This week is going well. We're plugging right along and the schedule seems to be one that works for us. This week in history we're learning about the middle kingdom of Egypt and the new kingdom of Egypt. We learned that Nubia was taken over by Egypt and they renamed it Kush. I remember David writing Psalms about being in Kush. I'm going to find those to add to the history lesson.
We also finished up our study on Venus and are moving onto Earth. Venus was fascinatind to us and we spent a lot of extra time camped out there. The fact that Venus rotates backwards, therefore disproving the Big Bang Theory, was very neat. Also, we learned that a day is longer than a year on Venus. And that we couldn't live there because the atmosphere is too dangerous. Sulfuric acid is on Venus instead of Oxygen and we could not breathe. Venus is also hotter than Mercury due to the fact that venus has an atmosphere that traps in the heat, whereas Mercury does not. I'm really loving the Apologia Science and the kids are getting so much out of it. This weekend we're going to get our new telescope out and look at Venus through it and try to figure out the different phases it's going through. So neat!
Ds5 is doing great on his reading. He's moved onto Bob books for a while. He still does his Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading sometimes but it's good to change things up. He loves the Bob books so that's a plus. I'm so proud of his progress. He's plugging right along in both math and reading.
Dd7 is reading more and more books. Her love for reading is really growing and right now she's reading about 3 different books at a time. Lol...she's like her Momma! She gathers them up in a group and goes to sit down and reads a few pages from each. She keeps up with them too. She can tell me more about Little House in the Big Woods than I could. She doesn't enjoy math, yet she's so good at it. We keep working on it. I guess I never really liked it either, yet it's a necessary evil.
Tomorrow Dd7 will play in a piano competition. She's loving her piano lessons and she catches on so fast. I'm proud of her progress and can't believe what she's already playing. When she gets a little free time she heads for her piano. I'll post pics of her performance soon.
Well, off to teach my angels. Bible first...
Jill
Showing posts with label weekly wrap-up. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weekly wrap-up. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Weekly Wrap-up
Last week went amazingly well yet again. I'd love to be able to get back to our nature studies, but as of yet we just haven't found the time. That's the only thing we didn't get to last week. I can work that in once the schedule gets more routine. For now, I'm focusing on keeping us on task and moving towards completion each week.
We began our new family Bible study last week led by Daddy at nights. We're doing Genesis through Deuteronomy: Ancient Egypt by SCM. The kids are really loving this and it's even more special because Daddy's leading it. They love having Daddy teach them. He's a great Bible teacher and he's not Mommy! lol! I guess they are too used to my voice all day! ;) Dd7 is still meeting our sweet ladies from church at the library each Thursday to learn to knit. She's doing quite well, and she loves it. Of course the ladies love having her in there. She mentioned that she'd received some knitting books for Christmas and they asked her to bring them and share them next week. It's one of the more special times of the week.
Ds5 is really coming along in his reading. I'm so proud of him and his desire to stick with it, even though it's very hard to decode the words. He's a smart boy. And he's very proud that he's doing most of his work with Sissy.
This is one fact that I'm most proud of as well. Everything but math and language is done together in our school. I believe this is the main reason our school's running so much more smoothly than last year. I was splitting the kids up way too much. One of the biggest blessings in homeschooling is that my family is together. So I love having them all learning the same thing and discussing it together. The kids learn just as much from their siblings as they do from me.
We began our new family Bible study last week led by Daddy at nights. We're doing Genesis through Deuteronomy: Ancient Egypt by SCM. The kids are really loving this and it's even more special because Daddy's leading it. They love having Daddy teach them. He's a great Bible teacher and he's not Mommy! lol! I guess they are too used to my voice all day! ;) Dd7 is still meeting our sweet ladies from church at the library each Thursday to learn to knit. She's doing quite well, and she loves it. Of course the ladies love having her in there. She mentioned that she'd received some knitting books for Christmas and they asked her to bring them and share them next week. It's one of the more special times of the week.
Ds5 is really coming along in his reading. I'm so proud of him and his desire to stick with it, even though it's very hard to decode the words. He's a smart boy. And he's very proud that he's doing most of his work with Sissy.
This is one fact that I'm most proud of as well. Everything but math and language is done together in our school. I believe this is the main reason our school's running so much more smoothly than last year. I was splitting the kids up way too much. One of the biggest blessings in homeschooling is that my family is together. So I love having them all learning the same thing and discussing it together. The kids learn just as much from their siblings as they do from me.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Weekly wrap-up - Jan 4-8
This was our first week back and our first week with the new schedule. We got EVERYTHING done this week (well, minus one day of history which we'll make up for this afternoon) for the very first time. I'm so excited about our new schedule and the time that we have for a few "extras". We start with Bible each moring, prayer, Bible verses, Books of the Bible, and the treasured "Fruit of the Spirit" song that even my 2 year old knows. The kids then illustrate their Bible story and my 5 year old son started this as well. I love seeing his little drawings and it's so neat to see the different things that each child gets through the stories. God is good!
We then move to handwriting, language arts, and spelling. We're loving our handwriting book, Handwriting Without Tears. Only Dd7 is doing this as Ds5 is doing Explode the Code. Yesterday Dd7 learned to write a formal letter through this book. It's great. For spelling we started something new this term. We will be using Spelling Wisdom from the Simply Charlotte Mason website/curriculum. This has been a favorite find of mine as it teaches spelling using phrases from classical books, Bible verses, famous quotes, etc. We're learning two things at once. LA is also new this term. I have never really done LA because I couldn't find a curriculum that I was happy with. English For the Thoughtful Child seems to be exactly what I was looking for so I'll let you know how that goes.
Math is all the same. Horizons k for Ds5 and Saxon 3 for Dd7. They're doing great with these and really excelling. I guess they take after their daddy!
After a break we come back together and do science and history together. I'm still trying to figure out the timing of these lessons but for now we're doing science one week (every day) and history one week (every day). It was too confusing for ME to try to do one on Monday and Wed. and the other on Tues and Thurs. This week was history and we learned about Ancient China and the Shang dynasty. I requested some books from the library that were listed in the "extra resources" section of SOTW and they really helped bring the history alive. That's what CM style of education and living books are all about.
There are other things that I'll add in as soon as we get used to this schedule. Mainly, picture study and music study. But those only take a few minutes a week so I'm not worried about fitting that in. When the weather is better we'll be back to our nature studies as well. But living in MS we're not used to having weather in the single digits...brrrrr....it's cold!!!
Jill
We then move to handwriting, language arts, and spelling. We're loving our handwriting book, Handwriting Without Tears. Only Dd7 is doing this as Ds5 is doing Explode the Code. Yesterday Dd7 learned to write a formal letter through this book. It's great. For spelling we started something new this term. We will be using Spelling Wisdom from the Simply Charlotte Mason website/curriculum. This has been a favorite find of mine as it teaches spelling using phrases from classical books, Bible verses, famous quotes, etc. We're learning two things at once. LA is also new this term. I have never really done LA because I couldn't find a curriculum that I was happy with. English For the Thoughtful Child seems to be exactly what I was looking for so I'll let you know how that goes.
Math is all the same. Horizons k for Ds5 and Saxon 3 for Dd7. They're doing great with these and really excelling. I guess they take after their daddy!
After a break we come back together and do science and history together. I'm still trying to figure out the timing of these lessons but for now we're doing science one week (every day) and history one week (every day). It was too confusing for ME to try to do one on Monday and Wed. and the other on Tues and Thurs. This week was history and we learned about Ancient China and the Shang dynasty. I requested some books from the library that were listed in the "extra resources" section of SOTW and they really helped bring the history alive. That's what CM style of education and living books are all about.
There are other things that I'll add in as soon as we get used to this schedule. Mainly, picture study and music study. But those only take a few minutes a week so I'm not worried about fitting that in. When the weather is better we'll be back to our nature studies as well. But living in MS we're not used to having weather in the single digits...brrrrr....it's cold!!!
Jill
Monday, November 2, 2009
Weekly Wrap-up
It was a crazy weekend so the weekly wrap-up comes as the next week begins. Oh, well!
Last week was full of momentus occasions. Tink (dd7)is really starting to take off in her writing and spelling. She's always loved to write but recently I've noticed her grammar and spelling coming along quite nicely. She also is trying to loose her first tooth (well, she had two pulled by the dentist but this would be her first to loose by herself). Right now we call her, "Buck-tooth" because the permanent tooth has pushed her baby tooth out into an awkward position. Funny and fitting right here at Halloween.
Man-Man (ds5) began putting letters together this week to form words. He started reading! He's always asking me, "Mommy, what does this spell?" and then spelling whatever word he sees to me. So I realized that we don't need to work on letter sounds much more (he's got that down), he's ready to read. I'm surprised because Tink was a lot older before she was ready. That just shows you that each child is different and wonderful in their own way.
Speaking of doing things sooner than I expected, Princess (dd2) started potty training this past week. She just turned 2 on August 30 so this came as a shock to me. My pediatrician warned me at her 2 year check up that due to the fact that her vocabulary skills are so high she'd probably be potty trained by Christmas. This too, was unexpected. Man-Man was three days away from turning 3 before he was trained, and Tink was 2 1/2. Princess has done quite well. She wears "big girl panties" at home during the day and pull ups for bed and when we're away from the house. I must say that I have to train them in actual underwear because they have NO PROBLEM going to potty in a pull up. I guess it's too much like a diaper. So the panties are out and mom's on call all day!
The weekend was so busy! We had a birthday party on Saturday morning for a dear friend and went straight from that to our local college's homecoming parade. My adopted college student was Homecoming Queen so we had to go cheer her on. We came home to get a little nap in before getting dressed in our costumes for Halloween. Tink went as Padme Amidala from Star Wars (Princess Leia's mom), Man-Man was Batman, and Princess was Strawberry Shortcake. I'll post more pics in the next post. We had so much fun! We always do. The kids have been to this every year since they were born. It's a tradition of ours. We came home and trick-or-treated a little in the neighborhood and then we handed out candy. The kids really had a ball and they especially loved handing the candy out. What a fun day!
Well, I need to begin our week now. God bless everyone in their own homeschool journey!
Jill
Last week was full of momentus occasions. Tink (dd7)is really starting to take off in her writing and spelling. She's always loved to write but recently I've noticed her grammar and spelling coming along quite nicely. She also is trying to loose her first tooth (well, she had two pulled by the dentist but this would be her first to loose by herself). Right now we call her, "Buck-tooth" because the permanent tooth has pushed her baby tooth out into an awkward position. Funny and fitting right here at Halloween.
Man-Man (ds5) began putting letters together this week to form words. He started reading! He's always asking me, "Mommy, what does this spell?" and then spelling whatever word he sees to me. So I realized that we don't need to work on letter sounds much more (he's got that down), he's ready to read. I'm surprised because Tink was a lot older before she was ready. That just shows you that each child is different and wonderful in their own way.
Speaking of doing things sooner than I expected, Princess (dd2) started potty training this past week. She just turned 2 on August 30 so this came as a shock to me. My pediatrician warned me at her 2 year check up that due to the fact that her vocabulary skills are so high she'd probably be potty trained by Christmas. This too, was unexpected. Man-Man was three days away from turning 3 before he was trained, and Tink was 2 1/2. Princess has done quite well. She wears "big girl panties" at home during the day and pull ups for bed and when we're away from the house. I must say that I have to train them in actual underwear because they have NO PROBLEM going to potty in a pull up. I guess it's too much like a diaper. So the panties are out and mom's on call all day!
The weekend was so busy! We had a birthday party on Saturday morning for a dear friend and went straight from that to our local college's homecoming parade. My adopted college student was Homecoming Queen so we had to go cheer her on. We came home to get a little nap in before getting dressed in our costumes for Halloween. Tink went as Padme Amidala from Star Wars (Princess Leia's mom), Man-Man was Batman, and Princess was Strawberry Shortcake. I'll post more pics in the next post. We had so much fun! We always do. The kids have been to this every year since they were born. It's a tradition of ours. We came home and trick-or-treated a little in the neighborhood and then we handed out candy. The kids really had a ball and they especially loved handing the candy out. What a fun day!
Well, I need to begin our week now. God bless everyone in their own homeschool journey!
Jill
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Weekly Wrap-up
I love this idea that I just found from Rose Cottage. It's called the Weekly Wrap-up. I think I'd like to try to do this each week as a way to look back and see what we've been up to. We never get entirely through my lesson plans each week (but hey, what teacher does?). I really do that on purpose. We have wonderful, blessed days where one subject may take us through the entire day...or it may just take a few minutes. Isn't that what learning is all about? I take the lead from the kids and we sometimes end up a little behind (on paper) but miles ahead in reality.
So this week was very good week for our nature study and art/handiworks. We had a few days of beautiful Fall weather and we took full advantage of this. Two days at the park and two nature studies in one week! Wow! Like I mentioned in previous posts, the nature studies have really become a way of life in our homeschool and the kids even think of their own topics to discover/explore. Monday's nature study was helping to find the different aspects of nature at the park versus our house. This led to a wonderful language arts session afterwards which incorporated spelling, copywork, grammar, punctuation, and paragraph structure. Wow! I'm no where close to teaching those things in my grammar lesson book. But the questions came up and the opportunity to teach was there. I took it!
Today we did the same thing. Dd7 has Strep throat so we've been keeping a low profile for a couple of days. While Ds5 was in KinderTots today I took the girls to the park nearby and thankfully no one else was there. We decided to walk around looking at the different types and colors of the leaves. We collected a few and brought them home to draw and write about them. The same result happened...we had a wonderful language arts lesson and she didn't even know it. And the artwork is simply beautiful.
We also worked on our handiworks this week. The kids have been making clay structures off and on recently. They have a lot of items dried and today we decided to paint them. Even Dd2 got in on the painting. We gave them to Daddy since today is his birthday. Ds5 helped me cook breakfast this morning (I let the kids help me cook at least a couple of times a week...they love it and I love the extra opportunity to teach!). He even let Dd2 help stir the chocolate chip pancakes (a family favorite that we end up eating at least once a week!).
