Two weeks...history
The past two weeks we have focused on the Underground railroad and Abraham Lincoln for our units. I plan to continue learning about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil war this summer, and this was a nice way to begin the end of our school-year, though we still have a few weeks of work to log.
The first week we read the story, An Apple for Harriet Tubman, by Glenette Tilley Turner. I appreciate that this picture book tells the true story. It has a happy ending, but it does not sugar coat Harriet's difficult childhood in slavery.
Every day we began our day pretending we were on a choo choo train, taking turns being the conductor. We tried to teach Gwen her shapes with a picture of a locomotive. The wheels are circles, smokestack, rectangle etc. Not sure anything is sinking in just yet.
We also drew a step by step picture of a train for one of our art lessons.
Tristan is working on his math facts. He was able to conquer the final minute drill of the year this week, and we are moving onto a cumulative timed test to see if he has truly conquered the addition facts. What an ending to first grade math!? We have also been learning new games each day in math class. I'm using the book, Math Games and Activities from around the world, by Claudia Zaslavsky. Last week we learned different ways to play mancala, and this week we played games of chance and talked about probability and outcomes.
Science class was gardening. Tristan and I planted the seedlings started in jars outside, and they are thriving! We learned about types of trees. Vocabulary words, gymnosperm and angiosperm. Tristan actually remembers which is which. We catalogued the trees in our landscape. Thanks to the addition of our little Colorado Blue Spruce, we now have both categories of tree represented.
In language class we played a few games to review parts of speech, nouns and verbs. We also played a game where I would give Tristan a word ending and he would have to come up with a word. So fun.
History and Geography was about the Underground railroad. Difficult to map, but we could map out the line between north and south, and the line between America and Canada. Also, I was amazed to learn that the Underground railroad was in existence as far back as the American revolution! It was in operation almost one hundred years before the Civil War began! Amazing!
This past week, was our Abraham Lincoln unit. We read a different picture book about Abraham Lincoln every day. My favorite, Abraham Lincoln, D'Aulaire. This was the longest book about Lincoln we read this week, but also the most thorough telling of his story, complete with a map on the inside cover of KY, IN, IL with a train going east to Washington. The book does end before Lincoln gets shot, leaving this part of the story untold.
During circle time this week we played with our base ten blocks. Anastasia worked on the idea that one small cube has a value of one, a stick a value of ten, and a square a value of 100. There are ten ones in a stick, ten sticks in a block. Tristan used the small cubes to work out his math facts. Finding combination for sums of 13, 9, 11, and 5.
We tried to teach Gwen her ABC's. She wants to learn the letter sounds, and asks me to sit and do ABC's with her. However, I'm not sure she has the shape recognition of each letter.
This week we did everything Lincoln! We mapped the states that he lived in and the important places in his life, including New Orleans, where he saw his first slave auction. We did art projects, and enjoyed the stories.
Math involved more games. This week we played match 3 games. No, Tic Tac Toe was not one of them! Most of them were easy enough that I figured them out first time we played and was able to beat Tristan most of the time, but 9 Men's Morris, the last game we learned, stumped me. Tristan got a kick out of seeing my surprise each time he won!
In art the kids made toilet paper tube log cabins, top hat pencil holders, penny rubbings and a coloring page of Abraham Lincoln. Ideas from scholastic.
Language lessons: word search, crossword puzzle and a paragraph about Lincoln. Also a recipe for the earth, what to put into a healthy compost.
Science class was about Compost this week. Since I keep a compost barrel, the children are familiar with the idea, but they haven't really helped too much in making the compost. This week they got to add to, and roll the bucket around with me.
History/Geography was obviously about Lincoln.
Other stories we enjoyed these past two weeks:
Brady, Jean Fritz (A great story, but kind-of intense for my kids. There were some suspenseful moments where ears were covered, or potty trips taken. Perhaps written for an older audience?)
Underground Railroad for Kids, Mary Kay Carson (we read excerpts and will continue to read from this one for a while)
Many Thousand Gone, Virginia Hamilton (random stories, we only read a few)
Compost Stew, Mary McKenna Siddals
Young Abraham Lincoln: Log Cabin President, Andrew Woods
A Picture book of Abraham Lincoln, David A. Adler
Compost Basics, Mar Schuh
Compost: Growing gardens from your Garbage, Linda Glaser
I am Abraham Lincoln, Brad Meltzer ("I'm going to be on the penny someday"...funny)
Sorry for the long post. I guess I got behind somewhere back there, and so now, I'm caught up, sort-of!
