Hello Everyone! I hope you are getting back into the swing of things with your homeschooling! We are already deep into our new “Tinkertown” project. Last week we began with pooling our background knowledge on what cities need and how they go about meeting those needs. We have also begun studying different types of maps and practicing drawing our own maps. The students chose which group they would be in (City Government, Neighborhood Council, Transportation Council, or Chamber of Commerce) and this week we are meeting in those groups to begin working on rough draft maps of our city. We have also begun to talk about force and friction, and they had their first day in the Innovation Station with Jim. All and all, we have had a fun and inspiring week and a half :) I had the chance to touch base with a lot of you last week at the parent meeting, which was awesome. I loved hearing all of your ideas on how to fit different elements of the project into your home school day. Below you will find the project overview along with a list of extension ideas for you to try at home if you are looking to extend the project at home. One idea to try at home this week: · Map your neighborhood: Take a walk around your neighborhood and have the child practice using positional and directional language (left, right, above, below etc) to describe the structures/ roads/ parks. Have the child sketch a map of the neighborhood after the walk. You can expand this to be a research project by looking up maps of the area and have your child do a compare/ contrast of the difference between his/her map and other maps. Another way to take this is to look up maps and pictures of what your neighborhood looked like in the past and compare to present day. Research why the changes occurred. We are going to be needing a lot of building materials for our city. If you have any of these things at home, or see a sale out in the world, here is a list of needed materials. Please feel free to drop off in class at the beginning or end of the day.
Needed Materials: Cardboard Toilet paper rolls Duct tape/ painters tape/ other tape Paint swatches from home depot (small colored pieces of paper for deciding paint color) Aluminum foil Foam board Paint brushes Straws String Toothpicks Paperclips Pieces of wood Washed tin cans (not soda, not sharp) Hot glue sticks Language Arts Update: I have changed around our language arts time slightly this semester. I have added Handwriting Without Tears and sight word spelling practice to our daily routine. I believe that students will benefit from this daily practice, and I am hoping that their ability to read their own, and each other’s writing, improves. I know some of you are doing Handwriting Without Tears at home, and I would encourage you to continue using it at home, as handwriting is a skill that is easier to build if you practice daily. Upcoming Events: Get SMART (Science, Math, Art) Wed, 1/21 | 5-7 pm Join us for this family event with Beau Janzen, a visual effects artist and math educator who works to inspire students and families by showing them the power of mathematics as a practical and creative tool. He will take us on a journey of understanding Stereoscopy and 3-D movies, merging ideas from projective geometry, Renaissance painting, color theory, the physics of optics and more. Comments are closed.
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AuthorWelcome to Robin's Core 2 Blog! Archives
February 2017
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