Friday, April 29, 2011

Our Week: Astronauts, da Vinci, and the Printing Press


Three Rs

We're very close to finishing up a few things. Colin already finished his regular math book. He's almost finished Life of Fred: Fractions and is working on Challenging Word Problems. Molly is also almost finished with her math book. This week she's done a lot of skip counting and she keeps asking why she has to do it every day. Colin has started on his last spelling list in the Spell to Write and Read book and is just about finished with his grammar program. I can see the end in sight and am just trying to keep us all on track for a little longer.


History

We started the week reading about Gutenberg's invention, the printing press. We read Breaking into Print, Johann Gutenberg and the Amazing Printing Press, and How a Book is Made.

Using directions in the SOTW activity guide, we made potato prints.






We also used broken pieces of spaghetti to make words like a printing press, an idea I saw here. This was good because it also went with our study of Leonardo da Vinci, who we found wrote backward in his notes.







We also learned about Reformation and Counter Reformation. We read some books to learn more about the Catholic faith.


Art/Unit Study

To go along with studying the Renaissance, we learned about Leonardo da Vinci. We read lots of books, did some art activities, and Colin made a lapbook. Read more about that here.


Science

We finished Exploring Creation with Astronomy this week by reading about the International Space Station and how to become a NASA astronaut. We read books about astronauts, what it's like to work in space, and living in a space shuttle. The kids were fascinated about how they just float around, how they have to eat, and how they go to the bathroom. I got them some space food to try. They all really liked the ice creams. Molly didn't like the strawberries, but the other two did.






Everything Else

Molly lost tooth #2 last night.



The eggs in the nest on our front porch hatched this week. The picture isn't very good. They just look like fuzzy balls right now.



 
Today we're going on a field trip.

12 comments:

Mary said...

I have always wondered about what those Space Foods look like. Very cool. We are going to try them next year when we tackle Astronomy. Looks like a fun week!

Faith said...

Love all the printmaking! Looks like fun!

Anonymous said...

I'm behind in welcoming you to the Five in a Row blogroll :) Thanks for joining and I look forward to reading your posts.

Regena said...

I love the potato printing! Your week looks wonderful (I miss studying the Middles Ages and my son has said several times this year that he misses it, too!)

Regena

schmobes said...

The spaghetti printing looks very cool!

In Everything said...

Cool:) You are ahead of us in timing but studying the same topics;)

I liked the printing press activities, so I'll be keeping that in mind when we get to that chapter!!

And we starting astronauts this week:)

I'm a new follower:)

learningtable said...

I love your printing project. My oldest is doing Life of Fred Fractions now. I had such a hard time finding a mathe program that was successful with his learning style, and we are really happy with LOF. I've already ordered the next book. We "do school" all summer, so I'll move him straight into it in a week or so when he fininshes Fractions. What math do you use with your younger ones?

Sennie said...

Ooooh, I used to do potato prints as a kid, I had forgotten about that. Hmm... I think there's a fun project coming up for my kiddos :)
Here from HHH.

Jamie said...

Great ideas,the space food is an excellent idea to toss into the sapce learning.Thanks for sharing
Stopping by from the HHH
Please visit our blog

Unknown said...

I love potato stamps. It sounds like you are moving right along and ready for summer. Will you be taking some time off, or schooling through summer?

Sarah said...

I was planning to move to a lighter schedule doing math and some things we have trouble getting to. Now we're going to be moving sometime soon so we'll probably take at least a few weeks to get settled without any school.

Jennifer Pepito said...

Thanks so much for the great printing press idea. I will be using it this week at our History co-op.
Blessings,
Jennifer