!  So, think of the place your child loved going to the most in the summer, bundle up, and head out to see what it looks like now!

Happy Exploring!

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Science Activity - What's that Taste?

We've been focusing on the senses that past few weeks for our science activities.  So far we have covered touch, smell, and now this week taste.  The inspiration for this taste activity came from my friend Kristina over at School Time Snippets.  She did this activity as part of a Five in a Row lesson on the book Lentil.  Kristina blogs about all their Five in a Row adventures (and more!) which I always find inspiring!  If you're not familiar with her blog, check it out!   Later I also found this post from Raising the Cameron Clan and use a lot of their ideas too, so check that one out as well if this sounds fun to you!

So here is what we did...

First I gathered our supplies.  Into Dixie Cups went lemon juice, vanilla extract, and sugar water and salt water that I made.

I touched each of the Q-tips to different parts of Trevor's tongue and asked him where he felt the taste the strongest.  Then he colored on that part of the tongue.  I guess there are certain parts of the tongue that have the particular taste buds for the four different types of taste, but Trevor's tongue must be special because his was pretty much opposite ;)

Here are some fun pictures I captured.  I don't remember which face was for which taste...except I'm pretty sure that the one he is sucking on was the sugar water =)

Of course this turned into a dumping activity for Mackenzie...this girl is obsessed!

Happy Tasting!