A New World: Preparing for the Olympics in Rio!

This is our last summer country-learning extravaganza week! After this blog post, I will be delving deep into planning for the school year, getting my classroom decorated and organized, and attending my ever-so-exciting inservice workshops, so don't expect to hear again from me any time soon.

We decided to end our summer learning with a bang by focusing on the thing the whole world seems to be focused on right now: the Olympics! I invited my sons to choose to either study about Brazil, or the Olympics, or a combination of the two. Both of them decided to do a combination to get a good feeling for the country the Olympics will be taking place in, along with the many events taking place.

This is what Ethan wrote about the Olympics this week:

Olympics

By:Ethan

Men’s Basketball

U.S.A’s basketball team commonly known as the “Dream Team” is very good in the olympic games and is hopefully ready for some gold medals.They have LeBron,Steph Curry,Kevin Durant, and Draymond Green.

Rio De Janeiro

Has a beautiful city and one of their main attractions is the Copacabana beach.It is possibly the world’s most beautiful beach and is very crowded every year

Olympic Sports

There is 39 sports in the olympics this year and it will be intense the most popular sports are basketball,Wrestling,Weightlifting,synchronised swimming,Swimming,table tennis,tennis, beach volleyball,triathlon,gymnastics,hockey,soccer,and fencing.These are only some though.

His writing is improving, but he still has a ways to go. I asked Ethan why he chose to include the last names of all of the basketball players except for LeBron, and he told me that everyone knows LeBron, so he did not need to include his last name. :)

I kind of failed on the culinary part of our journey since I was a little crunched for time this week, so I didn't really prepare any Brazilian-type meals. I thought about going out to a Brazilian steakhouse, though, which is a delicious treat that everyone needs to do at least once a year. I have been to a few, and I am never disappointed since I am a pretty ravenous carnivore when it comes to scrumptious meats.

To wrap up our journey for the summer, here are a few of the slides that the boys created while doing their Google slide presentations over the summer:

This is one of Alex's slides from his England presentation. He enjoyed learning about all of the different dogs that came from England.

Here is one of Ethan's slides about Rome. He enjoyed learning about Julius Caesar, and he wanted to know more about Italy's pizza, of course!

I hope you all enjoyed taking this virtual journey around the world with us this summer! I am going to try to post some more blogs throughout the school year, related to everyday things you can do with your children/students/young people in your life. I have lots of little tips and tricks that make learning fun rather than just a boring chore that kids feel they have to do. I am super excited to get this school year started, and I hope you will stick by me throughout my journey this year. I have a new writing program I will be implementing this year and some new ideas about making math and science fun as well. I will probably only post about once a month since I tend to get fairly busy with school, but I look forward to you all coming back to check out my blog!

I also welcome any ideas, questions, or suggestions you may have for the blog. I have a few ideas already spinning around my head for next summer and for school breaks as well. Hope you all have a wonderful rest of the summer, and I will most likely post again in September!

USA! USA! USA!

Did you figure out which country the blog post is about this week? The U.S.A., of course! I am a little behind on my posting, but since it was my sons' birthday this week (yes, that is plural. My sons were born on the same day, exactly three years apart!), I decided to let them pick the country. They picked their favorite country of all, the United States of America!

It just so happens that we also planned a family outing to enjoy America's past time as well. We went to Globe Life Park in Arlington to watch our beloved Royals take on the Rangers. Sadly, the Royals were swept this series, but it was still a blast!

I also wanted the boys to learn a bit about the United States before the Europeans came over, so I had them study about Native American culture as well. I thought it was important for them to know some of the customs and cultural traditions of the natives of this land in addition to learning about some of their favorite states. Alex decided to focus specifically on the states of Kansas, Illinois, and Texas, since those are the states in which our family has lived.

For the food this week, I was pretty happy to do an all-American week, although my waistline probably wasn't too happy about it. We had hamburgers, hot dogs, and some hearty beef stew.

Just to give you an idea of the types of research projects the boys have been producing, here is Ethan's for this week:

U.S.A

Founding Fathers

George Washington,John Adams,Thomas Jefferson,James Madison,james Monroe,Alexander Hamilton,and Benjamin Franklin are our Founding Fathers.These guys made the government that is in our world today.They all have many key events in their lives and they improved our lives today.

Native Americans

There are too many Native American tribes to count but two big ones are the Seminole tribe and the Shoshone tribe but there are many more! Some speak different languages than us, and all of them have different cultures. Some believe in different gods but some believe in the one God. All Native American tribes are different and it’s hard for us Americans to see that.

America Today

The world is a bad place, even America, but some people try to fix that. America has all different types of people that immigrated from all over the world and there are people who believe that they don’t belong with us. Well they're wrong and anybody can come to America.This is what makes America beautiful and a proud place to be in.

The National Anthem

Oh say can you see, by the dawn’s early light, Once o proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?Whose broad stripes and bright stars thro the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?And the rockets red glare,the bombs bursting in air,Gave proof through the night that the flag was still there.O, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O’er the land ofn the free and the home of the brave.Play Ball!

As you can see, he could use a little help in the writing department, but overall he did a great job researching the various countries this summer. In the next and final summer blog post, I will give you a little preview of the slide shows he has created.