Monday, February 29, 2016

Astronomy - Week 1



Here are the ressources I use for this block:
Geology and Astronomy
Sky Phenomena
The Constellations: Stars and Stories

I also used drawings I found on Pinterest and on this great blog. As she says on her blog, the point of this block is to help the child understands our relationship with the cosmos around us. The earth, the moon, sun and stars, where they are in the sky and how they "move around us". It was a pretty exciting block for all of us, especially since camping all year long allows us to be very in touch with the sky, sun, stars and moon.

Monday: We read chap. 15 to 17 in Kovac's book and the girls draw this in their Main Lesson Book.



Tuesday: We read chap. 18 to 21 in Kovac's book and the girls draw this in their Main Lesson Book.





Wednesday: We read chap. 22 to 25 in Kovac's book and the girls draw this in their Main Lesson Book



Thursday: We read parts of Chapter 1 in Sky Phenomena (I skipped the very technical parts) up to the Mythology sub-section and the girls draw this in their Main Lesson Book.



Friday: We read parts of the Mythology sub-section in Chapter 1 in Sky Phenomena (and the girls draw this in their Main Lesson Book.



Image from this blog since I forgot to photograph that drawing from my girls...

Thursday, February 11, 2016

Geology/Mineralogy - Week 2

Monday: We talked about the rock cycle (igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks), watched a video about it and the girls draw this in their Main Lesson Book (MLB).

 

Tuesday: We read chapter 10 and 11 in Kovacs' Geology Book and talked about the water cycle. The girls draw this in their MLB.



Wednesday: We read chapter 12 Kovacs' Geology Book, watched a video on the Corialis Effect and the girls draw this in their MLB.



Thursday: We read chapter 13in Kovacs' Geology Book and talked about glaciers. The girls draw this in their MLB.






A friend we met on the road gave us a rock he found in Alaska that had been cut by a glacier. We could see the lines on it, just like it was described in Kovac's book.


The Tucson Rock and Gem Show is the biggest show in North America! We went to spend some time there and could see first-hand so many of the things we discussed for the last two weeks. 





 

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Geology/Mineralogy - Week 1

Since one of the biggest Gem Show is happening right now in Tucson, I moved this block ahead a bit, so we could take advantage of this great event to deepen our learning.

Here are the resources I used for this block (I also found most of the drawing ideas on Pinterest):


 






Monday: We read Chap. 1 and 2 in Kovacs' book and drew a cover for the Main Lesson Book (MLB). I got the box of rocks out and we spent quite a bit of time looking at them and reading about them.


Tuesday: We read Chap. 3 in Kovacs' book and more in our French rock book about granite. We talked about the elements that form granite and found them in our rock box. The girls wrote and draw this in their MLB.


Wednesday: We read Chap. 4-5 in Kovacs' book about volcanoes and volcanic rocks. The girls wrote and draw this in their MLB.


Thursday: We read Chap. 6 to 8 in Kovacs' book. The girls wrote and draw this in their MLB.


Friday: We read Chap. 9 in Kovacs' book. The girls wrote and draw this in their MLB.


Thursday, February 4, 2016

European Geography - Week 3

For our last week of this block, I asked the girls to each pick a European country and do a research on it to be presented on Friday. I showed them how to use Vikidia to do a research, how to weed out the information that was not relevant or too detailed, what to include (with a focus on geography, not history). They LOVED it and created great presentations. They want to do it again for other blocks.