Literature and Botany

              I feel like after losing a bit of steam, we’re starting to pick back up again. That isn’t to say that life doesn’t seem to be pulling us in all directions at once. I think, for some reason, we’re feeling a little less exhausted this week.  Seneca’s brother is getting ready to leave in July to serve with Fema Corps. He has to fill out a bunch of forms and get his fingerprints done at the Sheriff’s Office. I’ll be starting a new job on Monday, so I had to get a drug test done today.  It’s nothing too strenuous, but it can be time consuming and things like this can only be done on weekdays.  I’m going to miss having a couple of weekdays off, but I am excited about my new job.

                As to homeschooling fifth grade, Seneca has been working on the artist Henry Ossawa Tanner for artist study and Tchaikovsky for composer study. It’s been fun to listen to the music of Sleeping Beauty and imagine the scenes from the Disney movie.  

                Her two main lessons at this time are literature and botany. For literature, Seneca is reading Island Of The Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell.  She had a little trouble starting the book. I found some beginning chapters on audio online. This seemed to really help her to at least get started. She wasn’t crazy about the book at first, but now she loves it and is reading it independently.   

                For writing practice, Seneca types up a summary of what she has read so far in Island Of The Blue Dolphins.  She still needs to work on run-on sentences.   She also continues to work on cursive by copying a poem and anything else that pops out at her throughout the week.

                https://www.amazon.com/Shanleyas-Quest-Botany-Adventure-Kids/dp/1892784165/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525386091&sr=8-1&keywords=shanleya%27s+quest For botany, I am reading to Seneca from a book called Shanleya’s Quest: A Botany Adventure by Thomas J. Elpel.  The book is beautifully illustrated.  I did think that the beginning of the book was too wordy and spent too much time telling a version of the creation story.  It was a wonderful marriage of science and myth, but since the point of my purchase for the book was for botany lessons, I just didn’t find the opening sections of the story to be necessary.  That being said, Shanleya’s adventures to learn about different plants and flowers, is proving to be a fun way to gain information. Each page features a story and information on plant identification. There is also a sketch with the identifying parts labeled. Seneca copies  the sketch into her sketch book.  To supplement this, Seneca has also been watching short videos on plant identification on the buschcraft channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXEwe15rui0&t=331s She screenshots the frame with the notes on the dry-erase board, and copies the notes alongside her sketch.   The best part of all was when she said that she loved doing this.

First Day of Fifth Grade!

  Fifth grade homeschooling year has officially begun!

  For history, S read from Benjamin Franklin by Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire.  I had some hesitation about her reading it because although it is not from a religious book publisher, it is clearly a Christian book.  Our homeschool is secular, but I don't want to exclude religion or there's also the argument for having religious (Judeo-Christian) knowledge as part of cultural competency.  The books itself was written in 1950 at a time when it was taken for granted that everyone in America was a Christian.  That, in and of itself, is a great teaching point.  For now, our approach is to be aware that this book was written by Christians for Christians and we will discuss those implications as they arise.  For example, S read about the Franklin family saying grace before a meal. That made no sense to her at all.  I had to explain that to say grace means to say a prayer.  She asked if using the word grace like this was an old-fashioned expression. I said it wasn't so much that it's old fashioned, but since we're not Christians we don't ever use this expression.    One old fashioned expression in the book that had her completely thrown was "knee high to a grasshopper."    "Huh?! What?! Okay, this book makes no sense."
        For science, I pulled a book off of one of our bookshelves that had been bought a little while back, but not used as much as I would have liked. It's a reference book on sharks from the Usborne publishing company.  It is definitely not a living book or a book that would meet Charlotte Mason criteria, but it's in our house, so we are using it.  It's a good book and very informative.  I just don't think it would be considered a Charlotte Mason book.  I think if we were to use it along with a book, such as a biography of shark scientist Eugenia Clark then it would lend itself to being more of a Charlotte Mason resource. For now, our book on Sharks will do for science reading.
     Our artist this term is Edmonia Lewis.

Seneca listened to the first ten minutes of lecture on Edmonia Lewis.  In the lecture, it says that her date of death is unknown. However, I looked up Lewis on her Wikipedia page and it gave a specific date of death. At this time, I don't know why there is such a discrepancy.  Here is link to the lecture that we are watching.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e74ImAzS38  We will continue watching the rest of the lecture next week.
     Ballet is back!   Ballet is three days a week for two hours per day.  She will also have jazz class one day a week, pointe class, and Russian character dance class.  This means four pairs of dance shoes! We have two - ballet and pointe.  In fact, we had to stop at Payless (which has amazing deals on ladies shoes at the moment) and buy a new pair of ballet shoes.
    Our poet this term is Joyce Kilmer. His poem "Trees" is Seneca's favorite poem.  I read aloud some general information about Kilmer.  He was killed in World War I. I told Seneca that this was the war in the movie "Wonder Woman." Her response, "Wait. That was World War I?  That couldn't be because in the movie Steve said that that was the war to end all wars, but then there was World War II."    I couldn't believe that she had remembered that line.  We had a discussion about how there really was a saying that World War I was to be the war that would end all wars.    
    As to the poem itself, S read it aloud five times and almost has it memorized.  We'll aim for a daily reading of the poem.  She is the one who wanted to keep reading it over and over again.  I only asked for two readings.
  I'm going to jump in here and mention our use of technology in our lessons.  On the one hand, I don't want us to become dependent on screens for learning, but they can be a huge money-saver.  We will look at pictures of Lewis's sculptures and access Kilmer's poems online.  We also are listening to the lecture on Edmonia Lewis because it has been posted online.  Free online material is also a time-saver.
   We really should have done some math, but we were too exhausted.  Not only is ballet a two hour class, but it's a forty-five minute drive from our house when the traffic is good.

