Last week we discussed light, rainbows, shadows and mirrors for science.
A lot of this has been review for Doo. In fact, a lot of Start Up Science has been review for her. I don’t think this has been a bad thing, though. It’s solidifying some of this knowledge for her. I am very glad I paired the workbooks with library readings because otherwise it would have been much too little for her. We will finish out our science plan for this year and then go into something a bit meatier and more hands on for second grade. Right now I am mulling over Delta Education’s Space Science Cluster.
In Math, we have been covering time the last two weeks. Doo has grasped this pretty easily.
Once we finish up with Math Mammoth’s first grade, which we have 3 chapters left, I am mulling over changing her to Teaching Textbooks. We would still use the Math Mammoth worksheets from time to time but I really like how interactive this program is. Doo and I tried it out before Christmas and she loved it. I definitely think we will use it come second grade, I just haven’t decided if we should start once we finish first grade Math Mammoth (just 2-3 months left of that I am guessing). Hmmmm.
A couple of weeks ago we covered Crete for Ancient History. We read a few books, including The Hero and the Minotaur plus watched a movie from the 60′s called The Minotaur. The movie was very cheesy and the minotaur didn’t even show up until literally the last five minutes of the film but Doo really enjoyed it anyway.
We also made a little volcano. We were short on time so we just used construction paper for the volcano. Doo loved this project.
Just sharing my two docs for our Ancient History and Science 1st grade plans. Each lesson will be for one week. Ancient History will be broken down into 4-5 days so that the lessons will be short, ala Charlotte Mason. Science will be broken down into 2 days per lesson and we are using Start Up Science as our spine.
Doo has been swimming along wonderfully with our new Math Mammoth program. I think she really enjoys being able to read the instructions and get to work on her own. I always check each section and she lets me know if she has any questions but is otherwise very independent with her math now. She enjoys doing the worksheets and they definitely help her focus on the problems easier than with the manipulative in RightStart Math (which, I still think is a great program, just not a good match for Doo).
We spent the last month studying Hinduism. Mama’s old college roommate is Hindu and was kind enough to share some links to check out. So we were able to check out a temple in NYC, learn about various deities, and Doo enjoyed coloring Ganesh.
We also borrowed a couple of books from the library.
Doo especially enjoyed the The Little Book… since she’s always been very interested in reading about various deities and what they represent.
The next couple of weeks we will cover Sikhism which will be good for Mama as well since I don’t know much about that religion.
We continue our several week long lesson covering early mammals. Yesterday’s reading discussed carnivores and scavengers. We then broke out our handy dandy Netflix Streaming and watched Nat Geo’s Prehistoric Predators: Wolf.
This program is similar to the BBC Walking with Dinosaurs in that it shows what life may have been like back then via computer animation (although not as high quality). But Nat Geo also showed interviews with various paleontologists, biologists, etc and, in this episode, even shows a comparison of “bite force” between dogs in the present day in order to illustrate the probably difference in bite force between a Dire Wolf and its cousin, the Gray Wolf thousands of years ago.
What was also very cool was that the episode centered mainly around the La Brea Tar Pits, right here in sunny L.A. Yes, we will be making a field trip very soon. Doo cannot wait!
One of the many benefits to homeschooling is the ability to tweak your child’s curriculum to best meet their educational needs and strengths. We are trying out Mammoth Math currently to see if it is a better fit than RightStart. We have definitely enjoyed RightStart Math and Doo has learned a lot from it. What I thought would be great is how hands on it is. And sometimes that is great. But what I have found is that Doo gets very distracted during these hands on tasks. She’s wiggly, wants to add made up stories (which would be fine but they distract her), and, in general, has trouble visualizing some of the math in her head. Anyone who knows her knows her mind goes nonstop, she’s a huge talker, very social. So I started thinking that maybe a table top, sit down type of math would be better. I also wanted something where she could read what to do versus listening orally to the instructions. In comes Math Mammoth. The worksheets flat out tell her what to do and I hover a bit to make sure she gets the instructions. So far so good. She is really enjoying doing these worksheets and I think she likes reading the directions on her own. I am 99% sure we will be buying this curriculum via the Homeschool Co-op‘s discount for this month. In the mean time, we’re using the free trial pages and will probably poke around RightStart Math a bit more.
We will be spending the rest of our prehistory lessons learning about various mammals who roamed the earth once upon a time. This week’s lesson covered a few mammals who popped up pre-dinosaur extinction. We also perused an old early mammals book I bought off of Amazon (over 50 years old!) as well. We’ll take it out for each lesson. It has some great drawings including charts and comparison pictures.
On Wednesday we spent the morning at the LA Natural History Museum for one of their Homeschool Days. We concentrated on the mammals and dinosaurs at the museum and spent a large part of our time in the Age of Mammals exhibit.
Age of Mammals
When watching Walking with Prehistoric Beasts we were introduced the the “walking whale”, the Ambulocetus, and during our field trip we were able to see a fossil of one up close (and, later, a wall display dedicated to him).
The Walking Whale.
Virtual Paleontologist - Doo was very excited about this!
Doo watched the puppeteer get into his "puppet" and then was given an up close greeting.
Saber Tooth Tiger.
Watching a Paleontologist working on a Hadrosaur fossil.
We ended our visit checking out more "current" mammals.
Today we both felt a bit under the weather (nothing major) so we stayed inside and watched all of Walking with Dinosaurs (thanks Netflix streaming) to go along with our prehistory lesson. We will be learning about dinosaurs well into February so we may visit these episodes again but it was fun to watch the entire thing while snuggling on the couch with a box of tissues.
Doo enjoyed watching them with her dino figurines and then we got out our evolution timeline to examine (yes, 2 pairs of PJs were the outfits of the day).
