Native Americans - Seminole

The final tribe/region for the Native American study is the Native Americans of the Southeastern Woodlands and the Seminole.

The Native Americans of the SE had an advantage over many of the other tribes.  They lived in region with many game animals, plentiful fish and the perfect climate for farming.  Houses for these tribes were often just a platform with a straw roof to keep out the hot sun.

The kids read about the Southeastern Natives and completed their notebook pages.   It is easy to see how much progress Vicki has made with coloring since we started these.

They learned about the Seminole tribe and colored the last of the title and dictionary cards, and put the last of the shelter stamps on the map.

The Seminole would wear colorful, elaborate headdresses when participating in celebrations.  The kids each colored their own headdress.

They made small belt pouches similar to those used by various native tribes.

The study of Native Americans was completed by reading about some modern day native children in our Children Just Like Me book.

Native Americans - Iroquois

This is my second attempt to write this post.  I had it almost completed last weekend and my computer decided to crash.  BIG crash…return to factory settings crash.  I was able to get most of my documents and pictures loaded onto an external hard drive before resetting but I lost my post and I’ve been having a fun week reloading selected items onto my (hopefully) restored computer.

Continuing in their study of Native Americans, the kids learned about the Iroquois, who lived in the Northeast and actually consisted of six nations together.

The kids started off (as usual) by reading about the Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands from the Evan-Moor Native Americans book and completing their notebook pages.  Vicki has been getting a LOT better about coloring these days.  She’s willing to put in more effort than a random scribble and actually seems to be enjoying it.

Each of them wrote a brief list (Vicki) or sentence (George) about what they learned about Northeastern Natives.

They continued on to pocket 8 of our History Pockets – The Iroquois of the Northeast.   After learning about the “People of the Longhouse”, they colored in the title and dictionary cards.  George’s were added to our chart (it’s almost done!) and Vicki made a notebook page for our History binder.

They learned more about wampum – strings of small beads made from shells used for trade.  First they strung their own wampum strings.  Purple shells were the most uncommon so were the most valuable.

They then composed two different Wampum Wish Lists – one for what they thought an Iroquois child would actually want, and one for what they would want.  There Iroquois child lists showed a pretty good understanding of what life was like for the Iroquois.

George decided to write one of his items in code.  He’s been fascinated with codes recently and has “developed” a few of his own.  I’m not sure what to think of some of the other items they included. 

I guess I’m not surprised one of George’s items is “Vicki repelant (in my dreams!)”, which of course prompted Vicki to add “George repelet” to her list. 

I’m not sure why Vicki wants a “Zombie”?!?  And “Toy Puke” and “a toy butt” seem interesting choices.

They learned about story sticks and wrote their own stories.  George’s story was “He was told Do Not go up the hill.  Wait three nights to go to the hill.  But he went to the hill anyway and hunted sheep.  It rained for two days.  He regretted leaving home, so he went home. The end.” 

The also put together and painted a paper model of an Iroquois Longhouse (found at http://susankae.com/free_resources.htm).

The set-up and played a game that was played by Woodland Natives that involved putting wooden discs in a bowl, flipping them in the air and catching them again. Counting sticks were used to keep score.  The discs had designs written on one side and points were earned depending on how the discs landed – design up is one point, blank side up is zero points, outside the bowl is zero points.

They read the Iroquois legend of creation in The Woman Who Fell From the Sky: The Iroquois Story of Creation.

They have just one more region/tribe to complete Native Americans (and because of the computer snafu, that will actually be the next post I write!).

Weekly Wrap-up: Week of Feb 9th

The kids finished up another Native American tribe – the Navajo.

They are both making great progress, getting out  more (they went ice skating, to another art class at the museum, and will be starting swim lessons next week), reading lots of great books, and having lots of fun.  And maybe if this snow finally melts, they’ll get outside more.

This week was another short, crazy week due to snow.  Thursday was a snow day and Friday a delayed start.

VICKI

Language Arts

HWT 1st: finished through page 67

Scholastic DoDEA Skill Builder Grammar, Usage and Mechanics Grade 1: through page 27, putting periods at the end of a sentence.

Scholastic Second Grade Basic Skills: Reading Comprehension and Skills: through page 27, learned about antonyms.   

The Wand:  continued with Fox in Socks activities, which included some copywork and learning about different ways to make the /k/ sound.  She also spelled the words who, do, to, was and of.

 

Math

Math Mammoth 1A:  through page 131 (almost done with 1A).

Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Math Gr 1:  She finished through page 89 and doing some Math Riddles until I get around to printing more.  Covered counting by 5’s, tally marks, and greater than/less than.

Scholastic Second Grade Basic Skills: practiced skip counting and recognizing number words doing some dot-to-dots.

GEORGE

Language Arts

HWT Cursive:through page 59

Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Spell and Write Gr 4:  this weeks spelling words: flight, bright, might, light, drown, amount, around, enjoy, voyage, famous, rocket, ocean.  The reading passage was about Animals in Space and activities included a review of when to use capital letters.  For the writing assignment, he wrote a Cinquain:

Penguin
Talking, Famous
Flying, Sliding, Cooking
Amount of Good: 100%
Bird

He also had an assignment to make a list of things you would put in a capsule to live on Mars.  His list:

1. Penguin figure (he’s definitely on a penguin kick lately).
2.  Nuke (??)
3. Plant, water, plant food, fertilizer, dirt.
4.  snow, mud
5. bricks, cement.
6. bug house with a bug in it, leafs.
7. Guns, bullets, crowbar.
8. seeds

Evan Moor Daily Reading Comprehension Gr 4:  through page 120.  He is still working through the section on non-fiction text features.  This week included an application, table of contents, and a timeline.

Evan Moor Word-A-Day:  This week’s words were statement, charity, disposable and ancient.

Writing with Ease:  this week’s passages were from Caddie Woodlawn.  His narration sentences were:

“The hazelnuts were green.” and “Baby Joe waved his arms and shouted when the pigeons came.”

Reading:  I mentioned last week that I would update the list of books he’s read recently.  He’s been recording most of the books he reads on a log in his binder (not all the Pokemon and comic books he reads at night are included).  Since January 6th he has read:  all the Wimpy Kid books (repeatedly), Alice in Wonderland (didn’t care for it), Pokemon Top 10 Handbook, 8 different Stink books (from the series by Megan McDonald), The Holly Joliday (also by Megan McDonald), The Buried City of Pompeii, Judy Moody Predicts the Future, and Charlotte’s Web.

He also wrote a Biography this week.

Favorite Animal: cat
Favorite Animal 2: cobra
Favorite Animal 3: penguin
Favorite Food: Pizza Bites
Name: George Richard -----
Username: GR—8--
Fav Thing: computer
Fav Pokemon: Arbok of course!
Fav Letter: Y
Fav Number: 7
Fave Expression:   :3
Fav Myth: Ra
Fav Symbol: @
Coolest Shirt: Minecraft Shirt
Fav Color: Yellow

Math

Math Mammoth (4B):  took a break from MM to work on Order of Operations some more.

Scholastic Algebra Readiness Made Easy Gr 5: through page 26, he finished up the array puzzles and is working on using clues to figure out costs.

Scholastic Solve the Riddle Math Practice Multiplication and Division:  up to Riddle #30, division riddles will be up soon.

Scholastic Logic Posters, Problems and Puzzles: up to page 43.   He’s almost finished with these and I’ll have to find a new book of logic puzzles.  He really enjoys the grid puzzles but I’d like to find another resource, or multiple resources, that have all different kinds of logic puzzles.

Jennifer has been doing an amazing job working with the kids.   Both of them are writing more of their work than they ever did before, both are reading more(often voluntarily!!), and progressing nicely. 

Native Americans - Navajo

The kids learned about the Navajo and other Native Americans of the Southwest with Jennifer.

The started out by reading about Native Americans of the Southwest (from an Evan-Moor book) and discussing what they learned.    George colored his picture (he really LOVES different colors) and said “rock and mud houses.  The people of the Southwest lived in a hot dry climate.”

While Vicki remembered that “They lived in hogans.  The Pueblo people used clay, water and straw to build houses.”

They then moved on to The Navajo of the Southwest History Pocket.   We don’t set up the history pockets the way Evan-Moor suggests.  Instead, after reading the information on the Navajo, they each color their own title page and dictionary cards.   George’s get added to a chart, while Vicki glues hers to paper to put in our history notebook.

Both kids colored in the shelter stamps to add to the map.

The kids learned more about the Navajo by reading Turquoise Boy: Navajo Legend, Keepers of the Earth and In a Circle Long Ago. 

They then did many many activities to learn more. 

They made Navajo necklaces with beads and foil covered cardboard to simulate silver.

The Navajo are known for brightly colored rugs in geometric patterns and bright colors.  The kids colored their own versions.

They made Native American pendants with stylized Eagle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They made fetish good luck charms out of clay.  George made a penguin…

while Vicki made a long, thin dolphin.

They made Navajo skin bags to hold their fetishes.

and last but not least, they made coil pots out of clay.