Third Grade Science

Science

Who Was Charles Darwin? By Deborah Hopkinson

Rainforests by Lucy Bowman

Pagoo by Holling C. Holling  Chapters 1 - 13

Science Classes at South Florida Museum:  

Oct. 14 – went outside, identifying non-living and living things

Oct. 21 outdoors collecting flowers and rocks, describing, and classifying.  Used a microscope

Nov. 4 – Seneca made a list of science terms. She learned about cells.

Nov. 18 – Seneca learned about the differences between plant cells and animal cells.

December – Seneca dissected a flower. 

January 6 – Seneca learned about reptiles and amphibians.

January 20 – Class included a bit of scavenger hunt through the museum.

February 3 – Dissection Day! Seneca observed a frog dissection and identified frog-organ’s on a poster.

February 17 – Seneca learned about hammerhead sharks. Class included a visit to the museum’s aquarium.

March 2 – Comparisons of non-living things vs living things

March 16 – Observed a pregnant-shark dissection

April 6 – Eco-systems

May – Made a diorama of a habitat

Gills Club

August – Capturing sharks: taking blood samples, stress in sharks

October – Shark Tourism: Pros and Cons, collecting data from interviews, literature, and art

January – building a model shark

April – Plastics and pollution in the ocean

May – video conference with scientists aboard The Nautilus and exploration in the estuary

Nature Study

-Seneca attended 3 Nature Lab events at Emerson Park in September.

-Nature walk and birdwatching at Robinson’s Preserve.  Seneca watched a bird intently as she knew it was preparing to hunt.  Sure enough, it snatched up some food. She knew it was hunting from what she had learned on Wild Kratts.

Nov. 20 – Around The Bend presentation on limpkins and bird watching

Jan. 8 – Nature Lab: Seneca dissected owl pellets and learned the terms biotic and a-biotic. 

Feb. 5 – Nature Lab at Robinson’s Preserve: Seneca dissected a clam and was shown its abductor muscles, foot, gills, and digestive system. She also learned about estuaries, pollution, dry ice sublimation, and went on a nature hike.

April 1 – Nature Lab: Emerson Park: Theme: Insect communication

April 5 – Ranger guided field trip at Oscar Scherer State Park

April 8 – Nature Lab at Emerson Park: Bees

Fourth Grade Nature Study

Meeting Jack Hanna!

Fourth Grade Science

Ada Byron Lovelace and The Thinking Machine by Laurie Wallmark

The Magic School Bus: Electricity and Magnetism (read by Seneca)

“Jupiter: Moons” Seneca came across an article from NASA (June 2017) on the discovery of two more moons of Jupiter.

The Salamander Room (re-read by Seneca)

-Bill Nye the Science Guy S05E08 Atoms & Molecules (watched several times)

-What Is An Atom? – makemegenius

-Homeschool Lessons at home using the chalkboard to discuss and review matter, the three phases of matter, molecules, and atoms.  Seneca drew models of oxygen, iron, and carbon atoms.

-Seneca learned about electrical currents, interrupting the flow of an electrical current, changing a current’s direction, and electrical conductors using a kit on Electricity and Magnetism.  She also watched a short educational film from the 1950s on electricity and intro to electro-magnetism. 

-Bil Nye the Science Guy “Electricity” (She watched half of the episode one day followed by activities in her Electricity and Magnetism kit.  She watched the second half later and followed it up with an oral narration of what she had learned.)

-Technology: Learning about tools through Minecraft.  Learning basic design through Minecraft at computer lessons at Microsoft Store UTC Mall: 6 sessions attended

-Technology: Kano Computer building lessons at UTC Mall.  Topics included - what is a motherboard, what is a processor, and binary code. 3 sessions attended

-Nature Study and Journaling at Emerson Point Preserve 3/28/17  9am-12pm

-Nature Study and Journaling on a found a sunflower growing on her walk to the store.

-Nature Study and Journaling at Robinson’s Preserve 4/12/2017  5:30pm – 7:30pm

-Nature Study at Emerson’s Point Preserve 5/4/2017 10:00am – 12:00pm

-Manasota Kids STEAM – STEM Mystery Bag #1

 -“Can You Reach the End of a Rainbow?”  - short science video that Seneca found after seeing a rainbow in the sky