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.

Field Trip Fort Worth Botanical Gardens

 Here is their link:  https://fwbg.org/

We ended up buying a membership, so we can go all year without paying for tickets.  It was $95 for a family membership.  For individual tickets, it's cheaper if you buy them online rather than at the ticket counter.  Because it was spring break, the ticket counter line was a mile long.  Once you get inside the gardens, everyone disperses and it's not so crowded. 

There are tulips everywhere and they're gorgeous.  The gardens also include a huge field of yellow daffodils.  I noticed statues everywhere that must be new.  We haven't been to the gardens since 2019 and I'm sure the statues were not there then. 

We spent about an hour just in the Japanese garden, which includes traditional Japanese structures, a waterfall, a koi pond, sand art, cherry blossoms and little bridges.  A gift shop sits at the gate of the Japanese garden.  

We were not able to see the northern half of the botanical gardens, because we ran out of time.  We're planning to go back in April and May.  I'm glad we bought the membership.

Planet Earth 2 series

 This series is just incredible: https://www.bbcearth.com/shows/planet-earth-ii

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5491994/

We are watching it as a supplement to Biology.

Right now, the series is streaming on HBO Max (that's how we're watching it).  It may be on another streaming service (like Prime).

They've made a Planet Earth 3, but it doesn't seem to be available for streaming yet.

Lots of Nature: 4/20

 2nd Grader

• Singapore math 
• Sonlight Reading/Language Arts

10th Grader

• Mathusee Geometry
• She worked on her persuasive essay

Both Together

• Rollerskating at homeschool skate time
• Ballet classes all evening at the ballet school
• We released our butterflies that we grew from caterpillars
• We watched a red-tailed hawk attack a nest full of baby birds and watched as the parents tried to fight off the hawk 

Homeschool Day and Box Day: 3/16

 Today is Box Day!  We are expecting a huge box from Sonlight, including Sonlight C (world history 2), Algebra 2, the Hands-on History box that goes with HBL C. 

2nd Grader

Wild Math 2

• We read It's About Time (which was a bit too easy for him)
• We played Sleeping Queens (addition card game)
• We played Mexican Train Dominoes

Reading/Language Arts

• Sonlight Reading/LA
• We played Story Cubes
• He's reading his dyslexia reader at night before bed

Science

• Boy, Were We Wrong About the Weather
• Bird ID outside using the Merlin Bird ID app and the guidebook Birds of Texas (see below)

Sonlight B

• A Child's History of the World
• Babe

10th Grader

• Bird Photography - she used a DSLR camera to photograph birds and ID them
• Merlin Bird ID app (Cornell University).  We recorded bird calls and identified
• House Sparrow
• Eurasian-collared dove
• Northern mockingbird
• Great-tailed grackle
• American Robin
• Cliff Swallow
• House finch
• Great horned owl
• Cedar waxwing
• We used the book Birds of Texas to see pictures of each bird we ID'd

Homeschool Day 1/9

 I'm back to trying to blog daily again.  Maybe easier.

2nd Grader

Math

• Wild Math 2
• Practiced adding 3 numbers

Sonlight Reading/Language Arts

• Sounded out new words for the week
• Handwriting without Tears
• Explode the Code 2

Sonlight B World History 1 (history, Bible and literature)

• We started Little Pear today for our read-aloud and he really liked it

Extras

• Cub Scouts

10th Grader

Bible

• Book of Psalms
• We talked about the authors of Psalms

Mathusee Geometry

Grammar & Writing

• Easy Grammar 10th Grade Ultimate workbook
• Typing practice

History & Literature

• Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie
• Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb - she finished this book today - this was an excellent book
• We talked about the history of yeast, including how it was discovered in ancient times

Science

• Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities
• Yeast Fermentation Lab
• We tested expired yeast and discovered that the spores were dead
• We fermented yeast in warm water with sugar and observed changes in the foam over time
• We looked at the yeast under the microscope with and without blue dye

Extras

• Ballet class (outsourced)

Nature Walk/Tree ID 12/5

 We took the morning to work on local tree identification and hike a trail through the woods.  We're using the book Trees of North America (National Audubon Society) to identify trees.  

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/600056/national-audubon-society-trees-of-north-america-by-national-audubon-society/

On this walk, we found lichen, moss, looked at tree rings...  We identified Eastern red cedar, mesquite, Bradford pear, Shumard oak, and Osage-Orange.  

We talked about how Osage-orange wood was nicknamed "bow wood" by the French, because Native Americans would use its wood to make bows.  The seeds are also called horse apples or monkey balls.

We talked about how the stoma work (on the leaves) and why leaves fall off the trees before it gets too cold.

Field Trip: Marine Life in Galveston, Texas

 Galveston, Texas is an amazing place to see marine wildlife.  We've seen jellyfish, dolphins, sea birds, flounder, crabs - beach combing is wonderful - even watching the birds bobbing up and down in the water is pretty awesome.

This time, we took a boat into the bay and saw dolphins.  We saw dolphins do something I've never seen them do before.  They caught a flounder and kept flipping it up into the air to each other, recatching it.  We happened to be in the harbor when it was raining and saw several dolphins jumping out of the water over and over again.  They do that to get a different view above water - check for predators, look for food, etc.

Here's some pictures of the birds in the harbor.  This is a grey pelican, maybe?  I'm not the best with pelican identification.

They're all sitting on the back of this boat.

White pelicans and a grey pelican?

Dolphins are impossible to photograph, since they just move so quickly, but this was a great picture.  Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin.

Even More Plant Photography

 10th grader took these pictures on our field trip to the botanical gardens.    

10th Grader's Amazing Butterfly Photography

 Pictures taken from a pollinator garden at a local college.  If you click on the picture, it should enlarge.