Monday 4 May 2020

Notebooks in a Charlotte Mason Education - Year 6


Moon Jelly Aurelia aurita - common ocean animal often washed up on beaches. There's a video about them here.



Science Notebook 

This year Moozle has recorded experiments from some of her science books e.g. Archimedes and the Door of Science; The Sea Around Us; The Elements and The Mystery of the Periodic Table. The experiment below was one she watched via video on the Periodic Table:





Archimedes and the Door of Science



 The Sea Around Us









We had a severe storm with large hailstones about a week ago so we did a study on what causes hail and watched the short video below which explains it reasonably well. The hailstones were the largest we've experienced and made a tremendous racket as they hit the roof. They were about the size of eggs and we ended up with a smashed skylight and damaged pergola.








Nature Notebook

We've been using this series of videos on basic water colour techniques by John Muir and also some by Alphonso Dunn on using ink & watercolours to get some direction and help in this area. Moozle has also been inspired by the watercolouring in A Country Diary of an Edwardian Woman. I wrote a little about that here.





The Portuguese Man O' War or Bluebottle was mentioned in the fourth chapter of The Sea Around Us and around the same time as we were reading through that chapter, we went to the beach and there were heaps of them washed up on the sand. Moozle managed to get stung twice but fortunately, the bluebottles we get here are not the tropical nasties. The stings hurt but what hurt more was the bull ant bite she got a few days later out the back! I know because I got one on the under part of my foot and it was awful!
For an introductory video on recognising bluebottles and treating their sting see here. A marine-stinger fact sheet is here.










The Portuguese Man O' War is an interesting creature. It's not a true jellyfish but a colony of four different types of animals. My nature journal entry:




Bull Ant





We started a tree study earlier this month. So, of course, the best way to do that is to get up in the tree and have a good look.




Poetry Notebook







17 comments:

Aflyonmyhomeschoolwall said...

Oh, her journals (and yours) are so lovely. I grew up near the beach, and this post has made me homesick for my childhood. Thank you for the watercolor video link. I have an artist who will really, really enjoy it!!

Ritsumei said...

That's lovely!! Thank you.

Carol said...

I've never lived too far from the ocean although I've moved around lots. Isn't youtube so handy for things like this!

Carol said...

Thank you & you're welcome :)

Celeste said...

Moozle's work is so lovely! Her science journal work is really top-knotch. My kids will find this very inspiring for their own science journals -- they love seeing how other kids keep their notebooks. And I'm guessing Gianna's will really like the rainbow poetry copybook as well! :)

Carol said...

Thanks Celeste! She is always encouraged when I show her comments like this. They help temper my leanings to be more critical than encouraging at times!!

Lucy Casey said...

Moozle's work is inspiring to me! I grew up near the water in New Zealand and had an obsession with tide pools which I'm revisiting right now while I visit family :)

Carol said...

Nice!! N.Z. is a fabulous place for nature study - so diverse and dramatic. Enjoy your stay.

The girl who painted trees said...

I wasn't sure how to go about Science Notebooks and found your post. Her notebook entries are lovely. Are you using the Young Reader's version of the Sea Around Us?

Carol said...

Yes. It's the edition recommended by AO & is well illustrated & a good size. I've seen the standard version & wouldn't have used that - it had small print & wasn't illustrated. Not sure how much was left out of the Young Reader edition but there was certainly plenty of detail to satisfy anyone. I learnt lots!

The girl who painted trees said...

I can only find copies of the Young Reader edition for around $30. Is it worth that price? I requested it through interlibrary loan, but that doesn't mean I will get it. I was able to see inside the regular edition and the text size was definitely a deterrent!

Carol said...

That's about what I paid before postage. It's used over a whole year & I haven't seen anything else that covers both marine biology & oceanography so my answer is, yes, I think it's worth it. I've used it for my youngest two & I spent some time deciding whether it was worth trying to find the book & then pay to get it shipped to Australia. It does contain evolutionary concepts but I read it aloud & either edited slightly or just explained where she was coming from. If you decide to use it, let me know & I'll post some videos etc I used after reading each chapter which were quite helpful to visualise some of what she talks about.

The girl who painted trees said...

I found it for $20 in the end and am so glad I got it. Thank you. I'd love those video links if you have time.

Carol said...

Great! I just posted the YouTube links and a Pinterest board yesterday:

http://journey-and-destination.blogspot.com.au/2017/07/review-of-amblesideonline-year-6-second.html

Sharon Wilfong said...

Every time I look at the work homeschoolers do, I see how they just burst with the joy of learning. Everything under the sun and the sun is something to get excited about and interested in.

That was the problem I saw with so many public school students when I taught. They don't want to be there. They hate school and hate trying to learn anything. Any joy or interest they might have had is sucked out of them by the stress and being stuck in a desk filling out worksheets.

Carol said...

I used to count down the days towards the end of every school year once I hit high school. It just didn't seem to have any connection to the real world for me. I had some good years (one or two stand out) in my earlier school years but I have to say my education really took off when I left school.
This was an older post, Sharon, and I'd been fiddling around with my subscriber link & must have resent this post. It's not the first time I've done this!

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