The Bergblog: Snapshot Summary, October 10-16, 2011 week 6

Snapshot Summary, October 10-16, 2011 week 6

We had a bit of a difficult week this week because we were all fighting some sort of bug. It hit Steven the hardest, but we all have felt bad at different times during the week. We did get some things accomplished...

Math

Quentin and Alex are still working on addition and subtraction problems. I have started a math notebook with Quentin. I will write more about this next week as we work in it and have more to show you.

Partial Product Method

James is working on multiplication.

Sam has begun his second unit in Algebra, and Simple Apprehension in Logic.

English

In Quentin's reading, we are looking at the different sounds that vowels make. He is reading Nate the Great this week and loving it.

James is reading poetry and we are looking at homophones is his book. In his writing we are looking at interjections and conjunctions. With conjunctions, he can combine two simple sentences to make more complex sentences.
Sam began The Lord of the Rings, Book Two.

Alex worked on a report on Trees from Easy File Folder Reports.
They wrote about Columbus for Columbus Day.

James'

Quentin's

History and Geography

Reviewed Columbus' Voyages for Columbus Day.

Captain Cook's Voyages, 1768-1771

Our history study for this week was Exploring the South Seas. Sam and Alex added names, events and dates to their timelines.

We learned about Estonia this week for our Postcard-Geography Album.

Fine Arts

We learned about Mozart and Rondos.

Science and Nature Study

We finally got the materials we needed and finished our frog and toad comparison project.

We glued a clear planter gems for the frog's bulging eye. The frog is laminated to make his skin slick. The toad, on the other hand, has lentils glued to his skin to represent the toad's bumpy, dry skin.

We also discussed the fact that frogs have slimmer bodies than toads and have webbed toes on their back feet. Their legs are longer, too. We also discussed the fact that most toads can be found on land only whereas frogs can be found in the water, trees and on land.

This idea and the templates came from Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational.

Sam and Alex learned about humidity, the composition of air and about carbon dioxide. Alex is continuing to work on his physical science lapbook.

We made a density tower...

and experimented with buoyancy.

Alex's journal page

We related this to how the fish's swim bladder works.
We also learned about salmon migration.

Foreign Languages

In Latin, Sam is working on the Ablative Case, and in Greek, Sam is continuing working on vocabulary and sentence practice

Our Favorite Resource

We have loved Videotext Algebra for our Middle to High School students. It is very step-by-step and shows the "whys" of how math works instead of memorizing processes. You know how everyone was taught that when dividing fractions, you invert the one side and multiply? Well, this program starts there and tells you WHY that works, what you are actually doing when you do that. Going on from there it teaches algebra concepts simply but solidly so that you understand fully before going on. Sam is my second child who disliked math until he started this program. I believe for James we will just go directly to this program (next year) and have him understand from the beginning instead of memorizing steps that become a drag and overwhelming and unnecessary.

Fall Teatimes