Week 17

Almost three quarters through... Congratulations to everyone for their hard work. Keep on... We are also very honored to have grandparents and great-grandparents visiting with us... 

Presentation was so much fun.  The children are getting more and more comfortable sharing in front.  We almost did not have time for snacks.

Thank you very much Mr. Herson for the wonderful experiment. We had so much fun with Kinetic and Potential Energy and Inertia.  What was the formula again???
      PE = mass of the object (kg) x gravity (9.8 m/sec2) x height object raised (m)
      KE = 1/2 mass of the object (kg) x velocity (m/sec2)

Okay, we will put that aside for now... maybe we'll see that again in the future.

New Grammar
History: Song - CC CD
We sang through the song and because there are way too many names, I just made little pictures to remind them of the beginning of the names (I will take a picture of what my board looked like and send it to you by email). I also wrote the names in enumeration form.

Timeline: Song - CC CD
We sang through the song and did the hand motions. We also played arrange yourself according to the correct time.

Latin: Song - CC CD
 This week's is a review.  Hint: Think future (this is for both future tense and future perfect tense) it is far away so you use a "Bow" (Future) and "Arrow" (Future Perfect)

Science: Song - NoGreaterJoy
I drew something on the board (will send by email as well). We sang through the song a lot of times.  This is the shortest memory work out of the three laws but it seems like they are having a hard time with the pronunciation of acceleration. 

English: Song - NoGreaterJoy
We sang through the song a lot of times and put hand motions with it.  I am not sure if they are just tired or they are at the stage where they don't like doing hand motions anymore but I sort of have to force them to do the hand motions and it is below.
   noun - flip right hand up
   person - pointer finger touch your shoulders
   place - pointer finger point to the floor
   thing - pointer finger points to one thing in the room
   activity - make fist with both hands and pound one on the other three times

   idea - pointer finger to your head

Math: Song - NoGreaterJoy
Again, similar to last week, I drew a square with the grid.  Same as a rectangle, the area includes all little square inside not just the sides (the book Perimeter, Area and Volume [see below], has very good illustration of this).  And I did say technically, the area of the square is also length x width, it just so happen that the length and width are the same that's why it is the side squared. We sang through the song a lot of times (feels like a hundred of times). They are having a hard time saying length of its side squared. Work with them on this.



Geography: Point and Say
 We trace through the different countries of Central Europe.  If you are using the Trivium, it may be a little bit challenging because of all the rivers and mountains that are in it. Luxembourg is a big name but a little country (almost look like a lake on the maps that we used). Switzerland is covered by the Alps and Germany has so many lines (rivers) you almost don't know where it begin and end. Do work with them on locating the countries. Thank you.

Fine Arts
Great Artist is Degas - For me Degas is synonymous to ballet, but preparing for this class, I found out that he has three major themes (dancers, horses and nude women).  I shared something about Degas and showed them paintings of horses and dancers (don't worry, I did not show them paintings of nude women) and we focused on his love for movement.  The art work that we did is on movement.  If you want to try it at home again, make sure they remember to color heavier and mix a little bit more water to the tempera paint to make it a wash.

Here are some of my Book Recommendations
 World War II Books are the same as last week
 Groundbreakers Isaac Newton by Tony Allan (if you want to read more about Newton's masterpiece the Principia [gravity & motion], see pg. 32-33)
 A Mink, a Fink, a Skating Rink What is a Noun? by Brian Cleary
 If you were a Noun by Michael Dahl
 Perimeter, Area and Volume by David Adler (Dawn enjoyed this a lot)
 Mummy Adventure An Adventure in Geometry by Cindy Neuschwander 
 Edgar Degas Dance Like a Butterfly by Angela Wenzel

               

So, that's all for now.  Next week is Week 18, This is the week I will need at least five more parents to help for the review game, our review is from 11:30-12:00. Again, as I've said before, it is no big deal if you are unavailable; please let me know before the weekend if you can help for the last 30 minutes of class, so I can change the game if I don't have enough parents. Thank you!

Have a nice week!

Miss Zabrina