Week in Review 1/27/12

We had an overall better week this week.  I developed a schedule (which I've been resistant to in the past) and each child has set times to work with me.  During the other times they had to be working on independent work or preparing for their time with me.  Z really doesn't have much independent work so some of his time was scheduled as playing critical thinking games, spending time with The Giver playing phonics game, and I reintroduced Super Why (Public TV) show.   This definetly made me feel a little scattered but it did seem to work. 

Together Work:

• Bible Study using the guide from The Church at Brookhills and prayer guide from Operation World. 
• Mystery of History Volume 2, Week 16 which included Good King Wenceslas, Otto I and the Holy Roman Empire and Vladimer I of Russia.
• Lesson 4 of La Clasa Divertida.
• Lesson 2 of Meet the Masters.
• Read 3 chapters of Archer's and Alchemists and 98 other Medieval Jobs You Might Love or Loathe.  Definetly glad I bought this book. We have read it gradually over the course of this year and it really gives a good peek into what life was like for people during this time.
• Completed Chapter 8 on Apologia's Botany.
• Attended Co-op on Friday.
• Electronics lesson with Daddy (not Z).

N (6th Grade)

• Completed 2 lessons in Math Mammoth and took a math test, he made a 79.  He was upset with this grade.  Unfortuantely, several of his mistakes were careless errors.
• Completed Lesson 14 of IEW Medieval Writing, in which he wrote a story from a picture.  He was VERY resistant to this process.  However, after we worked on it diligently together, he made a 93 on his final paper!!!!  He still MUST work on correct capitalization and comma usage but I'm very pleased with his work on this story this week!
• Completed his project for his Romans, Reformers and Revolutionaries Co-op class:

This is the birth of Jesus depicted how a stained glass window might look.
• Practiced guitar each day and had his first lesson this week!
• Completed 10 pages of Easy Grammar.
• Memory work: I Corinthians 13:1-4, Dickinson poetry, prepositions
• Read 8 chapters of Genghis Kahn.

The Giver (3rd Grade)

• Completed 5 pages of Easy Grammar
• Completed final 2 lessons of All About Spelling Volume 3.
• Completed 4 lessons in RightStart D math.

• Read 8 chapters of Viking Adventures by Clyde Robert Bulla.
• Memory Work: I Corinthians 13: 1-4, Dickinson poetry, prepositions.

Z (Kindergarten)

• Completed 2 lessons in IEW PAL.
• Completed 4 lessons in Right Start A.

• Memory Work: Homes Address and Phone Number
• Read daily in Magic Tree House.

Week in Review - 1/20/12

Together Work:
We did morning Bible Study using these guides from Brookhills.  We have really been enjoying this.  We also using this prayer schedule to help us pray for the entire world in a year!

We completed Week 15 of Mystery of History Volume 2.  We learned about Iceland, the Maori of New Zealand and the Great Zimbabwe of Africa.  No pictures.

We finished Beorn the Proud as a Read Aloud.  It was very enjoyable.  The plot was interesting, while remaining realistic.  The characters were well developed and I developed a fondness for Ness and Beorn.  N and The Giver enjoyed it though Z found it a little hard to listen to.  (He still really enjoys pictures!)  I'm also counting this as a book read for my 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge.

We read Medieval Feast by Aliki.  The pictures in this book were very detailed and quite interesting. Z really enjoyed looking at the pictures (enough so that he asked me why I haven't taught him to draw like this?!  Ha - I'm still trying to get him to hold his pencil correctly and form his letters!)  We were able to see how the serfs lives compared to the wealthy in this book and it opened the door for some additional conversation there.  Definetly glad I got this one!

We are working on the Love Chapter, I Corinthians 13, as memory work.  N and "The Giver" continue to work on the Emily Dickinson poetry and their preposition lists.

N - 6th grade

• completed 5 lessons of Math Mammoth 6.  This week we had to do some ratios and scaling for maps, which he definetly finds difficult.  He had several really long lessons this week.
• He completed 10 pages of Easy Grammar, including Proper Nouns compared to common nouns.  I'm fairly certain he "knows" this info, but he rarely applies it to his writing!  He can write a whole paragraphy and have no capitals and no punctuation...sigh.....

• Made a 103 on his Greek/Latin word roots test!
• Has read 8 chapters in a Genghis Kahn book while continuing to work on his Romans, Reformers and Revolutionaries history.
• Completed a 3 paragraph paper on The Black Death (IEW Medieval Writing) that he has been working on for 2 weeks.

"The Giver" - 3rd grade

• Completed 4 lessons of Right Start D and had a test on Thursday - he made a 94!  We are still working on timed multiplication tests and he is not nearly as fast as Right Start suggests as a good speed.  He struggles with the multiples of 4 and 7.  The lesson on Friday introduced multi-digit multiplication:

• Completed 2 days of work in IEW's Fables, Myths and Fairy Tales.  We are still working on making an outline from a story, dressing it up with -ly words, strong verbs and adding who/which or because clauses to make it interesting.  He is a natural writer but it resists these lessons.  He likes to write his own stories more than learning to take notes and retell!  This program teaches grammar and vocabulary through editing to improve the writing though and I really like it.  We spent about 15 minutes on Wednesday and 20 minutes of Friday doing these lessons so we keep it very brief.
• Completed 5 pages of Easy Grammar.
• Completed 5 lesson in All About Spelling Volume 3.  We only have 2 lessons left!
• He finished reading Arabian Nights.  He is involved in his own personal book challenge from BeeBee and he is doing well towards his goal of completing 10 chapter books by the end of February.

Z - Kindergarten

• Completed 4 lessons in Right Start C.  He loves math, playing store and using his abacus.
• Completed 1.5 lessons of IEW PAL.  He hates writing and doesn't enjoy practicing his reading...sigh....

It's been a rough week around here.  We didn't accomplish much from our loop.  Tony did complete an electronics lesson with N and "The Giver." 

Books Read in 2012

1. Radical - David Platt  **My Review**
2. The Vikings - Elizabeth Janeway  **My Review**
3. Beorn the Proud - Madeleine A Polland
4. A Midsummer night's Dream - Shakespeare
5. Ahab's Wife - Sena Jeter Nasland
6. Books that Build Character - Kilpatrick/Wolfe
7. Shadow Spinner - Susan Fletcher (audio book) **My Review**
8. Adam of the Road - Elizabeth Janet Gray
9. The Mystery of the Roman Ransom - Henry Winterfeld
10. Raising Real Men - Hal and Melanie Young
11. The 17th Swap - McGraw
12. Barnheart - Woginrich
13. Unveiled: Tamar - Francine Rivers **My Review**
14: A Parcel of Patterns - Jill Walsh  **My Review**
15: Unashamed: Rahab - Francine Rivers
16. The House I Loved - Tatiana de Rosnay
17: Unshaken: Ruth - Francine Rivers
18. Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire - Esquith
19. The Connected Child - Karyn Purvis
20. Little Britches, Father and I were Ranchers - Ralph Moody **My Review**
21.  The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
22. Unspoken: Bathsheba - Francine Rivers
23. Deconstructing Penguins - Lawrence Goldstone, Nancy Goldstone
24. Shiloh -  Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (audio book)  **My Review**
25.  The Scarlett Letter - Hawthorne
26. Man of the Family - Ralph Moody
27.  The Coffin Quilt
28.   Almost Home by Wendy Lawton
29.  Courage and Conviction
30.  Get the Sugar Out
31. Jane Eyre
32. Message From an Unknown Chinese Mother - Xinran
33.  Blackthorn Winter (with The Giver)
34. Om-kas-toe
35. The Shakespeare Stealer
36. Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of the Lost Daugthers of China -Xinran
37. Choosing to See - Mary Beth Chapman
38. Mary Emma and Company - Ralph Moody
39. Carry On, Mr. Bowditch - Jean Lee Latam
40. Here Burns My Candle - Liz Curtis Higgs
41. Johnny Tremain  - Esther Forbes
42. Mine is the Night - Liz Curtis Higgs
43. Grace in Thine Eyes - Liz Curtis Higgs
44. Song of the Silent Harp - BJ Hoff
45. Heart of the Lonely Exile - BJ Hoff
46. Land of a Thousand Dreams - BJ Hoff
47. Songs on a Ancient Glory - BJ Hoff
48. To Love Anew - Bonnie Leon
49. Dawn of the Golden Promise - BJ Hoff
50. Tiny Titan
51. Daughter of a Thousand Gold Pieces
52. Bartholomew's Passage - A family Advent Story - Arnold Ytreeide
53. Mercy Wins - Dale Anderson.















