Week In Photos ~ Week 35

 

Have a great weekend!

Week 35 Overview

The months of April and May have flown and we have just finished our next to last week of school. Only 5 more days left. Here is what we have been up to in week 35.

First, we started out the week with a visitor. A 3 year old, boy visitor. You won't believe it. He listened to all the read aloud and history. He read independently for 30 minutes when our 3rd graders did their own reading. He colored when they colored. Played piano when they played piano. And we got all our work done! That was the most impressive part of the day!

We got to have our last piano lessons for the year at Mrs. Dix house on her baby grand piano. That was a treat! We will meet this Sunday for our Family Music Night at Mrs. Dix's home.

Bible ~ Letters to encourage Christians
Hebrews; James; 1, 2 Peter; 1, 2, 3 John; Jude

Jesus keeps every promise the Old Testament makes. Jesus makes us able to love God and love others.
One of the truths we keep coming back to each week is that it is not enough to believe who God is and even who Jesus is. Even those that were cast out of heaven know those things to be true. The difference is who we serve, who our Lord is, who we submit to... if we are willing to confess our sin, repent, and live in Christ.

History ~

William Shakespeare
Shakespeare was born 6 years after Elizabeth I took reign. She loved music, composers, and poetry and she loved William Shakespeare's plays. He wrote comedies (checkout Taming of the Shrew!), tragedies (Hamlet), and historical plays (Henry V). He wrote more than 40 plays in all and they have been performed over and over for the last 450 years! Many things we say come from his plays. Here is an example:
You're going to eat me out of house and home! - from Henry IV, part 2
We listened to a synopsis of the tragedy Macbeth. Queen Elizabeth probably enjoyed this play because it showed that a nobleman who plotted treason against a ruler would come to a bad end.

New Ventures to America ~ Walter Raleigh, John White, and the lost colony
Basically, during Elizabeth's reign, Elizabeth didn't want Spain becoming more powerful than England (Spain was setting up colonies in North and South America) so, she sent Walter Raleigh to set up a colony in Virginia (Roanoke Island, now in North Carolina) in 1584. There were two attempts and both failed. Unrelated, Walter secretly married one of Elizabeth's ladies in waiting and when the Queen found out, she had them thrown in the Tower of London. After her death, he was released and the new king said he would spare his life if Walter went to South America and brought back gold. When Walter returned empty handed, the king had him beheaded.

During the attempt at a colony on Roanoke Island, John White (one of the settlers) had to leave his family and travel back to England in search of food. When arriving in England, Raleigh was filling a ship with provisions for White, but Elizabeth I had to use the ship to fight the Spanish Armada, so White was unable to return to Roanoke for 3 years. When he returned, the colony was gone, never to be seen again. The lost colony is a mystery.

The Spanish Armada and England- check out the photo above (photo in this post) to read about "fire ships". Interesting history!

Science for 6th ~ 
Human use of land impact on the ecosystem, methods farmers use to increase yield, expense of organic foods, farmed versus free range animals, make-up of dirt, soil layers, how farmers look after soil, weathering, how cover crops are beneficial, road crews and climate, and erosion.

Science for 3rd ~
requirements for fire, how fire spreads, how to put out different types of fire, natural versus synthetic materials, electricity, types of energy, conductors versus insulators, and electromotive force.

Math for 6th ~
Our 6th grader started reviewing and working in a new math curriculum for grades 8/7. So far, she has covered sequences, number lines with negative numbers, lines and angles, improper fractions and mixed numbers, computing with fractions, percents, elapsed time, measuring angles with a protractor, polygons, perimeter, exponents, and square roots. She's doing amazing!

Math for 3rd ~
We have had a fun time exploring more difficult multiplication problems, such as 287 x 54. Until now, we only used multiple digit factors x a single digit factor. Everyone picked up on this new skill very well. We also continued our practice of long division using a single digit divisor. We checked our mastery of skills retaught in the last couple of weeks.

Writing ~ Back to writing letters!

We played outside, played inside, practiced piano, and got to do some really fun and different lessons meant to increase reading comprehension. Sometimes it's beneficial to start with music or a painting before moving on to written stories. It's also beneficial to give students some sentence starters to help them formulate their thinking about the music, paintings, or stories. We will include some photos of our sentence starters in chart form in Week In Photos.

Happy learning!

Usborne Quicklinks ~ Week 35

History for All ~ Book: 12,000 Years of World History

p194-195

Website 1
Watch a video about Christopher Columbus.

Website 2
Find out about Columbus' ships. (Scroll down for more clips about his adventures.)

Website 3
Track the journeys of Portuguese explorers sent south by Henry the Navigator. (Click on the explorers' names to follow To dine on board Columbus's ship, click the knife and fork.)

Website 4
Follow Vasco da Gama's journey around Africa to India and learn about his life.

Website 5
Discover why America was named after Amerigo Vespucci. (Watch the next clip to find out about John Cabot's expedition for King Henry VII of England.)

Website 6
Set off on a trading voyage to Africa, India or the New World.

Pictures to download

Map of voyages

Sea monster

Columbus leaving Spain

p202-203

Website 1
Watch a video about exploration in the 16th century. (Scroll down for the clip plus infographics and a quiz.)

Website 2
Watch a video clip about explorer Ferdinand Magellan.

Website 3
Find out about Sir Francis Drake, a famous explorer and pirate. (The clip calls Drake a privateer which is another word for pirate.)

Website 4
Short biographies of Jacques Cartier, Ferdinand Magellan and Sir Francis Drake. (Click on "Explorers".)

Website 5
Become a spice trader and see if you can make the right choices to return to Portugal wealthy. (Click on "Become A Spice Trader".)

Website 6
An interactive map of the voyages of Magellan, Cartier and other 16th century explorers. (This activity uses Flash and may not work on all browsers.)

Website 7
Online activities about mapping the world and exploration in the 16th century. (These activities use Flash and may not work on all browsers.)

Pictures to download

Aztec ornament

Science for 6th Grade ~ Book: The Usborne Book of Planet Earth

Investigate each of the world's ecosystems
Click on an ecosystem to find out more.

Watch a video clip about food chains

Thoughtful guides to the problems facing life on Earth

Animations about how people use energy, and how to save it
Click on "Rational use of energy" and "Energy consumption today and in the past", or scroll down and click on other page numbers to find out about wind power and other energy sources.

Watch video clips about conservation work with zoo animals
Click on the play button or choose a clip on the right.

Population animations, games and atlas
Click on "The World Population and me" then "Launch movie" to find the size of the population when you were born.

Trace the growth of global population on a world map
Click on "Launch Interactive".

Compare different types of farming around the world
Click on "Farmers and farming over the world".

More about different types of farming

The journey of coffee, chocolate and bananas from farm to shops
Click on "View this Interactive Content".

A photo tour of an organic farm in Uganda
Scroll down to see the photos and information. (NB The Realplayer slide show is no longer available.)

Take a trip around an organic farm in the UK
Click on a trail to choose a farm.

How much soil is there on planet Earth?
For more facts and experiments, click on the topics in the left menu.

Find out about soil then go on a soil safari

Video clip about good soil management
Scroll down to Get Soil Savvy! and click on "Explore".

Solve a case and find out more about soil
Find out what soil is, how to keep it healthy and how to make your own soil from compost.

Interactive rock cycle
Take an interactive journey and find out all about the rock cycle, including weathering, then try a quiz.

Watch an animation of an arch forming

Experiment and see how rain shapes the Earth

Try some erosion activities

Take a virtual field trip to the Grand Canyon
Discover how it formed, with videos and puzzles.

Amazing photos of the Grand Canyon

See what it would be like to walk above the Grand Canyon

Science for 3rd Grade ~ (links from the updated version of The Usborne Science Encyclopedia)

Website 1
Watch a video clip about energy.

Website 2
An animated introduction to potential and kinetic energy, with lots of examples.

Website 3
Test yourself on the different forms of energy.

Website 4
Watch a circus acrobat and see how conservation - and conversion - of energy enables her to make amazing jumps.

Website 5
A fun demonstration of how energy can be passed along through a chain of reactions.

Website 6
Review the main points about energy.

Website 1
Watch a video clip about how a wind turbine works.

Website 2
See how solar energy can be used to produce electricity.

Website 3
Investigate different energy resources, with infographics, animations and video clips. (Scroll down and click on an infographic, or explore the topics in the top menu.)

Website 4
Watch a video clip about energy resources and how burning fossil fuels increases greenhouse gases.

Website 5
Complete the steps in the energy chain for each of the energy sources, then see how they are used in a power station.(Click on ʺStart the generation game activityʺ.)

Website 6
Choose the best renewable energy resource for each of the locations in an online game, and learn more about renewable energy.

Website 1
Find out more about heat and see what happens when substances expand.

Website 2
See temperatures on an interactive thermometer and compare Celsius, Fahrenheit and Kelvin scales.

Website 3
Take a trip towards absolute zero.

Website 4
Discover how a bimetallic strip is used in a thermostat.

Website 5
Quiz yourself on heat.

Website 6
An online lesson on heat and temperature.

Website 1
Watch a video that shows warm liquids rising and cool liquids sinking due to convection currents.

Website 2
See how vacuum flasks work. (Clip may not be available where you are due to BBC copyright restrictions.)

Website 3
Interactive video about energy and heat transfer.

Website 4
Watch a fun experiment that shows water is a good conductor of heat.

Website 5
Review the main points about convection, conduction and radiation, then try an activity and a quiz. (For the quiz click on "Test".)

Happy Learning!