Homeschool Creations

Friday, August 27, 2010

Learning About Early Explorers

I generally share bits and pieces about what we’re doing in our school week, but every now and then I am hoping to pull all of the kids together in one post and sum-up what we are doing ~ and participate with Kris in the Weekly Wrap-Up. For our first week I had intended on starting off slow and over the next few weeks adding more as we go along.

Turns out the only thing we didn’t have in our day was Spanish. Way to start off slow, eh?

We’re getting back into a semi-routine and still working out a few kinks, but overall the kids are doing great ~ and starting off the new year with a bang. This year we added a few new texts to our studies and we are loving them!!! Here’s a quick sum-up of our week.

History ~ We’re going to be mixing the literature part of Beautiful Feet along with the Time Traveler Units from Homeschool in the Woods. Can I just say I LOVE the New World Explorers unit that we are doing? The kids are really enjoying the hands-on activities that we do almost every day.

This week we talked about explorers {what they are and reasons for exploring}, the life of an explorer {jobs of a sailor, flags, maps} and parts of a ship. We learned how to tie knots…

knot tying knot tying

and completed some interactive notebooking pages on the parts of a ship.

part of a ship parts of a ship

Science ~ Our first week using Nancy Larson Science 1 and it has been great timing since we’re talking about the stages of life and have a new little nephew to observe and talk about while we’re learning! I am so excited to use this science program this year!

Sunday I’ll be posting about our latest science experiment too as a part of Science Sunday, so stay tuned for that. :)

Spelling ~ The girls are reviewing some of the lessons in Level 3 of All About Spelling {and I’m so glad to see that they are remembering more than I thought!!}. Zachary is also reviewing a few lessons in Level 1 and doing great!

Reading ~ I have been beyond amazed at Zachary’s reading this past week. We picked up our Cobweb the Cat reader and he has been reading so well. Considering he hasn’t been reading to me all summer, I was really worried that we would have some major catching up to do. He has been so proud of himself!

Language/Writing ~ We started right back in with First Language Lessons and the Complete Writer. So far, so good! Zachary isn’t necessarily enjoying the step-up in needing to write more…but he’ll get there. :)

Preschool ~ If you’d like to see what we did for preschool this week with Kaleb, you can visit my Preschool Corner post that went up a little earlier today.

image

That’s it for this week! I generally share bits and pieces about what we’re doing in our school week, but every now and then I am hoping to pull all of the kids together in one post and sum-up what we are doing ~ and participate with Kris in the Weekly Wrap-Up. Be sure to head over and see what other families did this week.

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14 Comments:

  • HI, I really love what you are doing for History. Can you please share where you got the info on knots. I've been looking for some easy knots for the girls to learn. Thanks, karen
    Sippy Cup Central Mom

    By Blogger Sippy Cup Central, At August 27, 2010 at 2:12 PM  

  • My 6 year old gets really frustrated with writing and I am not sure I like our writing curriculum. I am interested in Writing with Ease - so I looked at it on Amazon. It looks like something we could use. Do you have the workbook and the instructor's text?

    By Blogger Heather S., At August 27, 2010 at 4:28 PM  

  • That looks a lot like our week! But ours is part of WinterPromise, still using the Time Travelers things from HS in the Woods. :)

    By Blogger Jamie {See Jamie blog}, At August 27, 2010 at 4:53 PM  

  • Sounds like a fun week! Love the ship pages -- very cute. We're going to see the Nina and the Pinta replicas in a few weeks. You might want to check and see if they're going to be anywhere near you. It'd make a great field trip. Here's the link: http://www.thenina.com/

    By Anonymous Anonymous, At August 27, 2010 at 5:27 PM  

  • That's incredible! We are mixing Beautiful Feet literature with the Time Traveler units, too! My daughter is doing the same projects this last week that your kids are pictured as doing! She's so excited.
    We're also using First Language Lessons.
    I'll have to check in more often to see how your lesson plans are going. We have done the first 4 Time Traveler Explorer lessons and will be doing project days on Monday and Tuesday. One day for projects just isn't enough! I think we'll have all the kids work on the boat this weekend. We'll be stopping to do the first Beautiful Feet books when we get to Leif Ericcson and Christopher Columbus, to make it a more in-depth study. Once we're done with the books, we'll be back to the Time Traveler schedule. Love, love, love this curriculum!
    Thanks for posting on this. Would love to get my baby blog up to speed like yours!

    Angela E.
    metropolitanworks@yahoo.com
    rockymountainmagnolia.blogspot.com

    By Anonymous Angela E., At August 27, 2010 at 7:33 PM  

  • Looks like it was an awesome week! All of your curriculum sounds so fun!

    By Blogger Jenny, At August 27, 2010 at 10:11 PM  

  • Great :-)
    I love your theme! Thanks for sharing.

    By Blogger Leptir (Nataša), At August 28, 2010 at 4:39 AM  

  • It's so bad I see things like this and go, ooohhhhh I want to get that too. I know I love the stuff I'm working with, but there's that little bit of me that goes, maybe this would be cooler. Isn't that silly?

    By Blogger Ticia, At August 28, 2010 at 9:40 AM  

  • Looks like your off to a good start!
    Janet W
    http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/wdworkman/

    By Blogger wdworkman, At August 28, 2010 at 11:48 AM  

  • Looks like a great week! Explorers are such an interesting topic.

    By Blogger Stefanie, At August 28, 2010 at 1:27 PM  

  • Looks like your off to a good start!
    Janet W
    http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/wdworkman/

    By Anonymous wdworkman, At December 15, 2010 at 12:57 PM  

  • Great :-)
    I love your theme! Thanks for sharing.

    By Anonymous Leptir, At December 15, 2010 at 12:57 PM  

  • That's incredible! We are mixing Beautiful Feet literature with the Time Traveler units, too! My daughter is doing the same projects this last week that your kids are pictured as doing! She's so excited.
    We're also using First Language Lessons.
    I'll have to check in more often to see how your lesson plans are going. We have done the first 4 Time Traveler Explorer lessons and will be doing project days on Monday and Tuesday. One day for projects just isn't enough! I think we'll have all the kids work on the boat this weekend. We'll be stopping to do the first Beautiful Feet books when we get to Leif Ericcson and Christopher Columbus, to make it a more in-depth study. Once we're done with the books, we'll be back to the Time Traveler schedule. Love, love, love this curriculum!
    Thanks for posting on this. Would love to get my baby blog up to speed like yours!

    Angela E.
    metropolitanworks@yahoo.com
    rockymountainmagnolia.blogspot.com

    By Anonymous Angela E., At December 15, 2010 at 12:57 PM  

  • HI, I really love what you are doing for History. Can you please share where you got the info on knots. I've been looking for some easy knots for the girls to learn. Thanks, karen
    Sippy Cup Central Mom

    By Anonymous sippy cup mom, At December 15, 2010 at 12:57 PM  

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