September 2015 : Horses, Woody Guthrie, and Idaho

We've fallen into a routine now.  Mondays and Wednesdays are normally spent working on Math, Reading, Khan Academy, Social Studies, Art, and Science.  Tuesdays and Thursdays are our short days with Math, Reading, Khan, Social Studies, and Journal with PE in the afternoons.

Math : We're still working on 180 Days of Math and so far we like the format.  No long lessons with tons of practice questions.  We also do real world math while we're out and about and we incorporate math into our other subjects as well.  Ashlyn had to figure out how many "hands" tall everyone was last week when we were learning about horses.

Reading : We're almost done with our reading comprehension workbooks.  I haven't decided if we'll do a formal grammar study or just learn as we go.  I have noticed the girls definitely need to practice their paragraph writing skills so their next workbooks will probably concentrate more on that.

Khan Academy : The novelty has worn off and the girls are bored with it.

Social Studies : We finished up the West Region of the US and we've started on the Midwest Region.  The girls each pick a state to learn about independently.  They have to choose a famous person from their state and find a book at the library about their state.  Then they complete reports on each.  We also pick a state as a group to study more in depth.  We learned about Lillian Disney, Sacagawea, and Gutzon Borglum from Idaho last week.  This week we're learning about Kansas.

Art : We're finishing up Michelangelo with an outdoor project this week.  We watched a video about him and read several books about his works.  Grandma sent us a photo of David from Italy.

Science : We learned about horses over the last two weeks and this week we'll start exploring aviation.  I printed a lap book about horses from CurrClick.  The girls prefer interactive stuff over worksheet after worksheet.

PE : Lauren and Kaelyn are playing fall ball and their team plays once a week.  All three girls are in gymnastics.

Journal : We're alternating between Scholastic Story Starters, Question of the Day, and Journaling questions from a workbook.

Field Trips : We try to get out of the house every week.  This month we visited the Children's Museum and the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa.  We're planning to visit the Tulsa Air and Space Museum this week.

Cherokee Heritage Center

Our family recently visited the Cherokee Heritage Center in Tahlequah (Park Hill), Oklahoma.  We took particular interest in this since our family is part Cherokee.  We began our visit in the gift shop and museum.  At the time of our visit, the center was hosting the Miss Cherokee exhibit of past gowns and crowns.  There is also a moving Trail of Tears exhibit in the museum.   After we finished looking around the inside of the center we joined a tour of a replica of a 1710 Cherokee village, Diligwa.  Our guide, Danny, taught us about life for Cherokees before the move west.  Once our tour was finished we completed our visit in Adams Corner Rural Village, a representation of Cherokee life after the move to Indian Territory.  For more information visit http://www.cherokeeheritage.org/.

The center was once a women's seminary and these are the original smoke stacks from the building.

 

One of the buildings in Diligwa.

 

Danny teaching us about Cherokee life.

 

 

Danny and a friend demonstrating Stick Ball.

 

 

A Cherokee woman teaching us about pottery.

 

 

Danny  in the Council House describing Cherokee spirituality and business.

To supplement our trip to the Cherokee Heritage Center, I did a quick Google search for Cherokee worksheets.


P.S. If you're in the area and like pizza, we recommend Sam & Ella's Chicken Palace.