MFW 2nd Grade - Week #20

BIBLE:  Our new memory verse for the next two weeks is "I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."  John 15:5

We added another name to our Jesus poster.  I have taken a picture of it, but it up to date with our current week, so I will post it when I get to week #24.  (Sigh. Only 4 more to go.)

SPELLING:  Typical spelling week.  I'm really seeing Caleb struggle.  He can memorize the words for the spelling test, but there is no retention.  I really need to seek out another program to reinforce what I know he knows, but has forgotten because this program doesn't reinforce it enough.  (At least in my opinion.)

ENGLISH:  The lessons in English this week seemed a bit dull and dry.  I guess that's pretty typical for English glass.  

Reading List:

A Picture book of Lewis and Clark, David A. Adler
The Story of Ruby Bridges, Robert Coles
Francis Scott Key, Melissa Whitcraft
By the Dawns Early Light, Steven Kroll
The Star Spangled Banner, Peter Spier

Read-A-Loud:  We wrapped up Farmer Boy and have moved on to "On the Banks of Plum Creek."  Caleb insists he won't like it nearly as much as Farmer Boy.  I'm hoping the story has enough fun antics of Laura Ingalls to pull him in.  Caleb wouldn't let me read the last chapter of "Farmer Boy" for a while.  I finally said we just had to so we could say we were done with it.  He said, "But mom, then it will be over."  He loved the book so much that he didn't want it to be over.  Have you ever loved a book that much?  That you hated for it to end?  My heart went out to him because I certainly know how he feels.

So far, every day he says, "I don't like this new book as much as Almonzo."  Every day.

HISTORY/STATE STUDY:   Our study this week is on Thomas Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase.  We read from our Story of the U.S. book and going along with that our state for this week was on Louisiana.

It was quite incredible really, that the very week we are to study Louisiana daddy has to take a business trip to - yes - Louisiana.  Caleb and I tagged along and were able to see the place for ourselves.  It was such a good week and while not all our school work was done for this week ON this week because we spent some time being tourists, we did complete the week at the beginning of the next week after we returned home.

History Activities:   It was actually rather fun to make some red beans and rice to go along with our Louisiana theme.  John and I quite enjoyed it.  Caleb?  Well, we all know how he is.  It looked too different and he wouldn't even try it.   I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, but here it is in the beginning stage.

SCIENCE:   More talk on plants and growing things.  We discussed how plants grow, do they need water, etc?  In this instance we used popcorn.  One plate was a dry plate and the other plate the napkins were watered.  We covered them both in foil and Caleb checked them each day, logging the differences in the seeds each time.

It was rather neat to see the popcorn with water actually do something.  I think Caleb was a little surprised as he only thinks of popcorn in the form of movie popcorn or microwave popcorn!

MATH:  Several lessons this week in our Singapore Math book and YES, we finished it.  We are going to back to review for a while before we move on to the next book!  

MUSIC:   We listened to "There Are Many Flags" again and listened to "The Start Spangled Banner" after reading from our "Red, White, and Blue" book.

HEALTH/MANNERS:   Our lesson this week was on the topic of good posture.  I had to laugh just a little bit because Caleb does school all over the house.  He lays on the living room carpet under a tent, he lays on the bed, he sits at the coffee table, at the dinner table and 

LOUISIANA TRIP:   We spent time as tourists, but it was also a time of learning.  Since our study at school has been talking about animals, it was perfect that we spend some time at the Audubon Zoo.  We also went to the Audubon Aquarium, and the Audubon Insect and Butterfly Garden.  The IMAX theater had several options to choose from and Caleb chose the Coral Reef, which helped him to learn a lot about those animals under the water.

It was really cool to see the names of some of the people we're coving in school this week throughout our tourist visit to the Zoo and Aquarium.  Here are a few.

He's not looking so happy here.  We were tired.  And I don't think he wanted to stand for another picture.  This one is of a Baldcypress tree, which is Lousiana's State Tree.  If you wan to read more about it, the next pic give a bit of description.

I have a lot of fun pictures from our trip.  I will probably post those on our family blog.  When I get that done, I'll update and put a link here so visitors can click over there to take a peek.

All in all our studies this week were so much fun.  Even those outside of the trip.  There is nothing like a week in Adventures with My Fathers World!  I'm three weeks closer to being caught up now.  Yay me!!

Educating in Christ,

Momma Pam

MFW 2nd Grade - Week #19

BIBLE:  We continued our study of John 1:29 this week.  We read scriptures from John 3:16-17, Isaiah 53:7-8 and verse 4, 1 Peter 1:18-19, 1 John 1:5-9, and Revelation 5:7-14.  As you can see, we had a lot of discussion this week on Jesus and Passover.

Bible Activities:  Caleb created a lamb from cotton.  He filled in the shape of his hand with cotton balls.  It was done in honor of our memory verse.  I have to say it's rather cute.

SPELLING:  Another week, a new list of words.  :)

ENGLISH:  Caleb had some heavy writing this week in English.  Lots of copy work and writing answers to questions.  One of our topics this week was on mice.  A little different but we laughed our way through it.

Reading List:

Baby Duck and the Bad Eyeglasses, Amy Hest
Lentil, Robert McCloskey
Johnny Appleseed, Steven Kellogg
The Story of Johnny Appleseed, Aliki

Read-a-Loud:   We are quickly coming to the end of Farmer Boy.  It has been a long book, but I've come to realize just how good a book it really is.  Caleb has absolutely loved it and doesn't want to come to the end of Almonzo, the main character.  I neglected to mention the book in my last post and how much he's enjoyed reading it.  

HISTORY/STATE STUDY:    We always love it when we get to read out of our American Pioneers and Patriots book and this week we were able to do that for three days!  Yay!  The stories are always so fun and interesting.  Even Caleb likes it when I pull out that book.

Our state to study this week was Ohio.  Did you know? - that it's illegal in Ohio to catch a mouse without a hunting license?  (Seems silly, but it's probably a very old law that was set in place at some point in time. Ha!)

A small activity we did was to "make" a New England Primer, which would be a book that a young child would use at school.  There was a worksheet supplied for us, we just glued it together and went over it.

SCIENCE:  Our topics this week included more on the study of Animals.  Can't really go wrong with that.  A fun and diverse topic.  We talked about animal homes, how some have babies from an egg and some are born as mini versions of momma and daddy, how some animals find food, and where other animals like to hide.

MATH:  Lots of lessons in our Singapore Math book this week.  We are coming near the end of the first book.  That's exciting.  

Educating in Christ,

Momma Pam

MFW 2nd Grade - Week #18

BIBLE:  Our memory verse for this week was John 1:29.  "...the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"  We read scriptures from John 1:26-29, Exodus 12:1-3, 5-8, 11-14, and 21-30.

SPELLING:  It was our typical week in Spelling.  Pretty uneventful.  We are struggling a bit with the current program we're using, so I am contemplating getting something new to try.  We shall see.  The current program, Spelling by Sound and Structure, doesn't help much in reinforcing all the phonics rules and it seems Caleb is at a time where he needs some of the reinforcement.  We're still plugging along though.

ENGLISH:  Caleb completed some copy work this week and he did some work on when to use "their" and "there."  He also had his weekly assignment of dictation, which he likes "so" much.

Reading List for the Week:

Chickens Fly the Coop, Leslie Helakoski
Mr. George Baker, Amy Hest
Little White Rabbit, Kevin Kenkes
When the Whippoorwill Calls, Kimberly Bulcken Root
All Those Secrets of the World, Jane Yolen
Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Siverstein
Mooch the Mouse
Casey Jones, allan Drummond
A New Coat for Anna, Harriet Ziefert
Greg's Microscope, Millicent E. Selsam
Daniel's Duck, Clyde Robert Bulla

HISTORY/STATE STUDY:   It was interesting this week as we were able to learn about Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin.  It was fun to read on this when we have farmers in the family and in our church.

Activity - Making Cotton:  Since we were learning about the cotton gin, one of the activities was to take a cotton ball, make some fake seeds, glue them to the cotton ball, and the next day when it was dry have Caleb try to pick the seeds out of cotton.  It was a great way to show him how important the cotton gin was.  Before it was invented, all those seeds were picked out of the cotton by hand.

We had a visitor in class today.  Blue Mr. Incredible.  :)

Here I was instructed to wad it up good so Caleb would have to try harder to dig out the seeds.

Anyone who knows our Caleb, knows it didn't take him long to tell me this was a waste of his time!

Additionally in history, we talked about the state of Tennessee!  We've slowed down a little with the states and have only been doing one a week.  Lots of fun info learned on Tennessee.

SCIENCE:  We studied living things this week in science.  We read in Genesis 1 about how God created the earth and all the living things.  As I read, Caleb was to decide if the things that were mentioned were "living things" or "non-living things."  He created a chart as we went along.   The things mentioned were:  plants, living things in the water, birds, animals on land, people, light, sky, land, oceans, sun, moon, stars....

Activity - Make an animal cell:  I must admit that this was a very creative project that Caleb really enjoyed doing.  We used jello, a sandwich bag, beans and a piece of something we cannot remember.  Ha!!

Some of the ingredients we needed to make our animal cell.

Caleb mixing it up!

After mixing the jello, we put it inside a sandwich bag and let it set in the refrigerator.  After it set, he pushed some things into it, such as beans for "organelles" and something else for a "nucleus."  Neither one of us can remember what that white object is that is supposed to be the nucleus!  Oh well.  (This was a long time ago - my blog is behind!)

Caleb is pointing to an "organelle."

Caleb is pointing to the "nucleus."

Here he is pointing to the outside, or "cell membrane."

Activity - Growing Bacteria in Milk:   Using milk and two jars with lids, Caleb put milk in both jars and one jar went into the fridge and another jar set out on the counter.  We monitored the jars to see which jar would develop bacteria first.  He caught on quick that the jar on the counter would get yucky first.  We neglected to get a picture of the jars at the end of the project. :(

MATH:   We covered lots of math worksheets this week and played games from our Giggle Math set.  I'm trying to work with Caleb to get him more fluent with the addition facts.  He can do them, he just has to think about for what I think is too long.  He's getting there.

MUSIC:  We discussed and listened to the song, "There are Many Flags" during our music lesson this week.

HEALTH/MANNERS:    Caleb learned all about his eyes and how important it is to take care of them in this weeks health lesson.

FAMILY LIFE LEARNING:  There is always something going on at the Parker's and this week began the construction of a barn for some of the animals.  We have some rabbits and we want to have chickens for eggs.  But first, we need a place to put them.

So, one day of school this week consisted of Caleb learning how to dig holes for posts, measure and cut  the framework, mix concrete and use it to secure the posts; among many other things I can't think of at this moment.  He was a trouper.  He stayed along side dad and I most of the time throughout the beginning of the process.  He would take time to ride his bike every so often for a break.  Nothing like some great exercise.

This home school blog is incredibly behind.  As I sit here writing this post, it leaves me only 6 weeks behind instead of 7.  Things have just been busy and taking the time to take picture, choose them, download them, crop when necessary, just wasn't happening.   This is me, trying to catch up!  So if the subjects we are covering seem a bit skimpy in my descriptions, this would be why.   I can't remember what I ate for dinner yesterday, much less what we did in school 7 weeks ago without pulling out all the assignments and looking at all the books again.  There just isn't enough time for that, so I'm going off of the notes I've written on my grid.  I hope this will still give you a glimpse into our home school days and you will find it interesting!

Educating in Christ,

Momma Pam