Thank You All!!!

Well, last night was the Year End Celebration Event and what an evening it was!!! The kids did great showcasing their skills and the time of fellowship was precious! It was great to get to see everyone again and it is a night I will cherish forever :) I wanted to thank my class for the wonderful and thoughtful gift!! I will get much use out of the perfect size Bible and I LOVE Beth Moore and will be sure to listen to the CD over and over again :) I was a bit overwhelmed by the love and the sadness I feel for having to move on. Each of you hold a very special place in my heart and I wish you all the very best!! CC of Decatur is a great blessing and is a TRUE community!! My family has felt so loved and cared for during our time there and I just can't thank you all enough!! Please keep in touch, and by all means if any of you are in Monroe, LA we would love to see you!!! Love and many blessings, Stacey (Mike, Lucy, and Clara)

Week 24!!

Wow---we made it!!! One whole CC year DONE!!! Way to go each and every one of you! I may be a tad bit biased, but I feel this was the best class EVER :) Today we unfortunately did not get to all of our subjects, but here is a review... Science: This was done to the tune of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" What units are use to what units are used to what units are used to measure electrictricity? Volts, Ohms, Amperes, and Watts These are the units to measure electricity. Math: I showed them a visual using one of our students, and also a picture of a dog (both represented A). For identity law if I add 0 or multiply by 1 that person (or dog) stays the same---they keep their same identity. History: We sang the song using instruments. Presidents: We had a race to put them in order. Both teams did a great job! Latin: We did not get to this, but we would have just reviewed the song. English: We did not get to this either, I was just going to have them chant it out and then each child would have a different interjection (Wow! Hey! Cool! etc). and would pop up and yell it out. Geography: We did not get to this either. I didn't have anything special planned for this other than locating and repeating. We had a great time today in Science with our bridges, egg protectors, and paper airplanes! You all did a great job---and most importantly we all learned a lot doing it!! I hope everyone enjoyed the concert for Orchestra! Well, this is it! I made it through the day without crying, and to be honest it hasn't fully hit me that the year is over and this is it. I believe each of you know that we will not be returning next year, as we are going to have to relocate to where there is a job for my husband :) A paycheck is a nice thing to have :) I have appreciated your support, prayers, and love through this time of uncertainty in our lives! This class has ministered to me in so many ways and I am so thankful! It has been an absolute pleasure getting to know all of the Apprentice kids and their families!! I am going to miss you all terribly----but I thank God that we have the promise of an eternity---so this is by no means good bye---simply a "see you later!". Of course there is always next week for fun day and the end of year celebration too :) Have a fun week with the last of Cycle 2 :) Blessings, Stacey I have tried several times to separate this out and it keeps clumping it together----how annoying! Sorry about this!!!

Week 22

Only two more weeks to go, and you would think I have this schedule down by now, but as you can see I am quite late on getting this posted----I am so sorry!!

We had a great week!!

Math: I had a visual of "commuters" waiting on a train to go to work. In the morning they go from station A to station B, but when they go home they go from station B to station A but that is the same distance and everything is the same but just backwards. Same with the commutative law. I did have a minute to plug some numbers into the numbers and show them that way too.

Science: We used hand gestures for each. Pretend to use your hand as a mirror and primp while looking in it---that is "reflection". Take a fist and bounce it off the mirror hand (if you hit it hard enough it will "fract"ure and also it shows how it bounces off) and that is for refraction. Then move your hands like you are making a big rainbow for spectrum.

English: To the tune of Bad Boys (from Cops)
Fanboys, Fanboys
Coordinating Conjunctions
for
and
nor
but
or
yet
so

Latin: We did the song and since it goes to the tune of London Bridge we played the game while singing.

Presidents: We only went to Hayes (I know it says to go to Garfield, but the natural break in the song is Hayes). I also had a deck of cards with the Presidents on them and had two teams race in putting them in order. The team with the "easy" deck didn't catch on that theirs actually said the number president they were, which worked out well. LOL

Geography: We found each on the map and sang them to the tune of the Mexican Hat Dance
Some countries in Central America
El Salvador and Honduras
Nicaragua and Costa Rica
and Panama cha cha cha

History: we had some hand gestures. We held up 9 fingers for 1989. Communist dictators we saluted as though we were saluting to Hitler, with an outstretched arm (it feels so wrong!! I just couldn't think of anything else), we used sign language "e" for Eastern Europe, for Gorbachev we patted our heads because of the birthmark he has on his head, we did an exaggerated NO with our heads to signify refused and for military force we used our hand like a gun.

