Thinkwell Biology Review and Cell Activites

We are really enjoying our Thinkwell AP Biology course, but we are moving at a much slower pace than I had anticipated.  This is partially because we keep going down rabbit holes and discussing side topics and doing supplemental reading...and partially because there is just so much information to cover.  

It's December and we have just finally finished Unit One, so we will definitely be extending our subscription!

The lectures are great because the instructor takes big topics and breaks them down into manageable pieces (about 10 or 15 minutes instead of a typical hour-long college lecture.)  We never watch more than one video a day because we like to discuss the video, go over the course notes, and delve into supplemental information.  

My only criticism is that the video quizzes are useless; they are too short, not at all thorough, and awkwardly worded.  We never do them anymore--I make the tests using the excellent notes that come with the course (above.)

I made a vocabulary matching game to help the kids review for the unit test.  I also had them put some terms in order from least to most complex.

After testing, I thought it would be nice to take a short break from our usual routine.  The kids are always enthusiastic about microscope work! We don't have the greatest microscope in the world so I often print photos of what we're looking at as well.  Today we looked at Spirogyra, Dinoflagellates, and Chlamydomonas, and read a little about each. 

Then we prepared onion slides because, well, it's easy.  And fun!

Onions work well in microscope slides because it's easy to peel off a very thin layer.  We dyed them with regular food coloring.

Note to self: remove the extra onion pieces immediately so you don't cry while trying to use the microscope! 

"Oh WOW!  I can see a nucleus!"

We've never been able to make this work well, but just for the heck of it we looked at cork cells.  They always look clumpy, not at all like Robert Hooke's drawings, and I would imagine that our microscope is more powerful than what he used in 1665! 

That's OK, we still had fun messing around with the microscope.  And the kids did a fantastic job on their biology unit tests!

Our "Book Work" for 2014-15

 I'm not sure which family member first used the term "book work" but that's what we call our formal academics around here.  We do lots of experiential learning as well, but when we sit down at a desk or table and get serious about putting specific information in our brains, we call it "book work."


So here is the basic outline of our 7th and 9th grade "book work" this year...

Poetry

We always start the day with a poem.  I've already posted about my initial poetry choices here, but I'll add that Teaching Grammar with Perfect Poems for Middle School was a good resource last year.  We got about halfway through it so we'll finish it up this year.

Math

Hands-On Equations workbook, disc, and manipulatives

 
My kids typically want to do math early in the day.  To wake up their brains, I give them a challenge problem, and they either work together on the dry-erase board or independently in their math notebooks.  I get the challenge problems from our old Singapore word problem workbooks, Math Starters, or a fun book called Perfectly Perilous Math.  There are tons of resources for challenge problems out there, and I'll bet I've used nearly all of them at some point! 

We have a few lessons to finish in Hands-On Equations before moving on to Saxon Algebra I.  We typically do a Hands-On lesson or two, then a review lesson from their old Saxon 7/6 or 8/7 books, and then a practice packet.  I make the packets in advance (I have 21 ready to go!) but not too far in advance so I can customize them based on what the kids need to review.


The practice packets are five or six pages and typically contain a Hands-On worksheet, practice pages from Saxon or Singapore workbooks, worksheets I've found online, and at least one logic grid from Mindware Perplexors.   

Mindware Perplexors logic puzzles

 Grammar and Punctuation

Last year we worked our way through the very silly and fun A Sentence A Day.  This year the kids will learn some interesting history facts from their daily proofreading sentence.  I'll just make a copy of the sentence from Take Five Minutes: A History Fact A Day For Editing and the kids will tape or glue it in their notebooks and then write the sentence correctly underneath. 

  

Literature and Writing

This year we are using Oak Meadow's Introduction to Literature and Composition I.  They have recently reorganized their curriculum and I'm not sure if this specific course still exists, but it includes To Kill a Mockingbird, A Wizard of Earthsea,  Animal Farm, and Our Town, plus grammar lessons from The Least You Should Know About English.  The course manual suggests discussion questions and writing assignments, and we also use the Notice and Note method whenever we are reading literature.

