We got out of a groove and back into one this week. I am certain that will happen many more times in our Journey! Being back on a Schedule is marvelous to this structure-freak teacher! That being said, I am still enjoying the unexpected moments of learning that I am allowing to occur through the day. Having my schedule just helps me to steer us back on track when we veer off.
For Brynne I have definitely settled into a solid teaching philosophy with her. Since I did not purchase any curriculum for her, I have been winging it! I am now very comfortable with our daily does of Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic, History lessons with the American Girls stories and Science lessons with our Nature study. It's just all so good!
She is reading like a maniac, which I am loving! She amazes me every day with how she is putting "things" together. She is so excited about learning! She spells out loud all day.
Yesterday afternoon I let her take a Spelling test with Eli when I practiced with him for his test he has at school today (reminder that Eli is in the 1st grade in public school). She spelled every word but one correctly, and wrote two sentences that I read to them. She had never studied these words before.
We completed our unit on the American Girl doll, Kaya, and have now moved on to Felicity, a colonial Williamsburg girl who loves horses. (Brynne was surprised to learn that her own mama was born in Williamsburg, Virginia. Although I am close, I don't think I would be considered "Colonial".) We are reading Meet Felicity and will start working on our Lapbook soon. In the meantime we have supplemented with watching a video called First Settlers by American History for Children and reading D is for Drums: A Colonial Williamsburg ABC by Kay Chorao.
We went to the homeschool library and craft time again this week. After listening to some books be read, we settled into our craft time. The library had several Reader's Digest Condensed Books that had been donated for their book sale. Because they were old and not in the best condition, the kids were allowed to make them into art. They let the kids cut up the books and decorate their covers. Really they could do whatever they wanted. I just couldn't bring myself to let Brynne cut up the pages of the book as many other kids were doing. There are stories such as "Christy" and "The Fox and the Hound" in our book. So, instead, she decorated the cover how she wanted. It now sits on her dresser in her room. (I hope the other parents don't walk in and find that their kids have cut up all the books in their house!}
For her study on the Letter E this week, Brynne did her tracer pages and mini-book. She had adisgusting yummy lunch of an "E" hot dog and "e" cheese. {She actually had three hot dogs, the rest of the slice of cheese, Ritz crackers and grapes.}
She filled her Letter Bag with an elephant, an egg (that her and her brother drew a face on and later took it out and shot with his airsoft gun) and her favorite thing that starts with an "e", her brother "Eli."
We didn't get to our Nature Study again this week. I am really wanting to make it a priority, but by Friday afternoon we seem to always have other things going on. I might have to make it a priority on a different day of the week.
Great week for Brynne!!!
Dawson and I are finally beginning to really enjoy our unit on Ancient Greece. That almost stinks because we are nearing the end of it and will be moving on to Ancient Rome.
We have been reading Classic Myths to Read Aloud by William F. Russell, then Dawson draws a picture each day of a Greek god or goddess to put in his notebook. He read a comic called Perseus and Medusa by Nick Saunders and noted the differences between the versions. He watched the movie 300 which is a much more recent version of The 300 Spartans that we watched last week. And Wednesday we watched a History Channel documentary on Clash of the Gods: Hades. These are our favorite videos. We have both learned so much from them, and the cinematography is excellent! We have scheduled to record one on Medusa and another on Hercules.
In Dawson's science unit on personal health, he read the book How to Be an Ancient Greek Athlete by Jacqueline Morley. He is working on a project of writing a three-day menu for an Olympic athlete, determining how often one should eat, how many calories, types of foods, etc. He has also been recording what he is eating each day so we can input it into the MyPyramidTracker website. I must say, by doing this he has been much more conscious about what he has eating and I have seen much healthier food entering his body! He has a desire to be in the Marines someday, so we have been discussing how important it is to prepare his body physically for that future challenge.
Language Arts has included continual vocabulary words from his Classic Myths reading (we have remained so enamered with the way many of our current vocabulary comes from Greek root words. It's fascinating, really.) He had a spelling unit using words from his Human Body Systems unit. His Life of Fred: Fractions is still going really well. I never hear complaints out of him to do his math! And he is still doing his computer lessons for Spanish and Typing.
For Fine Arts this week Dawson has been working on a paper replica of the Parthenon. He's not done yet, and won't be until next week. You can go here to see how to do it. I'll post the final product next week.
After the mini-meltdown on Tuesday, we got back to our Schedule on Wednesday and ended our week strong!
We are linking up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. Go there to see how other home schools accomplished this week.
Brynne ~ 1st Grade
For Brynne I have definitely settled into a solid teaching philosophy with her. Since I did not purchase any curriculum for her, I have been winging it! I am now very comfortable with our daily does of Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic, History lessons with the American Girls stories and Science lessons with our Nature study. It's just all so good!
She is reading like a maniac, which I am loving! She amazes me every day with how she is putting "things" together. She is so excited about learning! She spells out loud all day.
Yesterday afternoon I let her take a Spelling test with Eli when I practiced with him for his test he has at school today (reminder that Eli is in the 1st grade in public school). She spelled every word but one correctly, and wrote two sentences that I read to them. She had never studied these words before.
We completed our unit on the American Girl doll, Kaya, and have now moved on to Felicity, a colonial Williamsburg girl who loves horses. (Brynne was surprised to learn that her own mama was born in Williamsburg, Virginia. Although I am close, I don't think I would be considered "Colonial".) We are reading Meet Felicity and will start working on our Lapbook soon. In the meantime we have supplemented with watching a video called First Settlers by American History for Children and reading D is for Drums: A Colonial Williamsburg ABC by Kay Chorao.
We went to the homeschool library and craft time again this week. After listening to some books be read, we settled into our craft time. The library had several Reader's Digest Condensed Books that had been donated for their book sale. Because they were old and not in the best condition, the kids were allowed to make them into art. They let the kids cut up the books and decorate their covers. Really they could do whatever they wanted. I just couldn't bring myself to let Brynne cut up the pages of the book as many other kids were doing. There are stories such as "Christy" and "The Fox and the Hound" in our book. So, instead, she decorated the cover how she wanted. It now sits on her dresser in her room. (I hope the other parents don't walk in and find that their kids have cut up all the books in their house!}
For her study on the Letter E this week, Brynne did her tracer pages and mini-book. She had a
She filled her Letter Bag with an elephant, an egg (that her and her brother drew a face on and later took it out and shot with his airsoft gun) and her favorite thing that starts with an "e", her brother "Eli."
We didn't get to our Nature Study again this week. I am really wanting to make it a priority, but by Friday afternoon we seem to always have other things going on. I might have to make it a priority on a different day of the week.
Great week for Brynne!!!
Dawson ~ 8th Grade
Dawson and I are finally beginning to really enjoy our unit on Ancient Greece. That almost stinks because we are nearing the end of it and will be moving on to Ancient Rome.
We have been reading Classic Myths to Read Aloud by William F. Russell, then Dawson draws a picture each day of a Greek god or goddess to put in his notebook. He read a comic called Perseus and Medusa by Nick Saunders and noted the differences between the versions. He watched the movie 300 which is a much more recent version of The 300 Spartans that we watched last week. And Wednesday we watched a History Channel documentary on Clash of the Gods: Hades. These are our favorite videos. We have both learned so much from them, and the cinematography is excellent! We have scheduled to record one on Medusa and another on Hercules.
In Dawson's science unit on personal health, he read the book How to Be an Ancient Greek Athlete by Jacqueline Morley. He is working on a project of writing a three-day menu for an Olympic athlete, determining how often one should eat, how many calories, types of foods, etc. He has also been recording what he is eating each day so we can input it into the MyPyramidTracker website. I must say, by doing this he has been much more conscious about what he has eating and I have seen much healthier food entering his body! He has a desire to be in the Marines someday, so we have been discussing how important it is to prepare his body physically for that future challenge.
Language Arts has included continual vocabulary words from his Classic Myths reading (we have remained so enamered with the way many of our current vocabulary comes from Greek root words. It's fascinating, really.) He had a spelling unit using words from his Human Body Systems unit. His Life of Fred: Fractions is still going really well. I never hear complaints out of him to do his math! And he is still doing his computer lessons for Spanish and Typing.
For Fine Arts this week Dawson has been working on a paper replica of the Parthenon. He's not done yet, and won't be until next week. You can go here to see how to do it. I'll post the final product next week.
After the mini-meltdown on Tuesday, we got back to our Schedule on Wednesday and ended our week strong!
We are linking up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. Go there to see how other home schools accomplished this week.
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