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