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 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.