Cycle 1 Week 21

Here is the material that we covered in class for week 21. 

Geography

We traced our contoured maps and began labeling the continents.  Next, the girls labeled their map points for Canadian Provinces.

Timeline

We learned the hand motions for this week's timeline cards.

History

We colored in our history sentences pages while listening to the memory work.

Math

While learning the associative law I substituted A, B, and C with an apple, banana, and carrot respectively.  To represent the parenthesis I used a bowl.  This gives the girls a visual representation of an abstract thought and can serve as a manipulative for them to work with while learning the law.

Science

I set the memory work to Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.

Artic Circle (head)
Tropic of Cancer (shoulders)
Equator (waist)
Tropic of Capricorn (knees)
Antarctic Circle (toes)

English

We started learning about Linking Verbs this week.  Each week we will add links to a chain with that weeks verbs on each link.  we also have a new song to help us remember the memory work.

Latin

We reviewed our fourth declension noun endings and sang along with the memory work CD.

Fine Arts

During morning assembly we practiced the Orchestra Song and enjoyed a special guest who taught us about the double bass.  In our class we danced to Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and continued working on out Orchestra Books. 

Experiment

We began our more in-depth study of minerals and how to identify them.  We also enjoyed listening to our special guest Brittaney Rudd who discussed with us the role of a geologist, their tools, mineral formation and how to use the tools to identify minerals.

I hope you are all having a blessed week!

Cycle 1, Week 20

Here is a brief rundown of what we covered this past Friday.

Geography

The girls traced the detailed contoured map.  Next, we located our MesoAmerica map points using fruit loops cereal.

Timeline

We learned the hand motions for this week.

History

We colored the picture sentences as we listened to the memory work a few times.  This would have been a fun song to play maraccas, clackers, etc. with.

English

The girls sang our final week of the Helping Verb song both as solos and as a group.

Latin

We played freeze dance to the memory work.

Science

After explaining that we were going on a pretend hunt for an Alien.  We went through all the layers of the atmosphere while hunting for our "alien" that was hidden in the room earlier in the morning. This comparable to Going on a Bear Hunt.  The layers were as such:

Troposphere - We climb the tallest mountain and jumped onto an airplane
Stratosphere - We pretend we were floating along with a weather balloon
Mesophere - We pretended we were meteors
Thermosphere - We boarded our space shuttle and flew around
Exosphere - We exited our shuttle in our space suits and took a space walk to find the "alien"

Math

I added in the last installment of the Math Pokey.  We went through all the previous weeks and then added in the circumference of a circle.  while drawing a circle in the air we sang:  "The circumference of a circle is 2Pi times the radius" 3times.  When finished off with the chorus of "Do the math Pokey".

Fine Arts

We enjoyed our large group activity with Ms. Julie and the rest of Foundations.  We finished off this study with discussing Handel's Water Music and for what prupose it was written.  Each girl chose an aspect of river/water life/travel to intepret on their on and when moved to the music using dance streamers.  Some of the ways the girls chose to interpret the music was as the water, as a fish, as a mermaid ballerina, as a seahorse, etc.  These were their own unique interpretations. 

Experiment

We labeled a paper model of the Earth and its layers as well as the atmosphere and its layers.

Cycle 1 Week 19

I hope that your families have been able to enjoy our "spring" break from classical this past week.  It came at a perfect time for our family with sickness and extra craziness going on.  Here is a review of our meeting time from week 19.

Geography

First, we traced the outlines of the detailed world map.  Some of the girls are getting fast enough at this to trace it twice or to begin labeling the names of the continents.  Next, we used tri-colored cereal to mark our map points.

History

The girls colored their history sentences as we listened to the audio of the memory work.

Math

We continued our Math Pokey by adding in the Area of of a circle.  To the tune of the Hokey Pokey we sang the area of a circle memory work three times while making a big circle with one arm.

Timeline

We reviewed week 19's hand motions and then I quizzed them to see who could remember each motion.

Science

We sang a simplified ocean zones song from the movie Finding Nemo.  It was nice of Pixar to do all the work for me and make up a song for this week :).  I also showed the girls a graphic of the ocean zones that included sea life that you might find in each zone.  The girls chose an animal from the zone of focus and pretended to be that animal/plant as they swam around the table (which was blue) and we all sang the memory work song together.  We repeated this three times, once for each zone.  We we got to the abyssal zone I turned off the lights to simulate the dark nature of this zone. 

 

Latin

We practiced our memory work to the video as we looked at the pictograms for this week.

