We went over the story about a train engineer and driver called Casey Jones. We learns how he likes to go really fast and never be late. One day he was asked do a double shift and he was really late , so he went the fastest he had ever been. His helper Sim, who loaded the coal into the fires to help the train go fast, Told Casey he was going to fast. Soon, they realized that there was a train stuck on the train track but he was going to fast to stop in time. He told Sim to jump off and he eventually did , but Casey stayed on the train trying to get it to stop. He never made it off in time, but died when the trains collided. Though, he did help saves lives on the train he hit but slowing down the train as much as possible and completing his duty as a train operator.
April 2013 Archives
We read the story of The Velveteen Rabbit. or How Toys become real. It's a story about how well loved toys because real because in the mind of the child, the toy is real. In this story, a stuffed rabbit learns that as he/she becomes shabby, loses fur, eyes and tail starts to come off and ears get torn, it is getting closer to being "REAL" in the child's mind. The child in the story gets a sickness (scarlet fever) and though the bunny has many memories of going on outings with the boy, she is going to be burned to get rid of germs causing this illness. Luckily, a nursery toy fairy comes and really makes the rabbit real and as she goes back to visit the boy, he recognizes the rabbit as the one he soooo loved as a child.
My Friend Leslie sent me a video showing about the anatomy of Manta rays, what they eat and that there are basically two kinds. It was hard to hear on this video and so I will watch it again with Megan. We really enjoyed learning about them. More information to come.
Megan and I went on a line walk. Around our neighborhood, we looked for various types of lines. Tomorrow we will discuss how artist use lines in their work.
Megan received more practice counting by 5's and she learned what ordinal numbers are. Ordinal numbers are like first , second, third , fourth, and are called ordinal numbers because they talk about the order in which numbers come in.
Megan has to differentiate between a desert and a plains. She had to glue a picture of a desert and plains to the right description. Then, she had to cut out desert animals, from a mixture of animals, that might live in a desert and glue them into the desert seen. She was just unsure about the lion, so we will read books about lions to determine their habitats.
Today, we went to clean up Galveston. We ended up on some rocks and we took a lot of trash out between the cracks and gaps in the rocks. There also was a lot of fishing line. i wish people who came to fish or go crabbing took there lines back home with them at the end of the day. Anyway, we picked up a lot of trash this day.
Again, I asked Megan what these were before doing the pages and she knew the difference between a desert and plain, probably from our travels. Travel definitely is a great teacher. So, I just let her cut and paste the desert and plains images to the right definition. She is starting to read enough to recognize which is which.
Megan already knew what a volcano was before doing this. I guess all our Nova and Nature shows. So, I just let her color in the different parts of a volcano for complete.
We are starting a lesson on Inventions. We read a book called Imaginative Inventions and Leo Cockroach toy tester. Now, Megan is going to test two toys and modify a current toy.
We read a reading comprehension discussing the invention of the pencil. Megan woke up asking who invented this. Turns out the British in the 16th century were the first to find graphite, which pencils were made of.
Subtracting 1. I added much harder problems to the spare space.
This was a neat meetup. First we read a book on the heat. It was a book
with little animated characters that flow through the heart and act out
the components of the blood and what happens as it flows along through
the arteries to the body, back through the veins and to the lungs to
pick up more oxygen. Then, we sang a rap song about the heart. I should
put in here the article from my Science and Children. Then, we did this
using drums so the kids could kinda hear the beat of their hearts
through music. Then, we colored, using berries, the red and blue parts
of the heart, with red being oxygenated and blue being deoxygenated.
The children also reached into touch boxes to try to see what was in it
and what was in it varied by texture, from scratchy to smooth to sticky,
etc.
More subtraction and again I added problems as Megan feels two problems is a waste of a page. I generally make them harder and Megan loves explaining to me how she solved them.
Okay, the idea was to combine Pond life with Monet, since Monet likes to paint waterlilies. We were unable to find a good place with waterlilies, so we did this at Armand Bayou. We get there an on the way, we stop on the bridge that you walk to to get to the amphibian/reptiles house. I sat there an read a book on Frogs and Predator Prey. I also brought out All about Frog by Jim Arnosky because one person wanted to know the difference between a frog and a toad. So, I discussed these differences. Then, we went out to the kids play area and we let them run around and then do a painting , using Monet's art for Inspiration. Then, we went out to the pond with a net and collected aquatic specimens and i helped identify the specimens with my sheets and a page in Donna's book. Then, we just walked around exploring the place and the bison. We caught an actual frog, not a toad. Which is rare, so that was neat. Megan was at home here as she loves to find new pond creatures.
Megan learned the parts of a mountain and already knew it was higher and larger than a hill based on our triips to climb mountains and such. But, she learned the parts of a mountain, such as the base, the slopes, and the peak. I should review them tomorrow.
Megan and I read about the Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. We discussed that this world was new to them, so they called it "The New World". Also, we discussed they were coming here because they couldn't practice their religion in England, where they came from. Then, it discussed how they listened to the King of England for a time until the American Revolution, where we became Independent from England (Britain). July 4th , 1776. We also learned where Massachusetts is located on the map.
Today, Megan and I reviewed whom Christopher Columbus was as I need to go over important historical people. In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue. We discussed that he was trying to find a faster route to "The Indies" but he reached the North American- South American Continents, more specifically central America, which is just an extension of North America.
Megan wanted to do these pages, though it was really easy. She had to take a lamb through a maze by following all the items that started with this sound. She did it just fine.
For Nn, she had to color all the items on a nut necklace that has this particular sound.
For Vv, She had to paste all the items that started with the same sound as Volcano onto a volcano.
For Nn, she had to color all the items on a nut necklace that has this particular sound.
For Vv, She had to paste all the items that started with the same sound as Volcano onto a volcano.
Megan learned about the Long Vowel A. She learned that the silent E , like in lake, the "ai" in train and the "ay" in tray are three ways she will see long A.
She had to circle pictures of things that had long A sound on page 150, she had to circle the parts of words that lead to the long A sound on page 151.
She had to circle pictures of things that had long A sound on page 150, she had to circle the parts of words that lead to the long A sound on page 151.
Megan has to color pictures that have long E sound in them . Then she had to read sentences and circle the right Long E word that answers the sentence and write that word. Pages 158-159.
Megan did a standard Kindergarten Math test and did fine. I will eventually do a first grade one, but one test a day/week is plenty.
In Chapter 16, Megan looked at Big numbers made by adding lots of zeros to the end of a 1, like a million, billion, trillion, quadrillion,etc. Then, she learned how to make any of these numbers bigger by changing the very last zero to a one.
Her questions were:
1.) 6 +3 =
2.) Name a number bigger than a quintillion
3.) 7+2 =
4.) How many ears are on these rabbits.
Chapter 17
This chapter was about ordinal numbers and cardinal numbers. Fred's doll kingie has brothers in other states. The dolls in a particular state all had names that start with that state's letter.
1.) what is the cardinal number for the set of states starting with M, like how many members are in this set - 8
2) What other letter has the same about of states whose name starts with that letter? We went to the map and eventually Megan guessed N. I was impressed and so we started to count them. Eventually we had to write them down.
3.) 5 +2 =
4.) 5+4 =
5.) Name the one state whose name starts with R. I knew it but Megan had to go find it. It is Rhode Island she said.
6.) 9-6 = 3
Her questions were:
1.) 6 +3 =
2.) Name a number bigger than a quintillion
3.) 7+2 =
4.) How many ears are on these rabbits.
Chapter 17
This chapter was about ordinal numbers and cardinal numbers. Fred's doll kingie has brothers in other states. The dolls in a particular state all had names that start with that state's letter.
1.) what is the cardinal number for the set of states starting with M, like how many members are in this set - 8
2) What other letter has the same about of states whose name starts with that letter? We went to the map and eventually Megan guessed N. I was impressed and so we started to count them. Eventually we had to write them down.
3.) 5 +2 =
4.) 5+4 =
5.) Name the one state whose name starts with R. I knew it but Megan had to go find it. It is Rhode Island she said.
6.) 9-6 = 3
Megan had to do just two problems on this page and she had me add more. I added 15 more problems and she did all of these as well. She also started page 353 but has to finish it.
Megan learned the parts of a hill, such as hilltop, foot, and she learned what a knoll was. Shortly after this, her dad taught us what a berm is, a elongated hill, stretched out one.
Megan is learning about landforms. Today, she did Islands and volcanoes. Because we watch a lot of nature shows, she already what these were. She had to glue an island to the island and the volcano to the volcano. Next, she will learn about Greenland, the biggest island.
We read a story about crabs,
We took a hike at the disc golf course at Miramer Park, in Seabrook. This was the park my brother played Frisbee Gulf at and so we too, ran up the hills found there. We were taking a scavenger hike trying to find items listed on the sheet. Then, Megan wanted to take a walk on the trail next to the Evelyn Meador, which has a salt marsh and Megan finds periwinkle shells and fiddler crabs. Last time we saw a snake on a wooden board basking. This time megan saw a different crab. It has equal sized claws and a square, red head, or reddish-brown, body. We are not sure what kind of crab this is. I am looking around for it.
