2nd Grade Activities: Week 29

RELIGION: daily prayer; prayers in preparation for 1st Communion; attend Mass.

MATH: solve 17 addition and subtraction problems (homemade worksheet -- requested by student); 1 and 2-digit addition and subtraction problems in a workbook, and several word problems.

PHONICS: Explode the Code 4: read and answer questions containing two and three-syllable words; learn some of the rules for breaking multi-syllable words.

READING/SPELLING: reading in Phonics, and Math study; read signs, comics, websites, early readers, and picture books; IM with Dad; read 3 chapters of Betsy - Tacy and Tib, Maud Hart Lovelace.

READING: Audrey and Barbara, Janet Lawson (cute picture book of girl and cat planning a trip to the Taj Mahal -- then of course we had to look up some pictures):
http://www.tajhub.com/taj-mahal.html

HANDWRITING: practice printing lowercase letters a-z; trace sandpaper letters and numbers with fingers.

SCIENCE/NATURE: Observation and care of fish and ants; observation of birds on the porch.
"Do betta fish have teeth?"
http://www.bettatalk.com/betta_anatomy.htm
"What color are your fishes' eyes?"
"Yellow eyes and blue eyes."
Peruse the book: Inside the Whale and Other Animals, Ted Dewan (animal anatomy).

Watch Eyewitness videos: Tree, Seashore; National Geographic: Those Wonderful Dogs: learn about working dogs and their training.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE: Chinese: review Pinyin tones and pronunciation; Practice speaking and writing Chinese characters; attend Spanish story time; watch cartoons in Spanish.

ART: attend discoveries in art class and make a painting using the techniques taught in class; draw, color, create little animals and things with modeling clay.

MUSIC: listen to classical and contemporary music; sing children's songs and made-up songs.

P.E.: softball game; park time.

READ ALOUD:
Prairie Girl: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder, William Anderson;
Daisy Comes Home, Jan Brett;
Audry and Barbara, Janet Lawson;
Betsy - Tacy and Tib,

HISTORY: Read from The Story of the World I:
Assyria, the first library (Nineveh); Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar and the hanging gardens of Babylon; Early Crete, King Minos and the Minotaur, end of the Minoans; Early Greeks, the Greek dark ages, the Greek alphabet, Homer, the First Olympic games; the Persians and Cyrus the Great; Sparta and Athens; the Greek gods; Alexander the Great and his empire.

Read about the Pharos at Alexandria in the book: Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Lynn Curlee. Read more about the hanging gardens of Babylon in the same book.

Read about woman explorer: Helen Thayer:
http://clairitys-place.blogspot.com/2007/03/helen-thayer-explorer.html
http://www.helenthayer.com/
Dictate info. about her life:
http://stitahistory.blogspot.com/2007/03/helen-thayer-1938.html

GEOGRAPHY: locate the various places we read about in The Story of the World on map/globe.

2nd Grade Activities: Week 28

RELIGION: daily prayer; review questions, answers, and prayers in preparation for 1st Confession; attend class and 1st Confession; attend Mass.

PHONICS: Explode the Code 4: read and answer questions containing two and three-syllable words.

READING/SPELLING: reading in Phonics, Math, and Catechism study; read some signs, comics, websites, early readers, and picture books; IM with Dad.

READING: Busy Dinah Dinosaur, B.G. Hennessy;
Silly Ruby, Catherine Friend;
Carl's Birthday, Alexandra Day.

SCIENCE/NATURE: Observation and care of fish and ants.
Watch Nature videos:
Do Pigs Scratch Their Backs? And Other Questions on the Farm, Farm Discovery Center video;
Eyewitness videos: Insect, Desert, Cat, Shell.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE/CULTURE: Chinese: review Pinyin tones and pronunciation; Attend Chinese class; practice speaking and writing Chinese characters; attend Spanish story time.

Watch video: Stories from the Asian Tradition: Tikki Tikki Tembo, The Tale of the Mandarin Ducks.

ART: attend great artists class; study Da Vinci and some of his methods of analysis and drawing; draw and color; arrange and paste paper owl.

MUSIC: listen to classical and contemporary music; sing children's songs; sing made-up song and dance; follow some musical notes while the choir sings.

P.E.: softball game; park time.

READ ALOUD: Betsy - Tacy, Maud Hart Lovelace;
Days of the Blackbird: A Tale of Northern Italy, Tomie dePaola;
Jamie O'Rourke and the Pooka, Tomie dePaola;
First Day, Joan Rankin.

HISTORY: Read from The Story of the World I: about Ancient Africa, including some African stories; the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, and some of the Pharaohs, including Amenhotep IV (a monotheist), and King Tut; the story of Moses and the Israelites leaving Egypt; Phoenician Traders, the cities of Tyre and Carthage, Phoenician glass-blowing.

Read a little about the history and famous voyage of Ferdinand Magellan, the first circumnavigation of the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan
and some of the related incidents and places.

Read Prairie Girl: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder, William Anderson.

GEOGRAPHY: locate Egypt, Africa, and the Sahara Desert on the globe; find the approximate location of Nubia, Canaan, and the Red Sea; locate places on Magellan's route on the globe; note locations of Carthage, Tyre, Mediterranean Sea on a map; sing a made-up geography song about places she could name.

2nd Grade Activities: Week 27

RELIGION: daily prayer; review questions, answers, and prayers in preparation for 1st Confession and 1st Communion; attend Mass; play kids' online activities at EWTN Catholic television network:
http://www.ewtn.com/ewtnkids/home.asp

MATH: raisin (and Joe's O's) math: come up with and solve 32 subtraction problems; look at the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World in a book by this name, by Lynn Curlee, which compares the sizes of the various monuments with modern ones (pp. 34-35) and estimate how many children (at 4ft.), moms (at 5.5ft), dads (at 6ft.) it would take to reach the height of the Great Pyramid (500 ft.).

PHONICS: Explode the Code 4: read and answer questions containing two and three-syllable words, and words ending in -ful, -ing, -est, -ed, or -ness; watch Between the Lions: Quest, Quest, Quest (video).

READING/SPELLING: reading in Phonics, Math, and Catechism study; read some signs, comics, websites, early readers, and picture books; IM with Dad.

READING: Legs, Miriam Frost;
The ABC Doghouse, Peter Lippman.

CREATIVE WRITING: begin a comic book with Dudley Do Right, Nell, and Dahlila Do Right of the Mounties.

SCIENCE/NATURE: Observation and care of fish and ants; Start Up Science workbook exercises: living vs. non-living things; creatures and their habitats; the stages of growth of some animals and plants; how seeds are spread; classify some animals into cats, dogs, rodents; learn specific names for various male and female animals and their young.
Watch lots of Nature videos [flu week]: See How They Grow: Forest Animals; Mother Nature Tales of Discovery: Penguins In Paradise; Amazing Animals: Animal Pets, Animal Survivors, Endangered Animals; Bug City: Ants; Eyewitness videos: Pond & River, Bear.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE/CULTURE: Chinese: review Pinyin tones and pronunciation; attend Chinese New Year Parade; Spanish: watch a Spanish Scooby-Doo video.

ART: Draw dragons, lions, firecrackers, drummer and acrobat from the Chinese New Year parade.
Read about several great artists: Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), Marc Chagall (1889-1985), Paul Klee (1879-1940), in The Story Behind the Painting: Unforgettable Stories about the World's Greatest Painters and Their Masterpieces, Leo Rosten.
Make a short movie about a fish on a Philippine reef from the site:
http://www.sheddaquarium.org/sea/amazingreef/

MUSIC: listen to classical and contemporary music; sing children's songs; watch This Land Is Your Land, The Animated Kids' Songs of Woody Guthrie (folk music, video).

P.E.: softball game; park time.

READ ALOUD: Betsy - Tacy, Maud Hart Lovelace;
Baby Baboon, Mwenye Hadithi and Adrienne Kennaway;
Creatures of the Night, Stephen Brooks;
Whales Passing, Eve Bunting;
Lucille, Arnold Lobel;
Old Turtle's Soccer Team, Leonard Kessler.

HISTORY: Read from The Story of the World I: Ancient India and Ancient China; learn about Chinese pictograms, silk, bronze, rice farming, early trade, and the importance of civilizations developing around a river.
Look at the Greek alphabet and Egyptian hieroglyphics in The Mystery of the Hieroglyphs: The Story of the Rosetta Stone and the Race to Decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Carol Donoughue.
Watch Eyewitness: Flight [Nature's and Man's]; do some online activities exploring some of Leonardo Da Vinci's creative ideas:
http://www.universalleonardo.org/activities.php

GEOGRAPHY: locate the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates Rivers on map and globe; locate India and China, the Indus, Yellow, and Yangtze Rivers.

2nd Grade Activities: Week 26

RELIGION: daily prayer; review prayers in preparation for 1st Communion; attend Mass.

MATH: experiment with geoboard, making triangles, rectangles, squares, octogon, pentagon, and other shapes; find out how many smaller squares fit in a bigger one; do some simple multiplication (1x1, 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 1x2, 1x3, 1x4, 1x5, 2x3, 2x5); solve word problems from Techniques of Problem Solving A involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, comparison of quantities, time, money, and measurement (cm.), counting by 10s; online math practice: addition and money problems:
http://www.thatquiz.com

PHONICS: Explode the Code 4: learn about open (CV) and closed (CVC) syllables; read and answer questions containing two and three-syllable words; watch Between the Lions: Quest, Quest, Quest video covering the consonant q, word family -est, and vowel short e.

READING/SPELLING: reading in Phonics, Math, and Catechism study; read some comics, websites, early readers, and picture books; IM with relatives; play online spelling and proofreading games:
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/sv/books/content/smg/
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/hme/k_5/proofread/

READING: Don't Tell the Whole World!, Joanna Cole;
Piggy and Dad Play, David Martin; Monkey Business, David Martin;
Monkey Trouble, David Martin.

HANDWRITING: work in Italic handwriting Series B, Getty & Dubay.

SCIENCE/NATURE: observation and care of fish and ants; watch Eyewitness videos: Flight, Bear; Big Science Comics DVD: virtual science experiments involving non-standard weights and measures; read from Why Does It Fall Over? Projects About Balance, Jim Pipe;
Build-A-Fish online activity: find out which characteristics of a fish are beneficial in a particular habitat:
http://www.sheddaquarium.org/sea/interactive_module.cfm?id=7#

FOREIGN LANGUAGE/CULTURE: attend Spanish story time and Mandarin Chinese classes. Practice speaking and writing Chinese characters; learn more about the traditions of Chinese New Year.

ART: make Curious George from twist ties and craft sticks, balance him on wires across the room, make food for George from modeling clay; draw Enkidu from the legend of Gilgamesh; attend Great Artists class: study the work of Pablo Picasso, paint a portrait using a similar style; make crafts for Chinese New Year; coloring with colored pencils.

MUSIC: listen to classical and contemporary music; read along and sing some music during Mass; sing children's songs; play African-style music on virtual thumb piano:
http://www.pbskids.org/africa/piano/piano.html

P.E.: softball; dancing.

READ ALOUD: Two Mice in Three Fables, Lynn Reiser; Round Robin, Jack Kent; Puss in Boots, Charles Perrault (retold and illustrated by Hans Fischer).

HISTORY: read from The Story of the World I: Joseph and his brothers, Hammurabi and the Babylonians, Shamshi-Adad and the Assyrians, the story of Gilgamesh. Historical fiction early readers: The Josefina Story Quilt, Eleanor Coerr (mid 1800s: a family of pioneers travels west to California in a wagon train), The Drinking Gourd, F.N. Monjo (a boy and his father helps a runaway slave family travel the "underground railroad" to freedom: 1850s).