Home education highlights {February}

It has been a while since I’ve talked about our home school.  Even though I’ve been silent about the subject, we have busy working and learning in our school.  Here are some of the high lights from our learning in February:

Together we worked on:

    flags of Asia

Geography

We are using My Father’s World Countries and Cultures as the main spine of our curriculum.  To see the rest of our curriculum choices, visit here.

In geography we learned about:

• Kenya and Saudi Arabia
• Memorized the countries in Africa and have begun memorizing the countries in Asia
• The Riffi Berbers, the Pygmies, people of Saudi Arabia and the Kurds
• The religion of Islam 
•  Mancala (homemade game and app on my phone)
• Global positioning

 playing Mancala (link above is to a computer version)

Bible

• Continued reading through the book of Matthew
• Memorized Matthew 6: 19 – 21, 24 – 25, 33, and the Lord’s Prayer
• Read about missionaries:  Mary Slessor, Samuel Morris, David Livingstone

 grassland dioramas

Science

• Grasslands animals and plants
• Experiments with grass (to discover how grass can grow after being eaten by various animals on the grasslands), how elephants stay cool without sweat glands
• Man’s impact on the environment, endangered species, and environmental issues

 In the middle of giving a spelling test, I had to leave the room.  I came back to Grant giving the test for me.  {smile}

History

• The Civil War
• Lapbooking about the Civil War
• Read Just a Few Words, Mr. Lincoln and Turn Homeward, Hannalee

Greek and Latin Roots

• helios (sun), sol (sun), philia (love), and phobos (fear)

(This pin on pinterest tells about teaching Greek and Latin roots.)

  Reading On the Banks of Plum Creek

Individually we worked on:

Bryce (8th)

• Reading White Fang
• Working on Pre-algebra (fractions and formulas and figures, oh my!)
• Daily written narrations, writing assignments, grammar, and spelling

Grant (6th)

• Finished reading The Boxcar Children.  Began work on Shiloh
• Conquering long division, averages, and divisors
• Daily written narrations, writing assignments, grammar, and spelling

Flower Girl (3rd)

• Reading On the Banks of Plum Creek
• Decoding words with vowel pairs, improving in reading fluency
• Learning to multiply and memorizing multiplication facts
• Writing friendly letters and making words into plurals in grammar, daily oral narrations, and spelling

Sunshine Girl (Kindergarten)

• Has learned all short vowels, still learning the remainder of consonants
• Decoding CVC words (cat, dog, pig, etc)
• Reading short stories
• Learning numbers, counting, calendars, coins, basic addition & subtraction
• Learned about farm animals and penguins

 

Wow!  Despite fighting illness this month, we really learned a lot in our little home school.  {smile}

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 5

 Plot study observing living and non-living things

I love this time of the school year when routines have been established and things start to hum along nicely.  Our little home school is going well on most days.  Though I will admit there are days when things fall apart.  I am pleased with most of our curriculum choices but have realized that some things are just not working well for some of my kids.

I believe this to be one of the beautiful things about homeschooling:  We can tailor the curriculum to the child.  I remember sitting in job interviews for teaching positions and telling administrators that I believed in making my lessons & curriculum unique for each child in my class.  I tried to live by that too.  I truly believe that education needs to meet the child on his or her level and not the child meet the education.  (Does that make sense because I’m a bit tired tonight?)  I wanted that for the students in my class but that is hard to do when you have 20 + students.  In my little classroom of five children, it is easy for me to do.

 More plot study

In week five, I realized that one student just was not ready for a particular subject on grade level.  At first, I was a bit discouraged and wanted to push on.  However, the child was completely frustrated.  We know that children can not learn when they are working at a level of frustration.  I put the textbook away and opted for something that was more suited to the child’s ability.  Now, this student is working along, learning the same exact things. (The subject was grammar, by the way.  And grammar is grammar is grammar, if you know what I mean.)  The book I’m using might not have the “appropriate grade level” on it but the child is learning the same material.  The child is much happier which makes for a much happier mom.  :)

 A science experiment on chemical reactions

 

It seems the longer that I homeschool, I learn more.

I learn that it is okay to change when something isn’t working.  And it is okay to keep it the same when it is working.

 Making edible cells

I learn that my homeschool will not look like any other homeschool and it won’t even look like a school.  It will look just how it needs to look for our family.  What works for me might not work for anyone else and vice versa.

 A plant cell with chloroplasts and a nucleus

I learn that what is in the books is not necessarily what my children need to learn.  Yes, academics are important.  But I truly want my children to complete our homeschool years knowing who God is, having a relationship with Jesus, and equipped to be “the light of the world” and “the salt of the earth”. 

 An animal cell with just a nucleus

I learn that some of the greatest moments, such as my oldest child being tender towards a hurting sibling or my older daughter reading to her little sister, are totally worth the hours of planning and preparing.  And yes, those moments are even worth the attitudes on days when someone “doesn’t want to do school”. 

 Enjoying a little bit of an animal cell  ;)

I am glad that we are a homeschooling family.  Yes, it is not always easy but most things worth doing are not easy.  Yes, there are days when I feel like I need to run down the block screaming. 

But I wouldn’t trade these days of togetherness for anything…

Not one thing at all!

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!