Weekly Wrap Up: Week 4

Week 4

In our homeschool this week…

The biggest focus of our homeschool this week was on both the Presidential Election and the Hymn Festival. The children all went with us to the polls to vote. The Hymn Festival is a competition in which the girls go to and play in front of a judge and they receive a score from unprepared to Superior. 

Sweetie: This Week she had a test in ACE Grammar and Math in both of these she did well. We, however, require our children to correct the errors they make on the tests. She is finally starting to get done with her work more quickly. Although she still needs to work faster and concentrate instead of play. 

Sugar Pie at Softball

Bullet: Bullet has been working hard on her math and she is still working through Math Mammoth decimals & fraction book. She is starting to gain a deeper understanding of fractions and decimals. She also had her first Spelling Test. I think she is most excited about her Greek as she announced that she was only a few weeks away from reading Greek words! 

Bullet in Center-field

Sugar Pie: She finally finished her last 1st grade level Math Book and started her 2nd grade book. In our Math Program there are 10 books to complete and the first book is a review of the previous years work, the review is for children that have the summer off.  So, she got to skip the first book (201) and go to the second book (202). She was super excited about skipping a whole book! 

Sweetie working on her hymns

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing… 
This week we went to the Poll Place, Hymn Festival and to our wonderful PE Co-op.  

Math

My favorite thing this week was… 
Definitely my favorite thing was the girls competing and doing well in Hymn Festival. I love to hear them play and to see their progress. It's been wonderful!

Sugar Pie Sorts Flash Cards

What’s working/not working for us…
So far I think everything is working for us but the girls are taking a long time to finish their work. I really think it may be my fault. But as far as our curriculum it's all working for us!

Shoo runs circles during PE

Questions/thoughts I have…
My main question is why are we taking so long to finish school. I'm thinking its because I am not giving them my first 4 hours of the day and I'm trying to multi-task. I'm also not getting up early enough I think. I'm still pondering this question, all I know for sure is we cannot continue to finish at 4 & 5 pm. That's just silly.

PE Co-op

Things I’m working on…
I'm currently writing a Nature Study Curriculum for the kiddos next semester for the K-4. We'll take Nature walk and participate in the Great Bird Count in February. A little more low key for the spring.  Additionally, I'm putting together Math Folders to help the kids increase their basic computation speed. 

PE Co-op

I’m cooking…
Low calorie foods and this week I made Lemon Thyme Tuna Burgers which were really tasty and the kiddos enjoyed them too! 

Homeschool Weekly Wrap-Up

Week 3

In my life this week......This week had a few unplanned adventures on Monday I shredded (cut down small trees and brush ) on our new to us tractor that we purchased on Sunday. Then on Wednesday we had to go into town  which took about 3 hours of our time in the middle of the day. 

 In my homeschool this week....Thus we ended up not completing as much work as I would of liked.  Regardless, every morning our family does what we call the Family Gathering we are slowly adding all the elements of the FG right now the girls complete their State Study, IEW Linguistic Development, and now Mystery of History. 

We didn't formally do history last year. Instead I assigned Biographies to Bullet (and she read about 30 Childhood of Great Americans), but neither Sweetie or Sugar Pie had an official history. Although we did watch several documentaries and visited history based museum exhibits. Then we tried a couple of History programs that were not a good fit for us so they were abandoned. After months of research we have landed at Mystery of History. This week we started Mystery of History Volume 1 and we are enjoying a family time together digging into history. 

On Friday we had our presentations in our Co-OP. Bullet & Sugar Pie chose a state to learn more about , created a presentation board and then told the audience about their states Georgia and Pennsylvania respectively.  While Sweetie recited the poem "The Little Man that Wasn't There" from our IEW Linguistic Development. Bullet and Sugar are working on presentation skills, while Sweetie is working on annunciation and articulation.

Best picture of Sweetie  (who has mild autism) in a while...what a smile!

 Sweetie is adjusting well to using ACE. She enjoys knowing exactly how many pages she needs to do each day and which page is the last page she needs to finish so she can enjoy a work free weekend. She uses ACE for Math, English & Spelling.  Although she had tests scheduled because of our crazy week  they were postponed.

Piano Lessons preparing for Hymn Fest with our beloved Teacher Ms. Bethany

 Bullet only worked on an Essay for an Essay contest this week. A lesson learned by the teacher that I need to plan out her contest work better and MAKE SURE she completes the parts in little bites instead of big chunks. But we got the essay finished and submitted.

Bubba was under the weather but we didn't go to the hospital!

Sugar Pie our 2nd grader  Lost her Spelling Book this week. :( Other then that she had a pretty uneventful week completing her work and only escaping a few times. 