In this chapter of Life of fred, they discussed what the spine of a book was, how to use the different forms of the word lay, such as laid and lie, and the difference between ordinal and cardinal numbers She also did more with sets, like she gave a set just have two components and a set of 0, in which she chose " the set of no dragons in her house".
I read Megan two stories from Edhelper for Reading Comprehension and she answered the included questions.
We read "Sad Little Scarecrow" and Wylie and the Wolf.
This is a neat artist. Before this meetup, I read a book about her. I also read a book to Megan as well. I did this prior to all the artists so that Megan will have some idea as to the style and motivation of the artist. I will put the books in here in a moment. We went to DJ's house. Neat House with rectangle gardens out back and a little play house. We took a short walk to her neighborhood park, where lot of people brought supplies, acrylic and watercolor paint, paint holders, watercolor paper, Donna brought canvas. We just sat there and with people who knew about how to paint and techniques with watercolor, Megan and I learned a lot. DJ taught us that you first draw what you are going to paint in pencil, then you wet your brush and wash the area down that you are going to paint with water. Just the area you want paint. Then, you get your watercolor and paint it into those areas. Amanda also taught us that watercolor is a little forgiving in a way. If you make a mistake, it just blends in or something. I can ask her again. Then, after painting, which Megan really gets into, we played around in the area.
So, L eanne and Emma were drawing flowers, a sun and the sky . They had neatly drawn all this stuff out. Megan, after seeing this, wanted to do just what they did. So she started drawing flowers and a sun and clouds. It was neat , but her first picture, I have to look for it, was really good. She has skill in the arts too and really gets into it. These meetups showed me this.
Books: Georgia O'Keefe : An adventurous spirit
So, L eanne and Emma were drawing flowers, a sun and the sky . They had neatly drawn all this stuff out. Megan, after seeing this, wanted to do just what they did. So she started drawing flowers and a sun and clouds. It was neat , but her first picture, I have to look for it, was really good. She has skill in the arts too and really gets into it. These meetups showed me this.
Books: Georgia O'Keefe : An adventurous spirit
This is a level 1 reading book about two cats, one lazy and one energetic cat, Mac and Cheese, that Megan read to me.
We read a story on Edhelper about Laura Secord and out of curiosity we read about the War of 1812, generally to find out where the canadians came in. In the process, we learned why we went to war and what impressment means in Military terms. We did learn that the British and the French were at war with each other and the British were fighting Napoleon. And the French had control of Europe, and America, being a free country was exporting their goods to both of them, via ships. But
I read Megan a couple of Edhelper's reading comprehension stories, one called bee and fly at the baseball game and one on "Laura Secord saves the day". The latter is a true story about a black lady's personal journey to warn the british that the American's were attacking. This helped the Canadians. They celebrate her in Canada and she has been made bigger than reality in Mythological stories in Canada.
I bought a bunch of activities from mailbox.com and they had bugs and a graph. We put the bugs on the graph and answered the which is more or which is less? Then, I made up some thinking questions, like why would there be more green bugs than purple or red. Surely , there is not real answer but when we graph our real data , we , as curious people , start trying to make sense of our data.
This morning , Megan decided to draw a map of our yard. I let her do this a while, letting her realize that if she doesn't scale things down, they will not fit on her sheet of paper. I told her she can make things bigger but she'd need a bigger sheet of paper. It was a good visual learning experience of scale. We ended up using too small of a scale, 1 yd = 1/4 inch so we may go back on another day and increase this to 1 yard = 1/2 inch and see how it goes.
Megan did her morning date, day of week, Month. She put in the days for today, yesterday and tomorrow.
Megan is learning about Hills and Mountains. She learned that a hill is a raised area of land. It is lower and smaller than a mountain. A mountain is a very high raised area of land. It is higher and larger than a hill. She had to glue of picture of each to the right definition.
This is a game where you draw a road with 15 squares and you write words in them. Then, you read the words along the road to your child and then you have them read it back to you. If they get stuck, then you tell them the word and they have to start over from the beginning. Megan learned then, there , street and important from this today, among other words.
Every day we do our date, day of the week, record the time and the weather on a thermometer. We did not have the time and weather sheet today, but she did do the month and date in coins.
