Thumper's Science Notebooking Pages!

Thumper and Bambi have been doing a great job on their notebooking pages.  I'm trying to get Thumper to write more and he doesn't groan much when it comes to writing in science.  We are finishing up the Sun, Moon, planets, and Solar System before following Flower the rest of the way with Elemental Science.  They will move onto climates and weather this summer!

Thumper's Creations:  He loved learning about volcanoes and created this picture himself on his dry erase board.  You can check out our volcano we made on the Elemental Science Page. 

Sentence Helper Sheet

I have made a grid with some sentence helpers for Thumper.  He keeps a journal for reading.  What I usually have him do is narrate back to me what he has read out loud to me, then I have him write one to two sentences down in his journal.  I've been taping these sentence helper grids inside of his journal for him to use.  I hope to see some improvement in getting started with writing by using these grids.  Sometimes he will want me to write what he says inside of his grids for him.  Then he will form the sentence in neat handwriting.  This saves from having to write it down twice for those that are writing phobics! 

 

Science

                                              

Bambi and Thumper have enjoyed studying Earth Science lately and have learned a lot.  It's been quite a bit of planning on my part because I choose not to purchase a science curriculum.  We are working with the resources that we have and it's turning out to be a great science year with the two of them.  I started out separating their Science, but it was just too much to flip flop back and forth.  So they do it mostly together.  Bambi will read harder selections and Thumper will join in with his own younger version book about whatever topic we are studying.  I've posted some pictures of what they have been doing for science class.  Thumper is always doing some sort of science and it would be nearly impossible for me to capture it all! 

Julie (Bambi's American Girl doll) joined us for Science today!

 What is soil?  How do you make soil?  What is in soil and how are they different?  We compost, so this was nothing quite new for them, but it still gave them a chance to observe and make conclusions. 

 I've been trying hard to remind Bambi to show neat work and take pride in her work.  She has been showing improvements in those areas lately and I'm proud of her!

 Science is Thumper's favorite lesson!  He has really beefed up his writing lately and has stretched out of his comfort zone at times!  Love it!

We've been discussing how rocks can crack due to extreme change in temperatures.  We took a glass marble and held it over a candle flame for a couple minutes.  Then the kids immediately dropped it in an ice cold glass of water.  There we watched it crack inside.  Pretty cool experiment!



 

   

 We have been learning about Earthquakes.  We've watched videos from Netflix and Discovery Education .....We read about vibrations and seismic waves.....we are reading quite a bit about earthquakes.  Everywhere we go lately they notice a book or movie about earthquakes and I watch their little wheels turn!
 

Lit Activities

Reading/Literature Activities

 This was at the beginning of 1st grade.  Disregard the date of post.  I'm trying to rearrange my blog before next school year.

Curious George

AAS

All About Spelling

Here is what I did to help dress the program up a bit for Thumper! He loves having his own notebooks! I made this with my proclick binder. I laminated the cover and back page for durability. Inside is the phonogram completion page along with the completion of levels page. I added a couple pages for stickers, too. He gets a sticker if he does his lesson without complaining & whining. Then I added a bunch of writing paper for Step 2 and beyond. He seems to like the book!

Thumper is progressing through AAS! He is just breezing on with it! We are starting week 7 this week and will get through Steps 19-22. 

 

October 3, 2012: Week 9 of our school year and he is nearly done with AAS 1. This was our second day with Step 22. I like to review the step again when he doesn't quite nail the concept. I called out some compound words today for him to write them in his notebook. He spaced a little b/w bathtub and immediately told me that he messed up. He does not like to erase!! I told him to use the word pigpen in a sentence to go along with our read aloud this week, Charlotte's Web. He liked making up sentences so much that he wanted to keep going! I'm proud of Thumper today!

October 12, 2012:  Thumper has completed AAS 1 and is so proud of himself! We will spend the next week on just reviewing AAS1 words with Spelling City!

 All About Spelling Level 2

Thumper is progressing pretty well with the 2nd level. I always have him study the words more with Spelling City.....this has been the easiest way for him and it's fun! We are heading into Step 6 with no problems so far!

December 7, 2012:  Level 2 in AAS is going great! We aren't moving as fast as we were in Level 1 but that's okay. I ordered the Level 2 Reading Book that goes with All About Reading because at the end of our Steps in AAS we read the story that coincides with it. This makes the words stand out so much more when he reads them in a story!

Thumper's Science

 Thumper's 1st Grade Science

Classifying Leaves into traits

Thumper Loved making his terrarium with living and non living things from the yard. Now, he wants to make a desert terrarium!

This is our Cactus Sponge all dried up and hard. He is learning about how they store water.

He poured water over the sponge.

He really thought this was cool! Then we discussed the whole meaning of the experiment. He did play with the sponge the rest of the day! It's always the simplest things that my kids enjoy the most!

He made his own lab sheet in his Science Log! Love it!

Here is some BEAUTIFUL coloring of a desert habitat!

Thumper enjoyed creating with clay and making a desert scene.

Here is his Octopus he made while studying the ocean habitat

He is checking out pond water that he collected at the park today. Thumper has been studying fresh water and salt water habitats the last couple weeks.

I thought this dragonfly made with wax paper, tape, pipe cleaners, and a straw turned out cute!

We have been using our subscription of Studies Weekly, which is alligned to our state, as a jumping off point in science.....then we just add fun activities, videos, and books to make it all come together! This week and last we have been studying the moon, sun, and bits about space.

Thumper has really enjoyed this study!

Thumper loves watching birds.....we made bird crafts, did bird watching, and read a lot about birds!

Making bird seed cakes with seed, flour, and corn syrup.

Mash into pan....

Then cut with cookie cutters.

Thumper decided to hang it under his new tree fort.....

I have an avid rock collector....so we are going to learn all about it!

He broke out the magnifier and observed for quite sometime. He picked out his favorite rocks, too, and learned there names.

We are using this & this to add to our study of rocks. Here is the activity we did about the Rock Cycle....Thumper did this along with his sister Bambi.....When finished, they really did grasp the cyle of rocks and were able to retell it back to me.