Last week of school!!!!

       This will be our last week of "formal" school. After this we will keep up our math, reading, and writing skills a few days a week!! We are all so excited!!! Ian will work in TRL and his review math book and the girls will just have reading time each day along with xtramath on the computer or I pad. I will throw in writing practice once a week for them such as a letter or card or just a paragraph. 

I always give the kids a fun end of the year unit and project. We have done a water unit before going to the lake, an animal classification unit with a diorama before a zoo trip, and a Disney unit before a trip to Disney World. We are not doing a big vacation or trip this summer so we are doing a lap book on detectives!! The kids are all into playing spies and watching spy shows. I am trying to get some Where in World is Carmen San Deigo videos for them to watch! I broke our lap book up into 4 days though it could take longer or shorter depending on  what you want to accomplish each day. We had our last day of co op for the year this week as well so that is why I went with a four day study. I found our lap book  free at homeschool share.com

Ian did  the following work each day this week which took him  about 30 minutes. 

Reading

Math

Story time

Calendar

Keyboarding 

The girls did the following each day which took them about 45 minutes to get done. 

Read Aloud for 15 minutes

Xtramath

Piano practice 

Keyboarding

Language review worksheets 

Each day I also read from a mystery book, The Westing Game. We discussed the parts that make it a mystery. I also let the kids watch and episode of Where on Earth is Carmen San Deigo. 

Day 1:

We discussed detectives: what they do and how they do it. They solve crimes and help find criminals by using clues like fingerprints, shoe prints, hair analysis, sketches, and more. We made a flap book with this information. We added a match book about what a criminal is to our lap books along with a cover. All three kids made their basic lap book out of a file folder. We had a good discussion on what we will be learning this week in our study. 

Day 2: 

Today we learned about our fingerprints and that we all have different ones that make us unique! We learned about the three kinds of marks on prints: arch, loop, and whirl. We looked at our own finger prints and found the patten in them and also copied the verse Psalm 139:4 " I will praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." 

We also talked about how detectives use hair analysis to find suspects. We added a section to our lap books where we compared two hair samples! We made a Venn diagram of them. 

Day 3:

We did some art when we discussed how detectives use sketches to help identify a suspect. The kids had fun making their sketches! 

We also talked about shoe prints and how they can help solve a case or crime. From a foot print you can tell if a person was walking or running and how fast, their shoe size, and type of shoe. We went looking for footprints since it rained last night! 

Day 4: 

 We focused on handwriting analysis today and how a detective can use it to find a suspect and identify them. We saw how indentions left on paper can be read if you dust it. We also learned how a persons signature is unique and has special markers. It is kind of like connect the dots. 

We had so much fun with our unit!! For a fun conclusion we have planned a mystery night where we will play clue and watch a movie with a detective in it!!! 

Here is a video that the kids made about what we did this week! 
https://www.facebook.com/lisa.vanevera/videos/10209663452046597/?l=7372593071254185367

Even though we are technically done for they year we all know that no one ever stops learning : ) We are going to enjoy of slow paced summer! We have family coming to visit and play dates with friends along with church camps, music lessons, musical camp, bible school, and MORE!!! 

I am so thankful that we were blessed with a great Kindergarten and Third Grade year. It is a little sad to think that now I will have two fourth graders and a first grader along with my two year old!!!! Blessings to all as you continue on with your homeschool journey this summer!