Anchor Christian Collaborative-Science TAP1

Anchor Christian Collaborative
Science - Tri-Annual Progression, Year 1
Week 2
Montessori 4 layers of the Earth 

Free 3-part cards of the 4 layers of the Earth.  These cards maybe used several different ways (see link).

Week 3
The 5 major layers of the atmosphere (click here).

Week 4
4 most common weather fronts


Week 6
Ocean Zones

Ancient China

Classical Education

Timeline Song

Literature Circles

This year we joined a Classical Conversations community and are completing Cycle 3.  The history begins with Columbus goes though to September 11, 2001, which is perfect timing to read the American Girl series for my fifth grade girl with some friends.

Let's do literature circles!

My Father's World- Countries and Cultures

This year we are using The My Father's World for science and history.  We are beginning on Countries and Cultures part of the wheel which really focus on world geography.

I find youtube videos extremely helpful, so I wanted to add links that go with the county we are studying.

Canada
video


Brasil
you tube My County Brazil

My Place in God's Universe

My place in God's Universe was a project that Devon created at her homeschooling coop in Social Studies.  The first and largest folder is a manilla file folder.  One side has artwork and the title, "My Place in God's Universe."  The other side has a piece of black construction paper with glitter and glue labeled "I live in the Milky Way galaxy."  The entire folder was then reenforced with packing tape.

The second folder, which was cut smaller than the first  was made out of thick card-stock.  One side has  the Sun, Mercury, Venus, and the Earth all made of paper and glued in the correct order.

 The other side of the second folder continues with the solar system information and has "I live on a planet, third in line, in  a solar system with planets nine" written in Devon's hand.  Two additional pictures were glued onto this side.

The third folder, focuses on planet Earth.  This is a completed color the Continents page.

 On the opposite side, "Our home from birth our planet Earth" is written and artwork is added.

The folders are getting smaller in size, this folder focus is on the continent of North America.   This map is another "follow the instructions" to color map.

On the flip side, Devon wrote, "Seven continents God did give North America is where I live!"

The fifth pocket focuses on the United States.

The tutor printed these and Devon glued.

The sixth folder, focus was on Maryland.

The seventh focused on the county and home address was listed on the back.

The final piece is a picture of Devon and her family.

Egg Sort

By chance, I found a bag of three different sizes of eggs. Then I made three labels: small, medium, and large on card stock. Caroline and I sorted a couple of eggs together and then she decided, "I do it myself."

Once she finished her sort, we wrote our findings in her journal. So I drew three columns and labeled them: small, medium, and large, and then I drew the number of eggs in each of the columns and wrote the number of eggs. Caroline then colored the eggs in and traced the numbers.

Her journal work changes everyday. She is so happy to have it! On Saturday and Sunday, she asks to do "her work."

Plastic Easter Eggs

From various blogs, I saw many different ways to use plastic Easter Eggs. I wrote Caroline's name on the plastic egg with the capital letter on top and the lower case on the bottom. I opened the carton and we looked at the eggs. Then I took them all apart and she had to match the capital and lower case letters. Also, "F" and "B" we added to the carton. She was really upset that she was missing two eggs, so the next lesson, I will add "S" and "P."

Lent

The season of Lent is a time to embrase what is means to be a Christian. This morning the kids and I made it to mass for Ash Wednesday. Devon is really into her book of Common Prayer and trying to understand how to use it in the services.

After the service, we watched a Holy Heros video. The kids enjoyed the video, because it is produced by kids.

Next, we made Lent Calendars for coloring one day at a time for the 40 days from Catholicicing.com for each child.

From Catholic Icing, I found the idea of resurrection eggs. You place together items and read the bible verse that goes with that item.

Here are some other great ideas

Lap book

Catholic Icing. com

Jellybean prayer

Easter Cookies: make these the night before Easter. The recipe has a story to go along with it.

Catholic Mom.com

FYI-from reading this blog, you may think I am Catholic, however we are and an Anglican family.

Letter Recognition

Caroline has started to ask, "How do I draw you name? How do I draw sister's name?" and so forth. So, I got her her own homework book, "Get Ready for the Code: Book A." This book starts with the letter "F." We are not "running" through the book, but using as a guide to do other fun activities. The picture below of the letter "f" comes from an activity found on MamaJenn.

This is another "f" made from foam stickers.

Other great sites:

DLTK Printables

Homeschool Creations

Puzzles

Caroline loves to put together puzzles. She is able to complete 24-piece puzzles independently and she is so proud.

Playdoughs Mats

Homeschool Creations has FREE printable play dough mats for learning the numbers and its amounts. This is grape playdough made with Kool Aide and the recipe is found on this site.

Fine Motor Skills and Montessori

Fine Motor Skills and Montessori

This is one activity to increase fine motor skills. The tongs are sugar tongs, the tray is a kiddie food tray, beads are pony beads, and the star and fish are soap holders flipped over.


You can see Caroline is enjoying her work! Once she had finished placing the pony beads onto the star and fish, she must place all the beads back into the container and return the tray to its place.
Publish Post

Contractions

A contraction is a shortened form of one or two words (one of which is usually a verb). In a contraction, an apostrophe takes the place of the missing letter or letters.

Songs and Videos for learning contractions:

Ms. Jenny's Contraction song

The Electric Company N Apostrophe T

Contractions have an Apostrophe

Contaction Cards to play matching or memory.

Snow, Snow, and yes FUN!

This year we haven't had the snow fall of years past, but just enough to enjoy it. Luckily, we had ice the day before, so the snow landed on frozen grass.

Before the snow came we read, "Snowy Day" and completed activities from Homeschool Creations. The next day we sequenced our story, after an another reading.

Here are two Montessori Inspired trays from MontessoriMOMents.

• Spooning Snowballs
• Sifting Snowflakes

Here is a MamaJenn link for an Edible Tortilla Snowflake

We also made these cool snowflakes from delia creates. Although, I used yellow pipe cleaner and they looked like the dog got to the snowflake.

Boiling hot water - enough to fill your 6 pint sized mason jar
1/3 cup borax - you can find this in the laundry aisle.

pint mason jar
pencil
WHITE pipe cleaners
string/yarn

Plural Nouns

WOW, there are a lot of rules about plural nouns! Six rules to be exact. I have put together some help to guide us though the SIX RULES of plural nouns.

What is a noun? By Mr. Thorne

First---let's see what does singular and plural mean? youtube and another by Mr.Thorne

Another YouTube video about plural and singlar nouns. I would not watch the entire video. Simply STOP or fast forward the video until you go over that rule.

This is the pdf file is were I found the following six rules of changing a singular noun to a plural noun. This is another resourceful site.

__________________________________________________________________

Rule #1 The plural of nouns is usually formed by adding s to a singular noun.

Example: lamp, lamps

Rule #2 Nouns ending in s, z, x, ss, sh, and ch form the plural by adding es.

Example: dress, dresses; fox, foxes

• Mr.Thorne video

Rule #3 Nouns ending in y preceded by a consonant is formed into a plural by changing

y to ies. Example: family, families; lady, ladies; fairy, fairies

• Mr. Thorne video

Rule #4 Nouns ending in y preceded by a vowel form their plurals by adding s.

Example: boy, boys; day, day

Rule #5

Most nouns ending in o preceded by a consonant is formed into a plural by

adding es. Example: hero; heroes

Rule #6

Some nouns ending in f or fe are made plural by changing f or fe to ves.

Example: beef, beeves; wife, wive

• Mr. Thorne

Of course, we are talking about english grammer, so there are always EXCEPTIONS to the rules.

• Some words are always plural. Mr. Thorne
• Irregular plurals Video, video, Irregular Nouns - animals, fish, and bugs, Vocabulary - Irregular Nouns - plants and foods

_________________________________________________________________

Once you know the rules here are several online games to play.

• Singular Plural Noun Game
• The Plural Girls
• Bug Catcher
• Roy the Zebra - this site has five games
• See 'N Spell Plurals
• Plural Play

Cutting up Fun! Scissor Work

Cutting up fun with paper! Caroline LOVES to to cut with scissors. However to avoid unintentional haircuts, this work can only be done when mommy can supervise. To prepare the environment, I drew lines on the colored paper construction paper and then cut the paper into 1- inch wide strips. Then I gave Caroline the lined 1-inch strips of paper and scissors. After we cut the paper into various shapes, Caroline used them to create abstract art work.

Cutting Practice Printable:

DLTK

Activity Village

Cutting Work: Take Two

I love Montessori Print Shop and Montessori for Everyone. These cutting strips (pictured below) are FREE and printable from Montessori Print Shop. After Caroline cut them into squares we pasted them on to card stock and they are now being mailed and delivered to "special" people.

Map of the World with Animals

I first saw Zoo Animals and Where They Live on mymontesssorimoments.com. Then I started an internet search to see how other people were approaching this lesson. These two sites had great ideas: Felt Board World Map and Toddler World Map with Animals, but a little too much work for this mama.

So this is the way we are going to approach the lesson. First I printed this Map of the World, which is free and printable. You will need several copies: One copy for you to color in the continents using the montessori colors. Then I decided it was too much work and I went to Montessori Printshop and paid to print it.

I do not have all the animals like Zoo Animals and Where They Live. I am still trying to round up some of the animals that I know we do own.

Before I introduced the cards, I placed the animals into a bin on the shelf. Caroline enjoyed playing with the animals. She even drew this picture of her giraffe.

The next lesson will be to set up and match the cards and then match up the animals.

Skeleton Fun with Noodles

First, let me say I love Disney's Family Fun magazine and this is where the project idea originated. I did change it slightly, because we do not eat a lot of pasta and I didn't want to spent a lot on pasta. I went to the dollar store and bought Ziti and small shells.

A B

A: This is my version of the Skeleton noodle man.

B: This is the tray I have the prepared with small shells, elbow, ziti, and beans. Also I have black card stock with the skeleton outline and Glue with a dixie cup and Q-tips.

Finally Caroline shows off her skeleton person.

Battle Creek Cypress Swamp Sanctuary Vertebrates Field Trip

This year Devon is using the Bob Jones Science Level 3, which begins with vertebrates and invertebrates. From vertebrates the subject went into the five types of vertebrates: fish, birds, mammal, reptiles, and amphibians. This gave me the idea to plan a field trip to Battle Creek Cypress Swamp Sanctuary. After calling the center and planning a date with the Naturalist Shannon, we were set.

The 35 parents, students, and siblings were divided into two groups. Our group took the outside tour first. On the naturalist asked the children to play "I-Spy" and look for evidence of animals. First we spied Cypress Knees, which are roots that grow up and come out of the ground.

We also discovered poison ivy growing on tress and learned that it doesn't bother the animals and give them rashes like

us.

We found evidence that a bird was on the boardwalk by the evidence left behind. Then we began to look up for the bird or any evidence that it may have a nest in the surrounding trees.

Continuing on our walk, we found raccoon tracks, a frog,and these mud piles thatwerehome to crawfish. The raccoon tracks were around these crawfish homes, which made us believe that they eat the crawfish.

We then met the Hawk that was injured and now lives at the Sanctuary, because it can not live in the wild.

The second part of the trip included stations set up inside the nature center.

What lives in the Pond?

The kids were asked to use "cup" hands and see what was living in the pond water. Behind them in a tank was a 20 year old Albino Snapping Turtle. He was a big hit with all the kids.

So, this wasn't a "station" but my Caroline LOVED these stuffed critters.

Amphibian Station

This station had a two frogs and several tadpoles to watch. It also had cards with frog facts and how far the frog could jump. Most kids could jump as far as a Bull Frog.

Skull Station

This station had skulls to pick-up and observe and determine, if the animal had K-9 teeth or not and to guess what type of animal the skull belonged too. We were able to see a bear, deer, beaver, skunk,and possum skull.


Which Beak is BEST?

For this station, the kids were asked to use various tools to gather food and determine which tool was best for what job. For example, a small test tube filled with water was provided and a pipet and a spoon to test which would be best. The pipet would represent the hummingbird beak and the small test tube a flower. This could even be used as a lesson in its self and then you could discuss the various beaks of birds.

Bat Bones

This station had a bat skeleton poster attached to the all and four turtle shells on display. The kids were to compare the bat skeleton poster, the turtle shells, and our human skeleton.

At the end the naturist gave the kids a live animal show featuring a painted turtle and king snake.