Week 19 - Socialization

I've come to a very happy place in terms of socialization for Oscar. Between his after school activities and his friendships with a few kids (one from the neighborhood and one from school last year) we've pretty much got it covered. But there are few things we do in our homeschool day that have been great. One is the PE Plus class we started last term, that continues this term. Instead of Spanish, they've changed it to building things with wood, which Oscar really likes and seems to blend better with the day. Cooking and PE are the same, and it's a lovely 3 hour chunk of time that I can run out and do errands and just wander without having anyone attached ;) The other class we've started again is the homeschool program through the Audubon zoo. We made it to 3 sessions last term, and will do a few sessions this term as well. Last week was at the zoo, and while the class wasn't my favorite (it was chemistry in nature but I thought it would be more related to how animals use chemistry specifically) Oscar had fun reconnecting with a friend and meeting some not-so furry friends.

Kelly the hedgehog

In English, we worked on our first non-fiction text structure - descriptive. (We'll be putting all the different types of non-fiction into a chart in my effort to put more of our work in writing.) We read a passage about Magellan (Readworks.org is my new favorite resource for reading passages) and a book about Snowflake Bentley to help learn about this type of text. Barton continues as well, and we're adding a new spelling rule every week now which is great to see it all coming together. Oscar was very excited to teach Dada the "floss" rule the other night!

We started measurement in math and it made me realize how freaking confusing standard measurement is!! Someone please tell me why we aren't on the metric system? At any rate, we're going to continue with that next week as we sort through what in the world an ounce is. Can you tell I'm not happy about this unit?

In science we've moved on to landforms, and we made a flip book with different landforms, and a diorama showing them all.

In social studies, we've covered almost the whole year curriculum from the VA schools, so we're backtracking a little and covering material he missed last year (including Ancient Egypt and Ancient China). To do this in a way that flows, I bought the History of the World as a guide and so far it's really great. Short little reading passages combine with hands on activities. Some are good, and others I pull from pinterest projects. We did some cave paintings on paper and started Oscar's own timeline. Next week Ancient Egypt begins!! I'm looking forward to mummifying a barbie, and making canonic jars :)

Week 18 - Back into the swing of things

We hit the ground running last week, combining some review with our Barton work. We reviewed some sight words and parts of speech with our popsicle stick nouns,verbs, and adjectives. We also went over the features of non-fiction text, with Oscar seemed really comfortable with.

We also started working on some friendly letters, and Oscar wrote his first letter to Gigi, content inspired by our furry friend Leo.

One goal I have is to have the kids work on an art project every monday afternoon, when we don't have any other activity going on. This week we did watercolor pictures for our Thank You cards from Christmas!

In math, I've started adding a new topic each week, while reserving one day for app work (which he loves) and one day for multiplication/division facts. This seems to keep both of us interested in what we're covering. This week our new topic was lines and angles. He also took his second math quiz from the books we've been working on and got 100%! He even read the word problem all by himself. :)

In science we talked about renewable and non-renewable resources, pulling from my favorite pinterest resources… Oscar had fun trying to find toothpicks (coal) and straws (wind) that I scattered throughout the house to represent both types of resources. Here he is categorizing renewable and non-renewable energy after the lesson.

To end the unit, we watched a Reading Rainbow video on recycling and talked about the importance of reducing our energy use. A good way to get rid of the cardboard I've been hoarding for projects was to create some toys/ramps out of cardboard and then recycle them!

We also did a mini review of the scientific method with some experiments that I've had filed away that just looked fun. Oil and water is always a neat one, with the added fun of adding salt to create a lava-lamp-type effect!

watching how dye spreads differently on different surfaces

We spent another week talking about Famous Americans talking about Abraham Lincoln, Sacajawea, and Lewis and Clark. The highlight for him was definitely watching the lego rendition of Lincoln's life, complete with his lego head being blown off…I had to explain the video makers took a little creative license, but it definitely made his assassination memorable! My favorite was reading about Lewis' dog Seaman, the Newfoundland that accompanied them on their exploration west. Oscar decided there is no way he would've wanted to be an explorer. It was just too hard :)

Week 17 - Recovery

We were all sickies this week, as the flu cycled through the house. I finally rallied on Friday and pulled out some science experiment from my Pinterest arsenal. The kids loved playing with oobleck, and had fun learning about the science behind heat rising with flaming tea bags.

the orange streak at the top of the pic is the tea bag!