CC at Home Cycle 1 Week 2

Science

What are the Classifications of living things?
(To the tune of Yankee Doodle)
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species

The Song for this one is found on the same video I posted on Cycle 1 Week 1's Science Section.

History

Ten Commandments 6-10(KJV)

Thou Shalt...

not kill
not commit adultery
not steal
not bear false witness against thy neighbor
not covet

We used the same tune from last week but we didn't have a video for it. We just made it fit.

Grammar

After reviewing the definition of a preposition I gave them the first set of prepositions to memorize.

Aboard
About
Above
Across

Math

3's
3,6,9,12,15,18,
21,24,27,30,33,36

4's
4,8,12,16,20,24,
28,32,36,40,44,48

Here is the video we used to help memorize the 3's and 4's skip counting.





Latin

This week we did Lesson 2 in Prima Latina by Leigh Lowe published by Memoria Press. For the sake of not committing copyright infringement I am just going to give a brief description of what we covered in there.
This weeks lesson focused on Pronunciation of Latin Consonants. It also went over Latin Diphthongs. For those of you who don't know a dipthong is sometimes two letters that have only one sound. But it was really interesting that by learning this concept in Latin my children who usually struggled identifying a diphthong before now understood the concept really well. I truly am starting to believe those folks who say the best way to learn English Grammar is to take a foreign language. I believe I heard Andrew Pudewa from IEW say that on an audio download before.
We also went over some new vocabulary words and the English Derivatives as well as starting The Sanctus Prayer.

A good resource for vocabulary drilling is this new resource I found in The Old Schoolhouse Magazine  article. FYI I read The Old Schoolhouse Magazine(Homeschool Publication) for free using an App download on my Droid technology smartphone. I think they have it available for iphones as well. But the resource is called Flash Card Machine. I searched Prima Latina and someone already did a series of flash cards for the lessons we needed. So I just used those. They can quiz and test themselves right there on the website. They have an App version for this also but it cost whereas the website is free. You can make virtual flashcards for anything you need. You can even add pictures and clip art.

Geography
Assyrian Empire

Red Sea
Persian Gulf
Black Sea
Babylon

Here is the video for the song for this weeks.




We also did a project this week that went along with the Geography. We made a Mesopotamian Ziggurat. We got the instructions for the craft from a library book we checked out called "Passport to the Past Mesopotamia" by Lorna Oakes. We used recycled cardboard from some flat rate shipping boxes the post office sent to us for free a few months back and we never mailed anything out with it.

Here is a video of the finished product.


Science Project

This week we did Janice VanCleave's 201 Awesome, Magical, Bizarre, and Incredible Experiments #54 and 56.Experiment #54 was called Telegraph Lines. The purpose was to determine how a spider evaluates the size of an intruder. We also got to observe a web that was outside on our patio. So that was pretty creepy. lol! Here is a clip of doing #56 Belly Up which purpose was to determine why dead fish float, belly side up, on the surface of the water.


Art Project

This week theme was Mirror Image.

Warm Up
I found some great warm up sheets on mirror image at Donna Young's site and on Enchanted Learning.

Here are the young artist at work.

Project
The Project was to do a Still life of some objects. The mirror warm up helped them to focus on looking at the symmetry of objects to make sure they draw both sides evenly. We also keep reinforcing the previous exercise on the 5 basic shapes to help them to draw there still life as well.
We got to visit an Art Gallery as well this week so that was another hands on that we were able to add. We tried to point out the 5 basic shapes in the work we saw. They really learned a lot.

CC at Home Cycle 1 Week 1

In our first week of doing Classical Conversations Foundations at home we had a lot of fun. The children really enjoyed getting up in the morning, doing morning chores, breakfast, math, and then sitting down together with out memory board to go over the weekly memory work. Keep in mind that I placed this info on our Memory board and we only spent about 30 minutes 4 times a week going over this information. It doesn't take up a lot of time at all. Now on the 1st day it can take a little longer cause we introducing new memory work so it might need a little more time and the children might have some questions about it. I also used this as a way to help the children in there non fiction book selections at our weekly library trip as well. Here is what we went over for Week 1:

Science

What are the five kingdoms of living things?
Animalia
Plantae
Fungi
Protista
Monera

We learned this to the beat of to the nursery rhyme "Brother John(Are you sleeping)"
Here is a great youtube clip of two little girls that are doing some great songs and jingles to Cycle 1's Science sentences. I have been using this a tool.





History

Ten Commandments 1- 5(KJV Version)

Thou Shalt...

1. have no other god before me
2. not make unto thee any graven image
3. not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
4. remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy
5. honor thy mother and thy father that thy days may be long upon the land that God giveth thee

Here is the youtube clip we used to memorize the commandments to.




Grammar/English

What is a Preposition?

A preposition is a word that shows the relationship to a noun or pronoun to another word in a sentence.
(I did not use the definition from the Foundations guide. Instead we are memorizing the definition from First Language Lessons by Susan Wise Bauer cause that is what we are using as our grammar program for 1st and 2nd. I didn't want to confuse them by changing the wording of the definition after they already learned it the way I listed it.)


Math

1's and 2's Skip Counting

1,2,3,4,5,6,
7,8,9,10,11,12

2,4,6,8,10,12,
14,16,18,20,22,24

We didn't do any special chant or song for these skip counts because they are pretty basic. I do have some cleaver little things for the 3's and beyond though. I will share that in the future weeks.


Latin

For Latin instead of memorizing the declensions that are in the guide we are doing our lessons in Prima Latina instead. So for this week we did Lesson 1 in Prima Latina.
Its separated into Practical Latin Phrase, Vocabulary, and The Prayer.

So for this week it was:

Practical Latin
Salve- hello(to one person)
Salvete-hello(to more than one person)


Vocabulary

The format is the learn the Latin, English translation, and then the English derivative(this part really helps the children to make the connections between there own spoken language and its Latin roots. I totally love this part of the curriculum.)

ambulo- I walk - ambulance
via- road- viaduct
Deus- God- deity
toga- toga
luna- moon- lunar


Prayer

Oremus- Let Us Pray

The lesson began focusing in on explaining the differences between the Latin alphabet and the English one. They also explained how to pronounce the vowels in Latin as well.

Geography

Fertile Crescent Area

Mediterranean Sea
Fertile Crescent
Sumer
Euphrates Rive
Tigris River

Here is the video for the jingle to memorize this. As we sang we locate and place a treat(raisins, chocolate chips, Cheerios, etc..) on the locations. If you have older students you can have them draw and trace these places as well. Or make a labeled outline.




Art Project

This weeks art lesson focused in on the Five Basic Shapes.

The Five Basic Shapes are:
Dots
Circles
Straight lines
Curved lines
Angle lines

We start with a warm up exercise and then follow up with a project.

Warm Up
Explore the five basic shapes by practice drawing different variations of the five basic shapes by sizes and length and whatnot. We used a blank piece of unlined paper to practice on. After that we practice making a figure that incorporated all or as many of the Five Basic Shapes as they could.
My oldest made a drawing of a little girl. My oldest son made a snowman.

Project
We used Kids Can Draw African Animals drawing book and followed the diagram to create a Leopard out of Circles, Curved lines, straight lines, and dots.  Here is a video of them using the techniques that they learned.




Science Project

We did experiments  from Janice Van Cleave's 201 Awesome, Magical, Bizzare, and Incredible Experiments.

Experiment # 45 Baby Bean

We soaked some pinto beans overnight. The next day we were able to slip the seed coat off and break open the two halves to figure out what was inside. So it was basically a seed dissection with the purpose of dissecting a bean to identify the parts and learn the function of each part. They did a Scientific Log Sheet that was in the Appendix of the Foundations Guide but you can find some similar to at these links here:

Science Lab Sheet This one is very similar to the one we used.

Science Detective Report This one is for early elementary students.

Classical Conversations At Home

As you know from my previous post about Curriculum Confusion I was able to obtain a Classical Conversations Foundations Guide 3rd Edition on clearance a few months back. This was before the role out of the new 4th Edition that is why I got for so cheap. It was only $15 at the time and the orginal price was $50.

Well for those of you who don't know Classical Conversations or CC for short is a program started by founder Leigh Bortins(author of Echo In Celebration and The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education) to help support and enhance homeschoolers in their desire to classically educate at home. There are CC communities all over the U.S. where once a week the students get together and are lead by a CC Tutor in the weekly memory work from the foundations guide in the form of tunes, jingles, and chants. They also conduct a science experiment and have a fine arts portion which changes between drawing, tin whistle lessons, classical artist, and classical composers throughout the year. I have been to visit two different CC Campuses in my local area and I was greatly impressed with the program and set up. Although I totally love the program I was not sold on it for our particular family due to the cost of enrolling all my kids and also me not feeling like I could make the commitment to participate in a once week class every week for 24weeks with a two littles still(my 3yr old and my 10month old). So we were sad about not being able to give this a shot. But when I got a hold of the Foundations Guide I decided to give this a try at home instead.

What better time than this summer to start on Cycle 1 of the 3 cycle Guide. We started last week and if we continue through the summer we will hit Week 24 at the end of October. Which works out perfectly for our family cause our lease is up and we will be moving at the end of October. So we can just keep out the materials we use with the CC Memory Board that I made(pictured below) and our Math books so that I can start getting everything packed up. And then we can take a 2 week fall break and get started in our new curriculum for 2012-2013 school year. So it seems like this is going to work out great. I guess if this goes all well we will started Cycle 2 this coming Summer and Cycle 3 the following. Its turning out to be a great Summer Homeschool Curriculum.

Of course I want to share with you guys what we are doing each week and how we are tweeking it to fit our family and whatnot. So I decided to go ahead and do a weekly post called CC at Home Cycle 1 Week(whatever week it is). So be on a look out for that. I am so excited. The children really seem to enjoy it.

Other than the Foundations Guide we are using:

Drawing With Children by Mona Brookes- Fine Arts
Prima Latina- Latin( I didnt like the way the Latin was set up in the Guide and we were already working our way through Prima so I am just sticking with that.)
Kingfisher History Encyclopedia- History Sentence(Used to look up more information of the history sentence and the timeline sentences)
Janice VanCleave's Awesome, Magical, Bizarre, and Incredible Experiments- Science Experiments( The Guide uses a few experiments from this book so I borrowed a copy from the library and made copies of the pages I would need for Cycle 1.
We are also adding our Hebrew Studies Bible Memory Work in as well( I will do a separate blog to share those resources.)