Designing a home-centered life: learning, exploring, and creating with our five littles
Geography - Desert SandToday we reviewed the locations of the deserts from our new grammar & used a copy of the USA Physical Features map from our Foundations Guide to mark those deserts. First, we used cotton swabs to paint glue onto the desert areas & then sprinkled sand onto each gluey area. We shook the extra sand off & … [Read more...]
Math - Commutative LawWe watched this brief video about the commutative law for addition before using ourselves to become the problem. Each of my guys represented a letter & we switched the order around a few times to discover if we would still have 3 guys each time we added them up. Of course, no matter the order, we … [Read more...]
History - First Moon LandingA quick search on YouTube gave us this video of the first moon landing in 1969 to watch. YouTube is a great resource for this kind of thing. Do you use YouTube for school? … [Read more...]
Math - Associative LawUsing food coloring and a primary & secondary color wheel, we played around with the associative law for addition. I assigned a letter to each color & first we just followed the pattern of the color wheel for mixing. Next, we placed all three colors together in the center of the color wheel. We … [Read more...]
Fine Arts - Acting out the StoryWe listened to some classical music at home and I asked the boys to act out the stories they heard in the songs. They were shy at first, but really had fun with it once they saw me doing it. Lots of giggles were happening! I laid a few ground rules - 1) no sounds from us, 2) no touching each other and 3) … [Read more...]
Geography - Delaware CanalBeing in the northeast, we are in such close proximity to so many great spots from early American history. It has really been a treat to learn about moments in history & visit the exact locations! As you know, we learned about canals this week in geography. Here are some pics from our afternoon trip … [Read more...]
{Homemade} ScienceWe took science to the kitchen today & learned about how "elements" can change when combined. First, we tasted both lemon and sugar separately. One was tart while the other was sweet. Then we tasted some homemade lemonade to see how combining one tart ingredient with one sweet ingredient plus some water would change the … [Read more...]
Science - The Franklin InstituteOur family took part today in a trip to The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia organized by our local CC community. The littles & I had never been before. My husband, being a native of the Philadelphia area, had fond childhood memories of trips to the science museum. There were so many great hands-on … [Read more...]
Geography - Trail WalkWe capitalized on the beautiful weather outside our door today & headed to our local park for a trail walk. While there, we had such a good time & used our imaginations to talk about what trail travel may have been like many years ago. The boys were able to draw on the knowledge they've gained in our … [Read more...]
Music - NY Philharmonic OrchestraI imagine it's becoming pretty evident that I really like visual or hands on learning! Today we watched a concert of the NY Philharmonic Orchestra performing in Central Park, thanks to our PBS channel. The boys were readily identifying different instruments and especially liked watching the conductor. … [Read more...]