Classical Conversations Cycle 3 Week 23

Let's just jump right into this, shall we?

History: Preamble to the US Constitution
In addition to picking up books from the library, we'll be doing a little each day as copywork and, of course, there's a CC song, but it's not as cool as:

I'm beginning to think if I just parked my kids in front of schoolhouse rock they'd have more civics knowledge than their peers.  However, parking children in front of a TV is not very classical model, so instead, we'll also read children's level biographies about Madison and Mason. For the copywork, I found a neat class book (it's a free download) and we're going to alternate pages.  It's always nice to give the kids something to illustrate while I read at lunch!

Science: Charles' Gas Law
Gas expands when it gets hotter and contracts when it gets cooler, you say? Why yes it does!

I also found a little experiment for my kids' age group, and we're going to try that, too.  I cannot tell you how frequently I wish I had access to liquid nitrogen, though, because I'd much rather deflate a balloon in sub-zero temperatures.  Sigh.

Latin: Just keep swimming.

English/Math:
We have memory work for this week, but my main focus is going to be on test prep.  We're getting ready for the Stanford, and I want to make sure that we're ready, so our big focus will be punctuation and on mixed timed review for Riley.  Logan is testing, too, but I don't have a Kindergarten sample test book yet, so we'll just work a few printed sample test pages to get used to bubbling the answer.

Happy last 2 weeks, fellow CC'ers! 

Classical Conversations Week 20!!

I can't believe that we're 4 weeks away from the end of our first year of Classical Conversations!! Crazy!! I feel like this has been a real journey, but we're finally in a great groove, and more so every week.  I have been tremendously blessed to grow in confidence and community and I'm very happy about our decision to homeschool.

This week:

Classical Conversations, Cycle 3 Week 20

History- Brown v. Board of Education
I found a website that has tons and tons of ideas about how to teach civil rights. It includes Brown V. Board as well as several other high-profile events and even has a library list! I really liked the discussion questions here, so we're going to use those for sure. Then I found DocsTeach.org from the National Archives.  This one is FANTASTIC and I'm really excited to have it for the future!!  I love using primary sources as much as possible, and this site has free registration and tons and tons of pre-made activities!! We're going to do one together called Dwight D. Eisenhower and School Integration.  Many are flash-based, which is fun for the kids.

Note to self: The Brown V. Board historic site has 3 different videos for ages starting with Kindergarten.  Too bad I didn't look sooner!! Bad procrastinating momma!! I think I'll go ahead and order the one we'll likely need in 3 years ;)  I did find a fairly simple and straight-forward video on YouTube that includes the Brown Family.

We're also going to do a journal entry about whether why we agree (I guess or disagree, but I'd be sad if they chose that!) with Brown v. Board's decision.

John 1:6- fuit homo missus a Deo
I don't have a fun plan for this- although I'm working on a little latin review game for when we've completed the verse.  The lap books continue to go well!

English- Phrases and Clauses
So, listen.  I can't possible teach Phrases and Clauses without playing my kids Conjunction Junction. It totally gives some examples....right?

For later in the week, I want to introduce Riley to dependent and independent clauses.  In addition to our grammar workbook pages, I found this website with an online quiz.  Getting to do it online makes it 1,000x more fun. We'll also play a game with our die from Scattegories, using the letter we roll to pick words to make clauses or phrases.

Science- Theory of Evolution
Right, so.  This is one where I applaud CC for finding a memory sentence that won't offend anyone, regardless of their level of Biblical Literalism.  We have no problem with evolution in our house, in so much as we're talking about the concept that things change over time, even though we believe in a divine creator.  I don't know how God did stuff, so if he's provided us with a fossil record showing that things change over time, I'm down.  This doesn't make me a Darwinist, it just means that I appreciate that things change. We'll be reading the Biblical account of creation, watching Bill Nye episode 6 from season 3 on Evolution, and talking about whether the two ideas are mutually exclusive.  We know that God created the world and everything in it, but we also know that when he was done creating, the world was set up to run itself over time.  That's just us.  We identify with Intelligent Design, but not as Biblical Literalists.

Math- 1 inch= 2.54cm
We're going to do this on leap day and do some jumping and measuring both in inches and centimeters to make it fun.  Singapore continues to go well, and we're happy with the boys' progress.  (Especially since Logan's kicked math investigations grade 1's booty!)

Geography- Canals
Lucky us, the C&O Canal is nearby!! This calls for a hike.
This week one of the tutors made an enormous rice crispy treat map of the us with candy for features.  We might have to steal that idea!! We have a jello mold USA, too...hmmmm, ideas for review :)


Composer- Tchaikovsky Symphony Number 6

CC Week 16 and 17: Math Dinner

One of the things I've been trying to work on is doing more "fun" stuff.  Since we're not what I call "called" homeschoolers- poeple who homeschool for purely religious reasons- I focus a lot on shoving academics into my kids' heads and tend to not make things as fun as I have time to since we homeschool. (PS- Don't get me wrong, we love Jesus, it's just that he wasn't optional no matter what type of school they went to!)  I'm also absolutely horrific at making sure we do crafts, but that's a note for another day.  For CC Cycle 3 Week 16 and Week 17, our math was about circle formulas. 

 When I went to pick Savannah up at preschool one day during Week 16, I stopped at the Bloom because Austin was working from home so I had a few moments to run in and grab things.  It ended up being a massive (and odd) shopping trip because the store was closing and everything was 75% off!! I've recently gotten to meet the very fabulous woman who writes BeltwayBargainMom.com and I feel like she would have been proud of this key lime pie that I got for $1.27! I don't usually buy pre-made baked goods, but it was so cheap!! And thus, an idea was born for a circle dinner.

 We used the ruler to measure diameter and then plugged in the appropriate numbers to solve for circumference.  We then divided by 5 (the number of people in our family) and made very even pie pieces by using a string to mark the appropriate number of centimeters for each family member's slice.

We marked each cut with a magic marker.  Our dinner included an odd mix of circular foods, and for all of them we calculated something and shared.  It was fun because it made the math "worthwhile" for them- equal sharing of foods mommy doesn't typically put out is a crucial life skill :)