2011 Weekly Wrap Up... #1

Welcome to the 2011/12 school year!

We had our first week of school this week.  To celebrate the first day we took photos.

 

Ava rocked the bonnet, she is a huuuuge fan of Little House in the Big Woods.  Cyrus (long sleeves in 100* plus heat) decided that his photo should be taken in the apple tree.
Gotta love 'em.

In Poetry
We started our poem of the month, Summer Storm from Swing Around The Sun.  Our poem of the week (which I forgot about until Thursday.  Whoopsie)  was Important Apple, from Margret Wise Brown's Important Book.  There was going to be a whole apple theme this week, but apple picking has been moved for a few weeks in hopes of better picking weather.  (ie NOT SO HOT)   Our silly poem activity this week (still working on the name) was to listen to Willie McGurckle and draw a picture of him.

In Social Studies
We talked about timelines.  I introduced the clock of eras, and used these pages as a guide.  Ava made a personal timeline of her life.  (for some reason she only sometimes has a head in her illustrations.  hmm)

In the Kitchen
This week we made playdough.  (I'm guessing we'll be doing that a lot)  This weeks playdough was camping themed.  A rich green with cedar oil mix in for scent.  yum!

 Music
I'm trying to work in some music appreciation study this year.  This is one of the activities I may drop if we don't have time.  This week I used a lesson plan (found here) to introduce the idea of each person having a role, and using the beat.  We had a lot of fun, so I hope we can continue doing something like this once a week.

Art activities

We tried a few new things.  We made leaf imprints with leaves we had gathered while camping.  Later we made fall paintings using these.  Both of our pictures are now decorating our binders.

In Art Study

 We explored Maya with her Doll by Picasso.  Ava thought this painting was disturbing.  She didn't like the way it made her feel.  I thought it was interesting to look at things from more than one angle, but I couldn't help but agree.  This just isn't our thing, I guess.

In Science

We reviewed how the earth rotates on its axis.  And used a globe to demonstrate the passage of day and night and its relation to the earth's rotation.  This naturally led into the concepts of east and west, north and south which worked well with a map curriculum that we played with over the summer.

In Math we

~ started experimenting with weight

~compared weights using a math balance

~calculated missing weights needed to balance

~read water levels in a measuring cup

~compared volumes

~discussed capcity

Yikes!  It was a full week.  I think with some tweaking we will have a really good thing going.  I'm very interested to see what  activities make the cut, and what makes it through the whole year.   I think I only said our closing blessing twice, so that's not looking to good... Whew.