Monday, March 21, 2005

week of 3/14 thru 3/18

This past week was a shortened one since Friday was Josh's birthday and I let him take the day off studies. I laugh when I think this because even though we didn't do anything formally I know much learning still goes on.

Within the last week we celebrated:

Ides of March - read various internet articles on the Ides of March/Julius Caesar and his assassination. I had him complete a written documentaion page on this. He created a comic strip for one of the sections which turned out very funny. We read the section from Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar where the soothsayer tells Caesar to "beware the Ides of March" and then used this for copywork. Of course we had to continue reading our book Shakespeare's Scribe by Gary Blackwood. Josh absolutely loves this series and begs for me to read. He has resorted to reading parts himself when my voice gives out then has to let me know what happened so I am not lost in the story line. We ended up finishing the book later in the week and I found the last title Shakespeare's Spy at the library yesterday and we started on it last night.

St. Patrick's Day - We read a picture book called Mary McLean and the St. Patrick's Day Parade by Steve Kroll which had Josh and a friend looking for leprechauns in our backyard later that night. We finished our short study of immigration/immigrants on this day by reading and discussing the following books: How People Immigrate (A True Book series) by Sarah De Capua, Ellis Island, Doorway to Freedom by Steven Kroll and Coming to America, The Story of Immigration by Betsy Maestro. We discussed a few of the issues involved in immigration and reflected on some of the negative attitudes apparent in our own city after seeing the graffiti "No Illegal Immigrants" on a power box on a street not far from where we live. We had a St. Paddy's Day Tea on this day and enjoyed Shamrock Shakes which has been a tradition since Josh found the recipe in the back of the book, Bailey School Kids Leprechaun's Don't Play Fetch years ago.

Albert Einstein's birthday - We read an internet article titled "2005 Einstein Year in Germany" and reflected that his older brother will be able to be a part of this when he goes on his trip to Germany this summer. We also read a short bio on Einstein in the Core K 6 book. (That is the Core Knowledge What your 6th grader Needs to Know by ED Hirsch) We supplemented that with a few pages from the book Albert Einstein and Relativity - Science Discoveries by Steve Parker. I also found two really nice picture books to go along with this study: Rescuing Einstein's Compass by Shulamith Levey Oppenheim and Odd Boy Out, Young Albert Einstein by Don Brown. His copywork for this day was a quote by Einstein and he also completed a written documentation page for this study.

We also acknowledged this past week the birthday of President Andrew Jackson by reading his President's card in the Fandex series and the admittance of Maine into the Union by reading their Fandex State card. These are wonderful cards if you are not familiar with them. They are easily avaiable at most bookstores.

We did a little better in our nature studies this week. We took a "wind walk" on Monday since it was extremely windy. Then we came home (after 5 minutes up at the park - it was that windy lol) and we did freewriting recording words, phrases etc describing the wind by using our senses. On Wednesday after our visit to the library we decided to head up to the park up the street it was such a beautiful day. We took a snack, binoculars, a bottle of water and our nature journals. Josh climbed one of the trees and we each drew an entry of a sign of spring that we saw. I read from a book we had gotten from the library titled Saguaro Moon , A Desert Journal by Kristin Joy Pratt-Serafini. We had alot of fun as we saw many white-tailed antelope squirrels. A few were very brave and came fairly close to where we were seated.

In math we are still reviewing fractions. I want to make sure he has a complete grasp on this before we move on.

All in all a fun week.

4 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Barb, what a great week! I'm impressed. I would love to hear some of the windy words you came up with. I also like the idea of enjoying learning by focusing on various birthdays as they occur (I don't know if that was intentional on your part, but I sure liked it!).

Great blog.

Julie

7:10 PM  
Blogger barbara said...

Julie,

Thanks so much for the kind comments. We have been using a "birthday wall" for a few years now. We use it in connection with our Book of Centuries and wall timeline that we keep. It's alot of fun and amazing the connections that get made. We celebrate birthdays of people as well as anniversaries of events and tie in some type of study with it. Usually not real involved. It has been a great stepping stone for some topics.

The "wind walk" was alot of fun. Very windy and chilly. lol Josh chose to do phrases while I chose to do single words. I'll post both later for you to see. I got the idea from your Friday Freewrite "color walk" which is something Josh loves doing.

I'll post pictures of the "birthday wall" so you can get an idea of what I do with it.

Thanks so much for taking the time to respond to the blog. I know how busy you are with all that you do. I am so enjoying The Writer's Jungle and have been gleaning much from it. Thanks again for all that you are sharing with others such as myself.

8:25 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I do hope you post pics of the birthday wall. It sounds interesting.

6:56 PM  
Blogger barbara said...

Julee,

I finally got the pictures of the birthday wall up on a later post. Hope it helps to convey a little of what we do.

8:38 AM  

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