Read-at-Home Mom: Homeschool Update: Week of 10/12/20

Morning Time

Poem from Sing a Song of Seasons by Sara and John E. Brewton (The Macmillan Company, 1955): "Columbus" by Leroy F. Jackson,
Poems from Sing a Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year selected by Fiona Waters, illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon (Nosy Crow, 2018): "The Mountain Peak" translated by John Wesley Powell from a Southern Paiute song, "Rain Poem" by Elizabeth Coatsworth, "Rain Sizes" by John Ciardi, and "First winter rain" by Matsuo Basho, translated by R.H. Blyth
Questions from The Big Book of Tell Me Why by Arkady Leokum, illustrated by Howard Bender: "What was the first musical instrument?", "How did basketball get its name?", "When did boxing begin?", "Did baseball really originate in America?", "What was the first motion picture?", "Who invented television?", "How do we grow?"
Questions from the 500 Questions Game Book (Parragon Books, 2017) for fun on Friday
"Dingle Dangle Scarecrow" from 1,2,3—Boo! by Marylee, sung with the recording
"Panis Angelicus" sung from the Vatican II Hymnal
"Hornpipe" from Water Music by George Frideric Handel
Painting from Come Look with Me: Enjoying Art with Children by Gladys S. Blizzard (Charlesbridge, 1996): The Railway by Edouard Manet
Memory work: C. is memorizing "Witch Cat" by Rowena Bennett and M. is working on "Halloween" by Harry Behn. C. recited the planets and M. recited the countries of Europe.

History

C. continued studying natural history this week. She is especially interested in prehistoric animals, including trilobites, amphibians, and early reptiles. We read from Life Story by Virginia Lee Burton and First Days of the World by Gerald Ames and watched videos from the PBS Eons channel, "The Trouble with Trilobites" and "Why Triassic Animals Were Just the Weirdest.

M. read about the rise of the papacy and Pope Gregory with my husband early in the week. In the second of the half week, since we were ahead of schedule, we went back in time a bit to read Science in Early Islamic Culture by George Beshore.

Table Time

On Monday, I printed out these geoboard pattern cards and M and C worked on copying them onto their geoboards. M. did fine, but C. took a while to warm up to it. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we had markers, crayons and oil pastels out for drawing, and M., C., and E. all created a variety of art pieces. On Thursday, I gave them felt pieces for making different Halloween figures and they followed the patterns provided and then invented their own creations. On Friday during this time, I took M. for a long walk with baby R. and baby A. and my husband took the other girls out to ride their bikes.

Math

C. continued working on beginning multiplication in Singapore Math. She also worked on Khan Academy and read with me from Life of Fred: Butterflies. M. finished her review and moved on to the Capacity unit in Singapore Primary Mathematics 3B, which is about converting milliliters to liters and vice versa. She is still working through Life of Fred: Goldfish and fourth grade math on Khan Academy.

Preschool

This was not a big school week for E. She did some coloring, and happily pointed out familiar letters on the covers of books, but there wasn't much formal activity. She's been enjoying our Halloween books, including Ollie's Halloween by Olivier Dunrea. She and M. have also been reading together a lot. They enjoy the Bink and Gollie books and they read Mister Seahorse by Eric Carle aloud to Gran on Skype.

Science

Our topic for the week was gravity. We again used Early Elementary Science Education as our guide to the topics presented in BFSU, and we discussed why things fall to the ground when dropped and why the people in Australia don't fall off the Earth, the difference between horizontal and vertical, and the uses of a level and a plumb bob, and how gravity keeps the planets in orbit around the sun, and the moon in orbit around the earth.

Reading and Writing

M. wrote a narration about Charlemagne, and continued reading Mossflower. C. and I started reading The Happy Hollisters and the Ghost Horse Mystery aloud together. C. also wrote two thank you letters for birthday presents. M. also did a few pages in Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills: Grade 3.