Week of September 10

Co-op

 Here's a photo of Ava enjoying playtime:

Science

And here's a picture of Noelle's co-op science project this week.  They learned a little bit about the periodic table, what an atom is, and how atoms form bonds to make elements.  They used balloons (outer balloon = shell and inner balloon = nucleus) and beads for electrons.

Math

And we must talk about Fred.  One of the ways we are learning math this year is through a series called the Life of Fred.  Noelle enjoys learning anything in story form.  Not story PROBLEM form, mind you.  Actual story form.  Fred comes across real life situations based on the little plot of his story that become math problems.  Noelle would read several chapters a day if I let her.  Right now we are in book 2.  Here's a photo of the book, and of what Fred looks like.  

One of the great things about these books is that you don't just learn math.  You learn about life, too.  For example, Noelle has learned about deciduous trees, how a caterpillar makes a chrysalis and not a cocoon, how constellations are stars that make pictures in the sky, and how to punctuate quotations within quotations.  It's really amazing how much you could teach your child just using these books!  Right now we choose to just focus on the math topics, but I'm considering occasionally re-reading them and finding topics that are interesting for further study.  

Note to moms:  I recommend you always preview the chapter first, before just handing it to your child.  You may want to prepare them for, or skip over, some of the story's subject matter.  

Like the death of the University's groundskeeper, for instance.

Health

This week we continued learning about the human body, and wanted to start by focusing first on the skeletal system. We tried watching a much-recommended Magic School Bus video to introduce the topic, but both of us were bored/annoyed by it, so we turned it off after the first few minutes.  Instead, we pulled out a new set of pictures I got from Costco that illustrate the body's systems.  They can overlap to show how the systems work together.  That was much better.

With Halloween coming up next month, maybe we can do something cool with bones and skeletons.  Hmmmmm.

Reading

Noelle continues to read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.  She also got the books about Houdini from the library and has been enjoying reading about his escaping tricks.  For Social Studies we will be doing some Utah studies, and we are starting with the Native American tribes associated with this area.  She has several non-fiction books about the Navajo Nation, and a fictional story called "The Girl Who Chased Away Sorrow" about a Navajo girl.  Together, we continue to read "The Wind in the Willows," and have also begun reading "The Landing of the Pilgrims" and hope to have that finished about the same time our co-op does a Thanksgiving re-enactment.