Trash Day

Our Classical Conversations science sentence this week dealt with pollution.  So, we got up close and personal to land pollution in the form of litter in our neighborhood.  We live in a new neighborhood still under construction.  Construction workers don't tend to tidy up after themselves, so there are a lot of opportunities for trash collecting.  Here's the litter we accumulated in just a short while.

There's plenty left where that came from.

Our history sentence dealt with Renaissance men, we focused on one....Shakespeare.  There was a scheduled break this week from Classical Conversations, so we had two weeks to cover Week 6.  It's a good thing, because our introduction to Shakespeare took a while.  More on that to come.

Week 5, Joan of Arc and Animal Adaption

In Classical Conversations, we learn a timeline of history based on the beautiful cards published by Veritas press.  Last year my children's attention was always arrested by the Joan of Arc card, which featured a painting similar to this:

They were full of questions about that girl in armor astride a horse.  It really captured their fancy.  So, I was glad when a history sentence this year featured the young heroine.

In preparation, I ordered Diane Stanley's Joan of Arc.  Unfortunately, my children's attention spans were not ready for  Ms. Stanley.  Instead, I obtained a library copy of Joan of Arc:  The Lily Maid by Margaret Hodges.  They REALLY liked this one.  

I was familiar with another Margaret Hodges book, Saint George and the Dragon, but was unaware she had written so many books set in the middle ages.  Since my children like Joan of Arc and Saint George the the Dragon, I decided to just make it Margaret Hodges week, and we also went on to read Dick Whittington and His Cat.

and The Kitchen Knight:  A Tale of King Arthur.

Our geography memory work featured the Alps.  I was eager to read a book from Sonlight's kindergarten list, The Apple and the Arrow by Mary and Conrad Bluff, which is set in the Alps during the 13th century.  This is a terrific historical 'novel' that we read over several days.  I really feel repetition is good, so we'll no doubt read this one again when we learn about Switzerland.

While reading this book, the kids colored a couple of castles from this coloring book, part of this new collection.

For science, our memory work related to the ways animals adapt to environmental change.  We revisited The Big Snow by Berta and Elmer Hader, which is a perfect fit for the topic.  Because it related well to ecology in general, we also read The Salamander Room, a Five In a Row selection.  

Along with the book we watched the Reading Rainbow video.  However my son declared it, the 'worst show he's ever seen.'  Well, not a good attitude, but I'm not really a LeVar fan either.

Week 4, European Cities and the Water Cycle

So many books, so little time.  Especially when mom is preparing for a certain boy's sixth birthday party and a visit from the grandparents.

For Classical Conversations geography, we memorized the location of five European countries.  I had a whole stack of books set in these cities to read.  However, because of time restraints, we read most but especially focused on Paris.  For us, Paris is synonymous with Madeline,

which we read for the two thousand one hundred and ninety-sixth time.  This time, we took a closer look at the illustrations and compared them to the illustrations in another fun book set in Paris, Babar Loses His Crown,

and another fun book, Adele and Simon.

This last one was the crowd favorite, and a book we had never read before.  It would be a good book for the home library.  The illustration are beautiful.  Finding Simon's lost items added an 'I Spy' dimension to the book and made it even more interesting.

We ended our tour of Paris with the classic, This is Paris.

For Classical Conversations science, the topic was the natural cycles.  We read one book on the water cycle.  As with last week, Ms. Frizzle was our guide as we read The Magic School Bus at the Waterworks.

We ended our study of the water cycle by watching a Magic School Bus video also about the water cycle called "The Magic School Bus Wet All Over" here.

Birthday party = no enrichment activities.  We stuck to the basics this week.

Week 2

This week we began a tour of Europe by visiting Spain by way of the classic children's book The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf.  We even enjoyed this Walt Disney version which stayed very true to the book:

Mostly our extra readings corresponded with our Classical Conversations science memory work about consumers.  I searched our home library to find books that featured an animal eating, and we simply discussed what type of consumer that animal represented.  Science lite, I know, but very kindergarten and preschool appropriate.

Here's a list of books we read featuring some of our favorite herbivores, carnivores and omnivores:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Once a Mouse by Marcia Brown

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey

The Big Snow* by Berta and Elmer Hader

We followed these with a trio of books by Beatrix Potter.   Considering her animals speak and wear clothes, it is amazing how realistically these books capture their natural characteristics.  I have purchased many of her books mostly because their petite white covers look good on my daughter's bookshelf.  I never dreamed that my children would love to hear these stories so much.  They frequently request them.  Here are the three we read (and reread) this week:

The Tale of Peter Rabbit

The Tale of Benjamin Bunny

The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher

Today, the weather coordinated with the calendar, and we got out to enjoy the cooler September temperatures with a trip to the zoo.  Every time we go to the zoo, my children focus exclusively on two things:  the playground and the train.  Today, I insisted that before we could enjoy either, we had to find two animals each of an herbivore, carnivore and omnivore.  From a mom's point of view, this approach was a success.  Here are a few highlights:

We got to see prairie dogs, which had eluded us on our trip to the actual prairie 

Okay, there was a little bit of playground time

* We will read this gem many times over the following weeks because it perfectly conveys a lot of the concepts we're covering in our Classical Conversations memory work.

Week 1

We officially started school this week including all of the elements listed here.  In addition to the basics, we spent a lot of time on science.  While science is not a priority in kindergarten, reading and making connections are.  The Classical Conversations science memory work for the first week was about biomes.  We memorized seven types, but explored three in our reading and other activities.  

First up was deserts and Roxaboxen.

This was a beautiful picture  book set in the Arizona desert.  Unfortunately, it did not charm my children as much as it charmed me, but they remained agreeable while we read it and discussed the plants and animals in the desert setting.

Next we read a "living" book called The Desert is Theirs.  This book was more on the educational end of the entertainment/educational spectrum.  It presented a lot of information on desert life in a wonderful, almost lyrical style.

To top it off, we watched a Bill Nye video on deserts.

Second biome:  Tropical Rain Forests

A favorite picture book from our home library set in the Costa Rican rain forest is Jan Brett's The Umbrella.

It was fun to reread this book focusing on the animals in the context of their tropical rain forest home.  We took advantage of Jan Brett's website and its free printables and made a rain forest mural. Here's the result:

The kids' favorite book of the week was The Great Kapok Tree.

The illustrations in this book were beautiful.  The talking animals definitely appealed to my five- and three-year-old children.

The grand finale was a study of grasslands.

We read a chapter book called One Day in the Prairie by Jean Craighead-George.  The book was also highly educational, but, to me, was a little on the dry side.  However, my son actually requested that I read it aloud a second and then a third time.  The tarantula and tornado in the book must have appealed to him.  This was perfect preparation for our own day in the prairie.  We took an hour-long road trip to a 37,000 acre tall-grass prairie.

I'll admit, I'm partial to shade.  But the grasslands set against a bright blue sky were beautiful.  Here's some of what we saw: