A Beautiful Last Day!

Today began with some sunshine and animal time.  These kids have really gotten to know and love the animals here on the farm, and I wanted to give them time together today.  They did some feeding and some watering, ran and jumped with the baby goats, and hugged a chicken or two. The kids even grabbed their coon-skinned caps for a couple more entries in their Lewis & Clark journals!




Next, we quickly discussed our year  of American history.  We recapped from colonization through expansion west, and then briefly took it further.  The students learned about the importance of the railroad, interchangeable parts, and the Industrial Revolution.  As we brought it all together, I surprised them with a mini-field trip!  We took a little walk down the street to tour the McLucas General Store.  This store was opened in 1885 and was opened until the death of Miss Nanny McLucas in 1963.  At this time, the store's doors were closed and acted as a time capsule.  The McLucas family worked to preserve this historical building, and keep it as accurate as possible.  Although a few replica grocery items were placed on the shelves for a movie scene years ago, the majority of the items in the store have been sitting there since it was open for business.

Mr. John McLucas Sr. was kind enough to give the students a full tour!  They were able to hear how life was in the late 1800's, and how small towns like ours were laid out.  Mr. McLucas had paintings of Inman that showed the different buildings and the railroad, and he explained the growth that the little town saw over time.  Across the walls were different paintings that were salvaged from the old Hapeville train depot.  These paintings walked the kids through the history of American transportation... which could not have been a better fit for our history lessons!  It was awesome to see their faces light up and the excitement to share what they knew about the different pictures.  The kids were able to type on an old fashioned typewriter, see inside an old crank-style telephone, see how an ice box works, and more!  Mr. McLucas was patient with their questions and told wonderful stories that sparked their imaginations.  (Ask your children why we call dandelions dandelions!)  I loved being able to share this little bit of history with this group!





Ms. Gina wrapped up our year of science today with a giant bow!  The class played a game of Science Jeopardy.  Not only were they able to go back and answer questions from each week of class, they practiced some math skills as they added up scores!


I cannot tell you enough how wonderful this class has been this year.  Ms. Gina and I have been so very blessed to be part of their educational journey!

 

5/7/18

Our classes have entered the last couple weeks of school!  In science, they are reviewing some of the meatier lessons from the year.  Today, they reviewed different types of landforms and made flip books to help them study.  These kids have learned so much this year, and it is exciting to pull it all together and take a look back!

In history, the class continued through the wild west with a lesson on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  They learned the reasons behind the adventure, the people who made up the Corps of Discovery, and the importance of the expedition for science as well as for our history.  Because Lewis and Clark documented hundreds of new plant and animal species, our class donned their coon-skinned caps, grabbed a pencil, and made their own observations!  We discussed the importance of adjectives and vivid verbs to help your reader get a clear picture of what they see.  The children could only write about an animal or plant that they were actually observing, and they could not use the name of the animal!  It was a great lesson that integrated history, science, and language arts!

In addition to our journal activity, the class learned about compound words and syllables today.  We broke down words into syllables to help make it easier to sound things out!  Parents, there are some great "rules" that help with spelling that use syllables.  For instance, if a syllable ends with a vowel, it is usually a long vowel sound.  If a syllable ends with a consonant, that syllable usually has a short vowel sound.  Of course, there are always rule breakers, but these little tricks can help!  Because each student is working on their own spelling/phonics curriculum at home, I did not attempt to address these in class!  We did use our time today to discuss suffixes, prefixes, and root words.  The students did an awesome job of recognizing these, and we worked on building some words using different suffixes.  Again, there are some spelling/phonics "rules" that you can use to help with spelling that involve suffixes.  We touched on some of them today, such as doubling the final consonant  (in short vowel words) before adding a suffix that begins with a vowel.  The class practiced dropping the silent "e" before adding suffixes that begin with a vowel, as well.  They thought it was really funny that a single "p" can turn "hoping" into "hopping"!  With practice, these skills will really help them with their spelling!

The class read their journal entries out loud before jumping in to our chapter book read-along.  They have done an absolutely amazing job with their journal entries, but I think I am most impressed with their enthusiasm and the fluidity of their reading out loud!  The kids have been listening to a few chapters from our chapter book on The Frontier.  I love that the book casually discusses the things that they have been learning about in class: covered wagons, settlements, the railroad, Native Americans, and more!