Thursday's Teaching HIghlights - Roll the Dice!

We had an excellent week with homeschooling! Brielle shocked me with her abilities several times.

- Faith: We learned that God doesn't give people talents that He doesn't want them to use. "We all have different gifts" - Romans 12:6

- Reading: The little cute poodle, Sweetie, is making the family's dog jealous. Great opportunity for Brielle and I to talk about what jealousy means.

- Handwriting: Brielle wrote a lot this week in her notebook, just for fun. I find it amazing what she writes when she's just doing it for herself.

My $6 find!

- Language Arts: I found a new game at Walmart last weekend called "Story Cubes". Brielle has trouble creating complete sentences, especially if it's not something SHE wants to talk about. This was a fun way to encourage her to formulate complete sentences with proper grammar. We rolled the dice on to a firm paper plate (so they wouldn't fly off the table). And then one by one, she came up with a sentence using the thing on the dice face. I was shocked at how well she did! Next week I'm going to have her start typing up the sentences instead of just signing them to me. What a great find for under $6!

- Social Studies/History: We learned that the U.S. government bought Ellis Island in 1808. It was a fort and used to store ammunition until it became a receiving center for immigrants in 1892. Some days as many 5,000 people were processed. It closed in 1954 and fell into disrepair. It was restored with private contributions and opened as a museum in 1990.
----> What percentage of immigrants came to the United States through Ellis Island???  75%

- Science: We learned about rainbows (perfect for the rainy week we've had!). Sunlight seems white but white light is really made up of colors. When sunlight passes through sunlight, the light splits and the colors are reflected from the raindrops. Red light bends the least while violet light bends the most.
----> What is one mnemonic device to remember the colors of the rainbow??? Roy G. Biv = red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet

- Math: We reviewed money, particularly coin values, this week. It's been months since we've talked about coins, so I was shocked when she did so well identifying coins and their values as well as adding up coins.


--> How many immigration processing stations were there in the U.S.? Check out my Facebook page to find out! You might be surprised!!