Earth Science: Layers Week 1

Don't love this time of the year.  Things happen, illness happens, everything gets behind and I feel pressured to catch up and then no one is happy, but it is the cycle of our life at this time of the year, so I'm slowing down, sitting back and not forcing things.

Layers

Monday

• Read Planet Earth/Inside Out by Gail Gibbons.
• Complete Evan-Moor ScienceWorks for Kids: Geology, Grades 1-3 "The Earth Has Layers: Crust, Mantel, Core - Locate the Layer" activity and worksheet (page 6).

Tuesday

• Read The Magic School Bus: Inside the Earth by Joanna Cole.
• Complete Evan-Moor ScienceWorks for Kids: Geology, Grades 1-3 "The Earth Has Layers: Crust, Mantel, Core - A Trip to the Center of the Earth" activity (page 7).

Wednesday

• Complete Evan-Moor ScienceWorks for Kids: Geology, Grades 1-3 "The Earth Has Layers: Crust, Mantel, Core - Summary Activity" and "Extension Activities - Clay Models of the Earth" (page 8)

Not a lot of things to take pictures of this week, so please for give the text only post!

Giraffe was not entirely interested in learning about the different layers - so the clay/play dough models didn't happen - it's not her favourite medium so we worked with only the descriptions and the pictures in the Evan Moor book.

Ancient History: Archaeology

A little delayed getting History started - we've been more focused on getting the reading, writing and math going before jumping into History.  But here goes.

Monday

• Complete – History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations, Grades 1-3:  "What is History?" history pocket according to HO, Lesson 1.

Tuesday

• Define - HO Dictionary Word for Lesson 1Looked up and defined HO dictionary word for Lesson 1.
• Read - Archaeologists Dig for Clues by Kate Duke 
• Complete draw and color.
• Bill Nye the Science Guy: Archaeology 

Wednesday

• Watched The Magic School Bus: Super Sports Fun DVD (Shows and Tellsepisode) by Scholastic from Netflix.

Thursday

• Read Fancy Nancy: My Family History by Jane O'Connor.
• Completed "All About Me: Family Tree" 
• Me and My Family Tree - Joan Sweene

We were going to do the Mini archaeological dig from "A Dirty Dig" from SOTW activity guide, I was unable to find any play sand, so we looked at videos and several books that described digs.  We may hit the local Science Museum in a couple weeks and see if we can put our skills to work there, but for now, I think she gets it.

Earth Science: Geology Unit

So Giraffe, very much enjoyed the various experiments and activities we did in the Weather Unit, and asked that we keep reading and doing more experiments, so I thought it would be good to keep on going in this direction!  Again, I borrowed some ideas from BlueHouseSchool, changed up some of the library books and bought a kits or two that I thought would fit in with our learning.  In keeping with the format of the last Science Unit I decided I would post my goals again and the units we would hopefully cover.

Evan-Moor Science Works for Kids Series has an eBook on Geology for 1st - 3rd grades (EMC 857i).  It offers a wealth of experiments, demonstrations and activities for hands on learning and I'll be trying to supplement with fun reading materials like we used with the weather unit and suggested reading so that is what we’ll be using as the spine of our Science for the next few weeks.  I hope to be able to update weekly what we did so someone out there in the ether will be able to use it as a jumping point like I did at someone else’s suggestion!  We will cover:

1. Layers
2. Earth's Crust 
3. How Soil is Made
4. Properties of Rocks
5. Rocks Form in Different Ways
6. The Incredible Changing Earth
7. Earth's Resources
8. Fossils

Again, I hope to make it back and make a link to each of the parts we covered but in case I don’t just keep reading.

Again, this one appears to be a pretty low budget fun unit - with the use of library books, a basic spine and the odd kit here and there.

We're trying to make Science a regular part of Monday-Tuesday and Wednesday Curriculum.

Ancient History Unit - Grade 1

Many Classical Homeschool History curricula suggest doing History in 4 year cycles starting with Ancient History, and continuing through Middle Ages, Early Modern and Modern & Today.  I did this with Froggy, but Ketchup wasn't interested in History so much and definitely very structured materials weren't going to work with her so we opted for a more loose Social studies program and she might tag along with Giraffe as we work through the times.

The idea is to teach History from the beginning and follow through chronologically and repeat it more in depth each time.  Since we are homeschooling a year at a time, I'm not sure if we will follow through on the suggested cycle or if we will wander off in different directions -- ha, just fair warning, as we tend to follow interests as we can.

So for History this year we hope to cycle most of the way through the Ancients level and to do that we will follow History Odyssey: Ancients Level 1 by Pandia Press.  I'm also using Usborne: Ancient World by Fiona Chandler.  I also have an older version of the The Story of the World: Ancient Times by Susan Wise Bauer for activities and maybe some aditional reading.

• Archaeology
• Stone Age Cave Dwellers
• (3)
• (4)
• (5)
• (6)
• (7)
• (8)
• (9)
• (10)
• (11)
• (12)
• (13)
• (14)
• (15)
• (16)
• (17)
• (18)
• (19)
• (20)
• (21)
• (22)
• (23)
• .

Not sure how far we'll get since we are jumping into this in mid January, but I'll post as best I can and hopefully I'll make it back and update the link to each of the parts.  In case I don’t get back to update just keep reading, they're sure to show up!

Also, I'd like to thank BlueHouseSchool for the jumping off points.  I used a lot of the suggestions she made when working with her daughter - plus what was available to me locally to make it fun for Giraffe.  All together, this was a pretty low budget unit, which provided a ton of entertainment.

Hoping to make History a major part of our Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Earth Science: Weather Week 6

Really behind now.  The holidays are crazy around here and we got sick again over the holidays, so even this week we're fighting to make progress.  We're getting tired of weather now, but I think we're in the final stretch so that's not bad!

So without further adieu we will begin our week of Seasons, and hope it moves quickly with fun! :)

Seasons

Monday

• Read - Sunshine Makes the Seasons by Franklyn M. Branley.
• Read - Ring of Earth: A Child’s Book of Seasons by Jane Yolen
• Complete - The Mailbox Investigating Weather, Grades 1-3  "The Seasons: Shining Seasons" (page 34). 
• Watch - Bill Nye the Science Guy: Earth's Seasons DVD by Disney.

We did the experiment from Investigating Weather but followed the one in the Branley book instead, made it easier to explain, but the Giraffe kind of fluffed it off, we've sort of done this one before.  No photos cause it's hard taking photos in the dark when you're using your flashlight on your phone! LOL!

The Branley book was a good explanation on the Seasons, the Yolen book was a beautiful poem for an adult, but a little too long and descriptive for a 6 yr old, I think Giraffe, snored through most of it... remember attention spans are quiet short for many at this point, especially when they'd rather be off playing and having fun! (the Yolen book was recommended by the Investigating Weather book.)

Tuesday

• Read - Paint a sun in the sky : a first look at the seasons by Claire Llewellyn
• Read - A Bear for All Seasons by Diane Marcial Fuchs
• Complete - The Mailbox Investigating Weather, Grades 1-3  "The Seasons: Global Opposites" (page 35).
• Complete - The Mailbox Investigating Weather, Grades 1-3  "The Seasons: Get Clear on the Hemispheres" worksheet (page 39).

Enjoyed both books today.

Wednesday

• Read - Four Seasons Make a Year by Anne Rockwell.
• Read - Autumn Across American by Seymour Simon
• Complete - The Mailbox Investigating Weather, Grades 1-3   "The Seasons: Creative Calendars" (page 35). 
• Complete - The Mailbox Investigating Weather, Grades 1-3   "The Seasons: The Fun Four" worksheet (page 38).
• Complete - The Mailbox Investigating Weather, Grades 1-3   "The Seasons: Seasonal Squares" game (pages 40-41).

Extra Reading
The Reasons for Seasons - Gail Gibbons

YAY!  Weather is done!  This Week dragged.  Boy did it drag... she was totally uninterested in furthering the study of weather or the seasons or anything of that nature.  So on to new things! :)  Thanks for keeping up with us! :)

In case you missed it on the Weather Unit page, there was a 7th week scheduled, but we didn't make it.  We had done forecasting along with our other units, so I didn't see any reason to add a special unit to focus on it.