Less Traveled By ~ Homeschool Edition

Weekly Report-October 16

Here's this week's wrap up!  :-)

For our World History studies, we have been listening to Story of the World Volume 2 while we travel to violin lessons and as we travel to field trips and such.  We are up to Chapter 8, The Great Dynasties of China.  We had some good discussions about the spread of religion as went through the chapters on India.

For our American History studies, we finished up reading about the beginning of European exploration of the "New World".  We have been reading selections from This Country of Ours and America First; and we also read The Discovery of the Americas.

In Math, we finished up chapter 9 in Math U See, and JB started working in her "October Problem Solving" book.  I am going to try to add more variety into our math studies as JB continues to cement all of the basic facts.  She finished up week 9 in her Daily Math book.

 

 

 

In Language Arts we are focusing on nouns and have begun making notebook pages.  We started a grammar lapbook last year, but we are reviewing with notebook pages as we read through the Ruth Heller books.  This week we read Merry-Go-Round:  A Book About Nouns.

 

 

We started two new read alouds: Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Ben and Me:  An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin by His Good Mouse Amos by Robert Lawson.  JB is currently reading Little House on Rocky Ridge by Roger Lea McBride on her own  (She loves all things "Little House"). 

We are going to begin to focus on some of my favorite picture book authors and this week we started reading books by Patricia Polacco.  We read and enjoyed Babushka's Doll and When Lightning Comes in a Jar.

I am also excited to report that JB did an oral narration of a chapter from Fifty Famous People without one bit of hesitation!

JB has been doing a lot of writing in her free time lately.  She is working on one book called Fairyland and another called Miriam Marigold.  She has also taken great delight in starting a journal/diary for herself and has made several entries this week.  Here is an excerpt from Fairyland.

 

JB also finished an art project inspired by a post at Art Projects for Kids.  She really enjoyed the process of using the tissue paper to stain the paper---though some of our tissue paper didn't really bleed like it was supposed to!  I'll have to see if I can find another brand for future use.

 

She continues to enjoy dance and violin lessons and is learning her second variation of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on the violin. 

And there you have a sampling of what we've been up to this week! 
:-)

Narration

One of my goals for this year is to have JB narrate (Charlotte Mason (CM) style) from at least one subject each day.  For some reason, she does not seem to enjoy narrating orally.  However, she asked if she could do a written narration for one exercise this week (a narration of the first chapter of The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse by Thornton Burgess), and it was so nice!  Much more expressive and detailed than the verbal narrations that she has done.  :-)  Being the proud mamma, I just thought I'd share.  I'm going to type it up exactly as she wrote it----spelling, capitalization and punctuation are hers.  :-)  The only thing I've changed is typing JB where she actually wrote her first and last name.  :-)

Danny Meadow Mouse is Worried
Narrated by JB age 7

Danny Meadow Mouse was sitting on his doorstep thinking and thinking.  But of course he was only thinking because he was worried.  He was worried because his tail was so short!  The reason he was worrieing about that was becasue---well nobody knows not even Danny himself.  But I can tell you somthing.  When he had met his cousin Whitefoot the day before Danny saw how elegantly he was dressed.  And Danny thought the most wonderful thing about him was his long slim tail.  And since then he was jealous about that long tail couisn Whitefoot had and the short tail he had himself.

At the bottom of her composition she drew a quick sketch of Danny. 

Since this chapter and narration was a part of her Classical Writing Primer (Spring) work, she has already asked when she can do another from that book.  :-)  We'll continue to work on verbal narrations, but I will also allow her to write anything by request (though this is not a requirement of CM at her age). 

Enjoying The Science Mouse

JB is happily reading the latest issue of  The Science Mouse (The Great Spring Migration)! Past and current issues are posted here.  JB submitted a book review for publication, which appears on page 9.  :-)

Congratulations to Science Mouse for another job well done!  We are learning a lot from your articles!

Poems

JB has written several poems today.  We hope you enjoy them.  :-)

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Dance
by JB

Dance, dance
Such a joyful way
To learn the steps of the musical way.
I put on my tights, leotard and skirt
Then I dance my way to ballet.

***************************************

The Art Show
by JB

The art show
The art show
One block away
I look out my window in an excited way
Because we're going to the art show today!

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America
by JB

Roses are red
Violets are blue
The seas are shining just like you!
You are my home, just as well
I love you and all is well.

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Best Friends
by JB

Friend, friend
Come play with me
In the meadow we run.
We pick all the roses
And dance around with the wind.

Our Little Poet and Scientist

JB has been busy this week reading, writing and investigating.  Here are three poems she wrote this week followed by pictures of our busy scientist.

Volcano, Volcano
by JB

Volcano, Volcano
I see you blast up to the sky
You are like a firework
at the Fourth of July

As lava springs up and falls back down
A wonderful sight it is to see
far, far away from town

Please come back and do the show again

*******

Fireworks and Freedom
By JB

Fireworks you come on the Fourth of July
You let me know that the day of Independence has just arrived
The colors come up and rain back down
The Lord God has given us freedom

And the soldiers are proud
That America is free from Great Britain
It's so wonderfl to not see Red Coats marching through town
It's good to know we're free from the hard day
And have good times
FREEDOM

********

With My Friends
By JB

With my friends I laugh and giggle
I run in the summer sun
I tell them jokes and I play games
And at the end of the day
I say goodbye and give hugs
And then I go to bed and say good-nights
While I dream about meeting new friends tomorrow
FRIENDS

********

We are working on activities from the Little Professor Rock/Geology 101 Kit.

Looking at a rock up close.

Making a clay volcano (it's been drying....next comes making it "erupt")

A Metamorphic "rock"---JB added lots of small "rocks" into a (deflated) balloon and then set lots of books on top to demonstrate how metamorphic rocks are formed from lots of pressure.

JB investigated each of these minerals through observation, a scratch/hardness test, and a streak test (she even did a taste test on one of them  :-)  ) and then assembled them in the box to keep as a special collection.