We began our egg protectors this week and will work on them more next week and they will be tested week 24. Remember, a REAL egg will go in there for the test, and the protectors that succeed in keeping their egg from breaking is a winner :) We discussed again about how triangles are the strongest shape. It was fascinating to see the different ideas that they were coming up with. I can't wait to see these tested out!!

Mrs. Diana Light is doing a great job with Orchestra and I know my children are captivated which is awesome!! It truly has given us a love and appreciation for Classical Music that we didn't have before!

I hope this didn't mess you all up too badly having me post so late. I will try my best to do better for the next couple of weeks. I am shocked (and quite saddened) that there are only 2 more weeks to go!! I am going to miss our class (kids and Moms) so very much!!!

Blessings,
Stacey

Week 21

Yet again, we had a great day at CC today!

Here is the recap:

Time Line: We are using the first song on the CD (track) 25. We sang the song and the kids took turns pointing to the presidents we were singing about.

History: We had fun, fun, fun dancing to this one (well, at least I did LOL). This song just screams "DANCE!" We had a few signs we worked in to the dance----for 1980's we held up 8 fingers, put and end to...., we did our hands like a "you're safe" sign in baseball, lesson the gov't we had our hands going down, for strengthen we did strong arms----otherwise we just danced, danced, danced :) I did use some of the kids as puppets and had them really get down---that's always fun :)

Latin: We did the song and repeating it without singing too.

English: we repeated the sentence several times while a few kids were designated conjunctions and they would go and hook arms (connect) to students that were words, phrases, or clauses (ho, ho, ho!).

Science: Just some hand gestures----impossible we did the same sign like in the history song for "your safe" in baseball, and then held up a 0 with our hands. Make sure they don't try to add in "degrees" to the sentence, as it is possible to be 0 degrees, but not absolute zero temp.

Math: We wrote it out and then followed along as we sang a song. I am told there is a song the tune is from but I can't remember it to be honest----I will have to find out again. Hopefully your child remembers it--- it did help mine this week (and me :)

Geo: Cuba looks kind of like a cigar, Jamaica is right below "No problem!", Haiti is to the West of the island that it shares with Dominican Republic.

I can not believe that there are only 3 more weeks of this CC year!!!

I hope you each have a wonderful blessed week!!
See you Tuesday!

Week 20

I am sorry I am posting this later than usual. I have to apologize too that we did not get to time line yesterday. I did it after class with a few of the children, but not everyone was there, so if you have the video use that, or you can come up with your own ways to remember it---or give me a call and I will walk you through the signs for each card.

Math: We had another race to put together the numbers in the proper order of cm in an inch.

Geography: for South Central Asia we talked about how South Vietnam looks like a ladle with north Vietnam being the top of the ladle. The soup inside the ladle is not Campbell's soup, but Cambodia soup. The steam coming off the soup is Thailand (it looks like a lump of steam) and kind of looking like the hand grasping the handle of the ladle is Laos. These are harder to see and it may be beneficial to look them up online or if you have another map at home that shows them better. We have a place mat with the world on it (that I had in class) that shows the distinction better, so use what you have :)

Latin: We did the song.

English: We did a Cadence like we were in the military. The Sargent yells out "An appositive is a noun" and the troops yelled that back. Then "That follows another noun" and lastly "and explains or identifies it." I showed them a visual of one child being a noun and another being the appositive and following the noun.

History: We acted this out and had some hand motions for north we put our hands up in the air and then put our hands south and hugged ourselves like we were capturing S. Vietnam. Make sure the kids make the distinction in the song that unlike last weeks song, the UN troops were not sent this time, however, it was the US troops.

Science: We had a song with some hand gestures. Heat will always fffflllllloooooowwwwww, to an area of higher (hands up in the air and sing this with a high pitched voice) temperature to an area of lower (hands down low and sing in a deep, low voice) temperature.

Science lab: We began building our bridges using marshmallows and toothpicks. Discuss this week how some shapes are stronger than others (the triangle being the strongest as it evenly displaces weight). Feel free to look things up online or at the library about bridge building and see if they can alter their plans next week when finishing their bridges to make them even better. It was fun to see what they were coming up with. Remind them that the bridge has to support weight and will be tested to see how strong it is.

Fine Arts: we had another great class with Mrs. Diana and learned a lot about the types of classical music and different composers. I know my kids were eager to share their new knowledge with their Daddy last night as it was the dinner table discussion here :) They like listening to the music laying on the floor in the dark too. It is very cool to see the kids getting excited about classical music :)

I have to manage the class time a bit better as I did have to stick to a strict 2 min presentation schedule and I hate to do that as I know how much the kids love to present! I will try to do better :)

It was a great class and your children minister to me each week in ways I can't even describe!! Each child is so special and I am so thankful for the little bit of time I get with them each week :) Keep up the good work Moms!!

Have a blessed week!
Stacey

Week 19

Hello everyone!! It was another great week, and I have to tell you that I really needed this today---just being around all these great kids who are all so eager to learn, and all their Mom's--I was truly blessed today!!

To recap our day:

History: We acted out and sang our song. I love that our history ties in so nicely to our Geography this week too with N. and S. Korea.

Latin: We reviewed the song and said each conjunction a few times.

English: our song this week was to the tune of the Brady Bunch
A g g gerund
is a present participle
verb form used as a noun.
Even though most of the kids do not know who the Brady's are and have never heard that song, it does seem to stick.

Math: We had races today to see who could put the numbers in the right order first of how many feet there are in a mile and when they had it they had to yell out "1 mile". We did this at home this week too and my girls loved it, even if it was just them solo and I would time them.

Geography: no clever way to remember, but at least 2 of the places are repeats of history :) for Taiwan we talked about needing an anchor (to "tie one" to the island). Plus that is like the dot in a lower case i with the Philippines being the lower part of the i. Then what looks like a tiny bit of ink mistakenly in the middle of the ocean----that is not a mistake but in fact Guam. Mrs. Jonica showed us too how close Guam is to Hawaii which was pretty cool!

Science: we had a lot of fun with this sentence all week----we sang it (there isn't a tune that it goes to---but read it and a song will emerge). We used sign language for "make" which is the same same for "creation" in our timeline going all the way back to week 1. This represented "energy cannot be created" and then throw your hands down for "or destroyed". What is the first law of thermo dynamics?

Our lab attempted to bring that to life, which is difficult as it is such an abstract concept. The kids really enjoyed making the paper airplanes :) We did see how ice would melt in our hand, and even though it changed forms from solid to liquid, it still had the same energy, just different. The only One Who can create or destroy energy is the Creator----God!

Fine Arts--Mrs. Diana did an awesome job teaching us about orchestra today!

Time Line---we went through the signs for each one.

As for anything extra---we did enjoy the experiment of putting ice on a kitchen scale (if you have one) and allowing it to melt. I had the girls hypothesize what the weight would be after the ice melted. One said it would be heavier and one said lighter (neither said stay the same :) Of course, it does stay the same as the energy is not created or destroyed just altered to a different state.

Also, I have found myself recording a lot of programs from the History channel. I don't like a lot of what is on there, but I am finding that the history (not necessarily the Biblical based shows) are really good. We watched one on the assassination attempt of Hitler. We watched about the assassination of Lincoln. One on Sherman's March during the Civil War. I have one I just recorded on Reagan as I know a history sentence is coming up about him. Things like that we are enjoying. They are usually 2 hours long, which is a big much for some kids----but I allowed my youngest to do something else while in the room and I would pause it and discuss things I thought were key and she was a part of those discussions and she did get something out of it. My oldest (10) has enjoyed them for the most part.

I hope that helps!!
Have fun with it all this week!! See you next week! If you need anything in the mean time please give me a call!
Blessings,
Stacey

Week 18

Another great class today. A rowdy bunch today :) I usually don't have to do much disciplining, but I did today (hope I didn't scare anyone :)

Here is a review of what we did today:

History: We acted out the sentence and sang the song.

Latin: Song. We tried to get creative by having half the class go and the other half come in a little later. I think it sounded good LOL

English: Hand gestures
subject----like a submarine, one hand goes under the other.
direct object (remember there are 3 objects)--are goes straight out like you are going directly.
indirect object---arm goes out but in a wavy manner----going indirectly.
object of preposition----move hands away from each other since this is our long one.
possessive---give yourself a big hug.

Math: To the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb"
One foot equals 12 inches, 12 inches, 12 inches
One foot equals 12 inches
12 inches in a foot.

Geography: longest name is the smallest country----Luxembourg, shortest name is the largest country---USSR (former). Luxembourg is like a flea on Belgium. Ireland (think of being on the beach there ironing "iron land").

Time line: we went over the hand motions.

Fine arts: great painting again today playing with texture like Morisot!! This was our last week of great artists, I know everyone really enjoyed these projects! I am sure we will have lots of fun starting next week learning about composers and orchestra.

Science: Hand gestures: using a sign language "a" for "action", bring the other hand with an "a" together to be our equal and then for opposite have your "a" hands go away from each other.

Science lab: We got to see how force effected such things as playing tug of war, and throwing a ball at someone who is sitting on a skateboard. When two balls are dropped into our hands of the same size, but of different mass (i.e. a wiffle ball and a tennis ball) we noted that the ball with more mass felt different landing in our hands.

Well, believe it or not, we are half way through the second semester!! It is really flying by! I hope everyone has a great week and I look forward to seeing you all again next Tuesday!!
Blessings,
Stacey

Week 17

Hard to believe we just finished up week 17 already!! We had a great day at CC today!

History: Once again we acted out as we sang the song.

English: We played a popcorn game. Each child held a picture of a person, place, thing, activity, or idea and when reciting the sentence and we got to their item they would pop up.

Math: We added a verse to our circle song. Again to the tune of the "The Wheels On The Bus" and it goes:
The circumference of a circle is
2 pi r
2 pi r
2 pi r
The circumference of a circle is
2 pi r
all around the circle.

Geo: Central Europe. We went on a trip with Austin the Anteater who lives in Austria. Austin was very hungry and went to Hungary thinking he could get something to eat but that didn't work out too well for him. So, he thought he would "check" right above him at the former Czechoslovakia. He still didn't find anything to eat (he is very picky). So, he went next door to Germany but he found the food there to be "germy" and wouldn't eat it. Finally, he smelt something from the south that smelled wonderful and sure enough in Switzerland he found swiss cheese that was just right!

Latin: Sang the song.

Time Line: We went over the hand motions.

Science: For Newton's 2nd law of motion we had hand gestures. Force, we pushed our arms out. Equals, we used our arms to make what looks like equals signs by putting then horizontal to each other. Mass, we put our arms out like something was big. Times, we crossed our arms like a times sign. Acceleration, we moved our arms like we were running.

Science lab: We discussed how mass effects the force by seeing the difference between two objects as they fell into flour. Even though the objects fell at the same speed, the heavier object left a much larger dent! We also raced some cars and noticed that by making a car heavier it made it travel farther (when it wasn't flipping over :) Also, we saw that since a soccer ball is heavier than a regular ball that when kicked with about the same amount of force the soccer ball went farther and faster.

Fine Arts: We discussed the artist Degas and once again the children proved their wonderful artistic abilities! This was a really cool project and I hope everyone really enjoyed that!

As for extras to help, I didn't have a ton this week. Don't miss the connection of "central Europe" and last weeks history when we learned about the "central powers". We have been finding nouns all over the place, but those idea nouns can be tricky since you can't "see" that.

Have fun with it this week and we look forward to seeing everyone again next week. Remember to let me know if you child plans to attempt the Memory Master challenge so we can plan accordingly.

Blessings,
Stacey

Memory Masters

I am wondering if anyone in our class is going for Memory Master at the end of this school year. I need to be getting a count so we can plan for that. There is no pressure to go for this, especially at this age.

Just let me know. Either comment to this post, email me, or tell me in person :)
Thanks!
Stacey

Week 16

Did we really just finish up week 16 already?? Wow, time does fly! We had a great day today at CC, and here is a summary of what we did:

Latin: We just went over imperfect tense with the song.

English: This is a strange story, and it does change the words somewhat, but it really helped my kids learn it this past week---but we put an emphasis on the words and not the story.

To what extent will the advert aardvark make a "not (knot)" while she is trying to "so (sew), too (two) very rather" red dresses that are "quite" cute and "somewhat" small?
We also heard Mrs. Jennifer sing the song her family does for this----feel free to do what works best for your family.

Math: I threw pies in their faces (well, not exactly LOL). I have a pie with the pi symbol on it and around the edge it says 3.14. Then for the sentence we sang to the tune "The Wheels On The Bus"...

The area of a circle is
pi r squared
pi r squared
pi r squared
The area of a circle is
pi r squared
for all circles.
We are actually going to build another verse next week for this song too.

History: My we had some fun acting this out today. I must say that Luke made the cutest darn Hitler ever! We acted it out and sang the song.

Geography: We used a story about a greasy car. The car started off in Greece (hence the car is greasy). From there "all" cars have "mania" and go to Albania. Then the car looked at them and yelled "YOU GO!" and they had to go to Yugoslavia. From there the car decided to go "roam" around Romania. And lastly the car went to his favorite "area" in Bulgaria.

Time Line: We went over the timeline and the hand motions.

Science: I had hand gestures to correspond. We used the sign language "o" to be our object. For rest we put our hands to our head like we were laying down to nap. An object in motion, we just moved our o hand. then we made a straight line and pretended to run for "constant speed" and then using our other hand we came into contact with our o hand as the outside force.

Also I showed them pictures of a soccer ball at rest and we discussed how it wouldn't move on it's own. Then someone kicking the ball and how the ball would keep flying through the air in a straight line until it either hits the net (and outside force acting upon it) or another player got it, etc.

Science Lab: We reiterated Newton's First Law of Motion with some activities. The first (and a favorite) was to get a cup and put a note card on top and a penny on top of that. By flicking the card off we were able to witness how an object at rest "the penny" would remain at rest (by staying in the same place), but the object in the motion (the card) did all the moving---except the penny fell into the cup. Each child brought their penny home and I am sure they will be anxious to show off their new trick :)

We also tried to hit an X on the floor with a ball as we ran past it as fast as we could and had to calculate when to drop the ball to land on that x. This sounds easier than it is.

Fine Arts: We talked about Monet while we painted with water colors and tried to use short brush strokes as Monet was famous for with his impressionistic style of painting. Beautiful art work was created once again!!

A Mom asked me to discuss some of the things we may use at home extra to reiterate the lessons and I will try to add those to these posting too in case they may be helpful for you all. The library of course is a huge reference for us. I look ahead and try to reserve at the library books on the subjects we will be studying. If there are movies that go along with our history in particular too we will try to watch one. This week we watched The Diary of Ann Frank. My children were not thrilled about watching it because I did forewarn them that she died, but we made them watch it anyway, because like it or not it is true life and what happened. It made an impression on my children and brought WW2 to life in a different dimension for them.

Otherwise, I keep on our frig the CC for the week (on C3, if you joined, you can print out the whole week on two sheets---which takes up less space). I will ask them about it when making breakfast, we will sing the songs, tell stories or whatever we came up with for each subject. When making dinner, lunch, etc. I spend much of my day in the kitchen it seems so it made sense for me to put it there. We listen to the CD all the time in the car. The resource CD is great too and I always read the history highlights to them (or my oldest will read it to us). I have to get better at reading behind the time line cards. We usually pick one or two that spark the most interest and read those. We look things up online as well. I am a visual learner, as is my oldest, so I try to have pictures to spark memory. That may be overkill for some, but it works well for us.

I hope that helped some. Keep in mind too that CC is on a 3 year loop, so they will have this same material again in 3 years and you can always build upon it then---this is the foundation we are laying. These children never cease to amaze me though with how much they can retain and how they really do "get it". For instance, while watching the Diary of Ann Frank, my children understood that when they were talking about how Hitler had his sights on Poland that the war was going to begin when he invaded. They were also able to follow the years as they were displayed at the bottom and knew how much longer the war was to take place. Also, in that movie there is a scene of Ann in school learning about the area of a circle and both my kids immediately broke out into our song for that.

Feel free to post comments if you have found something that is a great supplement or something that works great for you all as it may very well be a great help to someone else!

Have a wonderful week and I look forward to seeing you all next week!
Blessings,
Stacey

Week 15

We had another great week!!!

History: We had fun acting out our sentence today (maybe a little too much fun---I hope they got it LOL). We sang the song as well.

Latin: We did the song and said them as well several times.

English: We had a little chant with hand motions to help us remember our negatives.
Shake head no----"no, not, neither"
Using our finger and getting the head going we said "never, none, nobody"
Stomp one foot and say "nothing", stomp the other food and say "scarcely" and
then arms go up and out for "hardly".

Math: We said the sentence in funny voices.

Geogprahy: We had a story today of a Persian cat named Persia Former and saw where he lives on our map. He was looking for his friend Turkey and thought he saw him next door hanging on an I rack (Iraq). When he didn't find Turkey there, he went next door thinking his friend loved cereal and may well be in Syria looking for cereal. When he didn't find him there either he took a big deep breath and let out a sigh and went to the island of Cyprus. Feeling like he may never find his friend he looked up and there was Turkey!!!

Time Line: We did the hand motions and I had the kids (who appeared to be falling asleep :) get up and really do these with attitude!!! So don't be scared at home if they are yelling their time line :)

Science: We had hand motions, pull hand back like you are getting ready to throw a ball for potential energy and then throw the imaginary ball for kinetic energy.

Science lab: This really got the kids to see our science sentence in action. We used many objects to demonstrate potential and kinetic energy. We made a spool/rubber band thing that didn't work exactly as hoped but still was a good example and visual. The kids did a great job with the "think box" and coming up with ways that we could demonstrate the types of energy.

Fine Arts: Studying the artist Gainsborough. We did not have time to finish our masterpieces unfortunately. We did get the painting portion done ( mostly anyway) and the children once again showed their wonderful artistic ability!! The second part of the project that you can do at home is to on a seperate piece of paper draw some people that would fit into the landscape that was painted. Cut the people out and glue them to the scene.

As usual the kids loved sharing their presentations and they never cease to amaze me with the amount of information they can impart in a short amount of time. They are really doing wonderfully with their presentations!

I hope everyone enjoyed their CC day and will have a great week!! I look forward to seeing everyone again on Tuesday!
Blessings,
Stacey

For Next Week

For next Tuesday, please have your children remember to bring their colored pencils and have them sharpened and ready to go. Also, a pair of kid scissors would be great! We are going to be studying the artist Gainsborough, and although he was a painter, we will do a landscape with our colored pencils so we don't have to wait for them to dry :)

I can't wait to see what the kids will come up with!!

Week 14

Hello everyone! We had another great class today!!

Here is my recap of what we did:

Latin: We just practiced it. We did add a "I'm a moose, I'm a this, I'm a not" for the plurals (amamus, amatix, amant).

English: There were gestures for each sentence type. For Declarative we put a period on our palm and were very ho hum about it. For Interrogative we looked like we were thinking and asking a question with finger on our chin. Imperative, we were stern pointing at someone, and for Exclamatory we were shocked :)

Math: We just said the sentence over and over.

History: We acted out as we sang the song. I had the girls play the men in this sentence because we used their hair as mustaches---these men have some major mustaches (except for Wilson). Mom's I forewarn you this tune is catchy! For whatever reason I can't get it out of my head all the time :)

Time Line: We went over the hand motions and repeated it several times.

Geography: We sang a song to the tune of BINGO:
Five countries on the Baltic Coast, are Baltic Europe: ELLEP ELLEP ELLEP, These are Baltic Europe.
Five countries on the Baltic Coast, are Baltic Europe: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, East Prussia (former) and Poland.

Science: I had half the class have a H (Hydrogen Atom) and they were the acids and they donated it to the the Bases that would accept the gift of the H.

Science Lab: Went right along with our science and we got to test household items to see if they are acids or bases. Some very surprising results!! Remember, if you have some purple cabbage at home, boil it up and use the water as the indicator and test some bleach at home and see how base it truly is!!

Fine Arts: We have some magnificent artists in this class!! I was so impressed!! We drew a buttercup flower with detail, much like Linnaeus would have done. We also had the opportunity to look at some real plants up close with magnifying glasses to see just how detailed God made them.

I hope everyone had a great day and enjoy your week!! I look forward to seeing you all next week.

Please remember too---if you ever have any prayer requests, email me, call me---whatever, I would be honored to pray for you!!

See you next week!!
Blessings,
Stacey

Week 13

Whoo Hoo, it was good to be back!!! We sure missed it while we were out!!

Here is the review for what all we did today:

History: We acted out the sentence while we sang the song.

Latin: I picked several children to recite and/or sing the Latin present tense.

English: We did this to the tune of "When The Saints Go Marching In"
Aaadverbs
Tell how
when, where, to what extent
how often, how much, and modifies
verbs, adjectives, or another adverb.

Science: We had some hand motions to help us remember these
solid--we put our hands together as a big fist.
liquid--we cupped our hands like we had water in them.
gas--we moved our fingers up while we wiggled them a bit (like steam).
plasma--we just spread our arms out excitedly since plasma is hot and in space.

Math: I showed them a picture of a rectangle with a big A in the middle. We identified rectangles in the room and I briefly explained what "area" meant and then gave hand signals for the whole equation---a sign language "a" for "the area of a rectangle", a sign language "l" for "length", arms crossed in front of the body like a big X for "times", and then a sign language "w" for "width".

Geography: We went on a journey with Norman the Viking. Norman started his journey in Norway and decided he was hungry for sweets and would go check in Sweden for sweets. He was planning on finishing his journey in Finland, but decided to move on and leave his mark in Denmark. Then he thought he would go hang out with his buddy Peter Pan in the Netherlands, but then remembered that Peter lives at Never Land, not the Netherlands.
Also, one of the other tutors had the idea that the Scandinavian Peninsula looks like it has a mouth and is hungry and is going to eat dinner which is Denmark---yum :)

Fine Arts: We learned some about Rembrandt and the children used mirrors to look at themselves and draw a self portrait (much like Rembrandt used to do). We also discussed shading using a "cross hatching" technique which is just lightly using a pencil to make lines going in one direction and on top going in the opposite direction. The more lines, the darker the shading is. Once again, the class has proven to be very artistic!!

Science lab: The lessons we did today were great to reinforce the states of matter we are learning this week. First we all crammed into a circle and moved around a little bit and discussed how we were "dense" and that represented a solid. Then we all moved a bit more and had a bit more freedom to move outside the circle some, and this represented being liquid. Lastly they got to run all around with no restrictions and this was us being gas.
The next thing we did was put some small rocks into a jar and covered that with water and put the lid on. When we shook it up we noticed a distinction between the rocks (solid), the water (liquid), and the air that was on top (gas).
The last thing we did was to look at differences with "liquid". We found that just because different things are "liquid" does not make them the same. Using Caro Syrup, rubbing alcohol, water, and vegetable oil that was colored with food coloring to easily tell them apart, we poured them all into a cup and saw that the "denser" liquids were on the bottom and each liquid formed it's own layer. If you want to redo this at home, be sure to pour the liquids down the side of the cup for best results.

Time Line: We went over the hand signs for this and recited them over and over while different children came up to point to the cards. Feel free to improvise at home, the importance of the hand signals is to prompt memory and if the signs we use don't seem to do it, then change it up for what works best for your child.

We had some new students today and it was a thrill to get to meet them and their parent!! I hope everyone enjoyed it! Have fun reviewing this week and I look forward to seeing everyone next Tuesday!!

Blessings,
Stacey

Hello everyone! For class this week can you please bring a mirror and make sure your students pencils are sharpened---we are going to have a fun day drawing ourselves :) We will be learning about Rembrandt in fine arts, and by looking in the mirrors we will draw a picture of ourselves---much like Rembrandt used to do.

I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of CC after this long break! See you soon!