Where we are now...

Hey folks, we have moved

www.elementalscience.com/blog

Can you hear the crickets chirpping???

I have been having problems accessing Blogger (the site has been blocked) for several months now. This is serious hampering my ability to post :). I haven't forgotten about this blog and I do intend to keep up with it more regularly, I think that I'm just going to have to find a different host or way to go about it. Anyways just wanted to let those of you who keep up with us that posting will be sporadic at best until I figure out a solution.

Weekly Report-Week 9

I can't believe that we have finished our first quarter already! I knew that we were starting early so that we could take off while we are in the States, but it just seems so early to have finished the first 9 weeks. I guess time flies when your having fun! Here's what we accomplished this week...

Language Arts: We spent the week reviewing our last 5 spelling lessons. We also played spelling baseball (not a hit) and spelling bingo (definitely a hit). We learned several more Latin nouns this week with Prima Latina. We also completed another analysis and imitation week with Aesop and several KISS grammar lessons. Princess read Stone Fox, which she loved. We also started reading Farmer Boy which princess has enjoyed, but I have found terribly boring to read, hopefully it will get better.

Math: We learned about liters and milliliters this week. This was our first section in the capacity unit and princess handled it well, but then again metric units are so much easier!

Science: We started studying the metalloid group. Princess was very interested to find out where we can find the elements boron and silicon. She still thinks that its cool that we are learning about what things are made of.

History: We studied Charles the 3rd and the 4th. We also looked at the Great Fire in London. Here's a project that princess did all on her own this week..
Other: We're still settling in, so none of the extras got done this week.

Pre-Order Intro to Science Printed Books

Now is the time to order your printed copy of Intro to Science! We will be putting our order into the printer on August 28th, so from now until then you will be able to order the printed version of Intro to Science for only $24.50 (regular price will be $25.98). That price will include media mail shipping to the continental US. You can pre-order your books on our website here, using Paypal. The books should ship out to you in late September.

Homeschool Showcase

The next edition of the Homeschool Showcase is up! Kris describes the Homeschool Showcase as a place "where we spotlight all the encouraging, inspiring and just plain fun ways that homeschooling families live and learn together". I've have enjoyed reading these posts for quite awhile and have gleaned quite a few ideas. I highly recommend that you check it out, especially since the Elemental Science blog is in it this time!

Weekly Report Week 8

Well, it took us two weeks, but we did manage to fit in a week of school despite moving. Here's a look at what we have completed...

Language Arts: We completed another list in SWO B. We began Kiss Grammar, so far we are really liking it. I'm also glad that we didn't start this last year as I don't think princess would have been ready for it then. We learned about Latin nouns with Prima Latina and we finished our writing project for CW Aesop.Math: We spent the week wrapping up weights & measurements. Weslowed down a bit for this unit because princess had a hared time with all the non-metric conversions but I feel that she's ready to move on, so capacity here we come!

Science: We spent the week learning about main group metals. we also did a lab on acids and bases so that we could use the pH paper we found! Princess really enjoyed playing with the pH paper (and so did I).

History: We learned about the 30 years war and played the game from the SOTW activity guide. We also read about what was going on in Japan during the same time. Finally we completed one of our State Study pages. Here's a look at that...
Electives: We did get to our recorder lesson, but that about all the extras we completed this week. Next week will be better... I hope.

To read more weekly reports, check out the Weekly Wrap-up.

Moving...

There's never a dull moment here! Recently an apartment came available in one of the buildings we have really been wanting to move into (think a lot more room and finally a western toilet, no more squatty potty!!!). The complex is small and the price is low, so when one becomes available you snatch it up. Which meant that we were moving sooner than we thought we would be. The great thing is that now we have a new school area! (The previous renter left this bookshelf/desk combo.)
Princess's room is big enough to have the school room as a part of it. We joke with her that now she will never be late for school, all she has to do is roll out of bed :).

Science Corner: The science of exploration

Every child loves to create things and my daughter is no exception. I'm always amazed at the different things she creates. Sometimes I get frustrated by all the mess (I know that I'm not the only one who feels this way!). I have to remind myself that she's learning. Exploration is the purest form of learning. I can tell her that she needs to have at least three sides for a building and that the roof helps to give the building more strength and she might even listen to me :), but chance are she will forget. But when she sits down and tries to put it together on her own, she learns through trial and error what gives her building the strength it needs to stand. She internalizes this information and the next time she tries to build a castle, she'll remember what she has learned and apply it to her latest creation.
So how do we as parents encourage exploration as a form of learning?

1. Provide them the materials: I keep a box of school stuff, such as masking tape, paper, card-stock, paper clips, rubber bands, pencils and so on. She knows that she can take things from this box without asking at any time and I won't be upset (unless she doesn't clean up :)). I also entertain all requests for other materials she needs. For example, when she asked to borrow my plastic bowl and several chopsticks. I asked what she wanted them for; she said for a project. So I said that it was fine, knowing that I probably wouldnt get my chopsticks back. That day she build a bridge for her Littlest Pet Shop animals to go across. She learned which way to place to chopsticks so that they would hold the weight of her animals as they crossed. That day she learned firsthand about the principles of physics. For me, it was worth losing a few chopsticks.
2. Fill their minds with ideas: We regularly watch Mythbusters which has been fodder for many a project! We use a science program that encourages experimentation and exploration. We also read a lot of books, both fiction and non-fiction. Books are great sources for inspiration. The book Castle Diary inspired my daughter to build her own castle out of construction paper and masking tape. A book on minerals inspired her to grow her own crystals and the list goes on and on. The point is to provide an environment in which they can be inspired to explore the topics more.


3. Explore things yourself: When your child asks, mom how does this work? Don't be afraid to say I don't know, let's try to figure it out.

It's so important to give our children the opportunity to stretch their imagination and to try out their ideas through exploration.

What happens...

when two chemists find the street with all the science supplies on it?

They come home with a microscope...

and pH paper...

and more than I can show here!

One of the benefits of living overseas is that we have places like cell phone street, plumbing supply street, wood boards street and science supply street! You'd be amazed (or maybe a little horrified) at what we can get. It's a dream for a chemist!

Weekly Report Week 1-7 of 3rd grade

Yep, you read that right, weeks 1-7! I can't believe that we have already finished that much school. I thought instead of listing what we've done over the last 7 weeks, I'd share what we are using and what I think of it so far, so here it goes...

Bible: We've been using plans that I wrote for a survey of the New Testament. Last year we did the Old Testament and made several lapbooks to go along with our study. This year princess was tired of lapbooking so we have been making mini books instead. So far, so good. This won't take us all year, so I'm still researching what we will use next.

Math: We've continued on with Singapore Math. Every year we use this program I fall more and more in love with it! I'm so impressed with how it teaches a student the language of math. We have also been having game day Friday where we play the games suggested in the HIG for the week. It's been fun!

Language Arts: Our readers and read-alouds are going well, princess has enjoyed them so far. We've continued with Spelling Workout and now that we are on lesson 23 I'm finally starting to see some progress in her spelling. This series is not the most fun, but it gets the job done and that was what I was looking for. We've started Prima Latina and princess is enjoying learning Latin. I know that this series sometimes gets a bad rap as being boring, but we are thoroughly enjoying our introduction to Latin. Finally, we added Classical Writing Aesop A this year. We are doing the Analysis & Imitation one week and the writing project the next week. So far, we both really enjoy this program. It took me several times of reading through the Core book to really get how to teach it, but I really thing that CW is making me a better writing teacher. I really have no complaints about this program. We do plan to start adding in KISS grammar over the next several weeks as I feel princess needs some more concentrated work in grammar.

Science: We are using Chemistry for the Grammar Stage this year. I have to admit that I was a bit worried since Chemistry is my favorite, I really wanted princess to love it as well. I happy to report that she has caught the Chemistry bug!

History: We are using Story of the World 3 this year (you can see our plans for this under the free stuff tab). I love this series! Every year I wonder if I have it in me to plan it all out again and I begin to look for something different. I always come back to SOTW and the AG because it's just that good. So far princess has really enjoyed this volume as well.

Electives: We are continuing on with Art Adventures at Home, our third year with it. This is a simple yet effective art curriculum and I can see the progress princess has made over the years. We also started the Usborne Book of the Recorder and finally music instruction is getting done! I'm trying to fit in artist composer studies, but with the addition of little man, it's just not getting done.

Well, that's how our year has been so far, thanks for reading and if you want to see what other homeschoolers are planning for 2010-2011, check this out.

So where have I been...

Well, my old computer died and it takes awhile to get a new one to here. So in the meantime I haven't had access to blogger, but never fear the new computer is here! We've been doing school all this time, so I'll post more about that in a bit. For now I'm off to play (er...um...figure out how this thing works) with my new computer!

What have we been up to...

It's been busy here! We've been getting used to having little guy around, which has been easy because he's been a great baby. We did have quite a scare when little guy had to have emergency surgery to repair a hernia. Thankfully he came through just fine, but I think it was quite possibly the longest hour of my life. Princess has been begging to do school again, so we have done a few days of it. So far, so good. I'm pleased with all that we are using and I think that third grade will be a very good year for us :).

I've also been putting the finishing touches on Elemental Science's newest program, Intro to Science. Intro to Science is a complete 36 week set of plans to introduce your early elementary student to the world of science. It is designed to be used with K and 1st graders, but the plans include ideas for adding in your older students. The main spine for this program is More Mudpies and Magnets. The plans include a weekly topic and introduction, experiments, nature study, plus additional books and activities. Two scheduling options are included so that you can choose if you want to do science two days a week or five days a week. The student pages include all coloring pages, experiment sheets and activity pages that you will need for your student. It's available for purchase as an eBook at this time and you can view samples of it here.

Baby has arrived and I'm home

For those of you who follow this blog regularly, I thought I'd let you all know that on April 29th, we welcomed our son into the world. He was 6 lbs, 8 oz and 19.8 inches long. He's such a cute little guy and I'm recovering well. Princess is loving being a big sis, but surprisingly she misses school! We've got a couple more weeks though before I'm ready to tackle that again :).

Weekly Report-Last one of second grade!

We did it! We've finished the work I wanted to finish for second grade and with a few days to spare before the baby comes. Which is good because his birthdate was moved up to April 29th. Here's a run down of the last little bit of second grade...

LA: Princess finished reading The Corn Grows Ripe which she really enjoyed. We finished up to lesson 16 in Spelling Workout, we'll pick this back up again next year. We also took the final test for Writing With Ease. I'm very pleased with all that she learned this year in Writing with Ease and we'll incorporate some of the principles when we use Classical Writing next year.

Math: Princess spent the first part of the week in review. I gave her the 3A placement test, which she passed with flying colors, so onto 3B next year. Over our break, I'll have her work through the Miquon green book just to keep up her skills.

Science: We doubled up a few days and finished our earth science unit this week. Princess declared that science was her favorite subject this year, hope she'll enjoy chemistry just as much :).

Our other subjects were already finished for the year, so it was a relatively simple week for us. All in all we had a great year! I feel like we've found curriculums and teaching styles that work for us. I'm really proud of how princess is doing in school and look forward to starting third grade at the end of June! If you want to see our line up for third grade, just click on the curriculum tab at the top. Be sure to check out more weekly reports at the weekly wrap-up.

Types of Rock Lapbook

Two weeks ago princess and I made this simple lapbook to review the types of rock we had studied as part of our earth science unit. Here's a closer look at it...

We started by taping together two pieces of carstock (each was about the size of half a sheet of paper). Princess wrote on the front Types of Rock, but since it was red the picture didn't come out very well.

Then we began working on the inside of the book. First we cut out the poem we worked on memorizing during the rock unit and pasted in the center. Next we cut out 4 books, one for each type of rock we studied, igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic and rocks from space. Princess insisted that we include rocks from space :). We colored and glued on pictures for each type. (Both the pictures and the poem are part of Earth Science and Astronomy for the Grammar Stage) Here's what it looked like...

We then wrote on the inside of each book the different types of rock that fell into that type that we had studied. For instance on the inside of the igneous booklet we wrote granite, microgranite and basalt. Here's what that looked like...

Although this lapbook was very simple, it was an effective review of what we were learning. Princess had fun making this lapbook and has used it as a reference since the. I love when we can have fun and still learn! I hope that this post will give you an idea of how you can use lapbooks for review.

Weekly Report-Week 33

Truckin’ right along. We finished another week here and it went very well. It seems that princess works quite a bit harder when the end is in sight! Here’s what we accomplished…

Language Arts-Princess began reading The Corn Grows Ripe, this will be her last assigned book this year, so she’s trying to finish it ahead of schedule. We completed another week of Spelling Workout and Writing with Ease. I’m amazed at how much better princess is doing dictation. I’m thinking that next year we may blend Writing with Ease and Classical Writing Aesop.

Math-We finally finished the multiplication section with our x9 facts. We ended the unit with a game of Multiplication War, which princess really enjoyed! I’ll have to remember to suggest playing this later on. We only have one more unit left in 3A, so it looks like we will finish it before the baby comes.

Science-We spent the week studying fossils. Here’s a look at her narration sheet…

History-We finished Story of the World 2 this week! It was a good year, not as good as last year, but I think that’s partly due to the fact that I didn’t get the activity guide. Next week we’ll spend some time catching up on our timeline and looking back at what we learned this year.

Extras-We didn’t get to any of the extras this week.

That’s a look at our week, hope yours was good too!

Weekly Report-Week 30 & 31

We have been keeping up with school, but I haven't been as good about keeping up with this blog :). I forgot how draining the last few weeks of pregnancy can be; there's nothing like feeling as if you are a beached whale! Princess has been a great helper and is continuing to work very hard on school so that we can finish before our little guy makes his appearance. Here's what we have accomplished over the last two weeks...

Language Arts: Princess read a biography on William Shakespeare and an abridged version of Romeo and Juliet. She loved learning more about The Bard of Avon! We've kept up with Writing with Ease and Spelling Workout. Princess has also been doing more of her copywork in cursive. Her cursive is looking great (much better than her mom's :))!

