Work Plans for the Week of September 14, 2015: Hawaii!

School last week went reasonably well, even though Syd did spend one entire afternoon melting down over rounding to the nearest thousand. I'm starting to think that these meltdowns are a short circuit of her brain working in the background, however, because when Matt sat down with her in the evening to work on the concept with her some more, she had it completely mastered.

The kids happily read their Books of the Day--

--didn't fuss too much over their memory work, spent the evening in our bomb shelter while air raid sirens blared, and tried out my pattern block stained glass template idea, which, while it worked okay, in the end the kids preferred simply playing with the pattern blocks:

We also managed to spend the last reasonably warm afternoon of the year at the lake, which was just what we all needed.

This week, we're focused on Hawaii, because a vacation isn't fun unless you study for it! I'm also introducing 1941 events in World War 2, finally, so that next week we can immerse ourselves in Pearl Harbor. Memory work for the week consists of the spelling words from last week's Wordly Wise chapter (I think it's going to take us two weeks to complete each chapter--one for grammar, and one for spelling), bee anatomy, the eight major Hawaiian islands, Mandarin numbers 1-5, and, for Will, fraction terminology. I should have included multiplication terminology for Syd, but I didn't take a look at her Math Mammoth for the week until after I'd written the kids' memory work onto our chalkboard, and I'm too lazy to redo it.

New for memory work this week are cursive workbooks for each kid. Syd has New American Cursive book 2 (the secular version), and Will has Teach Yourself Cursive. I'll be asking them to complete one page every day, and neither seem too bummed about it... yet.

Books of the Day consist of books on volcanoes, caves, a couple of animal biographies, and a graphic novel for Will about a Holocaust survivor. Other than a few children's biographies, I'm planning to go very light on the Holocaust, and even then, that reading will be mostly for Will.

And here's the rest of our week!

MONDAY: Math Mammoth should be pretty straightforward for both kids this week, with Will starting a unit on fractions and Syd starting one on multiplication. They've studied these concepts before, of course, so hopefully they won't struggle too hard to extend their knowledge. If something does trip them up, however, we can do the hands-on enrichment of it next week.

The kids' Mandarin class starts this weekend, and while I don't expect that we'll always be working ahead like this, the extra review involved in making flash cards ahead of class can't hurt.

Last week, the kids got a good foundation of what volcanoes are, and why and how they work. We'll be doing more reading/viewing on the subject, but the last volcano activity before our trip is to research the location of the Ring of Fire and mark it on our big world map. Alternately, I actually have a map with volcanoes and earthquake sites already on it, so if we're low on time, we might just put that on the wall and then discuss it. After all, we'll be getting some hands-on knowledge of volcanoes soon enough.

We've got our regular volunteer gig at the food pantry later today. I won't be dropping Will off at the library afterwards as I usually do, as she's in trouble for leaving a library book outside (again), so she'll instead be spending the afternoon doing chores to pay it off. Mwa-ha-ha!

TUESDAY: I mostly want the children to understand that Hawaii once had a monarchy, and that it was overthrown (by non-native citizens), so on this day, we'll be reading and discussing this infographic on Hawaii's monarchy, and watching this documentary on Hawaii's last queen. In Hawaii, I'm hoping that we can visit at least one royal site.

This day is a short one in terms of our own schoolwork, since we've got our homeschool group's playgroup and the kids' evening robotics class. But if you consider that the children are going to be spending two hours at a ROBOTICS CLASS, then you can understand why I'm keeping our own work short. They've got to have time to play!

WEDNESDAY: I messed up my spreadsheet here, when I tried to copy and paste something, so you can't see that Syd has a Friday Zone taping on this day. It's Halloween-themed, so she and I have been making her Halloween costume early, in preparation for it. I'm sure that I'll be happy next month to have it already done, but right now it's kinda stressing me out! She and I will spend the entire afternoon on campus, then, since she's also got ballet there a couple of hours later and a couple of buildings over, making this another short day for our own schoolwork. Good thing that being part of a television production is so educational!

And no, Will wanted no part of that television production. Sigh...

Although we're mostly focused on Hawaii and World War 2, I wanted a couple more enrichment activities to cement our experience visiting the Nina and Pinta, so the kids and I are going to attempt to make these cardboard models. I printed one set of instructions at the regular size, and another set 10% larger, so hopefully we'll be able to muddle them together with lots of cardboard and even more hot glue. Wish us luck!

THURSDAY: The last extra activity that I want the kids to do for Will's Girl Scout Cadette Comic Artist badge is to create a week's run of comic strips, just like they read in the newspaper every day. I'm going to suggest that they collaborate and make it a funny version of their own lives, as many comic artists do, but I won't insist.

We'll be continuing--and ideally finishing!--our cardboard models on this day, and the kids will research and put Columbus' voyage on our world wall map. They've read descriptions of his voyage many times by now, but really being able to see it in context is always the best.

FRIDAY: The kids will put the 1941 timeline cards in their World War 2 notebooks on this day, and then over the weekend Matt will give us a history lecture that unpacks those events. Next week, we'll focus on Pearl Harbor!

That papier mache unicorn head that we began last Friday probably won't be completely dry until this day, so we can work on the bottom of it and perhaps smooth the sides a little more. It might be ready to paint next Friday?

I want the kids to become experts on a few different Hawaiian plants and animals that they can then be on the lookout for during our vacation, so I'll have them doing a few of these infographics in the next couple of weeks.

As for me, I'll be spending my week completing a Fluttershy costume, starting on the whopping seven Crafting a Green World posts that I need to write and schedule before our vacation (as well as the three that I need to write for this week!), working on a commissioned project that I also need to finish before we go, working on Girl Scout registrations that I ALSO need to finish before we go, and deciding if I'd rather spend the time sewing more shorts or the money buying more shorts for Will, who has already grown out of all of her summer clothes.

It's okay to be stressed out, though, because I'm going on vacation pretty soon!

The Nina, the Pinta, and other Kentucky Standards

Okay, Christopher Columbus' sailing ships aren't *exactly* Kentucky standards, but they were waiting for us at the river's edge in Louisville last week, when one of our homeschool groups took a trip two hours south to visit them:

The ships can't sail on the river, of course, so they each have anachronistic auxiliary power to get them where they're going.

This is the hardwood that was used to make the ships. It's as heavy as a piece of concrete that size! These replicas were built in Brazil, because that's where you can still find traditional Portuguese shipwrights. They built both ships using only hand tools and authentic methods

The Nina is the most accurate replica ever built. The Pinta, however, was purposefully built a little larger than the original; the Nina is so small that the Coast Guard won't allow tourists on her upper deck, but on the slightly larger Pinta, we're allowed up.

The Santa Maria, however, is larger than the other two, and so wasn't recreated by the Columbus Foundation at all, except in this model. She'd be too large to visit most of the ports that the Nina and Pinta travel to.

They look like pirate ships, don't they? I was surprised to see that they're black! That's because they're coated in pine tar to make them waterproof.

This is the windlass, used to haul up the anchor. See the holes? You crank that lever down, then put it in another hole and crank it some more.

This cast iron anchor is authentic; it was recovered from a shipwreck.

  

Because I am a nerd, and I have a sense for my people, I somehow managed to discover that one of the crewmembers is a huge Harry Potter fan. We got talking, and then she was like, "I also cosplay. Do you know what that is?"

DO I?!?

And that's how I stood on the deck of the Nina, looking through a stranger's phone at pics of her awesome cosplays as characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Hobbit. And I forced her to listen to me tell her all about Krrish, my favorite Bollywood superhero film series.

Oh, and she also has a sweet lycra mermaid outfit.

After we got our fill of the Nina and Pinta, it was less than a mile's walk down the riverwalk and through downtown to another Kentucky favorite, the Kentucky Science Center!

There was a new area, with a new climbing apparatus, since our last visit, and I hesitated outside of it, uncertain if it was for toddlers or for everyone. A docent passed by, so I asked him.

"Oh, it's for everyone!" he assured me. "It's weight-tested to support even adults!"

So obviously the next time he passed by I shouted down to him from the top of the structure, so that he could wave at me and give me the thumbs-up.

The Kentucky Science Center gets mad props from me for having many exhibits that I've never seen before in any hands-on museum--and you know I've been to my fair share of hands-on museums!

There's this area with mirrored panels on wheels so that you can make your own mirror maze:

There's this area where you can hook up a variety of components to make your own gravity-powered roller coaster:

There's this clever gross motor skills area, formed by drilling giant eye hooks into a pergola-type support, tying rope to each eye hook, and then covering the rope with pool noodles. The kids ADORED it:

And there's this ball ramp set-up in which each of the components sticks to a giant magnet wall:

It was a whirlwind day, especially considering we had to walk back to the car and drive two hours home again in time for the kids to make their evening robotics class. As soon as I'd dropped them off there, I immediately had Matt take me to a Mexican restaurant so that I could eat tortilla chips and bean burritos and drink both my margarita and most of Matt's, as well.

Fitting recovery from a day spent with sea and science, yes?

Field Trip: To the Zoo!