The first week we read the story, An Apple for Harriet Tubman, by Glenette Tilley Turner. I appreciate that this picture book tells the true story. It has a happy ending, but it does not sugar coat Harriet's difficult childhood in slavery.
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Every day we began our day pretending we were on a choo choo train, taking turns being the conductor. We tried to teach Gwen her shapes with a picture of a locomotive. The wheels are circles, smokestack, rectangle etc. Not sure anything is sinking in just yet.
We also drew a step by step picture of a train for one of our art lessons.
Tristan is working on his math facts. He was able to conquer the final minute drill of the year this week, and we are moving onto a cumulative timed test to see if he has truly conquered the addition facts. What an ending to first grade math!? We have also been learning new games each day in math class. I'm using the book, Math Games and Activities from around the world, by Claudia Zaslavsky. Last week we learned different ways to play mancala, and this week we played games of chance and talked about probability and outcomes.
Science class was gardening. Tristan and I planted the seedlings started in jars outside, and they are thriving! We learned about types of trees. Vocabulary words, gymnosperm and angiosperm. Tristan actually remembers which is which. We catalogued the trees in our landscape. Thanks to the addition of our little Colorado Blue Spruce, we now have both categories of tree represented.
In language class we played a few games to review parts of speech, nouns and verbs. We also played a game where I would give Tristan a word ending and he would have to come up with a word. So fun.
History and Geography was about the Underground railroad. Difficult to map, but we could map out the line between north and south, and the line between America and Canada. Also, I was amazed to learn that the Underground railroad was in existence as far back as the American revolution! It was in operation almost one hundred years before the Civil War began! Amazing!
This past week, was our Abraham Lincoln unit. We read a different picture book about Abraham Lincoln every day. My favorite, Abraham Lincoln, D'Aulaire. This was the longest book about Lincoln we read this week, but also the most thorough telling of his story, complete with a map on the inside cover of KY, IN, IL with a train going east to Washington. The book does end before Lincoln gets shot, leaving this part of the story untold.
During circle time this week we played with our base ten blocks. Anastasia worked on the idea that one small cube has a value of one, a stick a value of ten, and a square a value of 100. There are ten ones in a stick, ten sticks in a block. Tristan used the small cubes to work out his math facts. Finding combination for sums of 13, 9, 11, and 5.
We tried to teach Gwen her ABC's. She wants to learn the letter sounds, and asks me to sit and do ABC's with her. However, I'm not sure she has the shape recognition of each letter.
This week we did everything Lincoln! We mapped the states that he lived in and the important places in his life, including New Orleans, where he saw his first slave auction. We did art projects, and enjoyed the stories.
Math involved more games. This week we played match 3 games. No, Tic Tac Toe was not one of them! Most of them were easy enough that I figured them out first time we played and was able to beat Tristan most of the time, but 9 Men's Morris, the last game we learned, stumped me. Tristan got a kick out of seeing my surprise each time he won!
In art the kids made toilet paper tube log cabins, top hat pencil holders, penny rubbings and a coloring page of Abraham Lincoln. Ideas from scholastic.
Language lessons: word search, crossword puzzle and a paragraph about Lincoln. Also a recipe for the earth, what to put into a healthy compost.
Science class was about Compost this week. Since I keep a compost barrel, the children are familiar with the idea, but they haven't really helped too much in making the compost. This week they got to add to, and roll the bucket around with me.
History/Geography was obviously about Lincoln.
Other stories we enjoyed these past two weeks:
Brady, Jean Fritz (A great story, but kind-of intense for my kids. There were some suspenseful moments where ears were covered, or potty trips taken. Perhaps written for an older audience?)
Underground Railroad for Kids, Mary Kay Carson (we read excerpts and will continue to read from this one for a while)
Many Thousand Gone, Virginia Hamilton (random stories, we only read a few)
Compost Stew, Mary McKenna Siddals
Young Abraham Lincoln: Log Cabin President, Andrew Woods
A Picture book of Abraham Lincoln, David A. Adler
Compost Basics, Mar Schuh
Compost: Growing gardens from your Garbage, Linda Glaser
I am Abraham Lincoln, Brad Meltzer ("I'm going to be on the penny someday"...funny)
Sorry for the long post. I guess I got behind somewhere back there, and so now, I'm caught up, sort-of!
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