Middle Beginnings:

Monday, March 17, 2014

Weeks 25 & 26: China

Posted by Wendy T at 12:00 AM Labels: China, ECC, geography, MFW, My Father's World, week 25, week 26 0 comments

Welcome to our study on China!

We had fun playing Chinese Checkers while learning more about China. We also like Chinese food and ate it for lunch several days during our study. Aldi's had a good selection including sweet & sour chicken, mini egg rolls, different packages of rice and noodles, and even little cookies with pandas on them :) I also bought some frozen chinese vegetables and made stir fry for dinner one night. We got out the dragon Lindsey made for Chinese New Year, and our Chinese lanterns decorated the table.

Art -

Some of our library books had Chinese characters and their meanings, and we looked some up online. Lindsey practiced writing them and pronouncing them. Then we made Chinese lanterns from construction paper and used markers to decorate them with pictures and Chinese characters.

Science -

We had fun with the salt water experiments. After learning about the Dead Sea, we took 2 bowls and filled one with fresh water and one with salt water. We placed an egg in each bowl to see if it would sink or float. The egg sunk to the bottom completely submerged in the fresh water. The egg in the salt water floated with part of it rising above the surface of the water due to the salt water being denser.

We made salt crystals. We started by boiling water then adding salt until it wouldn't dissolve anymore. Then we poured it into a mason jar and hung a string weighted with a paper clip from a pencil across the top of the jar. We placed it in a sunny window and checked it each day. As the water evaporated cube shaped salt crystals formed.

Field Trip -

Since bicycles are a popular form of transportation in China, I took Lindsey to the park with a trail she could ride her bike on. There was a lot of bamboo growing along the trail. To our good fortune, there was a Chinese family with twin babies at the park and we talked to them a little while we were resting in the shade. We also heard them speaking Chinese to each other.

Books We Read -

We read Gladys Aylward every night before bed, and this has been our favorite missionary book so far. Her determination to reach the people of china was incredible! Parts of the book held us in suspense and others made us laugh - a very good read.

We also found several great books at the library including a childhood favorite of mine,
The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack.

Panda Rescue : changing the future for endangered wildlife by Dan Bortolotti

Chinese Fables : The Dragon Slayer and other timeless tales of wisdom by Shiho S. Nunes

The Seven Chinese Brothers by Margaret Mahy

Eyewitness China by Poppy Sebag-Montefiore

Dream-of-Jade : The Emperor's Cat by Lloyd Alexander

The Art Of China by Shirley Glubok

Tibet : Through The Red Box by Peter Sis

The Emperor And The Kite by Jane Yolen

Hong Kong by Wendy B. Murphy

Zen Ghosts by Jon J. Muth

Lin Yi's Lantern : A Moon Festival Tale by Brenda Williams

A Taste Of China by Roz Denny

Lon Po Po : A Red-Riding Hood Story From China by Ed Young

Traditional Crafts From China by Florence Temko

Daisy Comes Home by Jan Brett

Cloud Tea Monkeys by Mal Peet

Inside China by Ian James

Other Media -

The Butterfly Lovers [compact disc] ; Three Chinese violin pieces. by Zhanhao He

5000 years of magnificent wonders. World wonders beyond time [DVD]

Wild China (watched on Netflix)

The Dragon Pearl

Kung Fu Panda

We also watched Disney's Mulan and Mulan 2.

We watched this Geography of China video on Youtube:

Friday, March 14, 2014

Pi Day March 14th

Posted by Wendy T at 9:00 PM Labels: 6th grade, circumference, ECC, Math, math day, MFW, middle school, My Father's World, Pi, pi day 0 comments

Pi Day is March 14th - We celebrated with a math day and peanut butter pie!

First Lindsey completed the graphic organizer. We read the book Sir Comference and the Dragon of Pi by Cindy Neuschwander. Then we completed worksheets, a crossword puzzle, and played a game of archery using Lindsey's Nerf bow. The graphing and a game worksheet had instructions for dropping pennies, but we modified it and used the bow and a target we already had. After circles had been measured and worksheets completed, we made a peanut butter pie. Before we could eat it, Lindsey had to solve the circumference of the pie.

Resources we used:

http://www.piday.org/

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dragons-and-Medicine-and-Pi-Oh-My-214950

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pi-Day-Graphic-Organizer-Activity-Poster-Freebie-595161

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pi-Day-Crossword-Puzzle-120842

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pi-Day-FREEBIE-Graphing-and-a-Game-1107865

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pi-Day-Pie-Problems-FREEBIE-588108

Friday, February 28, 2014

Weeks 29 & 30: Russia & the Winter Olympics

Posted by Wendy T at 9:00 AM Labels: ECC, Faberge eggs, MFW, My Father's World, Olympics, Peter and the Wolf, Peter Tchaikovsky, Russia, Sergei Prokofiev, Sochi, week 29, week 30, winter games 2 comments

We studied Russia out of turn so that we could include the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics during our study. It seemed to fit well after Germany anyway since Russia is partly in Europe and partly in Asia. We will continue with Asia and then go on to Africa. I love that we have the flexibility to mix things up :)

As if by design, we were even blessed with 7" of snow on the ground in our part of North Carolina during our study! God's timing is perfect.

Even though it wasn't Christmas, I got out our Russian nesting doll Santas... We also printed off some world flags and made a long banner to decorate with and help Lindsey learn the flags. Then we created our own Olympic Games: pom-pom curling, an archery biathlon, sock skating, and also included a Mario vs. Sonic Winter Olympic video game for the Wii that I bought used at Gamestop. I think I won a gold medal in the teacher/mommy category when I surprised my daughter with the video game and told her she had to play it for school. She was so excited! Not only was it fun for the whole family, it really helped her relate to the different events.

Science -

We took a break from our zoology to study the science of the Olympics. We learned about friction, drag, angular momentum, torque, acceleration, gravity and mass. Lindsey wrote the definitions on index cards. We looked at science of figure skating, skiing aerials, and bobsledding. We watched the Olympic science videos at http://www.nbclearn.com/olympics and did some of the activities listed with them. Who doesn't want to spin in an office chair to learn about science?

We created a model bobsled to learn about the acceleration of gravity on objects of differing mass. We used the longest pvc pipe that I could bring home in my car (not the recommended 10 ft.) for the track, and travel bottles from the dollar store filled with different things for the bobsleds. We filled the bobsleds with beans, water, metal, sand art, and left one empty. Lindsey named each of the "teams" and we ran each one on the coarse 5 times and recorded their speed. Stuffed animal mascots (hare, polar bear, and tiger) cheered at the finish line. We dropped the highest & lowest time for each team and averaged their scores to determine the winners. Even though they have different masses, the sand art and the metal tied for the gold. The beans took the silver and water won the bronze. We covered boxes in white paper to create a medals podium & used stickers for medals.

Music -

We listened to some music by Peter Tchaikovsky and discussed Swan Lake & The Nutcracker. We have been to the ballet to see both of these and we also own the Barbie movies for both, so Lindsey was already familiar with them. She practiced some ballet positions too.

We borrowed the story of Peter and the Wolf from the library and listened to the music by Sergei Prokofiev. There is a leitmotif (melody associated with a person or place in the story) for each of the characters in Peter and the Wolf to help us understand them better. We discussed the music of the characters and compared them. We also watched the video for the Disney version below.