School Summary - Cramming It In (India, Japan, China, and Ben Franklin)

 

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A Summary of November 3-21

With the holidays (and company) coming plus some travel plans, we needed to cram a whole lot of school into an itty-bitty amount of time. I suppose we could have stretched it out but then we would have lost our planned Thanksgiving week break. There were a few tears but overall, the younglings wanted that week off as much as I did so we squashed it in.
Here's what we did:

Things that were scheduled:

Math

Language Arts (Grammar, Reading, and Writing)

No big changes or differences just doubling up on lessons as much as they were able. Soprano drew what she envisioned The Island of the Blue Dolphins would look like.

 

Electives:

Typing, Greek (Tenor), Spanish (Tenor), Home Ec (Soprano)

We're still behind on Home Ec. lessons and have yet to start Spanish. Maybe after the holidays?

My Father's World Exploration to 1850

This was a good section of MFW to combine. There was slightly less scheduled as far as reading and activities so it was easy to double up days.

Bible: This year we're doing an in-depth study of the book of James and attempting to memorize the entire book. We continued to review chapter 1and learned chapter 2 through verse 16.

 

Science: We learned about myriapods (centipedes/millipedes), mollusks, cnidarians (jellyfish/coral/sea anemones), echidnoderms (spiny animals like starfish), sponges, worms, and the Kingdom Protista using AIG's The World of Animals.

We skipped the arthopod baseball activity and making myriapod models (ick!), but we did identify and classify shells

and demonstrated cephalopod propulsion. (no pics)

We did some sponge painting with real and synthetic sponges and skipped the worm activities.

We used a protozoa kit (from Home Science Tools) to observe various microscopic creatures and went on an anti-bacterial scavenger hunt around the house. A quiz and final test finished up the World of Animals book lessons.

History: We moved our focus onto the middle east and Asia, including India, Japan, and China. It always kind of throws me to realize that when one studies an era of American history that time did NOT stand still in the rest of the world. Major events were taking place in other parts of the world at the same time. One of the great things about using MFW is that it gives you an overview of everything that was occurring and how it all wove together.

We read about 3 big Indian conquerors and how they expanded the empire... and then lost a lot of it. And how they allowed the British to begin trading there which opened the door to becoming a British holding down the road.

We played pachisi

and made a sundial (SOTW activity book)

Then we turned to Japan and how they went the other direction and completely closed off the country to foreigners not even allowing them to enter the ports. 

We were going to try sumo wrestling but ended up just watching a youtube video instead. We read about China and how the country's dynamics were changing based on the ethnicity of the ruling leaders. We copied a Bible verse in Chinese

After that we returned to America to learn about Benjamin Franklin.

I added in some map work from Story of the World (The Indian Kingdom and China and Iemitsu's Japan).

Other MFW: 

Music: We listened to pieces by Mendelssohn and read about him using The Young Scholar's Guide to Composers. We had a week reviewing "Am I a Soldier of the Cross?" and then learned "And Can It Be That I Should Gain?. 

We also attended a concert by the music students of the college where Bass works. They performed Schubert's Mass in G.

Art: We read about Hogarth, Daumier, Blake, and Stubbs and tried our hands at art inspired by them.

Extras:

Web:

You can see them all in my Youtube playlist for weeks 1-14.
Nudibranch at Answers in Genesis 

Ben Franklin's Words of Wisdom

Ben Franklin extras

Ben Franklin Comic

George Whitefield video

Videos:

Animated Hero Classics: Ben Franklin by Nest Entertainment
Animated Hero Classics: Louis Pasteur by Nest Entertainment

Favorite Books: 

Coral Reefs by Sylvia Earle
Nur Jahan of India by Shirin Bridges
Star of the Sea by Janet Halfman
Starfish by Edith Hurd
A Picture Book of Benjamin Franklin by David Adler
The Many Lives of Benjamin Franklin by Aliki