Education Update For May!

It's been awhile since I've done an update.   We're still doing the normal school stuff--math, spelling, reading, ect.   So I'm just highlighting some of the more interesting stuff.

E-R has been reading Mary Pope Osborne's version of the Odyssey

And liking it in spite of herself.

I-E chose to go with Maricia Williams'version

of the Iliad and the Odyssey

Ethan slogged through The Children's Homer

My littles fell in love with Mind Benders.   I remember doing this with the older kids.  They loved it also.

We worked through one book last week and started on a new one.

We started economics by making little booklets which we will later put together into a lap book.

We covered scarity and its causes

Major Global Economic systems

US's Economic system of Mixed Market

and

Private Business Organizations and Entrepreneurship
(which we didn't do the booklets for yet)

Art

We covered pattern and made these cute little fish sculptures using a stamping technique

We then did a study in texture
Starting with rubbings

It was very interesting seeing everyone's personalities in their rubbings!


Then we learned about how different materials are used to show texture in two dimensional art

We used all different drawing tools and paints to create different texture looks

It was interesting to see the kids learn that the different art pencils really do produce different looks

We also learned about different ways to create texture in three dimensional art
We had created pots for history a few weeks ago using clay.  That has a texture all its own.

Next we learned about implied texture

We started Aristotle Leads the Way from Joy Hakim's The Story of Science.

Love it!  Can't Say Enough Good Stuff About It!
We compared Ancient Calendars in Babylon, China, and Egypt
All of them had problems--some big(such as an extra SEVEN months every nineteen years)
and some minor(such as an extra five days added as holidays)
Egypt was the only country at that time to use a solar calendar--much like ours today
We talked about how tides were used to make calendars on some ancient island cultures
We read about four Ionians( Thales, Anaximander, Anaximens, Anaxagoras)who were the earliest scientist/philosophers in Western Civilization.  I was very excited with how well this tied into our study of Ancient Greece.
We then compared and contrasted the number systems of the Sumerians, Arabs, and Romans.   After trying to multiply with Roman numerals, E-R said that she is very glad we use the Arabic number system.
Last we learned about Empedocles.  He lived in fifth-century-B.C. Greece and came up with the world's longest enduring theory in the history of science.   His theory of the four elements--wind, fire, air, and earth--endured for over 2,300 years!
All in all we are really enjoying this science.

We also enjoyed our astronomy study.  We learned about stars and our sun.   And were introduced to the solar system via this nifty  mobile which is hanging in the girls' bedroom so its glow in the dark paint can be enjoyed.

We worked on our timelines in not only history, but also science which is just how I want the timeline books to work!   Now I need to work on including lit. into our timelines.

.   A-M created a really neat brochure about color-blindness in her biology class.   I remember when I went to school--making a brochure involved  a lot of real life cutting and pasteing.

Not the case these days!

A-M is playing Lady Montague in her English class's Romeo and Juliet production
And is really looking forward to summer break!

N finished his college classes(Japanese II and Statisics) this last week.   His is working on one more history class to finish out the year.  He is also the one representive being sent to the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership Conference.  We are very proud of him!   This coming week he will also be attending Camp Ramah, another leadership camp.  Now if he would just stop being found on rooftop--we'd think he was way chill!