Cycle 3, Week 2

Science

Them Not So Dry Bones by School House Rocks

History

Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

Liberty Bell Activities

• Watch National Treasure (not suitable for all ages, rated PG)
• Dot-to-Dot Liberty Bell to put in your notebook
• Watch Dick Van Dyke season 5 episode 8 "Odd but True," available on Netflix.  Not super educational, but I love this show and so do my kids. I like when TV shows connect to what we are learning - pegs in their brains are forming through repetition of concepts.

Books to Read, relating to the Geography

• Adventures of Taxi Dog, by Debra and Sal Barracca
• The Mystery at Snowflake Inn, Boxcar Children Series, by Gertrude Chandler Warner, set in Vermont
• Raising Yoder's Barn by Jane Yolen (set in Pennsylvania)
• Homespun Sarah, by Verla Kay (set in 1700s)
• Stories about Milton Hershey (Pennsylvania) - we have the audio version of the YWAM publishing: Heroes of History

These are set in New York, but might be studied later on, with discussions of immigration

• A Picnic in October, by Eve Bunting
• The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco
• Draw the statue of liberty
• Draw (or build with legos!) things from the New York skyline

Thomas A. Edison, Young Inventor, by Sue Guthridge of the  Childhood of Famous Americans (New Jersey)  You might save this one for later in the year, when we get to the early 1900s and we learn about builders of industry.

Day 17 - NATURE CONVERSATION

STONES/NATURE IN GENERAL

38“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”  Luke 19:38-40

NATURE CONVERSATION

This morning my kids and I sang together "Ain't No Rock," a song inspired by the above Scripture.

"Ain't no rock gonna cry in my placeAs long as I'm alive I'll glorify His Holy name."

There are a few other verses that speak of creation responding in worship to God or in anticipation of Him setting things right.

NATURE JOURNAL

Make a list of things God created, as you see them. This may seem elementary, but the activity makes you slow down for a moment and ponder all the different aspects of creation. It may inspire a poem or drawing or it may inspire a moment of awe and worship. It might also inspire questions in need of further study.


One of the main purposes of the nature journaling is to slow down because in slowing down we have time to observe. The process of observation leads to internalizing. It also leads to curiousity and wonder.

NATURE STUDY

Take time to study something in depth, inspired by your time out in nature.

STATES NOTEBOOKING

Our states notebook is filled with all kinds of activities, information, maps, and memories.  It is not in the least bit fancy - it was done by pre-schoolers through 3rd graders.  

So, lay off the idea that it needs to be perfect or you need to have it all planned out from the beginning - just get started!

My regional dividers were just construction paper, like the one posted here.  We occasionally added maps of various regions, that I printed from online.

I like using these pages that have a place for drawing and a place for writing.  The kids can write the name of the state and anything else that stands out to them.  They can draw a picture of anything that relates to that state.  For younger students, the parent can do the writing.

Our family started on this states' notebook more than 5 years ago and added to it for a few years.  I only recently pulled it off the shelf, since we are going to focus on US history and geography this year.  I love to look back at what we learned and see the work that my kids did a few years ago.  I don't keep most of their drawings or schoolwork, but just a few of these notebooks - based on year or on subject.

Begin your USA states notebook.  

• Trace the states on tracing paper.
• Insert your sheets from your states coloring book.
• Add a drawing related to books on the states or history events on the states or whatever theme you choose.
• Have your child write the name, capital, and abbreviation on one of the pages in the notebook (coloring sheet or drawing or traced page).
• Copy a USA map and have students color just the states you are working on for the week.

Activities Related to the States

• If you know someone in these states or you have been there previously or you are traveling there, add extra to your notebook.  For example, save brochures from a place you visited or call your uncle who live in that state and let him tell you something extra about the state.  (For us, that would be pictures of alligators from the Everglades in FL or drawing a picture of a train after talking to an uncle who has worked at the railroad in NE for 40 years. 

 Other samples of what we included in our notebook

Artwork, book reports or summaries with illustrations, flags, Draw Write Now inspired drawings, etc

Ohio, spelled with appleseeds and gun for Annie Oakley

picture for Alabama, Draw Write Now provided instructions for drawing bus

covered wagon drawing and summary of a Little House book

Cycle 3 Week 1

Get off to a great start, but keep it simple.  Pace yourself.  If your oldest child is second grade or younger, don't do much book work at all.  

History

• Connecting History, Geography, and Timeline
• Draw Write Now, book 2
• Read a book or two about Columbus from the library
• Geography, History, and Timeline Connection - this activity goes with week 1, but is better if combined with the knowledge of the next few weeks.
• Animated Hero Classics: Christopher Columbus

Geography

These are just suggestions to get you started.  Don't feel like you need to cover every state in detail.  You can begin the notebook with just one page per state and build it over lots of time, years even.

Begin your USA states notebook.  

