Our Week Ending 10/30

I feel as though this was a much more productive week than previous weeks have been (or felt, at least).

Casey is plowing through addition and has started some subtraction, too. Language arts studies (Explode the Code, First Language Lessons, R&S Phonics, Seton English 1 and Spelling 1) are continuing as scheduled. We're still studying Ancient Greece - this past Sunday, we built a campfire in the backyard and told stories of Odysseus just as they did when the stories were (relatively) new! I think the kids really enjoyed it and I enjoyed it as well, once the fire was lit, that is.

Science was our fun foray this week. Still on our Ocean study, I made a special snack: a jello ocean, complete with Swedish fish, a graham cracker beach with macaroni shells, and a paper boat.


Will is quite excited about the letters he's learning. At home, the letter for the week was t and at preschool, the letter h.

Oh! And, fully feeling my self-worth as a homeschool teacher (remember, last week I was having doubts?), we've almost finished our Elections lapbook!!! One final touch will be to add a top-folding flap with a map of the United States, which I (given that Casey will be in bed when most of the election returns are rolling in) will fill in with red and blue. The pièce de résistance of our little project.


Good week, I think!

Our Week Ending 9/25/08

We spent much of our homeschooling week discussing, reading, and learning about Japan. We're gearing up for JapanFest this weekend.

We read a simplified version of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, which forced me to explain (in first grade terms) the atomic bomb and what war is. Although, Casey and I have discussed war before, in the context of her three uncles proudly serving our country in Iraq (all 3 were there at the same time for a brief period). This time was a bit different though because the title character dies in the book. But, to make it not seem so sad, we went to YouTube and watched some video of children singing at the Sadako memorial (which is beautiful, by the way).

We also read several other books about Japan - books about the culture, clothing, government, food, etc.; and also listened to some traditional and popular music from Japan.

And the crowning achievement of our week: the Lap Book...

In bottom left-hand corner is Casey's name in Japanese. I found the translation here. From a similar translation website, I found the characters to print Japan - A Lap Book. Casey supplied the rest of the artwork on the cover. She found pictures she liked in Japan ABCs by Sarah Heiman.


Many of these templates came from these sources:

My Japanese Counting Book
The Japan Book in the center is from Enchanted Learning.


Map of Japan
Alphabet - the characters at this site are in the Alphabet flap
Japan Shutterfold Map
And many other generic country templates can be found at HomeschoolShare.com.



The back cover is from Enchanted Learning.


We had so much fun this week studying Japan!