It's all coming together..

I'm a terrible one for making lesson plans and then not following through.  Take my Aesop's Fables study we started in week 1 for instance.  We didn't get past the third day without tears and everyone seeking refuge in their trusty DS's.  I told myself for the upteenth time to get over it, we're just not curriculum girls.  I put away my painstakingly hand drawn maths problems, and suddenly we were all happy again - free, relaxed, enjoying each other.
Then, suddenly last week I forgot all about that disaster and bought two curriculums.  The girls are really enjoying chemistry, history and art at the moment and these curriculums are based solely on those areas. The first is 'The Elements. Ingredients of the Universe', the second 'Mapping the World with Art'. Both are by Ellen McHenry whose link you will find in the list of links over on the right.
I admit I was nervous about starting these.  We began with the first lesson of MTWWA.  It involved a short reading about the first mapmakers. Then after watching the video of how to draw Mesopotamia we drew it. It was really alot of fun. We then made edible Babylonian cuneiform clay tablets. H's said something about fish and oxen on a heavenly mountain.

 

Throughout the day we practiced drawing the map from memory. H enjoyed it so much that she even drew it the next day on the train.
We continued with Lesson 2 on Friday - reading about Strabo and Eratosthenes, drew the Nile River, and H was able to recall stuff she remembered about Alexandria from reading Horrible Histories books.

The Elements curriculum was just as fun. In addition to that we are learning The Elements song by Tom Lehrer. H can already sing it word perfect, P and I have a long way to go yet!

Our new art teacher was a great success both with students and parents.  She's quiet and kind and allowed the kids to produce some great work with ink, watercolours, native plants and twigs to use instead of brushes.

R's work

H's work

We've been busy this past week, but still found time for Kids Cardio, applying skills learned on Art Academy to paint on enormous canvasses, H teaching R how to paint a sunset, and endless games on The World of Miamiopia (see link on right).

Oh, we also had a great time at niece H's birthday party

A Cave girl and her Cat

..and Opa's birthday too but R was photographer that day so no great pics of that occasion, unless you want to see lots of photos of people's armpits or up R's nose.

...and we're off!

R decided it was time to learn to read, so we signed up with Headsprout once again and luckily R loves it as much as H did.  As expected she wanted to do all the episodes at once so we let her go and sat back to watch. It's wonderful to see her so engaged with the program and the peals of laughter coming from the study just fills me with joy.  After a few days she decided that perhaps just one episode a day would be best as "it's getting a bit hard now".

We had our first Saturday Science session on the weekend. It involved mixing various white powders together and eating them. I'm sure there was alot of important chemistry involved with this experiment and the girls seemed to enjoy it (especially the eating part - the final product was sherbert!).  I didn't take any pictures sadly, as Jan and I were too busy gossiping and eating plum cake.

On Tuesday we began my ambitious Aesop's fable study. R lost interest after reading the fable, and she knew all about gravity already so I didn't really need to teach her anything.  It's true!  I asked her why, if we jumped up high, didn't we float off up in the air? She said, whilst rolling her eyes at me,"Gravity".  I asked her where she thought gravity came from.  "The earth, mummy" followed by a big sigh.
Meanwhile H was rolling about on my bed laughing her head off.  It seems that H has already taught R about gravity.  Hmmm...I don't think they need me at all.

We made tortoises from paper plates..

We did some gravity experiments that I found in a book,  then the girls came up with their own experiment:

I think from now on I'll leave the learning to them. They appear to know what they're doing...

Aesop's Fables Studies

I really like Aesop's fables for the sensible messages they convey in a short and non-schmaltzy way.  P and I think both girls could benefit from these tales so I have devised unit studies based on each fable in our lovely book 'Unwitting Wisdom.  An Anthology of Aesop's Animal Fables.'

The other good thing about these stories is that they touch on many other subjects like science, art, maths, social studies, history... the list goes on.

Our first fable will be 'Not Flying, but Falling'

First up we'll read the fable and talk about the message it conveys.
For science we'll learn about tortoises and swallows and write a short report on each animal.  We'll explore gravity through experiments, the Gravity song (Space Songs cd), and our book 'Weight and Weightlessness' which is a really fun read with great illustrations.  I wish I could find more from this series of books.
We will also discover aerodynamics, learn about how birds fly, and study the oldest known bird Archaeopteryx.
We'll attempt some copywork, poetry and story writing for Language Arts.
For LOTE we'll learn related words in sign language, Indonesian and German.
For maths I have made up bird and tortoise themed sum and counting sheets for R.  I will give H some word problems based on birds and tortoises.
Finally, for art the girls will create a picture of the story, make paper plate tortoises (R will really enjoy that one!), experiment with feathers, create a mobile and attempt to make a fossilized Archaeopteryx.
And I think we'll go to the zoo to visit the tortoises there. R thinks that the tortoises might be able to help us out with our art projects, but I think they may have some trouble with the sticky tape dispenser.