ivey league academy: weeks in review!

Here's what we did the weeks of 1/15-1/19 and 1/22-1/26!

Reading:  Caleb continued reading out of his Kittens and Children reader and completing a Word Ladder a day.

English:  We did a cumulative review of what Caleb's learned so far, and then started in on Chapter 9.  He learned about capitalizing proper nouns, correct abbreviations, pronouns, and possessive nouns.  He also learned about when to use "I" or "me."

Spelling:  We continued in our Spelling You See workbook.  During this time we moved into more challenging dictation words.  All of the words I called out had the "__ __ a __" pattern, and Caleb seemed to have the most trouble with consonant blends that happened in the first part of each word (such as the "sl" in "slam").  Overall he's doing very well though.  We keep it very low-key so he doesn't get himself all stressed out.  I can tell he's really trying to hear the letter sounds, but sometimes he admits that he just doesn't hear it.  Soon I might get our letter and word tiles out again for extra practice....maybe the hand-on manipulatives will help him too!

Word of the Week and Journal:  We had the words "opinion" and "talented" during these two weeks. Apparently I forgot to take pictures of our vocabulary charts!

Math:  Caleb finished his first workbook and we moved on to the second half of math!  He's still doing well with multiplication as well as fractions which were just re-introduced.

Anatomy:  We began Volume 2 of the Sassafras Science Adventures, which focuses on anatomy.  The first week was basically an overview of what we'll be learning; I attempted to trace Caleb's outline so we could add the different body systems/parts we learn about to it (I might just print out a life-size skeleton and then add on to that!).  Then in the second chapter, the twins travel to Ethiopia and end up working with an archaeologist who teaches them about the skeletal system.  Similar to what we did in our zoology study, each lesson has an "anatomy record sheet" where the student writes down facts about each body part or system that's studied.  Caleb and I learned about the skull and the backbone specifically during the second week.  We did a fun science experiment with water balloons to see how the skull protects our brain; Caleb wrapped up one water balloon in bubble wrap and then we tried to throw it really hard to see if it would break (Caleb was all ready to get wet so Micah and I threw it in his direction!).  We also threw a water balloon without any protective covering.  Caleb also constructed a little backbone out of a cut-up egg carton and a pipe cleaner!

Countries:  We studied Iceland and Greece during this time.  For Iceland, we learned more about the Northern Lights since the northern part of Iceland is one of the places where they're visible.  Caleb and Micah then used watercolors to make their own Northern Lights.  I also made them "Icelandic hot chocolate" which is basically hot chocolate with sea salt added.  The boys only liked it once I added a bit more sugar to it; I think it was because I only had dark cocoa powder so maybe it was just too intense for them.  For Greece, we read a book about the ancient Olympics and then Caleb made a laurel wreath out of a paper plate (the athletes used to get laurel wreaths instead of the medals we see today!).  For our food, I found spanakopita in the freezer section at Target; it's basically spinach in a puff pastry shell and it was cheaper and easier than trying to make it from scratch.  I thought the boys would like it; they eat creamed spinach and who doesn't like a flaky crust?  But they were pickier than I thought.  So I ate one and we still have several more in the freezer for another time (luckily they were appetizer size so it wasn't a big waste!).

Extras:  During the second week, we also started a fun cartography/geography set called Legends & Leagues.  We have the Grade 1 set, which is a storybook plus a workbook with suggested activities.  The storybook itself is nicely illustrated, plus has the fun characters Mr. Latitude (who is very wide) and Mr. Longitude (who is very tall).  So far we've only done one activity; we learned about strip maps from ancient times and then Caleb made one showing the way from our house to church (though it's the scenic route; he wanted to include downtown Canton and our local Moe's!).  I'm going to pick and choose more activities for us to do as we have time since Caleb really likes maps and then we can see if we want to do the books for the latter grade levels.

Links:
Northern Lights Painting (The Pinterested Parent)
Icelandic Hot Chocolate Recipe (Savory Tooth)
Laurel Wreath Craft (Pretty Providence)

ivey league academy: week in review!

 

Here's what we did the week of 1/8-1/12!

Reading:  We continued with our Kittens and Children reader as well as daily Word Ladders.

English:  We did Chapter 8 in our English curriculum in which Caleb learned about book reports.  He learned about choosing a book to write about, and underlining the book title, the difference between the summary and your opinion, and how to tell "just enough" information.  By the end of the week he had completed his own book report on The Panda Puzzle, one of the "A to Z Mysteries" books.  I decided not to bother with a test for this chapter and just move on next week!

Spelling:  We continued in our Spelling You See workbook.

Word of the Week/Journal:  Our word of the week was "topple."

Math:  We continued in our Horizons Math workbook and had Test 8 at the end of the week.

Bible:  We finished up Lesson 8 in our Who is God? book.

Zoology:  We read the last chapter of our Sassafras Science: Volume 1.  The twins returned to their uncle's basement and their phones receive "bonus data" about the animals they had learned about.  I checked out library books about some of these topics, such as migration, camouflage/mimicry, food chains, etc.  Caleb also filled in a migration map in his workbook.  I'm going to order prints of the pictures I took during our different experiments and demonstrations so we can include those in his workbook as well.  We'll start Volume 2 (Anatomy) next week!

Countries:  We studied Norway this week.  We read a couple of fun Norwegian stories, as well as a nonfiction book so Caleb could fill out his fact sheet for his country notebook.  He colored and put together a Viking ship and we also gave Norwegian bread a try.  It's a very dense bread; it was very good while it was still warm (especially with a drizzle of honey!), but once it cooled down it was more like a doorstop!  :)

Links:
Viking Ship Activity (Teachers Pay Teachers) $1
Viking Bread Recipe (Raising Lifelong Learners)

ivey league academy: week in review

Here's what we did the week of 12/11-12/15!

This was a lighter week; we took a break from English and Bible, and only did one journal entry.  We also made Thursday our last day of school before Christmas break.

Reading:  Caleb continued to read out of our Kittens and Children reader.

English:  {break}

Spelling:  We continued in his Spelling You See curriculum.

Word of the Week:  Our word for this week was "lingo."

Math:  We continued in his Horizons Math workbook.

Bible: {break}

Zoology:  We spent one more week in the ocean habitat, learning about the blue whale and giant squid.  Caleb finished up the animal fact sheets, the ocean habitat map, the habitat sticker sheet, and his food chart.  For our demonstration, I made a "blubber glove" out of two ziploc bags (place a couple of scoops of shortening in one bag, then put your hand inside the second bag and push it into the first bag so it creates a lining of "blubber").  I used snow from our backyard to simulate the cold temperatures we'd been learning about.

We have one more summarizing chapter to go and then we'll be finished with the zoology curriculum!  For the second half of second grade, we'll continue with the Sassafras twins and learn about anatomy next.

Countries:  Our country for this week was Sweden.  We didn't get to read all of the books I checked out, but we did read The Tomten on my tablet and did a craft based on it.  We also made Swedish meatballs with gravy as well as kokosballs, which are very yummy no-bake chocolate-coconut balls.

Links:
Tomten Craft (What Do We Do All Day)
Swedish Meatballs Recipe (The Recipe Critic)
Kokosballs Recipe (The Petite Cook)

ivey league academy: week in review!

Here's what we did the week of 12/4-12/8!

We ended up taking a sick day on Monday; Caleb especially was very congested and was coughing a lot, and I was still getting over a sinus headache.

Reading:  Because our printer was out of ink and we didn't get a cartridge until later in the week, Caleb only had to do one Word Ladder! (I copy them out of the book in case I want to use the book again.)  He also only read out loud on Friday; before that, he would cough a lot if he had to use his voice.

English:  Caleb had his Chapter 7 review and test this week, and we also did a cumulative review.  We're almost halfway through his curriculum (there are sixteen chapters total), so I think we'll hold off on starting Chapter 8 until after New Year's.

Spelling:  We continued in his Spelling You See curriculum.

Word of the Week/Journal:  Our word of the week was "clench."  Caleb wrote about clenching his play-doh!

Math:  We continued in his Horizons math workbook.  He had a test in this subject as well, and did great!

Bible:  We only got to Bible one day this week.  We started a new lesson in which we'll answer the question, "Does God really supply all my needs?"

Zoology:  We started our study of the ocean habitat this week.  We learned about king penguins and codfish.  The scientific demonstration in the teacher's manual seemed a little confusing to me, so I looked up another experiment on Pinterest.  Caleb mixed a little bit of coffee grounds in water (it was supposed to be dirt but I didn't want to go dig any up!), then slowly poured it through a coffee filter wrapped around a plastic cup.  He saw that the filter (representing the fish's gills) allowed the water to pass through but "caught" the grounds.  Similarly, the fish is able to breathe underwater because its gills "catch" the oxygen out of the water and allow the water to then pass through again.

