Drama Project (Part Two): Middle Earth Adventure

Drama Project: Stop Action Lego Hobbit Movie (Part One)

Yesterday and today, Gabe and John and I worked on a Drama project for this term. I decided to take the stop action Lego route inspired by this blog. After a bit of a struggle, we finally decided to do something Hobbit related, as the boys have been getting a bunch of Hobbit and LOTR Legos from their grandparents.

Yesterday, they built their characters, monsters, Hobbit house and mountain. Today, we got down to work seriously. I talked a bit about the parts of the plot diagram: introduction, problem, rising action, climax, falling action, conclusion.

Then I divided a long strip of paper into six parts to match the different parts of the plot diagram.

Then we talked about what is going to happen in the movie, one section (scene) at a time. The boys illustrated each cell on the strip.

We constructed our set with a tarpaulin backdrop, set up our iPad camera at a good angle, and got to work filming each scene. We moved the character a little bit at a time, taking photos as we went.

Tomorrow, Gabe and I will work with iMovie to put the pictures together. Then we will overdub our dialogue and music. Phew!

John Recites the Caterpillar Poem

Lily's Inca Timeline in Meograph

John Explaining the Broody Chicken

Gabe's Sound Wave Experiment

More Summer School: "Creature Care" Camp Workshop

This summer John was involved in a "Creature Care" workshop at his Church Camp. He learned about living things and discussed his experiences of a variety of living things. Then, with the teacher's guidance, he went on to learn that God created living things out of loving delight, to teach us selflessness, and how we need to treat living creatures with the same love and delight in imitation of God and the fulfillment of our "royal priesthood."

John then applied these ideas and beliefs to specific creatures: reptiles and amphibians. He learn about their characteristics--cold blooded, egg-laying, breathing underwater, and so on. The teacher demonstrated and then John practiced how to catch each creature in a caring way, learning why each method work. For instance, the frog's motion is based on movement, so if we block their eyes they won't jump, and snakes have elastic backbones so we can step on their tail without injuring them.

John learned a lot about animal behaviours, such as why we find them sunbathing, what they eat, how they reproduce, etc. He assembled habitats based on the animals' needs as living things: water, food, shelter, sun, and moisture. He learned how and what to feed them.

He learned about how to wash hands before and after handling, and why. Finally, he learned about invasive species; habitat destruction, realistic needs for human beings to co-exist and share space with animals.

All in all, it was a comprehensive study of animals that met many of the outcomes for Science this year.

Summer Learning: Vancouver Aquarium

School was still in session for those in public schools and so a sunny, weekday afternoon was the perfect opportunity to visit the Vancouver Aquarium before the summer crowds.  We were able to catch three presentations, and had a good view for all of them.

John's favourite was the Pacific White-sided Dolphin.

We also learned about Beluga whales, even getting a bit wet.  And lastly, we caught the presentation on seals and sea lions.

Then we went to the 4D theater for the show about salmon.  It was fantastic, highlighting all the animals that are dependent upon the salmon as well as the salmon life cycle and habitat.

On our way out we caught sight of the display with the giant Pacific octopus where he was hanging out on the glass - such a rare opportunity to see one out of the cave.  An aquarium employee was nearby and John engaged her in conversation about the octopus!

End of the Year

I'm finding it very ironic that the last time I posted was the beginning of the winter school term!  Our little school kept me very busy these last few months.  Nearly doubling our numbers, even for two days a week, made a significant difference to my days!

I always find at the end of the school year that I am both tired and very ready for a break but also excited about the coming year and making plans.  So this week, as I've been wrapping things up I've also been planning for the fall.  This past weekend I purchased our math, grammar and general reading for the coming  year and started getting notebooks  ready to use. Adding to my excitement is the further development of our Orthodox Homeschool Co-op and the new families.  I really love helping other families get started and this year is the most exciting ever as I approach entering UBC in September and received confirmation of a job with TLA the following September!

Back to School

This term our class has expanded to included Simon and Sina.  We are all really excited to have them join us two days a week.  The plan is to study grammar, reading, science, math and art together!  I think this will really help me to plan art lessons once a week and to (hopefully) do more hands-on science. 

 We are going to be working through Art Treasury for our art lessons.  The book presents famous paintings, gives a brief biography about the artist and information about the painting.  Then it gives instructions for a project based on the painting.  The projects are not exact replicas; they incorporate strategies used in the original.  This week the painting we looked at was Starry Night by Van Gogh.  The kids then created their own swirly landscape with acrylic paints.

Today we studied animal tracks and other traces of animal's presence and then went exploring to see if we could find any.  We found puppy tracks (Daisy) and our own tracks.  Although we had seen both the cat and squirrels in the yard earlier their tracks had either been covered in new snow or blended into the surroundings.

Pronouns

Simon came over to play today but I wasn't ready to release Gabe to play so after a short break I gathered them together for a language lesson.  We are going to start doing school together two days a week and Simon and Gabe are working through the same grammar book but Simon is a couple lessons behind.  So today I had Gabe do a few handwriting exercises while I taught Simon the lesson on pronouns.  Then they did the dictation exercise together and the above pronoun exercise on the whiteboard.