Bubba & Shoo School - Really involved teaching Bubba to sit on the couch by himself to get his asthma treatment. When he was successful I gave him candy as a reward! He did a pretty good job more then 75% of the time earning his candy!

Places we're going and people we're seeing...We had our weekly PEP Co-op as well as our Part of the Greater Multitude Choir, Piano Lessons & Theory. Bullet had her online classes on Thursday. 

I'm Reading .... ABC Herbal by Horne 

Weekly Wrap Up Week 1: Off to a slow start

Week 1

We started school at the end of Sept. by taking the CAT-Survey test offered by Christian Liberty Press. We take this test every few years to see how we are doing. We are not required to test in the state of Texas.

Parker's testing for carbohydrates in food. (Apologia Anatomy)

During this week we had pretty good progress, although I still didn't and don't feel organized.

This year we studying US States by doing "State Study" which is notebooking through the US. I originally thought we'd be able to make it through rather quickly but now it looks like we'll be working on it for the next year+. The kids however love it and have really enjoyed filling in the Notebooks.

Math: Is rolling along just fine, however, after reviewing my objectives for this year I will have to put more emphasis on facts. More on that later.

Language Arts: All of the kids progressed well in math we did not have any tests this week. In Writing the older two kids wrote a paper comparing evolution and creation. This was a very interesting assignment from their Wisdom Book. We used a lot of facts we learned from Vision Forum's Jonathan Park and the Creation Response Team.  Additionally, Bullet is working on an essay for an essay contest using I.E.W. Lesson 7 to write it. Sweetie is still working on Lesson 5. I have decided to let them work at their own speed in I.E.W. instead of trying to keep them together, which was beginning to be challenging.

The kiddos are doing a conglomeration of grammar/Mechanics Sweetie is using ACE and she is learning the material very nicely. While Bullet & Sugar Pie are using Climbing to Good English, a program I really like. Bullet is also doing I.E.W.'s Fix-it which also teaches grammar through editing. Fix-it takes her less then 5 minutes to complete and is a nice compliment to CTGE.

Watch the presidential debate, apparently someone must of told a whooper !

We really have not yet started spelling and I am trying to get the hang of the McGuffey readers.

Extra Curricular (music, co-ops, art) So our final thing to report on are our extra curricular which are all going well. The kids are enjoying the video production from 'How Great Thou Art'. They LOVE the PEP Co-op that we are participating in which involves, PE, Field Trips & Presentations. In Piano the girls are working on their songs for Hymnfest which is a graded competition. They will be playing "Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus", "Joy, Joy,Joy", "Jesus Paid it All", "I Must Tell Jesus", "All hail the power of Jesus' Name" and "Come Thou Almighty King" each kiddo is playing 2 of these songs.The middle two girls are really enjoying playing softball in the city league.

So although I do not feel very organized we've had a good "official" start to the school year.

To see what other folks are doing around the world you can check out Weekly Wrap Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Field Trip : Houston Museum of Natural Science

This year we are participating in a local Co-op that incorporates several things including Field Trips. Each Semester there are two big field trips and this was one of them to the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences.

The group in front of the museum. 

 This Co-op is enormous and this only represents about 5 of the about 35 families involved.  We absolutely love this museum. 

 Sweetie posing in the paleontology exhibit. Which I found very amusing as they had exhibits with names such as Armadillo-zilla and Sloth-zilla...I'm not kidding. 

 Pretending to be eaten by T-Rex

 The Jaw of a Megaleaon...we recently listened to Shark Tales in the series Gray the hero of the series is a Megaladon so this was especially interesting to the children.

 Playing a little bit during lunch involved chasing the birds and for ShooShoo yelling 'no bird'!

 The twins and Ms. Bethany (who by the way will soon be Mrs. Cook ;) ) looking at the hissing cockroaches. 

 For the first time we visited the Cockerall Butterfly Exhibit and it was amazing there were butterflies everywhere. They were landing on you flying within inches of you and just putting on a show everywhere!

 One of the curators in the butterfly exhibit was holding this little creature. The kiddos were able to pet it.

 Nothing like posing with some larva/caterpillar?

Eating some Sour Cream & Chives crickets 

Bubba ate the most and really seemed to enjoy them. However, everyone ate at least one!

