Orange-headed Lizard

Not long after we moved into our new home, we were spending the afternoon playing outside.  I heard Old Crow say to Crazy Horse, "Don't touch it!  It may be poisonous!"  I thought he may be talking about a plant (as we had just been talking about poison ivy).  When I walked over I was shocked to see them pointing to this large creature. It startled me so bad...I was almost scared.  I had never seen anything like it!  It was fat, slick, and extremely fast.  Not to mention that orange head.

We took some pictures of it and then headed inside to do some research.  I used this strange sighting to begin an impromptu science lesson.  Old Crow and I set out to decide what this orange-headed lizard was called.  We googled several different phrases and didn't get anything helpful until I typed "lizard with an orange head."  We finally got some hits!!  It is called a skink.

Here is one website where we found lots of information:

http://srelherp.uga.edu/lizards/eumlat.htm

During this spontaneous lesson, Old Crow learned about the skink's habitat, food source, reproduction, and whether it was poisonous.  We were also able to look at many other photos of the skink.

So the next time you find a new, interesting creature

remember that it can be a teachable moment.  :) 

Jenny

Old Crow Goes to Paris

Our latest FIAR book was Madeline.  Madeline is one of the most honored children's books and with its rhyme and precocious character it was a favorite for us too.  It gave us many areas of study including a visit to Paris!

Here is a tour through our week with Madeline. 

Monday

On the first day after reading aloud Madeline, we found France on the map and attached our story disk.  

Old Crow colored a picture of the flag of France, which we added to our Lapbook of Flags.

We also watched a short video clip showing kids visiting the Eiffel Tower and listened to someone speaking French.  Then he colored a picture of the Eiffel Tower.

While the kids had some free time later that day, I streamed the Madeline movie on the computer.  It matched the book exactly and they loved it!

 Tuesday

Old Crow wanted to have a Pajama and Movie Day like his younger siblings did at their preschool.  So on Tuesday we stayed in our PJs, ate popcorn, and watched a movie. :)

Of course we watched a Madeline movie...Madeline Goes to Paris.  She gave us a tour of Paris and the Eiffel Tower. ;)

Later that day we made a French treat...chocolate croissants.  They were really just chocolate chips rolled in canned crescent rolls. ;)   But he got the idea!

Wednesday

The next day we took a look at Claude Monet and his art.  Old Crow looked through several of his paintings and then he put together a puzzle of one of them...La Promenade.

After looking at Monet's style of painting, Old Crow tried his hand at painting.

Thursday

Today was Daddy's day for lessons...as the focus was on the appendix.  Dr. Daddy explained where the appendix is located and its function.  Old Crow was fascinated by Madeline's scar and the fact that the book didn't show a picture of it.  So we found some images of an appendix scar and that satisfied him.

To go along with our discussion of the human body and health, we had a science center on germs.  Old Crow rubbed his hands in glitter which represented germs.  He tried to wipe them off with a paper towel and that didn't work.  He tried to rub his hands together to get them off...that didn't work either.  I then asked him to try water.  He ran water over his hands and some glitter came off but not all.  I asked him how he thought he could get it all off.  He then tried soap and water.  Voila!!!  All of the "germs" came off.  We shall see how long our lesson on soap and water lasts. ;)

   

Jenny

Resurrection Week

As our friends and family enjoyed Spring Break the week before Easter, we spent the week in our new home catching up on school work.  The weeks before were spent packing, unloading, and organizing our new house so we were a little behind. ;)  

Since it was Resurrection Week, I wanted that to be the focus of our school work.   The first thing we did was create our Resurrection Lapbook.  I found a wonderful link with many printables for the lapbook.  

We printed off the lapbook cover, Easter Bingo (which Old Crow wanted to play everyday), How We Celebrate flipbook, a Bible verse (John 11:25) for copywork. 

We also found Israel on the map and used the pages from his A Beka social studies book to learn about places and culture of Israel. It helped him to realize that the places we read about from long ago are real and current even today.

For a fun math activity, we used jelly beans to practice several skills.  I filled a jar with jelly beans and we discussed how to estimate.  Then we poured some of the jelly beans onto the table and graphed the colors, which allowed us to find the greatest and least. 

After the graphing activity, we wanted to count all the jelly beans in the jar to see if our estimations were close.  We grouped them by 10s, which made counting them a lot easier.

 For our daily Bible time, we focused on Jesus' days before His resurrection.  I used the Resurrection Eggs to help facilitate our discussions.  We opened two eggs each day and read the corresponding scripture.  It was a great reminder for even Clark and me...reading and focusing on all Jesus endured for us. 

  And Memphis Belle enjoyed playing with the container of plastic eggs...although she prefers them to be filled with chocolate.  We called her our little egg thief.  She would sneak off with the filled eggs, open them, take off the candy wrapper, and hide and eat the chocolate.  She was a mess!! (literally and figuratively)

Jenny