Week 23 – February 19 – February 25

Nate and Bandit enjoying bale climbing.

Woodpecker holes discovered on our snow walk!

Language Arts:
Nate did Spelling City to practice his spelling words. He got some more words to practice. He did Lessons 9, 10, and 11. He also started doing some Daily Grams. He did 1, 2, and 3. He really enjoyed the format and the information learned. He went to the library. And of course he read LOTS of Hardy Boys books. He watched some DVDs.

Math:
Nate completed lessons 15E, and 15F. He watched the DVD for Lesson 16 which was improper fractions and mixed numbers. He did lessons 16A, 16B, 16C, 16D, and 16E. A great week of math, Nate!!

Science:
It snowed LOTS this week. Nate and I went for a few walks in the snow! We read the book Snow Watch (Kids Can Press).

It has great information and experiments. On one of our walks we found a woodpecker nest in a hollow tree! I’ll have to take my camera on our next walk!

Social Studies:
We learned so much Canadian history this week! We studied Cartier and Champlain. Nate did mapwork charting their routes, heard information from New France and the Fur Traders (Discovering Canada series). He also heard a novel called Man From St. Malo (Great Stories of Canada series) about Cartier which he really enjoyed.

Other stuff:
Nate did some whittling.
Another thing Nate enjoyed learning this week was the game of Risk. We read the rules carefully and learned to set up the game and how to engage in combat. We also read the questions and answers for the strategies. Hopefully we will be able to play a full game soon!
Nate worked with Sarah and they made some delicious chocolate chip cookies.

iPad:
Nate did some drawing on his iPad. He played some games. He enjoyed learning how to make an iMovie. It turned out awesome! He even put music with the pictures.

PE:
Nate tried ice fishing! He didn’t catch anything but he did have fun! He stacked wood every day. He went for some long snow walks. BUT the highlight of his week was going back to swimming lessons with Claire. Nate did an awesome job at his first lesson on Thursday. He did stop during his long swim and Claire was very pleased with his progress. He is enjoying the children in his lesson. There are three other homeschoolers in his class!!!! After his lesson he enjoyed playing catch in the pool with Hannah from 4-H.

Art:
Nate did some drawings!

Week 22 – February 12 - February 18

Language Arts:
Nate did Lessons 6, 7, and 8 of Simply Grammar. He practiced his spelling words using Spelling City. He read Vicious Vikings and many Hardy Boys books. He enjoys doing narrations for the books he reads. He finished listening to The Swiss Family Robinson and he watched the Disney Version of the book and noticed many differences between the book and the movie. He watched some shows including Gilligan’s Island, and a movie about Alaska called Rugged Gold.

Math:
Nate played Backgammon with his mom and won two out of three games. He watched Math U See DVD lesson 14 and did lessons 14A, 14B, 14C, 14D, 14E, and 14F. He also watched Lesson 15 and did lessons 15A, 15B, 15C, and 15D. He learned about fractions in measuring, mixed numbers, and improper fractions. He also did some mental math questions with his sister.

Science:
To coincide with his Social Studies explorers unit Nate studied the history of the cod fisheries off Newfoundland. He also learned about the extinction of the Great Auk.

Social Studies:
Nate put some people’s photos in his Book of Centuries including Picasso, Mowat, Wyss, and Stratemeyer (Hardy Boys creator). We continued our explorers unit. We read about John Cabot, did mapping of his route, looked on the iPad for the countries mentioned, looked up about cod fishing, looked up the Great Auk which is now extinct, and read the beginning of The Story of Canada (up to John Cabot). We also started reading Man from St. Malo which is a story about Jacques Cartier which is the next explorer we will be studying.

Other Stuff:
Nate helped bake bread. He made some bread creations like a snail and dagger.

Nate also enjoyed going to the cabin with his dad and staying overnight. He helped his dad plough the road.

iPad:
Nate enjoyed playing checkers with his siblings. He played some math games with his mom including even numbers, fractions, addition, and division. He also learned how to download music on his iPad from iTunes.

PE:
And we had about 8 – 10 inches of snow this week so Nate enjoyed being outside doing winter stuff. He especially enjoyed his snowmobile ride with his dad. He stacks wood daily. Nate and Sarah rode their horses and played polo.

Art:
What a wonderful week of art. We watched our Art Class Lessons 6, 7, and 8. We learned about basic shapes and space. We enjoyed the ideas and projects to help us learn these concepts. We also watched a bonus lesson about Creative Lettering.

Week 21 - February 5 - February 11

Social Studies:

Nate heard some information about the Beothuk Indians from Newfoundland and their interaction with Vikings and other explorers. He continues to enjoy learning about Vikings. He made a Viking helmet to go along with his other Viking shield and weapons.