Don't forget to check out Weekly Wrap Up & Homeschool Mom's Journal 

Geogrpahy United States...frugal & fun homeschooling

I love frugal and reusable Homeschool curriculum. Accordingly, we are going to use one to study the states and capitals and we will be notebooking our way through the country. *smile*

Working on their notebooking pages

Notebooking

We are using these notebook pages for our State Study from elemental Blogging found here. Here is an example of the free notebooking pages that she is offering:

Photo from elementalblogging.com

Instead of printing out pictures I am having the kids draw the birds, state flower etc... I did find some cheap state stamps which we will use for some of the states and my 7 year old may use with quite a few of the states. But I think their own little rendition of the important parts of the state will be wonderful.

I will also be using Uncle Josh's Outline Maps on CD (purchased for  1/2 price off of www.homeschoolclassifieds.com)  to supplement the study for some individual sates and all the pricipalities.

Books

We will be using the following books a lot:

We are also going to be using these books as we can lay our hands on them from the library a complete list can be found here. 

Audio

Bullet using a World Book Encyclopedia CD to look up facts on Delaware.

Thank the Lord we have lots of audio learners and they all love music. So we will listen to the following CDs in the car:

I've tried to incorporate them into the regular school day with little success but since we live 30 minutes away from town. We constantly listen to CD's in the van. We've had this CD for years and used it sporadically, but recently it's been collecting dust. I bought it off of eBay for about 1/3 the price several years ago.

Presentations

The kiddos will also present what they learn about the states at our PE Co-op during our presentation time.

Blogs to Check for more ideas:

I also found great ideas from Forever, For Always, No Matter What! and from Shower of Roses.

Things that I have picked up over they years that we are now finally using!

During our morning gathering the kiddos will work on the state or states for that week. We will complete the Notebooking page using Our 50 States and the Discover America Alphabet books. They will also have time at the end of the day to work a little bit on this project each day. After we've done a couple of states I think the kiddos will be able to work on the state pages independently.

If you have any ideas for us please let us know,if you find this useful please let me know that too!

Check out Weekly Wrap-Ups or Homeschool Mother's Journal to find out what other homeschoolers are up to around the country and the world!

A New School Year Part 3: Things I forgot

Since I wrote the first two posts without looking at my notes I failed to mention some things that we are doing. I thought I'd go ahead and let you in on them....

Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization by IEW 

"Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization provides a system to reintroduce you and your children to a vital but often neglected source of powerful and sophisticated linguistic patterning available to children: memorized language, especially memorized poetry."

So the idea behind this is to improve writing by improving what the children hear and memorize. We have put this to practice in our preschool years and we have seen our little ones develop an amazing vocabulary by reading them the Ambleside Online K books from about age 2 on to 1st grade. I won this product at our local homeschool  convention and we will use it in the morning during our morning gathering. I plan to spend no more then 15 minutes a day on this program. 

Presentations & Field Trips

There are two additional activities we will participate in with our PE Co-op. First, we will be doing monthly presentations in our PE Co-op. Each month we will pick something from our homeschool and the kiddos will do a 'speech' to some of the other members of the co-op. I am really excited about this because it meets our homeschool distinctive of raising competent communicators for Christ. Additionally, we will also attend their monthly field trips! 

Contests:

Bullet will participate in two Essay contests and one art contest. These contests are another way to improve their written and artistic communication skills. 

Pictures from Proverbs

The last thing I didn't mention is our Pictures from Proverbs.

"The answers to the questions are on the back of each card for the parent or teacher.   In addition, there is an explanation of the analogy, a Bible illustration of the proverb and questions to ask.  For the younger children, you may purchase a matching coloring book of these proverbs." 

We really enjoy studying a proverb in depth each week. After our study I like to post them on the fridge as a little reminder of the proverb. You'd be amazed at how many times God provides examples of that proverb during the week you study it. 

A New School Year: Part 2 Guided Studies & Extra Curriculars

This is the second part of the New School Year Post. In the first  part we discussed our methodology and our independent studies in this part I will discuss our 1 Teacher Directed course Writing and our Guided Studies.

Teacher Directed:

Writing: We are continuing with IEW  (with both the TWWS & SWI) and I plan to use for all of our Elementary level writers. Right now I think we will transistion into a different writing for Middle School & High School Writing. IEW has  a teaching DVD for the students. However, I still need to guide them through their first lesson in each Unit. Then they are able to write on their own for the next couple of lessons (about 2 weeks), until we get to the next unit.

Guided Studies:
During guided studies there is either a live or recorded teacher. I am still able to maintain my role as tutor while the children receive expert instruction.
 

