Sounds and Hearing Lesson Plans (Trey)

I realized not long ago, that I've not been posting on Trey's progress. This is in part because I just can't find but a few extra minutes in my day to blog, and that's usually spent posting about Lindsay's Tot School progress. I know that I said I wasn't going to post Trey's lesson plans because he is doing a pre-packaged curriculum, but I've recently decided that I really would like to keep an online record of everything we're doing just in case we ever need it. So I will do my best to post our weekly lesson plans / activities.

I will begin using a system called "Workboxes," as soon as I gather all of our necessary supplies. (I have everything except velcro...of all things!) I don't want to mention too much about them yet, because I'm not sure if I'll hate them or not. It seems to be working beautifully for everyone else that is using them, so I'm really hoping they'll help Trey stay on task and more focused on his work. He seems to have a bit of Spring Fever and it's sooo hard trying to get him to sit down and do his work! So I can't wait to get started on this new system. Stay tuned for further review!! :)

Science: Sound / Hearing

Discuss How Sounds Are Made, What You Hear, What is Sound, and The Study of Sound. Discuss sound and the important historic figures that helped contribute to the study of sound; discuss frequency, pitch, and noise.

Activities: Make a drum and guitar to illustrate that sound is caused by vibrations. Go on a Listening Walk and chart the sounds that we heard and whether they were caused by people, animals or things. Play Marco Polo and fill water glasses with different levels of water to show that sounds are different and how they can change. Listen to sounds made through a hollow tube (paper towel roll), and one stuffed with paper towels to demonstrate quality of sound changes according to different factors. Stretch out a slinky between 2 partners - gather large section of coils and let go to demonstrate how sound waves move.

Discuss How Sounds Are Different, How Sounds Travel, How Sound is Used By Scientists, and How God Helps Us With Sound. Sound can be used to help find oil and minerals. Discuss Sonar, and Ultrasounds. Discuss God's love for us and that he gave us 2 ears so that we may hear all the wonderful sounds around us.

Activities: Go out to the boat and discuss how sonar can be used to find fish. I also showed him a copy of my ultrasound pictures from when he was a baby.

Discuss How Sounds Are Heard, How Do You Hear?, How is Hearing Helped?, and How Do You Make Sounds? Discuss the three parts of the ear: the inner, middle and outer ear. Talk about hearing aids and how they help some people. Talk about how we make sounds using our larynx and vocal chords.

Activities: Make a model ear using a large bowl, plastic wrap, uncooked rice, and a tin pie pan. Stretch a piece of plastic wrap over the bowl. Make sure it's stretched tightly. Place about 20 - 30 grains of rice on top of the plastic wrap. Hold the pie plate (or other noisemaker) close to the plastic wrap. Hit the pie plate hard to create a loud noise. Note that the loud noise that we made produced sound waves. The sound waves caused the plastic wrap to vibrate. When the plastic wrap vibrated, the rice grains jumped. Sound waves cause your eardrum to vibrate in much the same way.

Reading: Helen Keller - Toward the Light

Math: Continue working on fractions, equivalent fractions; Roman Numerals: I, V, X, L, C, D, M and combinations of each; adding money; graphing; angles; temperature; 4 digit addition and subtraction.

Language Arts: Homographs - tear, read, live.

Spelling: ie / ei

believe seize piece die
ceiling receive eight sleigh
thief fries eighty weigh
neither pie eighteen field
either lie tie chief

Chart each word by the long vowel sound that it makes (A, E, I). Discuss that the long /a/ sound is made when the gh is added behind an ei.

Poetry: Haiku - Japanese poems that don't always rhyme. They have 3 lines with 5 beats in the first line, 7 beats in the second, and 5 in the third (17 beats total). At least one word in the poem must refer to a season of the year.

Trey's Haiku sample: (I gave him an extra-large bank of words from which he should pick)

Sprinkle, splashing, splat!
Boots are dripping, and drops drumming.
Springtime begins. Splash!

I thought this was AMAZING!!!

We're starting a collection of our favorite poems - and he will start including these on his personal blog.

Mini-Lesson on Japanese culture / customs (I even taught him what few Japanese words I remembered from my foreign language requirement in HS!!)

Science/Reading tie-in: Discuss how Helen Keller was an amazing poet. Read Autumn by Helen Keller and talk about the wonderful descriptive language used in this poem. ALSO: discuss how Helen Keller actually dedicated that poem to her good friend, Thomas Edison (one of the historic figures mentioned above)!

History: continue work on Texas/Texarkana Lapbook