Week 5

I am going to start off with Thursday. We had two field trips, one was to Botanica and the other was to Walter's Pumpkin Patch. Botanica this week we studied about Spiders. Now Spiders are not my favorite thing to study, but the kids really enjoyed learning about them. Just a few facts that the kids learned. Most people think all spiders have eight eyes but that isn't so, some can have 4 and some just have 2. Spiders have very bad vision. All spiders are venomous, but all spiders are not poisonous to us. There are different types of webs and they are, tent, spiral, sheet, funnel, blanket and orb. The class also went on a web search to see what kind of webs they could find through out the gardens. Liberty told me that she was expecting to find a lot of orb webs and very few of the other kinds, but in reality they found a lot of spiral, blanket and tent webs and only one very big orb web. We got a picture of the orb web because it was so big and very pretty. (even though it had a spider in it)

Last month the kids learned about butterflies at Botanica and their extended homework they were suppose to write a story about a butterfly, read a book about butterflies, and to a symmetrical nature study and make some leaf rubbings. Liberty read It's a Butterfly's life by Irene Kelly, and Teyla and Landon with my help read where butterflies grow. After they were done reading their books, they had to tell me a couple facts about the book that they learned.The symmetrical nature study they found these things to be symmetrical in nature. Some flowers, grass blades, butterflies, flies, the way the branches grow on some trees, a lady bug, a bee a cricket and some leaves, which they discovered when they did their leaf rubbings. They each wrote a story.

Liberty's story

One day in Flowerville there lived a butterfly queen and an evil king. The queens name was Butter the Butterfly . The kings name was Paranormal Praying Mantis. They each ruled one side of Flowerville. One side was pure evil. the other was just peace and harmony. But when Princess Peanutbutterfly is kidnapped by Paranormal Praying Mantis, Butter said I must fight to save my daughter.  Get my army men ready for battle.

When they get to the Kings castle the birds were ready to attack, but that wasn't the worst of it the Guinea pig was about to be released.. But then the Prince of the dog lead a human to shoo away all the birds and took Paranormal Praying Mantis and the guinea pig with her.  Now the Princess was rescued and Flowerville was safe and sound again. The evil king ruled no more. 

The End

Teyla's story

One day there was a little butterfly. The little butterfly was Clara. The little butterfly played all day until a bird flew by. Clara said hide hide everyone hide. The little butterfly saved the day. but a whole big bunch of mean birds came. Clara called her bird friends to come help fight the bad birds. One of Clara's butterfly friends got hurt. so Clara called for her mom and dad because they were the medical butterflies. The little butterfly friend got a broken wing. 

Clara made a plan to get bird seed to confuse the birds so the butterflies could put handcuffs on the birds.The plan worked and the butterflies handcuffed the birds and put them in birdy jail. Clara and the other butterflies  and bird friends lived happily ever after.

The End

Landon's story is illustrated

  One day Mama butterfly, Papa Butterfly, twin butterflies and little Peter butterfly were out flying

 Little Peter Butterfly found a yellow flower. He stuck out his tongue and sucked up all the nectar.

Little peter butterfly and Bee were playing outside. it began to rain so they had to go inside so they could be warm.

The next day after the rain it was muddy so the butterflies and bee friends swung,  they even had a bunk swing.

                                                         The End

They each will have extended activities to do for spiders too and we will do them through out the month, but won't talk about them until next Botanica class.

After botanica class we made a mad dash home so we could eat some lunch and then get to the pumpkin patch for our 1:30 class. We made it there in plenty of time and got to hang out and play a bit before our class. The class starts out with a wagon ride down to the pumpkin patch, the kids then learn the different types of pumpkins there are and the difference between a pumpkin and a gourd. After the class each one gets to go out and choose a pumpkin to take home. This year the kids and I were able to ride back up from the patch and then go into the barn where we watched a video that shows the process that they go through every year to have the pumpkins ready for Halloween. We got to see how the pumpkin seeds are chosen, and see the different pumpkins they choose from. They then showed us how they plant the seeds, how they weed the patch.  and take care of the pumpkins to help them grow to be the big beautiful pumpkins we enjoy picking from. After the video the kids were able to play and explore. Here are some pictures from our day.

 This giant hamster wheel thing was new for us this year and the kids absolutely loved it.

Landon studied pumpkins this week. He learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin and  he learned the parts of a pumpkin. We read the 5 little pumpkins poem and then he drew a picture and put the pumpkins on the fence from largest to smallest.  He also is working on his handwriting skills by writing the five little pumpkins poem and by writing Halloween words.

 

Teyla has been working hard this year and we have accomplished a lot. In English she is working on complete sentences and fragments.  We have been working on making sure she starts a sentence with a capital letter and ends it with a punctuation mark. Which leads us to how we've been working on identifying a telling sentence, a command sentence, a exclamation sentence and a question sentence. She has also been learning about subjects and predicates.

In math she has been learning how to add to 9 and think of 10 so say her problem is 9+4 she is to think I borrow one from the 4 to make the 9 10 and change the 4 to 3 so the problem is 10+3 the answer is 13. .She is has also been working on using a ten bar and and 6, 7 or 8.  Using the 10 bar is her nemesis. She can do it but it frustrates her because she would rather use a number line or her fingers.

Reading is reading, she still seems to get frustrated a lot, but she is working hard and I believe she is getting better everyday. I know I stressed with Liberty and her reading and now she reads all the time, so I am not to worried. She will come into her own and be reading up a storm when she's ready.

 

I sadly have not even started science, we've been doing so much science with botanica, but we are planning on starting it next week. I really think she will enjoy it.

Liberty has been doing pretty good this year too, she has had her focusing issues, but all in all she  has been doing pretty good. This year journal has become one of her favorite things to do, last year she hated it. I am excited that she is starting to enjoy reading and writing.
In math this week she has been working on decimals tenths, decimal hundreths and place values in the millons. She has been doing quite well in math this year. I really like Bob Jones math, it really works well with how my kids learn.

In English Liberty has been doing the same as Teyla only on the 4th grade level. It was funny the girls were both doing English and Teyla asked me a question and I was answering it and Liberty popped up, mom I know what I am doing your suppose to be helping Teyla. Teyla got indignant and responded she is helping me quit being so know it all. I being the mom I am busted up laughing at the both of them. So anyways Liberty has been working on Simple subjects and simple predicates, diagramming subjects and predicates and diagramming  compound subjects and predicates, along with identifying Declarative sentences, interrogative sentences, Imperative sentences, and Exclamatory sentences. Next week they will both be review and taking a test about Thursday.
Liberty's other subjects are coming along. Nothing to exciting to speak of, just the normal learning stuff.

Next week we will be talking about fire safety. Landon will be doing a unit over it and the girls will do their regular work with fire safety thrown in here and there. So don't forget to come back and check out our Fire Safety week.