Lesson Plans for the week of November 7th #homeschool #lessonplans

So I decided to share my lesson plans for the week.

Cameron:
Scripture for the week:  Proverbs 12: 17, 28
Math: we are trying a new program for supplemental work (I will post our review next week)
Science: Rockets (he received a fun science kit for his birthday and wants to do it this week)
Reading: Mouse and the Motorcycle (Reading with Daddy)
History: Civil War (he only gets 1 day of History this week, we are spreading it out so he doesn't get obsessed with it)
Art: New program we are introducing including a little Art History

Nathan:
Scripture: Genesis 1: 1, 31
Math: Math-U-See Introduction to Math Lesson 24 and 25
Science : Rockets with brother
Reading: not sure yet, we are going to pick a new program to try this week
Art:  Program with brother


We also have Cameron's youth group field trip for Operation Christmas Child on Tuesday, Homeschool Co-Op on Wednesday , and an full evening of activities Thursday including our monthly Gleaner's meeting.

First #FieldTrip of the #Homeschool Year: #Aquarium

Thursday was Field Trip Day at Unionvale Homeschool.

We traveled 2 hours South West to Newport for a visit to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. The boys received a Groupon gift certificate from Auntie for Easter this past year and it was about to expire so off we went.  We made a stop in Lincoln City at McDonald's for a quick lunch (I didn't have enough time to get a lunch packed in the morning...)


We finally made it to the Aquarium and headed in. The path from the parking lot is a very nice paved nature trail with a small stream which Nathan was very interested in. He wanted a picture of the stream and plants so I let him take the photo.. Not too bad for a 6 year old wild kid.

 The boys thoroughly enjoyed the touch pool although at first they weren't sure if they were going to actually touch any of the creatures. I told them it had always been my favorite part of the Aquarium when I was little and showed them it was ok to touch the creatures, then they started gently touching each different star fish and anenomi. We spent probably 20 minutes exploring the tide pool , touch pool.

 We all found a quiet solace in just watching the fish  through the glass. And even more so once we made it to the tunnel to walk through the water and see all the fish in their own environments.  We sat on the floor and got lost looking up to the fish.

 We found the children's outside play area and all enjoyed the animal statues to climb and sit on. Even unvlDad got in on the fun.  It isn't often you can get my boys to sit together , this was about as good as it gets.

We made our way back to see the Aviary , the seal lions, and sea otters  The Aviary was actually really neat we got to see the birds up close. It was amazing to interact with the birds as if they understood what we were saying. The boys had a lot of fun with that.

 We left the Aquarium and headed back across the Yaquina Bay Bridge to find some beach to play on. We ended up at a neat little park with a very long windy path down to the beach.  The boys and Mommy played in the water while Daddy hung back and rested a bit.  Yes I was in the water, I hiked my skirt up so I wouldn't get too wet.

We ended the day with a drive back to Lincoln City for dinner at the McMennamin's Lighthouse Pub where we reviewed all we saw and drew pictures. After all was said and done I had to see the sunset on the beach so we went around the corner to Road's End beach park to watch the sunset before we drove home.

TOS Curiosity Files Review: Blue Footed Booby

What in the world is a Blue Footed Booby anyway?? If your curiosity is getting the best of you too then this unit study from The Oldschoolhouse's new line of Curiosity Files  is a great unit. Nathan and I went through the unit and while some of the questions and memory retention was over his head he had fun looking through the colorful unit and listening to Mommy read his the study.

One of the first things that caught Nathan's eye was the fun professor on the cover of the unit. He immediately thought of Magic School Bus and asked if I had found a Magic School Bus unit... I told him no , but this would be even better.  He was skeptical but is so eager to learn that he climbed onto my lap and took control of the keyboard. We started out by talking about how God created everything around us and these birds where really no different.  We read the e-book on the computer rather than printing it out and found the full color images and layout of the book very computer friendly.  This unit is designed for students ages 8-13 but was easily adapted for my 5 year old who loves learning.  The full color e-book is a complete unit with activities included at the end of the guide. There is a list of extension activities as well. The questions and activities are broken up for ages so the older kids are expected to do and understand more than the younger ones. I was still able to tweak the questions for my even younger one and have fun while we were doing it.
At first I wasn't sure if the boys would like the unit , but being a shorter unit study it was a break for what we had been doing. I can see adding a beach trip or other nature activity to the unit to expand on it but found a nice simple unit study without a lot of extra work a nice change of pace. The worksheets covered so many areas making this a truly cross curricula unit with fun math word problems, a fun song and dance for Physical Education and Music, a fun snippet activity to get the kids organized and excited about finding out more about the Blue Footed Booby, coloring and drawing practice for Art, and many more.

The Old School House has a wonderful line of Curiosity Files where Professor Ana Lyze takes you on fun learning adventures where you and your student can learn wonderful things while being a Creation based study. The units include everything you need incorporating: Bible study, memory verses, Core Curriculum like Math, Language Arts, Science, and History, lot of discussion questions and ideas to help further the dialogue, lapbook elements, note booking pages, copy work in both manuscript and cursive, ideas for arts and crafts, lots of Internet links and resources, and finally a complete answer key.  Most of the Curiosity Files are priced under $10, with bundle pricing if you are buying multiple lessons. The Blue Footed Booby Curiosity File unit is  priced at $6.95 and when I was reviewing The Old School House Store's website noticed a couple of the Curiosity Files units were priced at only $1.00 each.

**I received a copy of this unit to review and share my opinion. The opinions expressed here are solely mine and I received no further compensation for this review***

Trip Across Canada: an online unit study

Want to come along? Honey over at Sunflower School house is hosting an online unit study " A Trip Across Canada" . Hop on over and get the links to get started. Most of the travel guides about Canada from the links can actually be downloaded as PDF files, how awesome is that...  I can't wait to add these to our workboxes as lately we have gone back to just teh basics (Math and phonics) so the boys are looking forward to adding unit studies back into the mix.

Titanic Adventures

With our Titanic unit in full swing we decided to head out for a field trip. Luckily our unit matches up with the traveling exhibit from Country Financial Services.
I will write more about the exhibit later, but for now I will leave you with a photo from the activity.

[caption id="attachment_204" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Cameron, Nathan, Gamma, and Mommy "][/caption]