Reading Journal - October

Oct 1

Oct 6

chapter 4

Oct 10

chapter 5

Oct 13

pages 1 - 32

Oct 20

pages 33 - 64

Oct 21

chapters 1 - 2

Oct 22

chapters 3 - 4

Reading Journal - September

Fall Quarter 2008

Sept 29

Sept 30

chapter 3

The First Cities of India

Spine:

• Story of the World, Volume I (The Ancients)
  
  • The River-Road
    
  • The Mystery of Mohenjo-Daro

Mapwork:
Cameron's

Notice the neatness with which the water is colored. It's actually only colored at all because someone decided to make the river run all the way along the coastline. I said that that wasn't accurate and that the ocean would have to be colored to correct it. I was very pleased to see how neatly that was done. You will notice that Cassia's mapwork is not shown here. That is because her picture was entirely red. Eeek.

Coloring Pages: "An Indus King"

Cameron's:


Cassia's:

Notice her typically amazing use of color.

Favorite Library Books:

1. Once a Mouse... A Fable Cut in Wood by Marcia Brown
   
2. One Grain of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale by Demi
   

The Assyrians

Spine:

• Story of the World, Volume 1 (The Ancients), Chapter 8
  
  • The Assyrians
    
  • Gilgamesh the King

Map Work:


Coloring Page:

Favorite Library Books:

• Gilgamesh the King retold and illustrated by Ludmila Zeman
  
• The Revenge of Ishtar retold and illustrated by Ludmila Zeman
  
• The Last Quest of Gilgamesh retold and illustrated by Ludmila Zeman
  

Akkadia

Spine:

• Story of the World, Volume I (the Ancients), Chapter 5
  
  • Sargon and the Akkadians
  
  

Coloring Pages:
Cameron's:

You can't tell from the scan, but the hat was very carefully colored a light peach or "flesh" color. Speaking of flesh color, before he began coloring, Cameron asked me if the people of Sumer had dark skin. I said that I wasn't sure, but I thought they did. He said, "Oh, ok. I have a brown crayon here for dark skin, but I don't think I'll use it now." He ended up not coloring the skin at all. I wonder if that is a political statement of sorts? It was, certainly, the first time he has ever mentioned skin color.

Cassia's:
(Scanner conked out! It was very red though, lol.)

Map Work:
Not interesting enough to post. ;) Just a red circle around Akkadia.

Other Activities:
*Word search on Sumerian Inventions for Cameron
*Illustrations of the list words for Cassia (click to enlarge)

Favorite Library Books:

1. Arabian Nights: Three Tales retold and illustrated by Deborah Nourse Lattimore
   
2. The Three Princes: A Tale from the Middle East retold by Eric A. Kimmel and illustrated by Leonard Everett Fisher
   
3. You Wouldn't Want to Be a Sumerian Slave! by Jacquline Morley
   

The Old Kingdom of Egypt

Spine:

• Story of the World, Volume I (The Ancients), Chapter 4
  
  • *Making Mummies
    
  • *Egyptian Pyramids
  
  

Narrations:

Egypt's Pyramids - 10/1/07

Egypt has pyramids. The pyramids are used to hold people who are packed in sarcophoguses, called mummies. The mummies are wrapped in cloth. They thought the mummies would let them live forever.

Egypt is along the Nile river. They made mummies four thousand years ago.

Favorite Library Books

• Mummies Made in Egypt by Aliki
  
• Cat Mummies by Kelly Trumble
  

Field Trips:

• Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum and Planetarium
  
  • *Tour the museum online here.
    
  • *Read about our field trip on September 19, 2007 here.
  
  

The First Writing

Spine:

• Story of the World, Volume I (The Ancients), Chapter 3
  
  • *Hieroglyphs and Cuneiform
  
  

Favorite Library Books:

• Seeker of Knowledge: The Man who Deciphered Egyptian Hieroglyphs by James Rumford
  

Map Work:
Cameron's

Cassia's


Coloring Pages:
Cameron's

The black was an artistic thing. I'm not sure what it "means" but he actually left the room to find a black crayon. He really, really wanted that man to be black as night. He wanted to do his map work in black too but I wouldn't let him because I said that you wouldn't be able to see the map if he did!

Cassia's

Crafts:

• Cameron's name in hieroglyphic letters
  
  
• Cassia's name in cuneiform on clay (plus some happy faces)
  
  
• "Mom" in hieroglyph letters on clay (forgive the faulty autofocus)
  
  
• "Mom" in cuneiform on clay (again, forgive the faulty autofocus)
  
  

Egyptian Gods and Temples

Spine:

• Story of the World, Volume 1 (The Ancients), Chapter 2
  
  • *Gods of Ancient Egypt
  
  

Favorite Library Books:

• Gods and Goddesses in the Daily Life of the Ancient Egyptians by Henrietta McCall
  
• Cry of the Benu Bird: An Egyptian Creation Story by C. Shana Greger
  

Crafts:

Egyptian god dolls

Osiris and Isis


Amun and Horus


Thoth and Khnum


Anubus and Seth

Egyptians Lived on the Nile

Spine:

• Story of the World, Volume 1 (The Ancients), Chapter 2
  
  • *Two Kingdoms Become One
  
  

Map Work:
Cameron's

Cassia's



Coloring Pages:
Cameron's

Cassia's

Prehistoric Man

Narrations:

Prehistoric Man 8/13/07

Prehistoric men are the early humans. They lived after the dinosaurs. They were men who didn't wear clothes. They had fur! Some walked upright. Some walked on four legs. Homo hablis was one who walked upright. He also used tools. The tools were made of stones, bones, and hard things.

Some prehistoric men hunted mammoths. Mammoth hunters used spears to hit the mammoth. Some mammoth hunters hunted woolly mammoths. They lived where it was really cold.

Most Useful Library Books:

• Stones and Bones! How Archaeologists Trace Human Origins by the Lerner Geography Department
  
• Eyewitness: Preshistoric Life by William Lindsay
  

Read-Alouds:

• One Small Blue Bead by Byrd Baylor
  
• Dar and the Spear-Thrower by Marjorie Cowley
  

Most Enjoyed Videos:

1. The History Channel's Ape to Man
   

Games and Activities:

• BBC's Prehistoric Life Caveman Evolution Game
  
• virtual tour of the Cave of Lascaux
  
• Cave Drawings on crumpled brown construction paper with earth-tone pastels
  

Dinosaurs & Fossils

Narrations:

The Magic School Bus In the Time of the Dinosaurs (7/24/07)

They went back in time to see Maiasaura eggs but went too far. They came back a little, but not far enough. They saw different dinosaurs than before. And then they came back more but it still wasn't far enough. They saw more different dinosaurs than before. They went back again and they saw an ocean with different animals. They went back again and saw different dinosaurs. One last time back and they saw some more dinosaurs and then walked a little and finally saw the ones they were looking for. But before that they saw Tyranosaurus Rex! And when they found the dinosaurs they were looking for, a big sand storm came and buried all the animals. Then they went in the bus and went back home.

Dinosaurs (8/6/07)



I love dinosaurs! Dinosaurs have been extinct for 150 million years. Some were meat-eaters and some ate plants. Meat-eaters are carnivores. Plant-eaters are herbivores. If you eat both meat and plants, you are an omnivore.

My favorite dinosaur is T-Rex. He is a meat-eater. He is a carnivore. He would kill other dinosaurs for food. He is really cool. He used his sharp teeth to kill other dinosaurs. T-Rex killed other smaller meat-eaters and plant-eaters.

Most Useful Library Books:

• Fossils Tell of Long Ago by Aliki
  
• Dinosaur Bones by Aliki
  
• Dinosaurs Are Different by Aliki (heavy on classification)
  
• The Magic School Bus In the Time of the Dinosaurs by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen
  
• Eyewitness: Prehistoric Life by William Lindsay
  

Most Enjoyed Videos:

1. Allosaurus: A Walking with Dinosaurs Special
   
2. Bill Nye the Science Guy: Fossils
   
3. Walking with Dinosaurs
   
4. Eyewitness: Dinosaurs
   
5. Walking with Prehistoric Beasts
   

Great Websites (games):

• BBC Prehistoric Games & Puzzles
  
• Dinosphere
  

Field Trips:

• LaBrea Tar Pits
  

Activities:

• Mud Dinosaur Fossil inspired by the Stir-In Fossils experiment in More Mudpies to Magnets: Science for Young Children by Sherwood, Williams, and Rockwell
  
  
• lots of plastic dinosaur play
  

Archaeology

Spine:

• Story of the World, Volume 1 (The Ancients), Introduction
  
  • *What is History?
    
  • *What is Archaeology?
  
  

Narrations:

Archaeology (7/16/07)

Scientists collect things underground. They find arrowheads, spear points, skeletons, and human skeletons. They try to figure out what it is and then put it into a museum.

They wear hats so they don't burn in the sun because they work in the hot sun all day long. At the museum they try to figure out what goes where because some of it is broken.

Archaeologists also find buildings and wood pieces that burned in a fire. And that's it.

Illustrations:
copied from photo, page 32, in Art and Archaeology by Shirley Glubok.

"This archaeologist is using a periscope to look for artifacts in an unopened tomb."

Most useful library books:

• The Magic School Bus Shows and Tells: A Book About Archaeology by Scholastic
  
• Archaeologists Dig for Clues by Kate Duke
  
• Archaeology for Kids: Uncovering the Mysteries of Our Past, 25 Activities by Richard Panchyk (good book with activities that would be interesting to many varying ages - but we didn't do any of them)
  
• Art and Archaeology by Shirley Glubok (the reading isn't exactly age-appropriate, but the pictures are great)
  

Activities:

• archaeological dig in playground
  
• finding and documenting pottery artifact in our backyard