Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Ninth Grade Health

I am finishing up with my plans for health for next year.  I posted a list of resources earlier, but have now obtained the books I want to use and have fleshed out what I plan to do each week for the study. 
Here is the earlier post listing various websites to use with this study:

http://greenapplesblush.blogspot.com/2011/07/notes-on-ninth-grade-health-class.html

My primary "text" or "spine" for the study will be The Way We Work, Macaulay.  I love the way it presents information on the human body and provides a jumping off point for talking about health topics related to those body systems.  It is very teen boy oriented (for younger teens, at least) and will also supplement our biology studies for the year quite well....

Other reference works I've found that will be useful for labeling parts of various body systems, etc. include:

National Geographic's The Complete Human: How it Grows, How it Works, and How to Keep it Healthy and Strong, Richard Restak, and The Human Body Identification Manual: Your Body and How it Works, Ken Ashwell, et al.  I absolutely love the visuals on this last one and think it is better than my Gray's Anatomy, which I've had for years and years....


Week 1:

Review the working parts of the human body first, in order to then talk about things affecting the body, such as mental health, first aid, tobacco, drugs, parasites and disease, sex ed, AIDs, and nutrition, etc.

Use:  David Macaulay’s The Way We Work, Chapter 1 - Cells

Memory Work:  Parts of an animal cell; phases of mitosis

Try to look at different types of human tissue/cells and blood cells

Build DNA Model

Enchanted Learning has labeling diagrams for this; also:


http://www.biologycorner.com/worksheets/cellcolor.html  (although this is not a type of cell found in the human body)

http://biologycorner.com/worksheets/cellcycle_labelme.html

Many of these sites include answer keys, too….  And there are lots of others on the web, too!  There are also now tons of online, interactive labeling games for most body systems.  McGraw Hill especially has a lot up online….


Week 2 and 3:

The Way We Work, Chapter 2 – Respiratory and Circulatory Systems

Memory Work:  Parts of the Respiratory and Circulatory Systems

Sketch and label both systems

Use tobacco websites from resource page

Some websites with labeling and worksheets (check Enchanted Learning):

http://www.health-lesson-plans-teacher.com/circulatorysystem.html (and she has a complete website that you could use for all your health lessons, too….)

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/teachersguides/pdf/lifescience/ul/hbs_respiratoty_system_tg.pdf (an entire unit on the respiratory system – calls for a video but includes the entire transcript of the video, so it’s not really necessary….)


Week 4:

The Way We Work, Chapter 3 – Digestive System

Memory Work:  Parts of the Digestive System

Sketch and label this system, including organs that produce hormones, cleanse the system, etc.

Websites with worksheets (check Enchanted Learning):



Week 5 and 6:

Read: Nutrition: What’s in the Foods We Eat?  Library


Use lesson plans to go with movie:  http://www.lessonplanspage.com/PEODo...rSizeMe912.htm
and http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/te...nutrition.html


Week 7, 8, and 9:

Read Michael Pollan’s book(s) and discuss


Week 10 and 11:

Watch:  The Future of Food

Read:  Seeds of Deception and discuss


Week 12:

Read books on Vitamins and Minerals; Diet and Nutrition from library

Work with food pyramid

Check Enchanted Learning for worksheets.  I also used some of the level 3 worksheets from this site: 


http://www.choosemyplate.gov/myplate/index.aspx  (calculate how many calories a day you need)

Alternative healthy eating pyramid (some scientists say the latest put out by the government is still too high in carbs):


Healthy Eating Plate:


Differences between this and the gov. version:


How to Build a Healthier Plate:


…and there’s loads more at this Harvard site!


Week 13 and 14:

The Way We Work, Chapter 4 - Central Nervous System

Memory Work:  Major parts of the brain, eye, and inner ear

Sketch and label above systems

Some websites with labeling:

Enchanted Learning





Week 15:

Mental Health – use web site from resource pages


Week 16:

The Way We Work, Chapter 5 - Immune System

Website from resource pages on parasites and diseases, also:


Immune system memory work and labeling

Check Enchanted Learning for labeling, also:


(This is an entire website:  Kids Health.org, which includes sections for parents, educators, children, and teens.  It could be used as a complete health curriculum on its own.)


Week 17:

AIDS website from resource page; drug pamphlets from home


Week 18:

The Way We Work, Chapter 6 - Skeletal System

Memory Work:  Know the major bones of the human body

Sketch/label these

One labeling page other than Enchanted Learning:



Week 19:

The Way We Work, Chapter 7 - Reproductive/Endocrine Systems

Endocrine system memory work/labeling

Websites that provide labeling:


And here’s an entire unit, labeled for fifth grade, but don’t let that fool you as to how rigorous it is:  http://www.ckcolorado.org/units/5th_grade/5_TheEndocrineSystem.pdf


Week 20:

Sex Ed websites from resource page

Book on Sex Ed from home


Week 21:

From resource list, other health related topics; first aid; sexual harassment; health occupations

The other 15 weeks’ worth of work during the school year will be comprised of taking first aid and CPR courses.  There is certainly enough material here, though, to make it through a full 36 weeks, even without outside coursework….

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Last Week Before Christmas Break (Week 16, 2011)!

We're done!  (Mostly....)  Piano, Spanish, and Algebra class all wrap up next week, but my son's Writing through Lit class doesn't wrap up until the week after (for some strange reason).  We have finished with our school work at home until after the holidays, however. 

We decided to move up our break a week so that he could take advantage of the time his big brother will be home before Christmas (starting next week).  Brother has to go to Florida for winter swim training the day after Christmas, so we might as well make that our last week home and go back to school the first week of January, when everyone else goes back....

Christmas songs are being played in the house and we're going to create small, craft-wood Christmas trees for his grandmother and great-grandmother next week.  Hot chocolate is being drunk and we're getting out our Christmas decor this weekend.  We are preparing for our Christmas season at church, as well....

I, who used to be finished with my shopping by the beginning of October, am still not finished.  I can't get the men in my life to tell me (with any degree of specificity) what they would like, until 30 seconds before time to open presents... sigh....

We did a good day of lab work at Louisville Science Center on Friday.  Group labs for physics work are always entertaining!  In the morning, they worked on bungee egg drops, created roller coasters within certain parameters, and created building structures that would withstand weight placed on them. 

In the afternoon, they came back and worked with putting Lego robots through some paces in order to measure gear train ratios.  The instructor for that one didn't have a clue about the math involved and made me recall how uncomfortable a math and science teacher who doesn't know what they're doing makes me....  OY....

I brought my camera, then forgot to take it in.  Of course....

At home, we finished up the work in the Energy, Force and Motion Nutshell. We have more work to do out of the Science Explorer before we turn from that topic to another....

In history and literature studies, we worked on finishing up books already begun.  My son read The Russian Revolution, David Killingray.  He then started reading a little more about the period surrounding The Great Depression in the U.S.  He read the portion of the chapter in Story of the World that covers Black Tuesday and its aftermath.  He also began reading chapters 7-24 in volume 9 of History of US.  This will be continued after the break.

He finished up his reading of O. Henry stories, including "The Ransom of Red Chief; The Last Leaf; Springtime a la Carte; The Purple Dress; One Thousand Dollars; Transients in Arcadia; A Chaparral Prince; The Clarion Call; The Hiding of Black Bill; and A Retrieved Reformation."  

He completed one more art class, painting a snowy scene which was appropriate for our first day of snow (it was pouring out the window while they were painting - a fact in which they took great delight)....

And now it is time to celebrate.  Merry Christmas to one and all!

Regena

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Week 15 - 2011

This week proceeded very smoothly, even though we had company with us.  My husband decided that his dad needed to come home with him last weekend so that we could look after him as he continues to regain his strength after a recent hospitalization.  Things ran very well and we were able to find quiet spots to do our work away from the blare of the TV (he's very hard of hearing).  He accompanied us to lunch or I made lunch at home for us.  All went very well!  He's leaving Monday afternoon and I'm hopeful that he will do well once he's back home....

My son had his yearly studio piano recital last night and it also went well.  They have been studying Scott Joplin and Jazz music all semester.  Most of the songs were ragtime, jazz, or blues related pieces....  They all created fact finders on Scott Joplin, as well.  I'm glad that his grandfather got to see him perform.



His writing through literature class did not meet this past week.  He did get started on A Christmas Carol, which is going to be their next book.  I had him writing comparison and contrast papers for me this week on some of the other lit books he's covered this semester.  He wrote one on Call of the Wild, Sounder, and Old Yeller, and another on Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess.  His other language arts work progressed as usual.

He completed a study of matrices with his algebra instructor and took a test over that.  At home, we've been working through some word problems.  I'm not quite sure why these give him such difficulty.  He has always had trouble setting up his equations for algebra word problems.  I thought working through some that are simpler than those in his Dolciani text might help, but alas it doesn't seem to be working.  I'm sort of at a loss as to why this is so hard for him....  I'm sort of beginning to wonder if this might be an element of dysgraphia....

He finished up the Bible Prophecy book he's been slowly reading through and has begun a devotional journal using the Prayer of Jabez.

The Prayer of Jabez Devotions for Kids: Living Big for God











He is still working on finishing up The Yearling, but has also been reading some of O. Henry's stories, including an illustrated version of Gift of the Magi.

The Gift of the Magi

We have gotten into the study of energy, force, and motion in our little science class.  We are using a Prentice Hall Science Explorer book as well as a Nutshell kit right now.  I'm also pulling a lot of info from the web, as well as using library books.  I already listed a lot of my initial websites (I think) when I posted my resource list for eighth grade, but here are some other sites I've also used more recently:

These are related to Gears:

http://www.exploratorium.edu/cycling/gears1.html
 
http://www.exploratorium.edu/cycling/wheel1.html
 
http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/InventorsToolbox.html
 
http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/GadgetAnatomy.html
 
http://www.fi.edu/time/Journey/Time/Escapements/escapemLG.html
Here are some related to energy, force, and motion:

http://www.learner.org/interactives/parkphysics/coaster.html
 
http://www.eia.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=about_forms_of_energy-basics
 
http://glencoe.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0078778115/student_view0/unit6/chapter20/math_practice_2.html
We are currently studying:

1) What is Energy? Potential (energy at rest or stored energy) and Kinetic (energy in motion)

2) Effects of the Force of Gravity (attraction of objects to each other) on Inertia (an object at rest stays at rest; an object in motion stays in motion - Newton's first and second laws). We have talked about the difference between Mass (number of atoms in an object; stays the same anywhere in the Universe) and Weight (pull of gravity, changes on different planets, in space, etc.) We are looking at these first two points through our Nutshell experiments. For the problems associated with motion, we are using the PH book.

3) Motion - the state in which one object's distance from another is changing. An object is in motion if it changes position relative to a reference point.

We talked about how scientists around the world use the International System of Units (SI) for measurement (the metric system, basically), rather than our English system. We did a little converting from mm to cm to m, back and forth, etc.

A) We talked about Speed - the distance an object travels in one unit of time. We talked about the difference between constant speed (difficult to keep up) and average speed (used more often in calculations).

Formulae:

Speed = Distance divided by Time

For finding average speed: Average Speed = Total of all distances traveled divided by Total of all times.

We did some speed problems orally.

B) We talked about Velocity not being interchangeable with "speed" in scientific terms. It is speed in a given direction. When you know both the speed and the direction of an object's motion, then you know its velocity.

We looked at how to graph velocity by placing time on the x-axis and distance on the y-axis. I will have a problem on this for them to try next time.

We talked about how the speed of even very slow objects can be calculated using our speed formula. We looked at the example of tectonic plates. For instance, a movement of 5 cm per year x 1000 years, would equal 5000 cm (or 50 meters). We looked also at how to convert this to see how tiny the movement per day would be: 5 cm/ 1 year x 1 year/ 365 days = 5/365 = .0137 cm/day

C) We talked about how what we typically think of as "acceleration" isn't really the same as the term as it is used by scientists. Scientific "Acceleration" includes increasing speed, decreasing speed, or even just changing direction (so a Ferris wheel turning is constantly accelerating, for instance).

Formula to figure acceleration: 

Acceleration = Final Velocity - Initial Velocity divided by Time. Initial velocity is often calculated from the zero second point, too, so that has to be taken into consideration.

We did some velocity problems orally and will do some more next time. We talked about how to check your work on these problems.
Next week, I have scheduled two labs that are physics related at Louisville Science Center.  The labs we've done there in past have been terrific, so I'm hopeful that these will both be good!

My son also caught up with some science reading this past week (both books and websites).  We simply didn't have time for that while his outside science classes were ongoing, but are making good headway now.

In History, we're still playing a bit of catch up, too, and are in the time period following World War I.  We finished up reading The Yanks are Coming.  We've also been talking about the Russian Revolution (Lenin, etc.) and the rise of socialism/communism and related topics.  We'll be moving into talking more about The Great Depression next week.

This week, I read from Usborne's Atlas of the 20th Century regarding the Russian Revolution, the peace after World War I, and the Middle East during that same time period.

Atlas of 20th Century (Usborne Illustrated Guide to)

I read from the Haywood Atlas of the 20th Century regarding Europe between the wars, the Middle East and North Africa between 1914 and 1948, and the making of the Soviet Union 1917 - 1941.

Historical Atlas of the 20th Century  (Have I mentioned in the last two seconds that I LOVE Haywood's books?)

I read from the Kingfisher world history encyclopedia regarding Russia, the aftermath of WWI, and the USA between the wars.

I read about the Titanic from The Great Ships. (We read more on it last week.)  I read from How Children Lived about growing up in 1920's America.

I read from Remember the Ladies regarding prominent women of the roaring '20's and those of the Great Depression.

I read from Haywood's Atlas of Past Times regarding the rise of Japan in Asia.

The Atlas of Past Times


I read Leaders of the Russian Revolution, Fred Newman (re: Lenin, Trotsky, Kerensky, Kornilov).

I read The United Nations, Ann Armbruster (since we've been talking so much about the League of Nations).

The United Nations











My son worked through a couple of biography funbooks by Carole Marsh that I got at the USAF Museum:  Wright Brothers and Charles Lindbergh.

    


He completed the Bold Leaders of WWI book started earlier, and read two of the stories from Disaster!  Ellen Leroe.

Disaster!


On Friday, we visited the Frazier International History Museum to see a special exhibit that they developed themselves entitled "My Brother, My Enemy".  It is about the Civil War and they collected lots of artifacts from Kentuckians for the exhibit.  Since we only recently finished up our Civil War studies, I wanted to make sure we caught it.  We got to see re-enactments by a drummer boy (Union) and Clara Barton.  While we were there, we also got to see a demonstration in donning of a suit of armor, look at a huge collection of toy soldiers from worldwide wars and periods that are just beginning to be housed for display, and see the yearly Christmas tree display from countries around the world.  We had to rush back to make the piano recital, so we had a full day!












We only have one more week of school until we're off three weeks for Christmas.  I'm looking forward to being able to get some things done around the house ( - maybe!  It seems that every.single.time. we're off something comes up and I never manage to get ahead....)

I'm ready to work more on classes for next year, too!

Regena

Friday, November 18, 2011

Week 14 - 2011 - Ready for Thanksgiving Break!

Well, with the darker days, I'm seeing a return of my son's anxiety problems.  I was hopeful that last year's problems were just hormonal and wouldn't return this year at the same time, but they're back....  So we had a bit of a crisis this week, but I'm hopeful that he's pulling out of it now.  I've got some recommendations for some things to try to help him with seasonal problems and I'm hopeful those will work out well for him.

We attended a fun afternoon workshop this week where all of us (literally all, as the moms got drawn in too, LOL) made colored glass suncatchers/ornaments.  We've left them to be fused in the kilns and will pick them up shortly.  I'm very excited to see how both our projects turned out (he did a dragon)!

All his classes are proceeding well.  He has been working on an essay on the Yukon Territory, its geography, climate, and culture, which he will turn in on Monday.  They are going to work on some short stories in class on Monday and then be homework free over the Thanksgiving break (yeah!)....  He's out of algebra next week, too....  We just attended our end of semester co-op get together and that was nice....

Here are some books we've been reading this week:

He continued with The Yearling and is working on finishing up Bold Leaders of World War I.  He read three more chapters in volume 9 of History of US, as well as three more chapters in Story of the World.  He read Kids' Discover: Titanic.

TITANIC    http://www.kidsdiscover.com/product/104/TITANIC

I'm almost finished with The Yanks are Coming.  I started a Reader's Digest condensed version of a book I read as a child that I wanted to cover before we went completely away from the late 1800's:  The Johnstown Flood, David McCollough.  I finished up readings related to WWI from The Encyclopedia of the US at War.  I read more on the time period (worldwide) from Haywood's Atlas of Past Times (I LOVE this book!)....  And I read more on personalities of the time period from First Facts About American Heroes, David King.

       The Atlas of Past Times

First Facts about American Heroes

I think we will be ready to move on to discussions about the Bolsheviks and Fascism when we get back from our Thanksgiving break next week.  I hope everyone has a good holiday!

Regena

Friday, November 11, 2011

Week 13, Ending in Lucky 11-11-11....

...not that I believe in lucky or unlucky numbers, LOL....  (Did you hear about the Egyptian antiquities department closing down Cheops' pyramid today due to various rumors about groups seeking to conduct weird rituals on this "special" energy day?  Word was, 11:11 a.m. came and went with no signs of strange energy bouncing 'round the place....)

Our leaves are really coming down here now and since the time has changed I really feel as if we're coming into that sleeping time of the year.... 

We only have one more week of school until we take off for Thanksgiving.  While my older son will be home from college, my husband will be out of state, taking care of his elderly father.  We are all sort of bummed about the need for him to be away and our inability to go with him....  Our parents are all older now, however, and I expect that we will be called on increasingly to care for them.  It would be so much simpler if we could only get them to come here and be nearer us, but I'm afraid that will never happen....

Oh, well....

On the school front, only Spanish was really disrupted by voting this past week.  My son used the free time afforded by that to catch up in the Spanish workbook that we use at home.  He hasn't had time to work in it the past several weeks due to the amount of homework his teacher has been assigning.  I really like the amount that they are writing in Spanish this year.  I think their reading/writing skills are really growing.  (And speaking of voting - only about 25% of voters in Kentucky showed up at the polls for a governor's election.  I thought folks were more charged up than that right now....)

Math was pushed back to Wednesday morning.  We're discussing possible geometry texts for next year and I'm trying to look at some different ones to decide what we'll use.  I've got to get copies to the teacher so that she can choose what she wants to use for his class with her, too....

He has started work in his Latin Grammar book and I hope that it will progress smoothly.  He liked the video lessons that went along with the Latin Primers.  I wish they had something for the grammar books, too.  I think I am going to put him into an outside Latin class next year that uses Cambridge Latin....

His Lit class if finishing up Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde this week.  They are going to be doing some sort of research papers the next two weeks.  I'm not quite sure why research papers always seem to fall over the holidays, but I guess it really won't matter that much this year, as we won't have any company....  After their papers are completed, they'll be doing a study of A Christmas Carol through Christmas....

I've just heard that the Vienna Boys' Choir is going to be performing at Norton Center on the 20th.  I'm debating whether or not to try to go see them as a holiday treat....

My son's piano studio is finalizing preparations for an early December jazz recital.  I love all the music they've been playing since summer and can't wait for it!

He finished up his fourth art class this week.  Next week we're going to a glass studio to do some glass fusion.  I can't wait to see how those projects turn out!

His soccer has finished; awards have been handed out; they didn't sign our team up for first session indoor, so we have to wait to find out if they'll sign us up for second session, which starts in January.  His PE class comes to an end next Thursday.  What to do for exercise?  He has become suddenly interested in working out at home, so at least he's exercising regularly (while I'm reading aloud, LOL, while he's watching TV, etc.)....

We've been finishing up books already begun this week, as well as adding in some others:

Florence Nightingale, Lucy Lethbridge; The Lord Fish, Walter De la Mare; The Wright Brothers, George Sullivan; Helen Keller's Teacher, Margaret Davidson.  He's about half-way through Bold Leaders of World War I, Red Reeder (short bios of numerous individuals from all over the world).

Florence Nightingale (Usborne Famous Lives Gift Books)     The Wright Brothers The Lord Fish










Helen Keller's Teacher           

I forgot to mention last week that I have also continued reading excerpts from The Encyclopedia of the United States at War (Scholastic): the aftermath of the Indian Wars; Spanish American War; various topics pertaining to WWI.

Scholastic Encylopedia of the United States at War


We worked on mapwork and other activities related to our history studies.  We generally cover this type of work in bulk on Fridays, if we don't have a field trip, or add it in little bytes throughout the week....  He's doing a little copywork right now, too, and we are trying to concentrate more on his memory work.  He's working on the first 16 Presidents (and adding in the next 8 within the next week); he's memorizing the "Gettysburg Address;" and he's memorizing "The Charge of the Light Brigade," as well as "Oh, Captain! My Captain!"

He also started History of US, Volume 9 (three chapters), and The Yearling, Rawlings, this week.

I'm working on getting caught up in grading and going over work with him.  I like to have my things in order, if possible, before we break for Christmas....

Regena

Friday, November 4, 2011

Week 12 - 2011....

My backyard...





...and front...



... I'm glad that enough frost came along to pop the colors before the trees lost all their leaves.  It has been a short color season for us, but at least we finally did get some color....


...although now it's almost all gone after rains off and on all week....

On the school front, all is moving along with a regular rhythm, so I'll just mention some of the things we're reading from this week:



Historical Atlas of the 20th Century

I love John Haywood's books!  They are OOP but I have run down every one I can find evidence of in the past few years.  These are great historical map books to aid in adding geography into your history studies!  As I mentioned last week, we're trying to turn away from the mid-1800's and the U.S. Civil War to break into the 20th century up through the time period of the first World War.  To that end, I also read numerous pages from our Kingfisher encyclopedia about events occurring in the rest of the world up to about 1920.  Some of these we also touched on last year, but this was a good review and tie-in to what was occurring elsewhere as well as in America.

My son finished reading chapters 19-21 in Story of the World this week, as well as completing Volume 8 of History of US.

I continued reading from The Yanks are Coming, Marrin, as well as reading Ellis Island, Hal Marcovitz; The Panama Canal, Scott Ingram; and Galloping Gertrude: By Motorcar in 1908, John Loeper.  These books all relate to topics that have been introduced in other reading during the past couple of weeks.
Ellis Island (American Symbols & Their Meanings)   The Panama Canal (Building World Landmarks Series)
Galloping Gertrude By Motorcar in 1908


We also read short bits from these other books pertaining to topics we've been talking about the past few weeks:




      Places in Time: A New Atlas of American History    Remember the Ladies: 100 Great American Women

A Soldier's Life: A Visual History of Soldiers Through the Ages       People in the Past (Picturepedia)  by Mulvihill, Margaret



My son is continuing to read scary stories/mysteries with Sherlock Holmes, Poe's stories, and since we just visited Camp Nelson last weekend, he's also been reading Civil War Ghosts, Cohen, this week:
The Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes (Illustrated Junior Library) Cover      <p>Civil War Ghosts</p>
  Ten Great Mysteries by Edgar Allan Poe

He's also well into The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, assigned for his outside lit class, and has decided that he wants to read more of Stevenson's short stories, also included in that book:

(I don't think that *I've* ever read any of Stevenson's short stories, so I think I'll be reading some of them, too!)

Related to the WWI time period, he read or is reading:

The Red Baron, Nicolas Wright; Yanks in World War I, Sean Price; and In Flanders Fields: The Story of the Poem by John McCrae, Linda Granfield:
The Red Baron    Front Cover

Today, we also finally watched "All Quiet on the Western Front" and discussed it:

We filled shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child this week and are beginning to gear up for the holiday season.  We're going to take off the week of Thanksgiving and the second through fourth full weeks of December so that we can spend as much time as possible with my older son while he is home on break from college.  He has to go to Florida the day after Christmas, so we have a limited time to see him.  He's also already beginning to plan a semester of study and travel abroad next fall, so I'm starting to get anxious about that (please send calming thoughts my way to help direct me through this time).... 

Turn and turn and turn and the new year will begin....
Regena

Friday, October 28, 2011

Our Work for Week 11 - 2011....

~  My son completed Pilgrim's Progress this week and is finishing up the analysis work that his teacher assigned to go along with the reading of Part II of the book.  I believe they are beginning Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde next week - appropriate for Halloween, I think, and as a go along with the mysteries we've been reading at home....

~  He read more Poe at home and we attended our local children's theatre today for a terrific production that encompassed a number of Poe's stories/poems, and also gave insight into the tregedies in his life that influenced his writing....

~  He finished reading The Man Without a Country.  He'll read more Poe through Halloween, then we'll switch to O. Henry's stories....

~  In history, I finally finished up reading Andrew Johnson: Rebuilding a Nation, Cathy Dubowski:




It was a good juxtaposition against "The Birth of a Nation" film that we viewed earlier. 

We also read more on certain battles that he had an interest in from Scholastic's The Encyclopedia of the United States at War:

Scholastic Encylopedia of the United States at War

On Wednesday, we spent half the day at Camp Nelson, visiting with one of the best Frederick Douglass re-enactors in the country.  We got to see a nice film about the encampment and tour their new interpretive center, as well as the officers' quarters building, an old farmhouse (which has always been there).  Camp Nelson was the primary location where slaves came to join the Union army.  Many of their families followed and there were numerous problems that arose from this.  It was as a result of one of the purges in cold weather, when over 100 women and children died, that the U.S. agreed to free all that came into the camps and provide them with adequate housing.  We're going back out tomorrow night for a ghost walk....
       




I finally got to move into the next time period (although there is always some overlap), breaching the time period of the 20th century by reading from the Usborne Illustrated Atlas of the 20th Century and Time-Life's 20th Century America:

             Atlas of 20th Century (Usborne Illustrated Guide to)
I also began reading The Yanks are Coming, by Albert Marrin:
The Yanks Are Coming: The United States in the First World War
He caught up with his reading in Volume 8 of History of US.  We'll be adding in additional readings next week.  Now that chemistry lab is finally ended, we'll have an additional 3 hours a week to cover history and lit, so I hope we'll be back on track shortly!
~  Everything else is running smoothly.  He completed his last lesson in Latin Primer III today, so he'll be wrapping up tests and moving into the grammar book next week. 
~  He completed another calaca for Dia de los Muertos.  This started because we have a local ballet company whose director hails from an area in Mexico where this celebration is very large.  She wrote a ballet that centers around this celebration and we attended it a couple of different years.  They arranged to have locals set up various altars that are used during this celebration so that visitors could get a better idea of the culture. 

I bought a couple of little wooden skeletons at Michael's a few years ago and we had never painted them.  I had glow in the dark paint to use, but we had just never gotten around to using them.  My son got interested in using Sharpie's in myriad colors to do artwork.  When I finally pulled out one of the skeletons last year, we brainstormed and he decided to decorate it as a calaca.  He did a "girl."  It was so cute, but we never had time to do another, so he just completed the "boy" to go with it.  They are so happy and upbeat.  I much prefer them to all the scary, gory things that our culture promotes during this season of the year. 




(I didn't have the heart to mention to him that "mortes" is feminine....)



I'm not glorifying death (except as it leads to eternal life), mind you, just looking for a less gruesome way to get through this season with a boy....  (The Halloween concert last weekend was actually very cute, too!)



Wow, that skeleton became disarticulated quickly, LOL!

Now we turn around three times and it's Christmas....

Regena
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