School Days September 2020

Today we are finishing up another great month of learning.  We will complete week eleven on Friday.   Here is a look at what we have been learning lately.

 

We have studied and prayed for the countries of Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Greenland, and Guinea-Bissau. 

The boys are continuing to enjoy their Awana class. Here is Cruz excited about a new badge he earned.

In Math, Cruz is learning fractions.  We use Math-U-See.  He is in the Epsilon level.  What I love about Math-U-See is the DVD lessons that come with it.  Each Monday we start the week by watching Mr. Demme teach the new concept and then we spend the rest of the week mastering it. They take a test every Friday and if they pass it we move on to the next lesson. 

Ben is in the Gamma level learning his multiplication facts.  In addition to his lessons, he does a lot of online and flashcard drills.  

They both do a lot of reading.  Ben read and did a report on The Secret Valley by Clyde Robert Bulla (one of our favorite authors!),  and also The Clue of the Left-Handed Envelope.  This is part of the Third-Grade Detectives series.  He has four of those to read this school year.  He loved it so much that he has already started the next one.  Both of these are part of the Sonlight Grade 3 readers.

In his U.S. States reading series he read about the States of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.  He does a report each Friday on the state he has read about.

                                     He also does a weekly art project to go along with it.

 

Here is his drawing of the State Bird of Ohio.

Cruz read Mr. Popper's Penguins.  He loved this book!

 

He did a book study on it as he read. He learned a lot about penguins and Antarctica during this study.

When he finished, we had a penguin themed Friday movie night.  We watched the movie and then he had to do a report comparing the movie to the book.  It was a really fun study for him. 

I made some fun snacks to go with our theme.  We had penguin cookies made from Oreo's and M&M's.  I used marshmallows for ice and we had Goldfish crackers because penguins love fish.  I also found some cute gummy penguins and ocean themed ones to add to their plates.  They loved it!

We also had pizza and blue Gatorade that represented ocean water.  

Mid-September Cruz began an online IEW writing course through Outschool.  He is doing All Things Fun & Fascinating.  His class meets once a week and then he has homework to complete and submit before the next class.  He is really enjoying it so far.

As a great compliment to IEW writing he is also doing their Fix It! Grammar course.  

Ben practicing his spelling words.

We love the program Vocabulary Spelling City.  We use it to help review our weekly spelling words.  I am also using it for Science vocabulary, book study vocabulary, and IEW writing vocabulary.  They take weekly tests and it keeps up with all of their grades.  It is only $35 a year for homeschool families and you can add up to 5 students on your account.  Check it out!

In History we finished a unit on The American Colonies.  It was a fun study learning all about how the colonies were founded. When learning how they made their own furniture we did a fun craft using clothespins and glue to make wooden chairs. 

How cute are these! 

Cruz doing a Science crossword puzzle wearing a box helmet he made one day for fun.

Our Science lessons have been a lot of fun.  We finished a study on cells and Cruz had to make a model.  He used Styrofoam and playdough. 

We then spent the rest of the month learning about bones and muscles.  Here are their personal person projects after adding the bones and muscles to them. This is a great visual.

One Science experiment had us making a body figure out of clay.   They then had to try to stand them up.  We were learning about bones.  The figures couldn't stand on their own so we had to add toothpicks to act as bones to support them. 

We did another cool experiment with a chicken wing bone.  For three days we soaked one bone in water and another bone in vinegar.  After three days we checked them and noticed that the bone in water was pretty much the same but the bone in the vinegar felt soft and rubbery. Vinegar is an acid that removed the calcium salts from the bone.  It was a perfect time to reinforce the importance of drinking milk and how important calcium is for strong bones.  

checking our bones

The smell from the vinegar was pretty bad so Cruz put his mask on.  That made me laugh.

Ben broke one open to see the red bone marrow inside.

We ended the month studying muscles.  Our last experiment focused on the smooth muscles and how they push food through our intestines.  We used a nylon stocking and a ball of playdough. 

Hello October! Tomorrow we begin a new month.  I am looking forward to more fun days of learning but also an upcoming mid-month fall break.  This teacher mom is tired and ready for some R&R.