Definitions

Chance is really good at his vocabulary words and his sight words. He blew right through the list of first, second, and third grade sight words. We are now using fourth grade sight words and even those barely slow him down.

This vocabulary unit focuses on travel words. I asked chance to write the word 'turn' and define it in the context of travel. Here you see the result.

Book report - The Trumpet of the Swan

In this unit chance was given a list of books to choose from, The one he picked was an excellent choice, one of the characters is a little boy loves animals just like Chance.

So, for the past week and a half we have been reading The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White. 

When we finally finished the book it was time to do a book report.

It is hard to see but on each of those little pieces of paper is written a fact about the book.

We brainstormed what to write on the papers together. Then Chance decided which fact should go on which paper and wrote the facts out himself.

This was our hardest literature unit so far the reading was easy but going over everything we had read every day became tedious for both of us. In the end we all decided it was a pretty good book.

LAVCA Pizza in the Park

Last Tuesday we went to our first official LAVCA school social event. All grades from all over the state were invited to Bayou Sauvage State Park for pizza and socializing.

The parents talked while the kids played. Chance had a good time. It was interesting talking to all the other parents and learning why they chose virtual school. 

Before it was over we got all the kids together to take this picture. You can see Chance down front right behind the banner on the left-hand side. The little boy in the front farther left wearing the yellow construction hat is Isaiah, he is in Chance's class.

P.S. publicschooloptions.org Is a group that advocates for alternative public school options. 

Egyptian History

In History class we're now studying the Egyptians. We learned that as the nomads began to settle they settled along rivers, one of the rivers they settled along was The Nile. The people who settled along the Nile became known as Egyptians.

We are learning about their gods and goddesses, This is Osiris and Isis:

We learned that upper and lower Egypt were united by king Narmer. Here he is wearing the double crown red for lower Egypt, white for upper Egypt.

Chance colored the pieces and glued them together to make the double crown.

And last but not least we learned about hieroglyphs. Chance did an excellent job writing his name with hieroglyphs.

The CH is represented by the left facing horseshoe, A by a bird, N by squiggly lines representing water, C by what looks kind of like a cane and E by what is called a reed but looks more like that symbol on the end there.

Molecule Science

In science class we are learning about molecules. So we did an experiment to show how molecules move faster in hot water and slower in cold water.

We put red food coloring in the hot water on the left and blue food coloring in the cold water on the right. Chance is pointing out in this picture that the red food coloring is spreading out through the glass faster than the blue food coloring. Which of course happens because molecules move faster in hot water.

Chance drew a picture of his observation right after we put the food coloring in each glass and again in 10 minutes see what changes had occurred. The color will spread out evenly in both glasses it just takes longer in the warm water.

Chance loves thescience experiments    we do in school. I know I didn't learn about molecules in first grade, It'sgreat that Chance is getting this base knowledge of science so young.

Introducing Hammond the Beta Fish

We got a beta fish! His name is Hammond. He loves swimming and eating. He also likes warm weather but not direct sunlight. Chance likes to check on him and give a report on how Hammond is doing.

Like Father like Son

The other day I just stumbled on them chilling on the couch.

Chance then showed me that New Orleans is featured in his National Geographic Kids magazine this month.

Incorporating shapes into Art

This Art class took what we learned about shapes in Art a step farther.  This time I cut a few shapes out of construction paper to start. Then Chance picked one shape that he wanted to use. He picked a rectangle. Next he decided where he wanted to place it on his page and glued it down. That was when I stepped away and let him come up with the rest all on his own. His assignment was to turn the shape into something within his artwork.

He chose to make his rectangle a building with windows, people, cars and sky to create the world and really show he understood the goal of the lesson.

Best in his class.

A few weeks ago Chance took a reading test. Last week we had Chance's first parent/teacher conference where I learned Chance's score. You can see my notes on that test score above. 113 is the score he needs to be at his age/grade level, 218 is the score Chance received. The highest score in the class!

Chance loves to read, absolutely loves it. He has books in his bed every night. He reads me a story each night for bedtime and I read a few chapters in a longer book to him. 

In Literature class we are reading The  Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White. We read three chapters per lesson. I read two chapters and he reads one chapter. They are long but he sticks with it and does a great job.

Making bricks in History class

In History we are learning about the nomads settling down in the fertile crescent. When they stopped roaming all around they needed to build their homes from stronger more permanent materials. They formed bricks from the mud around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. 

To show how they would have made bricks we made a few of our own. Chance got 2 cups of dirt from the backyard, we mixed that with 1/2 cup of flour and about 1/3 cup water then we formed the mixture into "bricks". We didn't have a mold so our bricks aren't very uniform. Chance had fun until the dirt became mud then it was too icky to touch. After a couple hours in the oven to dry them out we had fun building little towers and walls.

I walked in while the bricks were cooking to find this scene on Chance's desk. It is a shaduf. Here is a photo of it from his lesson: