Fun Learning About the Greek gods - Percy Jackson Inspired - CC Week 3

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We had a great time learning about the Greek gods with some friends today.  The kids are learning the names of prominent Greek and Roman gods this week for school.  I found several posts about Percy Jackson books, and parties that were inspired by the books, and decided to have our own fun.

Here is what we did.

We started learning by going on a hunt for 20 different gods and goddesses.  Each poster has a QR code on it.  When you scan it you find out the name of the god or goddess.  You can get them

here

.

After working hard it was time for a game.  We adapted the Mr. Fox game to be a Zeus and Hera game.  Whoever was Zeus or Hera went to the top of the hill and turned their back so they couldn't see everyone.  They then got to tell the mortals how many steps to take.  The mortals job was to go as quietly as possible so they could sneak by.  When Zeus or Hera thought they were getting close they yelled, "Zeus is coming down the mountain!" and turned around and chased them.  Whoever they tagged became Zeus or Hera next.

After getting some energy out it was time for a quick lesson.  We used the CC timeline cards that applied to the gods.  We sang the timeline song and stopped each time we got to one of the timeline cards listed and talked about it briefly.  We looked at the map as we discussed Greece and Rome being established and how to gods names changed from Greek to Roman when Rome defeated Greece. 

Next it was time for shield making!  We used cake rounds for the shields and duck tape for the handle on the back.  If you use a coupon at Michaels you can get a good deal on cake rounds.

Once the shields were made it was time to talk about the god of war and get ready for battle.  Greece and Rome went war in the garage.  Both sides were armed with their shields and pool noodle swords.  To win the battle you had to have the least amount of balloons on your side at the end.  

What Are the Five Kingdoms of Living Things?

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We enjoyed a fun review lesson yesterday about the kingdoms of living things.

 This collection

 of science lessons goes along with the Classical Conversations curriculum.  Each lesson is short and ties into the Bible.  Our favorite part of yesterdays lesson was drawing our own pizzas.  Did you know that you can make a  pizza that has four of the five kingdoms on it?  Do you know what they are?  What would you need on a pizza to represent four of the five kingdoms?

Classical Conversations Cycle 1 Week 4

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New Grammar

We are going to keep new grammar simple.  The goal is to be exposed to the material, not master it.  Mastering it should happen at home.

The review dice with movements and tone of voice are a great way to spice up new grammar, but still keep it simple and to the point!

https://halfahundredacrewood.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/ccreviewdice.pdf

You can look back to the other weeks on the blog for ways to spice up learning prepositions, plant cells, and Latin noun endings.

We will expand on the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World at home this week with some fun

coloring maps

and

model building

.  

Art

Here are a few fun ideas for ways to do abstract art this week.

http://www.happinessishomemade.net/2014/03/17/kids-homeschool-art-lesson-piet-mondrian/

http://greenbayartroom.blogspot.com/2011/10/kandinsky-trees-1st-grade.html

http://galatiak12art.blogspot.com/2013/03/more-pictures-of-messiest-project-ever.html

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Art-Lesson-Elements-Abstracts-1275328

Science

This week we are talking about water pollution.  Be careful not to put too much food coloring in the water.  It really takes a lot of water to undo to pollution (food coloring).  We will go over the scientific method again.  There are some great worksheets on CCC for tutors and parents.  

Here is a fun water quiz for at home.

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/games/puzzlesquizzes/water-wiz/

This activity could be adapted at home to talk about water pollution too.

http://www.filthwizardry.com/2009/07/aluminium-foil-river.html

Presentations

We are still working on organizing presentations this week.  Each student still gets 3 minutes to talk.  They are getting better at this time frame.  In addition to organization we are going to work on eye contact.  Go back and watch your video from last week (I record the students each week so they can go back and watch themselves and share it with their families) did you look at your audience?  Here's this weeks fun video.  Kid President doesn't look at his notes on the board.  He knows what he is going to say and he looks at the audience (or he has something he is reading by the camera).  

Blobbing

We are reviewing for blobbing this week.  Look back to week 3 for a video.  We have the compass rose, Equator, Prime Meridian, Tropics, Arctic and Antarctic Circles on our blob maps now.  

Classical Conversations Cycle 1 Week 3

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Presentations

I'm going to start with presentation information again this week because I like fun videos.  The prompt, should you choose to accept it, is heroes this week.  I love Kid President.  

"I think you're a hero and you don't even know it yet."  What will you do to be a hero?

The Journeyman/Masters class is working on structuring a three minute presentation for whatever topic they may choose this week.  I do hope to hear about some heroes though.

Art

This week we are doing upside down drawings.  I've posted this video before, but it amazes me!

Here is a fun upside down lesson 

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16305/16305-h/16305-h.htm

THE BLESSEDNESS OF WORK—Labor

—Diligence

The Truly Happy Life is the One Filled With Honest Employment.

THE LESSON—That in childhood and youth we should train ourselves to work.

Work is the keynote of the successful life. "An idle brain is the devil's workshop." The talk is designed to catch the attention with a smile and then give an opportunity to present some valuable thoughts in the matter of diligence and the fulfillment of life's mission through honorable employment of the mind and the hands.

The Talk.

"Very often we read some very curious things. The manufacturer of one of the well-known breakfast foods, has placed this strange statement on the outside of each of the packages: 'Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.' It seems impossible to do this, and the writer of the words probably had an entirely different way of explaining how he would do it from the way we will demonstrate it here on the drawing paper today. Let us suppose that we make the statement that we can tell what a man is if we know what he eats. All right, then, here is a case: There is a certain man who eats three meals a day out of a dish shaped something like this: [Draw lines representing Step 1 of 

Fig. 37

.]

Figures 37 and 38: Drawing of a dish of rice, that upside-down becomes a Chinese man.

"And then, let us suppose that the food he eats is heaped up like this: [Add lines to change the drawing to Step 2.]

"Now, what do you think this food is? Ice cream? Ah, no, because when I tell you that this is steam rising from the food you will know it isn't ice cream: [Add lines to change the drawing to Step 3.]

"But you will begin to see what it is when I tell you that these two lines represent chopsticks: [Add lines to change the drawing to Step 5.] What is it? Rice? Yes, it is rice, and we will label it in this way. [Add the letters, to change the drawing to Step 5.]

"And now, having found out what the man eats, let us see if we can find out who he is. [Remove the sheet from the drawing board, hold it up and turn it over, exposing 

Fig. 38

 to the audience. With the attention thus centered upon your work, the boys and girls will listen with eagerness to whatever else you may have for them.]

"And so, I tell you of another thing that we can do.

"Listen! Tell me what a boy thinks about, and I will tell you what kind of a man he will grow up to be.

"The man who swears, thought of bad things and used bad words when he was a boy. The man who is a thief thought about dishonest things when he was a boy. The man who is happy and who finds it his delight to do good, formed the habit of thinking and doing good things when he was a boy. The man who loves his work learned to like to work when he was a boy.

"And it is work that I want to speak about today.

"There is no place in the world for a lazy boy or girl. Nobody wants them. Boys who hate to work are the kind that loaf around poolrooms and pollute the air with vile cigarette smoke and language which bespeaks an empty mind and a corrupt heart.

"As Jesus is our great example in every way, He stands out strongly as our example of how a workman should delight in his employment. We should first find the thing which God intends that we shall do, for we are all fitted to do some things better than others, and we should then put forth our best efforts to learn to do that one thing as well as we can. We must center our thoughts upon the things we want to do. Life will then become a delight, because the world is always crying for workers who know how to do their work. The other kind is always to be found but never wanted. The demand is for the ones who know how. It is a significant fact that the first recorded words of Jesus Christ are, 'Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business?' This makes of Jesus a 

Business boy

, and it was God's work he began so soon.

"Gladstone, an inspiring example of the true workman, says, 'The thrift of time will repay in after life with usury of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams, and the waste of it will make you dwindle alike in intellectual and moral stature beyond your darkest reckoning.'

"The happiest people in the world are those who are busy at something worth while, and the most miserable are those who are in idleness for lack of ambition or else are engaged in work which they themselves loathe because of its baseness."

New Grammar 

History

Greek and Roman gods

We are going to have some fun with this topic this week!

I bought

Percy Jenkins Greek gods

book to read with the kids.  My husband and I have been amused by it.  We decided we should read through each story first before sharing it with the kids.

We are also using ideas from this

Percy Jackson and the Olympians party

to enjoy studying history at home and with friends.

Latin

There are some wonderful pictures that have been created to help you remember your noun endings.  

Here is a link

to a packet for this week.  You could make matching games or a book with them.

Science

Here is a fun idea for studying parts of an animal cell at home!

You can find the list of what you need to make this here

http://5perfectimperfections.blogspot.com/2011/09/edible-cell.html

If you don't want to make an edible cell the here are some

free printables

you can color and label instead.

Blobbing

We are adding our Arctic lines to our blobs this week.  Here is how to do it.

Preschoolers Have Musical Creativity

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I was looking at old blog posts and came across this one.  I felt like it was worth sharing again.

Make More Music Little Ones: Wouldn't the World Be A Better Place If...

: when one person started clapping others joined in and created something beautiful. I love that my job is to cultivate this kind of creativity...

We started off strong on our first day of music class at Journey Montessori Preschool today.  We listened to Mary Wore Her Red Dress and talked about what we heard first.  Then each child got to do some simple improvisation by switching Mary to their name and red dress to their favorite thing they were wearing today.  We worked on steady beat at the same time by patting the beat while we sang.  I always enjoy asking kids to improvise, or make up their own verses.  Little kids are typically eager to improvise and very creative.  When I try to get a room full of adults to do the same activity they are typically quiet and stare at me like I've asked them to do something really difficult.  I hope the kids will keep their creativity as they grow up.  One of the best thing parents can do to foster that creativity is to be creative with them.  Make up silly songs.  Change words to songs you like to make them your own.

Next it was time to move around a little.  I sang Pop Goes the Weasel and we had to jump up on "pop."  Once we got the hang of that we moved around the room to the beat of the song, then froze and threw our scarves up in the air on "pop."

Our last task of the day was to identify a few types of non-pitched percussion instruments and do a play along.  When the kids heard the music begin they were aloud to come choose an instrument and play along.  This is a great way to enjoy creative play with the kids while assessing their ability to play along to the beat of the music.

I am excited about the year ahead with this group of students!

Classical Conversations Cycle 1 Week 2

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Presentations

I am tutoring a Journeyman/Masters level class of kids and most of them have gone to CC since kindergarten or pre-school.  They are used to giving presentations and now they are ready to refine some skills this year.  This week we are going to look at this short TED Talk given by a 12 year old.  He uses an outline and has clear opening and closing statements.  

In class each student will get 3 minutes to talk.  Since we do not need to work on eye contact, volume, or being nervous about presenting with any of them, I would like for them to work toward filling the whole 3 minutes, using at outline if needed, and developing short opening and closing statements.

Science Experiment

We have some fun experiments this week.  We get to figure out how spiders use their webs and why fish float when they're dead.  I'm looking forward to hearing what kind of hypotheses the kids come up with.  As a musician I LOVE this spider video. 

Art

We are looking at mirror images in art this week.  I am trying to keep our art biology related this cycle.  We will look at the

mirror image/symmetry of leaves

this week.  Last week we designed our leaves using basic elements of art.

Blobbing/Geography

We are going to add the tropics to our geography blob maps this week!  Here is exactly how to do it.

New Grammar

My favorite ideas for the week

Science

English - Prepositions

For History and Latin look back to week ones post.  You can click the Classical Conversations label on the right to find posts specific to CC.

Parents Stop Saying You Can't Sing

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I have heard several parents say they don't sing well in front of their kids this past week.  You might be a terrible singer, but don't tell your kids that.  Sing anyway.  Show your kids that you can enjoy making music.  If you enjoy making music then your kids will learn to enjoy it too.

Susan Darrow, CEO of Music Together, has a great story to share about her dad not singing on key, but still helping her become a musical person.  Start listing at 1:40 to hear her story.  

Even if you do not think you have much musical ability you can still raise musical children.  We are all born with musical ability, we just need to be shown what to do with it.  Turn on your favorite music, sing along, dance, get out your pots and pans and play along, just enjoy making music.

Classical Conversations Cycle 1 Week 1

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We are excited to start a new year of CC!  This is the first time we are repeating a cycle.  I am excited to see the new ways we learn the information now that the kids are older.  I have already seen so many subjects be easy to learn because the kids memorized the material through fun songs when they were littler.  Multiplication is a breeze with my oldest since she had learned skip counting through singing.

CC doesn't put counting ones to a song.  But Sesame Street does and it's fun!

 I LOVE Pentatonix version of the song. If you just want to hear them sing it skip to 2:05. If you want to see Cookie Monster watch the whole thing. We will revisit Pentatonix version of the song again when we study Rondo form in the Spring.

I don't have cool videos for everything.  Skip counting the 2's is just sung to Jesus Loves Me.  It's good to keep some things simple.

The older kids will have to say the whole math fact.  I think we are going to shoot them with Nerf guns while we say them!  The facts are written on a shower board.  Suction Nerf bullets stick to it nicely.

For History this week and next there are some fun

10 commandment matching card games

,

crafts

, and

worksheets

you can do at home.

We have always sung the Classifications of Living Things to the ringtone that was on my cell phone the last time we went through cycle 1.  Sorry, that's not a lot of help.  Just make up a little song.  In class we are going to stack boxes.

Going to the zoo is a great way to look at the genus and species of animals.  They are listed in Latin so you get two subjects at once while on a field trip!  Homeschooling is great!

English

In English we are going to chant the definition of a Preposition.  We are going to look at prepositions for 12 weeks so just get the definition down for now.

Latin 

We are memorizing noun cases.  This is still new to me too.  Just memorize it for now.  Having it memorized will make their lives easier in highschool.  If you want more of an explanation of Latin Cases here's a good one.

Geography

The students are showing and telling where places in the Fertile Crescent are.  Get out your Bibles and find where these places are talked about.  The big job for now is that each student can show you where each location is if you ask for it by name and tell you what each location is if you point to it on the map.

We will also do blobbing for geography.  If you have no idea what this is watch this short video.

Fine Art

We are talking about OiLs this week.  Those are basic shapes.  Circles, dots, lines, angles, and squiggles.  Since science focuses on Biology this year I think we will use our art lessons to draw nature.  This week students will each get a blank leaf and use OiLs to fill it in.

Here is the lesson if you would like it http://artprojectsforkids.org/patterned-leaf/

I am really excited about the final project, but you'll have to wait for that to be revealed.

Science Experiment

We are dissecting a bean.  We will focus on what a hypothesis is and use

this sheet

to help.

A-rhythm-etic

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I came across this Ted Talk today and enjoyed it, but it also kind of made my head hurt!  Clayton Crameron talks about how swing is duple but subdivided triple and gives examples.  We broke that down in the Music Together Cert II workshop I just complete.  It has made me really think about how to approach rhythm and rhythm patterns for swing songs in Music Together classes.  While its a lot for me to consider, if I do it right it will just come across as play for the kids in class.

Sweet Potato is the only swing meter song coming up in the Fall Music Together collection.  If you know the song see if you can figure out how it can feel both duple and triple!

Classical Conversations Meets Music Together

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I think my presentation went well (you can refer to the previous post if you want a few more details).  At least I had fun giving the presentation.  I think that's my main goal in life, to have fun doing whatever it is I've been given to do.

The purpose of the presentation was to share Music Together's philosophy with a group of my choice.  I choose to share the philosophy with Classical Conversations Foundations tutors.  

Classical Conversations is a homeschool group, click the page at the top for more info on that.

     Foundations is elementary school

     Tutors are the parents who teach a class once a week

I choose that specific group because I actually work with CC Foundations tutors and parents to equip them to teach in the classroom and at home.  And I really believe Music Together's philosophy applies to them and can help them more effectively teach their kids. 

Music Together is an early childhood music and movement program for parents/caregivers/teachers and their                 

      children/students.  Click the page at the top for more information.

To equip these parents we first looked at the classical model of learning in the presentation.  The classical model of learning has three stages, and I like to use the tree analogy to look help understand them.

Next we self assessed where we felt we fit musically in the classical model.

Are you still learning the basics of music?  Do you have the basics and are understanding how they work?  Or can you apply your knowledge of music to create and enhance other learning?

Now we get to how Music Together's philosophy fits in.

Music Together's philosophy is that 

* ALL children are born with the potential (aptitude) to make music!

* If young children have playful/informal musical experiences with the adults they trust (parents, close family members, nanny's, teachers) they will acquire a disposition to be music makers, and these experiences will feed their inborn musical potential.

*  Modeling being musical (singing, dancing, playing instruments) will help children achieve Basic Music Competence which is the ability to sing full songs in tune and move to the beat of the music they are experiencing. 

While looking at Music Together's philosophy we talked about ways we are already enhancing our children's musical aptitude with activities we do in Classical Conversations.  

*Tutors and parents model singing and moving to music every week in class.

*Tutors equip parents and continue modeling musical behavior at home.

*We feed off the kids energy by making the activities we do in class fit the students energy.  We can adapt an activity to be small movement, large movement, singing, maybe even instrument playing.  However we feel the kids will learn it best.

We also talked about ways we can better enhance our children's understanding of music by using the Music Together model in CC.

*Change what you are doing as a parent/tutor to accept and include the children's current behavior.  If a child is experiencing a song in his feet then dance.  If a child is experiencing a song by clapping then clap.  Adapt what you are doing to how the children are learning best in the moment.

*Help students fully understand the musical grammar from the fine arts section by experiencing what note values feel in a song, what a crescendo sounds like, what dynamics sound like.  Don't just give them the word and the visual, let them feel it, hear it, and experience it.

*Sing without recordings!  You don't have to be a wonderful musician.  Even if you sing off key you when you sing it yourself, or move to the music, you are helping the children acquire their own musical dispositions!  CC doesn't want you to rely on the recordings either.

My conclusion was very real for me.  Even though I was a formally trained musician, I did not reach my full musical potential until I could also feel the music, not just understand it.  We can use Music Together's philosophy of experiencing music with trusted adults, through musical play to help our children achieve their fullest musical potential.

Music Together Meets Classical Conversations

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Today's did you know.

Today I get to give a presentation on how the Music Together model and philosophy can help equip Classical Conversations parents and tutors to teach their Foundations level students.  I have 10 minutes to present the material to the founders of Music Together.  As I was talking to my kids last night it dawned on me that they are probably way more equipped to give a ten minute presentation than I am, and they are still little.  I give a huge thanks to CC for putting a strong emphasis on public speaking.  I look forward to the ways this will be useful for my children as they grow.  I'll elaborate more on my personal presentation in the next post.  Lets see how this thing goes today!

Dad's Have an Amazing Musical Gift to Give

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When children hear both male and female voices with regularity they develop a bilingual singing voice in their head (can process both voices).  Children who do not have regular exposure to an adult male voice will grumble instead of sing when trying to sing along with a man, or jump an octave above a mans falsetto voice when trying to sing along.

Dads, you have have a wonderful musical gift to give your kids.  You do not have to sing well.  Just sing.  Sing in the register that feels most comfortable for you.  Sing while doing something you enjoy with your child.  You will help develop your child's musical ear and musical disposition!

Babies Have Rhythm!

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Today's did you know

Did you know that by 7-9 months old infants can detect differences between duple and triple rhythms?  They develop a sense of rhythm from adults speaking to them, and moving with them when they are experiencing music.  This is "accelerated by experience!"  The more you dance, move, sing, play instruments, and speak to your baby the quicker they develop their sense of rhythm.

From Infants Perception of Rhythmic Patterns
by TONYA R. BERGESON AND SANDRA E. TREHUB
https://www.utm.utoronto.ca/infant-child-centre/sites/files/infant-child-centre/public/shared/sandra-trehub/001.pdf

