We had a lot of fun with Halloween in homeschool this year. We spent the last week working on review using Halloween themed exercises. We covered parts of speech in language arts; multiplication, time, place value, comparing numbers, rounding and graphing in math; shape poetry and creative writing in writing; catapult construction and physics as well as a vampire bat study in science; Halloween history and traditions in history and social studies; and we read The Haunted Library: A Ghost in the Attic by Dori Hillstad Butler, Frankenstein by Ludworst Bemonster and Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich by Adam Rex for reading.
Zoey using candy corns to represent the greater than/less than signs while comparing numbers.
Zoey's Shape Poem We even saw a black cat while we were out Trick-or-Treating.
For Halloween night, we decided to go Trick-or-Treating in our neighborhood. It was a great adventure. Zoey dressed up as a Pink Princess. She did her make up and everything. We went down a stretch that didn't have as many kids on it. Most of the people we visited were glad to have some one stop by.
Pretty Princess Zoey
I really enjoyed our walk through the neighborhood. Everyone was really nice too. We got to check out all of the awesome decorations. One house had a fog machine that flooded out onto the street making it even more spooky that the natural clouds were already doing. We even got invited in for a beer at one point. It was great to see everyone out and making local connections to celebrate the occasion.
Fog machine rolling out onto the street
There were some great decorations while we were out.
A black cat crossed our path.
The next day, we collected data from our Halloween candy run. It was great to turn such a fun event into a learning opportunity. Especially when we got to taste test all the candy for science!
Our Halloween candy data collection
Zoey graphed the results for a visual representation
Then we got to test each candy and decide our favorites
It was a great Halloween and we covered a lot in our homeschooling lessons in the process. I hope you also had a great celebration!
October has been a beautiful month with lots of activities and learning. The weather has greatly cooled off this month and we are enjoying the beauty of the leaves changing colors this fall. Halloween has also been a predominant part of our month as we've connected many of our homeschool activities and lessons with the Halloween theme. We also had my friend from South Carolina come to visit us for a week that gave us opportunities for even more exploration of our amazing city. We even took a trip to Canada! It's been a busy, but fun month. Happy Halloween!
Math
Our mathematics study for this month has been a lot of practicing times multiplication tables. Zoey is up to the six times tables now and we are practicing through word problems, practice sheets and our most effect way - math games, including multiplication war. We are focusing on these basic concepts to make sure she has them down before moving on to the more complex problems.
Multiplication Mosaics are a fun way to practice times tables
We also covered place value, comparing numbers (i.e. greater than, less than and equal too), and rounding. Zoey was spot on with place value and comparing, but we need a little more time to focus on rounding. We did several exercise and she has improved greatly, but we will continue to practice.
Halloween themed time practice
We began to cover time as well this month, focusing on the phrases "quarter til" and "quarter after." Telling time is not the problem, but these are well used descriptions of time that we are practicing so she can understand them more easily. We've used fun practice sheets like this as well as games of bingo and matching.
Zoey original word problem
Reading
This month our reading focus was "Matilda." We finished the book pretty quickly. Zoey really enjoyed it. It's one of my favorites. We also watched the movie and did a compare and contrast of the two. Zoey has really good reading comprehension and will offer details of the story I don't even remember. We had a lot of fun with this story.
Reading "Matilda" at the coffee shop.
Zoey does a great job talking about the book and how it compares and contrasts to the movie. It was a heart breaker because she did a video earlier with over six minutes of detailed explanation and the video messed up and didn't save. She is a little less enthusiastic in this redo video, but I still wanted to share it because you can see (even in a frustrated state) how much she understands about what she is reading. Though, she will tell you she'd rather watch the movie.
Spelling
We have found a good rhythm for our spelling unit. We are using a Spectrum Spelling workbook to find words. Every other week we go through one or two Spectrum lists to find words where Zoey needs extra practice. Once we have a list of ten, she practices the words in different ways. She has a Graffiti wall that she writes them all in unique lettering. Then she has a spelling menu that offers many different way to practice the words. Some examples include writing them in alphabetical order, writing them with the vowels in different colors, looking up the definition to each word, creating a crossword puzzle, and many more. She picks a couple of these to practice, then we have a spelling test where I call out the words to her. If she still has trouble with it, we save it for another week. So far, this has been working out really great.
Spectrum Spelling, Lesson 8
Language Arts
This is an interesting subject because it goes hand in hand with several of the other English subjects. When we go through the Spectrum Spelling workbook, there are all kinds of different mini Language arts lessons. This month we've learned about how to add "-er" and "-est" to the end of words, including the special rules of doubling the constant after most short vowel, one subject words (i.e. "wet" becomes "wetter" and "hot" becomes "hottest"). We also learned how to turn nouns into adjectives by adding a "y" (i.e. "cloud" turns into "cloudy" or "rain" into "rainy").
We are also learning different dictionary skills including how to see what part of speech a word can but used as and how that can change the definition slightly. Zoey is also doing very well with syllables of words, she can identify how many a word has and where the emphasis is on the word.
We are working on Parts of Speech. This is one subject that we integrate a little bit into all kinds of activities surrounding reading and writing. By understanding the parts of speech, Zoey is able to make sentences easier and add more details in her writing. These are small steps, but they add up quickly as we begin to learn more vocabulary.
Writing
In "Matilda," Ms. Honey talks about limericks and then Matilda creates one on the spot. We read several limericks and then tried to write one ourselves. It is a complicated poems style because there are several rules to follow. We did out best, though they ended up being really funny as we tried make different words rhyme.
After reading a short story called, "The Bubbling Cauldron" about a magic potion going hilariously wrong, Zoey created her own magic potion and wrote about it. Her potion was a more efficient way to test your DNA.
We also learned about Shape poetry. Zoey wrote this awesome poem about a Halloween cat. We even saw a black cat while we were out Trick-or-Treating!
Science
Science is one of Zoey's favorite subjects, so we've done several large and small projects over the course of this month.
Fruity Ice Slush Experiment
This science experiment came from our Usborne "50 Science things to make and do" book. We learned how salt lowers the freezing temperature to make a liquid turn into a slush without direct contact to the ice. It was a fun experiment, but we used V8 instead of fruit juice, which caused us to have a faulty outcome. You can read more about this experiment HERE.
The Human Body
We studied the Human Body in depth last month, but Zoey got some new information from watching some of her YouTube videos and wanted to share with me what she learned. She explained how the stomach holds our food and then how our liver and kidneys work together the digest, absorb and process our food before it goes to the bladder or intestines. Since we focused on the circulatory system last month, I was impressed with how she wanted to take it a step further and found out more.
Tinker Tank Construction at the Science Center
The Pacific Science Center is one of our favorite places to go, explore and learn. We can spend hours at the Tinker Tank where they have all kinds of supplies to use to make anything your mind can imagine. On this day, Zoey made a complex arena for her friends to battle, full of arrows and hideaways.
Animal Habitats and Ocean Diorama
This section on Animal Habitats paired well with the Girl Scout badge her troop worked on this month. We learned about the different classifications of animals (i.e. mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians and mini beasts) and the various parts of the world they live in. Zoey chose to focus on the ocean first (which worked out perfectly with our field trip to the Vancouver Aquarium).
Zoey did such a great job on her Ocean Diorama. She spent some time painting it and choosing which animals to represent. She even got out her Skylander's ship to place in the ocean because the the coral would have a place to attach to and more animals could live around it.
She also looked up some animal facts about a seahorse, which is displayed in her ocean habitat.
Vampire Bats
In honor of Halloween, we did an animal study on Vampire Bats. This was a fascinating topic for both of us to learn about. We watched several good YouTube videos and read through lots of material to learn more. Zoey completed an animal fact sheet about Vampire Bats. Learn more about our study of Vampire Bats and the sources we used HERE.
Candy Catapults
We were really excited to build catapults and launch Halloween candy to begin our unit on data collection and graphing. This was a great STEM activity to design and engineer a construction and then see how it worked. We then launched candies to see how far they went and how accurate the three different catapult sizes were. We drew some great conclusions like the smallest catapult didn't launch very far, but it was the most accurate. Whereas, the largest catapult launched the furthest, but was also unpredictable in it's aim. You can read more detail about this experiment, how we made the catapults and our conclusions HERE.
