Digging in and Record Keeping

Today's Astronomy Lesson: A Trip to the Planets

We decided to take a break today from learning about (and drawing) constellations (we've done 10 so far) and instead we read this story together, all three of us taking turns reading a page (it is about 27 pages long). The kids enjoyed the story, and it was a nice opportunity for DD9 to practice reading aloud, which is a challenge for her due to her language delay.

DD9 and I worked together to create this Place Value reminder page

Ancient Rome: DD11's MLB page on the Seven Hills of Rome and the Seven Kings of Rome

We talked about, read about, and then watched videos on both the 7 hills of Rome as well as the 7 kings. 

In addition to our morning warm-up/greeting song ("The Earth is Firm Beneath My Feet"), I'm planning to have a new poem each month for the kids to learn and recite... to be said after our greeting song.

Above is our current poem for September, which is attributed to George Eliot.

DD9's Grade 3 MLB title page

DD9's MLB page for intro to multiplication

Counting bowls and beads used for intro to multiplication

Counting bowls and beads set up on the table for multiplication lesson

DD9 grouping beads into the bowls to answer multiplication questions

Multiplication factor flowers for the numbers 1-3

I realize that this entire blog is really a record-keeping of sorts, but this last bit may become a bit dry for the average reader since I will be including worksheet pages and such. I want to do this periodically so that I can just give our portfolio reviewer the link for my blog, where she can skim through my posts to see what we've been doing over the year. My theory is that if I do this periodically, there will be a good sampling of work here from the beginning, middle, and end of the year for both children.

So, without further ado, the less-exciting photos:

DD9, Language Arts

 

This represents pages from Brain Quest: Grade 3 Workbook, Language Arts pages 5-18. The first photo shows the entire grouping of pages, and the next 2 are close-up samples of 2 of the pages.

DD9 Math

 

This represents pages from Brain Quest: Grade 3 Workbook, Math, pages 136-150 (the language arts pages are located in the front portion of the giant workbook, whereas the math section is much further in). These photos represent the entire grouping, as well as a sample page (and of course there's also the MLB math photos above of our multiplication lesson work)

Not pictured: Daily mental math questions that I ask the children each day during our greeting/circle time.

DD11  Language Arts

   

This represents pages from Brain Quest: Grade 6 Workbook, Language Arts, pages 6-19, the grouping, a sample page, and a writing sample.

DD11 Math

 

This represents pages from Brain Quest: Grade 6 Workbook, Math pages 144 to 165. 

Not pictured: Daily mental math questions that I ask the children each day during our greeting/circle time.

Science:  Both children are participating in the Astronomy block together, as well as nature observations when we are out on our nature walks or during some of our Homeschool Group activities. Both children are also taking part in DD9's upcoming Farming block. I posted recently about our corn harvest this week.

Social Studies/Humanities:  DD11 is focusing on Ancient Rome right now (see previous posts and photos) and DD9 is being slowly eased into a Native American block (see previous post on The Birchbark House audiobook). She is also continuing to play Stack the States on her ipad, and we turn any long drive into a mapping lesson with both children.

Art:  In addition to the work in our Main Lesson Books, the kids have also been doing some fun artistic crafts. We've crocheted some animals (see previous posts) and did some drawings:

The first photo is one DD11 did. He was experimenting with creating darker lines to outline and then filling in the insides with lighter strokes of the crayon (see the road down the middle). The second photo is an apple craft DD9 made using construction paper to cut out the shape of an apple, then the shape of a leaf, then cutting carefully with the apple folded in half to create a smaller apple shape in the middle. She then wrote her name (blotted out in this photo) in the middle. 

Phew! OK, sorry about the dryness of the worksheets...thank you for bearing with me as I attempt to do a little more "official style" record-keeping here in this blog from time to time.