Weekly Reporter 11/19/2010

History/Social Studies

We continued learning about the Pilgrims and Holland.  My dd’s are using some notebooking pages from the HOD Yahoo group.  It is going really well.  You can see a big difference in my 4th and 5th graders notebooking skills.  I do think that HOD does a really good job of learning oral narration before written. 

Science HOD

We learned how light moves in waves through space.  We did the experiment from HOD with blowing on the water and watching the rippling.  Then we took it a step further with the experiment that was written in the CLP science book.  We added food coloring in the middle and then touched the water in the middle and watched the food coloring spread in waves.  It was a very visual representation.

Language Arts

HOD Story time-We are beginning Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois.  This is not in the book packages that HOD sells, but it is in the recommendations in the appendix.  This is a highly intriguing book.  I am finding as I read through the suggestions in the appendix for story time books that I am leaning to some of the books that are not packaged in the boy/girl/classics sets that HOD sales.  There are often 5 books to chose from and I am enjoying reading through the short summary to the kids and then us deciding and ordering the book.

This week we are reading/read:

2nd grade-LLATL Red readers

4th grade-A Grain of Rice by Helena Clare Pittman

5th grade-To Walk the Sky Path by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Just for Fun

The boys helped to prepare the mini-muffin pans and we baked muffins!