Math: We've been working through her x 6, 7 and 8 facts as well as continuing to drill her other facts. She's doing a great job and we are very close to finishing her 3A textbook. I wasn't sure we would be able to do this before the baby came, so I'm very proud of her efforts in math!

Science: We've continued to look at different types of rock. We also made a lapbook on the types of rock which I hope to post more about later this week.

History: We studied Queen Elizabeth, William Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh and the Lost Colony. Princess is loving history once again, of course this happens when we only have two chapters left :).

Other: Princess has continued her clay class; she has 3 more before she completes the first level of study. Our other extras have fallen by the wayside, but I hope to pick them up again next year.

Hope you've had a great week, thanks for reading about ours!

Weekly Report-Week 29

I'm a bit late getting our weekly report up due to the fact that hubby is out of town and I haven't had time or energy to write it before this! We did manage to get in an almost full week of school. Sorry about the lack of pictures, hubby took the camera with him. Here's the run down...

Language Arts: Princess read and Magic Schoolbus Chapter book on rocks. She loves these books. They are easy for her, but I figure she had earned a break. We read the Apprentice together this week, which we both thoroughly enjoyed. We also completed another week of Spelling Workout and Writing with Ease.

Math: We spent some time on x6 facts and some time on x7 facts. Princess doesn't have them memorized yet, but she does understand how to do the problems. I allow her to use her fact chart when she does her workbook exercises which is working quite well. We are still working on daily drill without the chart.

Science: We talked about sedimentary rock this week and we tested our seashells for the presence of limestone. Princess also got the DK Rocks and Minerals book this week which she has really enjoyed looking at. She can't read it yet, but the pictures in the book are beautiful and she's been fascinated. She now wants to be a geologist :).

History: We read about the Reformation and the Renaissance.

Others: Princess worked on typing and went to her clay class this week.

Education of Me: Didn't happen this week...

That was our week, I look forward to catching up on all of yours.

Tapestry of Grace Giveaway

I have a love affair from a distance with Tapestry of Grace. I love their curriculum and think it would be perfect for us to use, but I just have one teeny, tiny problem. I can't afford it. Oh I could buy a DE year plan, but then I wouldn't have any money left over for books and since we live overseas and have no access to a library, having no books would be pointless. So I have drooled over the plans and then walked away realizing reality. Well today someone posted over at the WTM forums that TOG is giving away all four years of their DE plans!!! So of course I entered! I seriously considered not posting something here as I would like to be the only one who enters, thus guarunteeing my success, but that's not really fair. I'm sure that there are others out there just like me. So go check it out and enter to win!

Weekly Report-Week 28

School went well this week for the most part. I’m a bit cranky as I’m getting to the “I’m always uncomfortable” stage of my pregnancy. Thankfully, princess have given me quite a bit of grace :). Here’s what we accomplished this week…

Language Arts: Princess read The Whipping Boy this week. On the second day of her reading she threw the book down and said “I’m not reading anymore because it’s not fair what’s happening”, then she promptly picked it up and read several more pages. I had to laugh, but I’m also so proud of her because she’s gotten to the point where she gets engrossed in the story instead of in the act of reading the book. Yeah, progress!! We also completed another week of Writing with Ease, First Language Lessons and Spelling Workout.

Math: We spent the week multiplying by 6. Princess has caught onto this quickly, but we still need to keep working on her facts. Thankfully we have a game on her DS to help with that!

Science: We spent the week studying rocks, specifically what rock is and how it can be formed. We did a fun, but simple experiment about lava involving a toothpaste tube! We squeezed the tube to have the pressure build up and then opened the cap a bit and wah lah!

Princess can’t stop talking about this one. Here a look at the experiment page we did for her notebook…
History: We talked about Martin Luther and Henry the VIII this week. Princess was enthralled with Henry the VIII, so much so that when we went to meet her dad for lunch the first thing out of her mouth was the poem about his wives (Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced beheaded survived). My hubby turned very quickly to me and said, what are you teaching her? I had a good laugh and then explained that we had read the poem in Story of the World that day. We all had a good laugh about it after that! I’m amazed at all the “informational pegs” that princess is picking up along the way.

Extras: We managed to get our artist composer study done this week. Princess also went to clay class this week and brought home this project…
I’m really amazed at what they are teaching her to do, it’s far beyond my ability!

Education of Me: I started Gulliver’s Travels this week and frankly, I’m bored. I’m going to keep plugging on and try to finish it, but I’ve taken it off our read-aloud list for next year. Maybe we’ll read it during the logic stage, but I’m guessing it’s going to get saved for high school.

Hope you had a wonderful week! Be sure to check out what others are doing over at the Weekly Wrap-up.