I'm surprised, well kind of, that I didn't take more photos. I feel like we've been doing some really cool things. Oh well. Let's just get on with it.
We've been reading a lot of fun books on ancient Greece. Our plan of study goes something like this. 1. Trojan War/Odyssey/Illiad (this is quick and easy because we've already covered that by our fun reading. 2. Spart vs Athens and the concept of a city state and every day life. 3. Gods and goddesses, myths and stories. 4. Alexander the Great. 5. Architecture like the Parthenon and Columns. 6. Famous Greeks like Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Pythagorus, and other guys. 7. The Olympics!! (and just in time for the Sochi Winter Olympics, too!) And at the end I have a couple other things we can add if we want. So far we've gotten half way through gods and goddesses. With all of our subjects we've also been working on lapbook pages, which the kids enjoy doing, but I've found they enjoy doing them a lot more when I am coloring and making a lapbook right along with them. So this unit I will have my very own lapbook. woohoo. I will photo a few of our favorite books later since we really have had some good ones. Abigail's favorite is about the first marathon!
Anyway, for related projects we made a Trojan Horse and some red and black pottery. The kids chose to decorate theirs in the black attic style, which was helpful since I had more red paint than black (black attic means the decoration is in black but the pot is red and red attic is the opposite). Joshua had been practicing drawing his favorite gods and goddesses so he decided he would also decorate his pot/mug with the same drawings. Abigail and I followed his lead. We also added a key pattern to make our pots look somewhat authentic and more Greek.
This is my pot (above and below) The top shows Hades in the underworld with his 3 headed dog, Cerebro, and a cyclops there off to the side. The bottom pictures shows Poseidon with his trident and a horse, he is said to have invented the horse (weird), and Zeus with his lightning bolt on Mt. Olympus next to their palace.
Joshua's pot, shown also above and below. Above is Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, and then Hades is under the hill and I think that is the Parthenon to honor Athena standing on the hill. Below is Poseidon and his trident and Zeus and his lightning bolt.
Abigail's, above and below. Abby had a hard time thinking of what she wanted to draw so I told her she didn't have to draw a god or goddess but maybe a flower or butterfly or something would be nice. So she started with this butterfly, above. Then, once her confidence was up, we remembered the story of Demeter and Persephone and Abigail decided to draw them. And a sun and two clouds. I helped her out a bit with her key pattern up at the top of her pot.
We also read a lot of books about whales! I love whales. I've always loved whales. We did a fun little experiment illustrating how baleen works with pepper and toothbrushes, we practiced drawing whales by using a quick and easy step-by-step instruction found online (www.howtodrawanimals.net/how-to-draw-a-blue-whale and http://www.howtodrawanimals.net/how-to-draw-a-killer-whale) and I've posted our best drawings here (except Abigail's who is keeping her's safe in her room). And we also wrote books about whales, but I don't have any photos because Joshua wouldn't let me and Abigail's isn't quite done. The books were cute, though. The pages are cut out in the shape of a whale and there are three lines to write on a the bottom of each page and then the kids drew their own pictures at the top of the page. In fact, Abby's is so cute, I'm going to go find it right now and take the pictures of it even if it isn't quite done. She did such a great job writing her letters, even if she can't read what she wrote.
Above and Below - Joshua tries to catch krill with "teeth" (his fingers) while Abigail shows how much more krill she can catch using baleen (the toothbrush).
Above is Joshua's best drawings of whales. He's got in there a blue whale, a killer whale, a squid, an octopus, a few jellyfish, a star fish, a few sea sponges, and a sea anemone. Below is my picture, Joshua named it for me.
Joshua hates writing. He even hates writing down the answers to his math problems. I'm slowly learning what I can do to help him but it is a slow process. I've learned that boys often are not good at writing and don't like it in the early years because their fine motor skills just aren't as developed, so I'm not worried about him or upset or anything, just trying to figure out how I can help him. The first thing I've done is play more math games, instead of doing more math work in his math book. We did that with the flash cards and the simple addition problems by making a matching game out of it. In his book recently they have introduced multiplication. I seems as though they are more interested in the kids learning the concept and less into memorizing the multiplication tables. I feel it is quite young for the kids to do that anyway, so we're not going to memorize those until 3rd grade, but anyway. So to help Joshua get the concept I wrote 0 x 1 through 5 x 5 on little sheets of paper and then folded them all up and put them in a bowl. As Joshua pulled out a multiplication problem he would then have to show me what it meant by using unifix cubes. For example, three groups of two each. Or two groups of four each. Joshua loved this game and would go through all the slips of paper and then want to go through all of them again. It was easy enough that even Abigail could play, and she did and had fun.
And finally, we decorated our window with snowflakes in honor of January. It's really cold.
Sorry for the horrible picture. Until next time, which will hopefully be not to long away.
We've been reading a lot of fun books on ancient Greece. Our plan of study goes something like this. 1. Trojan War/Odyssey/Illiad (this is quick and easy because we've already covered that by our fun reading. 2. Spart vs Athens and the concept of a city state and every day life. 3. Gods and goddesses, myths and stories. 4. Alexander the Great. 5. Architecture like the Parthenon and Columns. 6. Famous Greeks like Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Pythagorus, and other guys. 7. The Olympics!! (and just in time for the Sochi Winter Olympics, too!) And at the end I have a couple other things we can add if we want. So far we've gotten half way through gods and goddesses. With all of our subjects we've also been working on lapbook pages, which the kids enjoy doing, but I've found they enjoy doing them a lot more when I am coloring and making a lapbook right along with them. So this unit I will have my very own lapbook. woohoo. I will photo a few of our favorite books later since we really have had some good ones. Abigail's favorite is about the first marathon!
Anyway, for related projects we made a Trojan Horse and some red and black pottery. The kids chose to decorate theirs in the black attic style, which was helpful since I had more red paint than black (black attic means the decoration is in black but the pot is red and red attic is the opposite). Joshua had been practicing drawing his favorite gods and goddesses so he decided he would also decorate his pot/mug with the same drawings. Abigail and I followed his lead. We also added a key pattern to make our pots look somewhat authentic and more Greek.
We also read a lot of books about whales! I love whales. I've always loved whales. We did a fun little experiment illustrating how baleen works with pepper and toothbrushes, we practiced drawing whales by using a quick and easy step-by-step instruction found online (www.howtodrawanimals.net/how-to-draw-a-blue-whale and http://www.howtodrawanimals.net/how-to-draw-a-killer-whale) and I've posted our best drawings here (except Abigail's who is keeping her's safe in her room). And we also wrote books about whales, but I don't have any photos because Joshua wouldn't let me and Abigail's isn't quite done. The books were cute, though. The pages are cut out in the shape of a whale and there are three lines to write on a the bottom of each page and then the kids drew their own pictures at the top of the page. In fact, Abby's is so cute, I'm going to go find it right now and take the pictures of it even if it isn't quite done. She did such a great job writing her letters, even if she can't read what she wrote.
 |
| I know that is hard to read, especially because she wrote it in German, but the translation is "Once there was a whale named Afely. She lived with her family. It was a happy family." |
Joshua hates writing. He even hates writing down the answers to his math problems. I'm slowly learning what I can do to help him but it is a slow process. I've learned that boys often are not good at writing and don't like it in the early years because their fine motor skills just aren't as developed, so I'm not worried about him or upset or anything, just trying to figure out how I can help him. The first thing I've done is play more math games, instead of doing more math work in his math book. We did that with the flash cards and the simple addition problems by making a matching game out of it. In his book recently they have introduced multiplication. I seems as though they are more interested in the kids learning the concept and less into memorizing the multiplication tables. I feel it is quite young for the kids to do that anyway, so we're not going to memorize those until 3rd grade, but anyway. So to help Joshua get the concept I wrote 0 x 1 through 5 x 5 on little sheets of paper and then folded them all up and put them in a bowl. As Joshua pulled out a multiplication problem he would then have to show me what it meant by using unifix cubes. For example, three groups of two each. Or two groups of four each. Joshua loved this game and would go through all the slips of paper and then want to go through all of them again. It was easy enough that even Abigail could play, and she did and had fun.
And finally, we decorated our window with snowflakes in honor of January. It's really cold.
Another AMAZING topic and work! R is the same with writing, he knows how, he just would rather do other things! i love your unifix cube game idea, i will have to try that! love the pics :)
ReplyDeleteWhat great learning opportunities! It is so fun to see all that you are learning about!! I love the pots and the whle books are so cute!
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