November 2-13 Main Lesson

"This remarkable evolution series, narrated by the universe itself, concludes with Book 3, the amazing story of mammals.  It picks up with the extinction of dinosaurs, and tells how tiny mammals survived and morphed into lots of new earthlings....horses, whales and a kind of mammal with a powerful imagination- you! It's a story of chaos, creativity and heroes0 the greatest adventure on Earth! And it's a personal story...about our bodies, our minds, our spirits.  It's our story."

Vocab for this ML

apes

Cenozoic era

culture

DNA

Homo Erectus

marsupials

monkeys

paleontology

primates

religion

science

spiritual

taxonomy

October 19-30 Main Lesson

" Settle in with your favorite pillow while the Universe tells the thrilling story of Earth. It's a story about the beginning of life, and hoe Earth triumphs over crisis to become bacteria...jellyfish...dinosaurs!  It's a science story that is your story too, the story of your living Earth and the unbroken chain that connects you to the very first life that began to twitch in the sea four billion years ago.

Vocab ofr this ML:

animals

amphibians

bacteria

birds

dinosaurs

evolution

fungi

genes

mammals

photosynthesis

reptiles

vertebrates

October 1-16 Main Lesson

"Time after time the Universe nearly perishes, then bravely triumphs and turns itself into new and even more spectacular forms- like the Sun and Earth. It eaven turns itself into earthling scientists who help the Universe discover more about itself.  This is a science story from the inside.   And it's a story about you, from the time you were really born- about 13 billion years ago.

 

Vocab for this ML:

 

atom

black hole                                       

carbon

element

galaxy

hydrogen

mass

matter

nucleus

oxegyn

supernova

http://www.neok12.com/  videos watched:

• Atoms and Molecules pts 1,2, and 3
• Physical Science- The structure of an atom 
• Electricity and Matter: Atoms and Elements
• The Discovery of the Atomic Nucleus

Workbook Breakdown

Math Skills: Addition and Subtraction (Shelby)

• ordering numbers
• counting
• odd and even
• place value
• addition and subtraction
• multiplication
• following directions
• perimeter
• telling time
• division
• fractions
• reading and making graphs
• plotting on a grid
• shapes
• non standard measuring
• patterning

Number Activities Grade 2 (Shelby)

• letter/number recognition and formation
• planning
• hand/eye coordination
• fine-motor-skill development
• beginning drawing skills

Planet Earth: Animals of the Water (Shelby)
Learn on the Go Reading Comprehension  Grade 2 (Shelby)

• story characters
• sequence of events
• retelling parts of a story

The Learning Line:  Addition Facts to 18 Grades 1-2 (Shelby and Grace)

• adding numbers with sums up to 19
• column addition with three and four numbers

The Learning Line: Cursive Writing Grades 2-3 (Shelby)

• cursive letters, words and sentances
• read letters and words written in cursive handwriting
• small muscle control
• follow written directions

The Learning Line: Manuscript Writing Grades K-2 (Grace)

• practice printing: capital letters, lowercase letters and words
• write words, phrases, and sentances
• follow writen directions

Learning Train Beginning Reading Grades K-1 (Grace)

• letter recognition and formation
• printing practice
• reading comprehension
• vocabulary building
• finding the main idea
• critical thinking
• inference

Workbooks completed from September 5 to November 20

ok, wow

So 2 months might seem like a long time to not update your portfolio blog, but we HAVE been doing school every day, I swear!
I just got done grading a whole pile of workbooks and sorting artwork and finding pictures.  And I tell you, I am comitted to getting this thing caught up today.
So, what I thought I would do is take pictures of whole workbooks and give a rundown of what they contain.  These two are CRAZY for workbooks and are sailing through them just as fast as I can give them out.

 

This new blogger makes it very difficult to post pictures with captions so my next post will be all the photos of the workbooks followed by a post about all the skills.  I know, it's a little crazy but it will save me hours of frustration.

The Sword of Damocles (a drama)

The king was very cruel and was always in fear of being conquered.Damoclese asked the king if he could be with the kings riches for one dayWhen Damoclese laid in the kings bed, he found that there was a sword hanging by a single horse hair above his headHe asked the king why there was a sword above his head and the king said "I am always in danger of being killed by enemies."Damoclese left and the king sat back on his throne.

New Moon

Well, they do say that the new moon is a good time to start new projects! It just so happened that even though I had planned the first real main lesson block for the kids on the birth of the universe, it all got derailed so Mama could start a project of her own.

Money is tight for everyone right now and we are no exception. We even looked into the possibility of enrolling the kids in public school and my going to work full-time. I view this scenario as a last resort so I decided to look into making some extra money at home by going into the granola bar business! I threw myself into days of recipe perfecting, marketing and now full blown selling.

The kids have still been doing their daily practice work and lost of reading, but as for the main lesson, waiting there in those beautiful books, they will just have to wait till the next new moon.

Yellow

Shelby's summer poem to memorize:

Yellow

Yellow sun

And yellow sky,

A dandelion's

Yellow eye;

Yellow pollen

Dusts the breeze,

And yellow

Lights the summer trees.

A yellow buzzing

Prints the air;

In dappled yellow

Dreams the pear.

And from the finch's

Yellow throat

One golden, flowing

Yellow note!

India Lesson

After performing The Life of Buddha, we read a slightly different version in The Prince Who Became a Beggar and also flipped through this book on Buddhism by Anita Ganeri.

The girls write a simple paragraph about Buddha to go with yesterday's illustration.

Then....we cook!

Rajma: A kidney bean dish made with ginger, onion, fresh tomatoes, garlic, green chilies and tomato sauce. This was served over a bed of white rice tossed with fresh cilantro. We also fried flat bread to act as a serving tool as well as a side. All that was washed down with iced red chai masala.

The Story of Buddha

The Queen has a dream.....

The sage says that the dream means that they will have a son....

He is born! They name him Siddhartha.

Siddhartha gets married...

Siddhartha goes out into the world and sees and old man.....
a dead man....

and a monk as the sage had predicted.

Siddhartha decides to become a monk.

The monks meditate to try to find a cure for pain and suffering.
Siddhartha sits under a tree for a long time to find the truth of life over death.

Death visits Siddhartha and tries to get him up.
He becomes enlightened.

Siddhartha became the next Buddha.

FUUSM Harvest Dinner

Second Annual Harvest Feast


This year's menu features organically grown vegetables almost exclusively grown in local gardens.

Local vegetable gardens: Grecni /Miller, Harrison, Baily, Prince, Putnam, the YMCA, and FUUSM's own corner of the community garden. The only vegetables not coming from one of our own gardens were several 'candy' onions bought from Whitten's roadside market and several ears of corn donated by a friend of the Baily's.

Herb Gardens: Grecni/Miller, Harrison and Hyde (Mint tea made by Jesse Hyde)

Walnut Creek cheese purchased at Huck's market and Food for Less (also butter)

Pasture-raised meat from Dixon's

Fruit for dessert crisps: Baily (blackberries), Stacy Strawberries and rhubarb, Wagner's peaches

Organic flour from Amish country, the Farmacy in Athens OH, Brighter Day and Giant Eagle

Pasta made from scratch this very day. Thanks to pasta makers Brice Henthorn, Debra Miller and Linda Dauber

Thanks to the rest of the food preparers Adeline Baily, Zena Grecni, Shari Miller and Luana Maddox

Menu

Fresh raw vegetables with yogurt dill dip
Fresh vegetable saute with fresh herb seasoning
Hand-made pasta
Meatballs
Green beans
Potatoes Au Gratin
Hasluska (cabbage and potatoes)

North Bend Hike and Bike

Daddy took all the girls on a church field trip to North Bend State Park and did NOT take the camera! Oh well, they had a wonderful time visiting the nature center, holding snakes and meeting a recently-rescued baby porcupine. Grace enjoyed seeing the big buck antlers and snake skins.
They rode through tunnel #13 and continued biking up the Rail Trail. They hiked up another little trail until they were on top of the tunnel they had biked through earlier.
After lunch, they went to the river bank to catch crawdads and met some horses coming down for a drink.
They all got Explorer ribbons and have already inquired about when we can go and do it all again.

Shelby's Practice Work Books

Recognizing story characters
Identifying sequence of events
Retelling parts of a story

letter/number recognition and formation

planning

hand/eye coordination

fine moter skill development

beginning drawing skills

ordering numbers

counting

odds and evens

place value

addition

subtraction

multiplication

division

fraction

reading and making graphs

following directions

plotting on a grid

shapes

measuring

perimeter

patterning

telling time