I've been so excited to start this unit study! Our final weeks of school will be spent learning all about gardens. You can find the unit study here. I used our last two months of school to try out Amanda Bennett's unit studies and all I can say is I LOVE THEM! The decision to use her studies for our core curriculum next year is sealed. The only change will be to the type of study. The Easter study and Garden study are both 4-week units. Next year we will probably do 1-week studies the entire year.
Here is a fly over of the first three days of our Gardens unit.
We started a new chapter book to read together, Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski. Braxton loses interest quickly, but Adeline really likes it! I do, too.
We won't be doing a lapbook (a laptop as Adeline calls it) this time. Adeline will complete a journal instead.
We add 3 words to our word wall each day and Adeline writes them in her journal. Then she copies the day's verse into her journal.
She also uses her journal for the day's activities. On this page she listed things she wants to grow in our garden this summer.
We learned about Claude Monet this week and looked at lots of his paintings.
Adeline decided that she liked the water lily painting the best because it had her favorite color in it, purple.
We watched this fantastic video, "Linnea in Monet's Garden," based on the book of the same name. Adeline was excited to find out that Linnea's favorite painting is the water lily painting, too! I loved this video because it mixed cartoon with real life footage of the Giverny garden.
Here are some great websites we explored, too:
Well, you can't learn about Monet and then not try your hand at painting! Sadie is going for the crazed-artist look. :)
Braxton says this is a painting of a tractor. A John Deere, perhaps? I think he understands the concept of Impressionism. Ha!
Adeline decided to paint Monet's garden. The yellow is the path through the garden and the purple C is the bench where Monet liked to sit.
Is it a fruit or a vegetable? We had fun reading the real definition, then categorizing our favorite fruits and veggies.
This is another great book we read.
Today we learned about George Washington Carver, which led to a discussion about slavery. Some things are hard to explain to a 5 year old. You feel like you rip away a little more of their innocence when trying to explain our sinful, cruel world. Thankfully, there are a lot of good topics that also get brought up with Mr. Carver.
We ended our Gardens time today labeling a peanut plant.
Our word wall.
Adeline is doing an excellent job learning to read. These are this week's sample sentences.
We added another word family to our flashcards.
And took a trip to the zoo!! This pretty chameleon was our favorite animal. What a neat gift God has given him!
We met some friends at the zoo. What a bunch!
The kids are much braver than I am and happily held all kinds of creatures in the bug house.
Here are some caterpillars waiting to turn into butterflies.
Yep, that's my crew!
You can't visit the zoo without riding the train!
There you have it! Adeline is really getting into the garden theme. Already she has dug out our magnifying glass and explored the yard, including the dog and cat. She reported that the cat was not keen on being investigated. She brought in dandelion seeds to plant (sorry, Daddy!) and is now tending our flower bed, complete with work gloves. Love these kids!
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