The day of jubilation has arrived! I now know how to post my home movies from YOU TUBE onto my blog without getting any "related" content that's anything but. Thanks so much to Jim Erksine over at homeschoolradioshows.com for his help. I emailed him yesterday and this morning when I woke up, he had already replied back! To be honest, most time I email a complete stranger, no one ever answers back. Now, if I email my dad, I expect him to write back, but I was so surprised to see Mr. Erksine's message in my Inbox that it renewed my hopes for improved email ettiquette in the world ! Check out the Erksine's family of great websites. They have invaluable homeschool resources for free and for purchase and you can tell they have a real heart for homeschoolers! My home movies will not have sound, but you will want to pause the music box on the right in order to watch any videos that are not my home movies so you don't get a sensory overload. So, go on and disable it, so you don't forget. Done? Now, onto the post.
We have slacked on our unit study the last couple of days. Basically we've covered the basics to keep our head above water. I don't like to push Lillie Anna. Right now she's just 4. So, because she has many of her Kindergarten standards under her belt, I don't shove "school" down her throat. I want her to develop a love of learning and I think that happens early on in a child's life. I also want her to get used to setting a time aside to do "school work", so that she's at ease next year when we will have to start doing school seriously. But for now, we cover the basics of math and reading and science through nature, I read to her alot everyday, and if she feels like doing workbooks or extra work, by all means I let her.
But, our unit has been covering the five senses. So far, we've looked at touch. Thursday, we learned about our sense of hearing. Buckle your seatbelts, there are lots of links and videos (yeah!)
Our book for the day was "The Cello of Mr. O " by Jane Cutler. A wonderful story about bravery and love for your neighbor set in a besieged city during WWII. I showed them a diagram of the ear and read a short paragraph summarizing our sense of hearing. You can find a great diagram at The Learning Page, but you have to sign up. It's free, though, so I'd do it as soon as you finish up here as they have tons of great printables and worksheets! Under their basic worksheets (once you get signed up) they have a whole section on the senses.
Next, we played "Name that Sound" I found a website with free sound effects. I played a wide variety of sounds, some easy, some not so easy and had them try to guess what it was. They did pretty good and loved it! Then , we learned that some people can't hear (Like my kids, sometimes :) ) and that they use sign language and lip reading to communicate. Here is a video of Lillie signing her name
Her fingers stuttered a little at the end. We surfed on over to Classics for Kids next. Charlotte Mason was a fan of exposing little ones to a variety of good music, classical and hymns. I love classical music because it leaves so much to the imagination and I love the complexity of it. We listened to a show about the life of Beethoven, who was deaf by the time he was 30. What is so amazing, is that he wrote some of his best compositions after losing his hearing. We then listened to his Symphony 8 and Symphony 5 and I let the kids shout out all the different instruments they could hear. Then I let them watch this nice little video of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, which is one of my favorite piano compostions. This video is nice because it shows pictures of Beethoven. I never would have known how he looked. He was pretty scary looking, actually. I don't know if I could have watched him conduct without shrieks of terror.
For craft time, we made and decorated shakers out of two paper plates stapled together with beans inside and made lots of noise for daddy to sleep by.
Now, it's time to showcase Chloe's new trick. She is trying to master eye-hand coordination. Notice how she puts her whole body into it.
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