I still have little to show for our Rome studies, but we've been working on a lot of lap book mini books. On Monday we talked about famous Romans, like Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Octavian, Nero, etc. And we made these cute little laurel leaf crowns.
On Wednesday we learned about gladiators and the Colluseum. The children worked on their mini books while I read this entire book to them. I really love this series. We also read the book about the pyramids and Tikal, the ancient Mayan city. So for future reference and for any other homeschoolers or interested parties, this is a series worth looking into.
And on Friday we learned about the gods and goddesses of Ancient Rome, which although they are pretty much the Greek gods and goddesses, there are some interesting stories that are specific to Rome. Like the Anead. Really cool. And Romulus and Remus of course. And some other really interesting stories. This author and illustrator also produced a similar book as the following about the Greek myths so I knew we would enjoy the Roman counterpart. I read the entire book to the children in one sitting, about 100 pages, while the kids sat totally engrossed in the stories, only now and then looking at the mini books they were supposed to finish.
Also, for Joshua's copywork this week, he copied this:
Other than that, and some other interesting general history books we read, that's all I got for Rome this week.
For science we learned about leaves and what they do. On the first day we collected leaves and talked about all the different parts of a leaf. We drew our leaves and took particular notice of how they were all different shapes, sizes, even colors. We read a really interesting book about leaves. I really like this series also. The explain complex things in a way for children that is easy to understand. Like this little description of photosynthesis. The leaf makes sugar by taking the carbon dioxide from the air and the water from the roots and turning them into sugars by using the energy from the sun. The waste product left over is oxygen and the leaf lets that go out into the air.
On day two of leaves we talked more about the cholorophyll and why leaves are green but then change color. The concept is, for green leaves at least, is that the green pigment chlorophyll, which captures the sunlight, is so prevelant that it covers up the other yellow and orange shades in the leaf. If you took out the green, you would be able to see the other colors. Kind of like if you have a small plate and you put a little yellow dab of paint on it, and then a little dab of orange. Now take a huge plop of green paint and mix it all around. The color you end up with is green, even though the yellow and orange are there. With leaves, you can take the green out, and that is what happens in the fall. All the chlorophyll dies, in a sense, because the tree is shutting down for the winter and doesn't need to capture all the sun energy anymore. So the green pigment dies off, and now you can finally see the yellow and orange pigments (like carotenes. I can't remember the name of the other one. I think it starts with an x). Red pigment, however, is different. The red pigment from leaves isn't already present in the leaf. The red pigment has to be activated by the sun, so after the chlorophyll fades away, the sun can then activate the red and that is when the red color shows up. An experiment was done to show this concept. Someone put a piece of sun blocking tape on a leaf. When the chlorophyll left, the entire leaf turned yellow, but after time the leaf exposed to the sun turned red, while that strip of leaf under the tape just stayed yellow.
Anyway, science lesson over, we extracted our own chlorophyll from some leaves. First we chopped up our leaves into tiny pieces so the chlorophyll trapped inside would be able to leak out. Then we poured rubbing alcohol over the leaf mush and set the little jars in a tray of hot water. After 40 minutes or so we could see that the alcohol had turned green - the chlorophyll was seeping out of the leaf and into the alcohol. Then we used coffee filter paper to soak up the chlorophyll and other pigments present in the leaves to see what other colors were hiding under all that green. We mostly found a lot of green. But there were slightly different shades of green, and some obvious yellow. This makes a lot of sense because the tree from which we took the leaves only turns yellow for a short time before all the leaves eventually turn brown and die in the winter. It's not the most beautiful tree as far as fall colors go. Anyway, here are our results.
In other homeschool news and activity, last week Joshua wrote a story about 6 cats. It was part of his grammar assignment. Then we painted a picture to go with it. Don't be fooled that there are only 2 cats in the painting. There were indeed originally six.
I wanted to document how big my little bean seed grew! You know, the one in the bag so we could watch all the stages? The vine finally snapped, I think under the weight of the leaves, so I took it down and threw it out, but not before I took these photos.
Joshua is doing excellent with his reading. His new favorite books are from this mystery series. Here is a taste of what he's reading.
And finally, if you've ever wondered what my secret to homeschool success is, now you have the answer. (well, just the success from the past week and a half.)
And Derek and I bought each other a freezer for Mother's and Father's Day! Yea! Except it's almost about halfway filled up with walnuts and we still have 5 or 4 more boxes of walnuts to shell!
And next week we finish Rome and dissect flowers!
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| Joshua said, "And you too, Brutus?" while I took the photo. And I'm not even joking. He actually said that. |
On Wednesday we learned about gladiators and the Colluseum. The children worked on their mini books while I read this entire book to them. I really love this series. We also read the book about the pyramids and Tikal, the ancient Mayan city. So for future reference and for any other homeschoolers or interested parties, this is a series worth looking into.
And on Friday we learned about the gods and goddesses of Ancient Rome, which although they are pretty much the Greek gods and goddesses, there are some interesting stories that are specific to Rome. Like the Anead. Really cool. And Romulus and Remus of course. And some other really interesting stories. This author and illustrator also produced a similar book as the following about the Greek myths so I knew we would enjoy the Roman counterpart. I read the entire book to the children in one sitting, about 100 pages, while the kids sat totally engrossed in the stories, only now and then looking at the mini books they were supposed to finish.
Other than that, and some other interesting general history books we read, that's all I got for Rome this week.
For science we learned about leaves and what they do. On the first day we collected leaves and talked about all the different parts of a leaf. We drew our leaves and took particular notice of how they were all different shapes, sizes, even colors. We read a really interesting book about leaves. I really like this series also. The explain complex things in a way for children that is easy to understand. Like this little description of photosynthesis. The leaf makes sugar by taking the carbon dioxide from the air and the water from the roots and turning them into sugars by using the energy from the sun. The waste product left over is oxygen and the leaf lets that go out into the air.
On day two of leaves we talked more about the cholorophyll and why leaves are green but then change color. The concept is, for green leaves at least, is that the green pigment chlorophyll, which captures the sunlight, is so prevelant that it covers up the other yellow and orange shades in the leaf. If you took out the green, you would be able to see the other colors. Kind of like if you have a small plate and you put a little yellow dab of paint on it, and then a little dab of orange. Now take a huge plop of green paint and mix it all around. The color you end up with is green, even though the yellow and orange are there. With leaves, you can take the green out, and that is what happens in the fall. All the chlorophyll dies, in a sense, because the tree is shutting down for the winter and doesn't need to capture all the sun energy anymore. So the green pigment dies off, and now you can finally see the yellow and orange pigments (like carotenes. I can't remember the name of the other one. I think it starts with an x). Red pigment, however, is different. The red pigment from leaves isn't already present in the leaf. The red pigment has to be activated by the sun, so after the chlorophyll fades away, the sun can then activate the red and that is when the red color shows up. An experiment was done to show this concept. Someone put a piece of sun blocking tape on a leaf. When the chlorophyll left, the entire leaf turned yellow, but after time the leaf exposed to the sun turned red, while that strip of leaf under the tape just stayed yellow.
Anyway, science lesson over, we extracted our own chlorophyll from some leaves. First we chopped up our leaves into tiny pieces so the chlorophyll trapped inside would be able to leak out. Then we poured rubbing alcohol over the leaf mush and set the little jars in a tray of hot water. After 40 minutes or so we could see that the alcohol had turned green - the chlorophyll was seeping out of the leaf and into the alcohol. Then we used coffee filter paper to soak up the chlorophyll and other pigments present in the leaves to see what other colors were hiding under all that green. We mostly found a lot of green. But there were slightly different shades of green, and some obvious yellow. This makes a lot of sense because the tree from which we took the leaves only turns yellow for a short time before all the leaves eventually turn brown and die in the winter. It's not the most beautiful tree as far as fall colors go. Anyway, here are our results.
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| If this photo were better you would be able to see some obvious yellow strands in there too. |
In other homeschool news and activity, last week Joshua wrote a story about 6 cats. It was part of his grammar assignment. Then we painted a picture to go with it. Don't be fooled that there are only 2 cats in the painting. There were indeed originally six.
CHOCOLATE CHIPS!
And Derek and I bought each other a freezer for Mother's and Father's Day! Yea! Except it's almost about halfway filled up with walnuts and we still have 5 or 4 more boxes of walnuts to shell!
And next week we finish Rome and dissect flowers!
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