MFW Adventures Week 3 - Jamestown

We had grandparents come to town last week so it was a great opportunity for the kids to show off their history notebooks and a little bit of what we've been working on. This week we had cousins come who are also doing the same curriculum as we are doing now so they enjoyed comparing what they've learned and what they've done. But before we did that, work had to be done!

The first two weeks of math were review work of the last two weeks we did before our summer break, so this week there were new skills to be learned and new tricks to master. Kellan learned how to make three digit numbers and Brooklee wokred on adding three digit numbers. One of the things I like about MathUSee is that it continually reviews the information they learn throughout the year so I feel these will both be ongoing skills that we'll be practicing for a while. 

Learning about Jamestown was interesting for all of us as we were able to read stories about some of the fictional people who told us what it was like to live in the very first colony. Brooklee loved that we included Pocahontas, a true Indian princess, in our discussion, though this week's lesson doesn't touch too much on her. We did get some books about her from the library to read more about Pocahontas together, but we never got around to reading them and have decided to save them for our Native American week.

Squanto Friend of the Pilgrims

We enjoyed reading Squanto Friend of the Pilgrims this week. We haven't finished it, as we will continue it next week, but at the end of each chapter the kids would beg me to continue. Once again, I think I may have learned more this week than they did. I'm not sure I really knew all that I have learned about Squanto and his relationship with his people, the colonists and other Indians throughout his life. We were all sad when Squanto was betrayed by the captain and sold into slavery in Spain. We can't wait to finish the book and learn how Squanto gets back to Jamestown in time to welcome the pilgrims and celebrate Thanksgiving! I'm sure glad I already know how this story ends! : )

Perhaps the best thing we did all week was build our very own Jamestown fort. The kdis were not only about to help build it and visualize what it would have looked like to live in Jamestown, the kids used the Toob Jamestown settlers and the Toob Powhatan Native Americans to play. I watched and listened to them and discovered that even in their play they reenacted some of the things that we talked about and applied all that we had learned into the setting, personalities, and happenings in their imaginary world. 

It is a blessing that in our studies we can spend time learning about Jesus, which is exactly what we did this week. The MFW curriculum led us on a journey through scripture to learn about Jesus's birth, what he was like growing up and some prophecy that was fulfilled through His coming. On just the right day, we learned about how Jesus obeyed his parents and were reminded that to be more like Jesus we should obey our parents too. We used our letter beads again to make WWJD bracelets for everyone to remember that we should try to think like Jesus in all areas of our lives.

MFW Adventures Week 2 - Columbus

Its week 2 and we have explored the seas with Christopher Columbus, learned about how Jesus got his name and learned the difference between common and proper nouns. We started science this week and learned how to complete our science cards with the 1. Question - What I Did 2. Experiment - What Happened 3. Conclusion  - What I Learned.  We know that air is extremely interesting and can do some amazing things! And we enjoyed reading first hand stories about what it was like to sail with Columbus to the new world. 

As usual, our mornings started this week with group time. Brooklee likes to stand in front of the tv and pretend like she is one of the kids on stage leading the rest of the group. She gets this from church but its funny to watch as the other two usually join her at the front leaving no audience for her to lead. I mentioned in my last post that Sadie Quinn does the Pledge of Allegiance with us every morning, but she also enjoys doing the motions to the Lord's Prayer song, too. I've yet to capture what is sure to be a priceless video of her dancing!

One of the many benefits of homeschool - you can do your work in your desk, at the table, on the floor......pretty much any place you feel comfortable. When you get bored with one spot, move along to another.

As we worked on our Language Arts this week, we had the opportunity to incorporate our lessons in history into our common noun/proper noun practice. We used Christopher Columbus and the names of his ships to talk about proper nouns and the word "ship" to discuss the difference.

Last week Brooklee did copywork from the Spelling You See book but she wasn't required to work on spelling more extensively than just writing the entire paragraph. This week I picked out some specific words for her to work on. There are a few that are review that I want to be sure she remembers, but a few that are new and difficult because they aren't spelled the way they sound (ie country) or because we've learned the homophones for those words already. 

This week's science project involved making a boat and exploring how wind and air play a role in moving the boat. Brooklee was able to complete the index card with our 3 questions - 1. Question - What I Did  2. Experiment - What Happened 3. Conclusion - What I Learned.  I wrote it down for Kellan on his card and had them answer the three questions aloud. We even filmed them giving me a summary of our experiment but thanks to an iPhone that is currently holding too many photos and videos, the video wouldn't save to my phone. It was good practice though. 

There were several books and videos we used in our studies this week. The kids were excited for the opportunity to include Magic School Bus (Goes on Air)  in their science learning and we found a picture book that told us about Chrstopher Columbus's life as a child and what happened as he got older. 

A Picture Book of Christopher Columbus

We did find one video that gave us a quick overview of Christopher Columbus's life, but you may want to watch it first before sharing it with your little one as it does show a little bit of the "darker" side of Christopher that most people don't talk about. We also found a video that looks like it was a project someone created to review what they learned about Columbus. It was interesting to me to learn that even when he did, Columbus never even realized he'd discovered America and not just another part of India as he'd hoped.

Many people recommended Pedro's Journal for us to read this week so we did reserve it from the library but never got around to reading it. 

MFW Adventures Classroom

This year is the first time we will have an actual, designated classroom for our studies. In the past we haven't the space and because we made a last minute decision to move into a rental house (which is a long story for another day!) we didn't plan to have a classroom this year either. But we are excited to have a place to "do school" and make this all feel like we actually know what we are doing.

So step inside and see where we spend our mornings learning, reading, crafting and enjoying school together.

This is an overview of the room. We have an old activity table that we use for group work or crafts, a cheap TMNT table we use for school work and a Spiderman desk if anyone chooses to sit there for worksheets. The American flag is hanging on one side, but since I took the picture we have moved it and added the Christian flag to the wall on the right.

We used the My First Calendar last year and loved it so I added it to the classroom, as well as added white boards. Since Kellan is still working on learning to write his letters, I used velcro to stick the letter chart from Spelling You See on the wall that he can pull off and put bag as needed. We also have pencils, erasers, math blocks, calculators etc. at the end of the table and leave our wipe-clean lined paper boards out so they are accessible for copywork, handwriting, etc.

In this corner is the television that we use to watch our MathUSee videos and any other dvds as needed. The bookshelf is actually a set of drawers that have been broken over time from being in the kids' bedroom so I flipped it over and decided to make good use of it. On the side is a stick on chalk board and a basket for bookbags.

In the opposite corner is a large set of plastic drawers for miscellaneous supplies and the printer. Most of the space is my storage, but there are some crafts and various supplies that belong to the children but are kept "safe" in this area, too.

You can't have a classroom without the alphabet on the wall - am I right? I wanted to find something that goes along with our US History theme this year and that had cursive letters since Brooklee is learning cursive. I found a design on TeachersPayTeachers that I was really excited about, but once I purchased and downloaded it, I really wasn't pleased with some of the words that she used for each letter so I kept the background the same, found my own words and images and used a free font that I downloaded to update the words and letters. I LOVE the way these turned out and most all of the words are vocabulary words or people/places/events that we'll be learning about this year.

Here is the book corner with all of our reading level books on the top shelf and Sadie Quinn's books on the bottom shelf. I also put a basket on the bottom shelf with coloring books. The top of the shelf seems to change weekly. At first I had a box for the kids to turn in their worksheets every day. Then I had the hole puncher, pencil sharpener, etc. on top. I added the book display so we could have a visual of our weekly theme and the books we are reading. At the moment it is a little bit of all of those things, but primarily a display shelf for our artwork.

So there you have it. We love our little classroom and it is just perfect for us right now. Eventually I'd love to replace the activity table and TMNT table with a real table or a set of desks for the kids but for now we are just happy to have a classroom.

MFW Adventures Week 1 - Vikings

Its the first week of school and we are learning about Vikings this week. We spent the first few days figuring out our schedule, putting together our notebooks and navigating through the various curriculum for each subject. Each morning we begin with handwriting worksheets. Brooklee is learning cursive and Kellan is finally beginning to get the hang of manuscript. They both have a long ways to go.

Sadie Quinn joins us each morning to color, take supplies we are using or just roll around in the floor. I try to give her paper to use for her own masterpieces, but sometimes she just likes the thrill of making her sister and brother holler and chase her.

The kids look forward to group time each morning when we go to the living room and use the Roku to watch fun, educational videos on YouTube. We do our pledges, review the books of the Bible, and practice counting, letters, states, etc. during group time. Sadie Quinn even does the Pledge of Allegiance with us every morning. Here are some of our favorite videos:

We will add more videos to group time as the year progresses and will change out videos as needed. When we need a giggle break, the kids have some favorites to add:

We began Spanish this week by coloring our cover pages for our notebook and reviewing some things we learned in the past. We have incorporated Spanish songs and videos into our morning routines in the past, so while some of this is new to them, many of the greetings and vocabulary this week is a review.

We are using Teach Them Spanish, Grade 1 for our foreign language and are using several YouTube videos:

We all learned so much about the Vikings this week. I can honestly say that though I remember learning the name Leif Erikson and hearing about the Vikings, I did not recall that they were the first people to come to North America and really didn't even remember who they were. We had fun learning about their journeys, words that were passed down from them and their fierce boats. We even made our own! My little super hero loving boy loved learning that Thor and his family are based on the gods of the Vikings. 

We used several books and videos to expand our learning of Vikings:

Vikings 10 Interesting Facts

Vikings in a Nutshell

Some of the books we read:

Magic Tree House - Viking Ships at Sunrise

AO Imagination Station - Voyage with the Vikings

You Wouldn't Want to be a Viking Explorer

In following the MFW suggestions for the week, we also had some fun making an American flag dessert and learning more about our own names. We learned that Brooklee is a made up name meaning "peaceful stream or water" and "healer" so we decided her name means one who brings peace and healing. Kellan's name means "powerful" and "bright-headed" and Sadie Quinn means "Princess" and "Intelligent." We made practiced writing our names and made bracelets by matching letter beads to the letters in our names then stringing them on pieces of elastic.  I bought these beads at Walmart for less than $3 and they worked perfectly for small wire or string. However, they were a little challenging to string on the elastic string that Walmart had for making bracelets. 

And the finished product! It was an amazing first week of school and we had a blast learning about how our name is special to God, how the Vikings came to North America, how to greet someone in Spanish and where to find our city, state, country and continent on a map.