• Trace the states on tracing paper.
• Insert your sheets from your states coloring book.
• Add a drawing related to books on the states or history events on the states or whatever theme you choose.
• Have your child write the name, capital, and abbreviation on one of the pages in the notebook (coloring sheet or drawing or traced page).
• Copy a USA map and have students color just the states you are working on for the week.

Activities Related to the States

• Read books related to the states or geographical area.
• Cook recipes related to those states.
• Practice states songs, capitals, abbreviations.  Maybe even learn the nicknames.
• States puzzles.
• If you know someone in these states or you have been there previously or you are traveling there, add extra to your notebook.  For example, save brochures from a place you visited or call your uncle who live in that state and let him tell you something extra about the state.  (For us, that would be pictures of alligators from the Everglades in FL or drawing a picture of a train after talking to an uncle who has worked at the railroad in NE for 40 years. 

Week 1 Specific Ideas

• Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCloskey
  
• Cocoa Ice, by Diana Applewood
• Snowflake Bentley, by Jacqueline Briggs Martin
• Learn about snow - cold weather for these states
  
  
• Abbie Against the Storm, by Marcia Vaughan
• Draw a lighthouse
  
• The Boxcar Children, by Gertrude Chandler Warner (set in CT)
  
• Finding Providence - The Story of Roger Williams by Avi
• Start watching Liberty Kids - it goes along with the first few history sentences and includes some of these states. 
• Draw Write Now, book 5 - begin learning the original colonies

Cycle 3 Lesson Planning

What should CC look like at home?  Do I need to supplement?

Keep it simple!! Practice the memory work and get it into your brains.

Here are some ways to enhance that learning and to make connections with the memory work.

LATIN

The Latin memory work will make for good copywork and/or spelling.  It is also an opportunity to review previous cycles of CC English Grammar topics.  

Week 1 - Students write four English words and four Latin words.  Review what is a preposition from Cycle 1, if you have already done CC before.  Even young students can copy words and learn to spell prepositions.  (If your students are pre-K or K, writing is not necessary.  Auditory learning is fine!)  

Most Latin weeks of this cycle lend well to just auditory repetition and copywork or writing from memory for older students.

GEOGRAPHY

• Sing states and state capital songs.
• Trace the states.
• Do USA puzzles.
• Create a USA notebook
• Find books related to various areas of geography - Week by Week, I will recommend any that we have liked.

The pace for the states is super fast - 5 a week for 10 weeks.  This makes studying each one in depth challenging.  My recommendation is to memorize the geography through pointing, tracing, coloring and puzzles.  Then, throughout the year, do activities and read books about different parts of the country.  These things can be added to your USA notebook throughout the year.

MATH

Younger students - have fun with numbers, learning to skip count.  Pre-K and K students need to learn to write and recognize number and practice counting.  Older students, this is probably easy, and frees up time to work on their grade level math curriculum.

ENGLISH 

Weeks 5-17 make for good spelling practice, especially for younger students or struggling spellers. 

All the other weeks of English Grammar memory work will greatly help in Essentials program when  your students are in 4th-6th grades.  This information is the exact same as the charts they will be memorizing then.  Just practice the memory work.  If you want to add more, keep it simple - not a lot of grammar worksheets.  Instead, just point out these pieces of grammar in whatever story books you are reading with your kids.  They can recognizing "ing" words or the subject or an infinitive.  

If I come across any different or fun ways to incorporate the memory work,  I will list them out on the Week by Week page.

SCIENCE & HISTORY

Read books and make observations and watch videos and have discussions.  When appropriate, present what you are learning at presentation time, in an essay (either written or just dictated to an adult by the student), or through creative outlets - such as making up songs or chants or hand motions, drawing, making posters, doing experiments or other art.

I will list out specific book and project ideas in the Week by Week section.  Don't feel like you need to do tons of activities - but a few are definitely helpful to enhance learning.

TIMELINE

See the separate Timeline section, where I list out books that go well with Timeline or with other activity ideas.

Memorize the timeline through song and motions.  Read or listen to the audio of Story of the World.

Have conversations with your children about Timeline events to help them piece it together with events in the Bible or with your History sentences or with whatever shows you watch or books you read.

Day 16 - NATURE CONVERSATION

  CLOUDS

34 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds

   and cover yourself with a flood of water?

35 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?

   Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?

36 Who gives the ibis wisdom

   or gives the rooster understanding?

37 Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?

   Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens

38 when the dust becomes hard

   and the clods of earth stick together?  Job 38:34-38

NATURE CONVERSATION

One day I had the Cloud Book and went outside with the kids. "Let's study the clouds today," I said. But we looked up and not a single cloud in the sky.

Weather can be unpredictable. But actually clouds help to predict the weather. God alone controls the weather, but we can make predictions. Where do lightening bolts come from? They occur in cumulonimbus clouds - in the tall clouds. The taller the clouds, the more the electric charge. Even though we can explain weather with science, it is God who controls the weather and sends rain or withholds.

In the passage above, God is speaking to Job, reminding him, through questions, that man does not command the weather, but He does.

NATURE JOURNAL

Observe the clouds. Sketch the sky.

Take pictures of the sky.

Record the types of clouds in the sky. What type of weather is indicated?

NATURE STUDY

Learn the types of clouds.

Make weather predictions based on the clouds.

Observe and record weather patterns.
Do activities related to the water cycle.

Geography, History, and Timeline Connection

We made this poster years ago.  We have referred to it many times.  The process in making a visual to connect pieces of information is valuable, whether you keep the visual for years or not.

Here's what we did and how it connects with our curriculum.

You will need

• poster board
• printed out blank map pages of Europe, South America, North America (and Africa if you choose).
• pictures of Spanish conquistadores, Columbus, sailing ships, etc.
• colored pencils, crayons, or markers
• you could also draw your own pictures- if students are older

Color and cut out pictures and maps.  I originally did this project with young elementary students so I kept it simple.  Just coloring and rough cut outs.  Then, we glued on the pieces of the map and the various pictures we found.  I just colored in a rough version of Africa, rather than finding one to print.  Africa wasn't really in the lesson anyway.  Then, with a marker we added the lines for the routes of various explorers.    We focused on Columbus, the conquistadors, a few English voyages (Pilgrims and Roanoke and Jamestown).  

• You could do this type of activity for the various explorers, not just to the Americas.
• You could also print maps and pictures with any history/geography topic.  The visual helps students make connections to times and places and events.

Atoms and Elements - Activities

Learning Chemistry is tough.  Teaching Chemisty is tough.  How do we explain chemistry concepts to elementary students?  It's difficult to explain that which is to small to see.  We found a few craft ideas to help us to understand the make up of atoms.  Let's get started!

We printed out these element worksheets from Half a Hundred Acre Wood.   You don't necessarily need a worksheet like this - you can just write on blank paper.  Write the name of each element: the full name and the letter abbreviation.  The numbers found on the periodic table tell you: the atomic number and the atomic mass.  Atomic number = number of protonsNumber of protons = number of electrons Atomic Mass = protons + neutrons Have your students figure these numbers out on paper before getting to the craft part.

Example: Boron, B, atomic number is 5.  So there are 5 protons and 5 electrons.  The atomic mass is 11.  So there are 6 neutrons (11- 5 = 6).

Now, with a basic understanding of these terms and numbers, here comes the creative part!

You will need

• coffee filters
• markers or colored pencils
• decorations (stickers, jewels, anything fairly small)

1. Glue coffee filter to colored paper.
2. Color a circle in the middle for the nucleus.
3. Label the name of the element - full name and abbreviation.
4. Use three different types of decorations to make the protons, neutrons, and electrons.  For example, three types of stickers or three different color jewels. 
5. Add correct number of electrons on the outer, white area of the coffee filter
6. Add the correct number of neutrons and protons inside the nucleus.
7. Add a hand-drawn picture of something you know about that element.  (optional)
8. Make a booklet or place in notebook of all the different elements you have learned.

Another option: Follow the directions on the Half a Hundred Acre Wood page on making atomic cookies.

 Other activities for learning about elements, atoms and the periodic table:

• Find coloring sheets to go along with different elements.  Add them to your notebook.
• Play Periodic Table Battleship
• Print out a blank periodic table and label them.  We printed a filled-in version and a blank version.  We cut up the filled-in version and used it as a sort of matching game.
• Learn more about the Periodic Table
• We picked up a resource book at the bookstore.  
• Get or make flashcards.  Check out Half a Hundred Acre Woods for more ideas!
• Disappearing Spoon.  I read this book and found it very interesting.  It explains a lot about Chemistry and different stories relating to the periodic table.  It's not really something I would read aloud to children, but interesting and informative to any adult or teenager wanting to know more about the periodic table.

Day 15 - NATURE CONVERSATION

ROCKS
The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.  Deuteronomy 32:4

Israel landscape

My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge, my savior; you save me from violence. 2 Samuel 22:3

NATURE CONVERSATION

When outside examining rocks, share Scripture about God being our Rock, such as the Scriptures above.  Ask why is God called "the Rock"?  Maybe because of the strength of rocks (hardness).  But also consider the context of the Scripture - it was written in Israel.  As pictured above, rocks were a place of refuge.  Here is a hymn to reflect on and worship to:

NATURE JOURNAL

• Observe rocks. Draw them.  
• Rock study Identification Sheets

NATURE STUDY

• Identifying Rocks Interactive Site
• The Mystery of the Star Ruby by Gertrude Chandler Warner - this book has made me kids want to go on a mining trip. We haven't yet, but are looking for opportunities.