Tip Time - CC Cycle 2 Week 7

I skipped last week because I was busy and we had the week off due to Columbus day.  We also finished our 12th week of school - we work on trimesters - so we are finishing that up too.  Today as we read the last chapter of Understood Betsy I was in tears - I tried to keep reading.  We also enjoyed the end of the Little Duke.  We will read this one again once the boys are older because it holds some great lessons.   We are also reading Blue Fairy Tales which at times confuses my boys because they have heard other versions. Once this week, I did resort to using a librivox recording.  I also finally learned where "Open Sesame" comes from!

Okay, now on to tips.

This week our CC group has assigned us the topic of manners for presentations.  Well, they aren't too keen on manners in general.  However, I did read them the Goops (and another one) which they enjoyed. We are still working on the presentation.  The Goops are creatures with no manners and there are little poems to show how horrible they act.  It is very cute and my kids like it.  When they were younger I read a couple to them.  My oldest son - who never chooses to write - created about 5 pages of Goop activities - he got the idea.

History

If you are looking for a picture book about Martin Luther you might want to try this one by Paul L. Meier.  I think we inherited this one from somewhere so we will read it this week.

Geography 

This week we are learning about peninsulas in Europe.  If you are interested in teaching your kids about landforms you might want to look into the Montessori landform cards.  These are very basic - honestly you can just draw this yourself to show the different types of landforms. You can also use clay and water to create the landforms yourself (more ideas here) so that your kids get a sense of how the water and land interact.  Here is a free landforms coloring book or dictionary.  There are a few more options and ideas here. Next week we talk about other landforms so it might be worth spending time putting these together.

That's about all for this week.