Week In Photos ~ Week 6

Week 6 Overview

We are moving along this school year and just completed week 6. Here are just some of the many things we learned or did this week.

Language Arts:

• Vocabulary word winner: prey (since we are studying about animals, and specifically birds, we found prey 13 times in various readings during the week). 
• Our 3rd graders FINISHED reading Beezus & Ramona by Beverly Cleary. We will watch the movie as a treat in the near future. They are so excited! They found Ramona to be very funny.
• Our sentence diagrams are getting more complex in grammar. We have now learned to identify adjectives and diagram sentences with adjectives when they are describing or modifying the subject.
• Somehow, girls writing about dads is universally better than girls writing about moms. Yes, we are writing about moms now and some main topics related to moms, so far, have been napping and eating. Surely, we do more than that? I am waiting for some girls to write that their moms do "all the things". Haha! I won't hold my breath. #daddysgirls

Bible & Other History & Geography:

• Covering the history recorded in Genesis chapters 25-50, we learned about God's people in the times of Isaac, Esau, Jacob, and Joseph. God's people were safe in Egypt during famine and during wars in Canaan.
• Story of the World is so exciting because it helps us see recorded history of the Bible and the rest of history together, unlike what many people experience in history classes. This week, we learned about the history of: the Phoenicians and the Israelites in Canaan, the founding of Carthage, how the Assyrians rebelled against the Babylonians, Ashurbanipal ruling the fierce Assyrians, the library in Nineveh, the Babylonians taking revenge out on the Assyrians, Nebuchadnezzar's rule in Babylon, early life in Crete, and the end of the Minoans. (Covering events in our timeline from 2200 BC to 500 BC).
• Map: Assyria, Samaria, Corinth, Judah, Nineveh, Carthage, Tyre, Asia Minor, Nile Delta, Gaza, Aegean Sea, and Crete

Math:

• making 8 & 9 for math fluency
• We started MULTIPLICATION AND DIVISION! What?! It's true! And we are doing pretty well, too.
• Skip counting by 2s, 3s, 4s, & 5s.
• Our 6th grader is learning about the math computation involved in real world problems, like eating right, quilting, income taxes, and computer hard drives.

Science:

• Birds! Feathers, eggs, migration, nests, and more.

We hope you will check out our Usborne Quicklinks (see previous post from yesterday) to see cool videos and such about our science and history topics.

Happy Reading!

Usborne Quicklinks ~ Week 6

Science~ 3rd grade

Book: Mysteries & Marvels of Nature

Pages:

p72-73 bird nests, bird plumage, attracting a mate

p84-85 nests and eggs of birds, egg to chick

p96-97 webcams and videos of birds in their nests

p108-109 bird migration, birds catching prey, surviving harsh conditions

p120-121 special bird features

History~ All grades

Book: 12,000 Years of History

Pages:

p50-51 Phoenician voyage, Phoenician alphabet, ruins of the city of Carthage

p52-53 Assyrian soldiers, Assyrian wall relief from a palace

p54-55 Palace of Nimrud, lion-hunting in Assyria, King Ashurnasipal II

p56-57 Babylon ruins, Babylonian inventions, trade in Babylonian times

Week In Photos ~ Week 5

At our 2nd co-op meeting,

Form 2 had a shooting tournament with their marshmallow guns.

Yay for Sarah Cate!

 We also had an extra student join us for co-op and after due to

Hurricane Irma causing public school closures all week.

The Coleman Academy for Girls... & a Boy!

Our first full week of dance

Reciting Psalm 139:1-6

Packing our "Buckets of Help"...one of our church's Send Relief projects after Hurricane Irma.

A treat for my helper after we shopped for the relief supplies

 Even the teacher got a lunch treat :)

 This week, we prayed together for Dominica. They were hit with Hurricane Maria as a category 5 and we have not heard from people we are connected to through our church, but we pray for their safety. Nick and I were in Dominica a couple of years ago right after a tropical storm. After seeing the damage from that, I cannot imagine the devastation from this category 5. Please pray for them.

Week 5 Overview

Week 5 was a little different because we started our first day of the week last Friday, our 2nd co-op day. We continued with a full work schedule as we dove into the rest of "week 5" this week.

Here's some of our studies:

Language Arts:

• A new chapter book called God King: A story in the days of King Hezekiah
• Some unknown vocabulary: duration, obscure, preserve, puny, & comprehend 
• 3rd graders' first assigned independent reading- Beezus & Ramona by Beverly Cleary (this is a challenge for our students because it is longer than one they would choose on their own, but it is time to push them to the next level)

Bible & Other History & Geography:

• Father Abraham and God's promise
• Egypt invades Nubia, a woman pharaoh, Amenhotep (the first Egyptian monotheist), the Israelites leave Egypt with Moses
• Map: Palestine, Canaan, Red Sea, Jerusalem, Mediterranean Sea, & more

Math:

• making 6 & 7 for math fluency
• two-step word problems (another step up in complexity for 3rd graders)
• Long division review and divisibility rules review for our 6th grader

Science:

• Birds! From camouflage to movement to prey and more.

See that image above? Piano Maestro is an I-pad app that we use during the week in conjunction with our piano practice and lessons with Mrs. Dix. The students love it! They get immediate feedback from their playing: timing and accuracy. Our newest 3rd grade student has already moved up to Rank 7! This is fabulous! Our other two students have entered their 4th year of using piano Maestro, so our 6th grader is on Rank 70 and our returning 3rd grader is Rank...80! They are working hard at their next steps in music. 

Ask our students about what they are learning throughout the week!

