Aquatics Book Art

Here's a picture of Govinda's artwork from the Aquatics Book he made. One picture is of an ocean scene with whales and sharks and other small fish. The other picture is the Hawaii state fish, the Humuhumunukunukuapua'a. He looked at a picture of one and carefully drew the design and colors.

USA, Volcanoes, 'Th' and 'Wh', and Partioning To 10, Oh My!

Geography/Geology/Art: We read stories from the Southeast USA. So far, the favorites are Rabbit Goes To Kansas, Chicken Joy On Redbean Road, and The Great Pig Search. We also read a National Geographic magazine with pictures of Mt. St. Helens. This lead to a reading of The Magic School Bus Blows It's Top. Then, the boys wanted to explode our clay volcano with baking soda, vinegar, dish soap and paint. So, we did! Then, we painted volcanoes with watercolors. Govinda made Mt. St. Helens, a cinder cone volcano. Navin and I painted Mauna Loa, a shield volcano. We had read about volcanoes a few weeks ago in Mexico with the story Hill Of FIre, where a farmer's field became a volcano. "He was a volcano farmer, and what a crop he grew!"









Fun: We made a new batch of homemade play dough. The boys really enjoy kneading it and then playing with it for many weeks until we make a new, fresh batch.



Language Arts: This week was continuing with the Hopeful H photo story. The focus was on 'wh' and 'th'. Govinda did all 8 pages of ETC3 lesson 6. Wonderful W blows out the candle with all of his questions "Who? What? Where? When? Why?". We also brought out the whistle and recorder flute for fun.

Math: This week we worked on finding the missing part with sums of 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 when one part is 5. G did 4 pages of whole/part partioning with 12 problems on each page. He seems to know them now, but we will review it again soon so that it's not forgotten. The song is helping to remember, and since he seems to be an auditory learner, that will be our review also. We didn't do any MM and he seemed happy about that...it has a lot of problems on a page. Doing 12 of all the same thing was more enjoyable for him. One day this week, I said that he only has to do 6 of the problems, and he insisted on doing all 12. So we will be sticking with RS as much as possible since he is liking it a lot.

Well, that wraps up another busy week in our Soul Adventure School! Thanks to all our supporters and well wishers! I'm also happy to announce that I finally figured out how to center the pictures on the blog. Take care and God Bless!

Watercolor Wednesday Rainbow

The boys really got into Watercolor Wednesday today. I look forward to it every week as they progress with their artistic expressions.

Macaws Leaving South America

We made macaws by tracing their feet for the body and hands for the feathers. They love them! These macaws were saying goodbye to South America and the rain forest and are heading toward Central America. A handy butterfly is coming along for the ride.

Watercolor Wednesday

Yay, more watercolor fun! Here's the boys painting again. Govinda made Machu Picchu since we've been learning about Peru this week. Navin mixed and mixed the colors to make brown, then dumped the cup of paint on the paper, and then requested more red.

Watercolor Wednesday

I'm hoping the W will keep me motivated to do watercolor painting every Wednesday. Here's the boys using the new jumbo paint brushes with primary colored cups of watercolor paints. I've noticed that painting has a calming effect on them. The jar in the background is another caterpillar found on a morning walk, munching away at leaves, waiting to become a butterfly.

Aboriginal Paperbark Art

We have paperbark trees here in Hawaii that were brought from Australia. So, we visited a big one on our morning walk and collected some bark to try out Aboriginal style artwork. We planned on using sticks dipped in paint, but we only had watercolor paints. As I looked through the craft box, we found some dot stickers that the boys were excited to use. So, we had fun making art with dots on paperbark. Govinda made a flatbed truck and Navin made dots everywhere. I asked them what Australian animal I should try to make, and they said camel, lol, not a native animal, but still one that this lives there. We discussed how the paperbark trees are in the melaleuca family (with tea tree oil) and were brought here to help dry out swampy land. Traditional Aboriginal uses were for sleeping, bandages, building shelters, wrapping food, raincoats, and fixing holes in canoes.



Of course, a helpful bulldozer cleaned up the mess when we were done. ;)

Bulldozer Book List

Surrendering to the children's great interest in bulldozers, here's a book list for the little engineers!



B is for bulldozer : a construction ABC by Sobel, June
Bulldozer by Funfax.
Bulldozers by Butterfield, Moira
Bulldozers by Williams, Linda D.
Bulldozers, loaders, and spreaders; a book about roadbuilding machines by Green Vale School. Ninth Grade English Class
Construction by Chantier
Construction giants by Olney, Ross Robert
Construction zone by Hoban, Tana.
Earthmovers by Stephen, R. J.
Earth moving machines by Stone, William
Giant bulldozers by Mezzanotte, Jim.
How roads are made by Williams, Owen
If I could drive a bulldozer! by Teitelbaum, Michael
I drive a bulldozer by Bridges, Sarah.
The roadbuilders by Kelly, James E

Friends At The Ends and Australian Animals

Here's our completed Alphabet Island poster and card holder. I taped clear plastic pockets to hold the letter cards in alphabetical order for easy finding. Then on the other side is where they line up to make words. It has made reading and spelling more fun and even Navin is practicing making words with different combinations and groups of our letter friends.

I've made some changes with our Soul Adventure School. We've started reading something spiritual/transcendental every morning to start the kids with some good things to think about. I'm going to find ways to tie it in with whatever else we are learning about. I'm also starting to do month long blocks alternating language arts and math to really focus on them individually. The world geography study will continue until we have been to all of the continents and then go into only one subject at a time for 2-4 weeks, hopefully adding more science and nature studies in. Art (drawing and painting) will now be part of free time and not part of school to keep it fun and freed up for imagination. I think these new changes will work better for the boys to really immerse into learning.

Devotional: This week we focused on Bhagavad Gita verse 9.18, where Krishna says "I am the goal, the sustainer, the master, the witness, the abode, the refuge, and the most dear friend". We discussed how God is our most dear friend that we can always turn to when we're scared.



Language Arts: The first few weeks of Alphabet Island will be review, so we're moving fast with it. This week we read a story about how the letters on alphabet island get together to make words, and the last letter is always at the edge of a cliff. Some of the letters are scared and have a friend stand with them or take their place. They are Clever C and his pet Kangaroo K, Lady L, Farmhand F, Sloppy S, and Zany Z. Later we will learn more about the vowels, Veggie V (who always is with Everloving E, and she is also scared so she is speechless and silent), and Jolly J, who juggles and doesn't ever go near the cliffs and asks Goofy G to take his place. Govinda did a few of the workbook pages that go with it. Next, we practiced Clever C's and Goofy G's two sounds, which we will go into more next week. I'm finding much success with writing words on the white board for him to read and taking it easy on handwriting.

Reading: I'm so happy to say that Govinda read a Level 2 Step Into Reading Book from the library called Toad On The Road. Now that he's advancing with reading, he says that he likes library books better than the McRuffy readers (I think because they seem more like 'real books'). I'm just so happy that he read a level 2 book! Woohoo!



Geography: We read more stories about Australia and focused on the platypus and echidna, which are the only two marsupial mammals that lay eggs. Australia's animals are quite amazing. We also discussed how in Sanskrit, 'astra' means 'weapon' or 'powerful bomb' and 'alia/alaya' means 'land of', so Australia means 'land of the powerful bomb', which may explain the extreme desert. We discussed the astra used in the Mahabharata that was used to try to attack a child in the womb, which Sri Krishna stopped. Maybe it went to Astralaya and that is why there are so many marsupials whose babies leave the womb very early on for the safety of the pouch. I also read that some versions of the Ramayana say that Sri Rama sent an astra into the sea, which brought up the island of Australia, which makes sense because there is so much salt and shell fossils there. One dvd we saw said that when they brought in irrigation for farming, the salt in the ground rose and the water became more salty than the ocean!

Thank you to all of our supporters and well wishers. Take care and God Bless!

Summer's Cool

Here's some recent pictures from our latest adventures. Govinda made a kite all on his own and had fun taking pictures. Navin is having fun being cute. :)

Africa

We continued our study of Africa, focusing on animals, ecosystems, folktales, and village and tribal life. Our new favorite story is Zella, Zack, and Zodiac. It is a great story about a zebra and ostrich that help each other when in need with a nice, rhyming rhythm that we all love. Govinda is having a new language arts bond with the letter Z, and it is tying in nicely with 'zebras grazing', and places like Zimbabwe, and the Zulu people. He's also learned a fun African song with lots of Z's in it (zimi zaya, zimi zaya, zay ya ya).

Here is a picture of an African hut drawn after reading a story showing it like this (Beatrice's Goat), drawn on the first completed homemade chalk board:

Russia, Grizzly Bears,' Long O', Adding Zero

Art: Here's G's beautiful grizzly bear. There's also an owl in the conifers (pine trees). He did the bear all on his own without my help (he usually asks for help), so this was a breakthrough with drawing animals!

Literature/Geography/Science: We read more stories from and about Russia and grizzly bears.

Language Arts: We did McRuffy 1 lessons 16-20. The focus was on the 'long o' sound spelled with 'silent e' and 'oa'. The reader was called No Toast, and this one was quite funny. I even laughed out loud to my self while pre-reading it. It had a lot of things that G loves...a fire engine, putting out a fire, a bulldozer, mud, oats, and more. What an adventure Ruff and Violet go on to get some toast! He is reading so well and fluently now, I am impressed! The ten spelling words were hard because memorization is the only way of knowing if a 'long o' word is spelled with a 'silent e' or 'oa'. After writing it wrong, he realized it and changed it, on three of the words on the spelling test. He's doing great with McRuffy 1 so far.

Math: We did CLE 1 lessons 16-20. We introduced identifying a point, practiced greater than and less than, and G's favorite...adding zero. We did the first speed drills, where he has 2 minutes to answer as many math facts as possible out of 15. (We started with 1 minute, but we decided 2 minutes is better for now.) On the first one, he got 9 out of 15 correct, and 10 out of 15 correct on the second one. The timing aspect kind of threw him off, but this will become a daily practice that will get easier with time, I think. He went back afterwards to correct the wrong ones and finish the ones he didn't get to, and he does much better when not timed. I might do it differently later where we time how long it takes to do them all, and then he tries to beat his own best time. We'll see how it goes. We also finished the first light unit (magazine-like workbooks that last one month, or 20 lessons), and finished with a light unit test, and he got all but one right. He really likes this math program and I'm glad we got it. Next week, we start light unit 102, which goes into subtraction!