Unit 28: Preparing

History: This week we moved from the middle ages to the age of exploration. We first learned about Gutenberg who invented the printing press and the invention of gunpowder. These two things changed the world. With the printing press people could now have books and learn about the world. Gunpowder put an end to castles, armor, arrows and changed the way wars were fought....the end of the middle ages. The rest of the week we learned about Christopher Columbus, Magellan, and the discovery of the new world!We also learned about the Aztec, Inca, Maya's, and the European explorers who conquered them. It was pretty sad that the Native Americans did not have modern day weapons and were no match to the cannons and guns of the Europeans. It was not a war, since the natives did not have a fair chance. 

Our time line is getting really long! We added 2 cards this week ( Columbus and Magellan) 

Sis researched Gutenberg and the printing press to find out as many facts as she could. Here's a cute short cartoon that we found for something extra...

For her history project Sis made a braided bookmark for her bible with 3 braids that can be placed in 3 different places. We talked about how after print was invented people finally had access to the bible. We used the bookmark the rest of the week to help Sis learn to find the books of the bible easily. This project related to our history because we learned that now that the world had printed books many people were able to have a bible and learn to read it's words for themselves.

Math: Sis took her final math test over long division and only missed 3 and none of those 3 were long division problems. She is doing MathUSee, Delta level this year and she will be doing Epsilon next year for 5th grade. She's so happy to be done with the division part of her curriculum though. Some of those problems were taking forever to do and then it would still come out wrong ( like 578,962 divided by 136) The one area in math that we need a  lot of work on yet is weights and measurements, like converting lbs to tons and oz to gallons etc. After we finish this years math curriculum completely. We're gonna go back and take a couple weeks to really learn all of those things that she always misses on her tests.

Reading: Sis read the book Pedro's Journal. This one she is reading aloud to me. This is a fictional book that is written as the journal of a young boy aboard the Santa Maria with Columbus as he travels to the new world. This book has done a good job of helping us to imagine what it was like to travel by ship in a time when it was really dangerous. Nobody really knew where they were going, if they would fall off the earth, or return home to tell of their journey.
We also finished reading Door in the Wall, thankfully!

  
 Science: In science ( Apologia anatomy) we moved on to a new chapter. We started learning about the brain! Sis made a tiny little brain out of clay and learned the 3 main parts: cerebrum, cerebellum, and brain stem.