Field Trip Fun

Recently we went on a field trip with some other homeschoolers to see a presentation at a science museum. Hailey and I had lots of fun (while Hunter had fun with grandma 🙂 ).

We learned what a comet is made of and saw a little demonstration of how they work.

We learned how far apart the planets in our solar system are.  To try to give the kids an idea of how far apart the planets are, each child represented a different planet and stood in a line a certain distance apart.  The kids thought it was great that some of them had to go all the way outside.

Hailey with Mars.

Posing with a space shuttle.

Hailey holding a meteorite and I can’t remember what the other rock was called 🙁  The meteorite was magnetic, smooth and much heavier than the other rock.  The other rock looked like it had tiny little holes in it.  If anyone knows the name of the other rock, please let me know 🙂

She also made a glow worm

We ended our field trip with the kids checking out some telescopes.

It was lots of fun and we both learned a lot!!

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Expedition Earth- China

We are absolutely loving the Expedition Earth curriculum we started last month.  I have gotten a bit behind in my posting, so it’s been a little while since we actually learned about China.  Here are some of the activities we did while learning about China:

We read several books all about China.

 Hailey used Google Translate to find out how to say all kinds of things in Chinese.

We are reading “Children Just Like Me” and Hailey really enjoys this part.  She loves learning what kids her age are doing in other countries.

Hailey and Hunter decorated some Chinese lanterns.

Showing their completed Chinese lanterns.

They also made Chinese fans.

We also made the Great Wall of China- they started out by painting a foam board.

Then we built our wall.

This project was so much fun!

We finished off our week in China by going out for some Chinese food.  Hailey did really good using chop sticks!

We are absolutely loving this curriculum.  It has become our favorite time of the day!!

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Heart of Dakota- BLHFHG Unit 12

This post is actually about what we worked on the week before our Christmas vacation and I am finally getting around to posting it.  We had a wonderful break and it was so nice to relax and just do a whole lot of nothing!  So, here is what we did the week before break:

History/Geography:

Hailey did some mapping practice by drawing a key and then following my directions about where to add various things to her map.

We have been learning about Pilgrims and Indians.  This week we learned how Indians would write stories by drawing pictures in a circle.  Hailey drew her own story, telling the story of how a seed grows into a flower.

Science:

In science we talked about how germs are spread and why so many of the Pilgrims died during their first winter here.  We did a little experiment to demonstrate how important it is to cover our coughs and sneezes.  Hailey ripped up some paper to represent germs and put the pieces in a cup.  When I said “achoo” she shook the cup and the germs flew out all over the place.

We tried it again, and this time she covered the cup when I said, “achoo.”  The germs stayed inside.

Language Arts:

We finished up our fun gingerbread unit and then Hailey made her own gingerbread man.

He turned out cute and yummy 😉

Other:

One day we found Bobby, our elf, on the top of our classroom tree.  We thought maybe he was trying to tell us that it was time add a star.

Hailey and Hunter worked together and painted a star for our tree and then added a bit of glitter.

Our beautiful star.

Hailey and Hunter also worked hard to finish our nativity scene.

The completed nativity scene.

It was a nice week and we had a wonderful time having 2 weeks of vacation for Christmas.  Now it’s time to get back to work!

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Heart of Dakota- BLHFHG Unit 11

The weeks are really flying by!  I can’t believe it will be Christmas next week.  Anyway, we just finished unit 11 and had a great week.

History/Geography:

This week in history we learned about the pilgrims working to build their homes now that they had decided where to settle.

Hailey looked over a map to see the route that the pilgrims took and looked to see the routes that other explorers before them had taken.

The pilgrims did not have glass to use for windows as they built their homes.  Instead they used brown paper and brushed oil on them to let more sunlight through.  So, Hailey rubbed some oil on a brown paper bag to see what happened.

Hunter made one too, but he did not cover his whole paper with oil.  So we held it up to the window to see the difference in the light that came through.

Hailey built a pilgrim house using Lincoln Logs

The finished house

We cut some pieces from the brown oiled paper to use as windows in the house.  Those windows must have let in a lot of cold air.

Science:

We have been doing a unit all about owls.  Our favorite part of the unit was dissecting some owl pellets.

Here are just a few of the bones we found in the owl pellet.

Language Arts:

We are still reading through Little House in the Big Woods.  Hailey really is not enjoying this book.  I had hoped we would love it but we are just having a hard time getting into the book.  Instead of begging me to read more like she usually does, she asks if we can skip reading for the day 🙁

Hailey did a little mapping activity to go along with the book.  She had to use the key on the map and then follow the directions to see where to add the different details on the map.

Copywork using her poem for the week.

We are working through a super fun Gingerbread Unit and I’m pretty sure we have read every version of the Gingerbread Man that there is.  There are lots of cute books and ideas to go along with them.

We read both “Gingerbread Baby” and then “Gingerbread Friends” and we really enjoyed both.  After we read “Gingerbread Friends” Hailey made this cute beginning, middle and end project.

We also enjoyed “Gingerbread Man Loose in the School” and then Hailey made a gingerbread man that looked like the one from the book and a missing poster to go along with him.  We took turns hiding the gingerbread man and then searching for him.

After we read “The Gingerbread Cowboy,” Hailey made this candy cane cactus.

The candy cane cactus hanging on our classroom tree.

We played Hangman to practice Hailey’s spelling words.

Other:

We added this cute tree to our classroom and then added decorations to it throughout the week.

One day we decided that, rather than doing our regular schedule, Hailey would throw a ball at our routine and whatever the ball hit was what we would do next.

One more week until our Christmas vacation!!  We are excited!

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