Went to Home School Day at the Ball Park in Arlington to see the Texas Rangers play the Oakland Athletics. Our team lost, but we had a wonderful time. We saw a few bats get broken and a player tossed out of the game. Might I add, I had to find my way to the ball park by myself and was never so glad to get somewhere!
Geography - armed with a list of all the baseball teams in the National League and the American League the kids have been locating the cities and states each team calls home, on the map. They are using road atlas', magnifying glasses and larger maps. While doing this they are learning how to read addresses and to determine if a name is a city or state. They seems to have quite a bit of fun with this. It is a discovery activity and thus I just assist and guide. I do not show and tell them where anything is located.
I typed up all the team names along with their home city and state. I had Madilynn cut them out and divide them in piles of teams and locations. Then I had the kids sort the teams by land animals, sea animals and air animals vs. non-animals. They learned that a Ranger is not a horse, even though the team mascot is one! Madilynn also sorted the teams into groups of 5 and counted by 5's to get the total number of teams. The discovered most of the teams are not named after animals at all.
We are reading a variety of books on the subject of baseball. This week we learned about Cal Ripken and his team, the Boston Orioles' great losing streak. 21 games in a row that team lost. It was a good book and good story of perseverance.
A little baseball history is being digested as we read through various historical moments in the sport. The Merkle Moment and the race to the most home runs are but a few.
Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting Baseball with Football - the kids came up with many thoughtful differences and similarities.
I have never fully appreciated baseball all these years, but it is growing on me! Mitchell wakes up most mornings with his glove and ball in his hand and is ready to play. He never expressed an interest in playing little league baseball until recently. We have tossed the ball around a great deal and have so much fun doing so. Cache tries to get in on the action too! Mitchell even crafted me a Mother's Day card out of cut out baseballs down to the red stitching. (which is done by hand, by the way and is amazing to watch)
Wow, you're a brave woman to take on a unit on baseball. Me? I know absolutely nada about the game and went to a game there at the Ballpark in Arlington once and just grooved on watching people.
With Samuel quickly approaching "that age" when sports will become more his thing I better get on the ball, forgive the pun, it was unintentional :-).
We're finally seeing the sun for twelve hours straight and drying out, how about you guys?
Have a great week!
Blessings, Julie
I am a wife and Mother who's brain moves too fast, in too many directions, at the same time! I am quite eclectic and dichotomos in my approach to most things. I love French Country, painted furniture, flawless, traditional wood finishes and chippy peely, old treasures.
Something old next to something new is so charming. Sparkly is great if kept to a minimum. Needing schedule and list to accomplish most things, I get bored quickly with routines. I love conservative talk radio!
Chocolate is a fav as is cheesecake, pizza and fish tacos. I enjoy baking, cooking with new recipes, reading, being outside with the family, camping and watching a good movie. Writing is fun for me and maybe, just maybe one day I will write a book!
I wish I had a library in my house and the time to read each book.
