Learning Log #6

This week for language arts all the children enjoyed listening to me read some stories aloud. Anna and Adam especially enjoyed listening to stories about Abraham Lincoln.  We also enjoyed having Poetry and Tea with the neighboring children as well.  Everyone had fun poems to share!  We listened to Paul Revere's Ride by Longfellow, a poem about wishes by Sara Teasdale, Tyger by William Blake, a poem by Mary Oliver, and several recited nursery rhymes.  It was very fun.  Anna started her Kindergarten Level 2 book of Hooked on Phonics.  She learned ot, op, and ox blends a couple short stories, and a beginning book called Pop Fox.  Adam started his Preschool level 2 book and learned the upper and lowercase letters from A-D and the sounds they make.  Elsie finished a book in a series called Wings of Fire.  It is called Winter Turn, and it's book 8.  It was about 150 pages.  She also read about 20 pages in Turtle of Paradise and about 100 pages in Enna Burning.  She also worked on her story about bears and wrote 3 more pages in it.  Kimball wrote a few sentences about his weekend, copied another stanza of Godfrey Gordon Gustav Gore, and he wrote about his favorite food in his journal.
For math Anna finished chapter 17 and started on 18.  She is learning how to do subtraction.  She is looking close at the symbols to know whether she is supposed to add or subtract, and what that means.  Adam finished chapter 10, where he learned to build, write, and say 3 digit numbers.  He is now learning to identify all the other MUS blocks and learning what number each one is.  Kimball did most of chapter 11.  He is learning how to find the average of a set of numbers.  He also reviewed his division facts, found the area of various shapes, and found the product of 2 2-digit numbers.  He also did several story problems.  Elsie took the test for chapter 8.  She also did a unit test for the first 8 chapters, learning division.
For science the children learned the different biomes found in Africa.  We focused on the Congo Rainforest.  We learned about the different layers in the rainforest and Kimball and Elsie drew them in their research notebooks.  We learned about the different animals there and what layer they are found in, and how they were different than the Amazon Rainforest.  We learned about the different apes, and how chimpanzees and bonobos differ from one another.  We also studied the scientist Jane Goodall.  We learned that there are more lightening strikes in the Congo rainforest than anywhere else in the world, averaging 100 million strikes a year.
For history we completed reading about ancient Egypt. We learned about  how Amasis overtook the kingdom from Hophra, and Amasis' rule afterwards.  We also read about the life of Cleopatra and her fight to keep Egypt an independent country.  We also learned about the earth's revolution around the sun and how we get seasons in different hemispheres. 
Elsie, Peter, and Anna all went to their Bows and Bridges classes on Monday and Thursday.  They also went to their piano lessons.  They practiced at least a couple times for each.  They are all working on getting their note reading faster. 
For tech class, Kimball and Elsie turned in their Minecraft assignment.  They learned how to scan their pictures into a scanner, save them, and upload them to canvas.  They also sold some produce and homemade goods at Gardener's Market.  They learned to make their signs easy to read and to use words that are specific to what you are selling.