School Days March 2021

 Here is a look at some of our school activities during the month of March.  

In addition to saying the Pledge of Allegiance, we have also added in the pledge to the Christian flag and the pledge to the Bible.  It reminds me of VBS days when I was a kid.  

Our daily Bible passage reading has focused on the Easter story.  In our Geography and People Group study we have read about and prayed for the Buryat, the Dai, the Dayak, and the Druze.  In our missionary study we have learned about the lives of Dwight L. Moody, Samuel Morris, Menno Simons, and Harriet Tubman.

Cruz read this book and did a report on it.  His Learning Language Arts Through Literature lessons have also come from it.  

Ben reading a chapter book one day in class.

He read three books this month and did a report on each. 

He also read about the States of Indiana, Illinois, Alaska, and Hawaii.  He drew the state flowers of each.

For extra reading comprehension practice I love the 180 Days of Reading workbooks.  Both boys use them for their grade level. We also do 180 Days of Spelling and 180 Days of Language.  I order them from Amazon.  They are great!

David has taken on the task of doing read alouds for me.  It has been a great help.  He does it at bedtime.  They have read through several books together over the past few months.  He is currently reading them a few of the D.J. Dillon books. 

Ben practicing multiple digit multiplication.  That has been his main focus in math lately.
 

 

 

Cruz has a love/hate relationship with math.  When it's easy and he understands it well, he loves it.  When it gets difficult and he's struggling to grasp a new concept, he hates it.  Thankfully, this was a day that made him smile.  (It made me smile too!)  They take a math test every Friday.

They played outside with chalk one afternoon.  I loved going out to see what they had drawn and seeing math formulas added in.  These are the formulas for finding the area and circumference of a circle. It brought me joy.

When they do math in their free time it brightens my day.

Ben added a little math to his drawings too.

Cruz doing a lesson in Fix It! Grammar.  He is in Book 2 this year. It is a great compliment to his IEW writing class.

 Cruz taking his final vocabulary quiz with IEW.

He completed his last IEW online writing class last week and submitted his final paper of the year.  He was excited.  He did the theme book All Things Fun and Fascinating this year.  The writing topics were great and I can see a big improvement in his writing skills.  I love IEW and cannot recommend it enough.  

 

I have already signed Cruz up for Ancient History Based Writing Lessons for the upcoming school year.  I like to start IEW in 4th grade so Ben will begin next fall.  I have signed him up for Elementary Introduction to IEW writing with Aesop's Fables.  Both of their writing classes will be online.  Having that as an option has taken a load off of me and allowed me to focus more on their other subjects.

We finished our American History curriculum this month.  Yay!!  It was a wonderful year of learning history.  We all enjoyed it.  Our final unit covered the United States in the 20th century.  We focused on the World Wars, the Great Depression, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the Civil Rights Movement.  We ended with a study of Canada and Mexico.  History is probably my favorite subject.  

 

Picture above is Cruz taking a one time online class to learn about how inventions and technology discovered during World War II changed our world.  It was presented by someone who works at the D-Day museum in New Orleans and included a virtual tour of the museum.  He loved it!!!  We cannot wait to take a field trip there this summer.

In Science we finished our lesson on the Integumentary System.  One of our activities was taking a finger print sample.

When learning about free nerve endings we did an experiment using cold, lukewarm, and hot water to see how our nerves sense the change in temperature.

Cruz doing a crossword puzzle to review Science vocabulary.

 

We also had a great two week study of the Lymphatic and Immune Systems.  We learned about germs, sickness, and disease and how our bodies are designed to fight them.  We learned about immunity, antibodies, antigens, vaccinations, and antibiotics.  

One of our experiments was to test for bacteria and fungi.  Our Science experiment kit included three petri dishes for testing.  It was recommended to swab the inside of our mouth and then choose two other household items to test.  Cruz chose the toilet handle and Ben chose the TV remote control.  

 

Cruz swabbing his mouth.

We let them sit for several days.

They loved seeing the bacteria grow. 

This week the boys spent Monday and Tuesday taking the California Achievement Test down the street at Encounter Academy.  We plan to take the rest of the week off to enjoy the Easter holiday. 

We have now completed 32 out of 36 school weeks.  I cannot believe how fast it is coming to an end.  It is bitter sweet because I am ready for summer vacation but at the same time I do love our school routine.  I plan to buckle up and finish strong!