Megan is getting into adding three single digits, sometimes where this , after you add, because a new tens place, going from 10s to 20s.
For example: 9+8+5
Hills and Mountains
today we did a simple sheet on Hills and Mountains. Megan has to glue the appropriate picture to the related word.
Ice cream cones have three numbers and you color cones with sums > 11, brown and less than 11 yellow.
Page 212
Triple single digit addition , with strategies of doubles and looking for 10s.
On pages 335 and 337, Megan had to tell both the hour and the minutes on a block clock. On page, 336, Megan had to convert tally marks to a number and do some addition. I can see on the next pages she does, she will be entering subtraction.
We are reading this book by Laura Ingalls Wilder. While we read it, we discuss the important vocabulary and discuss what they are doing. Thinks discussed we're the churning of butter,what is buthering and the parts of the pig, venison and how they smoked it to make it last, bears, panthers, minx,muskrats. When reading this , one gains a sense of the life of a pioneer.
As we read this, we mop,eye a pocket of time, shown below. Basically the chapters are there and there are event cards, and as Megan hears the event, she puts the card into the pocket. I think it helps with retention.
From confessions of a homeschooler. We read the first 15 pages of "getting to know the world's greatest Artists-Mone by mike Venezia. I asked questions like what do you see in the picture, how does it make you feel, how you think the author felt when he painted it, etc. then we painted pictures using acrylic. We were supposed to be duplicating Monet's painting, but we just played with acrylic on cardstock.
Bug Display
We drove with Trista to the health museum downtown. When we got there Megan noticed they had a bug display. It had a metal remote controlled metallic bug showing how bugs walk, several small mechanical displays showing how insects make their sounds, such as a grasshopper and a cricket. They had a huge praying mantis and butterfly showing their anatomical features. They had a display of various insects with a separate section for butterflies. Body displays
We looked at the parts of the tooth and the different types of nerves that run through it. We looked at cementum , which is what holds the tooth to the gum.
The Class
We learned about the largest body organ that keeps us from being sick, our skin, as well as other body parts that help keep out dirt , debris, and bacteria, like the wax in our ears, eyelashes, nose hairs, etc. then, they passed around stuffed animals showing the shape of various bacteria, such as the flu, sore throat, stomach ache, etc. after this, the kids pretended to wash their hands under a sink.They were told to do this while they sang the happy birthday song. Then, they put some bacteria (lotion) on their skin and looked at it under a uv or florescent light. It showed them where it was. Then they had them rub their face a bit and then looked at their skin, with the lights off,and they saw how it spreads this was a good visual. Then they gave them hand wipes and let them wipe their hands and face. We looked at their skin under florescent light and showed it was still there!!
They asked why with the answer being you need to use both soap and water.
Megan read the hour and minutes off of two clocks. She also skip counts by 10s to find the area.
Pick the word that matches the picture. There is a picture and two close words like snip or sip, pill or spill , and you have to pick the word that matches the picture.
Using a list of words, write the words that match the picture.
Megan worked on basic map skills geography , such as map key, ma scale, grids, compass rose directions, state borders, etc.
In this chapter , quotes in quotes was discussed and Megan and I soon had enough.
The questions for the chapter were
1.) basically, what is 12 + 1
2.) if tomorrow is Wednesday, what day was yesterday.
3.) draw Fred if he had hair and had a buzz cut, showing all his short hair pieces would be orthogonal to his head.
4.) 3+6 =
5.) 5+4 =
First I have to say , this was a great day. We went with Leslie, Colby and Sable. , we did a lot more with their Newton know how section. We learned about gravity, newton's three laws, momentum, angular momentum, inertia, etc. it was neat, that had a trebuchet set up and the kids could looked at the effect on angle - they put a ball on the metal bar attached to the heavy weight and pulled it down to various angles to see the effect on distance the ball traveled. They have always had a place where you can. Lift yourself using a pulley system and this is always fun. Then, they had pairs of hills set-up where you can roll a ball down, and Upon getting to the bottom , the path lead to either a small or large loop, or as in another pair, a flattened out ending or one curved upward at the end. They had a spinning table where you played with the idea of centrifugal force. Then they had a top table we did not visit. They had a plastic wall roller coaster that you rolled a ball down and tried to get it over all the hills. They had a table that took a ball down in a funnel motion., at each station , there were movies that taught the concept , providing the necessary background information .
We did a little with densities and fluorescence. Megan made a drawing that shows up under UV and I explained to her that the sun emits UV rays and so we took her drawing out into the sun. We played with their shape/property tester, where you have to find a shape that has the right weight, magnetic, shape, and fluorescence properties.
We spent a little time looking at African culture and a specific tribe. We learned some about Brer Rabbit and their sayings, stories, and way of life. They fished using nets and a plastic water with crawfish, crabs, fish, etc. they had a kitchen set-up with tables and a pot type cooking area like they would has used back in Africa. I was reading a book on how they were taken in chins as slaves, an area that interested me.
I hosted this math meet-up. There were pattern blocks with designs to build. There was egg carton shake-up , (where you number an egg carton and shake it up , and the kids have to do some form of math- number identification, adding, subtraction, multiplication),then , there was perimeter calculation using cheese-it's , square cheese crackers. Megan did a lot of the pattern blocks the night before, but did this again and the perimeter the next day as well.
Today, Megan and I went here. We had to wait until 11:00 to see the film , so we played in the children's area. Then, we went in and watched the movie, where we learned cotton along with watercress were their main crops. We also learned that they build their train station around the time of the civil war and this was important as it connected many southern states, ending around Georgia or South Carolina . I have to read more. But this train station was taken by union forces. Although they took it, they could not use it. Also , the confederate forces kept fighting for it over and over again. The guide said it depended on which day it was who had rights to the train station, the union or the confederates. The day it was taken, the train had wounded and healthy soldiers. They left the sick alone.the healthy ones stayed a few days there and then they were shipped to union prison camps up north. After the war, the town of Huntsville was hurt for money, and even after the city started to rebuild, they did not have the funds to rebuild it. It was eventually rebuilt and ran for awhile. I have to look up the year of its last run.
We also learned that to stop people from sitting on the outside windows of the train depots, they put up spikes. They put bars on the seats to discourage people coming to sleep.
Using a block clock , Megan has to tell what hour it is (pg. 325) Then , what minutes are being shown on the clock as well as two addition problems( pg. 326), give the time now with both hours and minutes for the first time( pages 327-328).
This chapter still discussed perpendicular lines or orthogonal lines.
Questions:
If yesterday was Thursday, what day is it tomorrow.
What is a dozen minus 2.
How many perpendicular lines are in a 2-d smiley face.
Write a sentence that has exactly 12 words in it.
5. 4+5=.
Megan did a coloring page where she colored each piece by the answer to a subtraction problem.
Using a block diagram of the clock, Megan has to tell the hour on two clocks. On page 324, Megan has to read the minutes off a clock and do two addition problems.
Megan is still working on blends of Tr, pr, and words ending in ack. Given a picture and letters in three squares, Megan has to pick the letters that spell the word. Then she has to write the word. On the next page, Megan has to read a sentence and choose yes if it is true and no if it is not true.
Pages 37-39 Megan is learning sm,sp, sn words, like spill, spell, snail. So on page 37 Megan had to choose the first two letters the given pictures go with. Second, Megan had to, on page 38, x the same word as the first wordin the row. I , however, have her read all the words in the rows. On the last page, Megan is given a word, Megan has to pick the picture that matches the word and then write that word.
Megan completed two color by addition pages from math-u-see's website and their primer section . 
Megan colored a color by addition edhelper page of a pond.
Megan has to read the hour of a block diagram of a clock on pages 320-321. On page 322, Megan has to read the minutes off of two clocks, and do two addition problems.
Today , we read this story and talked about the seven-yr old boy's jobs and what are the concerns of a small business owner. We went over things such as ordering and payig for supplies, electricity, insurance, paying hired help, building payments.
I talked to Megan about wether or not she thought the boy enjoyed his job and worked hard. We discussed it was better to work for family than strangers.
Megan discussed the type of business she would like to run. She would like to run a bug business with classes. She said she would have to hire an entomologist and an artist.
We learned why New England was called New England. How when pilgrims came to this new land from England they gave the new land this name. I pointed out Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts , Rhode Isla, and Connecticut.
We talked about contrast in stories.
On page 35, given a picture Megan has to choose the sentence that matches the word . On page 36,Megan had to write the word corresponding to the picture shown. Words like trim, trap, frog, trot, rip, press, clam. She is learning blends, like tr, pr, and cl.
This chapter talked about a dozen. The first question asked How many isa dozen? They also discussed perpendicular and orthogonal.
She had to find the perpendicular lines on Fred's head, and there are three.
We read a story about garter snakes and Megan answered the questions relating to the story.
Megan is coloring pages that tell you the color to color a space by the sum of the addition problem. 
