Spring Session Plans ALL SET!

Got every little piece tidied up this afternoon and it is like a weight has lifted from my shoulders. As I have said a bazillion times before, although I am willing to switch things up it is SOOOOO nice to just have things set and ready to go.

After some discussion DN has decided to stay on an every other week schedule, which means he will be here for only two or three days every two weeks and will complete the majority of his work at home. I had to switch things up a bit so that this could work, but I think that it will go well as long as he stays on top of things. KM's schedule will basically remain the same as it has, but we are tweaking a few things here and there to hers as well.

Literature -
City of Embers - DN

Animal Farm - DN

Math - 

Manga Joku - Both

Science - 

Biology Coloring Workbook - KM

Janice VanCleave's Bio Labs - Both
Usborne Science Encyclopedia - DN

Health & Phys. Ed. - 
Bowling - KM

Tennis - Both

Ice Skating- KM
Basketball - DN

Heads Up: Real News About Drugs and Your Body - Both
Mind Over Matter - Both


Social Sciences – U.S. History & Geography - 
A History of US Books 1-2 - K

Liberty Kids - K

Story of the US DVD -  - K

U.S. History – Basic Not Boring - K

Hip Hop History - U.S. - D

Westward, Ha-Ha!, 1800-1850 (America's Funny But True History) - D

The Journal of Douglas Allen Deeds: The Donner Party Expedition (My Name is America) - D

The Revolution - D
Journey North - Both
25 Map Crosswords - Both

Elective - Financial Literacy -
Building Your Future - Financial Literacy Curriculum - Both


Foreign Languages - 
Japanese from Zero!  - K

Spanish Grammar Study Cards- D

Spanish Conversation Demystified - D
Spanish (The 100+ Series) - D

Current Events - 
CNN Student News - Both

Ants Arrived - Let the Adventure Begin!!!

As part of our Biology studies we are going to be observing ants and will be chronically our adventures doing so on a new page located HERE!

Deschooling Update - Week 3

As I sit here typing DN is sitting across from me on the laptop excitedly blasting his way through spaceships with prime numbers playing Sigma Prime on Manga High. This is a kid who has said he hated math over and over and over again, yet he has become obsessed with beating these levels and getting a gold medal. I think I have found a key.

We had a really great week. We finished up a ton of lessons and are taking the next three weeks off from regular book work in order to enjoy the season. Saturday we finished up the bio experiments from last week and set up some interesting bean ones for this week -





We also had a lot of fun and enjoyed the beautiful weather before it is gone - of course I keep saying that and we keep having it, so I will just KEEP SAYING IT!!! On Monday we headed over to the courts and played some tennis, before we went to the local herring run to have a picnic, do some nature sketching and play some pooh sticks!

Today (Tuesday) we went to a local DCR ice rink for FREE public skate. DN is building his confidence and doing great. KM has begun skating backward, but thinks we need to go to a rink that skates clockwise so that she can turn to the left better. We also check in on one of the bean experiments and it seems to be coming along nicely.

All and all I would say it was quite the educational, entertaining and enjoyable week! If you want to check out some funny highlights from our day out see KM's you tube channel for - Rock Sliding and Other Silly Stuff and Playing Tennis

Adventures in Science!!!!

As I mentioned we are in deschool mode for DN and KM is on break this week since it is Thanksgiving, so we spent a lot of time doing Science.

We start off the week by using the downloaded copy of Janice VanCleave's Biology For Every Kid: 101 Easy Experiments That Really Work that I had on my kindle and let me tell you this is the first FULLY successful set of experiments that we have EVER done!!! Every single one was successful, easy to understand, follow and explain! LOVE LOVE LOVE this book!

Scientists at work - 

Growth Rate - this one will take a while, but we are going to measure the difference in rate from sunny to dark spot! 

Freezing Tissue - Which do you think froze first? Leave your guess in the comments section!

 

Hard to Freeze - 

Fluffy Raisins -

Before

After

Stand Up - 

wilted leaves

12 hours later - crisp, firm 

 and blue leaves! 

Sugary Leaves - what do you think the outcome of this one was? Leave your guess in the comments section!

We also took a trip into the Boston Museum of Science and here is a video KM pasted together of some highlights - The best part is at 4:40!!!

Woods Hole Aquarium Report

NOT Back to School Day - TAKE ONE!!!

We had planned a NOT Back to School Beach Day for a large group of home learners in our area, but unfortunately we had to postpone it because of Hurricane Irene power outage related issues. We are hoping that it will be able to run later this week, but today we got to take an adventure to a new spot that we have tried to go several times, Ellisville Harbor in Plymouth. We brought a few friends along and ran into some more as well!

It was a really nice relaxing day. The kids climbed on rocks, hunted crabs, relaxed after their lunch and I got to take some interesting photos!

Ironically we had to reschedule our day and our local schools are all had to do the same as well - they won't be going back until next week as they are all in outage zones! 

Looking Ahead to High School - Part 3

If you missed 1 or 2 be sure to check them out!


So we had no problem deciding on what KM will be using for her core text for Biology next year - Biology Demystified - she is very excited in trying this series out so that she can direct her learning fully on her own with these self-teaching guides. However we are working out the logistics of it being considered "high school" level if we leave out dissection labs. KM wants nothing to do with dissections, either in real life or virtual dissections with computer animated animals. She doesn't want to watch videos on it or anything. I completely understand and respect her position on it, so we are looking into other ways to get the concepts and ideas that dissections are suppose to be getting across. 

Here is a rather interesting essay/article that we read on the whys of dissection.

I am trying to compile a list of alternative resources and some that I found so far are -

• Dissection Alternatives
• Biology Coloring Book
• Teach Kind

If you have any to add please feel free to add them to the list or email! 

Genetics & DNA Study

Last Thursday we spent the WHOLE day working on the Thames & Kosmos Genetics & DNA kit that we had gotten a few months ago. We had planned on working on these projects over the next few weeks, but KM was so gungho that we did completed all the experiments and then some...

KM will be reading The Cartoon Guide to Genetics over our break and here are the links to all the resources we used -

• DNA Extraction
• Amazing Cells Supplemental Material
• Cloning Webquest
• University of Utah Print & Go Index
• BrainPop Cells
• BrainPop DNA - FREE
• BrainPop Complete Cellular Life & Genetics