Special Connection Homeschool

Let me introduce you to Professor Ana Lyze. She is a researcher in the obscure, abnormal and the bizarre. She also happens to be a character in The Old Schoolhouse unit study series that I had the opportunity to review this month: The Curiosity Files . This amazing professor has a unique way of piquing your interests in subjects you might not otherwise think about studying. So far the series has covered all of these fascinating topics: Blue Diamond Dung Beetle MRSA Puffer Fish Red Tide Zombie Fire Ants Blue-footed Booby Cicada Killing Wasp Quicksand Platypus We had the privilege of sampling the unit on Red Tides . I was immediately captured by how visually appealing the unit was. It was colorful, had interesting photos, and the font was really easy to read. The writing style was captivating and it did not take long before Gess and myself were both eager to learn more about these pesky red tides. I was truly amazed at how easily we were able to touch on every subject of study b...

As I stated in my last post, I had the opportunity to use and review a unit study called The Curiosity Files - Red Tide s. Another aspect that I really enjoyed in this study was how they made learning about adjectives hands on and fun. Not only do they have a study about adjectives with a worksheet to answer questions, but they made a board game out of it! The rules were pretty simple. You rolled the dice and when you landed on a picture you had to say what adjective you think it represents. Then you had to come up with at least 5 more adjectives for that picture (I only made Gess say one). The next time you play the game you are supposed to make up as many sentences as you can using adjectives to describe the picture (Again Gess only had to use one sentence). Gess really struggles with descriptive words. People ask her how she feels and she answers with what she is doing. She just thinks very concretely. Even doing the lesson she had trouble picking out the adjective in the se...

I had the opportunity to use and review a unit study called The Curiosity Files - Red Tides . This was my first time using a Unit Study and I really loved how it worked all areas of a subject in. For math, the focus was on the metric system. In our study we learned that red tides were actually areas where there was a buildup (or bloom) of microscopic algae, and that when too many of a certain type of algae formed in an area they produced a toxin that affected the fish and wildlife around them. In order to figure out just how toxic an algal bloom is you need to measure the micrograms of toxin per kilogram of victim. This requires the metric system. The study has a great way to teach the comparison between a gram, kilogram and milligram. However, since Gess had no experience with the metric system we paused at the study when it said: The metric system uses three families of measurement: 1 The Meter Family measures how long something is. The Gram Family measures how heavy something ...

We are currently using Math-U-See and Gess seems to do pretty well with it, though we are moving through it rather slowly. While studying addition they want you to memorize your math facts. We did alright with that for the zeros and ones, but Gess got stuck trying to memorize beyond that, so we went ahead and moved on. When we got to the doubles I decided to pull out a tool from the book Teaching Math to People with Down Syndrome . For teaching doubles they have some visual cues that you can copy and make cards out of. Now they don't have pictures for 7 and 8 so I made my own. They suggested using crayons for 8 so I got me a picture to do that with and I could not think of anything for 7 so we just made a domino with 7 on it. It seemed to work. We pasted the pictures on index cards. One side shows the answer and the other side does not. Now, some of these images assumes that the person already knows that number is a double. Gess however, did not know a bug had 6 le...

While we were in Topeka we also visited the Brown Vs. Board of Education Museum . I did not even know this existed but was very excited to get to see it. The museum is located on the site of Monroe Elementary School which was a segregated African-American only school. Some of the Brown children attended this school during the famous case that led to desegregation. I was excited about the visit as this is a time in our history I know we must never forget or else we are apt to repeat it. Here is Gess sitting on the front steps of the building. The moment I walked in the door I was bombarded with two signs, one that said "White" and one that said "Colored." My heart just dropped down into my stomach and I felt ill. I had read about this sort of thing, I know that it happened, but seeing it visually right in my face really made it come to life, and this is not something I ever want to see live again! There was quite a bit to do and I was pleased to see that much ...