Summer School Week 4

Week 4 Field Notes


Bird Call:  Common Grackle - because they're everywhere around us!

Classical Music: Handel's Water Music - YouTube's playlist has been a huge help in reviewing our previous week's songs, thanks, Rachel, for telling me about that!!

Picture Study:  Monet, "Water Lilies" - of 250 water lily paintings I chose this one, because if you squint it looks unbelievably three dimensional, also because up close you can see all his brush strokes and get a feel for impressionistic work.

Animal: Hippo - don't you just want your own baby hippo? We slacked on three subjects this week and this was one of them.  This subject will culminate in a big trip to the Pittsburgh zoo later this Summer.

Insect: Spittle Bug  aka Froghopper - the former name is for when they're nymphs and the latter when they're proper bugs.  We always see the spittle "foam" on our strawberries every year, so they made our bug list.  Found most of our info in library books and on Wikipedia.

Flower: Peony - we love that ants have to bite these open.  For fun, last Saturday, we stopped by Kingwood Center where Ben proposed to me oh some 17 years ago and just next to the gazebo where he asked me, there's a peony garden with gorgeous peonies dating back to the 1930s!  I've seen rose gardens, but never a peony garden.  In May when he proposed, they wouldn't have been in bloom, not that I would have noticed that day anyways!

Tree: Oak - 2nd subject we missed - now we're two weeks behind on trees!  I think we'll live.

Fungi: Chanterelle- Read lots in the the mushroom field guides about these.  Evidently, these are a favorite among mushroom hunters.  Known for their peachy aroma and amazing flavor.

Rocks: Pegmatite - The pink glittery one in the box we got.  :-)

Constellation: Andromeda - no dot to dots found for this.  My plan is to make flashcards up for all of the constellations we do, so I can quiz them easily.  But, since I haven't done this yet, this is the third subject we neglected this week.

Dinosaur: Triceratops - from the Cretaceous period - Dover library has books on many dinos individually.

American Sign Language: Q-V

Sea Life: Squid, Octopus and Cuttlefish - These just had to go together, but not all are cephalopods or eight legged!  Most interesting facts about these guys is their skin color can change instantaneously via electric impulses!  Here's an awesome Nova video on how God made these amazing creatures to camouflage themselves.  Ezra is obsessed with the sea life subject and wants to try eating every one we learn about.  Once a month, we do this, but can't afford to eat seafood in our landlocked Ohio Valley every week.

Biography: Thomas Edison

Fiction Summer Must Reads: Pilgrim's Progress for kids - slow going on this one, it's good though!


We're definitely in Summer mode here and not making school such a priority as we do in the school year.  It's fun to see their minds working though and hear them asking really good questions about the world around them.  My favorite from this past week though has little to do with Summer school, "Mom, how do you know the right person to ask to marry you?"  That was my big, almost seven year old , whose front top tooth is so loose today I think he might swallow it in his sleep during naptime today!  For the record, he only gets a nap when he needs it (about every 2-3 days), but Mommy requires the kids have quiet time EVERY DAY for one hour!!  She also plans to continue the quiet time tradition as long as earthly possible.

I'm enjoying our Summer school subjects far more than I do normal academics, but I'm getting an idea of how to plan ahead and expound on the core subjects we will do in Classical Conversations in the school year.

Summer School Cycle A Classical Music

The Music at a Glance for this Summer

In deciding against the purchase of a good classical music learning CD and only using free on-line resources, I made things really difficult for myself when it comes to reviewing with the kids.  Yes, I sit here and individually type in the names of each of our previous songs and find the YouTube video we watched for each week over and over.  So, this post is to help centralize those on-line resources.  I'll add more links as we get to those weeks.

Week 1: Bach's Jesus Joy of Man's Desiring and Brandenburg Concerto No. 5

Week 2: Bach's Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor and The Well Tempered Clavier

Week 3: Handel's Messiah

Week 4: Handel's Water Music

Week 5: Vivaldi Spring and  Summer Presto

Week 6:Vivaldi Fall and Winter

Week 7: Haydn's No. 94 in G Maj. (the Surprise) & Piano Sonata in D. Major

Week 8: Haydn's The Creation (Oratorio) & The Emperor’s Hymn

Week 9: Mozart's Overture to the Magic Flute

Week 10: (undecided as to which Mozart piece to choose for this week)

Week 11: Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, mvt. 1 & Fur Elise

Week 12:  Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and Symphone No. 6, 2^nd movement

Summer School Week 3

Week 3 Field Notes
OK, the honeymoon phase is over and we're parsing it down to what needs done and having lots of fun outdoors with Summer weather here.

Bird Call:  House Sparrow - We played this sound everyday and 1-2 times played the old bird songs just to quiz them.

Classical Music: Handel's Messiah - Phoebe's favorite thus far!  She knows almost all the words, well, at least the "Hallelujah" word.  She sings it all the time!!  "Alluya, Alluya, Alluya!"  Perfect pitch too!  We play the old songs from previous weeks 1-2 times a week as well.

Picture Study:  Rembrandt, Self-Portrait  - "Hey look, kids!  It's Rembrandt!  He painted himself!"

Animal: Giraffe - Read a book from the library on these.

Insect: June Bug - Learned about hissing June Bugs from YouTube videos.

Flower: Pansies - Colored these after researching the different colors they come in on Google and visiting a local nursery to see the flower up close.  It's been fun as we drive around town for the kids to see flowers they know. I chose flowers currently blooming to study each week, so we saw daffodils that first week, then tulips, now we see pansies planted in yards.  

Tree: Pine Tree - dropped the ball on trees this week, need to go up the hill and investigate what kind of pine tree we have!

Fungi: Puff Ball - I am smitten!  I can't put the mushroom books down.  I want to hunt them so badly, but realize that realistically, I have zero experience to rely on and eating a sneaky bad mushroom disguised as a nice edible one can be deadly!  Must find experienced mushroom hunters to apprentice under!!

Rocks: Obsidian - Finally got the box of Igneous rocks.  This is making learning rocks so much easier!!  Showed them obsidian the first day and had them say "OBSIDIAN" five times.  Then today, I pushed the box full of rocks (numbers concealed) toward them and said, "Find the obsidian. Find the pumice."  They loved it!

Constellation: Hercules - This one was chosen because I found a connect the dot for it here, but can't seem to find lots on it elsewhere.  Planning to stick to the dustbunny.com plan after this week as I previously mentioned. I realize I need a simple good picture of each constellation to hold up like a flash card to quiz since that's the point of this (see and recognize).

Dinosaur: T-Rex - Read a book from the library, watched a few on-line videos.

American Sign Language: K-P

Sea Life: Cod - The kids love coloring a flower and a fish every week.  So, I had to look up a picture for Cod and this is all I could find.  Found out the local fish and chips shop, "Gip's Fish and Chips" only sells cod straight from the ocean "no middle man" he said.  It was very yummy!

Biography: Christopher Columbus

Fiction Summer Must Reads: Pilgrim's Progress for kids