"Infants’ sense of rhythm may be linked to their body movements. Indeed, stereotypical rhythms of head, arm, chest, and leg movements have been observed in infancy (Pouthas, 1996; Thelen, 1981), and early bipedal kicking and sucking have binary elements (e.g., suction and relaxation). Moreover, infants gradually integrate endogenous and exogenous rhythms (Pouthas, 1996). When presented with a “moving room,” for example, infants adjust their rate of swaying to match the frequency of room movements (Bertenthal, Rose, & Bai, 1997). It is notable that caregivers typically move while singing to their infants, which is consistent with the notion of intrinsic connections between rhythm and movement (Cross, 2001; Merker, 2000). Much of the motion that caregivers provide for infants can be considered binary, as in rocking (e.g., back and forth) or bouncing (e.g., up and down). Recent evidence indicates that 7-month-old infants’ interpretation of an ambiguous drum rhythm is affected by the pattern of bouncing (on every second or third beat) that they experienced while listening (Phillips-Silver & Trainor, 2005). Such connections between rhythmic sound and motion go well beyond caregiver-infant interactions, with music being inseparable from movement in many cultures (Fraisse, 1982; Merker, 2000). Infants are also sensitive to the rhythmic properties of speech. For example, French newborns differentiate English utterances, which are stress-timed, from Japanese utterances, which are timed at the subsyllabic level, or mora (Nazzi, Bertoncini, & Mehler, 1998)."

"the formation of melodic and temporal expectations may follow a similar developmental timetable, which is accelerated by experience, enculturation, and formal music training."


Hello and Goodbye Ukulele

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Today's Music Together did you know?

Did you know teachers have uploaded how to play Music Together's Hello and Goodbye songs on ukulele?  I spend quality time with my purple ukulele to learn how to play it better yesterday.  Maybe I'll start bringing it to class more often now.  If I can figure this out so can you!

http://meandmypurpleukulele.blogspot.com/2015/08/getting-to-know-my-purple-ukulele.html

Time To Get Back At It

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Wow, Summer flew by as usual.  It's time to get back into the routine Fall brings.

Our homeschool Summer began with an amazing parent practicum.  I had the privlidge of being the tutor trainer for the Foundations (elementary school) tutors for our county.  I don't know if the tutors had fun, but I sure did.  We learned and refreshed our tutoring skills for new grammar, science experiments, fine arts, and presentations.  We also had fun playing review games together.  I always leave the summer practicum uplifted and energized for the year ahead!

The Music Together Summer session is wrapping up tomorrow and then I am off to Trenton, NJ to work on my Certification level 2 training at the Music Together headquarters!  I am excited about learning how to be a better teacher, and exploring current research on music and young children.

I plan to begin posting fun homeschool and music activities again after I get back from training!  Check back soon.





Peter Pan

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We had a great time playing with some of the music from the play Peter Pan today at Journey Montessori!  We identified which character went with each piece of music we listened to and then did a fun activity to go along with the song.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ugh-a-wug/id189104724?i=189107503&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Song- Ugh-A-Wug

Characters- Indians and Peter Pan

Activity - Ostinato (repeated pattern) on the drums.  Drum, rest, drum clap, drum clap, rest, rest, rest.

Songs - Hooks Tarantella and Hooks Waltz

Characters - Captain Hook and the Pirates

Activity - Bounce up and down to feel the duple feel of the Tarantella and Waltz to feel the triple feel of the waltz.

Captain Hook gets some neat songs.  He has a Tango, which is a Spanish dance, a Tarantella, which is a duple meter Italian folk song, and a Waltz which is an Austrian triple meter song.

Song - I Won't Grow Up

Characters - Peter Pan and the Lost Boys

Activity - Call and response.

Happy Presidents Day

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Our awesome director for our 

Classical Conversations

 homeschool group issued a challenge for everyone to sing all of the American Presidents by first name and last for Presidents Day.  This task is part of the last week of our curriculum every year, but by the last week of school we are done and just ready to enjoy the Spring weather.  We have memorized a few but never gotten them all down.  This was the perfect time for the challenge (and I like things presented as a challenge).  The twist this time was I told the kids 

I

 wanted to rise to the challenge.  I did not ask them to do it.  So I told my oldest daughter my goal for the first day was to memorize the first 25 presidents (we already knew the first 10 or so).  It wasn't long before she was correcting me and helping me through them.

When we got home I began to sing the song again and my middle child plugged her ears.  My oldest promptly said, "No, we have to help mom.  She is trying to do mommy masters!"  My other daughter unplugged her ears and began to help too.  The neighbor kid even got involved in helping me!  After two days of helping mom learn how to sing her presidents we could all sing all of the presidents in order!  My three year old is also aspiring to sing them.  I never told them they had to learn them.  I told them I wanted to learn them and modeled how I was going to go about it for them and with them.  They were so excited to help me, and I was so excited we all learned them.

As a tutor for CC I have noticed that I am such a better teacher for my own kids when I have to have the information memorized ahead of time.  I challenge other parents to memorize the work ahead of time, or learn it out loud with your children so they can learn how to learn.

In the music classes I teach we have begun to add in a traditional American song here and there.  I love the Schoolastic books for the songs.  They have great pictures to help explain the words and meaning of the songs.   You can click on the titles to see them at Amazon.

The Star Spangled Banner

"

Francis Scott Key was a gifted amateur poet. Inspired by the sight of the American flag flying over Fort McHenry the morning after the bombardment, he scribbled the initial verse of his song on the back of a letter. Back in Baltimore, he completed the

four verses (PDF)

and copied them onto a sheet of paper, probably making more than one copy. A local printer issued the new song as a broadside. Shortly afterward, two Baltimore newspapers published it, and by mid-October it had appeared in at least seventeen other papers in cities up and down the East Coast.

This 

19th century version (MP3)

 of the Star-Spangled Banner was performed on original instruments from the National Museum of American History's collection. Arranged by G. W. E. Friederich, the music is played as it would have been heard in 1854.  

read more here

My Country 'Tis of Thee

"Samuel Francis Smith wrote the lyrics to "My Country 'Tis of Thee" in 1831,

[4]

 while a student at the 

Andover Theological Seminary

 in 

Andover, Massachusetts

. His friend 

Lowell Mason

 had asked him to translate the lyrics in some German school songbooks or to write new lyrics. A melody in 

Muzio Clementi

's Symphony No. 3 caught his attention. Rather than translating the lyrics from German, Smith wrote his own American patriotic hymn to the melody, completing the lyrics in thirty minutes.

Smith gave Mason the lyrics he had written and the song was first performed in public on July 4, 1831,

[4]

 at a children's 

Independence Day

 celebration at 

Park Street Church

 in Boston. First publication of "America" was in 1832.

[4]

"  

see all the verses here

America The Beautiful

"

In 1893, at the age of 33, Bates, an English professor at

Wellesley College

, had taken a train trip to

Colorado Springs

, Colorado, to teach a short summer school session at

Colorado College

. Several of the sights on her trip inspired her, and they found their way into her poem, including the

World's Columbian Exposition

in Chicago, the "White City" with its promise of the future contained within its alabaster buildings; the wheat fields of America's heartland

Kansas

, through which her train was riding on July 16; and the majestic view of the

Great Plains

from high atop Zebulon's

Pikes Peak

.

On the pinnacle of that mountain, the words of the poem started to come to her, and she wrote them down upon returning to her hotel room at the original

Antlers Hotel

. The poem was initially published two years later in

The Congregationalist

to commemorate the Fourth of July. It quickly caught the public's fancy. Amended versions were published in 1904 and 1913." 

read more here

The Pledge of Allegiance 

"

The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by Francis Bellamy (1855–1931), who was a 

Baptist

 minister, a 

Christian socialist

,

[5]

[6]

 and the cousin of socialist utopian novelist 

Edward Bellamy

 (1850–1898). The original "Pledge of Allegiance" was published in the September 8 issue of the popular children's magazine 

The Youth's Companion

 as part of the National Public-School Celebration of 

Columbus Day

, a celebration of the 400th anniversary of 

Christopher Columbus

's arrival in the Americas. The event was conceived and promoted by James B. Upham, a marketer for the magazine, as a campaign to instill the idea of American 

nationalism

 in students and sell flags to public schools.

[7]

 According to author Margarette S. Miller this was in line with Upham's vision which he "would often say to his wife: 'Mary, if I can instill into the minds of our American youth a love for their country and the principles on which it was founded, and create in them an ambition to carry on with the ideals which the early founders wrote into The Constitution, I shall not have lived in vain.'"

