songs and chants for cc cycle 2 week 4

Carbon and Oxygen Cycle

and the Nitrogen Cycle

Our "actions" of a "stirring the cookie dough" nature.  We decided on this movement to represent the circular shape of a cycle. 

More memory work songs for cycle 2 wk 3

Somehow we came up with two great (at least we thought so) songs for cycle 2 wk 3 memory work.

When I looked at a way to memorize the Western European Countries I was trying to think of a western song that everyone would be familiar with.  It happens that "She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain" worked perfectly!!! 

Before we filmed the song, we had been singing it with a country twang.  It was fun to sing that way.  The kids will like it, too.  The "little dance" was country hoe-down arms.  

I have tried about 8 times and for some reason I can't put my video in this post.  So, here's the link to the Western European Countries song

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nMFM4BiOPpA&feature=c4-feed-u

For the pronoun order my daughter started singing it to "Kookaburro Song" and it fit so well.  Thank you Lord!  He made it easy on us today. Here is that link:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zWZLoLyhRUY&feature=c4-feed-u

A little tip:

I write the song title very small next to my memory work on my white board.  That way should I forget in the middle of CC class, I can find the song without wasting much time.

You can see here I have written "Row" next to my skip counting 5's numbers.  

Hope these are helpful in your CC home/class.

Oh, I guess it did add the Western European Contries, but that was after sitting and loading forever.  

   Again I'm adding screen shots of the Pronoun Order song and Western European songs so I have something to pin on pinterest.  Below are not links, the links are above in the paragraphs.

I don't know why I can't pin these when the are the actual linked youtube videos, but this is how we'll handle it for now.

Back to normal?

Well, we have our home on the market, finally.  In the midst of all that chaos we had to take a trip to Key West (poor us, right) for a business meeting.  Sorry, I didn't get to post much in all that business.  I hope it will be a bit more consistent until we get to move (soon??? please, Lord).

preparing for week 3

We came up with this little chant for science.

Hope you can use it.

In my plans for wk 3 post I wrote how I would divide the class into 3 groups, give one some fruits/veggies from our play food, one holding forks/spoons, the last holding toy bugs/mushrooms.  In the video I have my girls attempting to hold up each as we say it, and you can tell it's too hard to switch that quickly.  They sure thought it was gross to learn about decomposers :) but I told them the world would be a stinky place without them.

once again, I couldn't pin my video for some reason, so I had to screen shot and add this in.  don't play the bottom picture, play the top smaller one.

Killer Cricket Addition (lol)

We've been hard at work.  Two and a half weeks in to the school year.  With my middle girl we've had a bit of a attitude problem.  This is very unusual for her.  She is overall very compliant and always wants to please us.  I'm thinking she is a little hesitant this year, because we've changed spelling curriculum and added Story of the World.  She likes things to be the same.  She likes to know what's going on and what's coming next.  I hope once she gets used to the new things that she'll become her old sweet self again.  Right?

Today we had some fun with flash cards.  I don't think no one has ever done this before, but I hadn't come across the idea.  So, in case you too haven't, I thought I'd share.

We've been working on flash cards for math proficiency and the girls are usually fine with doing them the old fashioned way.  Even the preschooler wants to do flash cards and is always saying "my turn".  I usually just ask "what number is this?" and let her tell me either number on the card.  Or she just randomly shouts numbers, as this is probably what it looks like we're doing.  

Today, just for fun we laid a group of cards down in a grid and used fly swatters.  I'd ask the girls to slap a card who's sum was 8, or 5, or 12.  What ever sum I felt like saying.  Once they slapped the addends we'd flip the card over.  

Example: I might say "find a card who's sum is 10".  They could slap 2+8, or 9+1... Then we'd flip it over until all the cards had been flipped.  Of course, little E wanted a turn and so I'd say "slap one that has a 5". 

Even a little cricket wanted to join our fun, but little E used her fly swatter a bit too effectively/literally.

However, it is very unusual that 2+3= dead cricket :)

We also had some fun with geography.  Who doesn't love sticky notes? Honestly, who?  I got out our sticky strips, you know the skinny papers, but not the arrows.  I said "put the purple on the North Sea" etc. until we went through all the European waters.

Then we did a trace of Europe and labeled the waters.  

We will do the sticky notes tomorrow also.  So, I took one of each of the five colors (there happens to be five European waters in CC Cycle 2 Week 2) and posted them on our white board next to the name of each water.  Tomorrow they'll be able to look at my board and match their waters with my colors.  I can pop some laundry in while they get their stickies to match mine:)

Hope you can use these ideas somehow.

 

Week 1 Presentations and Science

Our group is starting the year with an interview type presentation.  Our skill focus is simply getting to know our classmates (mostly feeling comfortable with speaking in front of them).  I looked on CC Connected and found a file for impromptu open-ended  questions that you can print and cut into cards.  

I don't recall the uploader's name, but if you search "impromptu speaking cards"  you should find it.  I think I found it by searching these terms.

week: 1

Cycle: All

Subject: presentations

There were only nine, and I wasn't sure they would all apply to my kids.

So I googled impromptu speech topics.  There are many resources to find in this manner.  I think most of the questions I wrote on notecards

were from about.com  .

I decided to clip them to my white board above the presentation "line up", so they are right where I need them when I need them.  

When making my Line up, I decided to place the students who've been in CC before, near the top.  The newcomers will be on the bottom of the list.  I thought it nice to allow them time to know what to expect and hopefully relax any fears they may bring.

Science 

I found some good printable resources on CC Connected.  This weeks experiments won't take much time, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to employ the scientific method on a worksheet.  Here's what you should search:

emoticons method (is a "poster" with emoticons to help the younger students have a visual of each step)

same place, uploaded by jen30- a worksheet to fill out the steps for the scientific method

shaded #2 , also by Jen30- a similar worksheet 

C2W1_sci_exp  was another helpful file.

Hope this helps your last minute prep for Week 1.

We have our first day on Monday!! My girls and I are so excited.  I am guessing I'll have another post for you this weekend as I put together my specific supplies Sat and Sun night.  

  

You Zoo Book Review

I ordered a book a couple weeks ago called The You Zoo.  It is a wonderful tool written by Jami Kirkbride and Kathryn Robbins.  This book is a wonderful personality assessment tool to allow you to get to know your children better.  Not only that, but it assesses the parent and gives wonderful examples of how parent and child can work together.  

Let me give you some detail.

The book is a story format.  You read about four monkeys in the zoo.  These monkeys make their way through 12 scenarios.  You read how each monkey handles the situation and the child chooses which monkey they are most like.  It was so simply laid out for my kids to complete.  I have an 8yr old and 6 yr old and they did wonderfully.  I could tell they felt like one answer might be "right".  As the books instructions direct the parent, there is no wrong answer.  If I really felt they were choosing an answer way out of their norm, we would just discuss it.  If you need to break it into multiple settings, to the authors let you know that it doesn't have to be completed all at once.  You can come back and see if the child answers the same way if you feel like confirming an answer.  I hope that doesn't make it sound like it was hard, or work- It was fun and easy.  My girls breezed through it and asked if we could do it again the next day.  They loved the time reading it with me and felt valued knowing I wanted to hear their answers.  

I thought it evaluated them quite precisely.  It placed them right where they should be.  We now know better what their strengths and weaknesses are.

After doing the parent evaluation (which also pegged me right on)  there is a section that helps you know your child better.

 

(trying to take photos that don't give away the great content :)

Then there is a section of parenting tips that match parents personality and how to work with each type of child personality.

The book ends with a FAQ section and information on how to contact the authors for additional info.  I have contacted one of them, Jami, and she was so sweet in responding and even signed my copy before sending the book.  Her note in the front of my book "God bless your zoo!"  How'd she know?  LOL!!

I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to know their child or student better.  This is a great classroom resource and was even piloted at a school.  The teachers had great things to say about this assessment.

For something that seems like fun to the children it is truly a blessed way to get to know them more. I have found myself checking the parenting tips several times since the books arrival to see the suggestions and how they can help my "zoo".

You can find it on Amazon or at YouZooKids.com

CC Cycle 2 Week 1 Walk Through

So, I enjoy being prepared, not just planning, but practicing.  So, yes, I go through the weeks grammar with my kids the week before (sorry, just being honest). My purpose is to work out the bugs.  We don't totally drill and have it perfect.  We do run through what I'm going to run through with my class at CC.  If I start having trouble with my children "teaching" during class my first action will be a verbal "knock it off" kind of correction.  If they continue I won't be able to continue running through the new grammar ahead of time with them.  No body likes the no-it-all kids who take over class.  We love kids to be involved when they need to sing/speak up/ answer and the like.  However, I'm going to try not to let my girls step out of line.  Last year they were so shy I had to almost bribe them to answer any questions :).  However, it's always different when you have your mom for a teacher, in this case tutor.

Wow! that was a long intro.  

All that was to say this:

We introduced science and math grammar today for week one. This is my original thought for science to have them draw a little snippet of what each biome might look like.

It worked well, they enjoyed completing the drawings.  However, I like doing memory work to songs.  So, I looked for songs on CC, and just a general google search.  I did find a couple on CC.  They are fine songs and I applaud the work that went into the songs.  However, I like to stick to melodies we already know, so we aren't learning grammar and melody.  We found that it fits well to the melody of Joy to the World.  Here goes: