We scaled back in our regular school programming this week to re-discover Houston.
As far as school was concerned, this has been a week of playing games and listening to audio CDs.
English Grammar Review:
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| David watches Stephen match up his English Grammar verb principle parts. |
Stephen used a free downloadable booklet called Adventure Tales of America to review the Louisiana Purchase along with the dates/events of the expansion of the United States of America. We also reviewed the other pages of the Early National Period 1800-1815, which included some information for the War of 1812. (This book incorporates drawing into the study of history to work both sides of the brain at the same time.)
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| Adventure Tales of America, pages 36-39 |
We also read/sang the Star-Spangled Banner and discussed Francis Scott Key, Fort McHenry (the star-shaped fort), and the causes of the War of 1812 using the Ft. McHenry Teacher’s Guide. If you are interested in an in-depth study, there are many more activities and lesson plans at the Ft. McHenry NPS website.
We also reviewed some facts about Exploration, Colonial History, and the American Revolution using Scholastic’s American History Know-the-Facts Game. And we listened to Scholastic’s Tunes that Teach American History in the car while driving across Houston (and again while we drove across East Texas & Louisiana….).
For science, we watched videos on the human body offered by BrainPOP and How the Body Works (Kidshealth). BrainPOP requires registration for a free trial period (and some of the videos refer to evolution, though the one about the urinary system do not). BrainPOP also has an educators page that has lesson plans on the human body (along with many other topics across the other disciplines and grade levels). Naturally, the boys loved learning about the Excretory System.
For states & capitals review, we played the I Have Who Has game. We used pictorial flashcards of the States & Capitals & Latin vocabulary, and for all the other subjects, we listened to our memory work songs. Let me just say how funny it is when Levi asks to hear the “I-N-G” song. Of all the CDs we have, Levi wants to hear the one about present participles. He also goes around singing ,”Davy Crockett! Davy Crockett!” which was great because it fit in nicely when we went to the Alamo.
But enough about school. Now, we must tell you not-so-tall tales about what it’s REALLY been like during this week of field trips...