This month was full of interesting things to learn about history. We had Columbus Day and Halloween to learn about. It is a lot of fun to learn with the seasons.
Columbus Day
A Study of Christopher Columbus
Columbus Day fell on Monday, October 8, this year. We learned about who Christopher Columbus was and what he is known for. Zoey was really interested in this study, so we spent a good bit of that day on it. I thought it was really fascinating how controversial this holiday is. Columbus wasn't really considered a very good guy and a lot of people think he shouldn't have a holiday in his honor. Zoey seemed most intrigued by the fact that he never realized he discovered a new world, he died thinking he had made it to the West Indies. That is how we got the term "Indians" for the Native Americans.
Halloween History and Traditions Around the World
We spent almost two weeks covering Halloween history and traditions. It was a lot of fun to apply the theme as an overall review for what we've learned in these past couple of months.
Social Studies
Canada
P.E.
Art and Music
Occupational Education
Extras
We do a lot in a month. Some of it is exciting and some of it is practice to learn more and master basic skills. Zoey loves being able to learn about things that are interesting to her, which helps us learn more than we thought we would about many subjects. Zoey loves to listen to music and do hands on activities during our school hours. We do lots of activities in and out of the house, sometimes on our own and sometimes with friends. We are both making new friends as we meet more people who also homeschool and try out new activities. I am very thankful that we have the opportunity to homeschool. I can see Zoey benefiting from this method of learning and I am so glad to have a curious, creative kid who is really appreciating studying new things.
In honor of Halloween, we've decided to study the dreaded Vampire Bats. One of the things we learned is that there is actually not much to worry about because Vampire Bats do not feed off of humans.
Zoey filled out this Animal Fact sheet as we learned more and more about this intriguing animals.
Zoey was surprised to learn that bats are mammals. Each mother has one pup a year who is dependent on her for two to three months. Turns out, bats are pretty dedicated mothers. To learn more about the life cycle of a bat we did this cut and paste activity thanks to Twink!...
We looked up several definitions including nocturnal, echolocation, microbat, megabat and insectivore.
We also used an article in Scholastic News to learn about the Tolga Bat Hospital in Australia that takes care of Fruit Bats and rehabilitates them when they are injured or lose their mother's care too young. This was a great addition to learn how helpful bats are to the environment by eating insects (microbats) or help pollinating plants as they eat fruit (megabats).
We learned a lot of interesting facts about Vampire bats and Bats in general. Bats are fascinating creatures and I am glad we took the time to learn more about them. If you have more resources, I'd love if you would share in the comments so we can learn even more.
In the spirit of Halloween, we created Candy Catapults to launch candy corn, candy pumpkins and other various candies.
Our first step was to build the catapults. We chose a simple design and followed the directions on this YouTube video thanks to Specific Love Creations:
The build went well. We used large Popsicle sticks, rubber bands and Menchie's Spoons (thanks to our favorite frozen yogurt franchise).
We made three different launchers, each of different heights for the base. The first one had 8 sticks, the second had 12 sticks and the third one had 16 sticks. Our goal was to compare and contrast how the height changed the launch data.
Now it was time to try them out...
It took a little bit of practice and adjusting, but then she figured out how it worked.
At this point, we should have made a hypothesis and planned out better what kind of data we were trying to collect. Honestly, we got so excited about the project that we just started chunking pumpkins (candy that is).
We lined up a tape measure along the edge of our table and let the candy fly. We kept track of how far each type of candy went from each of the three sizes of catapults.
Then it was time to start graphing! We quickly realized that we needed more data. Unfortunately, we had already put everything up for the time being, so we just worked with what we had. In future experiments, we will be a little more prepared.
We were lucky because on the day we completed the graph, Stephen was working from home and offered a few more statistics to track. He suggested we also find the range of the catapults to determine their accuracy.
The project was a lot of fun and Zoey learned lots about how graphs work and ways to better make visual representations of data.
We drew several conclusions from this experiment. The 8 stick catapult launched the least distance, but had the most accuracy. The 16 stick catapult launched the furthest, but it was also unpredictable in distance or direction.
