Homeschool Days February 2021

 Here is a look at our homeschool activities during the month of February.

We begin our school days at 8:00 a.m. We start off by saying the Pledge of Allegiance and singing a patriotic song.  We rotate between My Country 'Tis of Thee, America the Beautiful, and The Star-Spangled Banner.  We then read a passage of scripture, do a missionary study, and pray for a country or people group. 
 

This month we studied the countries of Uruguay and Vietnam.  This wrapped up our study for the school year.  Next, we moved on to people groups. 

We will read about and pray for a different people group each week.  We will also study the country that they are from.  So far we have learned about the Acehnese and the Balinese. I try to include YouTube videos also.

Next, we get busy on handwriting and math.

 

We use A Reason for Handwriting and both boys are doing cursive.

 

 Cruz doing a math worksheet.  

He is in the Epsilon level of Math U See this year doing fractions.

This is a rare occurrence.  A 100 on a math test was a big deal for him!

 Ben is in the Gamma level doing multiplication.

 

 

practicing problems on the board

 

Ben doing a language lesson on adjectives.

 Ben does daily lessons of Explode the Code online. 

 

Both boys do Keyboarding Without Tears. 

 

In addition to Learning Language Arts Through Literature (the purple book), Cruz also does Fix It! Grammar.  He is in Book 2 Robin Hood.  Here he is marking his sentences on the board during a review lesson.

Ben read Viking Adventure and loved it.  Just like his brother, all books by Clyde Robert Bulla have been his favorite.  He has already asked if he can read it again this summer.

 

He also read about the States of Kentucky and West Virginia and did artwork on the State flowers.

 

Cruz reading in his BJU 5 reader.

 

He also read Stuart Little and made a lapbook about it.  It was our first attempt at doing a lapbook and we loved it.  I hope to incorporate more in the future.  When he finished the book we had a movie night and watched the movie.  We discussed the differences between it and the book.

 

making his lapbook

Giving us an oral book report using his lapbook. 

He also did a written book report and glued it inside.

Our history unit covered the years following the Civil War.  We learned about the advances in transportation, communication, industries, immigration, and how the growth of the cities changed the nation.

 

 

We made covered wagons when learning about the settlers on the Great Plains.

They loved doing this craft!

They now have them sitting on their desks holding all of their supplies.

 

For art, they drew and colored a buffalo.

 

 Cruz loves doing art.

 

landscape watercolor drawings

 

 

We also began a unit on The United States in the 20th Century.  So far we have studied World War I and World War II. They have been very fascinated with these lessons.  We have watched several YouTube videos to help learn more.   I also found this book and Cruz can hardly put it down.  He is obsessed with learning about the wars.  I hope to take them to the D-Day museum in New Orleans this summer as a field trip.  They are looking forward to visiting it.

He built this war scene in our living room floor and has entertained himself well with it.

His aircraft ready for battle.
 

 

In Science we learned about our senses and did several experiments on each.

 

When learning about taste and smell we did several experiments with food.

 

 

 

a hot and cold taste test using chocolate

smelling different spices
 

 

learning how smell affects our taste

 

We learned all the parts of the ear and made this eardrum model to understand vibration. We also learned all the parts of the eye.

Ben doing a Science notebook activity on the senses while Cruz writes fascinating facts in his notebook.  This year we are doing Apologia's Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology and I have absolutely loved it!  It has been my favorite Science curriculum of all so far.

 

Lastly, they got to go on a field trip to the Guatemala Children's Museum with Encounter Academy.  They enjoyed the museum but their favorite part of all was getting to ride the bus with the other students and parents.

In addition, we took a family field trip to a local macadamia nut farm.  You can read about that outing HERE.

 

And now we are heading into March.  I cannot believe this school year is almost over!  I have all of my lesson plans written out for the rest of the year. Yay!! I am breathing a little easier knowing the end is in sight.