Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Homeschool Update: Week of 12/7/20

Advent Activities

During the second week of Advent, we continued doing the Advent prayer service I mentioned last week. We read from our Catholic Sprouts Jesse Tree book added more ornaments to the Jesse tree: Moses, Passover, Ten Commandments, Joshua, Gideon, Ruth, David, and Elijah. 

On Saturday, we read The Lady of Guadalupe by Tomie dePaola for the feast day. On Sunday, M. sang Santa Lucia and served cinnamon buns to the family for St. Lucy day. 


Morning Time

  • Poems from Sing a Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year selected by Fiona Waters, illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon (Nosy Crow, 2018): "Winter Trees" by Zoltan Zelk, "The Sea" by Lilith Norman, "The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Daughter of the Sea" by Philip Gross, "Kit's First Snow" by Linda Newbery, "Only Snow" by Allan Ahlberg"
  • Questions from The Big Book of Tell Me Why by Arkady Leokum, illustrated by Howard Bender: "What makes fluorescent lights work?"; "What is gasoline?"; "How does gasoline make an automobile work?"; "How does a jet engine work?"; "How does a submarine stay under water?"; "How is chewing gum made?" 
  • Singing practice: "Deck the Halls" sung from Take Joy! The Tasha Tudor Christmas Book (1966)
  • Art appreciation: The Oregon Trail by Albert Bierstadt from Come Look with Me: Exploring Landscape Art with Children by Gladys S. Blizzard 
  • Memory work: C.: continents, directions, planets;  M: marks of the church, 7 sacraments, oceans, Great Lakes, 50 states, 13 colonies, first five books of the Bible
  • Math flashcards: addition and subtraction for C., multiplication and division for M., numbers 1-10 for E.
  • Music appreciation: Handel's Messiah
  • Catechism: "The Marks of the Church" and "The Communion of Saints and the Forgiveness of Sins"  Lessons 12 and 13 from The New St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism 

 

History

C continued reading in The Big Golden Book of Cavemen and Other Prehistoric People. She finished reading about Homo erectus and then started reading about the Neanderthals. We stopped just before the Ice Age because I have a Sticker Histories book for her to do next week. C. watched  TRILOGY OF LIFE - Walking with Beasts & Walking with Cavemen - "Neanderthal" on You Tube as well. 

M. continued reading Our Little Crusader Cousin of Long Ago by Evaleen Stein, and started reading about towns in the middle ages in both A Picturesque Tale of Progress and Walter Dragun's Town by Sheila Sancha.  


Math

C. took a break from Singapore math to do some practice with counting coins. I pulled some workbook pages from The Complete Book of Time and Money from American Education Publishing and created four mini-units: one counts just pennies, the next adds nickels, the next dimes, and the next quarters. She completed the pennies pages this week. C. also completed Life of Fred: Butterflies Chapter 10 and did some more work on Khan Academy.

M. worked on fractions in Singapore 3B, which is mostly review of work she has already done on Khan Academy. She also completed Life of Fred: Honey Chapter 5.  


Science

Our science topic for this week and next is potential and kinetic energy. On the first day, we talked about pendulums and watched videos demonstrating how the pendulum works: Swinging Pendulum; How Does a Pendulum Work?; Swinging Ball of Death; Bowling Ball Pendulum. On the second day, we discussed how plants turn light into energy through photosynthesis, and we watched Vegetation Transformation from Crash Course Kids and read an excerpt from The First Book of Plants by Alice Dickinson. On our last science day of the week, I collected a bunch of YouTube videos on this topic and had the girls watch a playlist: 


Reading and Writing

C. listened to the audiobook of Caleb's Story and read along in the hardcover. M. finished the audiobook of Mossflower by Brian Jacques. She also listened to one of the Bunnicula books. With me, she read aloud the third stave of A Christmas Carol. M. also wrote final copies of a few thank you letters for birthday gifts as well as a letter to a bookseller friend of ours with whom she has become pen pals. C. didn't have any formal writing to do, but she did sit down and start writing a story one afternoon. 

I continued reading aloud Maggie Rose, Her Birthday Christmas at lunch, and my husband continued reading the Golden edition of The Canterbury Tales at dinner.  


Instrumental Music 

M. is practicing Christmas carols on the recorder and on piano, her current piece is called "The Nightingale." On recorder, C. is playing "Lullaby," "When the Train Comes Along," and "On the Yangtze." On piano she is playing "Reluctant Sleepyhead" and "The Evening Bell." 


Other Activities

We had another masked playdate on the one unseasonably warm day of the week. The girls also created sticker scenes with some Christmas foam stickers, created drawings following tutorials on Art Kids Hub, and colored in Christmas coloring books. C. and E. watched the Sharon Lois and Bram Christmas special on YouTube.  On Sunday, we attended a virtual baby shower for my sister-in-law. 

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