We had a second great week in homeschooling! Everything is coming together really well so far, and the new schedule we are using (block scheduling for history/science on alternating days) is going really well. This year, we are doing all our “together” subjects in the morning (Bible, history, science) and our individual subjects in the afternoon. This is working well for us so far, because the boys are more apt to pay attention and work together in the morning, and in the afternoon, they are able to go at their own pace and finish up their schoolwork as fast or slow as they want. Last year we did the opposite, and it seemed that if someone got bogged down in an individual subject, it threw off our whole afternoon!
In history this week we learned about the War of 1812 and the Erie Canal. We made a lapbook project about the war, which you can see here:
We also finished up our mummified apple project from last week. Here are the results:
The boys agreed it was pretty cool, but I thought it was gross! However, it didn’t smell, and although it was squishy, it didn’t have the same rotted appearance of the other apple.We also made our edible cells this week, which was probably one of my boys favorite things! This project was a lot of fun, and I was surprised at how well both boys remembered all the parts of the cell and what they were for. This was a great concrete way to teach these concepts!
Since we are studying both human anatomy and forensics, I found this cool kit for making a DNA necklace at Home Science Tools.com. This was also a fun experiment, as the boys got to use DNA samples from their cheek cells, and actually “see” what their DNA looked like!
Finally, we did our first forensics lab! (which was probably the highlight of the week!) The boys had to analyze different handwriting samples to try and match them to the person who committed the “forgery”. The boys used the different points from our lab book to study the different elements of the handwriting and were able to successfully match all the signatures! The forensics is always a highlight of our week, and we are looking forward to next week’s project!
Next week we have some new labs to do and a few new history projects. Next weekend will be a long weekend, as we will take Labor Day off. I’m spending the afternoon hanging with the family…pulled pork is in the crock pot!!
Glad to hear your kids like lapbooking. I ruined it for my DD. She is dyslexic and I made her write every vocabulary word and do everything by the book and she HATED it. Sure learned my lesson. LOL Now we just use an online resources for her schooling, Time4Learning, VocabularySpellingCity (www.spellingcity.com) , and Vocabulary Fun (http://www.vocabulary.co.il/). We also supplement with Teaching Textbooks and whatever she shows an interest in learning.
What fun! Forensics Science seems to be growing among homeschoolers these days. I know a good blog that shares her lesson plans on what she did. http://kabersblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/sharing-plans.html
Glad to hear your kids like lapbooking. I ruined it for my DD. She is dyslexic and I made her write every vocabulary word and do everything by the book and she HATED it. Sure learned my lesson. LOL Now we just use an online resources for her schooling, Time4Learning, VocabularySpellingCity (www.spellingcity.com) , and Vocabulary Fun (http://www.vocabulary.co.il/). We also supplement with Teaching Textbooks and whatever she shows an interest in learning.
Joyfully,
Jackie
We used Spelling City last year and loved it!
And thanks for the tip about the other blog! I will check it out!