Report on our studies

I forgot to post a review of what we have been doing the last few weeks. May has been flying by. We have been enjoying our studies and seem to be learning a lot.

Our composer for the month is Ludwig Van Beethoven. Sophie has loved Beethoven for a few years now. She first got acquainted with him through the movie Fantasia. She loves his 6th Symphony, the pastoral, and the 5th because they are the ones Disney put to animation. Sophie was able to see his 5th Symphony performed a year or so ago which only cemented her love for Beethoven.
After listening to all the programs on Beethoven from Classics for Kids. We have gathered a bunch of books about Beethoven and even a few videos to watch. We haven't read through or watched all of these yet but these are the books we are using during our study.
We have listened to that classical Kids Beethoven Lives upstairs CD about 3 times already. They all enjoyed watching the DVD of this story also.

What Sophie thought was incredible was when we looked at the timeline and figured out the Beethoven lived almost the same time as Kaya, the American Girl we have been studying. I am surprised how much Ian loves these stories. We are just starting the third book in the series and they always get excited when I say it is time to read some more about Kaya. Along with the story books we found the Kaya's World book at the Library.
Since Nez Perce were the people to breed the Appaloosa we have also been studying all about horses, Appaloosas in particular. Sophie loves to read about horses! On Friday we went to the fabric store and bought a few yards of tan colored fleece. We are going to make some "Kaya outfits". Ian is so excited to dress up as an indian/ native american. Sophie has been drawing all sorts of Teepees and such lately as a result of our studies. The kids want to build teepees and travois' next. Sophie even wants to make a Tee Kaas for a doll too. We are enjoying reading these stories and are learning a lot about Native American culture.

Our artist for May is Vincent Van Gogh. We haven't done much more then read a few books and watch one video about Van Gogh. The kids did a good job coloring some pictures for the Masterpiece coloring book I have.Can you tell which one Henry did?

Sophie has been working on her Math quite a bit this last week. She is getting the idea of multiplication. Counting by 2,3,3 and 5 are becoming easier and easier for her which is a leap forward!

For Science, we are still studying plants and trees. Our Green Hour Challenges have really helped us get out and really look at the flowers and trees in our neighborhood.
While at the library this week I found a Reading Rainbow episode called Once there was a Tree. The kid always like it when they get to watch a DVD and call it "School". We also read a bunch of books about trees, and flowers. We especially love the books aboutDandelions and then we had to go and blow a few to watch the seeds scatter.

We have also been working on memorizing one Article of Faith. Sophie was able to recite the 7th for the Bishop on Sunday to get her candy. Ian needed a little help to do the 2nd and Henry was able to at least say all the words to the first. So we are progressing there too.

So we are learning a lot and continue to thrive.

Ian is so excited to start Swim lessons today! Henry will not be happy when Sophie and Ian get to go to their classes and he has to just watch.