weekly wrap up #18

 This week in first grade...

In Poetry..
Poem of the week~  Um, I accidentally messed up the schedule, so we kinda skipped this.  We did however start reading this at lunch time!
Poem of the month~   We didn't spend much time with this poem this week, but as it's rather short, I'm not concerned.
Silly Poem~ Noses!  The silly poem talked about noses, and how the feel when it's hot or cold outside.  Ava chose to draw a picture with one half showing how her and her nose enjoy a hot sunny day (by having a water balloon fight with me) and how her and her nose enjoy a cold winter day (by snuggling in a blanket on the couch with cocoa and marshmallows).  Cyrus initially said he wanted to participate, but I think it's pretty clear he changed his mind somewhere in his artistic process.  He also chose to do a hot/cold drawing, he shows himself, and his dad tossing a water balloon on one side, and a very cold blue man under a moon on the other.  Oh my goodness he's silly.

In Social Studies/ and Art....

This week we talked about Maine, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.

I'm still not exactly sure where I want these lessons to lead us.  I know that covering 5-7 states a week won't leave a the children with exacting knowledge of each state. This year the goal is more to give them an impression.  50 is a lot of states.  What I'm leaning toward  in the long term is a large binder with folders for each state that each child will add to over the years.  This year will be our starting point. Maybe next year we can start a 'state a week' focus along with the world history?  Not sure.  Not sure.

In the Kitchen..

For various reasons "Kitchen Lesson" was skipped again.  It seems to be the one that gets cut when things get busy (or lazy).  I wont fret though, I've noticed I have a lot more eager helpers in the kitchen since we started this.  The time together may be subtle, and not always be structured, but isn't that why I homeschool?

In Music...

I ran out of time!  Again!  We are preparing for a weekend trip, and poor music get shoved aside so I can pack. 

In Art Study..

 We explored two paintings side by side.  Wheatstacks, Snow Effect, and Grainstack, Sun in the Mist both by Claude Monet.  Monet liked to paint objects, and scenes over and over in different situations (time of day, or year) to compare how environment changed the image.  Ava liked the idea of painting things in different times of year, but overall she wasn't fond of the subject matter.  " I don't really like the haystacks.  It's not really my kind of thing.  But, I do like the snowy hill.  It reminds me of pictures of Antarctica."   I think she's saving her positive praise for next week's painting.  We'll see.

In Science We..
Reviewed Solids, Liquids, and Gasses and started talking about Gravity, and Air as a Substance.  I checked out some books from the library to go along with our discussions and experiments.  Some of the books were more popular than others, and the balloon experiments were so well liked that I'm going to write a whole separate posts about them!

Solids, Liquids, and Gasses
What is the World Made of?  All about Solids, Liquids, and Gasses
Ice to Steam, Changing States of Matter
The Facts about Solids, Liquids, and Gasses

 Gravity
Forces Make Things Move
Up, Down, All Around, A Story of Gravity
Experiments with Gravity

 

 Air
Windy Weather Days
I Face the Wind
Let's Try it in the Air

In Math We... 
~Wrote equations represented on the math balance
~Continued practicing 'trading' on side 2 of the abacus
~Partition 15 on the abacus, and the math balance
~Add 1 to various numbers

~Now that Cyrus is officially 'doing math' we've added him to more math games!

This week we are officially half way done with our school year!  We made it to the park for a homeschool play date, and our curriculum for next year came in the mail. Working Cyrus into the Science lessons seems to be successful so far.  It's been an overall great week!