Saturday, September 17, 2011

A whale of a time with Mrs. DeeAnn!

The whale lapbook created by Brigitta (with help from DeeAnn). Math, science, reading, and spelling all in one little file folder!


What I learned about whales: They eat using teeth (toothed whale) and one eats with baleen (it brings the water in and the water goes back out and the food stays in). The biggest whale is the blue whale. The smallest whale was the beluga whale. The toothed whale only has one blow hole and the baleen whale has 2 blow holes.

Okra Painting Project

Busy hands hard at work

Brigitta painting

Piper painting



Brigitta's sunflower (her idea)


Here is an art project idea I got of of pinnit. Our dear friend Mr. Gerjes always blesses us with fresh vegetables from his garden. This week he brought an abundance of okra which we have enjoyed eating! The girls and I cut up 8 pieces and used them to create gift tags and cards. Take a peek at this fun and easy project.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

How to pan for gold like they did during the California gold rush!

The muddy "river"



Panning for gold.

A gold nugget!


Separating the light weight from the heavy to find the gold.

More gold! I think these girls are ready to go on their first gold panning trip with Bop Bop!


Piper had to join in the fun
These are the things I learned from chapters 1-6: You can find gold where there is blue dirt, the dirt floats to the top of the water and the gold sinks, and that people used to write their names on the walls of their homes before they left to let the next people know who they were and when they left.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Week Sept. 12 - 16

This week we are continuing our lesson on westward expansion and the Oregon Trail. The independent reader for the week is "The Secret Valley" by Clyde Robert Bulla. We are also going to read "Iva Dunnit and the Big Wind". We will be working on suffixes (-ly, -ness, -ing, -ful, -est, and -able) as well as making words plural by adding /s/. Our spelling words are: feeling, eating, thankful, sickness, tallest, illness, readable, loading, badly, and saying. In addition, we are going to talk about how to write using descriptive and expressive words. In math we are continuing to strengthen addition and subtraction skills using Math-U-See with manipulatives.

On Monday and Tuesday Brigitta will be working on science lessons with DeeAnn. She will be creating two lapbooks on Monday (sharks and whales) and talking about land predators on Tuesday. Her predator for the week is the Tasmanian Devil of Australia.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

We're still here...

Sorry it's been a few days since we last posted. Will has the camera and until we get it back can't upload any pics. We are finishing up our Pony Express lesson this week. We are also still working through Genesis. Today Brigitta asked, "If God didn't want them to eat the fruit off the tree then why didn't He just put one of those plastic covers over it or something?" She also said, "If Adam was made out of dust and when we die and go in the ground we turn into dust...that is cool." And, "If they (Adam and Eve) didn't eat the fruit there wouldn't be bad dreams?" Ohhhh, the questions that one short chapter brings. Believe me, this wasn't all of them.

We are also working on locating and remembering the names of the 7 continents and 5 oceans (for those of you who aren't in "the know", the Southern Ocean has been added to the list. It's the ocean that surrounds Antarctica). She's doing pretty well. Even Piper is going around saying, "South America, South America" in a sing-songy voice. Last night we read a book called Enoch Emu. At the end of the book it talked about several male birds that care for the eggs/chicks. It told what country each bird was from. She had to look at a map, find the country, figure out which continent it was on, and then write the name of the bird on her continent map. Her question (about the similarity of an ostrich and and emu), "Are they related?" We are going to find out...and how, if they are, they ended up on totally different continents! (emu = Australia, ostrich = Africa).

Well, until I get the camera, so long! 

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Sea World Math, Science, and Language Arts Curriculum

Manatee Feeding Math Sentences

Dolphin Weight and Measurement

The dolphin and handmade stretcher for weighing

Manatee feeding math example
All of these are part of the http://www.swbg-animals.org/just-for-teachers/guides/index.htme Sea World Curriculum.

Genesis 1 Work



This is the day I made my Genesis project. I learned about what all He made. My favorite part was making the project. My favorite part of the story was when God separated the sky from the water. You can see what I drew on the second rectangle at the top of the poster.