Countries:  We learned about The Netherlands this week!  For our craft, Caleb made a windmill out of a toilet paper tube.  For our recipe, we tried hagelslag, or "hailstorm" in Dutch.  Apparently this is a popular breakfast in The Netherlands.  They probably have better chocolate sprinkles over there, but it was still an interesting food to try.  Caleb thought it was too sweet to be a breakfast food, but I pointed out he likes doughnuts and Cinnamon Toast Crunch and those have a lot of sugar too!

Extras:  On Wednesday night, our church's small group got together for Christmas and played Hedbanz (it was the grown-up version but Caleb still participated).  Caleb loved it, and I pointed out to him that we had the kid version at home but hadn't played it yet.  So the very next day we got it out once we were done with school.  Micah still gets confused with it so he usually prefers to watch, but Caleb thinks it's awesome!

On Friday morning, it started to snow.  We were expecting just an inch or two at first; the snow was very wet and slushy but Caleb still went out in it.  It started snowing more and more later that evening and by Saturday most areas around us got six to eight inches at least!  Many people lost power but thankfully ours only cut in and out a couple of times on Saturday morning.

These snow pictures are from Friday afternoon, before the "real snow" happened!  :)

Links:
How Do Fish Breathe? Demonstration (Preschool Powol Packets)
Windmill Craft (DLTK's Growing Together)
Hagelslag Recipe (Serious Eats)

ivey league academy: week in review!

Here's what we did the week of 11/27-12/1!

Reading:  We continued with doing a Word Ladder a day as well as reading out of our Kittens and Children reader.  Caleb is doing so much better with reading out loud.  I can tell he's really trying hard not to rush, because it's when he goes too fast that he makes mistakes or skips words completely.

English:  We finished the last part of Chapter 7, which focused on practical skills.  We learned about how to use a dictionary (guide words, entry words, how to see if a word has more than one definition, etc.), library skills (fiction versus nonfiction and how they're organized on the shelf), and even how to use a phone book (a dying skill, admittedly.  We covered the basics and skipped the lesson on how to take a phone message...we don't have a landline so if we ever do get one then we'll cover how to take a message!).

Spelling:  We did Week 3 of his Spelling You See curriculum.  I noticed this week's lessons were different in the teacher dictation part.  Rather than tracing the simple three-letter words, starting this week he had to listen to the words I called out.  They still have the same vowel sound in common, but it's a good way to teach Caleb to listen for the letter sounds as well as how to group similar words together.

Math:  We continued in his Horizons workbook. 

Word of the Week:  Our word of the week was "ransack."  In his journal, Caleb wrote that he would "ransack" his room if he ever couldn't find his game ball from baseball!

Bible:  We continued Lesson 7 and learned about what our purpose is and why God created us (spoiler alert...He created us because He wanted to and we're to give Him glory).  :)

Zoology:  We played catch-up on Monday and finished Chapter 14.  Caleb filled out information on the snow goose and I also copied a map out of a library book that shows geese migration patterns.  We pasted it into his logbook.

After we were caught up, we continued to Chapter 15 (the second part of the Arctic habitat section).  We learned about polar bears and mountain goats.  For the scientific demonstration, Caleb learned about how polar bears can walk on the ice without slipping; they have special fur on the bottoms of their paws that helps them grip.  To demonstrate that, we put two small cans (one wrapped up in a washcloth) on a large baking sheet and tilted it.  The wrapped-up can represented a polar bear's paw, and it didn't slide down as easily as the regular can did.  I also reminded Caleb that we did a very similar experiment last year when we learned about friction!

Countries:  This week we learned about Ireland.  We read library books and filled out a country fact sheet as usual.  For our recipe, we made Irish soda bread.  It uses baking soda instead of yeast to make it rise, and hearkens back to when many people in Ireland were poor and found ways to make nourishing food without a lot of ingredients.  For our craft, we made shamrocks using bell peppers as stamps!

Extras:  One day we had a little extra time, so we got out our SQUILT cards and I pulled up the videos for the brass family of the orchestra.  We had a nice quiet listening time as the videos featured works like "Pictures at an Exhibition," "The Ride of the Valkyries," and even the theme from Superman!  We still have the percussion family to go and after that I might look into purchasing another SQUILT set, maybe composers this time.  Our read-aloud was Chicken Squad by Doreen Cronin.  It's a very quick read as a read-aloud (as opposed to Caleb reading it by himself), and very silly and entertaining!  I put the rest of the series on hold at the library because I could tell we'd go through them quickly!

Links:
Irish Soda Bread recipe (Let's Dish Recipes)
Shamrock Stamp craft (Crafty Morning)