FIAR: Week 2: Grandfather's Journey and what Madison is up to this year

Like last week, we did a literature unit study, Five in a Row. Again, I loved it. We did not do all I had planned, life happened and I thought I could fit more in the week than I could with some other things going on. I also thought I could hold the boys attention a bit longer than I could, being how this week they didn't love the actual book quite as much as Ping- but they still liked it- Ping was just one of their favorites. I am really surprised at how much they are learning and retaining. Some things that I expect to be over their head, they get, while things I expect to come easy, are a challenge, and both boys surprise me with what they are good at, each at different things, but often not what I expect. I used Youtube like crazy this week! I don't know what I would do without the internet, but I know people homeschooled successfully before it existed, so I guess I could. 

So this was my basic plan for the week:

Day 1

Learn about Japan/continents- use cloth map, japan book, nat geo site, virtual village video,

look up Japan in atlas. Color old man picture, and discuss/color printout of japan items. 

Days in a week/month - using cereal on a calendar

Birds- animal classification game, bird book, video of bird building a nest

Paint cherry blossoms

Day 2

Landforms- watch video, use cards to color and place on map

Pollution (bucket experiement, video on pollution and birds)

Make scrolls with toilet paper roll

Day 3

Origami - book and craft

Woodblock printing

Japanese food- book, maybe cook

Day 4

Family Tree 

Volcano

Make japanese food

Go to asian food market?

And this is what we actually did with reasons why:

1. Learned about Japan- use cloth map, Japan book, nat geo site, virtual village video,

look up Japan in atlas. 

2. Color old man picture, and discuss/color printout of japan items. 

3. Days in a week/month - using cereal on a calendar made 3 weeks of days because Grandfather didn't see land for 3 weeks. 

4. Learneda about Animal Classification- played  two animal classification games, they liked this one best, read 2 bird books, video of bird building a nest- because Grandfather kept song birds to remind him of Japan.

5. Paint cherry blossoms - kind of, the boys painted a line or two and gave up, madison and I tried

6. Learned about Pollution in Japan and the world, read recycling book and decided to go get a container for ourselves today.

7. Bucket experiment to demonstrate just picking out the trash didn't clean the yucky water.

8. Origami - looked at book and attempted to create our own. This was VERY hard and we gave up quickly!

9. Looked at Japanese food book, discussed their food and culture more.

10. Did a Family tree worksheet and learned what generations are, since the grandson was telling the story.

11. Watched sumo wrestling video

12. Read about steamships and watched videos of real ones

13. Watched minecraft video on how to build a steamship

14. Learned about electricity using this video- after the steamship lesson, Tyler asked "Can you teach me how electricty works?" :)

15. Learned about the continents  using a few different videos and maps,  which one we live, also were Japan and China are. Discussed the difference between counties and continents.
16. Landforms- watched a few videos, use cards to color- they liked this video best 

17. 3 days we also did Math-u-see, Handwriting, and Life Skills.
18. Tyler is currently building a steamship on Minecraft right now and doing a pretty great job!

As you can see, we did plenty, they learned a lot, and we didn't even do everything I wanted to get done! We may have Japanese for dinner tonight!

Here is my Pinterest board for this row with a lot of the links and inspiration for our week. 

And here is Madison in her new workspace in the garage. If you don't know, we did a total makeover on this room. It looks awesome compared to what it was. I am so happy with how it turned out and we actually enjoy being in this room now. 

Madison is doing a lot this year. On Monday's we have co-op, where she is taking Sewing, the Recorder, and Storytelling. On Wednesdays, she is going to One Day Academy, taking Art - Drawing skills, Piano, Theater (they are doing The Princess and the Pauper this semester) and Math. I may or may not leave her in Math, as this class seems to be more work on me than it is on her. On Fridays we usually have a playdate or field trip. Tuesdays and Thursdays she has all subjects to do at home and those are busy days, along with Tumbling/trampoline class on Thursdays. The boys also have Karate on Wednesdays. She is also wanting to join 4H, but I just don't know how we can fit anything else our schedule! She is being pretty difficult until the past 2 days, it's hard getting back into the swing of things after a summer break and learning new curriculum. But I think we may have just settled into a routine this week and be on the mend, the first two weeks had me contemplating sending her to boarding school. The older they get, the more time consuming school work is and she is used to having a lot more free time than she does this year. My expectations are a lot greater this year, and may need some tweaking. For other HS moms- her curriculum is:

Learning Language Arts Through Literature - purple book/5th grade (which is really challenging her)

Science Shepherd- online Christian program with workbook (which we are finding very boring)

CTC Math online and her One Day math class (may drop the ODA class since I added CTC math and love it)

Cursive Handwriting 

US Geography- various sources including McGraw Hill work book

US History- using Abeka and The Story of Us, with various other resources including real books, 

Co-op- sewing, storytelling, Recorder

One Day Academy- Art, Piano, Theater, Math

Trampoline/tumbling on Thursdays

We are so busy, I really don't know when I'm going to have time to socialize the kids! ;)