This week is our "fall break" so I thought I'd write about what we did last week! The movie "Muppets Most Wanted" is free on demand right now; both boys love it, and one of Caleb's favorite scenes is where the imposter Constantine (who looks almost exactly like Kermit) is watching clips of Kermit the Frog and trying to imitate him better. He gets the words to the song wrong and Caleb thinks it's hilarious!
Reading: This week we finished Six Ducks in a Pond! Caleb was very proud of himself, and asked if we could leave the book in the living room for now in case he wants to read to Micah. I found the next few books in the series (no small feat since it's out of print!), thankfully for reasonable prices through Ebay and Etsy, believe it or not (these books are considered vintage!).
We also started working in a language arts workbook so Caleb can learn more about parts of speech, grammar, punctuation, etc.
Spelling: We did Week 13 of our spelling curriculum and Caleb got 6 out of 8 correct on his test.
Handwriting: We continued in our handwriting workbook.
Vocabulary: This week's words were "hush," "daring," "speck," and "tour."
Math: Caleb had a test this week and did very well! (He wanted to go back and fix the problems he got wrong.)
Bible: We continued in His Mighty Warrior. One day we discussed the idea of being strong in the Lord and "powering up with prayer," so I helped him fill in a simple "spiritual muscles" page.
Read-Aloud: We finished Encyclopedia Brown near the end of the week.
Science: This week's topic was digestion. We watched the "Magic School Bus" episode about digestion; Caleb thought it was kind of gross since the bus literally goes through the digestive system of one of their students (well most of it...they realize they don't want to go south anymore, so they drive back up and make him burp them out!). We did a fun activity with bread to demonstrate what food goes through as it's digested. First Caleb ripped the bread (in this case, a couple of stale hamburger buns) into small pieces to represent chewing. We also dribbled water on the pieces to represent saliva. Then we squirted lemon juice on the bread to represent stomach acid (the original source used vinegar, but I figured lemon juice would be less stinky). Finally we wrapped the mushy bread in a towel and rolled it up to demonstrate the intestines; when we were done we were left with a log of bread! So yes, we made "bread poop," which is pretty much perfect for a first grade boy! I pointed out the liquid and small bits of bread left on the towel to Caleb, saying that the towel absorbed some of the bread, much like our stomach and intestines absorb vitamins and nutrients from the food we eat (then gets rid of what we don't need!).
U.S. Geography: This week's state was Alabama. Caleb colored his state page and we read a couple of books from the library. We learned that Alabama has some caverns, and attempted to make our own stalagmites and stalactites using water, baking soda, string, and paper clips (we also colored the water to make it more interesting). By the end of the week we had definite build-up, so Caleb opted to leave the experiment out to see what else would form during the next week.
We also learned about Rosa Parks and segregation. I cut out several pictures of children out of a magazine, making sure I had diversity, and drew a bus on construction paper. Caleb then glued the children on the bus, and he said they could sit wherever they want!
Homeschool Group: This week we met at the center and learned about mammals!
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