Aztecs and Incas - Venn Diagram

I'm up and going. It rained last night so I'm really interest in getting out in garden (she says facetiously). :) Today the plan is to complete the venn diagrams for the Aztecs and Incas. For history we use the History of World as a jumping off point (we're starting book three). We really enjoy the stories, maps and activities however we like to dig a little deeper hence the venn diagram idea. I have done this very simply by reading out loud Great Civilizations Aztecs and Incas AD 1300-1532 by Penny Bateman and having the kids remark when they hear something interesting about the culture of each empire. We have a huge piece of paper separated in two columns, one column titled Incas and the other titled as Aztecs, as we come across interesting facts we list them under the correct heading. Today we are finishing the Incan portion, and reviewing all the info we gathered and creating our venn diagrams. The hope of course is by doing it this way I can give an assignment to compare something and they can do it on their own. We also printed out maps of the Americas and marked each empire on the map. Here's some movies we've watched: Ancient Civilizations for Children Ancient Inca; National Geographic Incan Mummies Secrets of the World, Ancient Civilizations Fall of the Aztec and Mayan Empires and Globe Trekker Central America. Books we've been reading: Cortes and the Aztec Conquest by Irwin Blacker; Children of the Incas by David Mangurian; The Spanish Conquests in the New World. Okay, I'm off to put hay on strawberries -- in the rain! :)

Area and Perimeter - Elementary

Okay, so I'm ready to roll tomorrow morning. I just realized that my youngest is having problems with perimeter and area. I found this out the usual way - correcting last weeks math sheets. So, I went to my school book shelf and was able to pull 5 math activity books for his grade level or close to it. A quick check in the appendixs revealed that only 3 of the books had area and perimeter activities. That narrows it down. But, and here's why I'm posting about this, the book with the best list of activites was my Family Math book. I just keep coming back to this one again and again! Here's what I'm doing for perimeter and area review/reminder: Family Math (by Stenmark, Thompson and Cossey) page 87 - Square Inches; page 89 - Expaned Rectangles; page 90 - Comparing Perimeters; page 96 - Perimeter Variations. I'll throw in a cooking experience with a little review via Math Chef (another great book I keep using over and over again) by D'Amico and Drummond page 122 -- Chapter 12 - What's the Area of a Brownie. I'll letcha know how it goes!

I did this and we now have it!! That's always the best feeling. And of course alterations are always made as we go along. In the end we used all the Family Math book ideas listed above with the exception of page 96 - Perimeter Variations. And we did use the idea from Math Chef only we used a pizza we made for lunch and measured the pan, transfered the measurements to paper and figured out the perimeter and area and then of course ate some yummy pizza!