We are looking at the science of winter this year. Animals and their different adaptations are an interesting nature study for winter. Much of our study was inspired by the "Great White North" Nature Study from FortheLoveofHomeschooling.com
One of our questions we wanted to dig into more is where do insects go in the winter?
Another question is: How do the birds know when it's time to migrate?
And how do they know where to go?
We researched the "flyways" that birds used and colored the 4 main flyways onto our bird migration map.
This Song is a fun reminder of the different adaptations animals use to weather the winter.
Where do Bugs go in Winter? Also mentions frogs and snakes.
Flyways of the great migration:
How do birds prepare for migration?
Why do animals migrate back when the weather warms up?
We are getting excited for the Great Backyard Bird Count happening February 17-20th. I love that our study of birds is overlapping this event!
We are beginning our Christmas trip around the world with countries in Africa and South America and then moving to countries in Europe because that is where our studies have been this semester.
We are also focusing on Light in our science studies as we observe the change in light as we move to the Solstice and anticipate Christmas and celebrating The Light the World, Jesus Christ, As we travel around the world we will be looking for light and participating in the Light the World challenge.
First Stop on our trip around the world: Christmas in South Africa!
We listened to some beautiful African Christmas music first:
We have been learning about some African Instruments. The Kalimba is a neat "thumb piano" and we enjoyed watching this performance.
We learned some things about what South Africans eat and do to celebrate Christmas here. There are many countries listed and we are looking forward to learning a lot of new things! This is a great resource!
We are studying Chocolate! Why? It started because of 3 things:
We were studying countries in Africa (with LiftEd) and one thing we learned is that almost half of the world's chocolate comes from African countries. (Africa Month 8) We have also been talking about how slavery and child labor has a history with chocolate, including today (Slavery Month 8). These are sobering topics to discuss. They affect today's children so it matters to us!
We are starting to look at some countries in South America (Latin America Month 9) right now as well. Since cacao beans grow along the equator, we have been learning about the Mayans and about their chocolate experience and how the Spanish encountered chocolate (Spanish Main Month 2 -which is where we should be on the rotation schedule, but we are loving wandering around right now!)
We are still working through our Botany Study that we started over the summer. Cacao trees are so cool and have been a neat plant to add into our study! (We are using this science unit in a very WEH way so that it suits our Family Academy learning style.)
And also, its almost Halloween so there are treats on everyone's mind. What better time to learn about one of our favorite treats? We are also studying the human body (Human Body Month 9) because this time of year there are skeletons everywhere. We will look into digestion of chocolate too!
I'm sharing some of our resources for our study. These resources we found on YouTube:
