Day One is Done

The big girls and I enjoyed our first day of studying Antarctica.  We're using Classroom Antarctica as our main resource.  It is fantastic!  I was so impressed that I even sent the site administrators a thank you note.  We're also using library books in abundance, and I was inspired by this blog post to remember to incorporate the scriptures, too (rather than having separate scripture study sessions).

So, yesterday we managed to accomplish the following in about 3 hours: 




Read:  An 11 Year Old's Observations of Antarctica
Prepare journals
KWL chart
Copy a scripture-- Gen 1:1
Draw a map
study climate charts online
make bar graph comparing our ave. temperatures to Antarctica's
Read: Troubling a Star
Read: Emperors of the Ice
Introduce book basket


The bar graphs were hard, even though the kids have done them before in Life of Fred.  I had to let J8 off the hook after completing her chart comparing high temperatures; it was simply too much to expect her to make another one comparing the lows.  The older three girls did complete both graphs, and they made a startling discovery:  Our average temperatures in January are almost the same as Antarctica's!   Without the graphs, we'd never have noticed.   We're all tickled pink by our discovery.

Later in the day E12 came to me wondering if it was 51 degrees here at home, what is the temperature in Antarctica.  She asked if we could make a chart comparing each day of our study.  I was so impressed with this good idea!  I told her so, and she ran off shouting, "I came up with a great idea for our Antarctica study!  I came up with a great idea that we're actually going to do!!!!"

If we learn nothing else in the next three weeks, I am satisfied with that one moment with my E12.

The girls are loving our two read-alouds, and asked dramatically for me to keep reading when I had to stop to take care of I.11 yesterday.  And our book-basket is simply half an hour set aside for the girls to pick up whatever library book on Antarctica they want (we checked out about 30 of them) and read for 20 minutes, then write for 10 minutes in their journals.  It is a fun way for eclectic information to be gathered.

And our journals turned out great!  We cut up and wrinkled paper grocery bags, then glued them onto inexpensive composition books.  They look like old-fashioned leather-bound journals.  All of our work is going in them.

I like journals better than lap-books.

We simply feel fresh and happy because of the change in our normal routine.  We were ready for something new and we're sure doing it!!

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