Journey to Excellence

On Thursdays, Brynne will do unit studies, most of them Science-based. This year we will study: The Human Body, Autumn, Veteran's Day, Christmas, Shells, Winter, Dogs, and The Solar System. Some of these are Amanda Bennett Download-n-Go unit studies. Some are Magic School Bus based studies. And we'll just build our own Christmas lessons. Our first study will be on The Human Body . Supplies Used:   The Magic School Bus: Inside the Human Body by Joanna Cole  "The Magic School Bus: The Human Body" dvd Young Scientist Club kit: A Journey Into the Human Body "Build a Body" by WikiEducator "Banquet for the Bunch" by Kortni Nelson We will do the following for this unit: Thursday, August 18th ~ Introduction Watch "The Magic School Bus: The Human Body" dvd Trace Brynne's body onto the back of a large body poster provided by the Young Scientist Club kit: A Journey Into the Human Body (Magic School Bus) Thursday, A...

As part of my opportunity to review CSN products, I chose some Magic School Bus activity sets called The Young Scientists Club . We have not used these sets yet, because I actually have plans for them for next school year. As soon as I received them, though, I became immediately inspired! The first one is The Magic School Bus: A Journey into the Human Body activity kit .   Ms Frizzle and her students take children on a wild ride into the human body with these breathtaking experiments. This exciting kit includes a life-size poster with 8 sheets of body part stickers! Seatbelts, everyone! Features: Winner! 2007 National Association of Gifted Children Gifted Child Holiday Pick List, Dr. Toy’s Best 10 Educational Products and 100 Best Children’s Products Awards, 2007 Toy of the Year Award from Creative Child Magazine, 2007 Father's Day Seal of Approval from Mr. Dad eChoice (Editor’s Choice) Award, 2007 Seal of Approval and Award of Excellence from The Toy Man, Three iParenti...

This will be our first ever Science Sunday post linking up with Adventures in Mommydom . I am very excited to be officially venturing into the world of science with Brynne. We will do unit studies on Thursdays, using lots of library books and doing hands-on activities. We are starting with The Human Body . This idea was launched when I received a bunch of free money from CSN. I decided to purchase as many homeschooling tools as I could. One of the things I purchased was The Magic School Bus: A Journey into the Human Body kit by Young Scientists. It has a Teacher's Guide and lots of items for hands-on experiments. Then I decided to copy an idea I've seen on the web multiple times: Making a life-size body on a large poster and adding parts of the human body to it as we learn them. We are going to make ours 3D! This week was just an introduction into what we will be learning, so we only did a couple of things: We watched The Magic School Bus: Human Body dvd. And t...

This week we continued, or, rather, really began our study of The Human Body. We started by reading The Magic School Bus: Inside the Human Body by Joanna Cole. This week we concentrated on the bones of the body. We read Dem Bones by Bob Barner. Since I was doing a terrible job singing the song, I pulled up this version on Youtube and Brynne watched it a couple of times. Then we did a couple of demonstrations. The first was something I copied from Pink and Green Mama . I took two latex gloves and filled them both with flour. In one I put a craft stick down into each finger. When they were completed they were a perfect demonstration of a hand that did not have bones and one that did. After having some complete fun, we did a couple of visuals about ball joints and synovial fluid. I also had Brynne attempt various movements without moving her joints. Jumping without the ankle joint ... not happenin'. We finished our bones study by applying the bones stickers to ou...

This week in our study of the Human Body , Brynne moved on to the Nervous System . Our first stop was a Pamela Hill Nettleton book called, Think, Think, Think: Learning About Your Brain . As part of our discussions about the brain , and the fact that it's the BOSS of the body, we discussed the importance of the spinal cord . We did a hands on spinal cord project by alternating gummy Life Savers and wagon wheel pasta on a pipe cleaner. We talked about why there was the "squishy" stuff in between the vertebra and how the back can bend and sway because of it. We completed "The Brynne" by adding the stomach, small intestine and large intestine, from our study last week of the Digestive System (although I just realized I have the large intestine coming out of the stomach, when the small intestine should be) and the brain and spinal cord. We are now done talking about the parts of the body and will conclude our study of the Human Body with a two-day unit ...

Let's start with a book recommendation. The Human Body can be a very complicated thing to teach to young children. Brynne is 6, and although we had some great hands-on things planned for our unit, I didn't want to overwhelm her with the book choice(s) for each of the body systems. No problem with the Amazing Body series of children's books by Pamela Hill Nettleton!!! This week we were learning about the Respiratory System , so I checked out the book Breathe In, Breathe Out: Learning about your Lungs . I gave Brynne a balloon to "play with" while we were reading the book. The information on each page is simple, concise, informative, and completely on-the-level of a 4-8 year old child. The illustrations are nice, as well. It was the perfect length, and the way it was written made it interesting to listen to. There were also little fact bubbles on each page, so I would read the text and Brynne would read the fact bubbles. There are many books in this series an...

We added a new student . We did some rearranging in the school room. {That post is coming soon.} We had a another first day of school . To catch you up, we are now homeschooling an 8th grade boy, Dawson, and a 1st grade girl, Brynne. We have a sophomore girl, Kyndal, who goes to public school because that is what she wants. Without daily socialization, she would wither and die. And we have a 1st grade boy, Eli, who also still goes to public school. He has some special needs and sees a speech pathologist, occupational therapist and reading specialist. He also desperately needs the structure and socialization of the classroom (that he could not get at home to the same extent) and he needs to be pushed by a variety of educators and peers. We will bring him home someday, but right now he is a precious addition to his elementary school. Brynne This week we concentrated on getting Brynne (and me) used to her schooling at home. We had to prepare lessons for her on the fly, but came up...

We got out of a groove and back into one this week. I am certain that will happen many more times in our Journey! Being back on a Schedule is marvelous to this structure-freak teacher! That being said, I am still enjoying the unexpected moments of learning that I am allowing to occur through the day. Having my schedule just helps me to steer us back on track when we veer off. Brynne ~ 1st Grade For Brynne I have definitely settled into a solid teaching philosophy with her. Since I did not purchase any curriculum for her, I have been winging it! I am now very comfortable with our daily does of Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic, History lessons with the American Girls stories and Science lessons with our Nature study. It's just all so good! She is reading like a maniac, which I am loving! She amazes me every day with how she is putting "things" together. She is so excited about learning! She spells out loud all day. Yesterday afternoon I let her take a Spelling test with...

We start school one week from today. Are we ready? Kyndal is at the high school right now getting her schedule. She has English III, Algebra II, and Chemistry, then she will leave each day and go to Tech to her Cosmetology classes. We ordered her backpack (she's one of those kids that looooooves a new backpack every year) and got her favorite binder, the Mead Hybrid Flexible. We'll pick up her favorite mechanical pencils and then wait to see what other exhorbidant school supplies we need. For Tech, we purchased her black smock. She still needs to get black or khaki pants and black shoes. I even bought her a little blinged out pair of scissors pin to wear on her smock. And the girl's ready. Dawson has been sick this whole week, on the couch. Hopefully he'll get to feeling better so he can enjoy his last few days of freedom. I'm still waiting on his Teaching Textbooks Algebra I materials to get here. Should be just a couple more days. I've got his first Ame...

The highlight of our week last week was definitely related to food ! On Tuesday night Dawson {finally} cooked us the Greek meal he had been planning. Oh. My. Gosh. It was delicious! This kid can cook! He made Greek salad, Feta stuffed chicken and Lemon custard cakes. And we had grapes and cheese for an appetizer. Dawson ~ 8th Grade We are finishing up our unit on Ancient Greece and the Human Body Systems for science. He spent a great deal of the week studying for a vocabulary test and for his upcoming tests on Ancient Greece and the body systems. We finished Classic Myths to Read Aloud by William F. Russell. It was an excellent study of the myths. Dawson took a vocabulary test over 61 words used throughout the book and made a 90%. That was a great grade! But I was more impressed when he came down Thursday afternoon with his book The Last Olympian from the Percy Jackson series and pointed out two of his vocabulary words that were in one sentence in the book. Isn't that...