One of the joys of homeschooling is to have incredibly flexible days.
We can start at 9 a.m., or we can start at 1130... it all works.
We can start at 9 a.m., or we can start at 1130... it all works.
Human Body - the brain
On-line resoures
Used the brain picture on this page with the words cut away so the lad needed to figure out what each part is called. He used the one on this page as a sort of guide.
We learned, using this page, about how brains don't work the same on each side, the left being more logical, thinking, fine-tuning and the right being creative, big picture focused. And how they relate to each other...how when we just read a book we don't worry about the grammar of a sentence (right brain big picture) or we can learn the grammar (left brain) so the right brain can be the big picture easier. The lad compared that to thinking of a picture and then taking the time to draw things correctly. :)
Most pictures we see of the brain show a side view of it, so I thought it pertinent to show the lad how a different view of the brain will show different things. So this site gave us a top-down view which showed how the olfactory bulbs are hidden inside the frontal lobe.
We very briefly talked about how we can help the brain learn by using different things to help it. This site proved be helpful in that regard.
If I have time later this week we'll be making these brain food items...but I haven't been able to download it yet. (need to restart firefox and all that).
Used the brain picture on this page with the words cut away so the lad needed to figure out what each part is called. He used the one on this page as a sort of guide.
We learned, using this page, about how brains don't work the same on each side, the left being more logical, thinking, fine-tuning and the right being creative, big picture focused. And how they relate to each other...how when we just read a book we don't worry about the grammar of a sentence (right brain big picture) or we can learn the grammar (left brain) so the right brain can be the big picture easier. The lad compared that to thinking of a picture and then taking the time to draw things correctly. :)
Most pictures we see of the brain show a side view of it, so I thought it pertinent to show the lad how a different view of the brain will show different things. So this site gave us a top-down view which showed how the olfactory bulbs are hidden inside the frontal lobe.
We very briefly talked about how we can help the brain learn by using different things to help it. This site proved be helpful in that regard.
If I have time later this week we'll be making these brain food items...but I haven't been able to download it yet. (need to restart firefox and all that).
We used some book resources to add some lapbooking elements to our study of the brain.
Sight Word
From the flashkids, sightword book we practiced the word Long. The lad's sentence was "a long party with flies to eat". The entirety of the sentences he has been writing have all be spider themed. "Spiders scared them" "I like spiders" "I would like a spider" "come here spider" Makes me smile. :)
Art
For art we are using "Canadian Art Ideas" This resource is produced by Canadian Curriculum Teaching Resource. I have to say, I really like this book and if I could link it on Amazon I would. It spells things out in a logical manner and I can tweak it as per the lad's interests. I can also use the ideas, find a project that fulfills it's mandate and then teach the lesson. The pages themselves are rather boring, but I can use the ideas and as a NON-arts minded individual having a focus is working well for me. :)
Our lesson today was on Complementary colours.
Our lesson today was on Complementary colours.
Reading
as you all know by now, my reading encompasses four regular books at this time (at least that I document in the mornings). :) We have others we read at night.
This morning we read from
World History. The lad found this one to be quite interesting today, he kept asking all sorts of questions. It was about how knights had different sorts of helmets and they protected their horses as well. It also mentioned strategy used in battle which highly intrigued my lad. We play a game on facebook called Social Empires and it fits in well with our history lessons, so he's slowly learning some strategy as he "kills" trolls. :)
Classic animal stories: bellerophon and pegasus. These odd names are a good way to teach phonics and how one uses them to pronounce unusual names. :) This story seemed sad to the boy. I can't say I much liked the ending of it either.
50 Magical Stories: An unexpected Opening. This story made us want to get the rest of the book as it was just the start of larger book. We want to know what happens next. Anyone have a copy of "The brass bottle" by F. Anstey?
The Ultimate Guide to wildlife of North America: brought us the Great Egret and the Tiger Salamander. The great egret was hunted by people because he was so pretty. The Tiger Salamander has a wee tiny area that it lives around here, much to my son's chagrin as he'd like to catch one and build just the right place for it to live. :)
This morning we read from
World History. The lad found this one to be quite interesting today, he kept asking all sorts of questions. It was about how knights had different sorts of helmets and they protected their horses as well. It also mentioned strategy used in battle which highly intrigued my lad. We play a game on facebook called Social Empires and it fits in well with our history lessons, so he's slowly learning some strategy as he "kills" trolls. :)
Classic animal stories: bellerophon and pegasus. These odd names are a good way to teach phonics and how one uses them to pronounce unusual names. :) This story seemed sad to the boy. I can't say I much liked the ending of it either.
50 Magical Stories: An unexpected Opening. This story made us want to get the rest of the book as it was just the start of larger book. We want to know what happens next. Anyone have a copy of "The brass bottle" by F. Anstey?
The Ultimate Guide to wildlife of North America: brought us the Great Egret and the Tiger Salamander. The great egret was hunted by people because he was so pretty. The Tiger Salamander has a wee tiny area that it lives around here, much to my son's chagrin as he'd like to catch one and build just the right place for it to live. :)
Science Experiment
This was simply just fun to do. :) Seriously, it was just fun. Take a FRESH bar of Ivory soap. Chop it up a bit, doesn't need to be as fine as the lad did it. Put it in a microwave from 75-90 seconds and just watch the magic. (yes I know, not really magic). But fun none-the-less. :)
Since the lad battled with me about taking some of the flakes to see if I could remake a soap bar I chose the smallest form I had (a dog bone), mixed in two drops of food colouring to about 1/2 cup flakes, added a wee bit of water,... perhaps a tsp? and squished altogether in a ziploc bag and used a soft spatula to remove it. Will be placed in the fridge to "set". We'll see how it turns out. I had the lad draw step by step pictures in our science experiment book.
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