He had a “fight” with his brother and they giggled throughout the “battle”. He learned about Christopher Columbus, his four voyages, and his ships. Nate enjoyed a trip to Clinton. He went to the Emporium and saw many old things including a player piano, an old accordion, and a butter churn. His dad bought an old electric butter paddles just like the one Nate’s great grandparents had!!!!!! Too cool!

Art:
Nate did Art Class lesson 5 and learned about shape and subject. He got out the paints and painted some colourful and detailed pictures.

Language Arts:

Nate continues to enjoy reading Hardy Boys. He also read a couple of Viking books called Vicious Vikings (Horrible History) and Adventures with the Vikings. He watched some DVDs including Gilligan’s Island and Courage (about a boat wreck). He continues to enjoy Spelling City and is really moving rapidly through his spelling lists from Natural Speller. He did Simply Grammar Lesson 5 and learned about the predicate. Math: Nate completed Lessons 13C, 13D, 13E, and 13F. He has an incredible understanding of fractions and their operations. Science: Nathan made many creations with K’Nex. He made a pump that is run by a motor powered by a solar panel. He also made a pickup, a helicopter, and a grader.

Other Stuff:
Nate cleaned up his room!
He played Battleship with his mom.

iPad:
Nathan did some research on his iPad about Kayaks. He would like to purchase a kayak with his money that he has saved. He went to Williams Lake and checked out the sports shop Red Shreds. The guy gave Nate many pamphlets and a magazine about kayaking. He also gave him a brochure about Bowron Lake and the canoe chain. Nate also uses his iPad to look up words and animals when reading The Swiss Family Robinson. He also enjoys just playing some games like X-Plane, i-copter, motorbike racing, and Cars 2. He also went to Staples and we found out about some cool attachments you can get for the iPad like a keyboard and speakers.

PE:
Nate enjoyed many outdoor activities including sledding, stacking wood, playing with his dog, riding his bike in the snow, and jogging. He wants to start jogging every day so that he can build up his stamina for swimming lessons starting on February 23. He found a few rocks under the snow and tried his slingshot.

Art:
Nate did Art Class lesson 5 and learned about shape and subject. He got out the paints and painted some colourful and detailed pictures.

Week 20 - January 29 - February 4

Language Arts: Nathan continues to LOVE reading Hardy Boys. Every time we go to the library he orders 5 more books! He heard many chapters from The Swiss Family Robinson. In spelling Nate is enjoying Spelling City. He finds it really helps him learn his new words in a fun way. He is really learning many new words quickly. Nate watched some movies including Shrek, Gilligan’s Island, and Heartland.

Math: Nate completed Lessons 12C, 12D, 12E, and 12F. He watched the DVD Lesson 13 and really enjoyed learning how to do a factor tree to find the prime factors. He did lessons 13A and 13B. We did some internet research and found out about Eratosthenes – 275 – 194 BC who created a “sieve” to filter out prime factors so Nate made a prime number chart to find out the prime numbers from 1 – 100! We also played Battleship and Uno and of course Nate keeps score! Nate and I played some addition, multiplication, and fraction games on the iPad.

Science: On Sunday, January 29, 2012 Google had an interesting page. It was the 125th anniversary of the largest snowflake recorded in history. So that sparked an interest in researching snowflakes! Very interesting information!!!

Social Studies: We are continuing our Viking study. Nate built a Viking ship from Lego complete with Lego people walking the plank. Viking means PIRATE!!!

He also did some excellent mapwork, added to our Book of Centuries about Vikings, Leif the Lucky, and Viking ships. He completed pages 4 – 9 in Canada Map Book 6 which looks at the history of Canada. Nate used his iPad to research about L’Anse aux Meadows the Viking settlement in Newfoundland which is now a UNESCO heritage site. We also enjoyed building a paper ship model and home of a Viking. Nate and I also played a couple of Viking games that we made from the Discovering Canada Series book – Vikings. He did some review questions and a cross word puzzle about Vikings.

Other stuff: Nate enjoyed playing with his Etch-a-Sketch – pre-curser to the iPad? Nathan enjoyed an overnight trip to the cabin with his dad and brother.

iPad: Nate uses his iPad for many purposes. When we find a word or animal that we don’t know from The Swiss Family Robinson we look it up on the iPad. We play math games. Nate does a lot of research for science and social studies. And of course, he just has fun playing games. His new favourite is Cars 2 which his sister downloaded onto his iPad for him.

PE: Nate was an outside guy this week. The new snowfall was wet so he was able to create some wonderful snow sculptures. Nate made a huge snowman all by himself.

He also made a snow fort with Sarah. Nate even rode his bike in the snow! He stacked wood, did chores with his dad that includes opening water and feeding the critters.