Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Term 1, Week 1: September 2-5

Term 1, Week 1: Sept. 2-5

I'll be putting up some zoology and geography links in the sidebars for you to have handy as well.  We'll try out this weekly list format and see how it works.  In general -- every Friday night you'll need to report to Dad on what you did during the week.  I'm sending him the link to this blog, too, so he'll know what you're up to.  This week is a short one, but I think you ought to be able to handle this amount of work.

Don't forget the SAT Question of the Day!

Your one word essay topic this week is... kumquat.  (If you don't know what a kumquat is, look it up!)  

Music Appreciation:  
For your project... check out our books Kids Make Music (a section on "Musical Toys")  or My First Music Book (Has instructions for a set of pan pipes, among other things) or google. Do This Before Tuesday at Dinner!!! Just in case a run to Lowe's or Michael's needs to be made.  

Geography:
Why Greenland is an Island and Japan is Up for Grabs -- ch. 1 and 2.  There's a "Try This" project at the end of chapter 2 that involves finding out the geographical facts of a region currently in the news.  Right now the country being talked about in the news the most is Syria.  See if you can follow her "geographical method" to learn about Syria.

Zoology: 
Keep reading The Aye-Aye and I.  I think the books in your basket fall mainly under "wildlife conservation", which is certainly part of zoology, but we need to add in some of the science underlying animals, too.  We're going to be following the outline of The Zoology Coloring Book to add in the science while you keep reading about wildlife conservation and biology.  The first sections in The Zoology Coloring Book are about the use of the microscope and microscopic animals.  So this week we're going to work on figuring out how to use the microscope.  

1. Color and label the diagram of the microscope in The Zoology Coloring Book.  You can also do the Virtual Urchin Microscope Tutorial, which will help you learn the parts of the microscope and their functions.  Or check out this video about how to use a microscope.   
2.  Read ch. 2  of How to Use a Microscope.
3.  Use the microscope to view the prepared slides we own.  If you have time, you can also check out some electron microscope images at the MicroAngela Electron Microscope Image Gallery and the SEM Gallery at the Museum of Science in Boston.   

History/Literature:
Check the history blog.  You should complete the Mesopotamia unit in about 3 weeks, so this week you need to start your reading and your notebook and check out some of the links.

Religion
It says this on the History blog, but I'll just repeat it here: you need to read chapter 1 in Understanding Scriptures this week.  Read the Bible verses given at the beginning of the chapter first, then the rest of the chapter.

Math:
Just keep on with your assignments.