Winter term ~ Week 2

After thinking on it over the Christmas break, I have changed up the way that we plan our school year.  I will try to share about that later.  However, the changes have changed the titles of my weekly updates.  That’s why this post is titled winter term ~ week 2.  (And there is a week 1 that needs to be written but I’m not sure it will ever get written.) {smile}

Since we have started school back after the break, it has gone really, really well.  I think the one who had the hardest time adjusting was me since I had to go from two weeks of free time back to a day spent teaching my children.  It always takes some adjusting for me to lay down my selfishness and realize that it is not all about me.  Anyway, that’s not what this post is about so I’ll move on to our week in our homeschool.  Here are some highlights from our week:

This week, the younger children were talking about the nervous system in science.  Lab #1 was about our reflexes which involves the use of our nervous system.  We would hold the ruler about and inch above the child’s hand and then release it.  The child would catch the ruler and then we would record the number.  They would try to see if they could improve their reflexes by catching the ruler more quickly.

Lab # 2 was about using our senses.  For each of the five senses, they had to guess items using on the sense that was designated.  Sometimes that was easy but they found out that sometimes you needed another one of your senses to help you to figure out the items. 

 

We are going very slowly through our American History.  We just finished the French and Indian War or the Seven Years’ War.  Next week, we will start the American Revolution.  The two older boys both had to write reports this week on a History topic.  We are still reading Johnny Tremain for our read aloud.

Everyone is continuing to advance through their lessons.  I am very proud of my children and the accomplishments that they are making with their school work.  I have reorganized the weekly work where they are more able to work on their own and so far they are doing very well with the new system.  Look for a post on that in the future. 

One of the best things about homeschooling is seeing your children learn to read.  This year, we decided to use living books instead of readers for our reading books.  The older boys both enjoy chapter books that they read and then narrate to me.  This year, our second grader is using books that are suggested by Sonlight.  She and I sit and read the stories back and forth to each other.  However, some days if I’m busy teaching pre-algebra or grammar, she will read to her younger siblings or to herself.  Oh, I just LOVE that!

This week, we also had the special treat of a field trip.  We went to our city’s fire training center.  We were able to learn about K-9 bomb detection and a robot that our city uses to handle bombs.  It was a FUN field trip.

 

 

 

 

Home Education Highlights

Honestly, these past few weeks have been busy and I am having trouble keeping the weekly highlights up to date.  So I’m going to call it even and just post some of the high points and then start a new at the end of this week.

The past few weeks have been filled with:

• Pioneer Heritage Days where we toured an old pioneer houses, learned how to make fire with a flint stone, and learned about nature during pioneer times.

• Visiting the pumpkin patch and participating in a bike-a-thon to raise money for missions

• Learning more about playing the guitar {free lessons here}
  
• Using the computer to draw pictures
  
• Learning about fixing leaky pipes  {the older boys helped quite a bit}
  
• Exercising at running club {they do actually run…sometimes}
  
• Visiting a raw milk dairy farm {can you believe this is the only picture that I snapped?}
  
• Helping the little ones complete their crafts
  
• Catching and observing lizards

And we can not forget:

{Math}

and

{Reading & Writing}

 

I do believe we may be {somewhat} caught up now. 

{smile}

 
 
 
 

 
 

Home Education Highlights ~ Week 4

 

 ~David driving away on his way to the airport.~

This week will be easy for me to share because it was an easy week for us.  Honestly, I chose to make it an easy week because on Tuesday morning of our school week 4, we had to say goodbye to David for a few days.  He had to make an out of state trip for some work related training.  I know my limits so I decided that we would focus on the basics.  And that’s what we did:  we did math, read our history novels & other books, and spent time outside. 

The kids also made a newspaper.  They wanted to document what they did during their week for their Dad.  They had a lot of fun making cartoons.  I consider that writing (grammar & spelling) and art. 

 ~Unfinished, unedited paper in the early stages…it does appear that a particular little brother decided to do a little editing with a yellow crayon, though.~

Week 4 of our school was a bit of a different week but learning was happening still.  And it shows me, once again, that learning is always going on whether you crack open a grammar book or not.  ;)

Home Education Highlights ~ Term 1, Week 3

We had a great week of school this week.  I’ve said it before but I LOVE using Sonlight for our history and literature.  My boys are loving it too.  This week, my oldest son came to me and asked me what book he would be reading next and then he wanted to know the order of his books for the rest of the year!  As he looked through them, he would comment, “Oh, that one looks cool” or “I can’t wait to read that one”.  This momma’s heart was so happy upon hearing that!

Here are some highlights from our week:

History & Literature:

Read Alouds: 

• Pedro’s Journal:  A Voyage with Christopher Columbus by Pam Conrad
• Walk the World’s Rim by Betty Baker

Readers:

• Om-kas-toe by Kenneth Thomasma

Poetry and Music:

• Poems from The Oxford Illustrated Book of American Children’s Poems
• The Stars and the Stripes and America from Wee Sing America

History:

• The story of slavery and the search for new lands
• Explorers:  Ponce de Leon, Balboa, Magellan

Geography:

• Daily Geography – The four hemispheres
• Map Work – San Salvador, Spain, Caribbean

Language Arts

Bryce ~ 7th grade

• Copywork and studied dictation (see above ~ great spelling practice.  I’ll write more about it later.)
• Subjects and predicates
• Latin & Greek roots:  tri, tres, quartus, quatuor, decem, centum (numbers)
• Dailygrams
• Notebooking about Native Americans & ancient civilzations

Grant ~ 5th grade

• Copywork and studied dictation
• Subjects and predicates
• Handwriting
• Dailygrams
• Notebooking about Native Americans
• All About Spelling words – mainly a review for him at this point

Emma ~ 2nd grade

• Copywork and oral narrations using Rumplestilskin
• Dailygrams
• Adding –ed and –ing to words ending with silent e
• All About Spelling ~ short vowels
• Reviewing phonics sounds and working on reading fluency
• Reading from The Beginner’s Bible
• Handwriting ~ decorated to mail to relatives

Math

Bryce ~ 7th grade

• Geometry and units of measure
• Division math facts

Grant ~ 5th grade

• Unit conversions and the metric system
• Multiplication math facts

Emma ~ 2nd grade

• Odd/even, greatest/least, addition & subtraction facts, place value, time, money, and graphing

Science

Bryce ~ 7th grade

• The history of science, experiments on density & atoms

Grant & Emma

• Living and nonliving, observation & classification of living/nonliving objects
• Unplanned experiment to see how plants have circulation since living things have circulation. 

 

 

Preschool:

Abby (4) and Evan (2):

• reviewed letters L and short vowels A & E
• learned letter T
• listened to and enjoyed:  The Big Green Pocketbook
• counting and numbers: reviewed 1 and learned 2

(Preschool post coming soon!)

 

Great Resources that we used this week:

We have sort of used notebooking in the past but decided that we would like to do a bit more with it this year.  My kids used some of the free forms from Notebooking Pages.  I plan to save them and have them bound into books at the end of each term. 

 Here is another source for notebook pages for your students.

Next week will be an unusual week but more about that…next week! 

 

Home Education Highlights ~ Week 2

Last week as I was planning preschool for my 4 year old daughter, I realized that this blog can be a very useful tool for me as a home educator.  In the middle of searching for activities and plans for our preschool lessons, I caught myself thinking that I needed to write this down so I could remember what we did when my 2 year old son is in preschool!  Right about that time I realized that I do write it down!  Right here on our blog.  It was a light bulb moment for me.  :) 

I plan to share each week what we’ve been learning in our home school.  I’m a bit behind so this is actually from week 2 of our school.  Tomorrow, week 3 should be up and ready to view. 

We have been homeschooling for 6 years and each year I find that the first two weeks are the hardest.  Our family is trying to get back into a schedule after a relaxed summer.  Usually everyone is not as willing to get back into that structured routine. 

Last week as we were having some tough days, I decided to take the kids outside for school one day.  They all sat and worked on their independent work and I read from our Sonlight read alouds.  Our toddler ran around and played here and there.  Every once in a while, he would sit on the quilt and do his work too.

We usually ease back into school.  Instead of jumping back into all of the subjects, we start with a few and add two or more subjects at a time over the next few weeks.  Last week, we were doing all subjects except for writing and science.  We all were looking forward to science starting.  We love science!

My older boys have always loved history but they are really loving Sonlight this year.  I wish that we had started this before now.  We are all learning so much from the books.  It is truly a great program and we give it two thumbs up!  This week we were learning about Native Americans and Christopher Columbus. 

One day, we met some friends at the park for a little bit of “socialization”.  :)  We are trying to make a point to get out to more park days and field trips this year. 

 

Rock climbing is P.E., right?  :)

I hope that your school is off to a good start too!