Week 16

Welcome to our new students: Jude and Benedict! Evie, it is good to have you back. Garret, we hope to see you back next week!

Here is a recap of our new material this week.

Math: To the tune of Wheels on the Bus
The area of a circle equals pi r squared, pi r squared, pi r squared, the area of a circle equals pi r squared... for all circles!

English Grammar: To the tune of B-I-N-G-O
In English Grammar there are adverbs - to what extent:
not so too very
rather quite somewhat
not so too very
rather quite somewhat!

(To make sure the children understand what these mean, you can give them a word such as hungry, tired, or funny...How tired are you? "Rather tired!" How funny are you? "Too funny!")

Latin - Imperfect Tense (same tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" as we learned in weeks prior.)

Geography: Balkans to the tune of Wheels on the Bus (I realize that it makes two times of using this tune this week - my apologies! The math tune was suggested to me just this morning, so it was a late addition!)
In the Balkans,
Greece is on the bottom,
up to Albania,
Yugoslavia;
Over to Romania,
Down to Bulgaria,
Those are the countries in the Balkan Peninsula!

We talked about finding Italy on the Apenine Peninsula and then looking to the right to find the Balkan Peninsula. If you start at the bottom with Greece and move in a clockwise rotation, you will find it easier to find the countries. Please note that if you have a map from the beginning of the year, Yugoslavia may be missing (due to the line not copying accurately).

History: Tell me about how WWII began
WWII began in 1939 when Hitler (finger under nose like a moustache)
invaded Poland (act like throwing a spear).
Two engagements (hold up two fingers)
that helped the US win the Pacific front (move arms like you are swimming)
were the Battle of Midway (boxing moves)
and dropping atomic bombs (move both arms straight up over head)
on Hiroshima (drop one arm to the side)
and Nagasaki (drop other arm to the other side)
in 1945 (flash "4", then "5")

Science: What is Newton's 1st Law of Motion?
An object at rest tends to remain at rest and an object in otion tends to continue moving in a straight line at constant speed, unless an outside force acts upon it.

While this is a mouthful for this age, we did review this a few times, though the focus was on understanding the concept. We demonstrated with matchbox cars and then practiced with our bodies how we could 1) be at rest, then 2) move in a straight line, and then 3) bumping into something so that we were no longer moving in a straight line.

For science lab, we had three experiments - and a lot of fun!
First, we tested the Law of Motion by placing a penny on top of an index card that was placed on a plastic cup - when the card was thumped, the card disappeared and the penny dropped into the cup. The children were so excited when it worked. It is one of the true joys of homeschooling to be witness to our children's unbridled enthusiasm for learning!

We also pretended to be planes dropping bombs - could they run and drop a ball onto a target on the floor? This was much more difficult than it first appeared, but it offered many opportunities to test if they needed to drop sooner or later.

Our last experiment had us racing two jars down ramps - which one would 1) get to the bottom faster and 2) which one would go further? Such fun to see the jar of sand roll so far across the gym floor!

I will get the Timeline hand motions to you soon via email. Have a good week - happy memorizing!