Science Sunday: herbivore or carnivore teeth

 

 

We’re attempting to get a head start on our land animals science for the year, and this week we learned about teeth.

 

Teeth you say?  That’s right, how can you tell whether an animal is an herbivore or a carnivore from it’s teeth.

Short answer:  Herbivores have flat teeth for grinding, and carnivores have sharp pointy teeth for ripping and tearing.

 

What about omnivores, you say?

 

They have a combination of both teeth.  Another interesting point, most carnivores don’t chew their meat, but swallow it in bite size pieces.

 

After learning all of that I printed off several pictures of “funny animal teeth” (that got the best search results).  I made sure to print off some of each type and only print a close-up of the mouth.

Then came the sorting, more sorting, and the final analysis:

Can you tell what animals I chose?

After all of this wrangling and deciding we had to see for sure what type of teeth our dog had.

And pose for pictures, you can’t forget that.  Doesn’t he look so happy to wear the Rapunzel wig?  And what do you know, he does have carnivore teeth.

 

I’m behind on commenting, I’ve spent the week enjoying our last few days before we “officially” start school.  We’ve had a playdate each day of the week, so look for your comments someday today or tomorrow.  Sorry guys.

 

 

 

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Heritage History Review

I told you I’d write a more full review once I’d had a chance to use it more, and then I got busy reading the books included in my Early American library and planning for the school year that I forgot to do that.  But now I have a REVIEW AND A GIVEAWAY for you!

I wrote a detailed how to get your books loaded onto your Nook post a few weeks ago, and the advice there is still how I do it.

Since then, I’ve taken the time to read two of my books, and I love them.  To make it easier for me to find them, I created a special bookshelf of my American history books.

They are all formatted very well, and like all other Nook (and I’m assuming Kindle) have a touchable Table of Contents to get to specific chapters within a book.  I enjoy that feature since for most of these books I’m not planning on reading the whole book to them.

At first when I got the books I assumed I was only going to be able to use it for the fall semester, thinking the spring semester would be too recent to have books included.  But, I was surprised to learn there were some books for World War 1 included in the set as well.

PROS of these CDs
1.  They’re an affordable way to add in some great classical litereature to your school year, each of the Curriculum CDs has at least 40 books, and the libraries look to have at least 30 books.  That’s a great buy.
2.  Well organized.  They break the books down into beginner (green), intermediate (orange), and advanced (red).  I’m planning to use both beginner and intermediate books as read alouds for my kids.
3.  The books themselves are well-formatted for all of the different formats (e-reader, PDF, etc).  They are easily navigable.

CONS of these CDs
1.  If you don’t have an e-reader it could be a lot of printing.  You’d have to decide for yourself if that was worth it.  I’ve had times before I got my Nook I thought it was, but that’s one only you can make the call.
2.  Some of the books on the Early American library are compilation types, which means I have to go to each book to find what I want, and the titles aren’t always descriptive enough for me to know what it is.  Now, I don’t think this is a total con, because it gives me an excuse to read the books.
3.  You might get sucked into reading about something you’re not studying.  We finished studying Lafayette awhile ago, and yet I still took the time to read all about him.  Why?

and how I’m using it with All American History

I’ve only got the lesson plans for the fall semester, but here’s my general plan so far…….  Of course this is subject to change.

Prelude to Civil War

excerpt’s from Uncle Tom’s Cabin for Young Readers, this was such an influential book
Underground Railroad short story from This Country of Ours

Civil War (this is 4 chapters in

All American History)

American Book of Golden Deeds: Sympahty of Abraham Lincoln (short story)
Battle Between Ironclads short story from This Country of Ours (very important battle for military history)
Death of Stonewall Jackson short story from This Country of Ours
Grant’s Campaign from This Country of Ours

Reconstruction

President is Impeached short story from This Country of Ours (I still remember the political cartoon about this from when I took US history in high school)

Gilded Age and Westward Expansion

True Stories of Our Presidents for Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur (just finished reading one of those for myself out of curiosity)
Stories of Theodore Roosevelt (in particular Battle for San Juan Hill)
Antoine of Oregon
(I’m still looking through for this portion)

TO BUY IT

Go to Heritage History and check out their stuff, if you buy a history curriculum, add the Spanish Empire library to your cart and enter the code TICIAJOY in the coupon box to get the Spanish Empire library for free!

BONUS, FREE RIGHT NOWI just got an email that the Story of England is free right now!

WIN IT

Now you get a chance to win one of their CDs for yourself!  Use Rafflecopter to enter below.  I was so excited to post this I forgot to put in the:
RULES AND CONDITIONS:
Giveaway closes one week from today, August 15, 2012
United States or military base mailing adress only
a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Learning All the Time

Around the World in 12 Dishes: Australia

Welcome to "Around The World in 12 Dishes". We will be taking you on a journey around the world, (loosely) following in Phileas Fogg's footsteps, exploring 12 different countries with our children, by cooking 12 dishes with them. One for each country visited.
 
href="http://adventuresofmommyness.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Adventures In Mommydom, Creative Family Fun, Domestic Goddesque, Glittering Muffins, Juggling with Kids, Kitchen Counter Chronicles, Mermaids' Makings, Mom 2 Posh Little Divas, Montessori Tidbits, Mummymummymum, The Educators' Spin On It and The Usual Mayhem have come together to help you on your food journey and will each cook a dish with our children and post about it - to help inspire you to have a go! Then go out there, cook, blog, and join in the linky fun!

I have a friend from church who moved to Australia and she writes about their life there.  One of the things I noticed is a lot of cook outs and barbecues.  This works well with my cooking and eating style, so barbecue it was.  I did a quick search and found a recipe for barbecue chicken and smashed potatoes, and then proceeded to completely ignore their recipes.

Barbecue Chicken
Are you ready?  This is super simple.  Defrost about 6 or so chicken breasts in a ziploc bag.  Pour in a bottle of barbecue sauce and a half cup or so of honey.  Let marinate for a while.  Start the grill and grill those babies.  Super hard, I know.

Smashed Potatoes
Does anyone else call their mashed potatoes smushed potatoes?  I do because it amuses me.

Ingredients
several small potatoes (I like the red ones)
butter
salt, garlic, other topping type of things
parmesan

1.  Wash your potatoes and put them in a pan filled with water.  Boil for about 20 minutes or so, until the potatoes are fork tender.  I did not cook mine long enough because I was hungry.  So make sure it’s fairly tender.  Preheat oven to 250.


2.  Smush the potatoes with a potato masher.  This is where I had undercooked it a little, so they didn’t smoosh too well.  More of tried to roll away or fly away and hit unaware people in the face.  Make sure to try any random pieces that fall off and say “Mmmmmm potato.”


3.  Add the butter, garlic powder, salt, whatever toppings you’re putting on.  Cook for 15-20 minutes.  Ours were a hair under done because of my earlier mistake, but the chicken was ready and I was HUNGRY!

4.  After you take them out sprinkle some parmesan cheese on.  Yummy.


5.  Eat.  My boys would say bonus points for stuffing the entire potato or chicken into your mouth.


Maybe enjoy some dinnertime reading as you eat.  By the end of the meal there was nothing left.  Superman ate 3 potatoes and 2 small chicken breasts.  Batman ate 2 potatoes and all of his chicken.  Princess ate large amounts of meat.  At the end of the meal they were scavenging and stealing from other people’s plates.

Science Sunday: Review Apologia Junior Journal

My co-op buddy and I had been using the same science and would get together from time to time and have science lessons together, then she switched on me from Swimming Creatures to Anatomy.  Why?  So she could use the junior journal, but I was already committed having bought the  Swimming Creatures lapbook (which is on sale right now, and I do still recommend), and really liking it.

This year I gave my kids the choice of doing the lapbook again or using the Junior journal.  I brought one of their lapbooks and we sat on the floor of the local Christian bookstore and compared the two.  Thus ensued a long discussion about the pros and cons, here they are as my children decided:

 

PROS according to my kids

 

1.  coloring pages, this was Superman’s big thing, he loves to color and actually wants more pages to color

2.  Places to draw pictures of what we’re learning about.

3.  Fun looking experiments.

 

PROS according to me

4.  Perfect amount of space for young writers.  My kids struggle to write on their own, they want me to spell EVERYTHING.  I’m working on building their confidence writing on their own and helping afterwards.

 

5.  Copywork for working on handwriting.  The copywork is either definitions or Bible verses, and there is an option for print or cursive.  Along with space to draw.

 

 

6.  Additional resources and ideas.  Each lesson has about two pages of itty bitty print of extra resources, if you did everything you would easily take a month or more for each lesson.  Obviously we’re not going to do it all, but many of these videos are on Netflix or youtube and it’s a fun way to pass an evening.

 

7.  Lesson plans- it does a great job of breaking down how to use the textbook and journal together.  I partially based my lesson plans on their layout.  Slightly different, but same idea.

 

8.  Additional experiments, you know my kids are all about those experiments.  ALL ABOUT.  They actually are in the process of creating their own experiments right now.

