Animal Adaptations, Ancient Farms, and Setting of A Story

We have discovered that we can not fit Art class into our regular school hours. So, the kids and I have decided to do Art class on Mondays when my husband has his firehouse meeting. I would paint during this time normally, so doing Art class with them just makes sense.

Today Caitlin finished up her lessons on Hunter/Gatherers, and Animal Adaptations. For her Hunter/Gatherer assignment she had to draw what an Ancient farm would look like compared to a modern farm. She also had to discuss with me the differences between farming back then, and farming now. Key points I wanted her to remember were, in Ancient times they had to move their villages according to weather and plants and animals available for food; houses were not permanent but able to be taken down and moved quickly; they ate what they hunted or fished; the women went out and gathered berries and nuts for food; when they started farming villages they planted their crops to harvest and raised farm animals such as goats, cows, chickens and sheep for their food and clothing needs. Plus, they did not have the tools we have now, on farms. This was a good lesson for her.

For Animal Adaptations she had to draw an animal in camouflage. She decided on a tiger, and how the stripes of the tiger help it camouflage itself in the tall grass, not from predators but from their prey.

Last but not least, Caitlin is reading, Charlotte's Web. She finished reading through to chapter six today, and we discussed the setting of stories. She identified that the setting of Charlotte's Web was a farm. So, yes you guessed it, she had to draw Wilbur and his farm. Since Caitlin does not quite write that well yet, rather than torturing her, I used Art and other methods for her to slide into her writing skills. Last week she did quite a bit, so I give her a break this week. Because when she writes, I make corrections, and then she has to rewrite it correctly, this can be a long process. But, it works. Of course she did Math and Spelling/Vocab as well.


DJ did his full scale of lessons today as well. He is still on the Atmosphere in his Earth Science book, and he just started his Viking lessons for The Middle Ages. He is up to Exponents and Expressions of numbers in Math. He is still reading The Outsiders.

Tomorrow is our first Earth Kids meeting of the new year.