A nest full of eggs is called a clutch.
If a pergrine falcon migrates from Alaska to Argentina, it will take her two months. If a human were to migrate that same distance, it would take three years.
A polar bear weighs as much as three tigers.
Jochbed was Moses' mother.
When the long hand is on the nine, it's forty-five minutes past the hour.
A sentence begins with a capital letter.
Second grade phonics is WAY more fun than first.
There are five oceans (according to our geography book, which I'm a little skeptical- there were only four when I was in school.) It's called the 'Southern' Ocean, just below the others, around Antartica. I'm not fully buying it until further investigation.
Just a few of the random things we've learned this week. And when I say, 'we' that's exactly what I mean.
I'm no animal lover. I admire them. I think they are beautiful, and their very existence demonstrates to me over and over how creative God was in designing each one so uniquely, yet with similarities that point to only one thing- a Master Creator whose intelligent design is evident everywhere.
This week, more than ever a passion has sparked in me in response to my son's passion in learning about them. Now, I, too, enjoy learning about all kinds of animals. I didn't know a polar bear weighs about as much as three tigers. I remember seeing them at the zoo, but from a distance. These creatures are mammoth, and my son is enthralled with them. And with whales. And tigers. And snakes.
Currently, we're studying out of Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day in the Apologia series. He wasn't crazy about starting with birds. And, to be honest, I wasn't either. I didn't care too much about them when I was a kid. I remember learning about them sometime in late elementary school. And we spent maybe a month on them. So, I didn't deem them that important. Still, this was the pre-requisite before we started the other animal books in the series, so 'suffer' through it we must! Or, so I thought.
At this point,we've spent several months on them now learning about how their wings work, how they find food, how they nest (there are lots of different kinds, including no nesters. Who knew?!?), how they care for their babies, how and why they migrate; as we're winding down with birds, we begin next week with bats. My son is positively beside himself to learn about bats. Mostly, I think because they freak me out, and anything that freaks Momma out is FUN!
Now I find myself watching the sky and our trees for birds. We stop whatever we're doing when we see them in our yard and watch them for a few minutes.
Our literature choices aren't limited to the textbook, which by the way is written very straightforward but not at all dry. I read it the other night before bed. It's that good. As we finish each section, a reading list is given to reinforce what we've read with age appropriate books from kindergarten through middle school level with a description of each.
I must admit, it took me awhile to catch on, but since I have, I've been on the library site placing holds on every book that I think we might enjoy from those lists. And these books spur an interest in other topics. We've read many books that advertise other readers about different topics on the back, so what do we do? We place holds on those as well. A random reader we picked up on one of our many library visits on sharks prompted searching for the others in the series on whales, tigers, snakes, and gorillas. Sure, they're not 'on the agenda' for this year, but who cares? Lots of extra learning is going on. We're not limited to scope and sequence for this year. We read many of the same books over and over and over. (I think we've checked out the Olivia books from our local library that we could just about recite it by heart and still, we crack up every time.)
And the experiments, well, we've not done as many as are suggested but I like the fact that there are lots and we can pick and choose what we'd like to do and what's age appropriate. I figure I'll be teaching this again at least once more and he'll be able to do them then and his younger siblings can do those then, too.
We're still trying to work on capitalizing the first word in a sentence. But, I had middle schoolers when I was a teacher who still had trouble with that fact.
This morning he amazed me when I was doing a little review on Moses. It went something like this, "What happened to Moses when he was a baby?"
He answered, "Pharoah wanted to kill all the baby boys."
"Why?"
A shoulder shrug and crickets.
"Because there were getting to be too many Israelites, and he was afraid they'd outnumber the Egyptians. So what did Moses' mother do?"
"She hid him in a basket in the Jordan River."
"Nile," I corrected. "The Nile River is in Egypt. So, what did she do?"
"She hid him, then put him in a basket, and his sister watched him until Pharoah's daughter found him. Then his sister told the Pharoah's daughter she knew someone who could nurse him. Her name was Jochbed."
"No, Moses' sister's name was Miriam, and we don't know Pharoah's daughter's name."
"No, Momma, Jochbed was Moses' mother. I learned that on my Sparks' cd.
See? Not only am I teaching him. Not only are we learning together. He's teaching me.
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