Monthly Wrap-up ~ Timeless

This blogging thing ... yeah, sorry about that. But I plan to do better. I really do. I'm gonna get you all wrapped up on school for the past month, and then I promise that I am going to get back into regular blogging. Because we really have been doing a lot of fun things that I have failed to share, like volleyball, the pumpkin patch, birthdays, grandbaby cuteness, and more.

Over the last month we have moved right along in our school work, and even took a week off for Fall Break. We have consistently done all the basics. We get in our reading, grammar, math, spelling, copywork, cursive handwriting every single day. We are studying astronomy and Greek mythology. We are reading aloud out of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, finished The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono (and went to see the excellent puppet show based on the short story), and are now reading The Green Ember. We continue to have our enrichment class every week where the girls are doing some creative writing and the boys are now watching an episode of "Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego". Every day is filled to the brim with studies.

I am going to focus this wrap-up on something new we have been studying that has been so much fun and is the kids' favorite subject of the week.

We are doing a weekly history lesson using the new television series, Timeless on NBC.

This drama follows a history professor, former soldier, and employee of a company who made a time machine when the time machine is stolen by a villain who travels back in time to change historical events. The events visited so far have been the Hindenburg disaster, the assassination of President Lincoln, 1960's Rat Pack in Las Vegas during the testing of the Atomic bomb, and the V-2 rocket used by the Germans in WWII and honored at the celebration at the Castle Varlar. This week we are going to the Alamo.

We love to study this way, by researching an event or reading a book and then watching a television show, documentary, movie, or play about it. So on Mondays we do a History Detective worksheet where we study the historical event that will be covered on Timeless that week. We research in books and on the internet, watch videos, etc. We try to learn all we can about it. This has taught us things I guarantee are not in history books. I have learned so much!! Believe me, I am having just as much fun, if not more, than the kids.

Then on Tuesday afternoons we watch the episode of Timeless and contrast the ways it was alike and different from the actual historical events. It's a lot of fun and gives us so many things to discuss. (Plus it gives the kids opportunities to practice their research and note taking skills and to correlate information.) Sure they throw in some fiction or mix in other historical characters that were not involved in the actual events, but that's what makes the investigation of truth versus fiction so enjoyable.

Now that I have figured out a few of the current quirks of my laptop, I plan to get back into regular blogging. (I promise, Uncle John.)

This life is just too good not to share!

2016-2017 School Hours Logged: 314.75 hours, including 53.5 hours outside home. Plus Summer Hours Logged: 141.5 hours, including 54 hours outside home.

On a side note: We are ahead of schedule on our required hours this year! We have a 6 week Christmas break planned already, but it looks like if we continue with our current plan of weekly hours we will also end up with a longer Spring Break and may even end school before our scheduled end of April. Kudos to hard-working kids!