Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Cleaning Out! - Books for Sale

I have several books I have cleared off our bookshelves that I'm ready to pass on to another family.

 Lightning Literature Teacher's Guide $10.00 (Retail $20)  Here is the link to their website.

 Easy Make & Learn Projects - Colonial America $5.00


2 books - Hands On History - Pioneers and American Adventures 1776-1876 (stories of famous Americans) $5.00  

 Evan Moor Readers' Theater - Grade 4   $5.00

 Evan Moor Literature Pockets - Tall Tales Gr. 4-6 $5.00

 Usborne Puss in Boots (hardcover - gently used) $5.00

 Usborne Percy and the Pirates (hardcover - gently used) $5.00

 Usborne Armor (Hardcover - like new) $5.00

2 Kay Arthur books - Lord, Teach Me to Pray for Kids, and How to Study your Bible for Kids  $10.00/set (softcovers - like new)



 Usborne Cowboys (hardcover) $5.00


 Activities for Any Spelling Unit - Primary  $3.00



 Writing for 100 Days $5.00


 Famous Americans - Read, Sing and learn mini-books Grade 2-4 $3.00

30 Biography Book Reports  Grade 2-4 $3.00

 A Beka Art B book (I bought from a used book sale, it was already written in - we never used it)  $3.00

 Shurley English Level 3 teacher's manual (older printed edition) $10.00  Here is their website.

 Easy Grammar Grade 3 Teacher's manual and student manual all in one book $15.00 Here is a link to their website.
 First Spanish Words $5.00

 Lyrical Life Science - Volume 2 (never opened) $10.00  Here is a link to their website.
 Easy Grammar Grade 6 Teacher's manual and student manual all in one book $15.00 Here is a link to their website.
Spanish with audio CD $7.00

Leave a comment here or e-mail me at mmmysmll at gmail dot com.  Thanks for looking!!

Creepy Crawlies

One of the classes I'm teaching this semester is Insects.  I'm actually teaching it twice - once for younger children, and once for older children.  We went to Minnetrista recently for a Creepy Crawlies field trip.  Here they are searching for insects in the grasses and plants.






 Then we went inside and talked about the different types of creepy crawlies- insects, arachnids and worm-like creatures.  They played a matching game.


 Then we talked about pollen and how insects have sticky feet and get the pollen on their feet when they walk on plants to eat.


 Lastly, they played a game.  The first person in line is the egg, the next person is the larva (jumping in a sack), the next person is the chrysalis (wearing a pillowcase) and the last person has the wings for the butterfly.

Monocots VS. Dicots

As Nicolas moves through his Apologia Botany textbook, he is learning many new things.  If you have ever seen bean plants come up out of the ground, you notice 2 parts that look like leaves.  These are really the 2 parts of the seed.  Bean plants are dicots - meaning 2 parts.  Monocots have only 1 part to the seed. Here are pictures he took of Monocots in our yard.  You can tell they are monocots because the veins in the leaves come straight up from the middle.  Dicot leaves have a many vein called a midrib and other veins branch out from that one - like a maple leaf.






Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Science Experiments

Alex started his General Science through Apologia this week.  We will be doing his own reading and his own experiments.  This is the beginning of getting him into more independence as he reaches high school next year.  Here are a couple experiments he had to work through today:

 This one teaches about density.  The liquids formed layers and the solids floated at specific layers.  This is the first lesson in learning about atoms.
This second one taught him that hot atoms move faster than cold atoms.  You can see in the red jar, which had cold water, that the coloring didn't mix as well as the green did, which was hot water.


 Nicolas and I are working through Botany, one of the elementary studies from Apologia.  He is learning about classifications and how taxonomists separate each living thing into a Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species.  His experiment was to use 1 of each pair of shoes in the house and separate them according to whatever he wanted to.

 Here is the starting pile
 Kingdom: Dress shoes
 Kingdom: Slippers
 Kingdom: Outside shoes
 Kingdom: Tennis Shoes
 Kingdom: Outside shoes, Phylums: Open toed and closed toed
 Kingdom: Outside shoes, Phylum: Closed toed, Classes: With strings and without strings
 Kingdom: Outside shoes, Phylum: Closed toed, Class: Without strings, Orders: Water Shoes & Sandals
 Kingdom: Outside Shoes, Phylum: Open Toed, Classes: Thongs and no thongs
 Kingdom: Outdoor shoes, Phylum: Open Toed, Class: Thongs, Orders: Black bottoms and other colored bottoms
 Kingdom: Outdoor shoes, Phylum: Open Toed, Class: Thongs, Order: Black bottoms, Genuses: Cloth thong and plastic thong
 Kingdom: Slippers, Phylums: Brown and other colors
 Kingdom: Slippers, Phylum: Other colors, Classes: Open back and closed back
 Kingdom: Tennis shoes, Phylum: Light and Dark
 Kingdom: Tennis Shoes, Phylum: Light colored, Classes: Men's and Women's
 Kingdom: Tennis Shoes, Phylum: Light colored, Classes: Women's, Orders: Open back and closed back
 Kingdom: Tennis shoes, Phylum: Dark colored, Classes: Strings and No Strings
 Kingdom: Tennis shoes, Phylum: Dark colored, Class: Strings, Orders: Cleated and non-cleated
 Kingdom: Tennis Shoes, Phylum: Dark colored, Class: Strings, Order: Non-Cleated, Genuses: Men's and Women's
Kingdom: Dress shoes, Phylums: Heel and No Heel

 Kingdom: Dress shoes, Phylum: Heeled, Classes: Open heel and closed heel
 Kingdom: Dress shoes, Phylum: Heeled, Class: Closed heel, Order: Boot and Shoes
 Kingdom: Dress shoes, Phylum: Heeled, Class: Closed heel, Order: Shoes, Genuses: Flat heel and "stick" heel
 Kingdom: Dress shoes, Phylum: Open heel, Classes: Brown and White

 Kingdom: Dress shoes, Phylum: No heel, Classes: Men's and Women's
 Kingdom: Dress shoes, Phylum: Non heel, Class: Women's, Orders: Open toed and closed toed


 Kingdom: Dress shoes, Phylum: Non heel, Class: Women's, Order: Closed toed, Genuses: Black and Brown
 I think he did a good job and actually going through this long process helped him to really grasp what Taxonomy means.