Monthly Archive: September 2011
We don’t have a Magic School Bus, but we did make a pretty wonderful field trip this past (extended) weekend. One of our first stops was the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Part of the reason we studied the heart/circulatory system last week instead of going on to muscles and joints was to take advantage of the spectacular interactive science display at the Franklin Institute. You enter this huge heart on...
Our study of the heart and circulatory system started with a listen to our own heartbeats. We measured our heart rates when resting and after walking, running and skipping. Then using a graph put out by Texas heart institute(4th grade curriculum, p. 25, no longer available), we graphed our results. Heart as a Pump: We did this experiment: When your heart beats it acts like a tennis ball filled with...
We have been working steadily on our USA landmarks and symbols unit study. This is a unit that doesn’t lend itself as well to pictures since I have pulled it together using history resources I have on hand. The kids each have a notebook and we’ve been adding to it steadily. Funny enough, LD has said he LOVES history and has been really into this unit. That amazes me a...
Our Study of the Human Hand Why do we have so many bones in our hand? We talked about the fact that there are 27 bones in the hand. First, to demonstrate why this is important I did an activity we had done a couple years ago. We pretended that we just had one bone per finger by taping popcycle sticks to their fingers. Then they had to pick up...
Last spring we started learning a bit about the human body, but then we stopped as summer activities took over. We have re-started our human body unit. Before I knew I was going to luck into a zillion human body kits (see my post about being lucky!), I bought the Squishy Human Body by Smart Lab. The kids just loved this! We talked about how the skeleton protects all of...
My friend shared this really terrific video that talks a bit about how octopus and squid camouflage themselves by changing their skin color AND texture. It is astounding how much the octopus in the video blended into the bush. What an amazing world we live in!
We have had a day of the week for each child for several years now. We call it L-day or D-day or E-day. On that day that child gets to go into the car first and a couple other things, but also they have some extra responsibilities on that day like emptying the dishwasher and doing a bathroom swish-and-swipe (which they love, believe it or not!) Well, I decided L-day...
I ran and finished a half-marathon this morning. It was a trail run with intense hills, but I did it and finished strong. Hooray! It’s been nearly 10 years since I ran my last race, so I feel pretty proud of myself this afternoon (if not a bit tired and sore!).
One of the Montessori materials we do not have is a sandpaper globe or a globe that shows just the 7 continents in their “proper” Montessori colors. That’s partly because we have a cute globe already (one that lights up and has various world animals on it). But for some reason we got a hankering to make our own globes. What better way to learn where the oceans are located...
We still start out our week with a scavenger hunt. This is a HUGE hit with all three of the kids. This week it had to be down in the basement since it was raining outside. As you can see, each child has his/her own set of cards to hunt down (letters for ED, addition for DD and multiplication for LD). As they find each card I have them run...
I made this simple math game for DD. This goes along with some of the math skills she’s learning with her new math curriculum. It’s a game of practicing doubling the numbers 4 through 9 (4+4, 5+5, etc.). Each player takes a turn rolling the die. He/She doubles the number on the die and then places a token or marker on that number on the gameboard. If another player has...
I just found out that one of my dearest friends, Debbie, died. My heart is so sad, I’m having a tough time quelling the tears. Debbie was one of the most beautiful people you’d ever meet — someone who was an inspiration in the way she lived her life. She had a deep faith that kept her going through the loss of her husband and raising her three young children...
We still love going hiking along the trail that heads off into the woods behind our house.
We made the starfish, sand dollars, crabs and coral out of cornstarch clay. 1 cup cornstarch 1 cup baking soda 1/2 tablespoon salt 1 cup water Mix and cook on low to medium in a pot until it congeals together. We had fun putting this project together. I’ll share the various steps below: We spent one day painting our boxes. The girls then added glue and sand along the bottom....