Dd7 has been working hard on her piano lessons as well. I try to remember to have her practice each day but I must admit that it rarely gets done on the weekends. I just never seem to remember unless we're doing school. But she still gets her 5 practices a week in. She's very good and almost done with her first set of books. She's far surpassed me already and I'm no good when she has questions. But she can usually figure it out on her own.
As I mentioned earlier, this was a sick week for us and I was afraid that that meant no school. Quite the contrary! We took all day Tues and Wed. reading books in bed. I got most of our AO reading for the week done on Tues. and on Wed. I let her pick what she wanted to read. Her first choice? Shakespeare! She's too much like her Mamma! We both love Shakespeare. Except that I never started learning the works until the 8th grade! Obviously, we read the story versions, but still they are very difficult and confusing. She just loves a challenge though. We began Viking Tales this week and it's already a hit for us. I hope that continues.
Ds5 is doing great on his letters and letter sounds. We're farther than I thought we'd be by this time of the year. I figure he'll be putting words together very soon. He's already doing C-A-T and other three letter words. But I don't push him. He asks me and I tell him. I'm a firm believer that they will read when they are ready and pushing them too early is the wrong approach. But I know that each child will be ready at different times. Dd7 is an excellent reader. She reads American Girl and Little House on the Praire books with no problem. Yet she didn't start reading until the first grade. Ds5 is in K-4 technically (although I'm doing K with him this year) and he's close to starting to read. I love seeing how each child is different. That's one of the joys of homeschooling!
Well, it's been a busy, full, fun week where we've learned a lot more than I expected. The sickness didn't keep us down. It just kept us from doing math (my daughter's best...but LEAST favorite subject). But we're way ahead in math anyway so I gave her a break this week. Next week though...is a different story. Until then...God bless!
So this week was very good week for our nature study and art/handiworks. We had a few days of beautiful Fall weather and we took full advantage of this. Two days at the park and two nature studies in one week! Wow! Like I mentioned in previous posts, the nature studies have really become a way of life in our homeschool and the kids even think of their own topics to discover/explore. Monday's nature study was helping to find the different aspects of nature at the park versus our house. This led to a wonderful language arts session afterwards which incorporated spelling, copywork, grammar, punctuation, and paragraph structure. Wow! I'm no where close to teaching those things in my grammar lesson book. But the questions came up and the opportunity to teach was there. I took it!
Today we did the same thing. Dd7 has Strep throat so we've been keeping a low profile for a couple of days. While Ds5 was in KinderTots today I took the girls to the park nearby and thankfully no one else was there. We decided to walk around looking at the different types and colors of the leaves. We collected a few and brought them home to draw and write about them. The same result happened...we had a wonderful language arts lesson and she didn't even know it. And the artwork is simply beautiful.
We also worked on our handiworks this week. The kids have been making clay structures off and on recently. They have a lot of items dried and today we decided to paint them. Even Dd2 got in on the painting. We gave them to Daddy since today is his birthday. Ds5 helped me cook breakfast this morning (I let the kids help me cook at least a couple of times a week...they love it and I love the extra opportunity to teach!). He even let Dd2 help stir the chocolate chip pancakes (a family favorite that we end up eating at least once a week!).
Dd7 has been working hard on her piano lessons as well. I try to remember to have her practice each day but I must admit that it rarely gets done on the weekends. I just never seem to remember unless we're doing school. But she still gets her 5 practices a week in. She's very good and almost done with her first set of books. She's far surpassed me already and I'm no good when she has questions. But she can usually figure it out on her own.
As I mentioned earlier, this was a sick week for us and I was afraid that that meant no school. Quite the contrary! We took all day Tues and Wed. reading books in bed. I got most of our AO reading for the week done on Tues. and on Wed. I let her pick what she wanted to read. Her first choice? Shakespeare! She's too much like her Mamma! We both love Shakespeare. Except that I never started learning the works until the 8th grade! Obviously, we read the story versions, but still they are very difficult and confusing. She just loves a challenge though. We began Viking Tales this week and it's already a hit for us. I hope that continues.
Ds5 is doing great on his letters and letter sounds. We're farther than I thought we'd be by this time of the year. I figure he'll be putting words together very soon. He's already doing C-A-T and other three letter words. But I don't push him. He asks me and I tell him. I'm a firm believer that they will read when they are ready and pushing them too early is the wrong approach. But I know that each child will be ready at different times. Dd7 is an excellent reader. She reads American Girl and Little House on the Praire books with no problem. Yet she didn't start reading until the first grade. Ds5 is in K-4 technically (although I'm doing K with him this year) and he's close to starting to read. I love seeing how each child is different. That's one of the joys of homeschooling!
Well, it's been a busy, full, fun week where we've learned a lot more than I expected. The sickness didn't keep us down. It just kept us from doing math (my daughter's best...but LEAST favorite subject). But we're way ahead in math anyway so I gave her a break this week. Next week though...is a different story. Until then...God bless!
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