Next Week's Plans ~ The Last Week

To celebrate Brynne completing the entire study of a letter-of-the-week curriculum, we will be doing a week-long lesson on The Zoo from A-Z.

How will we do that?

My amazing bloggy friend Stacey at BrainInTrainin (I get so many of my ideas from her) posted about a website for the Indianapolis Zoo. You can download the materials by going here. (It's the 3rd grade program.) I printed off the relevant materials for our study and put them in a binder for a full week of activities. Many of the items in the materials can be used, no matter where you live and no matter how old your kids are.

We will do the following:

• sort and diagram the provided animals using a Venn Diagram to plot animals with claws, beaks and tails
• sort and chart habitats of the animals (grassland, forest, ocean, swamp rain forest, tundra and desert)
• choose three animals from our animal fact cards and discuss the different ways they all do the same type of activities, like eating, foraging, moving, protecting themselves, listening and communicating and finding shelter
• play habitat games of Kangaroo Hop, Monkey Thumbs and Binocular Eyes
• choose ten animals from magazines and make lists under each of them, on a poster, of the things on the animals' bodies that help them survive in their habitat and what actions the animals might take that help them survive
• sort all of the animals into groups of carnivores and omnivores

Then on Friday we are going to go to our local zoo (a great zoo) and do an A to Z Scavenger Hunt. That will be lots of fun!

And that will conclude Brynne's 1st grade year of homeschooling. An Amazing and Zealful year!

I made Dawson a list of things that he has to finish by next Friday: Pre-algebra assignments (6 lessons plus his final), his Valesquez poster, typing and Spanish lessons, and I, Juan de Pareja. As soon as he gets it all done, he's out of school for the summer! That timing is entirely up to him. Then he will go to the zoo with us. And then he will be a high school student!  Wow!

That night we are celebrating the end of our school year with Pizza!