Much to Max's Sheer delight our science topic this year just happens to be Oceanography his FAVORITE thing in the whole world. What a pleasure to teach something you can see someone simply drinks in every little thing you do. His appetite for anything science is voracious but he has a special love for all things regarding the sea. The twins can take or leave this class loving all things weapon, and war but they get plenty of that in our history lessons. This lesson is where Max thrives.
We are using a book from the Young Explorers Series by Jeannie Albright: Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day. For the first time since buying her books I am going to follow her straight through with only a few extra additions of living books where I have them and they fit in. Following can be boring and often the text in a given curricula just doesn't fit our plan but this year it does and I am not bored one bit I am enjoying the relaxation of letting another plan, research and deliver the lesson. She is by the way an excellent author and the text always gives glory to God which I appreciate. She includes so many fun and I must say simple experiments that the boys can do to understand more completely the sea creatures we are learning about.
I have laid out her chapters into individual lessons so I knew where the extra things I wanted to include could fit in and so I can know we will fit it all into the school year and at what pace we will be taking the readings and activities/experiments. Below is part of plan so you can get an idea how it works for us. We have a science lesson 5 days a week but the lessons vary so you will see.
Oceanography
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105 lessons
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Paddle to the Sea/map
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book/map work
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5
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Chapter 1: Aquatic Animals
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ECWZ Ch 1: Aquatic Animals Pg 1-7 narrate
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spine
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2
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Activity: Ocean currents Pg. 7
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hands on
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1
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ECWZ Ch. 1: Aquctic Animals Pg 8-15 narrate
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spine
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1
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Activity: air pressure in a bottle Pg. 15
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hands on
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1
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ECWZ Ch. 1: Aquctic Animals Pg 16-18 narrate
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spine
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1
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Activity: Ocean Box
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hands on
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1
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Experiment: cold and hot water
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hands on
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1
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BSBFC: ch. 1 -3 narrate
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book
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1
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Chapter 2: Whales
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ECWZ Ch. 2 Whales pg. 19-28
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spine
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2
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Activity: megaphone pg. 28
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hands on
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1
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ECWZ Ch2.: Whales Pg. 29-32
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spine
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1
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Activity: freezing water pg. 32
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hands on
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1
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ECWZ Ch. 2 Whales pg. 33-39
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spine
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1
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Activity: sound through water pg. 39-40 / put a whale in your ocean box
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hands on
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1
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BSBFC: ch. 3-6 narrate
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spine
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1
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Dolphin Adventure
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book
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1
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Dolphin Treasure
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book
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1
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Water Sky
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book
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6
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In chapter one we began making our "ocean Boxes" but our idea was more of an "ocean board." We made wave shaped stamps from foam sheets and printed many waves onto a large cardboard board, then the boys added a cloud and a sun. Each chapter we select a sea animal and color it and place it onto the board. We just did the chapter on whales so that is all they have on their boards so far. By the end of the year it will be full of sea creatures they know.
I purchased Jacque Cousteau's DVD series to play on the weekends jut for fun.
On project day the boys still practice doing an entry in their nature notebooks. This year they can filling the scientific data portion in the upper left all by themselves by looking at past entries etc. to figure out how it goes.
...and that concludes our science lesson.
