September, Week 5

Last Friday Shaun had Zoo School at Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence.  This is a once monthly class where the kids will spend the year learning all about running a zoo.  They heard about the zoo's history and saw sketches for proposed future exhibits and changes.  They also learned all about "vertebrates", and all the classes of animals that fall under the category.  A couple of animals even came out for show and tell after a tour of some the exhibits.

(Shaun took this picture of the ferret all by himself.)

After 'school' got out we spent the afternoon walking around, visiting all the exhibits.  The kids favorites were the baby giraffes.  The other favorite was the Asian Alligator, which Shaun has chosen as his animal to do a final presentation on (a short story, a poster-board,  and a brief zoo tour with education on his animal for family on the final day of zoo school.)

***

Today in Math Shaun did his last pages of addition, so we are officially onto subtraction.  YAY!!  We also went to our first pottery class.  The class is being held by another homeschooler at her home studio, and will run for six weeks.  The kids adore Amy and actually created for an hour and a half straight today, which is a REALLY long time.  They had a blast!  I took a couple of pictures, but they made pumpkins and a turtle after the camera was away.   I had to tell them time was up, or they may have stayed at Amy's clay table all day.

This is Shaun's bowl.  He pressed a leaf, a pine cone, and the top of an acorn into the clay.  There is also a face on the outside of the bowl (that he stuck on and gave eyes, a nose, and a smile) that can't be seen in this picture- he is a little upset about that!

Here are some of the other creations.  These will be made into a wind chime.  This is special clay, that when fired at a certain temperature, will produce musical sounds when banged together (as opposed to a 'thud' that other clay products would make).  

The kids used leaves and bark to make impressions on the clay.

Here is a chime Amy had out as an example today under our 'pottery tent':

Can't believe my next post will be in October, the school year is flying by already.

September, Week 4

This week has been activity heavy.  Monday we went apple and raspberry picking, yesterday we went to a pottery studio to do some glazing and played with friends, and tomorrow is Shaun's first day of Zoo School at Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence.  (We are all looking forward to seeing the baby giraffe, who may not be much of a baby at this point, lol.)

It is (almost) officially Autumn, and this will bring many changes to our schooling.  We are almost through the first unit of our core curriculum, next week's final project will put an end to Habitats.  Then it is on to Weather.  This makes me very happy as I am OVER talking about habitats.  In Math we have about a weeks worth of addition work left, then on to the next unit.  Subtraction.  (Roaring applause please!!)  Shaun is so proud of himself.  The new season also brings weekly pottery classes to our schedule, the kids are very excited about this new adventure!

All five of our butterflies have emerged, and all but one have flown away from us.  One lady had trouble emerging from her chrysalis, and her wings started to dry while she was still all scrunched up.  She also can not hang upside-down for some reason.  We have been watching her try to fly for at least a week now (so sad) and are amazed that she is still alive.  Sugar-water and fresh fruit have been keeping her going but keep expecting her to expire with every day that passes.  We will miss her when she is gone.  (We ended up with 3 females and two males.  The kids have learned how to sex a monarch chrysalis and butterfly.)

Here is our lady monarch trying to get out.  We have pulled open her chrysalis a bit in effort to help her, but she was still unable to free herself.

She was weak and tattered.  :(

Ella holds her "pretty butterfly" at least once a day. 

Shaun has yet let her sticky feet touch his hand.

Today she observed him doing his Math work 

while enjoying a banana peal and pretty leaf added in by my thoughtful girl.

Today Ell wanted to read more books about butterflies.

She is going to be a beautiful Monarch for Halloween.

It has been neat to watch the butterfly use it's proboscis.

Our little lady is wounded, but she has given us a unique peak

 into a butterfly's world that we will never forget.

♥

September, Week 3

Last week we went to a Not-Going-Back-To-School Homeschool Picnic at a local park that houses an old pre-civil war fort built to help protect the busy harbor.  These events are often held on the first day of school for the rest of world as a way for us to meet-and greet, and celebrate our joint bucking of the system.  It also symbolizes the beginning of a new academic year for many families.  Shaun got quite a kick out of exploring the grounds and wanted to know why grass was growing up on the roof.  There was also  a "very cool" playground on site.

A peak inside the fort through a hole in a side wall.

More of our language arts curriculum continued to trickle in last week as well, Ell was over the moon to find out some things were just for her.  This little 'phonics activity pack' is by far her favorite.  Pretty much just toys in a box.

This week we have been juggling many subjects and activities.  We continue to do our inquiry study on whales; so far our research has taught us more about the two types of whales: toothed, and baleen.  Their diets, methods of feeding,  and methods of echo location differ significantly from one another.  Shaun really enjoyed listening to whales using echo location on the internet.  He preferred the songs of the humpback over all the rest, and was very upset to hear they are critically endangered.  This in turn led to some investigating and learning on the topics of endangerment and extinction.  Having a vast home library really pays off sometimes!

Nice progress is being made in our core subjects.  Shaun was independently spelling words on the dishwasher with letter magnets the other morning, I was so proud of him!  The new electronic ETC really seams to be a good fit for his learning style.  He also continues to push through his dreaded math work and is grasping the idea of number bonds wonderfully.  I have found that I need to take him away from the page and re-create the problem with manipulatives and a dry-erase tablet.  Ella is keeping herself occupied with lots of Kumon books (tracing, cutting, gluing), coloring, and manipulative play.  She is also trying to master the letters of the alphabet.

(Here she is doing a worksheet I made on monarchs and their life cycle.  We all learned they only see in three colors: red, yellow, and green.)

We had a field trip this week to a water treatment facility in the next town over.  It was all a bit reminiscent of Mike Row & Dirty Jobs.  Dirty.  Smelly.  And incredibly interesting.  We saw the different stages of purification of the wastewater and learned that solids are screened and sent to a landfill.  Sludge is removed and composted with mulch.  The liquids are purified utilizing many steps before being released into the ocean.  We saw and smelled the various tanks, biological filters, screens, mulching areas, composters, the lab, and the plant managers office.   The official lingo is "pumping, screening, grit removal, settling, aeration and UV disinfection for liquid treatment and thickening, chemical conditioning, dewatering and stabilization for solids treatment, and odor control."  Here are some photos:

A full screening tank shown above, a peak into an empty tank below.

Here the effluent is being aerated and cleaned via anaerobic "bugs".

UV sterilization

Something to think about the next time you pour a chemical down the drain, treat your lawn, go for a swim, or buy plants and a bag of compost from a nursery.   We never truly rid ourselves of the waste we create, it merely changes form.

Monarch Home Video

September, Week 2

This week we will be working on a special project: inquiry-based learning on whales.  The first step is to make a list of what we think we already know about whales.

WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW:

• Whales eat krill.- S.
• Whales do live birth because they are a mammal.- S.
• They eat seahorses sometimes.- E.
• They eat fish sometimes.- E.
• There are different kinds of whales, such as sperm and orcha, and the big ones with barnacles on them.- S.
• There are 2 types of whales, toothed and baleen.- K.
• Whales live out in the Atlantic Ocean.- S.
• Whales are hunted for their oil and blubber.- K.
• Whales are very flexible.- S.
• Whales breathe air.- K.
• When they blow out their blow-holes it stinks like fish.- S.

Next we made a list of what we want to know, and the research methods that we will use.

WHAT WE WANT TO KNOW:

• How they wash up on beaches?- S.
• What animals do whales eat?- E.
• What is the biggest whale, and where does it live?- K.
• How do they mate?- S.
• Why/how do they die?- E.
• How do they breathe? E.
• All about the function of the blow-hole.- K.
• How are the whale populations doing?- K.

RESEARCH METHODS:

• Go on the internet.- S.
• Read books.- S.
• Find a tagging program to monitor.- K.

Books from our home library that we will be reading:

(If anyone reading along would like to add to our inquiry, just let us know in the comments section and we will add your statement or question to our list.)

September, Week 1

This week we did lots of Math work.  Our current lessons are "Numbers to 20".  Shaun made some real progress this week but is still having occasional difficulty with the correct number order, and breaking down a 'teen' number into ones and tens placement.  We will continue to review this material as we move forward into "Number bonds" this coming week.

We also began a new phonics program this week.  Previously we were using the Kindergarten level of HOP, but I am switching over to a Pre-K/K Basics Phonics from Winter Promise and an electronic version of Explode the Code.  The workbooks etc from the curriculum have not arrived yet, but the on-line version of ETC that I subscribed to has been put to good use already.   I am going to attempt to teach both children at the same time with new materials, and the on-line ETC will be for Shaun only as it is designed for grades K to 4.

Field Trip Friday:  New Bedford Whaling Museum

A half-scale model of the Lagoda, the biggest model ship in the world.  Shaun couldn't wait to climb aboard and explore.  He was quite disappointed to learn he could not go below deck.

This whale pictured above washed ashore on Nantucket in 2002, the cause of death is unkown.  The bones where buried in compost made of elephant dung, cow manure, and straw in an effort to quickly draw the oil from the bones.  In another skeleton pictured below oil continues to seep from the bones and drip down to the floor below (the oil can be seen in the darkened areas of the jaw and fin).

Scrimshaw on whale jaw-bone.

Across from the museum is this mariners' home, built in 1787.

Summer Sun, Summer Fun

We have been been busy enjoying the fun & sun that summer brings, but as the season's official end looms ever closer I thought it would be fun to go back and post a little about all our 'adventures' over the last few months.....since this is the birth of the Four Little Feet Homeschool blog these first posts will be long ones.  Kind of a photographic diary of our summer- we enjoyed it, and we hope you will too!

JUNE:

June, it was all about the birds.  Hikes at the bird sanctuary, nest watching, some tye-dye fun, LOTS of strawberry picking (and eating), hard lessons learned about life and death (baby pheobes), the joy of discovering nature right in your own yard (a box turtle and shells of blue), and walking with dinosaurs.  It all ended where it began, with the birds. It turns out our feathered friends are actually reptilian descendants of the dinosaurs.  Who knew?