Geography: Antarctica

We worked on Africa last term and we are kicking off this term with Antarctica. Felt too long was spent on Africa, Chugs lost interest about half way through, so hoping to post relevant links an info here. This will hopefully mean that I can be more organized, as I felt I was this time last year, thus keeping the flow. We'll see.

The above video wasn't available when I tried today so placed here for future reference.

Print:

• Blank map of Antarctica
• Needs & Wants list
• Acrostic Poem sheet

Links:

• http://www.enchantedlearning.com/school/Antarctica/
• http://www.discoveringantarctica.org.uk/2a_what.php
• http://www.classroom.antarctica.gov.au/

Time expected to complete this module - 3 weeks, with 2 lessons per week.

Getting Back On Track

February was not the best for various reasons, so I'm pleased we are well into March and looking forward to Spring.

The garden is coming to life with all its spring bulbs and frog spawn in the pond and my thoughts are turning toward the vegetable garden and how behind i am already!

Education wise we seem to have found a comfortable rhythm to our days once again after the hiccup of February when things were all over the place. It made me realise that even though we don't follow a strict timetable we do need a guideline to follow or things tend to fall apart. It is also important for me to make sure i have books and websites at my fingertips and things printed ready for the week ahead. I had gotten out of the habit of doing this and it was wasting a lot of time. So to aid me I'm in the process of creating a few google pages to keep our "curriculum" all in one place. So if any of you grandparents/uncles/aunts want to keep track of what we are up to, take a peek. Or anyone else for that matter, hopefully this may be of use to other HEers. I love seeing what other families are up to and have found lots of useful books that way. One of my favourites at the moment is La Paz Home Learning.

Isaac has really got into his Montessori activities now so i'll leave you with a few pics.






Insets For Design



Helping his sister with a amphibian cards



Our version of Cylinder Blocks

Winter Festivals

We are having fun following Bella Dia's Christmas Book and Activity Advent. There are loads of people sharing great Christmas/Festival ideas around blogland at the moment. I've been keeping a note in my google reader "shared items" of some and eventually hope to fill a notebook so that come next year i will have everything at my fingertips and will be etreeeemly organised....yeah right.

We've also started the Christmas baking...






..by making mincemeat...



...and mince pies...but mysteriously there don't seem to be any left photos of them.

Lists

One of my many passions is writing lists. Some might suggest that this is because it is proactive procrastination, but they would of course be wrong. Anyway, while checking out Whip Up this morning i was introduced to Listography. I thought it would come in very useful for storing Home Ed links by subject/theme...when i get around to it.

Next Project Brain dump

http://www.homeschoollearning.com/units/unit_09-24-01.shtml HSLN Thematic Unit
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/ How volcanoes work
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/globallists.cfm?listpage=googleearth Google Earth Placemark
http://volcano.und.edu/ Volcano World
http://www.highlandschools-virtualib.org.uk/primary_curriculum/volcanoes.htm More Links
http://www.easyfunschool.com/article1153.html Links and practical ideas
http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/ Mt St Helens Volcano cam
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/Homework/mountains/volcanoes.htm Woodlands
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4972366.stm BBC
Printables, Games and Activities
http://edhelper.com/volcanoes.htm
http://www.crayola.com/activitybook/subact.cfm?id=125&maincat=4
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/volcano/activities.shtml
http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/kids/fun/fun.html
http://place.scholastic.com/magicschoolbus/games/volcano/index.htm
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/0106/volcano/


Will get around to doing a proper post at some point....