Usborne Quicklinks ~ Week 5

Here are the pages to explore through our Usborne Links for history and science in week 5:

History~ Book: 12,000 years

p40-45 Trade in Egypt, Egypt's pharaohs, Egypt's gods & goddesses, write your own name in hieroglyphs, & ancient Egyptian home life

p46-49 Israelites, Canaanites, Philistines, the temple of King Solomon, and Moses leads God's people out of Egypt

Science~ Book: Mysteries and Marvels of Nature

p122-123 Nocturnal animals

p12-13 Birds' prey and dissect a virtual owl pellet

p24-25 Birds' movement

p36-37 Birds fight over food & defend their territory

p48-49 Camouflage & birds

p60-61 Relationships of birds & other animals

Happy Learning!

Week In Photos ~ Week 4

 They spotted a turtle from the window

 Sadly, I saw this snake caught by a hawk on Wednesday this week.

The hawk even sat on the fence with the snake in his talons and showed off his catch to me.

Below is our evidence of vocabulary learning.

We create one of these for each group of new words in our vocabulary book.

Week 4 Overview

A view outside of The Coleman Academy before Hurricane Irma

Welcome back to school after a break from the effects of Hurricane Irma! Week 4 ended today, on a Thursday. Every one of our 36 weeks this year is a full 5 days of learning, adding up to a total of 180 days. But, day 5 doesn't always fall on a Friday. So, sometimes our overview will be posted during the week, rather than on Friday. Now that you know all of the hard work we do from our first 3 weekly overviews, instead of listing everything we do, we will highlight things we have finished and new topics we have started. We still read, are read to, and practice piano every day, among other things, even though you may not see it listed below.

Here's some of our studies from this week:

Language Arts:

• We finished our first read aloud, The Golden Goblet, Oh, how we are going to miss Ranifer, our beloved main character.
• Psalm 139 (we are planning on memorizing ALL 24 verses!)
• Our Lesson 2 Word Winner is CRAVE! We found this word the most in our other reading

Bible & Other History & Geography:

• God created the first man and woman, how sin entered the world, the flood, and God's promise to Noah
• Ancient China, Shang Dynasty, the discovery of silk, growing rice, Japan, Kush, Africa, Sahara Desert, and Arabia

Math:

• memorizing doubles
• Subtracting numbers into the thousands with and without regrouping
• word problems: deciding the operation (add or subtract)

Science:

• Defenses of mammals- Did you know that a polar bear's hair is clear and hollow?! It's true! It just looks white from light reflection. Also, did you know that lions only see in black and white, which is how the zebra's stripes blend in so well with the long grasses to hide it from a lion (a zebra's main predator)?
• Where mammals sleep and how they deal with harsh climates

See our previous post from Monday about Usborne Quicklinks in Science and history for week 4.
And feel free to leave comments! We love hearing from our readers.

Happy Learning!

Usborne Quicklinks ~ Week 4

Here are our Usborne links for week 4. Check out the site from the "Usborne Quicklinks" link on the right of the blog. Search for the book you want, then the pages below.

3rd Grade Science
Book: Mysteries and Marvels of Nature

• p50-51 animals' defenses
• p62-63 relationships with plants and animals for survival
• p74-75 how animals help each other
• p86-87 mammals' milk
• p98-99 where mammals sleep
• 110-111 mammals heating and cooling themselves

History for all

Book: 12,000 Years of World History

• p70-71 The people of early China
• p78-79 Life in ancient Africa

Happy Exploring!

RCHA: River City Homeschool Adventures Co-op

Everyone was so excited to start our co-op this year! River City Homeschool Adventures, or RCHA for short, is a great learning experience which we attend three times a month. Our first co-op this year was so much fun and we are all looking forward to the rest of the year.

Our classes this year are:

• Assembly: games, performances, and more
• Nature Study (study, sketching, & watercolor painting of plants and animals): birds, mammals, and wildflowers
• PE: various sports and games
• ACP (Artist, Composer, Poet): First semester is Winslow Homer, Tchaikovsky, and Emily Dickinson
• Geography: South America and Australia 
• Discovery Form 2 (grades 3-5): Backyard Ballistics, Disney Science of Imagineering, and Science/Art/101 things
• Discovery Form 3 (grades 6-8): Art, Backyard Ballistics, and Science (Chemistry)

This week in particular, we learned:

• How to make paint (middle school only)
• How to make a marshmallow shooter and how a potato gun works (3rd grade only)
• How to observe and sketch nature in our nature journals
• About the artist Winslow Homer and the poet Emily Dickinson (introductions), including studying Home Sweet Home (Winslow) and I'm Nobody! Who Are You? (Dickinson)
• How to shoot a basketball in PE
• How to locate four of Australia's seven states and territories in Geography
• 
  

Here are some photos from ACP today:

Listening to a biographical introduction to Winslow Homer

Home Sweet Home by Homer

A look at two Union soldiers after the devastating Battle of Fredericksburg, one of the costliest battles of the American Civil War with 18,000 casualties. The band in the background is playing the song Home Sweet Home, a song that was well known by both sides as they longed for home.

At the park after co-op, showing off their new marshmallow shooters!

Which part of co-op did your child enjoy the first day? Feel free to share in the comments below.

Happy Learning!

Week In Photos ~ Week 3

Piano practice every day! This is year 4 for a couple students and year 1 for our newest student.

Working hard every day

 The students color in those new adult color books with tiny details

while listening to the read aloud each afternoon.

Math fact fluency is a must to practice a little each day.

First day at co-op

 Co-op: ACP (Artist, Composer, Poet)

After co-op at the park with our new marshmallow shooters