 

CONS

1.  Since it’s not a download I have to buy one for each kid, but the plus side of that is I don’t have to print it out myself.

 

 

Let’s see what others did this week:

Each week I’m spotlighting a few posts that were shared previously.  Many posts get linked up later in the week and they don’t always get as many clicks as they deserve, so I’m trying to spotlight a few every week.

Source: books4learning.blogspot.com via Ticia on Pinterest

Books 4 Learning shared about a new picture book series showing animal life cycles.  Isn’t that mole picture amazing?

Source: littlewondersdays.blogspot.com via Ticia on Pinterest

Little Wonder Days has a wonderful experiment that leads to making homemade bread.  Anything leading to homemade bread is a good thing in my mind.

 

Source: creeksidelearning.com via Ticia on Pinterest

Creekside Learning shared her science curriculum for this year.  I have to say it looks intriguing.

 

 

 

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Our curriculum picks for the year 2012-2013

I love Back to School.  I loved it when I was a teacher, and I still love it as a homeschooling Mom. When I was teaching I loved to read what everyone was doing in their classrooms and all of their tips and tricks.  I can just imagine what I would have been like if I’d had blogs to read back then……..
I’m going to go through all of my kids together and make notes of where they are different.

Superman and Batman are in 2nd grade.
Princess is officially starting Kindergarten.

READING

Everyone will be using All About Reading level 1 and the boys will move on to All About Reading level 2 when it comes out.  They are all at different points on their journey.  We got it in January and sped through it during the traditional school year, but slowed down during the summer. 
Superman is almost ready for level 2, Batman is a little over halfway, and Princess is still on the first book.
Former posts on All About Reading: How we organize All About Reading, Our spelling board, Making Games from the book, Adventures in Reading with ZigZag Zebra

Looking it over, I’ve never actually posted a review of the whole program.  I need to remedy that, and will do so when I get level 2……….

MATH

We’ll continue with Math U See, it’s worked well and everyone enjoys it. 
Princess is halfway through Alpha, we’re taking it super duper slow, she completes half a page.

The boys will be doing Beta, and continue to love it.
Anyone have suggestions for storing their blocks?  Right now each child has their own pencil box of blocks, but that is not working as well as I’d like.

HISTORY

We’re going to continue with All American History, but this year it’s All American History 2!  We very much enjoyed All American History Jr last year, and will continue to use that for our notebooking.

In addition we’re adding in Heritage History.  I’ve had so much fun reading through a few of the books on my own, and I’m really trying very hard not to just throw 200 books at them.  VERY very hard……..  I’ve figured out which books I’m using with each chapter, and will probably share that next week, along with a more full review of the program.

We’ll also continue our history coop with the other family and are adding in one more family.  We’ll also add in some World history as we’re able, because both of us were missing world history.

GEOGRAPHY

We’ll be continuing through our study of the 50 states.  We’re over halfway done.  I don’t know if we’ll be continuing with the other family or not, because they’re moving up to Waco (sadness, much sadness).

I’ve got my book lists printed out for my next 10 states…….  Now to get off my but and get going.

SCIENCE

We are continuing with Apologia, and will be using Exploring Creation with Zoology 3: Land Animals of the Sixth Day (Young Explorer Series) .   We’ve loved all of the other ones in the series, and from the chapter we’ve completed so far, will probably love this one.  Stay tuned tomorrow for a review of the junior journal and what I’ve collected so far in my land animals pinterest board.

I also want to figure out a way to make a more concentrated effort at nature study, we kinda sorta don’t really do it, at all.  And I’d like to change that.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

We’re learning sign language while watching Signing Time.  The kids enjoy it, it’s a fun format and they’re picking up a lot.  I’m also remembering signs I’d forgotten since it’s been over 10 years since I was in college and at a deaf church.

ART

We’ll do something. Any suggestions?  I’m thinking I might just use the stuff from Schoolhouse Teachers………

WRITING

Still figuring it out.  For now I’m going to be using First Grade Writing Prompts for Holidays: A Creative Writing Workbook (Volume 1) , not sure what all else.  I have a textbook from when I taught first grade I might bring in.

BIBLE

I’m halfway through our planned “Through the Bible in 2 years.”  I’ll be writing more about that soon, as I’m in the process of switching to wordpress so I can share it all.  More to come soon…….  This is the cover art for 1 and 2 Samuel.

For now you’ll just get random posts as I get non-printable stuff ready…………




pictures taken with the help of my adorable dog (who mainly helped by making sure there are no bugs near my picture)
Now join me in seeing what everyone else is doing…………

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