Africa
We are doing a theme (yeah!) on Africa. I don't remember, maybe we've done this before but then again, nothing wrong with that.There's so much to learn from it. The main reason was because Ihsan was doing Ancient Africa for history so I happened to borrow some stuff about it from the library.
After reading the info-book we borrowed which talked about Africa in general, its weather and the desert, we watched Bill Nye's Desert. It was not as interesting as his chemistry and physics dvds but entertaining and informative nevertheless. Ihsan enjoys doing the quiz section.
Sofiyya plucked a bunch of bougainvilleas on our way home from the playground. That inspired me to do some nature study, so I googled for 'local Singapore flowers' on my Iphone and we identified the flower from a bunch of pictures together.
Thereafter, we read some information on wikipedia. Never knew that the plant originated from South America and was named after a French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville. I sketched a picture of the bunch of bougainvilleas on the blackboard and labelled it for the children to do the same.
Ihsan somehow started labelling the parts on his own and on seeing this, I grabbed the chance to put Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study to inspire him but alas he was inspired to only label the rest of the flower parts and not read the whole book...
As a continuation to the theme, I read the section on deserts from The Usborne First Encyclopedia of Our World. It was simple enough for the younger kids but touched on things that I can expand with Ihsan.
For example, from the plants and animals that was mentioned, I talked about the concept of adaptation that was also brought up in the Bill Nye's dvd. Ihsan then copied the definition of adaptation from the wikipedia and identified and described the different adaptations of plants and animals that can be found in the desert.
The younger children refused to do any shelf work today and moved straight to their written work...sigh...I need to give new life to my shelves.
After reading the info-book we borrowed which talked about Africa in general, its weather and the desert, we watched Bill Nye's Desert. It was not as interesting as his chemistry and physics dvds but entertaining and informative nevertheless. Ihsan enjoys doing the quiz section.
Sofiyya plucked a bunch of bougainvilleas on our way home from the playground. That inspired me to do some nature study, so I googled for 'local Singapore flowers' on my Iphone and we identified the flower from a bunch of pictures together.
Thereafter, we read some information on wikipedia. Never knew that the plant originated from South America and was named after a French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville. I sketched a picture of the bunch of bougainvilleas on the blackboard and labelled it for the children to do the same.
Ihsan somehow started labelling the parts on his own and on seeing this, I grabbed the chance to put Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study to inspire him but alas he was inspired to only label the rest of the flower parts and not read the whole book...
As a continuation to the theme, I read the section on deserts from The Usborne First Encyclopedia of Our World. It was simple enough for the younger kids but touched on things that I can expand with Ihsan.
For example, from the plants and animals that was mentioned, I talked about the concept of adaptation that was also brought up in the Bill Nye's dvd. Ihsan then copied the definition of adaptation from the wikipedia and identified and described the different adaptations of plants and animals that can be found in the desert.
The younger children refused to do any shelf work today and moved straight to their written work...sigh...I need to give new life to my shelves.
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I am resigning at the end of the year (told my head yesterday) - to be at home with the children for a some time - I hope to be the attitude and zeal of a homeschooling mum - and not a housekeeper-chef mum :)))