Classical Conversations, Cycle 3 Week 13

I missed the rhythm of our regular school days! I thought I was greatly enjoying our break, but getting back into the "swing" of things, I'm seeing that we all missed that order to our lives.

Here's what we did this week:
-History Sentence: "In 1868 the 14th Amendment made all former slaves US citizens and paved the way for the civil rights movement"
              *Memory work using the CC song
              *Read the 14th Amendment and a little explanation of it
              *Talked about "separate but equal" and read about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.
              *Did some pretend play with candy where people wearing blue (just momma) got to have truffles.
               People not wearing blue were offered butter mints.  We both got candy! What's the big deal?
              *Visited the Frederick Douglass House in DC to talk about abolitionists and the civil rights movement. A
                word of caution, this house is in a rather, sketchy, part of town, but we had no issues.  Additionally, the
                movie they show is very well done, but does feature a rather graphic whipping scene near the
                beginning.  My kids actually really needed that to understand the severity of slavery.  Reading about it
                and seeing it are very different at this age.

-Irregular Verb Tenses: To Beat
               *Riley's Grammar: Grades 1-2 actually had a few worksheets on Irregular verbs, which was nice
               *We made scrambled eggs.  We need to beat the eggs, Riley beats the eggs with a whisk, Logan beat the
                 eggs, I am beating the eggs, The eggs are well beaten.
               *I refuse to sing on the internet, but I did make the verb tenses fit to the chorus of "Beat It" by Michael
                Jackson.  Yes, I'm that much of a nerd.  "Just beat it! Beat it! To beat, beat, beats, beat, beating,
                beaten!"

-Math Sentence: The Area of a Rectangle is equal to Length time Width
                *We made rectangles with our cubes (always 1 wide by some number long) at CC, Logan's tutor
                  allowed them to draw rectangles on the floor using washable markers on the linoleum, which they
                  always love!!

-Science: The atomic number is the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom, which is also the number of electrons in a neutral atom.
                 *We made a copywork/candy replica of an atom with green (protons), white (neutrons), and blue
                   (electrons) candy.

-Latin: "et Verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat Verbum."
                 *Still just sign language and repetition, but it's working!
                 *The Latin review lapbook? Huge win! The kids love it and think it's a craft!

-Geography: Western Mountains (Rocky Mountains, Pike's Peak, Sierra Nevadas, Mt. Whitney, Mt. Elbert)
                  *Hand signs: arms up (make a W) and then together (like a mountain) for Western Mountains.  We
                   did a "rocky ride" pretending to ride a horse over the "rocky" mountains.  Then for Pike's Peak we
                   peeked through our fingers.  We put our hands up to "see" into the distance for "See-era" Nevadas,
                   Mount Whitney was just like Western Mountains, but in reverse, and for Mount Elbert, we did our
                   elbow.  Yup.  It's that easy. ;)      
                  *We located the features on a map.  I'm not really pushing for the kids to completely memorize the
                    locations at this point, I'm happy for them to generally know they're "in the west" and have an idea.
                   *Does a hike (albeit short) count as geography? The kids insisted on calling things "islands",
                     "ishthmus" and "gorge" when we got home....it's just a smaller scale...

Everything else....
Logan is officially on Kindergarten B Singapore Math.  I still think it's wicked easy, but every once in a while there's a concept that he actually needed.  (For example, his last unit was on "more/less" and "fewer".  Apparently I don't use "fewer" enough and he needed to learn that term).  Riley's still kicking butt and taking names on 2A.  Spending a few hours putting together notebooks for the week is a total and complete win.  Even the kitchen (where we do our work) stayed neater because I wasn't pulling out 20 books every day! Plus, the boys seem to love having checklists! This clearly means they are their father's.  My in laws always were nervous about that. ;)

Logan is randomly having some trouble differentiating which vowel sound he should say, so we're easing off of the outside books and focusing on TYCTR100 so that he can regain that confidence.  Riley is doing awesome, although Hagrid has re-appeared in Harry Potter and reading someone who speaks in a dialect you've never heard is definitely tough! It slows us way down to have to read "Ey Harry, whadya doin fer ya teh abou?" figure out what it should say in English, and then make that fit back into the story.  But, it's good practice for other fantastic literature with British people in it! (And I think it'll make him love the movie a little more!)