2nd Grade Activities: Week 5

Monday
1. Religion: pray; read about St. Joseph of Cupertino; read Faith and Life 1: Jesus Grows Up.
2. Math: make up and solve (with help) 11 word problems.
3. Art: make Pterodactyls from colored wire and twist ties.
4. Read Aloud: the Constitution of the United States.
5. Science/Nature: draw 10 insects and other creatures; read a little about worms; read Dinosaurs Big and Small, Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld; watch Eyewitness: Dinosaur (DVD).
6. Read Aloud: The Signmaker's Assistant, Tedd Arnold.
7. Geography: watch U.S. Geography for Children: The United States (DVD).

Tuesday
1. Religion: daily prayer.
2. Science/Nature: watch Really Wild Animals: Deep Sea Dive, National Geographic; To the Moon, Nova; and Bill Nye: Dinosaurs (DVDs)
3. Art: make an astronaut and some animals out of modeling clay; attend Art and California History class: make a drum with California indian symbols and patterns.
4. History: study some artifacts of early California indians.
5. Math: count to 80 by 10s.
6. Read Aloud: Magic Tree House #28: High Tide in Hawaii.
7. P.E.: soccer practice.

Wednesday
1. Religion: pray; attend Mass; attend Girls' Group (class): learn about a saint and do a craft.
2. Science/Nature: To the Moon (video); Magic School Bus: Microbes, Dinosaurs.
3. Handwriting: make a table of contents for a book, numbering the chapters 1-10.
4. Music: Wee Sing video.
5. Reading: worksheets from Art class: charts of animal footprints, indian symbols.
6. Spanish: story time at the library.
7. P.E.: park time.

Thursday
1. Religion: pray; read about St. Matthew; read Bible readings for the day.
2. Reading: Oliver, Syd Hoff.
3. Read Aloud: Bears Out There, Joanne Ryder;
Sato and the Elephants, Juanita Havill;
The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering: I. The Beginnings of the Alphabet, Frederic W. Goudy.
4. Telling Time: work in Kumon Book: My Book of Telling Time: Learning about Minutes.
5. History: read handout from Art class about the Achomawi Indian artifacts.
6. Math: simple addition practice (worksheet).
7. Phonics: Explode the Code: sm, sn, sp consonant blends.
8. Science/Nature: use My Amazing Human Body (DK CD-ROM) to practice identifying names and functions of bones and organs of the human body.

Friday
1. Religion: daily prayer; read saint of the day; read Bible readings for the day.
2. History: read a little more background on the Constitution and Benjamin Franklin's speech at the Constitutional Convention; look at photos of the original Constitution:
http://www.usconstitution.net/constkids.html ; read about the invention of cable cars in San Francisco.
3. Science/Nature: observe and sketch a desert tortoise; make a book about a snail;
4. Math: free play with Cuisenaire rods (she first placed the longest to shortest in order from left to right; then built a town); Miquon sheets: one to one correspondence, then trade units for matching-length bars; write the number of objects; simple addition; geometric shapes.
5. Reading: Snail Trail, Ruth Brown.
6. Art: make small food items from modeling clay: loaf of bread, pile of pancakes with ribbons of syrup, cake, pie; illustrate book about a snail.
7. Read Aloud: Maybelle the Cable Car, Virginia Lee Burton.
8. Phonics: Explode the Code: short vowels and sm, sn, sp consonant blends.
9. P.E.: soccer practice.

2nd Grade Activities: Week 4

Monday
1. Religion: daily prayer.
2. Geography: locate Ireland on the globe, show distance traveled from Ireland to America when relatives made the journey in the 1800s. Identify Africa and America on the globe: "You'd have to travel pretty far to get there -- across the ocean -- the North Atlantic Ocean."
3. Math: make some money out of modeling clay; get out some play money too: "Mom, please help me count my money." First she read off the amounts; we wrote each amount in vertical columns, and added the columns. Then we recalculated the total by sorting the bills by denomination first and adding the sums of each type of bill and coin. Mom explained that this was how she counted the money when working as a cashier. Explanation of what the decimal point means. Watch a video about addition.
Play ice cream shop using the play money; dictate a menu of ice cream and candy flavors; read the menu.
4. Art: make money and ice cream cones out of modeling clay.
5. Science/Nature: make chicks out of modeling clay; read news article about space shuttle launch and mission (Atlantis); read that it successfully docked with the international space station.
6. Read Aloud: Super Cluck, Jane and Robert O'Connor;
Magic Tree House #26, Good Morning Gorillas.
7. Reading: some of display text from Good Morning Gorillas; read the book titles of the other Magic Tree House books: Day of the Dragon King, Viking Ships at Sunrise, Tigers at Twilight, Earthquake in Early Morning, Summer of the Sea Serpent.
8. Phonics: work in Explode the Code 2: short vowels and consonant blends; spell some words with alphabet blocks (vowel, consonant, and consonant blend blocks).

