Showing posts with label social studies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social studies. Show all posts

Monday, February 2, 2009

Archaeology of Ohio

On Saturday, Mark and Georgia attended a lecture called Archaeology of Ohio. Author and editor Robert N. Converse shared his knowledge on the prehistoric cultures of Ohio, with a focus on artifacts and prehistory of our county. After the presentation, he offered to inspect any artifacts that we may have found, letting us know more about the pieces.

Georgia brought in her arrowhead that was found at her great grandmother's house.


She was told that her arrowhead was from the Archaic Period, and probably came from the Glacial Kame or Red Ocher cultures. He said it is about 5000 years old!!!

After returning home she told me all about the lecture. We searched the Internet to learn more about the Glacial Kame and Red Ocher cultures, the Archaic Period and looked at a virtual gallery on the First Ohioans.

She also watched some videos on making a stone age weapon, flintknapping stone age tools, and making a knife by flintknapping.

She also bought a dinosaur excavation activity from the gift shop. She needs to dig for the bones and then put the skeleton together. They are supposed to glow in the dark, too. She's found most of the bones, but still needs to put it together when she finds the rest.


Olivia worked on crystal mining.

We are still chipping away at the crystal mining block. It gets taken out from time to time. When all the rocks are free they can add them to their rock collections.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

December

This month the girls learned about the history and customs of winter holidays around the world, as well as the seasonal changes in the natural world. We read some library books and visited websites to learn more. Here are some of the places we visited...

Gingerbread Horses



Gingerbread Men

Christmas Cookies

Decorating the tree



Making Trees and Ornaments for a Countdown Poster


They added one of their ornaments each day until Christmas.
The end result...




Touring Daddy's work




Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Geography Awareness Week Day One


November 16-22, 2008 is Geography Awareness Week, as promoted by My Wonderful World.

Monday's topic is Human Geography and Culture.



Here's what we did:


We listened to music from around the world. We listened to traditional Irish, Arabic, Chinese, Aboriginal, Mexican, Moroccan, Egyptian, and Mongolian.


We even choreographed some dances with the help of Grover from Sesame Street. In the activity Global Grover Grooves we saw him dance on stilts as in Carnival from Trinidad, do a chinese acrobatic routine, perform the Mongolian Bowl Dance, and a Russian Cossack kick-dance.


We learned some folk games from around the world.


We learned some greetings from around the world. We used the site Say Hello to the World, as well as a library book titled Greetings of the World by Dwayne E. Pickels.


We learned about foods and ethnic cuisine from around the world. The girls played the game Mix & Mash at Disney's Pass the Plate site.



Sunday, November 16, 2008

This weekend...

We are all trying to rest up and feel better. This weekend we stayed home as much as we could. We were excited to see snow! But it melted as it hit the ground and eventually switched back to rain.

Georgia and I played a few games of Scrabble this weekend. She used her American Heritage Student Dictionary to look up the words I used that she didn't know.


Olivia looked in her insect book to learn more about her little insect toys.



And she played Boggle Jr a few times. She challenged herself this time. She spelled the word on the card with the cubes, then took the cubes off, covered the word and spelled it on her own.


And she baked some oatmeal raisin cookies with Dad. They were yummy!


Olivia is cracking the eggs.


Georgia watched some episodes on the Discovery Channel about the Iditarod. She is excited to watch some of next years' race, only 110 more days. She can keep updated here. She also watched the Survivorman show a few times. She loves that show.

Olivia played on Starfall. This site is great for young kids learning to read!

Georgia pretended to have her own horse stables. We printed out some pretend checks here. She learned about the parts of a check, and how to fill out a check ledger for keeping a balance. She wants to fill in deposits from her "paycheck", and debits from her "bills" as she manages her horse stables.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Ancient Civilizations

Georgia has been reading about ancient civilizations. She read the book Lugalbanda, an ancient Sumarian legend that predates Gilgamesh.

She saw her monogram in cuneiform here. http://www.upennmuseum.com/cuneiform.cgi

And she checked out some ancient inventions. http://www.smith.edu/hsc/museum/ancient_inventions/hsclist.htm

She also checked out what might possibly be the world's first city at the Mysteries of Çatalhöyük children's site. http://www.smm.org/catal/

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Veterans Day



Today we talked about Veterans Day, its history, meaning, and how its celebrated.

The girls watched a PBS children's show about Veterans Day.



We also read the book Veterans Day by Mir Tamim Ansary.
Georgia then spelled some related words, such as veteran, holiday, celebrate, and salute, in Spelling Bee style.

And we talked about the veterans in our family.


Thank YOU!!



In Flanders Fields

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) Canadian Army


IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.


We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.


Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Last week...

Last week we enjoyed some nice days at the park, enjoying the beautiful colors of autumn.


Georgia discovered a horse game called Howrse.


They each worked in some workbooks.

Georgia captured two spiders. She watched one make a web in the jar, and watched the other eat a bug that she put in the jar.


The girls went to gymnastics class on Tuesday.

They enjoyed a few games of Monopoly and Monopoly Jr. Olivia was the banker a few times, and she used addition to find money totals.

We went to the library and borrowed books on Veterans' Day, Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, The Wampanoag, ancient civilizations, ancient medicine, persian mythology, Gilgamesh, Lugalbanda, and some story books, as well.

Saturday, Georgia went to her nature class where they went on a fall hike and learned about seasonal changes, and learned some new organisms, such as "monkey brain" (or horse apple).

She also went to a pool party Saturday night and said she had a great time playing pool games with her friends.

Sunday we went to see the new movie "Madagascar Return 2 Africa" and loved it!


And here's a slideshow from our Boonshoft visit...



Saturday, November 1, 2008

Election Studies


With the upcoming election here in the US (in three days) Georgia has been learning more about the process and history of voting in the United States.

She watched about ten videos from Brainpop.com about the election, presidential powers, branches of government, political parties, etc. She also took the quizzes at the end of the videos. Not sure how many are free for non-members but HERE is the link.

She also enjoyed looking around at:

Ben's Guide to the Government

White House for Kids

Time for Kids

PBS's Democracy Project

Scholastic News She especially like playing the You Be the Candidate Game and played it several times.

And PBS Zoom election page.
We also talked about local and state issues and candidate positions.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Fire Department Open House

The girls attended the fire department's open house and had a lot of fun. They learned fire safety tips, house hazards to watch out for, learned about equipment used to fight a fire, how to use a hose, and much more!

They each recieved a fire chief hat, water bottle, Junior Fire Fighter patch, and activity books about fire safety.

Here's some pictures....


Saturday, September 13, 2008

NPS Webrangers


A couple days ago we read the introduction and first few pages of our new world history book together. We learned about what history means, the dating systems used, and how we know what we know. We are also reading about archaeologists and historians.

Yesterday Georgia signed up at the National Parks Service (NPS) Webrangers site. She has her own ranger station and can complete different tasks to earn badges. Between yesterday and today she has earned nine badges. She loves it. She also sent her mom, dad, and sister an e-card through their site. She loves the webcam section where she can view webcams from parks all over the country. She likes looking at the weather charts and noting the differences in temperatures, visibility, humidity, etc.

Some of the badges she earned dealt with archaeology and our past. The NPS also has a great website called Archaeology for Kids. It has a lot of information about what archaeologists do, how they work, and the various fields within archaeology.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

This Week....

Here are some of the things the girls did this week...

The girls both worked on making pipe cleaner animals. They each have a kit that they received from Grampa T. Olivia has a forest animals kit, and Georgia has a Noah's Ark kit.

Here are the first two that Olivia made: a rabbit and a fawn.


Georgia checked out the new world history book we ordered.

And both girls read more of the library books we have.

Olivia did some painting...

...and colored pages from her Africa book.

She's also been doing copy work. She takes books or magazines and will copy words into notebooks. It's great practice for writing!

Georgia crocheted some more.


More coloring for Olivia....this time in her dinosaur book.


Coloring is great for working her hand muscles to help with writing and other fine motor skills.