Homeschool Day 11/12 + Nature Walk + Homeschooling with a Friend

 Today, another homeschooled fifth grader spent the day homeschooling with us and going on our nature hike.  

Book Basket

• Because of Winn-Dixie - we finished the book today.  This is one of the best books we've ever read.
• Seabird

Botany

• We wrapped up our Apologia Exploring Creation with Botany book today by going on another nature hike.
• We went on a mile-long trail, saw one of the few natural waterfalls in our county and the boys played on the natural rock formation that lines the lake
• They caught tadpoles (and put them back).

Math

• BJU Math 5

English

• Voyages in English 6
• Independent reading

Ancient History

• You Wouldn't Want to Be a Greek Athlete
• D'Aulaire's Greek Myths
• The Usborne Illustrated Odyssey

Latin

• Prima Latina lesson 21

Homeschool Day 11/10 + Nature Walk/Tree Identification

 Fifth Grader

Book Basket

• Because of Winn-Dixie
• Seabird 

Math

• BJU Math 5

English

• Voyages in English 6
• Cursive Success
• Independent reading

Ancient History

• You Wouldn't Want to Be a Greek Athlete
• D'Aulaire's Greek Myths
• Usborne Illustrated Odyssey

Latin

• Prima Latina lesson 21

Botany 

• We are finishing Apologia's Exploring Creation with Botany this week by going on two nature walks in a natural Texas forest and using the Trees of Texas Field Guide.
• Today we walked along a natural creek known for fossils and identified several trees that looked interesting.  
• We identified Ash trees, a Live Oak tree, Chinaberry, Holly and Sumac.

Homeschool Day 4/13

 Kindergartener

• Listened to me read aloud The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  This was originally supposed to be for the 13 year-old, but he listened quietly to the entire second chapter, so I guess I'll invite him in to listen when I read it again tomorrow
• Played in the woods, skipped rocks in a creek, played on the playground
• Went with me to run errands

13 Year-old

• Algebra - we worked through a number of slope + y-intercept problems together on the dry erase board
• Language Lessons for the Secondary Child
• Free reading.  She read Because of Winn-Dixie and I read aloud The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
• Anatomy reading - the integumentary system
• History 
• video: "Hiroshima Dropping the Bomb - BBC"
• video: "Nagasaki Bomb and Surrender - BBC"
• finish movie: Defiance
• Timeline figures (from History in the Woods) - we worked through all the timeline figures for WWI and WWII.  We reviewed/discussed them and taped them onto our wall timeline.  This took about half an hour, but it was a great review!
• Went walking in the woods and skipped rocks in a creek

16 Year-old

• Algebra - we worked through several problems together
• Language Lessons for the High School Student - editing
• German together - we are about done with the Komm Mit 2 text
• Scarlet Letter Unit Study
• The Scarlet Letter
• Whatever Happened to Justice
• The Fallacy Detective
• History 

• video: "Hiroshima Dropping the Bomb - BBC"
• video: "Nagasaki Bomb and Surrender - BBC"
• finish movie: Defiance
• Timeline figures (from History in the Woods) - we worked through all the timeline figures for WWI and WWII.  We reviewed/discussed them and taped them onto our wall timeline.  This took about half an hour, but it was a great review!
• Went walking in the woods and skipped rocks in a creek
• Apologia Biology LAB - from the chapter on Plants - we collected about 15 tree leaves and went through the book classifying the leaves by shape, branch orientation, lay-out of the leaf's veins, edging, etc.  We went to a park in the woods for this lab, brought our textbook and just sat in the grass going through the different kinds of leaves that she found 

Homeschool Day 3/29

 Five more weeks left of this "semester" - even thought we school year-round and it really doesn't matter.  But, I have been keeping track.

Kindergartener

• Summer's Lab science - what is living and what is non-living (kinda obvious, right?).  This led to a discussion of cells, looking at onion cells under a microscope, looking at a model of a cell and watching an animation of the inner life of a cell.  This is actually a fun video - made by Harvard.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_zD3NxSsD8  We also watched a video of bacteriophages attacking an E. coli bacteria.  (He's really interested in cells for some reason)
• We read I Am a Booger: Treat Me With Respect - yes, it was gross
• We read Far North in the Arctic: Counting Alaska's Animals
• I Spy! Extreme Challenger - we did one of the challenges
• Ballet class today

13 Year-old

• Gospel of John
• Algebra video
• Language Lessons for the Secondary Child
• Free reading
• She read To Kill a Mockingbird, I read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
• History video: "WWI: The Aftermath"
• I'm going to try to find All Quiet on the Western Front tonight on streaming
• Anatomy reading
• Ballet class today

Our cat sleeping on To Kill a Mockingbird.  Maybe the title of the book was interesting to her.

16 Year-old

• 2 Samuel
• Algebra 2 video
• Also Ballet Class
• Language Lessons for the High School Student
• History video: "WWI: The Aftermath"
• She'll also watch All Quiet on the Western Front if I can find it tonight 
• Scarlet Letter Unit Study
• Read The Scarlet Letter
• Researched Cotton Mather and write a short narration about who he was
• Read "The Witches of Salem" from The New Yorker
• Whatever Happened to Justice
• The Fallacy Detective
• Apologia Biology: Crayfish Dissection lab.  We followed along with this video during the dissection:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ79ivCgNe8

This was probably one of the more disgusting dissections.  Its leg and claw popped off right away and the smell lingered around for several hours.  We were able to find everything in the dissection video, though.  A success!  

Homeschool Day 3/17

 Kindergartener

• eh...he skipped school today.  He went to Home Depot and looked at plants and played all day.

13 Year-old

• Gospel of John
• Algebra workbook page
• Language Lessons for the Secondary Child
• Free reading from her book crate.  She finished A Treasury of Poetry for Young People
• She read To Kill a Mockingbird, I read Mrs. Frisby
• She also went to Home Depot, which meant we didn't do more than we would've

16 Year-old

• 2 Samuel
• Algebra workbook
• Language Lessons for the Secondary Child
• Health - reading
• Scarlet Letter Unit Study
• Read The Scarlet Letter
• Whatever Happened to Justice?
• The Fallacy Detective
• Apologia Biology - Earthworm Dissection. Boy, this was disgusting.  Surprisingly, we were able to identify the organs, including the ganglia.  I didn't think we would be able to, but our worm dissection abilities exceeded our expectations!  Yuck!

We ordered this earthworm from Home Science Tools.  It was huge and she didn't want to touch it.

Probably much easier to see in real life and not on a computer screen, but we were able to find all of its organs.  Dissection pins are an absolute must when you do dissection labs!  They really help.