Tuesday
1. Religion: prayer and read about the saint of the day.
2. Music: do exercises in Rabbit-Man's Music Book (theory): to recognize note shapes and the staff; sing made-up songs; listen to Suzuki Recorder School (Soprano vol. I) music CD.
3. Geography: look at maps of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota; demonstration: use city index and grid on the map to locate a town.
4. Science/Nature: more about dinosaurs: Bill Nye the Science Guy: Dinosaurs: Those Big Boneheads! and Magic School Bus videos; attend composting workshop.
5. Language Arts: match uppercase and lowercase letters; write the capital letter next to each lowercase letter of the alphabet (workbook).
6. Math: math questions: "Can you go a million miles in one day?" "Can't you go around the world in eight days?"
7. P.E.: soccer practice.

Wednesday
1. Religion: pray, attend Mass.
2. Geography: locate the countries China, Australia, America.
3. Science/Nature: review compost workshop materials and observe worms; read about what to feed the worms; try feeding them various foods.
4. Math: make up addition and word problems to solve; watch the demonstrations of how to solve them.
5. Spanish: story time at library.
6. P.E.: park time.

Thursday
1. Religion: daily prayers.
2. Science/Nature: watch nature videos: See How They Grow: Insects and Spiders, and Jungle Animals; draw insects; observe and draw fish in large aquarium.
3. Homeschool meeting.
4. Library time.

Friday
1. Religion: pray; read about saint of the day; catechism: read and discuss Faith and Life 1: chaps. 7-11: Noah, Abraham, Moses, prophets, John the Baptist, Annunciation, Nativity, visit of the Three Kings.
2. Directions: follow diagrams to build a Lincoln Log structure.
3. Language Arts: phonics and reading in Explode the Code: consonant blends and short vowels.
4. Math: make up 13 addition and subtraction word problems to solve; watch the demonstrations of how to solve them.
5. Science/Nature: read about worms and rolypolies.
6. P.E.: soccer practice.
7. Reading: I Kissed the Baby, Mary Murphy.
8. Read Aloud: Magic Tree House #27, Thanksgiving on Thursday.

2nd Grade Activities: Week 3

Monday
Holiday

Tuesday
1. Science/Nature: homeschool workshop, "Colors of the Sun": Agenda: spend about 50 minutes indoors and do the experiment at the park.
Opening: demonstration of how the sun looks larger than other stars, but is not, short reading about what the sun is; “Colors of the Sun” movie (what we know about the sun, how we can observe the sun, how it affects earth, questions scientists are currently asking and trying to find the answers to about the sun. Spectroscope making. Experiments outside.
2. P.E.: park time, soccer practice.
3. Read Aloud: Magic Tree House #23, Twister on Tuesday.
4. History: learn something about pioneer life and tornadoes.

Wednesday
1. Religion: pray Our Father and prayers for grace.
2. Science/Nature: learn about the history of dogs and the qualities of various different breeds of dogs: watch Dog, Eyewitness nature series, and Puppies (commentary about the characteristics of many different dog breeds), David Story (videos). Observation: "If you sit here you can see the glories of the universe" (about watching nature videos).
3. Spanish: story time at the library.
4. P.E.: park time.
5. Read Aloud: Magic Tree House #25, Stage Fright on a Summer Night (meet Shakespeare).

Thursday
1. Religion: pray Our Father and prayer intentions.
2. Science/Nature: watch Born Free (lions) and Magic School Bus: Busasaurus (dinosaurs) videos. Observations: "There are more plant-eaters than meat-eaters, you know." "Did you know that scientists can tell what kind of food dinosaurs ate by the kind of teeth they have?": make small models from modeling clay of a tooth from a meat-eater, and one from a plant-eating dinosaur (describe each); make model dinosaur leg and arm bones; show how they might connect; make a partitioned box with handle for the dinosaur "fossils".
3. Language Arts: read and answer exercises from Explode the Code (phonics): short vowels and consonant blends.
4. Math: put all the number tiles in order on the 100 board; observe the patterns of numbers in the rows and columns; skip count by 10s, 5s, 2s on the board; observe odd and even numbers to 100; look at individual number tiles (separate from the board) and name each number from 1 to 100 in random order.
5. Time: review hours, minutes, quarter hours and half hours on Judy clock; display the current time on the clock.
6. Reading: Dinosaurs (Scholastic Reader, level 2), Grace Maccarone.

Friday
1. Religion: pray Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, prayer intentions.
2. Spanish: phonics, spelling, alphabet, and vocabulary from: Super Star Series Spanish 1a with Phonics, Help Me 2 Learn (bilingual educational cd-rom). Make an illustrated Spanish word book including the animals: elephant, lion, seal, bear, giraffe, monkey, tiger, snake, hippo, kangaroo, bird, zebra.
3. Phonics: review all the sounds of each letter of the English alphabet and some spelling (on the bilingual Spanish program); Explode the Code 2: reading and distinguishing consonant blends and short vowel sounds.
4. Math: demonstrate and write the numbers 1111-1122 (with base ten materials).
5. Art: make a tiny person out of modeling clay.
6. Science/Nature: watch Magic School Bus Microbes (video); ask questions about microbes.
7. P.E.: soccer practice and parade.

2nd Grade Activities: Week 2

Monday
1. Religion: read about Saint Augustine; read the Bible readings for the day; pray; visit a friend in the hospital.
2. Art: make a doll hat and food out of modeling wax; block printing; face painting.
3. Music: learn the song: "Shalom to my friends"; practice a round: "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"; sing and make up songs.
4. Read Aloud: Silly Stories to Tickle Your Funny Bone, Reading Rainbow;
May Belle and the Ogre, Bethany Roberts;
Addie's Bad Day, Joan Robins.
5. Math: read: ...98, 99, 100! Ready or Not, Here I Come!, Teddy Slater: compare counting to 100 by 1s, 5s, 10s, 20s.
6. Phonics: Explode the Code: consonant blends with r; review some consonant and vowel sounds (with flashcards, lower case letters), use each sound in a word (oral).
7. Reading: Finding Nemo: Best Dad in the Sea, Amy J. Tyler.

Tuesday
1. Religion: pray Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be.
2. Read Aloud: Magic Tree House #20, Dingoes at Dinnertime.
3. Geography: locate Australia on the globe; note that it is about the size of the United States; local geography: locate familiar items in the neighborhood and outlying areas from a scenic view spot from which you can see for miles.
4. Art: make a Pokemon toy out of colored wire; make a necklace.
5. Science/Nature: watch DK's Eyewitness: Cat: history, anatomy, habitat, behavior; learn about homing pigeons from Handbook of Nature Study, Anna Botsford Comstock; make observations about the usefulness of plants.
6. P.E.: soccer practice.

Wednesday
1. Religion: sing He's Got the Whole World in His Hands, and other songs from Veggie Tales Sing-Alongs: Bob and Larry's Sunday Morning Songs.
2. Math: take a K12 placement test.
3. Art: make a family of pom-pom dolls.
4. Read Aloud: Magic Tree House #21, Civil War on Sunday;
Nacho and Lolita, Pam Munoz Ryan;
Iris and Walter and Cousin Howie, Elissa Haden Guest;
5. History: learn something about the Civil War, slavery, Abraham Lincoln, and Clara Barton.
6. Foreign Language: Spanish story time at the library.
7. P.E.: park time.

Thursday
1. Religion: pray Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be.
2. Read Aloud: Magic Tree House #22, Revolutionary War on Wednesday;
Dinnertime!, Sue Williams.
3. Geography: locate Pennsylvania on U.S. map.
4. History: learn a little about the Revolutionary War and George Washington. Read aloud: Goin' Someplace Special, Patricia C. McKissack: a young African American girl faces racial segregation and discrimination in the South in the 1950s.
5. Science/Nature: "How many toes does a bear have?" Look up on internet -- grizzly bear and black bear tracks show 5 toes:
http://www.yellowstone-bearman.com/bears.html#ID .
6. Art: make a bear print and other artwork with rubber stamp kit.
7. Math: read about how to solve word problems in Addition Made Easy, Rebecca Wingard-Nelson; discuss place value and review addition of vertical columns: hundreds, tens, ones.

Friday
1. Math: again: "How many days until Christmas?" (Mom again describes the process of adding the days of each month until Christmas.); read The Great Graph Contest, Loreen Leedy, demonstrating how to ask a question, collect data, and turn the results into different types of graphs, diagrams, and pie charts.
2. Music: children's songs from Veggie Tales: Josh and the Big Wall!, Wiggles: Yummy Yummy.
3. Reading: Daniel's Pet, Alma Flor Ada. Read the sentences backwards -- interesting, challenging, funny, (and actually a good test of reading skills) -- her ida.
4. P.E.: soccer practice.
5. Read Aloud: The Lonely Doll, Dare Wright;
The Worm Family, Tony Johnston.