HS: October

This last month has been so good for school.  We are really getting into a groove and I feel great about what we are doing.  I love getting to teach Jacob.  

Jacob flew through his preschool language arts book.  He did awesome and even though it was easy for him, I thought it was all a good review and helped give him a solid foundation for things to come.  He is now working through a kindergarten primer book.  This just got added in the curriculum that we are using and I think it is really helpful.  It is pretty short and he will definitely finish it sometime in the upcoming month - but again, I think it is all good for him.  In the preschool book he finished all the letters and sounds (which he already knew) and learned about vowels.  This was really the only new thing for him.  In the primer we have started blending some words, continued working on vowels, and are learning about long and short vowel sounds. 

Handwriting is going well.  Not much to say there - the pictures at the end our definitely his favorite thing still!  

In math we finished chapter two and chapter three.  In chapter two we finished talking about numbers 0 to 9, pairing sets with numbers and pairing one-to-one.  In chapter three it was all about ordering things by size, length, or weight and comparing those sizes.  

Science we have continued to work on our arthropods unit.  We are in our last week and it has been great!  We have learned so much.  Some vocabulary words that we talked about were: entomology, hive, cell, and molting.  We talked about bees and wasps, the entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre, butterflies, ants, insect defenses, and arachnids.  

Pollination Activity

Did you ever wonder how bees communicate - through smells!  

Identification activity with honey bees, paper wasps, bumblebees, and yellow jackets.  

Making honey candy

Life cycle of a butterfly

Activity showing how spiders are able to walk on their webs

We didn't do much in art this month.  We only did one project but it was a fun one - an owl collage. 

Next we come to our read alouds.  We read Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald.  I remember reading this when I was younger and it may have been even more fun as an adult.  It was lots of fun to read together.  We have now started The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting and really enjoying it so far.