This week was full of distracting SNOW! :)
We did find time to complete Unit 19 this week. The kids had so much fun playing out in the snowy winter weather after our daily lessons. They were so motivated to hurry up, get their work completed, and get back outside!
Our memory verse this week was 1 John 4:10-11. This verse was particularly helpful in talking to the children about getting along with each other.
In History this week, we read about the colonial days and learned that the children had many more responsibilities and chores to do back then than the children in 2014. In our story, a mother left her child at home just before Thanksgiving while she attended a sick neighbor several miles away. While the mother was gone, the child perfectly cleaned the home from top to bottom and even scoured the floors. Apparently, after everything was clean, she sprinkled sand on the floor in a design. This was common in the 1700's. Not sure I understand the reasoning behind what they did back in the day. This tradition has faded over the years but, the kids had fun making their sand designs on construction paper with glue! Bet you can tell who did which one.... LOL... I love having both a boy and a girl!
I won't lie.... this was a very messy project and I almost decided to skip it but, I'm so glad we did it! The kids had a lot of fun with it.
As the child, Remember Biddle, completed her cleaning, she realized she had used all the soap and decided to make more. Once the soap was made, she saw an Indian in the distance. He appeared closer to her and the little girl was afraid as there was no where to hide in their small home. He barged in and she offered him trinkets and other items. He wasn't interested. He did see the soap she had made and thinking it was food he tried to taste it. She stopped him and showed him what soap was by washing his stained hands for him. She offered the soap to him and he traded it for 2 turkey's he had with him. To her surprise, both her parents rode up on their horses just in time for Thanksgiving dinner together as a family.
SCIENCE
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We learned that the sun doesn't actually go down but, that the world is spinning and when our side of the Earth is sunny... the other side is dark. We used a flashlight to demonstrate.
We also talked about time and learned about the clock; that there are 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day, and 7 days in a week.
We talked about keeping the Sabbath day holy for The Lord. We learned that on the Sabbath, the Puritans would drum so all could hear when it was time for the church meeting. We demonstrated by banging on our homemade drum and listening which direction the sound was coming from. We learned that sound is vibrations and we talked about the different parts of the ear. I printed this from my Pinterest homeschool page and had the kids label and color. You can print this HERE!
MATH
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We worked hard this week in math. I originally praised Times Tales (a multiplication program) when we used it in the fall to help my 3rd grader. I noticed he has been getting a little rusty (over the break) with the answers in moving forward for division and my 1st grader has been begging to watch the video since the fall when big brother learned! So, for review and to let my daughter excel, I decided to let them watch the video together. To my surprise, my 6 yo learned her 3,4's tables. She was very proud of herself and I must say how proud of her I am too. Guess we are moving right along with math and will learn more next week.
If anyone has children struggling with multiplication, I highly recommend Times Tales. After watching the video, we played a short game with the dice included in the purchase, did a crossword puzzle to help with the story memorization and went thru the flash cards. Next, I gave her this practice test.
She got them all right!! I love how the numbers become characters and give their little brains stories with the answers hidden to help them remember their math. For division, the children just have to know what part is missing from their stories. Such a great concept for multiplication and division. My 6yo might not always write her numbers the correct way but, she is well on her way to knowing her facts so far! Lol!
I'm very proud of her willingness to press forward. She wants so badly to know everything that big brother knows. How have you dealt with that with your children? Hoping I've made the right choice to let her go at her own pace.
SPELLING
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In Spelling, we learned about words with the -ay sound. I let the kids practice their words outside writing each of them in the snow with colored water. This was a hit for sure and it gave them a last minute review before our test!
MUSIC
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This week in music we learned to compose our own rhythm and melody using quarter notes, eighth notes and quarter rests. Our piano lesson was one that we practiced all week! They clapped out their rhythms first. 4 beats to a measure.... Then, they wrote the rhythm they chose on their heartbeat paper and looked for a good melody on the piano. They tried different notes to see what sounded the best for their melodies. They recorded the letter names of the notes they chose on their paper and played them for all to hear.
This was quite entertaining and I am very pleased with what they have learned from the lessons on www.freepianolessons4kids.com It is a great place to begin if you are looking to get your kiddo into music of any sort.
We have also been working on the song, Fifty Nifty United States and both kids know it all even though we are only on Idaho on our daily state coloring pages... coloring the flags and other important state info! Yay! Loved that we found this on YouTube with the lyrics to help us learn in alphabetical order. You can listen to it HERE!
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The snow is finally melting today after a good 2 weeks of it on the ground. I'm thankful that our school went on despite the weather conditions and didn't get us to far behind schedule. It's also been great exercise sledding and running up and down the hills throwing snowballs at each other!! Our puppy hasn't been able to find sticks in the yard so, he decided to eat the arms off the snowman!
Hope you are all staying warm and cozy in this winter weather!
Tell me about your week!
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