It's been a long time since we've been to the Indianapolis Zoo, and yet it's still a familiar, welcoming place to be. We still know all the shortcuts to all the drinking fountains, the best shady benches, and the fact that you should really go into the exit to the Forest exhibit and out the entrance, because otherwise you'll have to backtrack later.

Of COURSE we sat in the splash zone. It's just not the zoo if you don't smell like dolphin all day!

The orangutan exhibit is actually new since our zoo membership lapsed, although during our family overnight here, we visited the "backstage" area where the orangutans were already in residence. 

This meerkat's incredible dedication to its guard duty cracked me up, and also, Syd still100% remembers her traumatizing experiences watching Meerkat Manor as a toddler. 

We were in the Plains area, and actually at the cheetah exhibit, less than 48 hours before one of the Cheetahs made its Great Escape. All we saw, however, were cheetahs like sleepy kitties drowsing in the shade, but this elephant was up to pretty great things:

This is the flamingo that nearly bit Will when she reached under the fence to steal a dropped feather. Perfectly within its rights, I say.

It was a super hot day, and it wasn't just the elephants who enjoyed the water!

Sleepy koala! Long after the kids had grown bored with the koala, we stayed to eavesdrop on this older woman who was experiencing the happiest moment of her life to date there. Every time the koala twitched a sleeping limb, she'd squeal and then start cooing to it in baby talk. It. Was. Great!

My favorite place to watch the dolphin show is in the underwater dome.

See that blue blur next to Will's ear? That's a blue morpho, fluttering around looking for a landing spot. See the looks on the kids' faces? That's each of them desperately wishing for the butterfly to land on her.

Winner!

Seriously, Syd was the butterfly whisperer on this day. I told her that she must smell like fermented fruit.

Will was SO stoked to spot this bee. The kids are going to add it to the citizen scientist program's registry on Friday.

Both of these kids are VERY good at petting dog sharks.

I, personally, don't really love zoos--observing animals in captivity bothers me--but both kids have always adored them, and therefore zoos have always been an important part of our curriculum. I try to think of the zoo animals as heroes for their species, sacrifices that are here to teach compassion and conservation, and for my kids, at least, they've done their job in spades. Both of my kids are very aware of the plight of animals in a world overtaken by humans, and they, at least, will grow up to be adults who always have that in mind in the course of all of their decisions.

Even if Will says that she no longer wants to be a zoo worker when she grows up. Now, apparently, she wants to be a pilot.

Work Plans for the Week of September 8: Air Raids and Volcanoes

Last week was one of those "If you're homeschoolers, why are you never home?" weeks. We had a fine day in Louisville, Kentucky, another fine day at the Indianapolis Zoo (visiting the cheetah exhibit less than 48 hours before one of the cheetahs escaped!), and a VERY fine afternoon at the lake with friends:

In between, we spent our rare schooldays at home with World War 2, Hawaiian, coordinate grids--

--and tadpole identification (Will says that we've got either of these two similar species). Here's a picture of the froglet, taken with our USB microscope:

This week, we're spending a little more time at home, or at least, that's the plan--funny how easily plans can change when Adventure awaits!

Memory work for the week includes finishing up Lesson 1 of Mango Hawaiian, which is as far as we'll go with the language (we can greet each other and we've experienced how it feels to hear and speak Hawaiian, which is good enough for me!), reviewing the tones of spoken Mandarin (the kids are starting their Chinese language class again in a couple of weeks), memorizing the eight major Hawaiian islands, and spelling/vocab. Books of the Day include more books on caves, one more book on butterflies, a random living book on New York City for Syd, and a book on Big Questions in science for Will.

And here's our week!

TUESDAY: Will is contentedly flying through her Math Mammoth unit on graphing, but Syd stalled out last week on her big numbers unit, when she was asked to apply what she knows about rounding to them. She muddled herself up so much that it's clear that she hasn't really mastered the concept, so I'm using two math lessons this week to so thoroughly review the concept that it just can't be made any clearer. I'll be modeling my lessons on these wonderfully thorough plans, although incorporating a hundred chart a little more into our work, and adding a game, because games are fun.

The foreign language classes for children at our local university are starting again in a couple of weeks, and I plan to have the kids repeat Beginning Mandarin--I took a peek at the lesson plans for Intermediate Mandarin, and I think my two need another go-round of the beginner's class before advancing. But this time in Beginning Mandarin, I understand much more of what I need to do to support the kids' learning, starting with this online lesson and game on recognizing the tones.

I still haven't found a grammar curriculum that I love, and the kids' lack of it shows (yesterday, Will couldn't remember what a comma is called, although I assure you that she does know how to use it). I have, however, found a spelling/vocabulary curriculum that I could love. I interlibrary loaned it, photocopied the first two chapters of each kid's level, and if they seem to absorb the information from it, I'll purchase it. There are five lessons in each chapter, so the children will be required to finish the first chapter on their own this week as part of their memory work, with the proviso that they can ask me for a spelling test at any time, a perfect score on which will allow them to be done with the chapter early.

The kids are longing to go back to the lake this week, and we should probably do it today, since this is supposed to be our last 90-degree day of the year, but we also enjoy our homeschool group's Tuesday Park Day--ah, well! Perhaps we'll squeeze the beach in afterwards, or perhaps we'll just shiver on Friday.

WEDNESDAY: Our enrichment activity for the 1940 events of World War 2 is a live-action air raid! During the day, the kids will explore this BBC Schools' online unit on air raids, and this online map of the London Blitz, and on this evening, after Syd gets home from ballet, we'll take a picnic dinner, a deck of cards, and flashlights and candles down to the root cellar, where we'll spend an hour or so passing the time while having to listen to an air raid siren. I'm guessing it won't be as fun as live-action trench warfare, but hopefully it'll still be memorable.

The kids loved making stained glass designs with translucent pattern blocks on a light table at the Children's Museum so much that I made a mental note to repeat the activity at home. I *think* it'll work to have them trace their pattern block patterns onto black cardstock, and then I'll cut the pattern out with an x-acto knife so that they can use the template on our light table. It's been a while since we've played with pattern blocks at home, so hopefully the kids will enjoy this hands-on math and art activity!

THURSDAY: Every time I return how-to-draw books to the library and then check them out again a few weeks later, the kids are always completely re-immersed in them. They're great especially for Will, who has little confidence in her artistic abilities and will refer to Syd as "the artist." Thanks to our last session with how-to-draw books, however, she now happily draws lovely, creative dragons and dinosaurs all over everything. This particular activity, then, not only fills a requirement of the Junior Drawing badge and the Cadette Comic Artist badge, but will perhaps open up her drawing into new avenues.

Our study of Hawaii is focusing on volcanoes now, in preparation for the time that I want to spend in Hawaii at Volcanoes National Park and hopefully hiking out to see the lava flow. This BrainPop video and accompanying worksheets provide a good overview, so that we can delve more deeply into the subject next week.

FRIDAY: Today, Syd and I will work on rounding to tens; on Friday, I want to repeat the same activities with her, but this time with hundreds and thousands. If she's still confused about rounding, then, in her unit review in Math Mammoth next week, we'll move on, anyway, and revisit it the next time the subject comes up. But I hope she's not still confused!

I've clearly abandoned the idea of "Independent Work Friday;" my hopes that the children would use that opportunity to work ahead and have Friday free didn't ever pan out, so it's too much trouble to specially plan independent work just in hopes of that. Nevertheless, they've both enjoyed the chance to test out or revisit an educational app on the ipad on this day, and since it encourages them to try new things that aren't necessarily in our curriculum right now, I'm continuing it, as well as continuing having Will choose which ipad apps each child uses--that's one of the ways that she promised to help me with lesson plans, after I agreed to switch to a five-day work week as she desired. This Friday's app is a quite sophisticated music composition tool, and I'm eager to see what each kid does with it. I think this is one app that they won't decide to delete at the end of their play!

I don't remember how we originally got onto the subject, but I showed the kids a few online pics of the fake animal head plaques--dragon heads, unicorn heads, etc.--that people make for their walls, and they were super into it, so I put it on our to-do list. This day is as good a day as any to begin!

At the zoo on Friday, I was delighted that when Will spied a bee, she got excited and insisted that we photograph it for the bee citizen scientist program that we did last month. This time, I'll be combining their submission work with a bee anatomy worksheet, and some comparative bee anatomy using this bees of the world book.

As I write my round-up, I'm just now noticing that our week is heavy on hands-on arts and craft-type activities. Will can get very impatient with these if she sees a shortcut or doesn't see the relevance, but I feel like these particular ones are interest-led, so hopefully she'll be able to immerse herself in each one the way that Syd so easily can.

As for me, I'll be spending my week planning out our Hawaii itinerary in more detail, researching a geology study to connect to our volcanoes unit, planning a couple of Girl Scout meetings and activities, working on patterns for mermaid tail and shark blankets, writing several writing assignments, and completing a couple of outstanding etsy orders.

Oh, and sewing Syd a full Fluttershy costume. From scratch. By next week.

Stay tuned!