Tree identification video

We watched this today:

Leaf Unit Study:

We are doing a Leaf Unit Study. 

Some books we are/will be reading:

Copywork:

Book lists on leaf stationary :-)

Preserved leaves from our nature walk:

Some of the pictures from the nature walk we took a couple of weeks ago:



Leaf Unit Study, Lapbook, Notebook Ideas

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/leaf_man.php

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/trees.php

http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/2007/10/fall-time-lapbook.html

http://www.ourbigearth.com/2008/11/02/the-home-school-lapbook-learning/

http://www.squidoo.com/tree-lapbook

http://www.flickr.com/photos/45271190@N04/5028190893/in/pool-lapbooking/

Insect/Bug Unit Study

The boys have been collecting all sorts of interesting insects (pupa, moths, and beetles of all sorts and shapes) so I decided that it would be a great time to do a bug unit study!   We have plenty of resources for to make a notebook with this study.  So far, we have used the following:

• "Bugs Fun Kit" - includes mini-books, coloring books, stickers, stencils, etc (thanks to Papa & Grammy)
• Let's Discover Insects - facts, stickers, & activities (thanks to Mummy)
• The First Book of Bugs by Margaret Williamson - amazing book that I printed from the internet several months ago and just recently read to them. 
• enchantedlearning.com.

Pictures are clickable for closeups

 

 

Justin's

 Ryan liked the Ambush Bug Nymph 

 Jonathan's little potato beetle above is saying, "Did you know that they suck insect's tissues?" 

Jonathan loves to draw comics...

They love creating notebooks.  We will be adding more to them as they learn.

American History: Study of Early Peoples

We are currently studying a few of the Early Native American People groups. We are using The Complete Book of United States History for our studies.

One of the most interesting things about the early native Americans were the marks they left. Hieroglyphics (little pictures to represent words), Petroglyphs (hieroglyphics in stone), Pueblos (stone apartment type structures), etc.

(Also, Justin is really excited because there is a section about Indian sign language. He, of course, had to browse ahead in the book and find that).

Here are some of the boys' drawings of Hieroglyphics, petroglyphs, and pueblos.

Click the pictures to see the details. Justin drew pueblos with petroglyphs on the walls.

Jonathan's (he explained his)

We watched the clip below to see it in "real life". Very interesting. If we were rich, we'd head on over there for the weekend to see them. But I'm really thankful we have Youtube as an alternative. :-)

Another Vocab Story

Jonathan, who has quite a sense of humor sometimes, penned quite the vocabulary story today. The word is "abandon." He had to write the definition and then a story.

"I wish to abandon my house."
"But you can't", said Sam.
One of his friends said, "Yes, he can; it's his house."
Then Sam learned that it was not his business.

Spelling, Grammar, Dictation, Copywork

I think I mentioned before that I heard a great audio seminar about Language Arts from a veteran home-schooling mother. Both of her children are adults and have published writing, so I was interested in hearing what she had to say. She is a huge advocate of Note-booking for all subjects. I must say, I have to agree with her that note-booking is very beneficial! The first Note-booking project was for our bee unit study. Now that I understand more about the process, we are enjoying note-booking in the area of language arts as well. Notebooks are great ways to keep a nice record of the boys' work. (We are still using ABeka curriculum as core.)

One fun area of note-booking is in story writing. My boys love to write their own stories, so after they have written their vocabulary words with definitions (Justin has to look them up in the dictionary), they write stories about their words.

I wanted to share a couple of the stories here. I must say their stories make me chuckle!

By Justin (who likes short and sweet and to the point):

Once a man thought he was sacred! But people would warn him that he was not sacred. But he would not listen because he thought he was the best. One day he thought that he had the most glory! Then one day he drove right over a cliff! He had died.

By Jonathan

(He narrated the story to me while I wrote. Then he copied my writing - this is to keep him from seeing words misspelled even if they are his own words. Charlotte Mason recommends this):

Once upon a time, there was a dog. He liked briers and brambles. His master's name was John. John named his dog "BrierThorn."
One day BrierThorn ran away. Then BrierThorn saw a cat. He ate the cat for lunch! BrierThorn saw two dogs. He got into a fight with them. BrierThorn and the dogs had a boxing match; BrierThorn won!
Next, he went to a pizza place. He stole some pizza. "Come back here!" said the baker. BrierThorn said, "You can only have the crust."
Then BrierThorn went home.

September Update

I know it is about time for an update! I don't have a lot of time, but there are a few things I want to mention. Hopefully I will find time to update with some pictures soon.

• We have the new & exciting privilege of meeting with Jonathan's old school friend Anna once a week! She is homeschooling as well. This is a lot of fun not only for the boys, but for me as well since I have made a new friend with her mother Stacie.
  
• We are still studying bees. Currently we are reading:

The Bee People

A very delightful classic I must say (1899)! I had downloaded it as a freebie several months ago, and when we decided to do our unit study I remembered I had downloaded it. (What a nice coincidence huh?)

Here is a little synopsis I found on another site:

An attractive introduction to the curious structure, habits, and activities of bees, in which readers learn how the bees' wondrous body parts equip them to gather nectar and pollen, construct the hive, and nurture the young, and how the different kinds of bees interact in the life of the hive. Over one hundred pen drawings [emphasis mine... these are beautiful!] by the author illustrate the features described in the text.

We are also reading another nice little book called The Brownies at Home by Palmer Cox (written in 1893). I absolutely love it! The entire book is written in poetry form, and the little "brownies" are illustrated all throughout the book. The boys enjoy looking at the pictures and choosing which ones they like the best. Evidently, as I have looked into the brownies, they were very famous in their day. Books, toys, dolls, and even a camera were named after them! The copy we have is black and white, but this picture above gives a good idea of what the brownies look like. This particular book is about the months of the year. Justin & Jonathan are working on their very own Spelling & Vocabulary notebooks based on the Noah Webster's American Spelling book (The Original Blue Backed speller). These are not only a great way to keep up with their education, but they are also very fun and entertaining! I give them a new list of words, they are to look each of the words up in their dictionary, write the definitions,write a story about the words, and possibly draw pictures for chosen words. Their stories are very entertaining! Ryan is learning to read! I know I mentioned we checked out Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons from the library. I had to take the book back, so there was a break of time where we didn't get to go over the lessons. Thankfully, I was able to order it from Amazon and we have our very own copy now. - I am also reading story books to him from the library. - Along with these lessons, we are going through Disney Number & Counting & Alphabet learning workbooks.These are cute workbooks I found at the Dollar tree. He traces numbers and letters & counts. He enjoys working through these with me as we snuggle on my big bed. -On his own he does a LOT of drawing and cutting out with his scissors.

An update on our Unit Study

Just a few pictures from our bee unit study. We are far from finished, but I thought it would be nice to document some of our activities with some pictures.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*Playing a game about bees*
I read to them about how bees send "bee scouts" to find nectar, and then how they dance to communicate to other bees where nectar is found. Then we played the proboscis (bee tongue) game. We initially used party blowouts with velcro attached (to represent the bees' tongue), but the boys DESTROYED them!

Jonathan and Ryan were pretending to be bees. Justin was as well, but he wasn't about to let me take a picture of him with his tongue stuck to a flower! I don't blame him because I wouldn't want to share a picture of how I was showing them how the bees dance.
At least it was fun, and I hope it helps them remember!

Jonathan writing paragraphs about different types of bees... (yes, they doodle on everything!)

Ryan's page. He colored the bee picture, cut it out, and pasted it along with some flower cut-outs I provided. He wrote the word "bee" as I told him how to spell it.
Another one of Ryan's project. It says "Buzzy Bee: Tulips are sweet"
Jonathan's
Jonathan drew this bee free-hand and labeled the parts
Justin's notebook. We use sheet protectors for each page (thus the shine on the pages). They are imperative for creating nice, lasting notebooks.
Justin's page about "carpenter bees" (Jonathan is doing the same paragraphs)
.... and bumble bees
Justin's drawing of a bee with its parts

I still have several pages of things to do and read to them as well as going through their notebooks and helping them to correct mistakes. Hopefully I will have more pictures to post soon!

Bee Unit Study

The boys were really excited the other day when Pa-pa & Grammy gave them a bee's hive. We ended up keeping it for about a week, and then it started to mold so we had to throw it away. It was so fun to study it!
It was very fascinating because the queen bee was right on top of it, and you could see eggs and worker bees on and in it as well. Unfortunately I didn't get a good picture of it but it looked a lot like the one here----> click this link.

Because of this experience, Justin told me he wanted to do a study about bees. Great idea since this would epitomize life-integrated learning!

I decided we should do it in note-book (scrap-booking style). We hope to including copy-work, work sheets, essays, pictures, dictations, art work, and whatever else we decide to add. I have already collected a lot of resources to use throughout the upcoming weeks.

Justin said he is making TWO of them (One that is directed by me and the other to make "however he wants it".) :-)

Today we read an introduction to our unit study, and then we proceeded to create the covers and artwork for their notebooks.

They drew & cut out several pictures before a decision was made on the final product. You can click any of them to see a closer picture.


Ryan enjoys cutting and pasting. Of course he is at the perfect age for this.
You gotta hold your mouth just right. I caught him sticking his tongue out a couple of times, but couldn't get it on film fast enough.
He animates just about everything he draws. If you look closely, you can see smiling clouds and a smiling sun.


Justin did not want to use the bee the other two boys used (too cutesy, I think), so he drew his own bees.

Here Justin is drawing a "killer bee" for his very own "separate notebook." (you can click the picture to see his drawing up close and the copybook nearby.)


I am looking forward to seeing the final products, yet I am anticipating enjoying each moment as we learn together.

Dictation

Dictation is a great way to improve attentiveness, spelling, penmanship, and grammar. We are using Benjamin Franklin's quotes.

Today we used:

• "A penny saved is a penny earned."
• "A good conscience is a continual Christmas."