Beyond Unit 5

We finally got to going almost full speed with Unit 5.  We had a few things pop up that made ti so we had to take a day off, but we are finally to the point of doing a day of the guide in one literal day.  Well, we haven't started storytime again, but other than that, we are doing everything in a day.  We are waiting a tiny bit to start storytime.  We have a trip coming up, so we will be doing storytime a lot on the trip.

The history in Unit 5 gets a little confusing.  We added in the third spine for history, and there was a little confusion as to the main "characters."  Stories of the Pilgrims mentions Love Brewster and then later a girl named Jan.  Boys and Girls of Colonial Days focused on Love Bradford and a boy named Jan.  Luckily, my daughter iddn't pick up on it too much, but it did confuse me!

The poem for the unit is Song for a Little House.  My daughter chose to draw the house.  She tried to mix crayon colors to make brown, as our brown crayon was lost.  That is why the little girl int he picture looks a little "witchy."

We chose to modify the first science activity a little.  My kids are experts at making waves, thanks to visiting a water park last year with a wave maker.  So, we instead talked about how the wave length of light determine the color a TINY bit.

The second science experiment was about heart beats.  We talked about heart beats and the sounds they make.  They really liked listening to each other's hearts with the paper towel tube.

The art for the unit was to make a tulip, as Love Bradford receive a pink tulip bulb.  The paper tulip is taped to a stick and then inserted into a slot behing the flower pot.  Instead of using ribbon, we covered the stick with green striped washi tape.  We tried to add a leaf to the step, but getting it to go int he slot proved to a a challenge.  So, we tore it off.

Finally, here is our timeline to date.  The last entry is actually Unit 6 Day 1, as we finished Unit 5 mid-week (and I didn't get to take pictures until the end of the week).

Beyond Unit 4

Unit 4 of Beyond is about the Pilgrims leaving England for Holland.  The art project was to make a barn door out of construction paper.  Inside, my daughter wrote the verse for the unit - Matthew 6:19-21.  

The first science activity for the unit was on light.  We explored what blocked light and what let light pass through.  We made a chart with our guesses and then checked them.  I few things we had to put in a sort of column.  We could see the light ont he other side, but the light didn't really go through the item.

The second sicence activity was on surface tension.  We placed drops of water on a penny to see how many it could hold.  We did it many times, and we found that a DRY penny could hold about 16-17 drops with our dropper.  Now, if we didn't get the penny completely dry, it held less.

The poem for the unit is called Daybreak.  My daughter chose to paint a picture of sunrise with her playing in a field in the foreground.

There was also a fun history activity for this unit.  We built a dike out of play dough.  Then we had to fix the dike if there was a leak.   The kids chose to "populate" the land side of the dike with a few toys even.

Finally, we finished up the biography storytime.  We read Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin.  We actually finished a little early, as we started to read daily even though we weren't completing a day of the guide in one actual day.  One of the last activities
 for the storytime was to do a written narration based off of yoru child's oral narration.  This is what my daughter dictated:
Benjamin is waiting for someone to take him to Philadelphia.  Mamma tells him to paint a picture of Grimalkin.  Jacob appears.  Benjamin tells Jacob he is going to Philadelphia to paint. Jacob tells Benjamin that they will be taking him.  They eat and then get ready to leave.  Grimalkin plays with the tail of Jacob's hat as they leave in a sleigh. (Chapter 21).

Beyond Unit 3

Unit 3 switches gears by using another spine for history.  We moved to Stories of the Pilgrims as the spine for the week.  This spine starts with the Pilgrims in England and the persecution they face for worshiping in a church other than the official one. 

The first science lesson was about bees and flowers, after we read about the queen visiting the Brewster's home in England.  We learned how bees pick up pollen on their feet and transplant it to other plants, allowing more plants to grow.

 The second science lesson was on light.  We saw how black objects absorb light and white objects reflect it.

 The poem for the unit was call "Uphill." It is about travelers going uphill on a journey.  My daughter chose to draw and paint the road with the coach and then the hotel.

The art for the unit was to make a stone wall with roses growing on it. The instructions said to draw the mortar lines, but instead we sponge painted the stones.  It seemed to work better, was drawing the mortar lines didn't show up well for us.

Beyond Unit 2

Unit 2 was a fun unit.  We continues to learn about the earliest settlements in the US, this time focusing on Jamestown.  We learned about how the city looked and some of the jobs children had back then.

 The art activity for the unit was about the story of Ruth.  My daughter made a field of wheat with a corner for gleaning.

 The poem for the week was "Father We Thank Thee."  My daughter chose to paint the sky, hill, and tree from the point.

 There were two science activities.  The first was to learn about an animal.  My daughter chose a giraffe.  The second was to explore who "flying" squirrels glide.  We dropped two pieces of paper, one flat and one balled up, and saw how the flat one took a lot longer to fall.

Finally, we completed the notebooking page.  Like Unit 1, Unit 2 took us about 2 weeks.  So, doing the notebooking page helped as a refresher before we did the Bible lesson on Ruth.