Just two more tribes/regions to go.

Valentine’s Day & President’s Day

The kids did some fun crafts for Valentine’s Day and President’s Day.    They also read a bunch of books that I unfortunately forgot to write down.

For Valentine’s Day:

Vicki’s card for mommy and daddy…

George’s card for Daddy - “I like you a lot, UR cool….ish”  LOL.  Just like Georgie to gush  <<eye roll>>.   He also made a Valentine’s Day card at church last weekend, but unlike every other kid in his class, he made his for a girl he likes from the choir, instead of for his parents. 

Vicki’s butterfly…

 

and George’s “hypno-butterfly”.

For President’s Day….

Cherry trees…

George drew in a little guy that lost his ball up the tree and was asking for help, and a little bird right at the top.

George Washington’s with quarters for buttons (at least on Vicki’s)….

Abraham Lincoln with penny eyes (again, at least on Vicki’s)….

and log cabins.

Weekly Wrap-up: Week of Feb 3rd

The past few weeks have been a little crazy and sporadic for one reason only:  SNOW!  We have been getting ridiculous amounts of snow and ice this winter, which has led to days off work and school.  We have about two feet of snow/ice covering our entire yard at the moment.  A lot of the local towns are running short of salt and most of the roads are plowed barely a car width wide.    Needless to say, I can’t wait until Spring is here.

VICKI

Language Arts

HWT 1st:  Vicki has completed through page 61 in HWT.  She is no longer doing extra number practice because she is doing her own writing for math now!

Scholastic DoDEA Skill Builder Grammar, Usage and Mechanics Grade 1:  This is working great as a nice, slow introduction to grammar.  She will move on to Grade 2 when she finishes this one.   She continuted to learn about telling sentences and questions this week.

Scholastic Second Grade Basic Skills, Reading Comprehension:  Vicki completed the 1st grade book and moved onto the 2nd grade book.  This week’s activities included learning about synonyms.  This book was one of my (many) Scholastic Dollar Days acquisitions. 

The Wand:  She finished up the activities for Hop on Pop, which included phonics, prefixes, suffixes and base words, and past tense.

Math

Math Mammoth 1A:  She’s reaching the end of MM1A and will move on to 1B.  She enjoys making up stories to go along with the problems and turning them into word problems.

Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Math Gr 1:  She had activities on addition/subtraction to 14, and graphing this week.

Vicki has also been doing some activities from another Scholastic Dollar Days find – Second Grade Basic Skills which has skip-counting dot-to-dots, mazes and word searches.

GEORGE

Language Arts

HWT Cursive:  George is up to page 55 in his HWT cursive book.  Once he finishes this book, we may not bother with the next book and just concentrate on practice.

Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Spell and Write Gr 4:  Spelling is going very well now that he types his answers on the computer instead of doing them orally.  He usually has no problem spelling all the words correctly.  This weeks words were: few, blue, clue, choose, ooze, dangerous, gentle, strange, giant, poison, cousin and toxic.   This week also covered synonyms, adjectives, and included a passage about Rainforest frogs.

Evan Moor Daily Reading Comprehension Gr 4:  He continues to do well with reading comprehension, as long as he reads the passages carefully.  A few

Evan Moor Word-A-Day Gr 3: This weeks words were: independent, inflate, adjustable and astonish.  Each week two or three of the words might be ones he already knows, but we are also using this to practice dictionary skills – he looks up each word in the dictionary before answering the questions.

Writing with Ease: This week’s activities were from The Tale of Peter Rabbit.  He is still doing copywork in manuscript since he hasn’t yet gone through all the letters in HWT.    His narrations for each passage were “They were rabbits” and “Mr. McGregor almost caught Peter in the shed”. 

Reading:  He has done a lot of reading recently.  I keep forgetting to write the books down from his log but I’m going to try and remember to do it next week.  He is currently reading Charlotte’s Web in preparation for next weeks WWE activities.

Math

Math Mammoth (4A):  He has completed Chapter 1 through Order of Operations.  Since this was his first introduction to OOO, they are spending some more time practicing before moving on.

Scholastic Algebra Readiness Made Easy Gr 5:   He seems to have gotten the hang of the array puzzles and should be moving on to the next set of puzzles shortly. 

Scholastic Solve the Riddle Math Practice Multiplication and Division:   He’s working his way through these, usually without using his chart. 

Scholastic Logic Posters, Problems and Puzzles:  He’s almost finished with this book so I’m going to be picking up something new.  He really likes doing the grid puzzles so we may just go for more of those.

The kids are making good progress and are right on track where they should be.