English

We are nearing then end of our helping verbs song.  Each girl has been very excited to sing the song solo (sometimes with a little assistance from me) in front of the whole class.  Even our shy friends have been wanting to give it it try!  So proud of them.  Since my original post of this song was lost when the blog crashed I am reposting it below.

Fine Arts

Renee Wimberly did a fabulous job of leading all of foundations in learning the orchestra song.  She will be leading the first 25 minutes of this lesson each week and we might have some guest musicians coming in to share their talent with us as well.  During class we are focusing on specific composers, instruments or arrangements.  This week I played an excerpt from each of the three arrangements that we will focus on this cycle in the coming weeks.  As I played each one the girls moved to the music in a way that conveyed their interpretation of the piece.  The first piece we pretended we were trees as we moved to the music.  Sometimes we swayed as in a gentle breeze and others our leaves shook quickly to the faster parts.  The next piece the girls pretended to be pigs as they moved to the music (their choice).  The final piece the girls pretended to either be grapes or be moving through grapes as they moved to the music (again, their choice).  This was an amazing interpretation and thy thought about what having grapes in our environment would do to our ability to move or the way we moved.  The girls that chose to be grapes pretended they were either rolling or even a squished grape as they  moved.  One even pretended to be purple and moved in a way that they thought purple would move.  Loved watching their imaginations explore as they interacted with the music.

Science Experiment

We studied rock formation this week.  Before class I put together borax and water so that by the time we observed the jar with string in it during our experiment time we were able to observe the rock forming.  We talked about the process that the minerals undergo to form a rock.  We also had a chance to observe rocks with a magnifying glass and discuss the features we observed and the differences that observed between the different types.

Hope you have a great time learning together this week!

Cycle 1 Week 18

Sorry for running behind on getting the posts up for the last two weeks.  Here is a quick rundown of what we covered for week 18.

Geography

After tracing our world maps the girls traced around the map points for Mesoamerica.  We also sang our History Sentence for Mesoamerica.

History

I had a fun activity that I planned to go along with our History sentence on mound builders.  I was going to use a parachute activity to go along with the sentence which involved the girls gathering under the parachute/"mound".  I forget to bring in the parachute, however, so we colored our pictograms while we listened to the memory work. 

Timeline

We practiced this weeks hand motions.

Latin

We enjoyed a fun round of freeze dance to the memory work for second declension noun endings.

English

Each girl was excited to show off for the class as they each sang the helping verb song as a solo.  This was their idea.  I am so happy to see each of them feeling comfortable to share their knowledge in front of the whole class by singing a solo.  So fun to see their personalities come out through their performances :).

Science

I brought in a clay model of four parts of the ocean floor.  The girls had fun observing and interacting with the model as it was passed around. 

Math

We added the area of a triangle (repeated three times) to our math pokey.  We also sang all previous weeks as well leading up to it.

Fine Arts

In our study of El Greco we focused on some of his unnaturally stretched depictions of the figures he painted.  To demonstrate this concept with the girls I showed them a picture of a my little pony as well as a second one that my husband had stretched out on a computer and printed out.  The girls traced the stretched version onto a thin sheet of paper and colored in the new image.

Experiment

A)  We used a balloon and a simple balance to measure whether or not air has weight.

B)  We used a cup and a tub of water to observe and discuss atmospheric pressure and its affects.

Cycle 1 Week 17

Here is a list of the topics covered during our week  17 lessons:

Geography

The girls are working hard to get in more details with their world maps.  We used m&ms to locate our map points for South Africa. 

Timeline

We practiced our hand motions for this week.  These can be found under the file previously mentioned (by rafikipaka) on CC connected.

Math

We continue to add to our Math pokey with the Area of a square.  It its into the song nicely by repeating the memory work three times.

English

We practiced our Helping verbs song from the previous weeks.

Latin

We reviewed our latin pronunciations for Second declension single/plural noun endings.

Science

I brought in last weeks model of a volcano.  We talked the parts of a volcano and observed the flow of lava through these parts during an "eruption".

History

We colored our pictograms as we listened to the history sentence. 

Experiment

A)We built a bridge using books to demonstrate how rock bridges can seemingly defy gravity as one layers overlaps and supports the other.

B)We discussed and observed how water when combined with agitation can dissolve candy at different rates.  We also took the opportunity to expand the experiment and used our mouths as a means of agitation on the candy as well :).  The girls formed a hypothesis about which would dissolve the candy faster:  sitting in water, being shaken up in water and being shaken up in our mouths. 

Fine Arts 

We had a blast painting our masterpieces as they hung above our heads under tables.  We discussed and observed a few of Michelangelo's pieces and works.

Cycle 1 Week 16

Busy week and head is spinning!  I'm sure you all have been there!  Here is a quick rundown on the activities we covered in class last week:

Geography

The girls are tracing their continents and working on getting more intricate detail in.  We used pictures of words that rhyme with each of the bodies of water we studied in Africa. 
Cheesy = Zambezi
Crocodile=Nile
Gloria=Victoria
Ear=Zaire
Orange=Orange (it's an easy rhyme when it's the same word!)

The girls then placed the pictures over the body of water that each correlated with and we laughed at all the silly rhymes.  Each girl was able to bring home their pictures to use for review time if desired.

Math

We continued our math pokey by adding in the Area of a Rectanlge.  We reviewed the previous two weeks as well.  Fun times!

Science.

I brought in a small model of a volcano and we talk about the four types of volcanoes.  I simply used vinegar and baking soda with a little food coloring with the activity. 

Extinct=the model volcano with no igredients to erupt.
Dormant=The model volcano with one ingredient to erupt but nothing happens because the second ingredient hasn't been added.
Intermittent=We watched the volcano erupt and talked about the definition.
Active=We watched the volcano erupt again

English

We sang our helping verb song.  Some of the girls took the time to sing a solo or with a partner in front of the group.

Latin

We practiced the memory work with the CD and then  played freeze dance to the song as we listened and sang along a second time.

History

We listened to the memory work.  Talked about some key words we heard.  Then in teams of four used cardboard bricks to build an Aztec pyramid as we listened to the memory a couple of more times.

Timeline

We learned the hand motions for this week's cards.

Experiment

We made shell fossils.  These came home with the girls as well.

Fine Arts

We talked about Durer this week.  We carved designs onto wood and used them as stamps on cardstock to create are materpieces.

I hope you all have a blessed week!

Cycle 1 Week 15

We did end up losing parts or entire posts in the technical issue from last week.  Those will not be able to be retrieved.  I do have all the lessons written in my notes and I may have some of the pictures/videos.  If you are looking for a particular activity please let me know and I will try to send you the information. 

The last couple of weeks have been frustrating on our Friday routine.  As many of you know we did end up closing early this past Friday.  We ere not able to complete all of our planned topics due to the change.  The Foundations tutors are discussing whether we will make up missed material or if we will simply focus on week 16 this coming Friday.  Here is a rundown of the topics that we were able to complete.

Geography

We located our map points using M&Ms.

Timeline

We learned a simplified version of the CC hand motions.

History

We talked about Prince Henry the Navigator conquering a city in Africa and the Portugese and the Ashanti working together to form the Slave Trade in Africa.  We acted this out by breaking up into groups of 3 and playing London Bridge while we listened to the memory work.  The two girls forming the "bridge" represented the Portugese and the Ashanti.  The girl walking under the bridge represented the Africans that they were trying to trap and sell for the slave trade.  At the end of the song the girls forming the bridge would drop their arms trying to trap the "Africans".   We repeated this three times so each girl was able to take part in the different roles.

English

We sang our Helping Verbs Song.  See previous weeks for video.

Latin

We used the same charts from weeks 3 and 4 to pratice our memory work.  The girls remembered it so well that several of them sang the memory work before I even turned on the music.  I love seeing our learning model at work!

Math

We had fun doing the Math Pokey again this week.  I did the same thing this week as last week and simply inserted this week's metric memory work in. (video available on week 14)  We used a pinkie for centimeters, an arm for meter and our whole body for kilometer. 

Science

The girls used clay to cover different sized cups turned upsidedown.   Once they finished we placed their mountains onto their respective continents.

Art

This week we studied Angelico.  We discussed his work on religious paintings and how he used gold paint to highlight or paint halos within his works.  We also viewed one of his paintings so that the girls could see his technique.  For our project the girls were instructed to draw a simple drawing with colored pencils.  I asked them to think about drawing a fish, flower, a person or something that they could later highlight some small part of with metallic paint.  The girls made some very beautiful pictures!  We ended up with a lot of flowers and butterflies and I believe we even had one mermaid.  If you did not pick up their paintings this past Friday they will be waiting for you this coming Friday.

Science Experiment

We were not able to complete out science experiment this week.  We were going to be working on creating fossils. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week!  I look forward to seeing each of your young ladies this coming Friday!