First Wrap-up in Way Too Long

The kids have been having lots of fun the past few months.  In addition to all the holiday fun in December, they've continued to take once-a-month art tours and classes at the Montclair Art Museum....

December was working with pastels...

 

 

 

 

while January involved GLITTER!

Vicki and I did some crafty painting fixing up my old dollhouse.  This dollhouse was made for me by my grandfather over 40 years ago. It's been sitting in various attics and garages for the past 20 or so years.

Before....

During....

And the Final.

TheY resumed or continued with their various PE activities including Zumba, swimming lessons, ice skating (including a Valentine's party at the rink this week).....

 

 

fencing....

 

and Vicki is giving archery a try.



We've also been enjoying (eh) playing in the snow that came every Sunday-Monday in January.

 

The kids learned about Explorers, Simple Machines, and Electricity in the past few months.

Now for what they've been doing in their core school work. Both have been doing very well and progressing steadily.   

VICKI

Language Arts

HANDWRITING: To encourage writing, they've continued doing some Draw/Write/Now.   Even though she still tends to color anything as quickly as possible, I think Vicki's drawings are coming along fairly well.

 

HANDWRITING/LITERATURE: Vicki is also getting handwriting practice through copywork using The Wand.  She has finished up Level 2, which included passages from Harry and the Lady Next Door, Owl Moon, Chicken Soup with Rice, Big Max: The World's Greatest Detective, Harold and the Purple Crayon and Olivia Goes to Venice.   She'll be starting on Level 3 shortly and in the coming months may start alternating with Writing with Ease 1.

LITERATURE:  In addition to The Wand selections for Vicki (and WWE for George), the kids have also been doing the Aesop's Fables Literature Pockets from Evan-Moor.  They read The Tortoise and the Hare, The Lion and the Mouse, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, The Miller His Son and Their Donkey, The Fox and the Goat, The Fox and the Stork, and The Cat The Rooster and the Mouse.  Each story had a cut, paste and color activity and questions about the characters and/or moral of the story.

 

 

 

 

 

VOCABULARY:  Vicki is continuing to work through Word-A-Day from Evan-Moor.  Word-A-Day is 36 weekly lessons and she is up to Week 16 in the 2nd grade book.  Her recent words include: obnoxious, scholar, vigorous, disturb, miniature, bizarre, companion, trio, retrieve, alert, hodgepodge, affection, scarce, inhabit, identical, participate, decay, modern, grip, abbreviated, bargain, emotion, hardy, gleam, harmony, ideal, jovial, loaf, nominate, occupy, queasy, tedious, advertise, convince, interview.

I like these because in addition to providing a definition and multiple choice options to check understanding, they also ask at least one open-ended question.  Some of Vicki's recent, more interesting answers include:

Have you ever seen someone being obnoxious? What was the person doing? How did you feel about it?  Singing then screaming.  I felt annoyed.

What's the most bizarre thing you've ever seen or heard about?  My bros hair.

What emotions do you prefer?  I prefer Joy.

Write about your ideal bedroom  If my room was a palace, it would be ideal.

Choose an animal and write about the kind of home it occupies.  My snake occupies his cage.
(speaking of Galactic, he's getting pretty big.  He's about 2 feet long now).

READING COMPREHENSION: Vicki is doing Daily Reading Comprehension from Evan Moor.  She has six more weeks left to finish the second grade book.  Each day she reads a passage and then answers multiple choice and one open ended question about the passage.   Passages include fiction, non-fiction, signs, charts, and graphs.

GRAMMAR: Vicki just finished up the 2nd grade Grammar and Punctuation book from Evan Moor.  These books are arranged by rules and the most recent ones were on they versus them, adding -s or -es for plurals, special plural nouns, is versus are, commas in a list, commas in dates and addresses, apostrophes, -ed, changing y to I to add -es, dropping the e to add -ing or -ed, doubling consonants to add -ed or -ing, special words for past tense (had, sang, ate), using -er or -est.  Now that she's finished the 2nd grade book, she'll work on grammar through The Wand and her spelling, and start the 3rd grade book in September if it seems needed.

SPELLING/WRITING/GRAMMAR:  Vicki finished the 2nd grade Skill Sharpeners Spell and Write from Evan Moor and moved on to the 3rd grade book.  She's been doing very well with the words and only misses an occasional word.   In addition to traditional spelling activities like writing each word two times, and using them in a sentence, it explains the phonics rules that may apply to the list, and includes grammar and creative writing activities.    She is up to Unit 5 in the 3rd grade book and has only missed three words - they're (the're), different (diffrent), and Mississippi (Mississipi).   Each unit has 10 spelling words.

 

 

 

 

 

MATH

Vicki is almost finished with Math Mammoth 2A and will be starting 2B shortly.   She has two more units left in the 2nd grade Skill Sharpeners Math book from Evan Moor.  This provides extra, mixed practice while MM covers one topic at a time.  The topics covered recently have been addition and subtraction with regrouping, measuring temperature, word problems, fractions of a set, measuring with a ruler, graphing, metric measurements, telling time to the five minutes, calculating perimeter, patterns, symmetry, coordinate pairs, the concept of multiplication, and money.

She's also doing Daily Word Problems 2nd grade for extra practice in setting up equations and understanding word problems.   She does seem to have picked up her brothers habit of not writing out the equation.

GEORGE

Language Arts

HANDWRITING: George enjoys drawing way more than Vicki does.  He likes to draw comics, make up his own Pokémon, illustrate his stories.   He had fun with the Draw/Write/Now they did.  I really like his swan picture.  I think both his drawing and is handwriting are showing a lot of improvement.

 

HANDWRITING/LITERATURE:   George has finished Writing with Ease 1 and started Writing with Ease 2.  He still struggles some with the narration (listening!).  Some selections are chosen for him to read in their entirety. 

LITERATURE:  George also did the Aesop's Fables Literature Pockets.

 

VOCABULARY:  George has finished the 4th grade Word-A-Day book from Evan Moor and started on the 5th grade book.  His recent words have been: detest, scavenger, trivial, hemisphere, ambition, dingy, transmit, encounter, bygone, renovate, elevate, garland, flammable, horde, immaculate, junction, yearn, collate, tuition, tamper, vigorous, flourish, snob, congested, blotch, automatic, glutton, implore, harmonious, deplete, rendezvous, ponder, noxious, quagmire.

And his always amusing answers to the open-ended questions:

Give an example of something you detest.  I detest all vegetables but corn on the cob.

Write about something that may be trivial to others but not to you. To others, computer games might be trivial, but not me!

In what type of situation might you see a horde? Zombie Apocalypse!!  (I supposed I should be impressed that he actually spelled apocalypse correctly.)

How would you explain to a snob that people are all equal? Give it to him/her straight.

What is something automatic that helps you do chores or work? Robots (LOL in the future).

READING COMPREHENSION:  George is working in the 5th grade Daily Reading Comprehension book from Evan Moor.  This level includes more non-fiction passages, tables of contents, maps, charts, graphs and harder short answer questions.  He's been doing very well in reading into the passages to infer the answers.

SPELLING/WRITING/GRAMMAR:  George alternates More Proofreading Practice Please from Scholastic with Skill Sharpeners Spell and Write from Evan Moor.  It shows that he is not just memorizing things long enough to pass the test but able to apply it in a different format.

He is working in the 5th grade book for Spelling and has only missed a few words: environment (enviroment), pleasant (pleasent) out of  50 words.  He seems to enjoy the creative writing assignments that are part of each lesson.  These lessons included passages about ants, Tall Tales, fingerprints, Elizabeth Blackwell (first woman doctor in the US), and the duckbilled platypus.

