This week our schedules were thrown for a loop - our state shut down all public schools for 30 days, and most likely for the entire academic year. So my 11th grader and 9th graders will be home all day with us! Also, sports have been postponed until this blows over. Hopefully they will be able to start back up with practicing soon. We don't have online classes available or anything so they are working through Khan Academy start to finish in math and a few other subjects and reading through some of their textbooks. I'm also having them read for 30 minutes a day. Other than that, we have nothing on our schedules! It's kind of strange to have so much free time during baseball/softball season, but I'm enjoying it.
In geography, we traveled to Africa this week, with our first stop in Kenya! We did some mapping, learning to say "hello" in Swahili (Jambo!), colored the flag, learned about the Big Five (the five animals that used to be most hunted in Kenya but now are most desired to see on a safari), read about a child that lives in Tanzania (neighbor to Kenya) and read several good books.
We made paper plate decorative necklaces that the women wear and learned that women and girls shave their heads!
I don't think Zeke wanted to wear his necklace!
We made African Savannah dioramas with shoe boxes and plastic animals. The kids really enjoyed this! It was supposed to be a week-long project but they finished in one day!
Mercie - 12 years old
Silas - 9 years old
Titus - 7 years old
We painted Maasai warrior shields.
We made African beads with polymer clay. This was a super fun project! (Funny story - we used modeling clay at first, and when I baked it in the oven, it melted! Project fail. I ordered polymer clay from Amazon and it worked perfectly.)
We did very simple science this week, reading about African savannahs and grassland animals.
We read in Exodus about the ten plagues, the first Passover and the exodus of the Israelites. The kids made some notebook pages. We also started memorizing 1 Corinthians 13.
Titus continued reviewing AIM by Math-U-See and Reading Unlocked, both of which are really great programs that are working wonderfully for his learning style.
Silas is still reading "A Bad Beginning" and working through his novel study. He is almost done with his math and language arts workbooks.
working on his diorama
We didn't have any of our regular activities this week, like TeamKID. We stayed home other than going to the grocery store and searching for toilet paper (finally found some). We played outside and enjoyed some warm weather before the rain started today.
Random shots from the week:
a little swinging...
and painting...
and tadpole hunting...
and doing chores and being goofy.
How was your week? Has your routine changed at all due to the coronavirus?
I love all the hands on projects in your Africa study!!
ReplyDeleteThank you! It was a very hands on week.
DeleteSuch a great week!
ReplyDeleteWe have been very productive this year!
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