We also came up with several things we could do differently next time. For example, collect more data points, alter the catapult design including changing the fulcrum point during launch. We also thought to try different types of candies or ammo.
We are interested in doing this experiment again, maybe around Christmas time so we can enjoy some of those candies too!
Zoey is really enjoying this homeschool clay class with Ms. Francis. This week her focus was on a Woodland habitat. She created this piece with a campfire, tree with an axe leaning against it and a pile of logs. It turned out great. Ms. Francis even said she used Zoey's creation to explain how to fasten each piece together, since Zoey did so well with that part of this one.
Zoey really likes this character, "Sun" that she created, so she drew her on this shard.
Zoey also made this black puppy dog. She emphasised his tongue sticking out, which I thought was great.
Since it was just before Halloween, Zoey created this pumpkin dish with a face.
Zoey is really enjoying her time in the studio working with clay. I love her imagination. She really takes her time and pays attention to detail. I'm so glad we found Ms. Francis and this homeschool class so that Zoey can explore this style of art.
We had a unique opportunity to participate in a Halloween inspired workshop at the MoPop Museum called "Glitter and Gore," which was all about stage makeup and costuming. The class was fantastic, we learned several tricks of the trade about how to create depth and texture to make a character really stand out.
Here we are, a clean slate, ready to go!
Two ladies, Kim and Amber, who specialize in makeup and special effects taught us as much as they could in the time provided. We learned about the contours of the face, how to shade color to accentuate different features and how to layer on colors to add depth. It was a great lesson, and then the fun part started as we got to experiment.
Mixing up gelatin to create a wound.
Application - the fun starts...but plug your nose, it smells bad until it dries. (Kim suggested adding essential oils to mask the smell.)
Looking good, now all we're missing is the blood.
Since this was a Halloween themed workshop, much of the instruction was about how to add makeup and accents to enhance a costume. Kim specialized in the gore side of the theme. She had great techniques to share using gelatin as an additive for wounds, scars and burns. It was a lot of fun to play with, especially as we began to add the makeup to look like bruises and scar tissue. Zoey was especially excited when Kim brought out her own bottle of homemade blood.
Kim was a great personality to meet, you can tell she loves what she does. Here Kim is helping Zoey add blood to her arm wound.
Though this was based on theater productions, Kim also shared other ways she uses her talents. She recently helped the fire department with a training exercise. She fixed wounds and burns on victims to be in the training to simulate real life trauma. She even explained how she made glass looking shards out of crystallized sugar to simulate glass being stuck in a wound. I was fascinated by this and really enjoyed the creative use of makeup.
Zoey's final product. I love it! It looks like she's being stuffed!
She had so much fun.
So did I! It started with a small wound, but somehow it kept getting bigger until it covered up my entire arm. It came out better than I thought it would.
I think it came out well. Zoey did the bruise on my face, she picked up on the skills very quickly.
As I shared these pictures on social media, I was very careful to put *Fake - stage makeup* in the title. The fact that a couple people still felt shocked at the gore made me feel really good because that means I learned something along the way. It was so much fun, and there's really a lot of give with the techniques, which is good for beginners like us. They gave us good tools, creative instruction, and lots of time to experiment. It was a great experience for both of us.
Adding a few last details.
A huge benefit to taking the Homeschooling class is a day pass to the MoPop museum exhibits. Zoey loves the Sound Lab and the Indie Game rooms. They also encouraged us to investigate the Horror exhibit for inspiration for our costumes and makeup for Halloween.
Zoey in the vocals sound booth
Zoey playing "Little Nightmare" in the Indie Game room.
Zoey also had one of her homeschool friends in the class with her. The girls had a great time hanging out while getting inspiration in the Horror exhibit. I thought it was creepy and Zoey thinks it's cool.
Zoey and her friend Kate checking out the coffin in the Horror section.
It was such a great afternoon. Days like this make me really glad that we homeschool. There is an entire community surrounding homeschooling and we are just getting our feet wet. We experienced so many great things, not only about makeup and costuming, but also about the body and way to use your knowledge in ways you wouldn't expect. Plus, it's fun!
