Week 3 - Germs

This week we left behind geology and moved on to Germs (by Rachel's request)


Mighty Girl of the Week: No Mighty Girl, but we talked about Ignaz Semmelweis who saved the lives of mothers and newborns by introducing hand-washing into the maternity ward.

Math

5 pages of MEP (Red book 1A - grade 1, pages 36-40 )  

Her math skills are developing quickly.  Thursday, she balked at one exercise, but after a bit of guidance, did the whole thing.  I think she was surprised she could do it.  Friday, she flew through the sheet.

Reading
I did a quick check on her reading level this week.  She's at the end of grade 2/beginning of grade 3.

   She read: 

       Tentacles (half)

       Fancy Nancy - Apples Galore

       Maybe a Bear Ate It by Robie Harris

       Henry and Mudge: The Sleepover
       Dora: Follow Those Feet
       Earthquake!

   We read:

        Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (chaps 8 - 12)

        Magic School Bus - Germs

        Beauty and the Beast
        Giant Children Poems
        For Laughing Out Louder: More Poems to Ticke Your Funnybone

Sight Words

New this week:

reprimand
remember
orchard
branch
perspire
weather
wind
virus
bacteria
worst
bright

Review from last week:

spreading
curse

behind

know

catch

dance 

light

night

tight

about

between

around

Spelling
We are doing two words a day with a test at the end of the week. (Ok, "test" is a loose translation.  She has to write them all on Friday.)  They are done at the end of her copy-work every day.

am
an
as
at
rat
sat
cat
bad
mad
pad

Science

We grew germs.

Experiment #1: Using four pieces of bread, we used one as a control and wiped the other three on different things.  Then, we watched to see which, if any, would form mould and bacteria colonies faster.

Experiment #2: Using four glasses, we filled each with a bit of chicken broth and sugar.  One was used as control and then we added inhibitors to each of the others to see how well they controlled growth.

Experiment #3: Which rots faster?  A clementine with skin or without.

Results: without

Experiment #4: We made growth medium using chicken broth, gelatin, and sugar.  Rachel swabbed about eight areas and we monitored the bacteria and mould growth.

The results are in: other than the cat litter box, which took first place in the "grow your own bacteria contest", runner-up was ...."Rachel's Licked Hand".  

Experiment #5: How far does stuff go when we sneeze?  She took a squirt bottle and squirted a glass door from different distances.  She was surprised how much ended up on the door even when she was several feet away.

We watched a Bill Nye video on germs and we watched an animated video on germs.

Art

Art was window art this week.  We found this great paint at DeSerres and created these sort-of-gels that can be peeled and placed on windows.

Brave Writer/The Wand (Language Arts)

Completed week 3 of The Wand.  We made a variety of words using the bananagram tiles using the -ick ending.  We went through the whole alphabet finding rhyming words.  The Wand is proving a bit easy for her, so we are using it as a starting point for exploring words.

We did a third fairytale in the fairytale unit of Brave Writer.  This week it was Beauty and the Beast.

Beauty

Beauty and the Beast

by

Rachel Clare Endicott-Rey

Beauty lives with her father, two sisters and three brothers.  They are poor.  

Her father goes out to look at the boats and a storm comes.  And he rides back, but on his way back he sees a beautiful castle.  He picks a rose and the beast appears.

The Beast says, “You must bring one of our daughters.  If you do not, you shall not see your daughters again.”  So he rides home.  He picks up Beauty and they ride back to the Beast’s palace.

She spends a little bit of time with the Beast. Then, they marry. The end.

Thursday Tea Parties and Poetry
She has now proclaimed Thursday lunch to be our "tea party and poems" time. So be it. :)  I hauled out the china, made herbal tea with honey, PB & J sandwiches, cheese and mayo sandwiches, and mixed raw veggies.  We read lots of children's poems.  She has decided that next week we have to write a poem of our own to read.

Physical Ed

Dance classes started back up this week.  On Thursday night she did an hour of tap/jazz which she LOVED and an hour of ballet.  Her comment was that her ballet teacher this year is much more firm than last year. Same teacher...older class.  I think Rachel will like it if she will give it a chance.  It does teach discipline.

Music

Singing classes start again this week.

She spent afternoons at Colwell.

Reflection: It was a good week.  Things went smoothly.  I still would like to find more games to use.  She has picked the next four weeks' topics: Plants, Human Body, and Earth/Space. (As in, where did the Earth come from?)  Then, she wants a whole week on just volcanoes.  We are strong on science topics, but I want to also start working in some mighty girls from other areas.