Homeschool Update: Week of 1/25/21

Morning Time 

• 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): "Star Wish" by Anonymous, "The Star (Extract)" by Jane Taylor, "January" by John Updike, "Winter Time" by Robert Louis Stevenson, "The Furry Ones" by Aileen Fisher, "Maggie" by Anonymous 
• Articles from National Geographic Explorer magazine (Trailblazer edition) Vol. 17 No. 4: "Turned to Stone" by Michael Greshko, "Mineral Mania" by Beth Geiger, "Frozen...Again!" by Cynthia Overbeck Bix  
• Art appreciation: Red Hills and Bones by Georgia O'Keeffe from Come Look with Me: Exploring Landscape Art with Children by Gladys S. Blizzard 
• Singing: Simple Gifts, Gloria from Mass VIII (Missa de Angelis)
• Memory work: C.: continents, directions, planets, months, days of the week, "The Tiger" by William Blake; M: marks of the church, 7 sacraments, oceans, Great Lakes, 50 states, 13 colonies, first 16 books of the Bible, "A Christmas Carol" by Kenneth Grahame, countries of Europe; E: numbers 1-10, letters of the alphabet 
• Catechism: Lesson 16, "The First Commandment of God" from The New Saint Joseph Baltimore Catechism.  
• Music Appreciation: "Appalachian Spring: Variations on a Shaker Tune" by Aaron Copland 

Science 

This week's section of BFSU was "C-4: Concepts of Energy III: Distinguishing Between Matter and Energy." Using EESE as our guide, we compared matter and energy.  We read Matter: See It, Touch It, Taste It, Smell It by Darlene R. Stille and  Heat by Sally M. Walker and the girls watched Science Video for Kids: What is Energy? We had scheduled two weeks for this topic, but we didn't even need one full week to cover everything. 

History

M. read about medieval France in A Picturesque Tale of Progress. C. continued reading History Can Be Fun, covering Ancient Greece and the beginnings of Ancient Rome. 

Math

M. and C. both worked in their respective Singapore books. Both did review sections with word problems. M. completed Life of Fred: Honey Chapter 11 and C. did Life of Fred: Butterflies Chapter 16. 

Reading and Writing 

M. finished reading Our Little Crusader Cousin of Long Ago to Gran on Skype. She also composed a thank you note to my sister-in-law without help and then we corrected her spelling and punctuation. 

C. read Beezus and Ramona. 

E. discovered A Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats and started looking for other books about Peter on our shelves. 

Instrumental Music

Both girls practiced piano and recorder.

Other Activities

We had a masked outdoor playdate with our neighbors' grandkids on Friday. On Sunday, the girls played out on the deck in the snow. We also made Valentines for our long-distance relatives to they would get in the mail early enough to arrive on time. We used construction paper, crayons, and heart stickers from Dollar Tree.