Online Classes:

 

Science: This fall the middle two kiddos will participate in an online class covering Apologia Anatomy they will use the Anatomy Notebook Journal & the Jr Journal for Sugar  Pie. The kiddos will be taking online class from Currclick. Their class is an 11/2 once a week. They will have homework and participate in the class with a headset. This is a new thing for our homeschool we have never had a computer that was good enough to even try an online class. In order to maintain my role as tutor I purchased the Audio MP3 of the book Exploring Creation through Human Anatomy from Apologia. So Sugar Pie will be able to listen to the assigned reading on MP3. We will probably listen to the M P3 quite a bit in the car as we travel. The girls are very excited about their science class and have already begun to mummify an apple.

Fine Arts:
 

Art: Last year we took art lessons because we had an additional income stream that is set to terminate anytime now. Additionally, I am trying to lower the overall cash outgo of our homeschool.  Since I wanted to continue Art education but cannot afford the expense and I  am bearly able to draw stick figures we are switching to DVDs. We will be using Feed My Sheeep this is a DVD course with a workbook for each student. This is a multi year course and I believe we will be able to use it for at least 3 years.

Music: We believe it is important to be able to make a joyful noise for the Lord accordingly our children will participate in the PGM Choir.The PGM Choir is a free award winning homeschool choir in our area. The three oldest will both do bell choir and singing. We will also joyfully continue Piano lessons with Ms. Bethany. In Piano we are planning on participating in a couple of competitions as well as taking the theory tests.

Co-op This year we will participate in a PE Co-op that meets on Fridays right before PGM Choir practice. Once a month this co-op goes on a field trip. We are really excited about this opportunity to take field trips, exercise & fellowship with other homeschoolers on a regular basis.

This may seem like a pretty full schedule and it is but keep in mind we do not do every subject everyday. I hope your homeschool is both fun and challenging (for the kiddos not Mama)  this year!
 

The Homeschool Mother's Journal: With Lapbook Problems

In my life this week…
Thankfully, this week was much less eventful then last week. But if you are familiar with Roosterhill that doesn't mean a lot.

In our homeschool this week…
So  Sweety had Pneumonia and we thought we might be heading to the hospital on Tuesday but by late Wednesday she was doing a little better. Thus we avoided yet another trip to the hospital. She finally made her way out of bed on Friday and did her extra theory lesson with Ms. Bethany and relaxed all day.

Sugar Pie was took a math test this week and we were not happy with the results and we have been reviewing some lessons as she continues to go forward. We really love our math program and I love the way they continue to review concepts and keep them fresh in my children's mind. She has also made very good progress in her phonics and is plubbing along in reading. I think this is our last year using Christian Light Reading and next year she will do Sonlight Reading Grade 2.

What’s working/not working for us…

So we have really bounced around in history. I have not been happy with textbooks or self teaching models in history for Bullet. She really likes to read but I have been unable to find a workable way to record her progress or to know what she is learning.

Hands of a Child

I've always been interested in the Hands of a Child Lapbooks. But up until now in order for us to do one it would of required me to do all the cutting. Additionally, I didn't really understand how the child actually learned from the lapbook. But after talking to a friend and taking a little time to read HOAC lapbook I decided to give it a try.

Bullet's Lapbook thus far...

So when Currclick was have a sale I decided to finally try Hands of a Child Lapbooks. She likes to cut and glue (a little too much glue!) and I felt like she could cut out all the pieces of her lapbook herself. So far she's been able to be pretty independent but it's also been very slow. Now I am having her read quite a few books and each day is taking her a couple of days to finish. Additionally, I had a hard time making the the lapbook and didn't make the inner flaps correctly and I'm still not convinced that I put the lapbook togther correctly.

What is HOAC ?

Now, I'm not an expert so this is what I have learned thus far completing this one lapbook. Basically, the HOAC lapbook has a little textbook included with it, Charlotte Mason would call this little book a spine. From the spine the parent can choose books (they provide a list but I'm trying to use as many of my books as possible.) for the child to read to deepen their understanding of the historical period. So far she has read: Squanto friend of the Pilgrims, The Double life of Pocahontas, Pocahontas and the Strangers and next she'll read Pilgrim Stories as she enters the colonial period. She can read a biography like this in a couple of hours and that's how she spends her afternoons. 

Then she records information in the timeline, or in one of the little books that come along with the lapbook. We discuss what to write in the little books and that is when I get to hear what she has learned and how much she is enjoying the journey. We do a timeline, vocabular and basically small books in which she narrates information  So she gets to read a bunch of books and Mama has a way to see what she is learning, so far I'm pretty happy with this system.

I’m cooking…

I hope you all had a great school week too! Tonight I'm cooking pork spare ribs because they are both yummy and were on sale for $1.27/# a few weeks ago! And we are getting ready for Family Movie Night we'll be watching Indiana Jones! Woowhoo!



For a peek into homeschool around the country you can visit Homeschool Mother's Journal Homeschoolers. :)