Well, I really fell off updating this, but that’s okay, we were keeping busy. We’ve sort of hit our stride with schooling and I think it’s going well.

No recaps, but today we’re focusing on Mesopotamia which is Chapter 3 in Curiosity Chronicals. We’ve built the notebook pages with a map of Mesopotamia, learned about the Tigris & Euphraties rivers, and the impact of Agriculture and Hearding on the development of Civilization.

Reference Materials

• We’re using Curiosity Chronicals as our base curriculum.
• We read a few pages from Ancient Mesopotamia Inside Out by Ellen Rodger which is also available online through the Toronto Public Library.
• Khan Academy - Ancient Mesopotamia
• We used this map to help identify the various important parts of the area, and the kid also coloured a map of mesopotamia

And finally, we did our nature journalling which led to some great conversations about properties of water (we found some ice in a metal bucket!), pressure, atmosphere, the impact on the weather, and what the difference between gravity and atmosopheric pressure is.

Week 7

I’ve found it kind of fascinating how much easier it is to start the day with a craft. It’s maybe obvious to experienced educators, but having that point to pivot from is a great way to get into the “it’s time for school mindset”

We have landed into a rhythm, but one that also doesn’t feel too intense, but still is somewhat academically rigorous.

We are using a combination of the following: - Torchlight 0,1 (General Curriculum) - BuildYourLibrary 0,1 (General Curriculum) - Curiosity Chronicals - Snapshots of Ancient History (History) - Beast Math Level 1 (Math) - Building Foundations for Scientific Understanding Vol 1 (Science) - Be Naturally Curious (Science Unit Studies)

One of the things I’ve been considering is Science Connection through Inquiry, which is based on Building Foundations for Scientific Understanding, but I feel kind of weird using some thing that costs money, that’s based on something else, when it doesn’t look like the original authour is involved.

We focused a lot of nature study today which was good for both of us. There is something so spectacular about talking about potions and nature while a belted king fisher swoops down and then swoops away from our pond. He didn’t know we were there - until he did and then it was time to go, time to go.

Ideally we’d spend at least half of the day outside, but the inclination comes and goes, and it seems unnecessary to force it on the days the desire to be out is low.

We read more of the Tale of Desperaux, but someone is dragging their feet on it because they don’t want it to be over. Secrets revealled. Regardless, I expect we will be finished soon enough.

I’ve been encouraging more practise with cutting things out, and it’s been great. The skills are increasing with time and practise as one might expect - though the skills are developing in a short period of time, at least in part because the fine motor skills are already there to help make it work.

I’m waiting on doing a magnetism unit until we get a few magnets in the mail.

I had ordered a multiplication table from Staples a few weeks ago, and the poster is alot bigger than I expected, but we’ve been playing mulitplcation games lately, and it’s been a lot of fun. Probably a bit big of a jump away from addition and subtraction, but it feels right at the moment.

Day 10

After a pretty action packed weekend (we adopted a kitten and went to vegfest) we are back to it.

We’re currently reading The Very Very Far North, and answering some discussion questions about each chapter. So far we’ve hit chapter 6, but I’m aiming for at least 8 today. A librarian was kind enough to read the entirety of it during the early pandemic when people were still staying home to keep each other safe, so we can watch or listen to it here

We also did a morning of number crunchers, and shapes made of popsicles sticks, and multiples of two, we’ve been really playing around with doubling lately, and that’s been going quite well. It’s kind of cool to see the cumulative effects of casually playing 2048 over the years.

One of our tasks today is to do an Animal Profile where we pick an animal, do some research, and fill in a profile worksheet. - Answer what’s a tundra, forest, wetland, grassland, rainforest, ocean, and deserts

Read amazing World Atlas (available in Libby) - read about canada (30-31)

Day Five - September 12th 2022

• Share Mythic Book Emporium by Mary Soon Lee over breakfast.
• Lesson 2-A BFSU - Solids Liquids and Gases and Change with Temperature
  • An activity classifying things as solids, liquids, or gasses
  • An inquiry on whether and what similarities are observed, how do we differentiate them.
  • Discussion on classifications of states of matter, focusing on solid liquid gas, debating talking about plasma, not debating on Bose-Einstein or any other condensates.
  • Talk about temperature and impact on states of matter.
  • Reading of books related to matter
  • Let’s Talk Science Page on Matter
  • Try this worksheet
    
  • Check on our Nature Square and collect some observations in our nature journal. (Attempt continuation of high park nature centre lesson)
  • Look at our beans and collect any data we observe.
  • Read more Tale of Desperaux
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzqSpmo5ye0 Archeologists Dig For Clues
  • patterns and counting on. (Starting from the bigger number in addition to make things easier)

What did we actually do? Unfortunately we only really got through the matter lesson, and it turns out the kid knew about plasma and bose einstein condensates from another book he read. I did an activity with different objects in different states of matter, and we talked a lot about lightening.

We did also observe our growing bean sprout and made some observations about the bean differences from sprout to seed.

I’m hoping to get back to the Tale of Desperaux, but it’s fallen off the radar somewhat. Curriculum-wise we are still ahead of the plan.