PLanning the garden

I finally found a kitchen garden planting guide for my area!

And the first seeds go in March 15th! Yikes. I have to get my garden tilled and laid out. At. Least I have a place to start.

I am also planning to plant some fruit trees, gourds, and rhubarb.

2008-2009 school plan - Take Two

I am working up a new school plan for the school year. I do have better things to do, but this is what I'm doing.

CC - Second Trimester Second Grade
Daily
Copywork - Poems
Grammar - Growing with Grammar, 1 lesson
Math - Singapore 3A, 1 Lesson
Sonlight LA 2 adv. (after we get the grammar going for a week or two)

Rotating Subjects
Literature - Veritas Press Study Guides, Alice in Wonderland thin Fairy Tales
Science - RS4K - Physics
History - TOG y2u1




LB - Not Preschool. I am going to teach her to read!
Sonlight LA with K readers
RS A math or Singapore Earlybird.

Eleventh Grade Here for BB

What did BB do for 11th Grade?

At the Local Community College
Conversational Japanese
Japanese 1
Psychology

At Home
Sonlight 300 + Ambleside House of Education Yr 11
Twentieth Century History
Thinkwell Precalculus
Art
PE

Second Grade Earth Science Lesson Plans

DRAFT -
rev 3

Texts Used:
Janice VanCleave's Earth Science for every Kid
How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World by Faith McNulty
The Practical Geologist by Dougal Dixon (PG)
Encyclopedia of world geography

Geology Crafts (GC)
Hill of Fire
http://www.thesolutionsite.com/lesson/1206/watsonelB1.html
http://www.amnh.org/ology/index.php?channel=earth#channel

The Earth Science Book (TESB)

Lesson 1 Formation of the earth - history and structure

• This is the class where we bring the globes and the layer book and discuss the earth and what's in side and outside it.
• Start with a brainstorm of what kids think is in the earth. Scientists can't take x-rays or samples to see what is in the earth. Show an apple as representative of the earth. SLice in quarters and explain the the skin is like the crust of the earth and it has taken many years to drill down bast the crust. The white part of the apple is like the earth's mantle. It is made of hot melted rock and is 1800 miles thick - this is lava. the outer core is melted nickle and iron. These metals are very heavy. The inner core is solid nickle and iron.


• Layers of earth snack -
• 13 marshmellows, jelly type candy, buttler, rice crispies, chocolate shell, microwaveable bowl. Put candy in center of a marshmellow, mix butter and other 12 marshmellows in a bowl and microwave for 1 minute, stir for a minute, stir in cereal, wet hands and roll mixture around core, freeze for 15 minutes, cover with chocolate sauce, wait, eat.


• Read How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World
• Investigating the Earth from Ency of World Geography pg. 19 (this talks about how geologists study the Earth's structure through earthquakes and sound waves, I didn't know this and it would make for an interesting 5-10 minute discussion)

Lesson 2 Pangaea and continents

• Pangaea puzzle activity CG pg 24

Start with a demonstration of convection.
Give each student a paper copy of the world map and have them cut them apart then see if they can fit them together. This kind of replicates the history of the pangaea theory. We can then discuss how this happened and start plate tectonics - starting with ridges where new rock is formed and rifts where boundaries spread.
First guy to have this idea was laughed at. Continents are too big to move. Continental drift proven later by submaries. Scientists still don't know why the plates move - they think it might be convection, but this hasn't been proven.

Continental Drift Theory
Nice List of evidences for pangaea

• Compare with current world map



• Name continents and oceans.

Lesson 3 Plates, earthquakes

• Plate movement experiments. Three muskateers bars (snack size). Collide two bars together. This is how mountains are formed. Show how pushing makes the mounts rise. Add some facts here about different mountain ranges and the plates below them.
• To go along with the plate movement experiment scroll down on this page http://www.amnh.org/ology/index.php?channel=earth#channel and check-out "Plates on the Move" Great map, okay animations, fabulous, relevant stories. We could go through these and then do the corresponding movement experiment then move on to the next, etc.
• Measure earthquakes
• Tsunamis

Lesson 4 Volcanoes, mountains

• Read Hill of Fire
• Make a volcanic
• Toothpaste eruption TESB pg 46
• Mountain building GC pg 38
• Soft boiled egg to show bulges
• I think most everyone will have "made" a volcano erupt with baking soda and vinegar. Check out this site http://www.nationalgeographic.com/forcesofnature/interactive/index.html?section=v Start with section 4 which talks about the different types of volcanoes (I don't know that we would have to go over this with them at the computer, just as long as we were familiar and could discuss it with them. I would like to find better pictures that we could hand out of the different types, but maybe that is asking too much. Section 5 talks about what determines how a volcano erupts, the amount of trapped gas and the viscosity. I think we could use two different soda bottles to demonstrate the trapped gas (shake one, don't shake the other open in a bucket to contain the mess) and the difference between water and honey to give them a visual on viscosity (poured into the same bucket). I like the idea that at the end they can "create" their own eruptions and volcanoes on line and experiment with the difference a bit.
  
  Lesson 5 Fossils, layers of earth
  
  


• Make sedimentary rocks. PG pg 35. Need sand, gravel or pebbles, some of the small sea shells, dry plaster of Paris, empty soda bottles, and water.
• Make metamorphic Rocks - at beginning of class, give each child a zippy bag with some diiferent colored chocolate chips. Have each child sit on the baggie during class. If someone asks, explain that they are making metamorphic rocks with heat and pressure. After they have melted, take a rolling pin and layer them, roll, and slice. Fold, roll, slice again.


• Make your own fossils. PG pg 69. Shallow trays, plaster of Paris, fern leaf. Make this in two steps one week and split it open the next week to see the imprint.


• Simulate amber. PG pg 69. Liquid resin and hardener and a bug for inside.

Lesson 6 Rock cycle, Rock Identification

• Erosion pg 50 TESB


• Rock identification - using kit

Lesson 7 Local Geology PG

• Read The Big Rock by Bruce Hiscock


• Granite what it looks like and where to find it


• Dolerite


• Basalt


• Limestone


• Chalk


• Sandstone


• Schist


• Gneiss


• Gold and silver

Lesson 8 Minerals, panning for gold

• http://mii.org/ has some great material


• Learn about key minerals in the earth and the body


• Maybe some history of alchemy


• Pan for gold

Lesson 9 Water cycle

Lesson 10 Cloud Identification

• Beginner clouds http://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/P1.html


• Make Sky mirror and measuring cloud cover http://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/P5.html
  
  

Lesson 11 Climates, biomes

Other experiments

Glacier movement experiment. (need the reference)A glacier experiment with flubber

• Crystal growing. Mix a hot saturated solution of soluble chemical such as alum or copper sulfate. Dangle a string in it and allow the solution to cool slowly. Crystals will form on the string and side of the container. Scrape off all but the biggest crystal and repeat. This only happens in nature as molten rock is starting to cool. PG pg 22, 23 has this experiment and guide to using crystalline structure to identify minerals.

Second Grade History Books and Read-Alouds

History Spine - Story of the World 2 Fall of Rome to Queen Elizabeth. I'll read this at the pace of one or two chapters per week.

The Books in their Order

I have these already, and I need to buy these or get from library if they have them, and these will probably be from the library as we can get them and aren't strictly historical and if we don't get to these then it is okay. These books will be read once or twice weekly. Some are long and some are short. The topics are roughly chronological.

One Thousand and One Arabian Nights

Leif the Lucky

Beowulf from Favorite Medieval Tales
The Tomten
Across a Dark and Wild Sea
Brigid's Cloak

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from Favorite Medieval Tales

King Arthur

Aladdin from The Blue fairy Book

Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves from The Blue fairy Book

Making of a Knight

Robin Hood by Green

Chaucer Stories from Favorite Medieval Tales

A Medieval Feast by Aliki
Nicolaus Copernicus
Along Came Galileo
Good Queen Bess

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare

Michelangelo

Peter the Great

Other Readers

Group 1

Viking Adventure

His Majesty's Elephant

Red Sails to Capri

Castle Diary

The Whipping Boy

Prairie School

Riding the Pony Express

Group 2

The Door in the Wall

Marco Polo

Socks

The Twenty-One Balloons

White Stallion of Lipizza

Group 3

The Minstrel in the Tower

Marguerite Makes a Book

The Toothpaste Millionaire

MCBroom's Wonderful One-Acre Farm

Tornado

Kildee House

Second Grade Monthly Planner Sample

Senior Year Here

What is my very bright homeschool senior doing this year?

Classes at the Community College:

• Japanese 2 and 3


• Italian 1


• Philosophy 101


• Physics

Classes at Home

• British Literature


• Computer Literacy


• Weights & Fitness