Biology for the Grammar Stage: New Edition

I just wanted to let you all know that Biology for the Grammar Stage has been revised. Several of the books planned were taken out of print this summer and it became apparent that a revision was in order. The new edition lays out a 20 week study of animals using the Kingfisher First Encyclopedia Of Animals, a 10 week study of the human body using the DK First Human Body Encyclopedia and a 6 week study of plants using Plant Parts from the Life of Plants Series. It still includes vocabulary, experiments, narrations and ongoing projects. The student workbook has also been revised to add some new pictures and change some of the narration and experiments sheets. The workbook still includes all the pages you need for the ongoing projects, narrations and experiments that are planned. You can check out the new samples here.

If you orderd Biology for the Grammar Stage within the last several months and would like to have the new edition, please email me at info@elementalscience with biology in the subject line, your paypal email and your approximate order date (so I can verify your order). I hope that you all will enjoy the revisions.

Summer Review: Science Lapbooks

We have been working on lapbooks for the past several day to review what we learned this year in Biology. We used the pictures from my program Biology for the Grammar Stage and the narrations that she wrote in her notebook from this year. Here's a closer look at the plant lapbook...

Here's a closer look at the parts of a flower book. We pasted the parts of a flower poem next to the booklet and then I had princess draw lines to the different parts mentioned in the poem. She knew each one without my help.

Here's a look at the types of seeds book, for this we just colored the pictures and labeled them.

Here's a look at the parts of a plant book. We pasted the parts of a plant poem above the flap book and them cut one of the pictures so that it would show the four different parts on different flaps.

Then we wrote her narrations from the student workbook under each flap, here's a look at that...

This was a really fun project and a great way to review. I was really surprised how much princess remembered. You can see more pictures from our other two lapbooks over at my yahoo group. Hopefully it inspires you to look at review time in a different way!

Weekly Report-Week 27

I spent the week agonizing over what to use next year and realized that there is alot out there! It's sometime overwhelming to see how much there is and you just have to stop searching. Anyways decisions have been made and order will be placed soon, so that the decisions can't be changed! You can read our plans for next year below. Despite my lack of concentration, school was done this week. Here's what we did...

Language Arts: Princess read her first Level 3 book this week, at first she was intimidated but once she got into it, she did fine. We also are enjoying reading a little bit of Grammar Land everyday. This is such a neat way to introduce grammar!

Math: We began 2B with reviewing addition and subtration, so far so good.

History: We talked about the birth of Rome and the legend of Romulus and Remus. We made a fasces with chopsticks instead of craft sticks which I could find here. Princess got a good laugh out of the project because she thought it was very funny to make an axe out out what we use to eat with!

Science: We talked about the respiratory system this week and made our own lung. We had to use a smaller bottle as I haven't found a 2-liter bottle yet. This week was definately an adventure in how to do project in our new home! Anyways, here's a picture of our lung...

Other: We continue to talk about Van Gogh and Mozart. Other than that, the extras just didn't get done this week.

Hope you had a great week, thanks for reading about ours.

Weekly Report

This was a typical week at our house as far as school goes. Except for me, there are just not enough hours in the day to get done all that I want to. I need a few 28 hour days to put the final touches on Chemistry for the Grammar Stage! Maybe next week will be better. Anyways here's a look at what princess did this week...

Language Arts: Princess read "Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia" this week and she did a great job. I also caught her reading one of our previous books to her animals at bedtime! I was really encouraged as I was beginning to wonder how I was going to transition her from oral reading to independent reading. Now I'm thinking that time will do the trick for me!

Math: We talked about our multiplication 3 facts this week. I'm realizing that all that time working on skip counting was really worth it as it is making mulitlication a breeze to teach. I also stumbled upon this scene the other day...

Daddy and daughter working on algebra problems. She actually got what he was doing and did a few problems herself, which is very scary to me. Eventually having to teach calculus is a very strong possibility!

History: We spent the week with Alexander the Great. Princess was far more interested in his horse Buchephalus, though. I really like SOTW and the Activity guide, but the projects are getting harder to do because I don't have access to the same supplies that I did in the States. None the less we are still enjoying history!

Science: We studied the skeletal system this week. Princess was very excited to find out that bones keep her from looking like a pile of jelly (her words, not mine). Here's a look at her notebook page from this week...Other: We watched part 1 and 2 of the BBC animated version of the Tempest on you tube. We really enjoyed these. Princess spent some more time working on her cross-stitch butterfly which is now two-thirds of the way done. I'm really proud of the job she is doing on it. We also did our nature study this week which you can read about in the post below.

Hope you had a wonderful week, thanks for reading about ours....

Weekly Report 12/1/08-12/5/08

It looks like we will be moving soon, so we couldn't really take off all of December for Christmas studies as I had planned. So we are doing a hybrid of normal and Christmas studies. Here's what our week looked like...

Language Arts: The switch back to ETC has been a successful one and I'm glad we did it. Also this week, princess began reading a Level 2 book, which is a step up from what we have been doing. She's doing well and I'm happy with the progress she's making in reading.

Math: We completed the unit of weight, next week review!

Science: We spent the week with reptiles, not princess's favorite animals, but we still had fun. Here's another look at her habitat diorama which is turning out to have a very diverse animal population!

History/Geography: We are working on a unit on Christmas symbols along with Christmas Around the World. It's going well and princess is enjoying the projects. Here's a look our pomador balls. Princess just kept making them!

Other: We are also reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, I love this book! We also sponge painted with shapes to make objects and read half of Hans Christian Andersons "The Pine Tree"

It was a great week and I'm looking forward to the next! Hope you guys enjoyed your week too!

Weekly Report 11/17/08-11/21/08

It's Friday again, time for another weekly report! I don't know about you, but it feels like this month has just flown by. I cannot believe that Thanksgiving is next week! We will be taking the week off to read Thanksgiving books and make Thanksgiving projects. It should be a fun week! Anyways, here's what we did this week...

LA: Princess read Oink and Pearl, she also independently read the story of Gingerbread Man from Treadwell's Reading Literature-Primer. I'm very proud of her, it's a big step to read a book on your own. We started back up with ETC again and I'm very glad we did! It seems to be going well, but more than that, it's what princess really needs to be focusing on right now.

Math: We finished our unit on length and did a review on all the concepts we have studied so far in 2A. Princess knew what she was doing, finally! We done a few reviews in the past where she had forgotten everything we had just studied, so we were back at square one again. Not this time, we will be moving on! I think what has really helped is that fact that she has almost all her addition/subtraction facts down. They really are important :)!

Science: This week was our last week with birds, now on to reptiles! Princess has decided that she wants to make an animal lapbook with all the animals we have studied. She's on a bit of a lapbook kick since we made our first one at the beginning of the week. She loves the idea of them, so we will see how the animal lapbook goes. For now, here's a picture of her narrations from this week...

History: We studied the early Greeks and made a Greek vase out of paper mache. It's currently a work in progress and I'll try to share pictures when it's done. For our read-aloud we read Usb. Greek myths which I'll put here because it's technically history. It's ok, but it's not our favorite read-aloud for the year. Which is alright, because you can't love them all!

Electives: We listened to Debussy's Claire de Lune, which is my favorite piece of his, princess was not as impressed. We also finished Nesbit's version of "A Midsummer's Night Dreams", we both enjoyed this. We actually spent time on her cross-stitch butterfly this week and now I would say that she's about 2/3 of the way done. Finally we did splatter stenciling, here's a picture of princess hard at work...

Hope you had an enjoyable week and thanks for reading about ours!

Week Report-11/10/08-11/14/08

Another successful week, here's what it looked like...

LA: We decided to back off of All About Spelling for now and pick back up Explode the Code. I love AAS, but princess does not and I'm not sure that it's worth the battle right now. We will finish the ETC series and then move onto spelling. Princess is happy about the decision and I'm happy because we are still working on reinforcing phonics which was my goal for this year. Princess is still working through FLL. She also read Julius this week along with part of Oink and Pearl.

Math: We had our end of unit test and princess passed with flying colors. I'm so proud of her, her math skills have really taken off! So we will leave addition/subtraction within 1000 and move onto length. I know that princess will enjoy this unit because she is constantly measuring things around the house, she thinks it's great fun!

Science: We did the coolest experiment I have ever done this week! It didn't end up exactly as planned, but isn't that when real learning takes place? We dissolved an eggshell in vinegar, what was left was like a rubber ball and you could see the yolk, a bit strange, but very fun to look at. The egg was suppose to shrink, but instead it grew, good old osmosis. As a scienctist I should have predicted this, but alas, some of my smart genes left when I was pregnant with her. So now our egg is in salt to draw out the water and see if we can shrink the egg! Also we continued our study of birds. Here's an update on her habitat diorama...

History: We studied the Minoans this week. We also read a book on Atlantis because this was a subject that I was fascinated with as a kid. So naturally I wanted to share it with princess. Next week onto the Greeks!

Others: We finished Homer Price; the verdict: princess enjoyed it! For artist study we looked at Renior's Girl with a watering can, which is one of my favorite paintings of all times. For art we did some styrofoam printing which turned out to be a very neat project. We are really enjoying Art Adventures @ Home. Finally we started Pilgrim Stories, which I downloaded from Google books. We have both enjoyed this and I hate to say it, but I'm learning alot about the pilgrims and what led them to leave England.

Now off to see if we can get a little nature study into our week! Hope you had a wonderful week too!

Weekly Report 10/13/08-10/17/08

We had a great week! I can't believe that we are already done 10 weeks of school.

LA: Princess has completed Step 11 in All About Spelling and I am pleased with her progress. We began dication this week and she did great! She is finished another Hattie Rabbit book this week. I am so proud of how well she is reading.

Math: We started addition with renaming and princess caught on quickly for which I'm very grateful. We also worked on skip counting (she almost has by 3's down) and drills. The math drills have really helped her pick up speed in Singapore.

History: We finished up Ancient China with our Ming Bowl project. I learned a valuble lesson, use plastic wrap with air-dry clay when shaping it around a bowl! Here's our completed project...

We also started Ancient Africa with the Anansi tales.

Science: This was our last week of mammals, next week birds! I thought I'd share an updated picture of our habitat posters.

Other: We did crayon rubbings for art and listened to La Mer by Debussy for our music study. Princess decided that Debussy was her favorite to listen to, this is our first composer study so we will see how long that lasts. Also we started Mountain Born this week. I was alittle nervous about this book since so many people seem to have problems with it. Great news, princess likes it! I slowed down my reading a bit to give her more time to absorb it and that has really helped.

Hope you all had a great week!

Weekly Report 9/22/08-9/26/08

We just finished week 7 and things are going well. Here's our week in review...

Language Arts--We are trying a new format with FLL. I have taken the definitions that we are learning and applying them to copywork. This is working so much better. In fact princess is able to identify several pronouns and most nouns well. This week she read two books(I have only planned one a week) so now she is three books ahead of my schedule. I'm going to have to add some more books!

Math--We spent the week reviewing addition with Singapore 2A. Princess is doing well and enjoying all the games that are scheduled in the home instructor's guide. She doesn't realize that she's doing math!

History--We studied Sargon and Hammurabi this week. Princess made her own seal and code of law. Both were fun projects. In the picture you can see her code of law and her seal at the bottom.

Science--We studied several animals and did an experiment on ear size. Here's a picture of the food chart that we have been working on. It includes all the animals we studied so far. Also be sure to check out our outdoor hour challenge post below to see about our nature study for this week.

Electives--This week we began our artist study with Renoir, one of my favorite artist. Princess seemed to really enjoy this, we'll see how it goes. We also did an art project in which we drew our favorite 5 objects with the most favorite being bigger and more prominent. Princess did a great job!

Hope you had a great week, too!

Weekly Report 9/8/08-9/12/08

Week 5 down and I cant' believe it! Here's our week in review...

LA: I thought I'd post a picture of princess doing All About Spelling. We are really liking this program, it's been a very gentle introduction to spelling and a great review of phonics. Also I can see that she is starting to pay more attention to the whole word while reading. I don't know if this is from AAS or not, but I'm pleased! We continued with FLL, completing 4 lessons and she read Hurray for Hattie Rabbit which was such a cute book!

Math: We began 2A and she's doing wonderful. We also started something new. I have been doing the Singapore unit and then the corresponding Miquon section, but after reading a post about the downsides of doing this I started to look at why I was using Miquon. I want it to reinforce Singapore, but I also want Miquon to shine. So we are going to do Miquon Fridays. This Friday we worked on the Red book, we have about one-third of this book left.

History: We talked about the New Kingdom of Egypt this week and we made bread statues. This was quite a messy project and I wasn't sure it was going to turn out, but here's the end result. I included the one I made in the picture. We finished the week with an archaeological hunt which was great fun for princess! I put together everything we had made over the last few weeks along with a few surprises and I wrote her name in hieroglyphics then made a map for her to follow. She had a blast! Also, I thought I'd show you a picture of our wall timeline now that it has some figures on it. If you click on the picture you can see it much better!

Read-Aloud: We started Homer Price and read up to my favorite chapter about the doughnut machine!

Science: We kept studying mammals and did an experiment on how the camels wide foot makes it easier to walk in the sand. Here' an update on her habitat diorama, we only have two animals in there right now, but we still have 15 weeks to go!

Hope you had a great week too!

Weekly Report 9/1/08-9/5/08

Here's our week in review...

LA--Princess is a week ahead in reading and I was beginning to worry that I chose books that were to easy. This week she slowed down a bit and it finally being somewhat challenges in her reading. Other than that, we are loving All About Spelling and First Language Lessons. We also started memorizing Days of the week, here a picture of the sheet we have on the wall to remind us to work on it everyday!

Math--Princess finished Singapore's PM 1B! Congrats to her!

History--We spent the week focusing on the middle kingdom of Egpypt. Princess made braclets and a monkey doll (you can see from the picture it's not completely authentic, but she had fun!). We also did some notebooking and copywork. We finished the week talking about the Rosetta Stone and how it unlocked the mysteries of the ancient Egyptians

Read-Aloud--We finished Charlotte's Web this week. I admit it, I had to choke back the tears when Charlotte died. I never thought I'd be on of those Mom's who cried during read-aloud, but for some reason I did. Princess however handled it well.

Science--We continued our study of mammals. Here's a picture of one of our habitat posters with some of the animals in it!

Art--I am so excited about the art curriculum we are using this year, it's Art Adventures at Home. There are three levels and each level has three years of instruction in it, that's 9 years total. It has been easy for me and so much fun for princess. She has an outlet for her creativity and I feel like I am teaching her something about art at the same time. This week we talked about how we can use lines to tell a story that is in our imagination. Princess chose to draw her trip to space complete with a moon made out of cheese! Here's the picture (I have green alien ears and her dad has blue alien ears because that's our favorite colors).

Hope you had a great week too, thanks for reading!

Weekly Report--8/25/08-8/29/08

Another week under our belt and I am so confident in the changes I have made for this year. I feel like I've found the right balance in our homeschool. It's been a bit more work for me, but when I look at her notebooks and see how much she recalls, I know that it's all worth it. Enough about that, here's our week in review...

LA: We began alphabetizing this week and learned the first two rules of spelling. I was surprised how well princess did, we have never formally discussed alphabetizing, but somewhere along the way it sunk in. Turns out that the fridge also doubles as a magnet board for AAS! We also learned about writing dialoge's from Sonlight's LA. At this point I think all that we will use from that is the writing assignment, which princess really enjoys.

Math: We are in the home stretch to finish Singapore's PM 1B. We started the last unit on money today and I expect that we will finish the remainder next week. I am so pleased with the progress princess has made. She really gets it and I think that she's ready to move on.

History: We finished up the Nile with a salt dough version of the river that we could flood, here's the before and after pictures. We then tried to drain away the water and take more pictures, but you can't really see how the water stayed behind, so nothing to share from that. However princess did enjoy it, we ended up flooding the Nile several more times this week. We also began talking about mummies and pyramids. We made some scented oil that we will use for our chicken mummy in a few week, can't believe that I'm going to do that one! All in all we are really enjoying Story of the World.

Read-Aloud: Wilbur just got dropped off at the fair and yes, princess is still enjoying it!

Science: We began to talk about mammals this week. I included a picture of her narrations sheet from this week. We also made habitat posters(see below) so that all our animals will now have a home to go to. We also did an experiment to show how cat's eyes differ from ours. It was great fun for princess. She is really getting into science this year.

Hope you had a great week too!

Mom, can we just do this...

Don't you love it when you child comes up with more to do! My princess decided yesterday that just putting animals in her habitat diorama wasn't enough. She wanted to make a diorama for each habitat. I (being the voice of reason) suggested that we make habitat posters instead. That way she can add each of the animals that we study. I drew the habitats and we used watercolors to paint them. We will add animals at the end of each week to the posters and her diorama, it should be fun! Here's what I was able to pull out of my hat (I'm not the best artist, so be kind.)

Weekly Report-8/18/08-8/22/08

Well we have our second full week under our belts and I am so pleased with how things are going! I really feel like we are hitting our stride this year. Anyways, here's our week in review...

LA: Princess practiced segmenting words into sounds this week with All About Spelling. I am very pleased with how she is doing and the program itself. We have also been reviewing what we previously learned with First Language Lessons and I'm looking forward to getting into something new next week. Princess's reading in progressing nicely, I even caught her reading a library book to the dog during rest time. I love those kind of moments!

Math: We wrapped up subtraction within 100 this week. Here's a sample of her work. Next week we will be reviewing the unit of numbers within 100 and beginning money.

History: We talked about the earliest people and made cave paintings. We also talked about the earliest writing and princess made her own cuneiform tablet. Here's the notebook pages we did for those, if you click on the picture you can see the projects better. We also began to study Egypt, next week we will build a salt dough model of the Nile which I'm beginning to think is going to be a bigger project than I orginially anticipated, we shall see.

Read-Aloud: Still in Charlotte's Web and still enjoying it!

Science: We spent the week talking about habitats and finished it up with making our own habitat diorama, as promised here is a picture. Princess chose a coniferous forest for her habitat. We painted the creek, the trees and the rocks and the assembled it. We had a great time doing this together. Now we will put the proper animals in there as we study them and hopefully I'll share another picture of that when we are done our animal study.

Hope you had a great week too!