Week Nine - Review

What a wet, windy week!  It is so nice to be able to go outside for a walk (when the weather cooperates) for both the children and myself! I find our time together in the afternoon goes so much better when we can all get some fresh air and enjoy nature. The days when we are "cooped up" seem to last forever - and everyone is just itching to get outside.

This week we worked on addition and subtraction.  Some of the older children are beginning to print out math equations, while the younger ones are using concrete objects to verbalize math equations. Words like add, plus, equals, subtract, minus are being introduced as well as the picture symbols.

We also reviewed what an island is.  We learned about the Caribbean Sea and that there are many islands located in this sea.  The islands are tropical and grow fruit like mango, pineapple, banana, and papaya. We listened to Calypso music and the steel drum. This music made everyone feel like dancing. The islands song was not so easy to learn - but the children did have colouring their flags of each island and just learning and looking at pictures of these tropical islands. We tasted some island foods. I made Creole Chicken (Domincan Republic) and Rice & Beans (Jamaica) which all the children LOVED! The Rice & Beans was super easy...1 1/2 cups of long grain rice with 1 can of coconut milk plus 1 cup of water and add 1 can of garbanzo beans (chick peas)...the recipe called for kidney beans but the children don't really like those - so we did a substitution. We also ate some tropical fruit - pineapple, bananas & mango.

We learned that the Earth has an invisible "belt" around it called the Equator.  The "belt" has the top invisible line called the Tropic of Cancer and the bottom invisible line is called the Tropic of Capricorn.  All countries found inside the "belt" area are considered tropical.  This means that they have 2 seasons: rainy & dry. The sun shines on the belt all the year round, making it very warm all year round.

We learned about the volcano and we made our own out of clay. We used baking soda and vinegar to make it bubble. It was funny listening to one little guy who kept asking "when will the volcano interrupt Mrs. Kerr?  I really want to see it interrupt!" I had to gently remind him, "not interrupt but erupt".

We spelled out words like volcano, lava, erupt, rock, red, hot, magma, vent, bubbles. All the children are getting so confident in their letter sounds and naming the letter that makes it! Spelling comes naturally. If your child has a tendency to print from right to left (very common) you can give them a helpful guide. I've introduced a green dot (on the left side of the board) and a red dot (on the right side of the board) as a quick visual to remember where to start and stop. You may only need to do this a few times before they begin to make this a habit.

Next week we begin our study of South America (the pink continent).