Hana in the Time of Tulips Unit Study (Netherlands)

Since we were studying the Dutch in history, I thought it would be a good idea to expand on it a little with some ideas from the unit study for Hana in the Time of the Tulips from Homeschool Share.

We read books about the Netherlands, dikes, windmills, tulips, and Rembrandt.

Windmills from DLTK

Notebook pages

We read about Rembrandt's life and looked at a lot of his paintings. We did an activity from Discovering Great Artists about drawing facial expressions.

Molly looking at herself in mirror to draw facial expressions.

Caleigh decided to make this on her own. It's a dike with the blue water on the outside. In the middle are some tulips.

 

They also drew tulips with watercolor crayons.


L to R: Molly, Colin, Caleigh



Our Week: Jamestown, Ladybugs, and Water Park

It was a really good week! The rain cancelled some of our plans so it turned out to not be as busy as I had expected.

We went to an apple orchard Sunday.
On Monday, we met some friends at Great Wolf Lodge and had a great time at the water park.
Colin had hockey practice Monday and Wednesday evenings.
He started a biology class this week also.

The girls were exploring the nature center when I looked out and saw Colin gathering something during his class so I had to snap his picture.

Yesterday we saw the movie, Dolphin Tale. We all really enjoyed it.

Science



We learned about beetles this week. We concentrated on fireflies and ladybugs. I ordered ladybug larvae from Insect Lore. We've been observing them all week. We were able to see them molt and now most of them are in the pupa stage.

We also made some ladybug treats with apples, strawberries, grapes, pretzels, mini chocolate chips, and M&Ms.

Left: Caleigh's
Right: mine
Caleigh said mine were wrong because they don't have 3 body parts so she made hers the correct way.

Left: Molly's (she said the head is hiding)
Right: Colin's

All the rain we've had the last three days has interfered with our experiments. Hopefully it will dry up soon and we can do them.

Colin's biology class is using Real Science 4 Kids. This week they talked about taxonomy, the kingdoms, and classification.

History

We read about King James VI of Scotland and how he also became king of England. We also learned that he sent people to North America to search for gold. They started the Jamestown settlement.
We learned that Guy Fawkes was involved in a plot to assassinate King James, but he was caught. Caramel apples are one of the treats they have during the Guy Fawkes Day celebration so we made some.

Pocahontas was mentioned briefly in our history book. We read some other books about her and did the Pocahontas lapbook from Homeschool Share. We finished our week by watching the Disney movie, Pocahontas.

Notebook pages from Homeschool Share

Great Wolf Lodge Waterpark

We had such an awesome day at the waterpark on Monday. We went with our homeschool friends. It wasn't crowded at all and the kids had so much fun together.

Molly

Caleigh

The girls, their friend, and I are under this water.

Colin decided to try this without using the rope. Not a good idea.

He loved standing here and spraying people.

She loved sitting under this water thing.

 

 

Our Week: Netherlands, Metamorphosis, and Rembrandt



This was our third week of school. We are almost back to a full schedule. Things are still going well. Having Colin do more of his work independently is making a huge difference in my day. I'm able to start immediately with the girls instead of them having to wait while I work with him. I hope we are able to continue that as he gets further into his curriculum.

 

The Three Rs

Colin did three lessons in RightStart Geometry and two chapters in Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents. I decided to have him repeat some lists from Spell to Write and Read. He finished it last year, but I want to make sure he has the phonograms and rules down. He started with list T this week. He's also doing some dictation, summarizing, and reviewing capital cursive letters.

Caleigh's math is still mostly dealing with multiplication. She started back with grammar and is continuing with learning capital cursive letters. She did two spelling lists this week and the "My Wise Grammar Book" pages that went with them.

Molly started back with The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. I can see that her speed in reading has improved over the last few months. I'm still introducing new phonograms to her and she's learning them really well. Her math is still in the reviewing part so it's been very basic.



Science

This week we read about insects' life cycles, finding a mate, the different types of metamorphosis, and the defenses insects use to protect themselves. We went for a walk on a trail in our neighborhood where the kids hunted for eggs. They actually found quite a few on the underside of leaves.

Molly being an egg detective

Caleigh looking at some eggs

We were supposed to do a can trap experiment, but we're having some cool weather so I thought we might have a better chance of getting more insects if we wait until next week when it's supposed to warm back up.