 

George wrote a report on his unusual animal:

The Frilliami is an unusual creature.  For one, it's frills can literally zap you!  They like to eat fruit that's oily.  It has a very flexible tail.  It's Natural Environment is swamps or abandoned campsites.  Because of their gluttonous omnivore diet, bears and most birds aren't fond of it.  But it's sharp teeth are no pleasure. Like most animals, it's attacks are physical.  It's main enemy is the black bear.

Gluttonous and omnivore weren't even among his spelling words.  :-)

Math

George is currently working through the last Chapter of Math Mammoth 4B - Decimals.  He's already covered fractions, long division and geometry.  Long division in particular came very easy to him.

George has finished Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Math Grade 4 and started Grade 5.  Like Vicki, he does this for extra mixed practice.  His recent topics have included computation using all operations, geometry, place value, primes, coordinate graphing, logic, reading thermometers, estimating, reading a graph, 2d and 3d shapes, function tables, fractions, decimals.

George also does Daily Word Problems from Evan Moor.  He is FINALLY getting to the point where he writes out his work.  Mainly because he is finally at the point where he really has no choice.  He is slightly more than half way through the 4th grade book. 

Just for fun and practice with mathematical thinking, George also does Logic puzzles, Sudoku puzzles, and Scholastic Fast Facts: Multiplication and Division. 

Explorers

My kids are not big fans of coloring but they love the cutting and the pasting.  This makes History Pockets (and similar) from Evan Moor a great resource.  For their study of Explorers, they used the Explorer's of North America History Pockets and a Explorers Unit from Mrs. O's Rockin Resources on Teachers Pay Teachers.

They spent a few months on this unit, working their way through one explorer at a time.  As they studied each explorer, they would mark his route on a small map, on our big wipe-off map, and locate the explorer on their timelines.  The timeline is from the first pocket in the History Pockets, while the map is from Mrs. O.

The first topic/pocket is "Introduction to the Explorers of North America".   These pockets follow the pattern of most of the other history pockets we've done in the past.  They include a folder heading, a brief synopsis of the topic, a fast facts page, and in this case, a map of the explorer's routes.  There were ten explorers included in the History Pockets, but Jen and the kids learned about a few others.

Mrs. O's unit started with a brief overview of various explorers and a chart to fill out telling where they came from, when they explored, why they wanted to explore, and where they would up.  This unit also included worksheets and tests, so was a nice balance with the craftiness of the History Pockets.  The first test included vocabulary words such as scurvy, navigation, cartographer and saga.

The first explorer was Christopher Columbus.  After reading about Columbus in both the History Pocket synopsis and Mrs. O's, they mapped out his various trips on a world map.  Columbus made four trips in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502 trying to find a shorter path to India.

Mrs. O's unit worksheet asked them to visualize various things they read about, such as the size of the Bahamas.  George completed the sentence "The island was as small as.... a worm". That's a pretty small island.  ;-)

The kids made models of the three ships Columbus sailed using egg cups and toothpicks.

They wrote up a letter applying for a job on one of Columbus's ships:

 

Vicki wanted to be a musician on a ship:  "Dear Columbus, Im a good singer.  I can sing high.  I can sing low.  From Vicki"

The made a compass and learned about hardtack.

Their next explorer was Ferdinand Magellan, the first explorer to sail around the world.  He was not included in the History Pockets.  They read about him in the Mrs. O's unit and answered the worksheet.   One of the questions this time was "Did you know that you can survive on eating rats and sawdust? Explain your thoughts."  George's thoughts were "2 words:  Super.  Gross."

With each explorer they filled out an information sheet (I'm not sure if this was from Mrs. O or another resource) that included information about the explorer and his home country, years of exploration, sponsor, what they hoped to find, how their exploration affected the lives of others, a timeline of important dates, and whether the kids thought the exploration was successful or not.

Here is Vicki's for Ferdinand.

The next explorer was John Cabot.  Cabot, like Columbus, was trying to find Far East.  Instead he landed in Newfoundland and sailed down the coast.

