Muskets

After reading a bit about the Revolutionary War and George Washington, P wanted to know more about muskets (and how they differ from Han's blaster in Star Wars). We watched and discussed the following videos about the length of time it takes to load and discharge a musket and the relative inaccuracy of them. We also talked about how battles were fought then compared to now, in terms of lines of men versus taking cover.

HP1: The Sorting Hat

P already knew which house Harry would be going in, so either he remembers it from elsewhere, or he's been reading ahead.

HP1: Diagon Alley/The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-quarters

P is so thoroughly enjoying the book that he's wanting me to read more than one chapter at a time. So, I did read chapters 5 and 6 tonight. Lots of pages! I missed some words/sentences here and there, and he picked them up and read them for me, letting me know I'd missed.

HP1: The Keeper of the Keys

The back history was handled pretty well, though I am not entirely clear that P understood what it meant. He is very excited for Harry to be getting his wand, though! On to the next chapter ... tomorrow ...

HP1: The Letters from No One

P was fascinated by this chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. Loved the (re)introduction of Hagrid and the introduction to magic in the book.

HP1: The Vanishing Glass ...

Chapter 2 of Harry Potter, Book 1 has been much more interesting for P to follow. Although it does have a lot of size discrimination references, I am hoping that further discussions will make it clear that assumptions and teasing based on someone's appearance (whatever it is that makes them different) will get through and be stronger than what he reads in books. At the end of our reading, he predicted that the letters that will be coming in the next chapter are from Brazil ....

Number Love and Workbook Fun

Today, P decided on the way to go swimming to count from 100 to 200, and did so with no problems. After returning from swimming (where we spent about 2 hours in the pool with both P and K learning to kick), P started turning over pairs of Uno Hearts cards and adding them together with the use of Math-U-See manipulatives.

We then started looking through the stack of Brighter Vision Learning Adventure workbooks we've collected, and both P and K started working through pages of them. K stuck mainly to coloring via a color-dot method and practicing letters. P followed a chart to color images, worked some 2-digit equations, some word finds, decoder puzzle (where you use a code and then write the word based on it), logic puzzle, mazes, and search and find pictures. We also did a word page that emphasized the consonant digraph "wh". P did skip-counting by 10s and by 5s (using nickel examples).

1+10=11

HP1: The Boy Who Lived ...

P and I started to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone today. We will be reading one chapter a day. At times, he seemed disinterested, but by the end of the chapter, he wanted to know what happened next.

July 17th

Writing numbers, adding place value, sequential order

Echoes

P wanted to create an echo, so we discussed how it is created by sound waves bouncing off of things, and how our house doesn't have any great places to create an echo. We did look up a great website (What Causes an Echo?) that discusses the requirements to create them, specifically distance, reflective surface, and volume. We created short echoes in our big bathroom, and will look for places to echo while out and about this week.

The Hobbit, in review

On the way home from dinner (kids eat free Tuesday!), Jeff and I decided to just start asking questions about The Hobbit to see if he remembered any of the details (the book was finished about a month ago, reading between half-a-chapter and two a night with Jeff).

Because P had just gotten a dragon painted on his arm by the clown at the restaurant, my first question was, "P, what was the name of the dragon in The Hobbit?" He answered, "Smog." right quickly, too!! We asked a series of questions both about facts, major plot points, and also overall comprehension of the underlying themes, and he displayed a very good understanding and an attention to the details of the book.

We are now considering which book to start him on next, either Harry Potter or maybe Spiderwick (we have tried The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe now twice, and he seemed disinterested. He is currently in the middle of reading part of the Random House Step Up Biography Book Series from the 1960s/1970s with such titles as Meet Benjamin Franklin, Meet Andrew Jackson, Meet Robert E. Lee, Meet George Washington, Meet Abraham Lincoln, Meet Thomas Jefferson, and Meet John F. Kennedy. (We inherited these from my cousins, who got them when they were little.)

July 14th

P used his National Geographic flash cards to answer true and false questions. He divided the cards between mammals and others; carnivores and herbivores; warm and cold blooded; by geographical region; water versus land; and by fur, feather, or other.

K practiced her writing today, doing free form copying of written words. Her letters are far better formed than P and easily read.

P found Madagascar on the map and identified it was larger than New Zealand.

Irish step dancing VS Tap dancing

Conversation led to us deciding to look up just how a "jig" is danced (thank you YouTube!), the kids practiced (with Daddy), and then we looked at some clips of Riverdance (specifically ones with male dancers). Finally, we talked about how it differed from tap dancing, and found a clip that actually had two male tap dancers and three male Irish step dancers "battling" -- it was such fun!

US Presidents

P looked at the names of all the US Presidents. P then selected the books from his library that we had of Presidents for his reading for the next week. P looked at videos of JFK's inauguration speech and speech asking for appropriations for the Apollo program.

Nursery Rhymes and Aesop's Fables

We have the books What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know and What Your 1st Grader Needs to Know, and inside each of them are some literary pieces that are "essential" for children to be exposed to, including Nursery Rhymes and selected Aesop's Fables. We read virtually all of them, some for the first time ever, but most were familiar to us. P and K put on shows and skits using hand puppets and stuff animals reenacting the stories, fables and rhymes heard in the books. The two favorites were "Jack Be Nimble" and "The Tortoise and the Hare".

July 12th

P and Jeff finished reading the biography of John F. Kennedy. P then asked to look at the Kennedy home in Hyannis Port, the White House, and Dallas.

P and K practiced handwriting by tracing over their names.

Backyard Nature Journal

• Gold & black garden spider
  
• Fuzzy yellow caterpillar
  
• Black cat (Midnight)
• Brownish grasshopper (the spider's meal)
  
• Brown gopher tortoise
  
• Tiny black wasp (?)
• Blackish yellow bee
• Itty bitty house spider
• Little black (?) butterfly
• Small orange with black tipped butterfly
• Little tiny fruit fly
• Black beetle fighting ants
• Red and black Cow Killer
• Big brown grasshopper

July 10th

P drew a tree after observing another child drawing the same subject.

WALL-e drawing

K has mastered drawing WALL-e! We only saw it once, and she's got it down. It is one of her favorite things to draw now.

Butterfly Rainforest

This afternoon, we visited the Butterfly Rainforest exhibit at the Natural History Museum, and were fortunate to see many different types of butterflies and talked about some special features they have.

We talked about the symmetry of butterfly colors and wing patterns, while looking at examples.

We also examined butterflies as they were feeding of flower nectar with their proboscis, and noticed their antennae and how different they are from moths.

P mentioned that some of the butterflies blended in with the flowers, which was like camoflage.

Both P and K saw this butterfly, which mimics a bee in its coloration.

Finally, K -- who had a hard time not finding anything that she could hold -- found a ladybug, and since it hadn't been expressly prohibited, happily carried it through the second half of the exhibit!

July 3rd

Looked at Hawaii, salt flats of Bolivia and Chile, discussed volcanoes, heat, and the way lava flows and plants reclaim territory.

P displayed understanding of sun's role in illuminating atmosphere.

July 2nd

Blueberry Farming

Discussion of space station concepts, (L5). Spanish for butterfly (mariposa).