End of Year Thoughts

It's hard to believe that the year is over for our Classical Conversation's Community.  I'm not sure who learned more this year...the kids or me.  Some of the things I learned this school year or passed on to others were:

1) step out in faith
2) believe in yourself
3) you can do more than you think
4) God weaves hearts together for His glory and your good
5) life is short so make the most of your hours/days
6) love is received abundantly when given
7) forgive as you are freely forgiven
8) strive for excellence - it's contagious!

CC Week 24 - Making World Globes

I wanted to do a final project for Wonderful Wednesdays that would help pull the final week of Science together for the kids.  I figured a world globe would be a good ending project.  Little did I know the magnitude of the project!  Now I've done some big projects this year (let us not forget making 28 volcanoes the night before WW back on Week 16!)....however, this one seemed to trump them all.  I think I underestimated the amount of time it would take and it certainly did take a lot of time!  It all started out easy enough...we got together on Tuesday (we decided it would be Terrific Tuesday!) and we paper mache'd the globes and then set them to dry till the next day.  I figured surely that would be the only piece that would require extra time and I planned for it.  Well....

Week 24 - Hand Motions for Science

Sarah and I had made up hand motions for this week's Science to make it easier to remember...

Finishing Well - Week 24 - 1st Proof

Today we did our 1st proof for Memory Master.  My daughter did super - she nailed it all.  It's what we've been working towards all year...being able to recite from memory:

161 Events and people in a chronological timeline
44 US Presidents
24 History sentences that correspond with the timeline giving it more depth
120 Locations and geographic features in Africa, Europe and the Old World
24 Science facts related to geology and life sciences
5 Latin noun endings for both the singular and plural declensions
52 Prepositions, 23 Helping verbs and 12 Linking verbs
Multiplication tables up to 15x15, common squares and cubes, as well as basic geometry formulas and unit conversions

That's over 400 pieces of information -being able to recall it out of order as I ask in random fashion the various information, skipping around in weeks and subjects.  That's the idea of mastery - she can recall it at any given point you ask it.  It's amazing to watch an 8 year old recite things you can't yourself remember!  It's humbling too!  It gives new meaning to that show "Do you know more than a fifth grader?"  I'm certain after today that I don't - not even a third grader actually...LOL!  It also made me so thankful that I homeschool.  My daughter's education is so much more enriched, memorable, hands on and deeper than mine was growing up.  I feel so thankful and blessed to be able to do this for my children.

One of the last things we did this week was to complete our Pin Maps we started in the beginning of the year!  We also completed our travels in our passport book as we "boarded" our last imaginary plane ride to the last Country of the year.  We have enjoyed our Pin Maps this year!  It's been so very much fun for us to board our imaginary planes and travel through imaginary customs with our passports and watch our Pin Map grow and come to life.

Week 23 - Cloud Types!!

What child doesn't love puff paint, cotton balls and using their imaginations?  This was our rendition of cloud types for week 23...

We started our project with a quick exercise of observing the clouds outside and figuring out what type they were.  As it so happened today, we had some really great clouds as a weather system moved out this morning from our area.  We observed out the window and used this to help guide the kids to the right cloud type   http://wvscience.org/clouds/Cloud_Key.pdf

Week 22 - Weather Fronts - Experiment Extravaganza Day!

Today on Wonderful Wednesdays we explored Weather Fronts and did multiple experiments related to the topic of weather.  We did 7 experiments in all today....I guess you'd say we had an experiment extravaganza day!  We also did a weather map and then had the children be "weatherman/woman" and give us their forecast for the Country.

Linking Verbs

Today my daughter and I were discussing how it would be easiest for her to remember the linking verbs, we decided that making a linking verb chain would be one fun way.   Here is her chain she made....

After we completed the chain, Sarah decided that making a video of the linking verbs song with her linking chain was the best way for her to learn it.  She really enjoys making videos (as do most kids these days).  We've used making videos and coming up with hand motions or word associations to learn various pieces of the memory work helpful.  I find that the more input she has on the process of how to go about memorizing the information, the easier it is for her to memorize it.

So today I introduced all the linking verbs via the "ants go marching in" song.  She sang it several times and then we began making the video.  Each time she would do a "take" and immediately want to watch herself on my iphone.  Then there might be something like a pause, missed word or other little error or thing she didn't like....so we'd remake it.  We did that over and over again.  By the time she made a video she liked and wanted to "keep" -she had the whole song memorized for the most part.  Sneaky fun to get her to memorize the memory work - all you need is a cell phone!

Week 21 - Five Great Circles

Today for Wonderful Wednesday's we tackled the Five Great Circles and we celebrated Canadian style with Canadian Bacon and Pancakes with Syrup!  Coming up with a project for the Five Great Circles challenged me and it took a little while for me to wrap my mind around how to do this one.  I wanted to take a concept that is quite difficult to understand and has many different aspects to it, understandable to kids 6-9 yr. old children!  So I first began trying to identify larger concepts that would be somewhat easy to understand - sort of generalizing some of the information for our purposes.  I tried first to do that with animals but that became convoluted, then I tried doing it based on biomes and that became convoluted too.  I finally landed on climate to break the Great Circles down in a way that made sense and gave them at least one concept to hang their understanding on per circle.    This isn't perfect either, but it works for our purposes for this age range.  So it's broken down as follows:

Week 22 - Weather Field Trip - Making it Real

We took a field trip to our local NBC news station.  We were guided through our tour by the local weatherman.  The kids learned how the weather is broadcast and what goes into forecasting it.  One great tie-in to our CC Community was when the weatherman said that he had to stay within his allotted time of 3 MINUTES - presentations anyone???  The kids had a blast standing in front of the green screen and learning the art of presenting the weather.  We got to watch a live news broadcast and meet the various staff at the local station.  Perfect for our coming week on weather.

Cacao Plant - Fun for Valentines Day!

To celebrate Valentines Day, I decided to have the kids do a short study together on the cacao plant (chocolate).  It fits perfectly with not only the holiday but also our studies of Mesoamerica (Mayans/Aztecs/Olmecs) and our geography of Africa, South America and Mexico.  I used elements from the free unit study on chocolate here http://www.homeschoolshare.com/chocolate.php.  First I read them information about the cacao plant - how it grows, where it grows, what it's used for etc.  Then they answered questions related to that information that were on the sheet.  Along the way before giving the answers I'd ask them to guess what the answer might be (forming their own hypothesis).  Then they colored with a crayon the various geography.  We first colored Mexico (which fit with week 20 we were on) which is where the cacao originated.  Then they colored parts of northern half of South America and we talked about the Amazon river basin and located that on a large globe.  We then colored Africa where the cacao is now predominantly grown today - discussing the Nile river basin and other areas we thought it might be grown in Africa.  We tied in the Mayan/Aztecs and their ancient uses of cacao.  Then I gave each kid a piece of dark chocolate 70% cacao.  They had a sheet that asked them to describe all the things about their chocolate (sight, sound, taste, color etc) and they went through each adjective to describe their experience with the chocolate.  Next they did a sheet that had the word chocolate and they made as many words with that word as they could think of.  Lastly, we had a chocolate bar design contest.  We divided into two teams.  They were each given a sheet to design their chocolate bar and decide what ingredients it would have.  After they designed and named their bar as a team, they presented/marketed their new chocolate bar to the Moms who voted on which bar was the best.  They really liked this activity and were very creative.  I have pictures posted below of what their designs were.  We of course, made sure that there was a split decision and they both tied/won!  Lastly, I had made a chocolate trifle (recipe in January post of this blog - called Justin's Delight).  It was a Wonderful Wednesday!  Happy Valentines day!!!

Week 20 - Layers of the Atmosphere

Today we learned about the layers of the Atmosphere.  We made a model of the layers using aquarium rocks and recycled glass bottles along with some labels I found that worked well.  The pictures I used to label our bottles are from http://www.theozonehole.com/atmosphere.htm.  I attached the label with mod podge and then some of us glued/packing taped the larger label to the side and others used rubber bands after hole punching.  Both worked well and it was just a matter of personal preference.

Week 19 - Ocean Zones Project

Today we did our project on our science memory work.  We made a fun sensory project on the three ocean zones.

Here is how I did it...I used various materials that are easy to come by.  I went to to dollar store and purchased foam boards, white glue, shaving cream, blue colored body wash, bubble wrap, sand paper and then printed out a bunch of pictures from the internet of various ocean creatures that you would find in the three layers of the ocean.  I used light blue, medium blue and black colored construction paper for the backgrounds.

Week 18 - Silly Ocean Study Fun

Today we decided to make some silly sea creatures using our hands and feet to take a break from the four ocean floor types study and lighten things up!  We made a lobster and an octopus.  Both kids enjoyed it.  Simple - just need large piece of paper, paints, google eyes and I used sandpaper for the ocean floor.  Fun stuff!

Week #18 - Ocean Floor Project /Groundhog Day!

Today for Wonderful Wednesdays we made a diorama of the Ocean Floor to help with our memory work for science week 18.  We also celebrated Groundhog Day!

Wonderful Wednesdays in other Communities!

I'm excited to share that we now have other CC Communities replicating their own versions of Wonderful Wednesday's in their areas.

Jess from CC Joppa in Maryland, writes...."Hi Colleen, What a great blessing you have been with your Wonderful Wednesday idea.  We started Terrific Tuesday last week with 12 children in attendance.  Today we had 17 children at the table!  It has been great!  Thank you for all your great 

planning and ideas! I have attached some pictures of our new adventure."

Week - 18 Mountain Ranges Project

My daughter loves the volcanoes - sooooo we kept going with them.  We've made an ocean floor mountain range volcano.  This fits with the four types of ocean floor.   This one is water proof and we will be erupting it this week.  Very fun to do and not too difficult but does take a few days to complete.

Week #17 - Sculpting -studying Michelangelo further

So today we took on the adventure of learning how to make a sculpture.  We made a simple sculpture of a fish out of a bar of Ivory soap.  I wanted my daughter to understand the skill and time involved in making great sculptures like Michelangelo.  She commented that she didn't realize how hard it was and how long it takes!  She suddenly realized why it takes years for some large sculptures to be completed.

Week #17 - Aztecs and Totem Poles!

So as I was doing my deciding about what this Wonderful Wednesday would encompass, I came across some interesting history about Totem Poles!  It fit perfectly not only with some of what we have studied, are studying but also what we will be studying in later weeks.  I was then at a scrap exchange perusing through their things and I saw these big fat beautiful corks!  I thought - wow - those would make awesome totem poles for the kids and with what I had learned about them, I thought it would be an interesting caveat to our studies.  So the project was born to do totem poles.  Here's a blurb from the handout the kids got today along with pictures of Totem poles for recent and ancient history....

"Many different cultures made totem poles, not just Native Americans. While poles made by Native American tribes are the most famously known, the Mayans, Aztecs, Native Canadians, Native Australians, Maori, ingenious Koreans and ingenious Chinese are also known to have built totem poles."  (fits perfectly doesn't it?)!

This week's history sentence was on Montezuma - so I decided doing some headdresses was in order.    This all turned out to be a fun Wonderful Wednesday!

Creating a Master! Week #17 Michelangelo

I wanted my daughter to take a look at a Masterpiece in a new way...noticing the details in lines, technique, color and expression.  So I found a fairly "simple" masterpiece of Michelangelo.  One that wasn't too detailed and complex but enough so that it would convey the great skill he had in his craft.  So I looked up his most famous works online under google images.  I decided on the Prophet Jeremiah below.  Here is a link to it prophet jeremiah painting

Week #16 - Four Types of Volcanoes!

Wonderful Wednesday's today we worked on a project involving labeling, painting and adding effects like smoke or snow to 4 different volcano types to go with our Science for this week.  The pictures don't do it justice on how cute/good these turned out with the kids.  We also had a little Mesoamerica feel going on with the kids outfits/hats!  :)