While we were at the park on Friday, Molly found a cricket. She would hold a leaf to its mouth and it would chew the leaf. She said it definitely had a chewing mouth, which she learned about last week. She also told me all the reasons she knew it was an insect.

Our ladybug larvae arrived this week so the kids have been watching them and we'll be studying them more next week.

History

We learned about the Dutch revolt and Mary, Queen of Scots. We did a unit study about the Dutch. 

Unit Study



We did a unit study to learn more about the Dutch. We used the Hana in the Time of Tulips study and lapbook from Homeschool Share. They learned about dikes, tulips, windmills, the Netherlands, and Rembrandt. They also made windmills.

Windmills

Art and Music



To go along with our unit study, our artist was Rembrandt. We read books about him, looked at many of his paintings and did an activity from Discovering Great Artists about drawing faces with different expressions.

Molly making faces at herself in the mirror to draw

They also used watercolor crayons to draw a picture with tulips.

In music, we read about string instruments in The Story of the Orchestra.

Everything Else

We visited the Carolina Raptor Center. Colin had two hockey practices. He and Molly had tennis lessons. They played with friends at the park after tennis. We went to our homeschool group's park day on Friday.

State Study Plans & Resources

I'm hoping we'll be able to do one state most weeks. Right now I'm planning to do them on Fridays.


These are the books we'll be using with all of the states.

 

Greeting from the 50 States: How They Got Their Names
Our 50 States: A Family Adventure Across America
Wish You Were Here: Emily's Guide to the 50 States
The Train of States
Go, Go America
Kids Learn America
Our Fifty States  (National Geographic)
The Little Man in the Map


I have this workbook. I bought it for the CD, which has some patriotic songs, facts, and songs to help learn the states and capitals. The book has some crossword puzzles, word searches, and matching.
I have this book of outline maps. I'm just taking these out of the book to use on our bulletin board.

The bottom of our bulletin board to let the kids know what we're learning about each week.

Here are some other things I have. I have several of the "Which Way USA?" books and maps from Highlights. I also have some workbooks, a package of blank maps, and the Scrambled States of America books. The other thing is a game. I'm not sure where or when I got it. It's called A Capital Game: To State it Simply It's a Capital Game. It's just some cards you cut apart that have cartoons and puns to help remember the states and capitals.

Puzzles

Games

The cards with the state and capital names in the picture above on the left came from the Dollar Tree. I use them on the bulletin board. As we get through more states, I plan to use them as a game to have the kids match the captials to the states.

We're collecting quarters for each state. I'm planning to get the kids some kind of map or folder to keep them all in. I also got them passports with state flag stickers.


The kids are each making a binder to hold their state information. We may use this for the cover, but I haven't looked around much yet and I'll have to see what the kids think. Links for all of these will be at the bottom. The first page is a map of the United States. I'm having them color each state as we study it so they can see their progress. We're going to study the states by regions so I have a map of each region at the beginning of that section. They also color the state on that map as we do it. Each section includes a map of the state and a coloring sheet that includes the state bird, flower, flag, etc. They may also put in pictures, drawings, postcards, or whatever else they have. They'll also have the sheet below to fill out for each state.

My husband put together things from this one and this one to get what I wanted onto one sheet.

 

Online Resources:

U.S. map
Regions maps
State maps
State coloring pages from Crayola
Book list for each state
List of books for each state
Discover America series guide
Recipes for each state

Games:
Geography Game
Place the State
State Quiz
Games for each state

Our Visit to Maine

This is my final post about our trip to Maine so it's just a hodgepodge of pictures.

I've already posted about visiting the Maine Wildlife Park, going to a chocolate factory, and seeing the beautiful lighthouses.

 

Len Libby Chocolates and Candies

This was at the top of the kids' list of things to do when we were planning. They just had to see the moose.

Meeting Lenny

Lenny: a life-size chocolate moose

The girls got to touch lobsters and starfish.

 

 

 

 

The girls on the beach

 

I wasn't fast enough to get a good picture. Molly throwing bucket of water on Colin.

View from beach

 

 

Eartha, the world's largest rotating and revolving globe

 

Caleigh with a tiny globe chocolate

L.L. Bean

 

Harbor where we had lunch one day

 

This is where Colin spent most of his time during our week in Maine. I was worried he would feel like he was missing out if we did things with the girls while he was at camp. He was so excited to go to camp every day and was sad when it over. He just loved it.

 



He's in the middle of the pic in red