Germs Game

We just finished three smaller unit studies on germs, animal classification, and lizards. Since we were only going to be spending a few weeks on each one, I wrote one Writing Menu for the children for all three units. The idea for a Writing Menu came from a delightful book by Melissa Forney called "The Writing Menu." Basically, the children get to choose writing assignments from a list of choices which are divided into categories. The categories are Appetizers, Main Courses, and Desserts. My 6th grade daughter chose to make her own board game with a germs theme as one of her assignments. My 4th grade son helped with the clay figures that are part of the game.

Here are the guidelines for the board game:

***Make your own game with a germ, animal classification, or reptile theme. Think of a title for your board game, create rules, and add special steps on the board such as “You come down with the e coli bacteria and need to stay in bed for two days. Miss a turn.” Write questions about your topic on index cards to be used during the game. Write the answers on the backs of the index cards. You must include at least 30 question cards. You will also need game markers. The game board should be decorated with artwork appropriate to your topic. (50 points)

I would make one change to the instructions, though. Thirty question cards is really not enough - 50 or more would be better for actually playing the game. We have played the game a few times now and more question cards would be great.

I just love these types of assignments - they integrate several different school subjects and encourage creativity. Playing the game also serves as a great review about germs!

Middle Ages Lapbook

Photobucket Album

Click on the album above to see detailed pictures of my daughter's Middle Ages lapbook.

The front cover of her lapbook is a magazine cover that she designed on Print Master called "Torture Times." You can also see a tiny bit of chain mail that we attached to the front cover. The chain mail was a rather failed craft attempt but we did manage to make short chains!

You can see detailed pictures of the lapbook by clicking on the picture above. Included within the lapbook are the following topical components:

• Black Death timeline


• mini-book about rats


• effects of the Black Death


• symptoms of the Black Death


• the Plague Doctor


• How was the Plague spread?


• mini-book about fleas


• letter to the king with suggestions to stop the spread of the plague


• number of people killed by the plague


• becoming a knight


• Where in the world was the plague?


• 3 positive outcomes of the plague


• other names for the plague


• meaning of "Ring Around the Rosy"


• pictures/definitions of common weapons


• medicine in the Middle Ages


• duties of a knight


• common punishments/prisons


• religious figures with government influence


• castle jobs


• plague vocabulary


• duties of a parish priest


• the crusades mini-book


• the feudal system


• mini-book describing a medieval feast


• differences between peasant women and noble women


• dates for the Middle Ages


• top reasons why you wouldn't want to be a peasant or serf


• a knight in armor


• apprenticeship booklet


• differences in what wealthy and common people ate


• a calendar of Medieval labors


• fun and games in the middle ages

For the lapbook, I primarily used three resources:

Hands of a Child Middle Ages Project Pack

Teacher Created Resources Medieval Times Thematic Unit

The Bubonic Plague lapbook from Homeschool Share (free).

We used an extensive list of books and DVDs during our unit study. Here is a complete list of the resources that we used in addition to the teacher's guides already mentioned:

Anno’s Medieval World by Mitsumasa Anno
Archers, Alchemists, and 98 Other Medieval Jobs You Might Have Loved or Loathed by Priscilla Galloway
Custard the Dragon and the Wicked Knight by Ogden Nash
Do Knights Take Naps? By Kathy Tucker
First Facts About the Middle Ages by Fiona Macdonald
Fourteenth-Century Towns Living History by John D. Clare
The Knight Who Was Afraid of the Dark by Barbara Shook Hazen
Knights and Castles (The Age of Castles) by Richard Dargie
A Medieval Feast by Aliki
The Tale of Custard the Dragon by Ogden Nash
A Tournament of Knights by Joe Lasker
The Toy Brother by William Steig
You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Medieval Knight! Fiona Macdonald
You Wouldn’t Want to Be in a Medieval Dungeon! Prisoners You’d Rather Not Meet by Fiona Macdonald

• ***DVD – The Black Death
  ***DVD – Castle (David Macaulay)
• ***VHS – Cathedral – Tours of the World’s Most Magnificent Structures Hosted by David Macaulay
• ***DVD – A History of the Middle Ages (Life in the Middle Ages series)
• ***DVD – Social Structure in the Middle Ages (Life in the Middle Ages series)
  
  Books Read by A independently (6th grade) during the Middle Ages Unit
  ***Catherine Called Birdy by Karen Cushman
  ***A Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli
  ***Matilda Bone by Karen Cushman

Grammar with Mad Libs

I think proper grammar is important. There, I said it. I spent three years as an editorial assistant for an academic communication journal back in graduate school. The experience definitely heightened my awareness of grammatical errors. Now, errors seem to flash red to me. I even pointed out to my daughter once, at church, that the words to the song on the screen at the front of the church had an improper use of the word "your" (you're should have been used). She, appropriately, elbowed me.....hard.

I use Growing With Grammar as the core grammar curriculum with all three of my children. I am extremely pleased with this program and highly recommend it. Practice is good, though, particularly when working with abstract concepts like the parts of speech. My fourth and second grade boys LOVE doing Mad Libs as part of our school day. My sixth grade daughter tolerates it and sometimes enjoys it but I think she is growing out of the "anything silly is funny" sense of humour.

In case you are not familiar with Mad Libs, they are inexpensive, consumable books with stories centered around a theme. We just finished "Christmas Mad Libs." Within the text of the story, there are blank spaces in which to insert parts of speech. So, a particular blank might indicate that a plural noun is needed or a past tense verb, for example. At the end, the story is read and everybody breaks into helpless laughter.

The issue I had when doing Mad Libs is that everytime one of my boys would need to supply an adjective, they never failed to ask "What is an adjective again?" Every single time.

As I was patiently explaining to one of my boys the definition of an adjective and giving some examples for about the 8th time during our Mad Libs activity, I had an idea. I decided to take down our big calendar in the school room and make a parts of speech bulletin board instead.

I also checked out two children's books about adjectives from the library and used them to create a poster of adjective choices. Now, the boys can look over to the poster and pick an adjective that they would like. I plan to do a similar poster of adverbs as well since adverbs are another common stumbling block for my boys.

Curriculum for My Sixth Grader

I have previously posted about the curriculum I am using for my second and fourth grade boys. Lastly, today, I am posting about the curriculum we use with my sixth grade daughter. GASP - did I really say SIXTH grade daughter! High school looms around the corner for her and I often wonder where the time has gone. Will she continue to be homeschooled for high school? Will she enroll in an online public school? Will she actually GO to a high school? BUT, that is another post entirely. Here is the curriculum I currently use with my sixth grade daughter:

*Teaching Textbooks 7
*Growing With Grammar 6
*Happy Scribe Copybooks for Handwriting
*Novels for reading - So far, this school year, A has read a wide variety of books from A Door in the Wall to the complete set of four Maximum Ride books by James Patterson.
*Music Ace Deluxe
*Sequential Spelling
*English from the Roots Up
*A Trail Guide to U.S. Geography
*Unit studies for history, science, and literature topics - right now we are working on a fairy tales/fractured fairy tales unit
*Physical Education - A is a competitive swimmer on a USA swim team. She practices for 2 hours every evening Monday through Friday with swim meets on the week-ends about 2-3 week-ends per month. She loves to swim and spends as much time at the pool as she possibly can.

Looking ahead to next year, I want to add a more structured approach to her reading to introduce her to a wider variety of genres and classics. I plan to use Glencoe Literature Course 2, in addition to selected novels. I also know that she will be starting a foreign language class and I plan to use Rosetta Stone but I'm not sure what language she will be learning yet. I am leaving that up to her.

A Bibliophile's Shangri-La

I love books - what homeschooling mom doesn't? AND, I absolutely love my local library's monthly book sale. Truly, few things make me as happy as going to the book sale, looking through the mountains of well-organized books, and leaving with unbelievable deals. I don't always get to go as the sale is held on one Saturday morning a month and I often have a swim meet to attend for my daughter. I didn't get to go last month but I did get to attend this month!!!
The book sale is staffed and organized by the Friends of the Library group and all of the profits go to support the library. The ladies are very sweet and I am always amazed at how neat and tidy they keep the books at the sale. The books are organized quite well which is so helpful as the book sale is quite popular and I can hit my favorite areas first before taking time to browse more carefully.

Did I mention that the deals are unbelievable? Just look at what I purchased for $16.10! While I always leave the book sale happy and full of excitement over my new stash of books, this month's deals were above and beyond any that I have found before. I purchased:

12 children's books

3 coloring books

37 novels

one educational video about Ohio

5 Harcourt Brace Janovich readers for grades 2 and 3 in new condition

17 Great Illustrated Classics novels in excellent condition.

ALL for $16.10!!!!!

So, my advice would be to check to see if your local library holds any book sales!

Curriculum for My Fourth Grader

Continuing my previous post about the curriculum that I use for our homeschool, today I'll focus on what I use with my fourth grade son. First of all, you have to know that he is very creative, very artsy, and VERY hands-on so I do try to accommodate his artistic leanings. There is always a huge puzzle on a table in the living room that he can work on, bins of Legos, and his own Sculpey III area.

Currently M is working with the following curriculum:

Teaching Textbooks 5

Growing With Grammar 3

Happy Scribe Copybooks for handwriting (he just started cursive writing)

FOCUS Reading Comprehension workbooks Level C

Books of his choice to read BUT I just ordered a used McGraw Hill 4th grade reader from Amazon to try to broaden his choice of reading material. I will be assigning readings from the reader for the remainder of the year.

Sequential Spelling

English from the Roots Up

A Trail Guide to U. S. Geography

Physical Education - karate class 2 times a week, recreational swim team Jan. - March and over the summer

Unit Studies for Science, History, and Literature (currently we are finishing a short unit on Lizards and starting a unit on Cinderella Stories around the World/Fractured Fairy Tales).

Curriculum for My Second Grader

I am always so interested to see/hear what other home educators are using in their homeschools for curriculum. After 6 years of homeschooling, I've looked at lots and lots of curriculum and I STILL enjoy it! I've pretty much settled into what kinds of curriculum work well for us, though. Each of my children has grade level (or close to grade level, either above or under) for English, Math, Handwriting, and Reading Comprehension which they do independently. We do Geography, Vocabulary, Spelling, and Unit Studies together. Our Unit Studies cover topics in history, science, and literature.

Here is the curriculum that my second grader is using for the 2008-2009 school year:
Math-U-See Gamma (he finished Beta last semester)

Growing With Grammar 1/2

Happy Scribe Copybooks (he uses the italic printing style)

FOCUS Strategies reading comprehension books Level B (There are 6 books in each grade level, each focusing on a specific skill needed to strengthen reading comprehension.)

Lots and lots of Level 2 readers from the library (He reads at least one each school day.)

Sequential Spelling Book 1

A Trail Guide to U.S. Geography (We are covering a state per week.)

English from the Roots Up

Unit Study - Right now we are doing a short unit on lizards. After we finish that, we are doing Cinderella Stories Around the World/Fractured Fairy Tales.

Physical Education - Karate class twice per week and swimming lessons once per week.

I have already started to begin to think ahead to next school year. So far, I am planning much of the same for my then third grader. He will switch to Teaching Textbooks after finishing Math-U-See Gamma when Teaching Textbooks 4 is available.

Movies from January

I love to watch movies. As long as I can remember, I have always adored movies. While I don't watch nearly as many as I would like, I do manage to watch at least some movies each month. A great deal of my watching is done while walking on our treadmill. I try to walk for 30 minutes each day. I also tend to watch movies or television shows when I'm folding laundry. Since I have tons of laundry to put away all of the time, laundry time is prime TV/movie watching time! Lastly, my two older children in particular enjoy movies so I watch movies with them as well. Here is what I watched in January with my star rating (5 stars being the best).

Lost Season 4 **** (I've been watching from the beginning of the series a season at a time on DVD. I am now more confused than ever!)
Wanted * (Bloodfest with no likable characters at all but cool bullet special effects)
The X Files: I Want to Believe ***
Inkheart **
City of Ember **
Highlander ****
Righteous Kill **
Traitor **

The 50 Book Challenge

My favorite library is having a special event this year called the "50 Book Challenge." Basically, the challenge is to read 50 books this year, or roughly one per week. I signed up for the challenge as I love to read and thought it would be fun. I started reading again purely for pleasure last year. I worked my way through all of the Lucy Stone mysteries by Leslie Meier and just continued to read and read from there. I was a voracious reader when I was younger and now that I have discovered the pure joy of losing myself in a book again, I am committed to making time to read. I usually read in small chunks of time - while waiting for my kids at karate, swimming, art class, or during swim meets. I also always read now before I go to bed. I find it a lot more relaxing than thinking about all of the things I need to do the next day!

So far, so good - I am way ahead on my 50 Book Challenge. I did spend a long week-end away from home with my daughter at an out-of-state swim meet so I had more time to read than usual. Here are the books that I read in January and my ratings for them out of 5 stars.

1. Definitely Dead, #6 in the Southern Vampire Mystery Series by Charlaine Harris ****
2. Night Embrace, #3 in the Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon ****
3. Dead as a Doornail, #5 in the Southern Vampire Mystery Series by Charlaine Harris ****
4. All Together Dead, #7 in the Southern Vampire Mystery Series by Charlaine Harris ****
5. Dance with the Devil, #4 in the Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon ****
6. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer ***
7. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling, audio CD read by Jim Dale *****
(This is the second time my daughter and I have listened to this book - I can't recommend the audio CD enough - it is wonderful!)
8. Men in Kilts by Katie MacAlister ****
9. A Girl's Guide to Vampires by Katie MacAlister ***

Well.............my current book is calling to me. I had better end this post!

Middle Ages Board Game

While we wrapped up our Middle Ages unit last semester, I am still posting about all of the wonderful projects that my children completed during the course of the study. One of the projects that I was most impressed with was the board game that my 6th grade daughter created. Creating a board game was one of the options that my children could choose on their Writing Menu. I provided her with a blank board game board which are available online at http://www.barebooks.com/ for $3.95 each.


Here are the guidelines for the assignment:

*Create your own Medieval board game. Think of a title for your board game, create rules, and add special steps on the board such as “The bubonic plague hits your town! Lose one turn.” Write questions about the Middle Ages on index cards to be used during the game. Write the answers on the backs of the index cards. You must include at least 30 question cards. You will also need game markers. The game board should be decorated with Medieval-themed artwork. (30 points)


She spent quite a large amount of time on this project writing questions, making little game pieces out of Sculpey, decorating the game board, and coming up with unique instructions. I really love this type of project in that it is so cross-curricular. While working on the board game, A was improving her skills in writing, drawing, art, and history, as well as improving her thinking skills.

Here is a picture of the game pieces she made out of Sculpey III. She created a princess, wizard, dragon, and jester in keeping with a Middle Ages theme.

Here are her game instructions and Knight's Pass cards which she wrote on Print Master. After she printed them out, I laminated them.
Lastly, here are lots of different views of the gameboard!






She is currently working on a Germs Game with her brother for the Germs Unit. I'll be sure to post pictures of that game when they are finished.