　

What to do with all those Christmas cards?

Tony took down all the cards from our holder and asked me should he throw them away.  I'm so torn about this.  We can't display all the lovely pictures we get all year long, but yet, I hate to throw them in the trash.  I have in years past kept the cards (the ones that aren't a picture) and allowed my preschool class or kids to cut them up the next year to make winter pictures - which is still a fabulous idea! 

So I reached my hand out for the stack because I just didn't want to let those cards go.  They sat in a pile with the laptop for a week or more and everytime I sat down to check email there sat those cards, just speaking to me.  Then it finally occured to me what we should do with them.  I put them all back on the hanger rack. 

Then I just randomly picked one and placed it in our kitchen with the Bible we use for our morning family devotions.  We will pray for this family as part of our prayer time every morning for the week. At the end of the week, we will send out a card letting this family know that we prayed for them all week. I hope that this project will teach my children to pray for others and to help them become more aware and considerate of the needs of others.  

We only received 32 Christmas cards so this project will be over before the year ends, but hopefully the benefits will be lifelong! 

The Vikings by Elizabeth Janeway

52 Books in 52 Weeks - Week 2

I read The Vikings by Elizabeth Janeway this week as we are learning about the Vikings in our homeschool.  I had originally intended for this to be read by N, but since he has taken on an additional history class he is now further ahead and currently reading about Genghis Kan.

I found this book to be an interesting read and I learned quite a few things about the Vikings.  The book did not focus on the plundering and savagery that the Vikings were known for but  mainly on the family life of the Vikings.  The main character is Eric the Red and you get to experience first hand how he ended up in Greenland and then how his son, Leif, went on to "discover" and explore parts of North America.  It was quite fascinating to imagine the daily lives of these Vikings along with all the exciting adventures they experienced, as well.

This would make a great read aloud for most ages and a good silent reader for perhaps the 5th grade and up.

I'm still working on Books that Builds your Child's Character, A MidSummer Night's Dream and I've started Ahab's Wife. 

January 13th Week in Review

We completed MOH vol 2 Week 14 this week which included more on Vikings, Methodius and Cyril, and Alfred the Great.  N made a Rune Stone.  Runes are Viking letters.

We read 5 more chapters in Beorn the Proud this week.

We finished up Chapter 7 of Apolgia Botany.  We are attempting to root a plant as a project. 

N (6th grade) completed 5 lessons in Math Mammoth, is working on 3 paragraph report.  He had to choose his topic from a given list in IEW Medieval writing and find his own sources.  This week he learned the importance of finding good sources before you choose your topic.  He will continue on this next week with his final report due on Friday.  He working on his Romans, Reformers and Revolutionaries lessons.  He also completed 10 pages in Easy Grammar.  He wrote his book report on Gebra Name Al and turned it in Friday earning an A! 

E "The Giver" (3rd Grade) completed 5 lesson in Right Start D, 5 lessons in All About Spelling Vol 3, and worked on lesson 15 in IEW Fables, Myths and Fairy Tales.  He also completed 5 pages in Easy Grammar and is continuing to read Arabian Nights, which he will complete this week.  We worked on our penguin unit study, reading 1 book that went along with it. Penguins by Jenny Markert, was a straightforward, easy to read with great pictures.  We also started My Season With Penguins, which has been great so far... more about it next week.  He also begin coloring a large penguin poster with all the different types of penguins.

Z (kindergarten) completed 4 lessons in RightStart A.  We begin working with money this week and we played store everyday - he really likes this!

 

We completed 3 lessons in IEW PAL.  He also used stickers to build some of his words this week, which was a fun activity!

We are also almost finished with Magic Tree House Viking book.  He is enjoying it!

The loop is going ok, though I still fell exhausted at the end of the day.  I think it has more to do with my kids whining and me having to constanting redirect them back to their school work.  Need to figure out how to work on this.

