Make Your Own Archaeology Dig

Tomorrow is history class and we will beginning the History of the World Ancient Times series. This is my first time using a curriculum with a direct biblical reference. I have already read through the series and worksheets, and have decided to use all four of the series. Each series is a one year curriculum. Tomorrow we begin with the introduction, which covers how we know what happened and archaeology. If you want a fun hands on way to teach your kids about archaeology, then you need to have a dig in your own back yard. It is really quite easy to do. Take some stuff from your home, dishes, toys, maybe an old cell phone, things that are a staple of our period of time. Take them out to your yard and bury them. Then have your kids look for, and dig them up. Pretend you are from the future, and what these items tell about the people of their time. If you have any cool artifacts from the past those would be cool to bury, and discuss as well. I wish I had a black and white console TV LOL! That would be kind of hard to bury. I have not told Caitlin and DJ we were doing this yet because I don't want them to watch me bury them, and it case it rains it will be postponed. Use an old toothbrush for them to brush the dirt off the items, like in a real dig. Have fun, and let me know if you try it. Plus the book calls for a family tree to be made, but I have decided to have them make a History of Me lapbook instead.

Lesson Plans For 09/08/2010:

DJ:
History: Story of the World Ancient Times: Introduction
Language Arts: Common nouns
Math: Solid figures, fractions, word problems
Reading: Australia's Giant Toads, reading comprehension
Map Skills: Comparing map projections
Writing: The Main Idea

Caitlin:
Sight Words
Calendar Work
History: As above
Math: Addition
Pnonics/Language Arts: Blends-bl, beginning sounds, Pooh's beginning consonants, short O words
Printing Practice
Same/Different worksheet
If time permits learning games on Gamequarium link is provided at the bottom of this blog in the links section. There are tons of educational games on this site, for all ages.

Practicing OPhotography Skills

Those of you that follow my blog, know that I make my own jewelry. Of course that would entail taking photos of said jewelry. It is something I have been practicing for years. What you may not know, is that I love taking pictures, they are the memories of our lives. My children have also taken up this hobby. DJ, my son, got a kids digital camera for Christmas. It was more of an investment thing, than an educational thing. He would buy those disposable cameras and then of course you had to have them developed, which no offense to him were more often than not, not very good. So this way, they can be downloaded to the computer, and deleted if not any good. DJ, and his 4 yr old sister have been having a ball taking pictures since Christmas, and they are fast learners. They are learning about good lighting, esp since the camera has no flash, up close vs far away shots, posing, outfits, etc. It was not my intention for it to be so educational, but they have decided to make it so. The first dark pic shown is the one my 4 yr old took of her brother. Not bad for her first shot. The two of her, were taken by DJ. It took him several tries to get the fish tank to show up in the picture, but he was happy with the end result. As for me, well I must be more of a slow learner LOL. The remaining pictures are my attempts to take shots of the full moon, on two separate evenings. The darker night picture one is far, and the other I finally figured out how to do a zoom shot, and you can definitely note the difference. The lighter one was when the full moon was just coming up. I was kind of disappointed, I used the zoom and it still did not look nearly as beautiful as it actually was. I will continue to practice, and encourage my children to practice as well.

Lesson Plans for 1/14/09:

Reading: Read chapter 4 of Dolphins at Daybreak
Language Arts: adverb and adjective review, capitalization
Math: Multiplication, division, numbers in order
Writing: You can have only one food x 1 wk, what would it be and why
Fire drill week: Discuss alternate exits, and safe meeting places
Social Studies: The continents, MLK Jr
Spelling: Write each spelling word and circle the consonants
Vocabulary: Write a synonym for each vocabulary word