Tag Archives: homeschooling

Hipprocrates, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates

For Hippocrates we did a review of anatomy since he is known as the father of medicine.

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We also read his mini bio, here.

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The boys really liked these Usborne books.

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I had trouble finding books for Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle so I used their mini bio’s I found online as well.

After we read their bio I would read some quotes from them and then we would discuss what we thought they meant.

We had been starting out our mornings reading Aesop’s Fables in the same way so the boys are pretty good at it now.

The Fables were written in around the same time so we were reading them for our literature.

Read the real thing.

Not the washed down version that leaves everyone with happily every after.

The Grasshopper dies because he did not plan for the winter, he does not spend a cold miserable winter learning his lesson so that he can plan for the next one…

 

It is also very enlightening to learn about slaves in Ancient Greece.

Many of these great thinkers had slaves to do everything for them, thus giving them plenty of time to develop ideas and theories.

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These are my boys favorite history books.

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I do not even have to tell them to read them.

I just put them in our library book basket and they snatch them out.

Making Grammar and Spelling Fun.

Brian Cleary

Sometimes learning facts about any subject gets BORING.

Although I really like our curriculum that we use for Grammar and spelling, it is still curriculum.

We need to change it up once in a while.

These books by Brian P. Cleary are so much fun!

insidethebooks

The boys will read them over and over again!

We also watch a lot of “Schoolhouse Rock” on Disney’s youtube channel and Grammaropolis.

My boys could watch Grammaropolis’ video “Do you Qualify?” all day.

Veggie Tales has a really fun silly song about Homophones as well.

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We really like Zip-It for spelling practice.

I give the boys a list of spelling words we are learning to choose from and they have to use one of those for their first word.

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My youngest is really good at this game!

I like scrabble also.

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What do you do to make learning fun?

The Greeks and the Olympics

 

 Along with our study of the Astronomy, we were also learning about the Greeks and the first Olympics!

 

The Greeks and the Olympics ~daniellehuddlestonphotography.com

If you are looking for a great interpretation of the Odyssey for kids then check out Mary Pope Osborne’s (author of the Magic Tree House) “Tales From the Odyssey”.

I chose a story from this version to compare to another adult version I had already.

I have to admit that I have not really read the Odyssey before but I really enjoyed comparing the two with my boys.

They are starting to get to such a fun age to teach!

 

The “YOU CHOOSE Ancient Greece” was of course a big hit.

My boys get so much from these books!

They do all the scenarios trying to see what will happen and learn so much history while doing it!

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I have really liked this video series for kids, “Ancient Civilizations” this one was on Greece.

It is easy to understand and has nothing bad in it.

It might give you a butterfly and rainbows view of each culture but the boys and I discuss the downsides so that is okay.

The Greeks and the Olympics ~daniellehuddlestonphotography.com

We looked up what people in Ancient Greece might have eaten and that is what we had for lunch!

This was so much fun!

They had Fig Newtons in Ancient Greece.

Didn’t you know that?

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Sometimes you have to wing it when your store does not carry figs…

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I used the Lesson Plan on The Magic Tree House Classroom Adventures site to get some ideas for our Olympics.

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We decided to wear clothes instead of being authentic.

Clothing works better for pictures.

All I did for their tunics is cut a hole out of a rectangle of sheet and tie it with a rope belt.

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We did:

Discus

High Jump

Javelin

The Stade (race)

Wrestling

The Greeks and the Olympics ~daniellehuddlestonphotography.com

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I made a crown out of morning glory vines for the winner.

We did not have any Olive Tree branches lying around.

Since there are only two of them I had them wear it after every victory instead of waiting until the end.

The Greeks and the Olympics ~daniellehuddlestonphotography.com

javelinthrow

mark

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The victor of the Javelin!

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The Greeks and the Olympics ~daniellehuddlestonphotography.com

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The Stade.

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stade

wrestling

This one was not on the site but my boys had already read that there was wrestling so they insisted it be a part of our games.

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They saw right away why clothing was a problem.

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I don’t see why they did not include this in the lesson plan.

What?

You don’t want the children wrestling in school?

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We watched these events on the Olympics site to compare and get an idea of what it is supposed to look like.

 We don’t always get to do so much hands on for our history but it was so much fun!

I think the boys are going to remember the Greeks.