We worked on hobbies this week and I took a few pics of "The Giver" working on his coin collecting.

The Giver

So I spotted these this week in the school room.  E had made little gifts for his brothers.  Inside were little clay figures that he had molded and baked.  Just another confirmation his love language is gift giving!

Radical by David Platt

52 books in 52 weeks - Week 1

I actually started reading this book in December so I maybe I cheated just a little.  In case it matters, I had already started it before I learned about and decided to participate in the challenge.

Why I chose this book?

I was raised in a Christian home by Christian parents who love God and for this I am excessively grateful.  But you see, I have always lived my life by goals.  Goals such as save enough for a downpayment for a house, save enough for the kids college, pay off the car, achieve a promotion, obtain a certification.  Well, now I have the house, am saving for college (though not enough), we have no debt (except the mortgage), I'm homeschooling the kids instead of pursuing a career and I got the certification before I quit!  Now, don't get me wrong, I still have goals and certainly spend a lot of time selecting my children's curriculum, books and studies and planning lessons for homeschooling.  However, I felt like something was "missing" but had decided that really I was simply in a place in my life where I was finally "content."  Now, this doesn't mean that I never want a new shirt or desire to take a nice vacation, just that for the most part I'm happy with my life.  I really thought I was finally maturing and that God has brought me to this comfortable place. 

Then Tony attended Secret Church with David Platt this fall and came home talking about LOTS of things he learned.  He was excited.  We had Radical, but I hadn't read it, so I decided  to pick it up.

Within the first few pages I realized what was going on with me.  I was in a comfortable content place.  But that is not how God desires for us to live.  We should be passionate.  Passionate for the needy.  Passionate for the orphans.  Passionate for the lost.  Passionate for Jesus.  So my Theme for 2012 (or New Year's Resolution) is to be passionate for Jesus.  I'm not sure where this will lead me over the course of the next year(s) but I pray that it will lead me to a place where I'm a servant for God and His will!

There are so many great motivating things about this book; trying to summarize it is really almost impossible!  God created us to serve and worship.  Not to serve ourselves, but to serve others.  God's plan is to tell the whole world about Jesus.  But not through big expensive church buildings with lots of programs, but by going into the world and telling people!  God doesn't intend for the government to take care of the needy and orpahns.  That is the job of Christians.  God didn't save me so I can sit in my nice home and be comfortable and content with my life.  He saved me so I could go and tell others about him so they will not be lost into hell, but be redeemed by my savior! 

This book has convicted me and changed my heart!  My life on this earth is really nothing but a speck of what is to come in eternity.  How do I want to spend the precious few years I have here?  Living for myself, my pleasure, my contentment?  or giving it all to serve Him who saved me?

This book is an easy read in terms of that it flows well; Dr. Platt uses Bible scriptures along with real life stories to make it a pleasurable read.  It is hard to read in the respect that it is convicting!

If you are a Christian and desire to walk in God's word I highly recommend this book!  If you are not a Christian because you view the Christians around you as hypocrites, I highly recommend you read this book so you can see what Christianity should look like! 

The last chapter of the book is a challenge to live a Radical life for one year by doing 4 things.  These steps are simple in terms of the plan, but I'm sure as I attempt to follow these steps, I will find many things about them to be difficult in terms of committment and sacrifice. I'm not going to write about that as part of this review because I think you should read the book before you know the challenge.  However, I may just write more about this challenge later!

Look what we FINALLY got!

Tony's aunt and uncle had not been using this.  The door was off/not closing properly and it was unplugged. They were ready to clean it out of their space.  Since Tony's dad was in town when they offered, he headed over and they loaded it up.  When they got home his dad make quick work of getting the door closing and we plugged it up.  We put in a water bottle to check if it was freezing (since it had been unplugged.)  The water bottle was frozen the next morning.  Just to be safe and not lose any valuable food, Tony purchased a freezer thermometer and we monitored the temperature for 5 days.  No problems!  So I went to the neighbors house and picked up the rest of our meat that we hadn't used yet - as you can see, there isn't much left.  However we do have 1/2 cow ordered and it should be ready at the beginning of February - and now we have a place to put it! 

So thankful that God has provided for us in this way!

Homeshool Week in Review - 1/6/12

We started back on Wednesday this week after a fairly long Christmas break.  This is our first week to try using a loop schedule.

We are doing our Bible time in the mornings with Tony before he leaves.  This week we have been reading through scriptiures about John the Baptist and his ministry of preparing the way for Jesus. 

We completed Mystery of History Vol 2 - Week 13.
We learned about Charlemagne, the Story Behind Arabian Nights, and started on the Vikings.

We made Viking Masks - doesn't he look scary?

We are reading Beorn the Proud (viking story) as our Read Aloud and read the first 3 chapters.
Also read You Wouldn't Want to Be A Viking Explorer with Z and we are working on Magic Tree House - Viking Ships at Sunrise.
E is reading Arabian Nights.  This is a kids' version that is perfect for his reading level and he is enjoying! 

Since Noah is using Diana Waring's history with our co-op, I am coordinating his reading with that history instead.  I had originally planned for him to read The Vikings by Elizabeth Janeway with MOH.  I decided to give it a try myself and have read the first chapter.

We learned a new word from English From the Roots Up - NOMEN.

All memory work this week was review work.

N - 6th Grade
Completed 6 pages of Easy Grammar
3 lessons in Math Mammoth
Started his new untit of Romans, Reformers, Revolutionaries
Reading  A Gebra Names Al

E - 3rd Grade
Completed 3 pages of Easy Grammar
RightStart D Lessons 61-63
All About Spelling 3 Lessons 14-16

Z - Kindergarten
Completed IEW PAL Lessons 21-22

Here is his handwriting practice.  He doesn't hold his pencil correctly (I've tried to help him and correct him constantly) and it really isn't pretty.  I'm not sure how else to help him other than practice?

Rightstart A - Lessons 26-27
Even/Odd Snowflake Math

Loop Schedule -
On Wednesday we worked on Apologia Botany - Chap 7, attended Art through Geography class (Japan and origami - watched Between the Folds on Netflix later at home - so cool!), and worked on Critical Thinking activities.
On Thursday we did Spanish - La Clase Divertida lesson 3, Electronics (Tony did Snap circuits introduction - we have a teacher guide coming!), Geography - E and Z completed Europe puzzle
On Friday - we did Science Unit (N worked on programming, E/Z did penguins), Poetry, Critical Thinking activities.

I am still trying to figure out how to get it all done with all 3 kids!  The loop may have helped a little but I still have a lot of problems with kids interrupting while I'm doing to something else.  I think I need to assign more reading :-) to keep them busy!

Next week we will add our respective IEW writing programs back to our schedules.

Making a boat

N chose a boat project to coordinate with his Diana Waring history co-op class this month.  So proud of his effort in putting this project together!

We used the book, Make It Work - Ships by Andrew Laslam.  The directions and pictures were clear and helpful!

Loop Schedule

In our homeschool I have noticed that we aren't getting to all the subjects that I want to each week.  I make a weekly plan each week for all the things I want each child to accomplish. I use Homeschool Tracker + to organize all these plans and print out a weekly schedule for each child.  However, I find that many days I run out of steam and we just don't get to all those extras like art, Spanish, etc.  We get math, language arts, Bible, history and science done very regularly.  I've been reading up on a Loop Schedule and we are going to give it a go starting next week.

Here is my plan:  Each child will still do math, language arts, Bible and history each day.  Everything else will be in our Loop.  Botany, Art, Critical Thinking, Spanish, Science - Unit Study, Electronics, Poetry, Geography will be on our loop.  We will start with Botany after our Daily subjects are complete and continue on the loop until school is over.  Wherever we stop one day is where we will pick up and start the next day after Daily Assignments are done. I'm hoping that by using this type of schedule we will get to more subjects at least weekly.  We'll see how this goes and I will be posting updates and changes that I need to make.

As far as implementing, I have created the kids' checklists for next week with only their Daily Assignments.  I have typed up a Loop Schedule, laminated it and will hang it in the school room.  We will  complete our Daily assignments and then start on the loop.  My goal is to have all items ready for all the Loop Assignments by Tuesday night (we're starting back on Wednesday).  Then each day I will prep lessons for whatever Loop Classes we completed to have ready for our next cycle through.

Wish me luck!