As of yesterday evening, Jedi’s completed 744 of the required 900 educational hours Ohio requires for homeschoolers (not counting his therapy hours each week, which the school district would allow us to count because it would count if he were in school. But we don’t count it as part of our required hours.). It’s amazing to think that “technically”, he is already almost done with 2nd grade. Now, we still have so much we want to do this year, so we’ll ultimately end up a couple hundred over the requirement, in large part because we do full-year school. I like that we still have a lot of wiggle room for taking breaks and time off. Jedi’s worked really hard this year! I’m proud of the transition he’s made, and the fact that he’s learned so much since June!
Here are some pictures of last week….
Last week, he wrote a fairly lengthy creative writing story. This week, he typed it and illustrated it!
He also read Dan Gutman's "Mr. Burke Has Gone Berserk" on the first day it was released--he read the entire thing in a couple hours (way to go!!) Then he wrote a book report on it. 🙂
Most kids have done M&M math--our kids are dairy allergic, so Valentine's day brings a good opportunity for Conversation Heart Math! I made up a 4 page packet that he worked on that involved counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, estimating, greater than/less than, and graphing.
We also finished our unit on birds this week. We talked about the waterproofing on a bird's feathers, and what happens when oil spills happen. Jedi took some craft feathers. The first feather, we dipped it into water and then dried it off. The feather was nice and fluffy again. The second feather was dipped into a mixture of canola oil and cocoa powder (the CP was to turn it brown). This was to simulate an oil spill. Jedi tried wiping off the oil, but the bird's feather never became clean.
Then he tried washing the oil covered feather in plain water to symbolize the bird trying to swim into clean water. The feather became completely mangled, which would provide little to no protection for the bird (ultimately causing it to freeze).
He dipped another feather into the oil, and then washed it off in a mixture of dish detergent and water. The feather didn't go back to it's initial fluffiness, but was clean enough that the bird would probably have enough protection from heat and cold.
All of the feathers. From left to right: Original feather, feather dipped in water, feather dipped in oil and wiped, oiled feather washed in water, and oiled feather washed in soapy water.
Then we watched some youtube videos on how birds are washed after oil spills.
Jedi also had a box of bird-related items to observe...feathers, real nests, owl pellets, and a replica of a barn owl skull.
A bunch of different samples of feathers.
Dissecting an owl pellet. Jedi LOVED finding the bones!
All of the bones from the owl pellet.
Jedi also learned about Gilgamesh and Enkidu. After learning about the story, he then created a story about an adventure they might have had. Finally, he drew a picture of what Enkidu might have looked like.
Jedi wanted to take advantage of the shaving cream Monkey and Bug were working with. He decided to practice some handwriting. 🙂
Barefoot in Suburbia 