Unit Week- Vertebrate/Invertebrate and Lewis and Clark

A Happy Bell Pepper

Kandinsky Circle Collage- Daniel

Tera's Collage

This is our unit week. We are studying Invertebrates and Vertebrates and Lewis and Clark. Here is a list of some things we have done this week so far:

• Reviewed the two chapters in our science book and our history chapter.
• Read tons of books: Snails and Slugs, A Picture Book of Lewis and Clark, Hungry Animals, Who Eats What? How We Crossed the West, Sacagawea, Selections from Going Along with Lewis and Clark, Lewis and Clark ad Butterflies, Bugs and Worms
• We are working our way through a biography of Sacagawea
• Did a lunar cycle activity using a table lamp, a larger ball and a smaller ball- representing the sun, earth and moon respectively. This didn't turn out as well as I had hoped
• Reviewed our French Muzzy
• Wrote a riddle about an arthropod
• Played several games that went along with our unit- Carmen Sandiago USA, Zooreeka and Hullaballo.
• Practiced speaking in sign
• Constructed a Kandinksy Circles Art Project found at Deep Space Sparkle Online Art Lessons
• Visited the pet store and classified the animals we saw there into vertebrate/invertebrate categories. The crabs were the only invertebrates we saw.
• Talked about life cycles of frogs and salamanders
• Watch a video on the Lewis and Clark expedition found online at Have Fun With History.
• Discussed the different animals that Lewis and Clark found on their expedition.
• Wrote descriptions of an animal for someone who had never seen them before.
• Colored a map of Lewis and Clark's route
• Drew a map of our yard.

Tomorrow we are having some fellow homeschoolers over for some group activities. We are:

• dissecting a worm (JP's job- I wanted to throw up looking at the little wiggly things)
• A Winter Count- a pictoral calendar
• Delicious Classification- using candy to represent the different groups of vertebrates and invertebrates. Then the kids will make their own creations.
• Zany Classification Game- a two team game on classifying animals.

We finish on Friday with a few more activities. I have been very manic depressive when it comes to blogging so hopefully I'll post some pics later this week on the rest of our unit.