Journal

Week 6

This week in homeschool:

Nature Study:

This week we started our nature study on trees. Along with this, we are participating in an autumn leaf exchange. On Wednesday we set out on our leaf hunt for the exchange. We needed to find 3-4 of each leaf to mail to 3 different families across the country. "I" was the most enthused by this project which is shocking because the last time we did something involving nature and lots of trees (hiking in the woods) she ended up believing we were lost and crying in the middle of the forest...lol. This was a nature breakthrough. We found leaves for each of our familys, not far from our home. We laminated each set of leaves. We will identify the tree for each leaf using this book and will mail them next week. It was a great experience and we cant wait to see what leaves we will receive next week.

Math:

I have all the Oldies using Khan Academy for math. They each worked at their own pace in math this week. I sat in the computer room with them while they used Khan, to be available in case they needed help. When I notice someone is struggling on a topic or is clicking the hint button often I take that time to discuss the problems they are having. I will have them watch the video for the topic if it is something I know they have not been introduced to or need a review. They also used Xtramath.org to memorize their facts daily.

Social Studies:

We began our study on Native Americans last week with a history pocket on the seminoles. We located Florida on a map and the Everglades. We made a Native American head dress and read the stories Night Bird and The Seminoles.

This week for Social Studies, we continued our study of Native America. We watched a pbs series on Youtube about Native Americans called We Shall Remain, Episode 1: Before the Mayflower. The movie told of the pilgrims and puritans that came to America and the realities behind them coming to America. I enjoyed this film because it gave a different story. One I personally never heard, through 13 years of public schooling. This story was from the Native American perspective and was quite sad. I felt for the loss they experienced. The children felt the same. We will watch the next episode on Tuesday. I think I will create a question/ answer sheet to go along with the movie, just to make sure they are paying attention.


Science:

This week we have been studying the coffee bean. On Thursday we visited a coffee roastery with HAT a local homeschool organization. We were given packets to complete around a coffee theme and green coffee beans to make coffee. When we got home we got our supplies together to make coffee. The supplies we needed were an air popcorn popper, mixing bowl, coffee beans and storage container. We don't own a popper but luckily grandma does. We swung over to her house, grabbed the popper and a metal mixing bowl ( along with some popcorn kernals for added fun) . We were ready to begin our coffee roasting experiment. The first go round we dumped one of our three bags of coffee into the air popper and placed on the top. We turned on the popper and beans were flying everywhere. I thought to myself these children are so excited to make coffee if all the beans go onto the floor then what. Brainstorming time. We had to figure out a way to keep the beans in the popper without them shooting out like hot coffee bean bullets. " I" found a tuna fish can and placed it on top of the open part of the popper and "S" found a handled collander to hold over the front of the popper to catch the beans as they flew out. Okay, problem solved. We roasted the beans and they came out excellent. Next "Z" wanted to roast his bag of bean and in an effort to be quicker we dumped the last bag in the popper as well. Well apparently the more beans you place in the popper the better. The beans stayed in the popper and they roasted faster.
Next we poured our roasted green coffee beans into our coffee grinder. We added water, a coffee filter and started the coffee maker. The smell of coffee brewed throughout the house. Our coffee was ready. They did it; wonderful, flavorful, fresh coffee straight from the bean. The scientific method at work :)

Literature:

"Z" is reading Elijah of Buxton for his Sankofa book club for October . I ordered the book through the library and on audiobook as another parent does in his book club. This way he can listen to the story as reads since he has to be finished with the book in such a short amount of time. He has discussion questions to complete as well as supplemental activities.

"I" began reading The Giver for the month of October which she actually began last week. I downloaded this on my kindle from the library as well. We also have a tangible copy of this book for our home library. But because books get lost around here all the time it is wise to have another copy.

"S" began reading The BFG this month of October and she will continue until she is finished.

Spelling:
We used natural speller lists along with spelling cards (index cards with activities on them) and spelling city to take tests.

Writing/composition:
The Oldies take a writing class through the Sankofa Collective on Fridays. They are currently working on outlining articles about the human body and writing research reports using IEW. This week they wrote a three paragraph paper from a source document about the digestive system (teeth, saliva and tongue).

Music:
We read several books about Jazz as an introduction to our jazz unit beginning next week. We will work on our jazz unit once a week. We listened to God bless the Child in the car while riding to familiarize us with that style of music. We also practiced singing the lyrics.