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.
The Start Up Science workbooks we have are very simple (I do not agree with the first/second grade label) but they are also very sweet. The workbooks are definitely on the easy end for Doo but they also helped structure our science year. She enjoys working in them and every week we read library books to coincide with the lessons. The “living book” additions help flesh out the curriculum and have made it worthwhile to keep for the year.
So far we’ve covered living vs. nonliving things, the human body and a lot about animals. Habitats, diets, how they move, etc… And along with the library books we have enjoyed some good videos on Discovery Streaming.
Doo is also enjoying a whole semester on the human body and with earth science via her classes. Science continues to be her favorite subject.
Doo learned about the layers of the earth for her first class today at her new learning center. She loved it (and the other two classes) and talked nonstop about them on our drive home. She will go to the learning center for a few classes a week.
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.
Well I’ve already tweaked our Summer plans a bit. We will be taking our break earlier than originally planned because we will be starting First Grade a few weeks earlier than we began school last year. This next year, we will be joining a virtual charter school for our homeschooling adventures. The charter school we chose, while it requires that we cover California’s State Standards, does not require a specific curriculum for us to use. The ES (Educational Specialist), who we will meet with monthly and who will be available for us to contact any time in between meetings, needs to approve our curriculum choices. She could also help us make these choices but we’ve already met and she put me down as the 100% “curriculum choice-maker” after I discussed our First Grade plans. One of the reasons why we homeschool is that I want my child to have an individualized curriculum so the freedom to choose that curriculum is huge for me. There are plenty of virtual charter schools in our area that do the choosing for you, which some parents desire, but that would never be for me personally. And the funny thing about us covering the CA Standards is that we can hop around grade requirements. When I told her we would be covering The Ancients for history she said that was great and that she would be ticking off Sixth Grade history standards. LOL
Anyway, so this change (our charter school’s year starts August 18th!) means I sped up some of our lessons. As of yesterday, my little Kindergartner finished her Religion Study and Prehistory lessons. We also got half-way through Math Mammoth’s First Grade and did a review so that seemed like a good stopping point for the Summer. I think we’ll continue her Spanish lessons for about two more weeks while we finish up her Composer (Bach) and Artist (Gauguin) studies.
We may or may not cover California History in July. I may just stretch that unit study out over First Grade and make it a 1-2 times a month lesson. We will see.
I have been in major planning mode and have been creating our curriculum (Ancient History, Science, etc). I am excited to get First Grade started but it will be nice to take a break and not have anything scheduled minus her circus classes.
Netflix Streaming has blessed us yet again. Friday Mama Doo was watching a movie on it and a suggestion was listed for PBS’s Becoming Human. We weren’t aware of this special so thank you Netflix Streaming!
So we watched the 3 episodes throughout the weekend. It’s great to have various sources on this information. Doo enjoys the review and was even clapping at times when certaint things were mentioned (such as the Australopithecus, Homo Habilis, and the first tools used). It’s great seeing her find fun in learning.
The BBC, once again, helped support our learning with their Walking with Cavemen series.
Professor Robert Winston meets Lucy, the first upright ape, and follows her ancestors on the three-million-year journey to civilisation. Broadcast in 2003, Walking with Cavemen combined special effects with the latest scientific theories, to show us what it really means to be human.
Almost two weeks ago we headed down to Orange County to visit the Discovery Science Center. It was busier than we like but we still enjoyed ourselves, especially the fun Dino Quest “fossil dig” and the 3D dinosaur movie.
…is the world’s first interactive, electronic dinosaur exhibit where guests are actually players interacting with the scientists at Dino Quest Headquarters and solving challenges as characters in a video game that has “come to life”.
Players become “research assistants”, complete with research transmitters, and receive challenge quests from the scientists at Dino Quest Headquarters. Players search throughout the exhibit for the answers to the research missions and, using the infrared transmitter, communicate back to the scientists worldwide when they think they have found the answer….
Daddy and Doo had fun exploring the site, walking through a dinosaur, and solving the clues.
Below are some of the pictures taken on our visit (click for larger image). Unfortunately, I lost a bunch of pictures from this chip due to some error when transferring them to my laptop so many are missing. There was a great space exploration area that Doo enjoyed checking out.
