Greeks in the House!

Ancient Greece.
Exhibits at museums usually guide my lessons. Check out a current or upcoming exhibit if you are out of ideas, and that should help you. The Field Museum has an amazing exhibit on Ancient Greece that is partnered by the National Hellenic Museum. Once I heard about that, my brain went on overdrive.
These are the materials I used for my lesson (most of the books I requested from the public library):

• Ancient Greece Kids Discover online
• Kids Discover Ancient Greece Lesson Plan- Vocabulary
• How They Made Things Work! The Greeks by Richard Platt
• Ancient Greeks by Joe Fullman
• 100 Facts Ancient Greece by Miles Kelly
• Classic Greek Architecture: The Construction of the Modern by Alexander Tzonis & Phoebe Fiannisi
• Ancient Greece Revealed Book by Peter Chrisp*
• Looked up Plato's quotes and talked about what they mean

The lesson took about over a week including the field trip to the museum. It turns out his previous school was going there so I arranged to meet up with them on the same day to visit the exhibit.

Last year, we did a lesson on Archimedes and of course he was mentioned repeatedly in the lesson. We reviewed what he had learned in the past and if there was something new in what we were reading about it. There is a lot of discussion in our lessons. We tend to stop because Vincent wants to talk about something we are reading and come up with his own conclusions. 

On his own, he decided to make a pulley system with Legos (again, it haunts me sometimes) with the guide of the Richard Platt book (above):

During the lessons, I try to connect the past with our current life today. For example, we ate at a Greek Restaurant and we noticed that the Ancient Greek diet was reflected in the menu. Since we live in the mecca of architecture, I point out buildings that reflect the Greek Revival designs. Sometimes, he will point them out to me before I can say anything. Vincent's dad gave him a lesson on the Greece's current economy. What struggles they have and why? What can they do to help their economy? I'm still waiting for a video I requested from the library about Rick Steve's Greece. I want to show him how it is like today. 

In the book, Classic Greek Architecture, we came across this page. Vincent talked about the diagrams and explained to me about what were the columns, stairs, walls (I had no clue) and spacing. It was pretty cool.

For our final lesson, Vincent came up with a Lego competition; V vs Mom&Dad. Following a diagram he created, we had less than 20 minutes to build it. It is a diagram of a Greek temple with a god or goddess in the center:

Blueprint of Diagram:

Mom & Dad's:

Vincent's (he happened to finish before the time and decided to build a name plate & added a worshipper):

Yep we suck. Oh well!!

*Great book that uses transparencies to show before and after. Also had items from the Greek exhibit at the Field Museum.

Cells in My Way!

One day Vincent was perusing through BrainPOP and came across cells. He decided he wanted to learn about cells in our body. He has taken an interest in nutrition and health and how the body needs certain elements to function.

This led me to come across Ponder Monster: What are Cells Anyway? by Jen Adair

What a great book! I actually got it free on Kindle Unlimited on my phone. We tried to view it on the iPad but it wasn't free on there (?) so we did what we could on the screen of my iPhone.

Jen Adair really breaks it down for me, oops, my son to understand. I can't lie. All these homegrown lessons I do with my son, I'm learning too. I don't remember learning anything throughout my grade school years & middle school years, so this is my opportunity to do it. It's actually fun!

Back to the book, the author came up with some great examples to understand each function of the cell. 

My son mentioned that one of his friends said that if we break a cell, we all die. 

I pointed out to him how many cells does he think I have on my finger? Millions. OK, so if one dies, will I die? Nope. 

Then, we talked about why a cell dies and we discussed about diseases like cancer. 

After the story was over, he began to come up with ways to possibly increase the number of lysosomes or make them stronger to fight off the diseases. This is good. You want your student to think outside of the box. Whether you can or you cannot, it's not for your to judge their ideas because the reality is we don't know. There have been so many advances in the healthcare field that are mind boggling. I am honest with Vincent and tell him I don't know but that he can study more about it and find out.  

For review, he had to name each part of the cell and its function. I would have him repeat it when he got it wrong until he got all the answers correct. We also cracked an egg and took a look at it to decipher it since eggs are the only cells we can see with the naked eye. 

The Day an Egg Solved the Mystery of  the Cell is a great supplemental lesson.
We also read and discussed how current research is using plant oils to attack cancer cells:

http://www.healthy-holistic-living.com/essential-oils-stop-cancer-in-its-tracks.html?t=LT