After a touch and go first week of school, I was a little unsure of what to expect the second week. Over the weekend, I vented my frustrations to my husband and he quietly listened until I had laid it all out on the table. Then he just sat there and said, “I bet if ya’ll had a dedicated homeschool space in the house it would make things run a little smoother.” At first I thought, well plenty of families homeschool at their dining room table and then I just started at the organized but out of place baskets of homeschool supplies sitting in our dining room. It hit me. This man is a genius! So we spent our entire Labor Day rearranging our family room to make a homeschool space! It was a grind right up until bedtime but we finally finished and our kindergarten was so excited for his new space that he sat down in his PJs and did a math lesson by himself! It was definitely not the long weekend we had planned but it has made a world of difference for us this week!
With a three day weekend, it felt like we were starting behind already. Instead of trying to cram everything in, we tried some child led learning this week.
Community day kicked off our week and we just rested that afternoon. Drew had some pretty big temper tantrums when we got home, so I knew his little brain just needed some snuggles and quiet time to relax and unwind.
History
Other than our memory work songs for history, we didn’t focus our attention here this week. I had some coloring sheets planned but we got engrossed in our science lessons this week (child led).
Science
This was a science heavy week! Drew was begging to do science every day so we followed his interests! At community day the kids completed 2 different experiments: spider web vibrations and fish swim bladders.
For the spider web experiment, they discussed how spiders do not have good eyesight so they use the vibrations from their webs to find and eat their prey. As I’m sure you can imagine, this enthralled my kindergartner! The rest of the week was spent reading books about spiders and conducting spider web experiments of our own. He learned that spider silk is so strong that if webs were human sized it would trap us easily. We then set out in our own yard that is covered in ground spiders to observe their webs. From there, he asked the question is a spider web strong enough to hold a pinecone? We set out to conduct our own experiment by walking through the scientific method (no spiders were harmed in our experiment).
He was dead set on designing his own spider web outside with string and Mardi Gras beads but quickly found that it was a lot harder than he anticipated. Instead we decided to head inside and do a craft revolving around—SPIDER WEBS! It was a week where we combined both science and art all in one, with crafts encompassing the science lessons we were learning. I detailed our art Activites below under the art section.
The memory work for science was learning the different Kingdoms of Living Things. I found a cute kids video on YouTube that broke everything down with illustrations, you can watch that here. Throughout the week we completed our coloring sheets that also have handwriting practice I found on CC Connected.
There were a few science Activites that we didn’t get to like this adorable Tree of Life activity , Kindgdom of Living things 3 part cards and a field trip to the zoo to journal and discuss different living things we can identify.
Art
The art topic this week was mirror images and lines of symmetry, so we found some fun ways to practice this while including our science lessons. We grabbed some black construction paper, liquid glue and lots of glitter and designed an amazing spider web! Here are the steps we followed:
Fold the paper in half horizontally
Unfold the paper to find your line of symmetry
Take the glue and design a spider web on one side of the line only (make sure to get enough glue to transfer over to the other side but don’t overdo it or it will be one giant glob)
Gently fold the paper again to transfer the glue design to the other side
Sprinkle with glitter and shake the excess off (make sure all the glue areas are covered)
Set aside to dry
We had so much fun with this craft that we decided to try it again with his little brother (3) the next day as well! Instead of a spider web, we read a book about butterflies and then designed our own mirror image butterfly by using the same steps as above!
Geography
This week’s geography was learning the major areas and surroundings of the Assyrian Empire that included the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Black Sea, Caspain Sea and Babylon. In addition to our dry erase maps, the kids wanted to watch a documentary on one of the seas. I found a really awesome documentary on the Red Sea on Prime Video that we all enjoyed watching. We also found a YouTube documentary on the Black Sea but they were not as interested in that since it did not just highlight undersea life but animals that live in the surrounding countries as well.
I was pleasantly surprised at how easily our week went this week despite it being a shorter one. I really do believe that my husband was right (don’t tell him I admitted that) and that we really just needed our own space for school instead of having to move around during the day. We are looking forward to another great week this week!
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the other fun Activites that you incorporate in your cycle 1 week 2 cirriculum! Share with us in the comments :)
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