Notice and Note signposts for close reading

By the way, I can't recommend Notice and Note highly enough--it's a fantastic way to help young readers move beyond the basics of characters and plot and get into the deeper themes of literature.  Come to think of it, Notice and Note strategies are worth a blog post of their own...I'll get right on that! ;-)

After I wrote my post about our literature choices for 7th and 9th, the kids requested two more books, and I added three more, so we are going to be doing lots of great reading this year!

Science

My science-loving kids have already started their Biology I course from Thinkwell.  The lectures and course notes are great.  The quizzes, on the other hand, are kind of confusing--they appear to be written by someone who didn't actually watch the lectures.  After some frustrating experiences with poorly-worded questions, the kids decided to just watch the lectures and study the notes, and I'll make unit tests based on the course notes.  

Vocabulary

Vocabulary graphic organizer from TeachersPayTeachers.com

I believe the ideal way to develop a good vocabulary is from reading and from hearing scholarly speech.  However, it never hurts to build on that foundation!  In addition to collecting any unfamiliar words they come across while reading, the kids can choose interesting words from SAT vocabulary books for their vocabulary study.  They really like using graphic organizers for new words.  

Philosophy

Philosophy is a favorite subject around here.  We have read about two-thirds of Philosophy for Kids, and the kids have enjoyed it so much, I ordered The Examined Life so we can continue discussing Deep Questions!  Philosophy is a good subject to do before or during lunch because the questions always spark a lively conversation.

History

We have been working our way through the wonderful A History of Us series for several years.  I really like the author's approachable writing style, all the great maps and graphics, and the short-but-detailed chapters.  We typically read and discuss two or three chapters a week.  If a topic really fascinates the kids (our never-ending unit on WWII comes to mind) we do some supplemental reading and maybe a mind-map or other hands-on project.

Thinking Skills

I'm adding a new subject to our routine this year: thinking skills.  After reading Making Thinking Visible this summer, I really wanted to try some of the "thinking routines" described in the book.  (One example of a thinking routine is called "See-Think-Wonder."  After silently observing an object or a work of art for a few minutes, students are asked "What does this object/image make you wonder?  What questions come to mind?")  Trying out would be an interesting transition activity to try once or twice a week.  It's an experiment, but it should be fun, and I'm sure it will spark some interesting conversations at the very least!

What's the story here?  What does this image make you wonder about?

Foreign Language

My 9th grader will continue her German studies.  She started with German in 10 Minutes a Day two years ago, and last year she took a German course at our local community college.  This year will be her first year to work with a private tutor, so we'll see how that goes.

My 7th grader decided to switch to Greek this year.  He'll start with Pimsleur Greek and Your First 100 Words in Greek.

Written Conversations/Journaling

We usually end our "book work" days with a journal entry.  Last year, I found this really cool idea in a book called Written Conversations.  The night before, I write a brief letter to each kid in their journal, always including a personal question or two, and then they answer my questions in writing.  These journals are not graded or corrected in any way--they are just an opportunity to put thoughts and opinions on paper with zero judgment.  

So that's pretty much the gist of how we'll be spending our school days this year.  Of course there will also be music lessons, handwriting practice, note-taking practice, volunteer work, travel, museum visits, camping, geocaching, and activities with our local homeschooling group.  We're looking forward to a great year of learning together!

This post is linked to the 6th Annual Not Back to School Blog Hop!  Stop by to see what my homeschooling blog buddies are doing in 2014-15!

Our Goals for 2012-13

This is going to be an unusual school year for us.  Or, should I say, even more unusual?

;-)

We will be adding a toddler to our family sometime after the first of the year.  We'll definitely take a month or more off to bond with him and give the entire family some time to adjust--only, we don't know when he'll arrive, how he will react to us, or what his medical needs will be.  Try planning around that!

The next two care packages, ready to go!

And this is a testing year for both of my kids.  We don't normally do much test prep, but I do want to give the kids a fighting chance to do well. 

So...I decided to "frontload" our academic year a bit.  We are starting earlier (August 14) and taking on a bit more daily work than we did last year.  Once Little Guy arrives and we are feeling up to it, the big kids can go back to their more relaxed schedule, and they'll have a little more freedom to follow the rabbit-trails that they invariably find!

Knowing me, I have over-thought and over-prepared, but here is the plan for our academic year:

Math

As usual, math is our most eclectic subject.  I hate to think of how much money I have spent over the years on various curricula that just didn't work for us...I finally got wise and invented my own, using ideas from The Mailbox, Teacher Filebox, abcteach, BrainPop, Teachers pay Teachers, Family Math, and Challenge Math.

Card games and other math games, many from TpT.

We play a lot of math games.  In fact, many games reinforce math skills, even if they aren't officially "educational."  In addition to S'Math, Mythmatical Battles, math facts bingo, and other games, my kids like Monopoly, Minotaurus, Domination, Uno, and Othello.  We used to avoid worksheets like the plague but as the kids are getting older, the concepts are getting more complex, and those practice sheets seem to be the only way to really make them stick.

We still do lots of hands-on math, though.  For skills reinforcement, I really like The Mailbox and teacher-created games from TpT.  For practical, real-life activities, I get lots of ideas from Math Wise, Hands-On Math, and a fun book called Math in the Garden.

After Little Guy arrives, the kids will switch to Teaching Textbooks, one of my favorite ready-made curricula.  If only it had been around when I was a kid (along with personal computers, CD Roms, and legal homeschooling!) ANYWAY...we used it a couple of years ago and my kids were able to do the lessons almost independently, so I'm hoping that will be true for 7th and 5th as well.

Never underestimate the power of Angry Birds stickers to transform ordinary flash cards!

Science

We are beginning the year with a (homemade) unit study on cells and DNA.  Then we're going to use Ellen McHenry's The Elements: Ingredients of the Universe.  Chemistry is not my strongest subject, so I am very grateful for Ellen McHenry, as well as Gonick & Criddle's Cartoon Guide to Chemistry.

Better learning through chemistry...

If we still have time before the end of the year, we'll jump into Discover the Oceans: The World's Largest Ecosystem.  Honestly, my kids are such science sponges, I almost don't have to plan anything "official" but I do enjoy doing science with them!

Letters, Language, and Literacy

We're using Grammar Voyage this year, with some supplemental games and practice sheets from Teachers pay Teachers and The Mailbox.  I like A Sentence A Day for punctuation and spelling practice.  We also discuss punctuation and parts of speech as we read together.

 

The LL&L shelf: grammar activities from The Mailbox, grammar books by Ruth Heller, Mad Libs, articles I saved for text studies, and books for reader response activities.

  I prepared our literature units about a month ago (so proud that I was organized enough to get it done early!)  Our spelling and vocabulary words come from our literature units.  The kiddos will continue studying German this year (their choice) but we're hoping to learn some basic Korean as well, since their little brother is coming from South Korea.

Lots of great reading ahead!

History

We use Joy Hakim's A History of US, along with great living books on whatever topic we're studying.  We read together, discuss the events, add dates and illustrations to our timelines, and do as many hands-on projects as possible.

  

Some of our resources from last year...we'll do quick review before moving on. 

I found a decent used textbook to use for our state history, but I'm only using it as a basic outline (and to educate myself, since I didn't grow up here.)  The best way to do state history, in my opinion, is to get out and visit as many museums and historical sites as possible! 

We've already started our history studies for this year, at the kids' request!

All the Other Stuff

We do Atelier art and occasionally I sign the kids up for an art class at our rec center.  This year I'm hoping to add some informal artist studies to the mix.  Something easy, like just reading a library book and then making something in the artist's style.

Super continues to enjoy guitar lessons.  Dude tried piano and wasn't crazy about it, and we are between drum teachers at the moment but I'm hoping to get him back into music soon.  Their P.E. consists of hiking, swimming, karate, going to the climbing wall, and walking our rambunctious dogs!   Neither of them enjoys team sports, which is OK with me, but Dude has mentioned wanting to try track and field at some point. 

Two more resources that I really love!

I used the word "goals" instead of "curriculum" in the title of this post because in most cases we cobble together many different resources to invent our own curriculum.  We use a bit of every homeschooling style, too.  That's the beauty of the learning lifestyle: you can customize every day to fit the child, the season, and the circumstances.

 

We're looking forward to a great school year!  Good luck to all of you, and have lots of fun learning with your kids!

Trying something new...

K5 Learning has an online reading and math program for kindergarten to grade 5 students. I've been given a 6 week free trial to test and write a review of their program. If you are a blogger, you may want to check out their open invitation to write an online learning review of their program.