Cats and other October Lessons.

My son is slightly obsessed with cats.  I have no idea why he latched on to this particular animal.  We are very much dog people, but my son just loves anything and everything related to cats.  So I decided to teach a lesson about our furry feline friends, and he had so much fun!

First, let me back up and let you know how I structured my October homeschool lesson time.  While I stuck with the Around the World and Reading on one day, and Math and "other" on another day, I dedicated the "other" to all things Halloween.  So for the first lesson, we learned about bones.  There's so many fun bone lessons to explore online.

First, I put a chicken bone in vinegar and let it sit for a couple of days.  The vinegar makes the bone soft and bendable, so I used that to show what happens to bones if there isn't enough calcium.  We played Memory with pictures of foods that have calcium in them, then printed off a picture of a bone and poked holes in it to show what would happen if we don't eat enough calcium throughout our lives.

I also showed him an old x-ray of my foot, which I broke when I was a kid, and then we watched the following, which my kid got a big kick out of:

 

We also had a lesson about bats, which I have to admit didn't go over very well.  My kid just wasn't interested.  We did, however, do a bat craft where he cut out a body, pasted some googly eyes, then we used his hand prints for the wings.  That was about the extent of it.  Again, my kid just didn't want to learn about bats and I didn't push.

We, of course, did a lesson on pumpkins.  We got the book Pumpkin Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington from the library and learned how a pumpkin grows.  Then, using our own pumpkins, we measured the circumference, counted the ridges and predicted whether or not it would float.  

Now for the cat lesson.  I got online, found TONS of cat pictures, narrowed them down and made a powerpoint presentation.  I set it up like a book.  So the first powerpoint said, "Hello, my name is Simon and I am a Siamese cat."  Then the story continues while introducing different cats (Simon's brother and sister), showing pictures of a cat's skeleton structure and organ system, then learning about cats that live in the wild.

Then, I introduced my kid to Jingle Cats:

  

Needless to say, he LOVED this.  Totally cracked up the whole time!

So that's what we did for our "other" lesson plans in October.  In November, I plan to teach him about the first Thanksgiving.  I hope that gives you some ideas to use!