The Great Lessons, Lesson 2- The Coming of Life: Part 1

This week Doodle continued working with his timeline art cards, and began Lesson 2, The Coming of Life.

I don't think that I have actually posted a picture of the art history timeline cards. They are from TeachersPayTeachers for $3, I figure we will be using them long enough that they were worth laminating. There are 22 three-part cards (so 66 pieces) covering art from the stone age through modern. Right now Doodle is working with cards 1-11.

For Lesson 2, I used Miss Barbara's Story of the Coming of Life- modified on the fly. I told the story a little each day and we completed it through the Permian.

To coordinate with the Coming of Life, I put together a packet on cells. I went to TeachersPayTeachers and searched for free materials on cells. So, everything was free except I the Cell Graphic Organizer by Bond with James that I purchased for $3.50.

If I had been on the ball, I would have asked Doodle to layout the inside material differently where he could have cut between each word. Then, he could have lifted each flap individually and used the lapbook as a study aid. The way he glued the information on the inside flaps prohibits cutting, but it is attractive and logically well-organized. I just wanted the share about cutting between the strips in case anyone saw it and thought about make one. 

From Montessori Print Shop, I bought the four individual items for 6 Kingdoms of Life. Although I felt like this would just be review, it was worth the < $8 to print and cut the material. It turns out that he did need a refresher for putting kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. Also he didn't mind having the easier cards in his material.

I also created some cards for the big five mass extinction events using information from the BBC website. The information was begging to by printed out on cards.

Here is how I organized and stored the materials. With the materials primarily being flat, one cubbyhole was enough. The microscope has its own cubby, and the prepared slides and other microscope stuff is in the cubby to the left of the microscope.

Doodle read The Big Picture Book by John Long, and we talked about trilobites, sea scorpions, sea lilies, and giant dragonflies. We are trying to hatch some triops. It has only been a couple of days, but so far nothing has hatched. :( I hope they do!

I used the Clock of Eras and some information from fossils-facts-and-finds. I was sure to include the explanation of the color choices, because I like the thoughtfulness behind them and also because they are also the colors used on The Timeline on Life.

As a giant mommy project, this week I began I creating our very own Timeline of Life. I worked alongside the story, so it is completed through the Permian. I'll do a separate post explaining what all went into creating it, but here is a picture: