Learning While Traveling

Last Wednesday we traveled to Alabama for my sister Erin's wedding. It was fun, and we took three days off normal school. Kind of like a little spring break, I guess.

Learning did not cease during our trip though.

One thing I decided to do was to go to the library and carefully choose some audio educational material to listen to in the van. My van does not have a CD player, so I had to find some cassette tapes. Thankfully our library still has some, so I was happy about that! I was actually able to find a lot of read along audio sets. Subjects were covered but not limited to Social Studies, History, Science, and of course Literature. I especially liked the Smithsonian Backyard series. We had two of those. I loved the colorful art as it taught my children about bumblebees and armadillos!

The titles included the following:

1. Stone Soup
2. Armadillo at Riverside Road
3. Kate Shelly and the Midnight Express
4. City Mouse and the Country Mouse
5. Lost in the Storm
6. Hill of Fire
7. The Josefina Story Quilt
8. Bumblebee at AppleTree Lane
9. The Long Way to a New Land
10. The Good, The Bad, and the Two Cookie Kid
11. Arthur's New Puppy
    

Audio School!

I love the idea of learning through audio. Here are a couple of things I am currently using as supplements:

~Audio math CDs (for example, I am using the one pictured above right now to help with multiplication tables).

~Audio books (the boys just finished listening to the Chronicles of Narnia's:The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe). They can learn in the bed at night too!

~Audio internet mp3 files. My favorite sites for those are the following:

www.yourstoryhour.org

http://www.homeschoolradioshows.com/

History: Great American Pastimes

Today while we were reading an excerpt from Don't Know Much About American History by Kenneth C. Davis, we came upon a really interesting section entitled "Great American Pastimes".


["Which of the following might you have played as a colonial kid?"
a) basketball
b) hopscotch
c) Frisbee
d) miniature golf

The answer is letter b. There wasn't much time to play in colonial days, but kids squeezed in games of tag, blindman's bluff, London bridge, hopscotch (then called scotch hopping), or hide and seek.

"If you were very lucky, you might have a spinning top, cornhusk, or rag doll, or a set of checkers (called checks), dominoes, jacks,marbles, or cards."]

Jonathan cracked me up. He said, "Since checkers were called 'checks', were marbles called 'marbs'?"

hahaha... I didn't laugh out loud although it was VERY. HARD.!

Mr. Speedy

Justin sits proudly after being a good example to Jonathan. He completed chores, oral reading, silent reading, & seatwork early today. Jonathan caved under the peer pressure and finished right after Justin. Teacher Mom is proud, and Principal Dad will be elated to come home to such news. :-)

Buddies!

Science Project: The Human Eye

We are studying the human eye for science. I was looking for a good picture to use as a model from which to pattern our own model.


I found a great cornstarch clay recipe here. It worked beautifully!

Jonathan stirring and heating the salt/water mixture Ryan mixing the cornstarch and water

Justin molding the dough

I didn't get pictures of everyone mixing the food coloring in, but I would have gotten it all over the camera!
I used a black magic marker to outline the iris and make the pupil.

Jonathan had cornstarch all over his face!

I used a wooden kabob skewer to keep it in place

Here is the optic nerve trailing behind

I realize it is not an extremely complex model, but trying to place a clear cornea over the outside of the iris seems a little difficult as well as filling the eyeball full of liquid.

I did have an idea for the cornea though... I thought of those plastic bubbles you get in a gumball machine.

Below are the Youtube documentaries we watched: