Archive for the ‘Road Trip USA’ Category

Heart of Dakota- BLHFHG Unit 6

04
Nov

I am still a week behind in posting what we did for school and it’s confusing me :-/  We are getting ready to start unit 8, but I am only posting about unit 6.  Last week when I posted pictures for unit 5, I had things in there that we actually did in unit 6.  I am going to try to get caught up this week so I don’t confuse myself anymore!

History:

In history we learned a bit about what life was like as the Pilgrims adjusted to life in Holland. We talked about how they had a scrubbing day once each week where everyone scrubbed and cleaned.

Heart of Dakota

Hailey and Hunter scrubbed the kitchen floor. They loved it and begged to do the dining room too 🙂

Geography:

We are using Road Trip USA and this week we studied Maine.

Road Trip USA- Maine

We learned that Maine produces 98% of America’s low-bush blueberries, so we made some delicious blue berry muffins.  Even Hailey, who does not like blueberries, loved the muffins!

Language Arts:

Heart of Dakota- BLHFHG

Our poem this week was “The Months” and Hailey enjoyed adding illustrations to it.

Collective Nouns

Hailey learned about collective nouns this week.  I saw this anchor chart and used that as a guide to do our own anchor chart.

Collective Noun Game

We played a Fishing for Collective Nouns game, which Hailey loved!  It was a lot of fun and a great way to practice collective nouns.

Unit Study:

In our unit study this week we learned all about bats.  This unit covers science, language arts and math.  I love teaching using themes and Hailey really loved it too!  She learned so much (and so did I!) and had a lot of fun doing it!

(Several of the activities we did came from Batty for Bats and Stellaluna.)

Bat Unit

We started out our unit making a Bat Schema chart.  Hailey listed the information she knew about bats and we added it to the Schema side.  As the week went on we added lots of information to the New Learning side and moved some of the information from Schema to Misconceptions.

Bat Unit

One thing we learned is that bats wings are like our hands.  They have fingers and thumbs just like we do.  They are connected by a thin membrane.  Hailey put plastic bags on her hands to represent what the wings are like.

Bat Unit

Hailey wrapped herself up in a towel, pretending that was her wings, and hung upside down to go to sleep.  Or maybe I just flipped the picture upside down 😉

Bat Unit

Since bats use echolocation to find their food, we played a little echolocation game.  Hailey was blindfolded to pretend she was flying at night.  (Bats are not actually blind, as many people think they are, they just search for food at night which is why they need to use echolocation.)  She would call out “echo” and I would reply “location” and she had to try to find me.  It was so much fun!

We did a lot of activities after reading Stellaluna.

Bat Unit

We played this game where we took turns spinning a spinner and seeing which category we landed on.  Then the other person got to select a question from that category to ask the person who spun the spinner.

Bat Unit

Hailey loved it!

Bat Unit

Hailey acted out the story of Stellaluna.

Bat Unit

We made a Venn Diagram about bats vs birds, using information we learned in Stellaluna.

Bat Unit

Hailey made her own Venn Diagram.

Bat Unit

We filled out a bat attribute chart about 4 different bats.  We included how big the bats were.  The smallest bat has a wing span of only 1 inch.  The largest one we studied has a wing span of 5+ feet!  To try to help Hailey understand how big those measurements are she used Unifix cubes to measure and see how many cubes it would take for each bat.

Bat Unit

I found this silly little poem about Bat Poop and Hailey laughed so hard when she read it!

We had another fun week and I am looking forward to the week ahead!

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Heart of Dakota- BLHFHG Unit 4

14
Oct

It’s hard to believe that it’s already the middle of October! The school year is going by so fast. Here is a review of what we did during unit 4.

unit4-1

I have changed a lot of our calendar notebook in the last week or so.  It was taking so long to get through everything, and a lot of it was just a repeat of what we did together during on our calendar board.  So, I have taken a lot out of the notebook.  One of the things I plan to continue though is the daily drawings.  Hailey enjoys doing them and I can already see an improvement since last month in her pictures.

History:

We read about the Pilgrims and how they left their homes in England to try to find religious freedom in Holland.

We learned about how different everything looked when the Pilgrims arrived in Holland.  Many of the streets were canals rather than roads.  We looked online to see pictures of what it looks like and it was really neat to see!

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We learned about how dikes work by making this little model.  We put Model Magic down the middle a plastic container to represent the dike.  On one side was some water and on the other were the houses.

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Then I made a hole in the dike and Hailey had to yell “ding, ding” like she was ringing a bell, as the people did back then.  Then she had to quickly repair the wall before the houses were flooded.  She loved it!

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We talked more about what the city looked like and how there were a lot of windmills.  I saw this cute craft on Homeschool Survival, so Hailey and Hunter both made a windmill.

Geography:

We are using Road Trip USA to learn all about the states.  We learned about Delaware this week.

Road Trip USA

We learned about the Delaware Memorial Bridge that links Delaware and New Jersey and then made a model of the bridge.  Hunter and Hailey painted some cardboard blue to represent the water.

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Next we put together some popsicle sticks.

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Here is our completed Delaware Memorial Bridge.

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Hailey added some animals to our USA Animals wall.

Road Trip USA

Hunter likes to do everything that Hailey does, so he added a fish for us.

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We are also using Which Way USA by Highlights, so Hailey did some work in her magazine and learned more about Delaware.

Language Arts:

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Hailey did some copywork using her poem for the week.

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Hailey is working on a story, using the rules about sentences that we were studying/reviewing.  She has finished writing the story and is now working on her illustrations.

We finished reading Helen Keller by Margaret Davidson.  Hailey is working on a book report, but isn’t quite finished yet, so I’ll be posting that next week.  Here are a few activities we did about Helen Keller:

unit4-7

Hailey tried doing some writing and drawing while blindfolded to see what it would be like to try to write as a blind person.

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We used glue to make Hailey and Hunter’s names in braille.

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Once the glue was dry it left little raised bump that felt like braille.

unit4

We went to the Great Wolf Lodge for Hailey’s birthday and while we were there we noticed some braille.  Hailey was seeing what the braille on our room number felt like.

Math:

unit4-4

Hailey learned a little about fractions, and what 1/2 and 1/4 look like.

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She did some coloring to practice what 1/2 and 1/4 of a circle looks like.

Science:

We did a couple of experiments in science this week.

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Hailey held several different items up to the window to see if the sun would shine through or be blocked.  We used aluminum foil, construction paper, saran wrap, wax paper, and lots more!  Hailey tried all sorts of things that she found around the room to see what would happen.

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She completed her science notebooking page about the experiment.

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We also did an experiment to see how many drops of water we could get on top of a penny before the tension would break and the water would spill off.  We were surprised that it took 19 drops!

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We tried it using other coins too.  It took 15 drops with a dime, 32 with a nickle and 30 with a quarter.  I don’t know why the nickle could hold more water than a quarter, but we tried it twice and got the same result.

Unit Study:

Fall Tree Craft

We started a unit study about leaves and Hailey is working on a fall tree craft here.

It was another great week and each day we get up excited to start our school day!  I hope that continues!!

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Heart of Dakota- BLHFHG Unit 3

30
Sep

We just finished our 3rd unit of Beyond and I feel like we’re getting into a good routine.  I am really enjoying Heart of Dakota and I like learning right along side of Hailey.

History:

This week we learned about the Brewster family who ran an inn in Scrooby, England.  The Brewster family had church meetings at their home because many of the people in Scrooby did not want to worship the way King James wanted them to.  King James ordered the people to worship at his church and sent soldiers to find out where people were having church.  When they were caught, the men were sent to jail.  At the end of the week we read about the people making secret plans to leave England and move to Holland.

Heart of Dakota BLHFHG Unit 3

Hailey made this picture of a stone wall to represent the Brewster’s inn, which at one time was a palace.

One of our favorite history activities was playing a game to see if Hailey would worship the way King James wanted or if she would end up in jail.  I didn’t take any pictures of the game, but it was fun and Hailey ended up in jail.

Geography:

We are using Road Trip USA to learn all about the states.  We learned about our first state this week- Connecticut.

Road Trip USA

We read about Connecticut in the National Geographic US Atlas.  To start teaching some mapping skills, I had Hailey look up the capital of Connecticut (Hartford) in the index.  Then she used the grid to find it on the map.  She thought it was really neat and wanted to try finding other locations too.

Robin Craft

Since the robin is the state bird for Connecticut, we made a cute a Robin Craft– you can see the finished craft here.

Road Trip USA

Hailey added Connecticut to our US map.

Road Trip USA

Hailey designed a postcard for Connecticut.

Road Trip USA

Hunter and Hailey tried clam chowder for lunch.  Hailey said she liked it, but then after a few bites asked for some chicken nuggets.  Hunter ate most of his, but he’ll eat pretty much anything 🙂

Language Arts:

I am not loving the curriculum we are using for Language Arts.  I am going to try to keep using parts of it, but I’m also starting to do a bit of my own thing too.

Our Crafts N Things

I had Hailey sort sticky notes onto either “sentence” or “phrase” to practice what makes a sentence.

I looked over the remainder of unit 1 in Rod and Staff Preparing to Build English 2 and made up a test for Hailey that covered all of the material in that unit.  She did very well on the test, so I decided we are done with unit 1.  She has been asking to write a story, so I decided that would be good practice for what we were working on in unit 1.  She filled out a brainstorming paper and then wrote a rough draft.  We worked together on fixing her rough draft and she started working on her final copy.  She will finish it up this week.

Science:

Heart of Dakota BLHFHG Unit 3

We pretended that these 2 plates were flowers.  I crushed up some Cheetos and put them in the middle of one of the plates to represent pollen.  Hailey and Hunter pretended to be bees landing on one flower, and then carrying the pollen to the other flower.  Hailey learned how flowers need bees for pollination.

We also did a science experiment with light- I hung up a piece of black paper and a piece of white paper in a dark room and then we shined a flashlight on them to see the difference.  Since white reflects light, that paper was much brighter than the black paper because black absorbs light.

Our Crafts N Things

Hailey filled out her science notebooking paper about the light experiment.  She thinks it’s great when she can do her work on the floor instead of at her desk 🙂

Bible:

Heart of Dakota BLHFHG Unit 3

Hailey and Hunter loved doing toe-touches in between saying their Bible verse.

Music:

Heart of Dakota BLHFHG Unit 3

We are really enjoying the Hide ‘Em In Your Heart CD.  Hunter always asks to have the music on and wants everyone to dance.

Unit Study:

We finished up our Apple Unit Study this week.  I am going to post more about it this week and show more of what we did and the lapbook that Hailey made.

Apple Experiment

We did a science experiment with apples.

Our Crafts N Things

Hailey made an apple and labeled the parts of it, which we put in her lapbook.

Art:

Apple Core Craft

Hailey and Hunter made this Apple Core Craft together.

Apple Tree Craft

We did this cute Apple Tree Activity.  I love how these turned out.

Johnny Appleseed

We did some fun activities for Johnny Appleseed’s birthday, and I will post more about those this week.

Apple Basket Craft

We also made a basket of apples, which turned out cute and I will post it this week.

We had a really good week and I am looking forward to unit 4!

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Bee Crafty Kids- Robin Craft

27
Sep

Welcome back to the Bee Crafty Kids link up that I am co-hosting with To The Moon and Back Look! We’re Learning and Monster’s Ed Homeschooling Academy.

We are using Road Trip USA this year to learn about United States geography.  The first state we studied was Connecticut.  The state bird for Connecticut is a robin, so I decided we should make a robin.

Robin Craft

First, Hailey and Hunter glued a branch shaped paper onto the blue construction paper.

Robin Craft

I cut up little pieces of brown construction paper and then crumpled it all up to look like a nest.  They glued the nests onto the branch.

Then they added the robin and some blue eggs.

Robin Craft

Our completed robins.

Inspiration credit: Pinterest

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Now it’s your turn! Link up and share what you and your kids have been busy making. Grab a button so others can join in the crafting fun too 🙂

Our Crafts N Things
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Rules are simple:

~Enter the direct link to one or more of your own posts that showcase a craft or hands on activity for children.

~A link back with the above button is appreciated, but not required

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