One of the History Pocket assignments for Cabot was to illustrate a shoal.  John Cabot fished for cod in the shallow waters of the coast, called shoals.  Do you think it was George or Vicki who has the shark attacking the ship?  :-)

 

George's visualization this time "The weather was foul like....an Evil Ghost."

 

Our next explorer was Hernando Cortes.   After learning about Cortes's quest for Aztec gold, the kids made a sea chest with a list of the things they would want to bring on a voyage.  George's is heavy on the electronics, while Vicki's is heavy on the craft supplies and food.  And that pretty much sums up my kids.  ;-)

 

 

Our next explorer, Hernando de Soto was not included in the History Pockets.  Desoto explored the West Indies, helped conquer Peru, and explored Cuba and the southeastern United States.  The worksheets from Mrs. O's ask the kids to infer something from each biography. In this case, they were asked "What makes you think 18,000 ounces of gold was a lot back then?"  George's reply "because it's a lot now!" 

 

I was curious so I looked it up.  Gold is worth $1292.60 per ounce, so 18,000 ounces is worth $23,266,800.  I'd say that's a lot.

 

Our next explorer is Jacques Cartier.  Cartier was also trying for a short route to the Indies by finding the Northwest Passage.  (he was unsuccessful).

 

The kids created their own ship's logs while learning about Cartier.  George's ship was The Ghostly Skull and set sail in 1578, met up with seals, discovered a bug called googli's and named an island after them, and purple apples called plupples.

 

 



While Vicki's ship was the Fairies Gust.

They also made up their own version of a board game about Cartier's journey.  George actually received a board game making kit for Christmas because he loves making up his own games.

Cartier wasn't covered by Mrs. O.

Our next explorer, also not covered by Mrs. O, was Sir Frances Drake.  Sir Drake was sent to attack Spanish ships, and sailed through the Strait of Magellan and up to the California coast.  He was the first Englishman to sail around the world.

The kids put together a booklet of weather reports from Cape Horn while learning about Sir Drake.

Next was Henry Hudson.  Hudson was sent by the Dutch East India Company to find a northern route to India. 

They wrote a news article about the mystery of what happened to Henry Hudson....

 

 

They also made models of two navigation tools, a parallel ruler and a divider.

Mrs. O did cover Henry Hudson and after reading the article about his life George chose "It was expensive like....a golden pig."

Our next explorer was not included in the History Pockets, Robert LaSalle.  LaSalle did most of his exploration in canoes.  He explored the Great Lakes, the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and established settlements. 

The kids next studied George's favorite explorer of all - Daniel Boone (even if he did insist on pronouncing it Boon - eh for a long time).  Boone helped the English fight in the French and Indian War, he explored Kentucky and became known for his singing.

As part of learning about Boone, the kids wrote their own limericks and a brief legend about Daniel Boone. 

 

Our next explorer was James Cook.   Cook studied the animals of Tahiti, explored New Zealand and Australia, explored and mapped the Hawaiian Islands, sailed along the coast of Canada and Alaska.  He reached Antarctica on his second journey searching for the Southern Continent.  Since over 400 stamps have been issued worldwide for Cook, one of the assignments the kids had was to design a stamp and write a postcard to a friend.

 

 



Next were Louis and Clark.   Lewis and Clark were sent by President Thomas Jefferson to explore the newly purchased Louisiana Territory.  Lewis kept extensive journals of his exploration, so the kids made a brief journal describing their day.  It's a rough life.

The final explorer was John Wesley Powell.  Powell was the first European to travel through the Grand Canyon so the kids each made their own brochure for the Canyon.  

The final assignments to the Explorers unit were to fill out a Explorer Job Application Form and fill out a reflection sheet.

 

When George looks through his Explorers book he feels "held back because I can't go outside and explore on my own".   

 

 

Vicki enjoyed doing the ships log the most, and what she would do differently is "make everything Pink.  Make the weather clear everyday.  Make James Cook crash with Leif Erickson".  I'm thinking that whole timeline didn't make much of an impact.  :-)