[8]

read more here

Classical Conversations Cycle 3 Weeks 15 - 18 Extra Activities

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Science

For this semester of science I highly recommend this unit:

http://www.

homeschoolcollection.com/

chemi

stry

/

Here is another elements song.  This one has the words so you can sing along!  A good friend of mine recommended it.

Look back at week 14 for a good video on how the Periodic Table of Elements was created.

Geography

We are thoroughly enjoying the tv series How the States Got Their Shapes.  It is on Netflix or click

here

to see them

http://www.history.com/shows/how-the-states-got-their-shapes/videos

.  

The first episode talks about how rivers and water shaped some of our states.  It goes along with this set of weeks well.  

We also bought the app

Stack the States

.  It is a great review game to play.

We are studying the Great Lakes and Niagara Falls.

Click here for some amazing great lakes pictures

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/05/great-lakes-are-the-greatest-photos_n_3846351.html

Here is a Great Lakes worksheet

http://www.education.com/files/402001_402100/402043/the-great-lakes-worksheet.pdf

Math

When I was searching for ways to enjoy studying metric measurement this popped up.  

I think we will do this this week to study measurement!  The original poster just used this as a rainy day game but it seems like a really fun way to work on measuring to me!

http://www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/math/area/Area-Perimeter-Worksheet-5.htm

If your child does not know how to multiply yet this can also be a good way to review skip counting.  "Lets skip count our 4's six times to find the answer to the first question"

Finding the area of a square is a good time to review skip counting your squares.

http://www.mathworksheets4kids.com/rectangle/square-area-easy1.pdf

Fun area of a triangle song

Homeschooling at Disney - Planning Part 2 - Accommodations and Food

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There are two good perks for going to Disney in the off season.  One there are fewer people so wait time for rides are low, and the resorts give a 30% discount.
We decided to stay at the Port Orleans Riverside Disney resort.  It is one of Disney's moderate resorts.  We needed a room that could accommodate five people.  On the morning that the 30% discount on room became available for our travel dates my husband got up and made the reservation for the room we wanted right away.  
If you stay at a Disney resort you do not have to pay for parking at the parks or for your magic bands.  We are a family of five and a basic magic band costs $13 each so that is $65 savings on magic bands.  We went to the parks for five days and parking is $17 a day so we saved $85 on parking.

You can take food and drinks into all of the park so before we left we bought breakfast items, snacks, and some lunch items to take along.  I packed a zip lock bag for breakfast and snack for each day before going to Disney.  That way while we were there all I had to do each morning was grab a bag out for breakfast in the hotel room and put one of the snack bags and some drinks in the backpack for our day.

We also had a good little lesson on profit when buying our bottled water and chips before going.  35 bottles of water at Wal-Mart cost us $4.  At Disney each bottle of water costs $2.50.  We did a little math lesson and figured out that by buying that water at home we potentially saved $83.50!

We decided not to do a Disney meal plan.  If you do a meal plan you have to pay for each person, for each day you are there.  Our kids are still little and they just do not eat enough for it to have been worth while for us this trip.  
This blog has a good post about cost of meal plans and what is included http://www.disneytouristblog.com/disney-dining-plan-costs-info-tips/

The other plus of paying out of pocket is not having to decipher what we could an couldn't get with a meal plan.  In all we ate about 6 quick service meals in the parks and 3 nice sit down meals.  Here is a list of some of the places we decided to eat and liked.
Earl of Sandwich in Downtown Disney
Fish and Chips in the U.K. at Epcot
Turkey Legs in Frontier Land at the Magic Kingdom

We ate sit down meals at 
Bells Castle in the Magic Kingdom
Germany in Epcot 
and Ohana at Disney's Polynesian Resort

Ohana was hands down our favorite nice sit down meal.  The food was AMAZING!  
Fish and Chips in the UK was my husbands favorite quick service meal and the kids loved the turkey legs the most.  

Our total expense on food purchased on the trip (including traveling days to and from Disney) was $160 LESS than the basic meal plan would have cost us.  
We will definitely eat at Ohana again.  We would also love to eat at more of the countries in Epcot and do a character meal some day so we may do a meal plan one day in the future.  I would want to plan out exactly where we would use the credits before going though so I didn't have to waste time on my trip figuring it out.