This week we were introduced to Australia and New Zealand in the middle ages. Once again, our history curriculum is The Story of the World Vol. 2 by Susan Wise Bauer.
I used this dude for reference
We learned in our Astronomy course (Exploring Creation with Astronomy by Apologia) that it is not safe to look directly at the sun, but that viewing the sun with a Solar Pinhole Viewing Box is safe! So we constructed one. See the teeny dot on the white paper?
That’s the sun shining through the pinhole we made in the foil, which was taped over a large square we cut into the opposite side of the box.
Supposedly, if your hole is big enough, you can sometimes see dark spots on the sun’s reflection on the paper and those are sunspots! We didn’t see any this day, but we’ll do some more solar viewing and try again.
Another day, while studying the sun, we got out the magnifying glass and melted and burned stuff.
I still am blown away that the sun’s rays can do that from roughly 93,000,000 miles away. How about there being solar flares that dwarf Earth? That makes me feel insignificant and significant at the same time. It’s so cool getting to relearn this stuff with my kids and hear their thoughts on these matters.
We just finished up studying Venus. Volcanic Venus sounds crazy and ucky. I am glad that conditions for life include very beautiful things like water, plants and trees that grow food on them, and an airy, blue atmosphere in which whitish, billowy clouds occur. Though if Venus’ features were the ones required to sustain life, and if I was born there, maybe thick, heavy, swirling, sulfuric gas clouds would smell lovely to me and maybe an orange hue cast over everything would be aesthetically pleasing? And maybe I would love to sun in burning hot dirt? And maybe ancient civilizations would have set up holidays surrounding the eruptions of volcanoes and we’d be celebrating all the time and the flying sparks would be our fireworks and ash would be our confetti?
Anyway, we did a project that included a small bowl upside down, a large plate right side up, flour patted into a mound around the bowl and melted butter.
The flowing butter was meant to illustrate what hot lava does when it flows freely over land. Then when the butter hardened, it was meant to illustrate magma.
Photo by Jonny
We thought it was pretty cool.
A couple of weeks ago we studied the Ajanta Caves of India. We learned that the monks who carved out the caves and lived in them, painted the insides with beautiful frescoes. We saw some of those frescoes online and then, at the recommendation of our wonderful history curriculum, The Story of the World, we painted our own frescoes onto damp Plaster of Paris in our front yard. As we did so, Aveline said that she thought painting on plaster was more fun than going to Disneyland. Jonny, June and I enjoyed doing it as well.
Jonny painted a zombie and victim fresco.
Aveline painted this one and then requested that I add to hers the same flower I did on June’s. So it became a collaboration, she had me add the sky and I made the big plaster dollop into a billowy cloud.
June, Aveline and I all worked on this one.
In case anyone is interested in homeschooling stuff, here is an amazingly simple and effective tool for teaching beginning math concepts. I think I first got the idea from a book called Montessori at Home when I was getting started teaching Jonny at home. I no longer have that book and I don’t remember whether there was a lot of detail as to the many ways this tool can be used. This year Miss Aveline is learning beginning math concepts according to the Math on the Level approach. Both Aveline and I have had a great time with this system. We’ll start with photos, then I’ll explain.
Materials used are:
1. A muffin tin
2. Several small objects (at least 6 for the youngest students and 78 for advancing students), we use buttons
3. 3×5 cards cut into strips with numbers 1 – 12 (or 0 – 11 if you feel the need to include zero) written on top end
Games:
1. Place one number card in each cup and have your student count out the correct amount of buttons to drop into each cup. This covers number recognition and counting. For very young children you could start with just four muffin cups and the numbers 0 – 3.
2. Shuffle the number cards and have your student first put them in either ascending or descending order, then have them place them in order into the muffin cups. Then they can go on to complete the above game. This adds number sequencing to the skills covered. Again, with a very young student you could just give them a small amount of number cards to sequence. Also with a more experienced student who struggles with say, 9, 10, 11 and 12, just give them those number cards to sequence and count buttons for.
3. Count a different amount of buttons into each cup (1 – 12 or 0 – 11 for more experienced students, and again, just 0 – 3 into four muffin cups for the younger ones). Have the student count the number of buttons in each cup and place the corresponding number card into the cup. This covers number recognition and counting also.
*For all of the games, we check together to see how they did. We count the buttons from each cup out loud, this way we catch any mistakes together and correct them right then. Then you don’t have to say anything that might damage their confidence. As they gain confidence in their skills, it seems to me like they are able handle it better when they’ve made a mistake, but when they are learning a new concept they can be sensitive about getting things wrong. At least that’s how my two students have been.
I just had to share this because Miss Aveline loves math time, and has had fun gaining and honing her math skills with this simple and fun system.
In history we briefly discussed peoples who lived in the Himalaya Mountains in the Middle Ages. These people, we learned, relied on their woven clothing and blankets to stay warm. So we weaved.
Good thing nobody is relying on our woven goods for warmth. All we ended up with from our efforts was a woven rug for the doll house.
She seems to appreciate it well enough. Cozy?
We started school, so blogging time has been nil. But, so far school is going well! It has not been without its challenges, some of which I expect to be ongoing for much of the year, actually. But I’m done freaking out about stuff, so I think we’re gonna have a great year.
For anyone who is interested, the curriculum we are using this year is as follows:
*Mathematics: Math on the Level, from Family Lifestyle Learning
*Science: Exploring Creation with Astronomy, from Apologia
*History/Geography: The Story of the World Vol. 2: The Middle Ages, from Peace Hill Press
*Language: BOB Books for Jonny and basic alphabet work for Aveline. They also both draw a picture in a journal every day and then write something about their drawing. Aveline copies one word of her choosing and Jonny writes, with guidance, one or two sentences of his choosing.
*We read Bible Stories from The Golden Children’s Bible and we read poems from A Family of Poems compiled by Caroline Kennedy.
All of the programs we’re doing this year offer such great flexibility and ideas for taking it further. I recommend all of them, if that ever changes, I’ll amend that statement here.
Here are a couple of photos from our project last week, to go deeper into our study of the Celts. We made Double-Headed Celtic War Axes!
Dig her Celtic warrior face?
Dig his Celtic warrior stance?
And, what the hay, here’s a drawing I did during my students’ journal drawing time one day.
Happy Beginning of the School Year!
