Weekly update

I started this post last week but with working and sleeping I never got around to finishing it so this will be for the last two weeks.

Here is the summary of what we did these past two weeks:

Math: Ellie and Kara are continuing to work through their mathbooks. I've since gotten Kara some reusable math fact practice placemats and she is working on those for addition at this point.

English: Ellie is working on identifying past participles. It hasn't been too difficult for her yet. I think one of the reasons English hasn't been a problem for her is that we (Dan and I) are constantly correcting our kids' grammar in everyday conversations. Ellie will even correct me when I say something incorrectly. One of the reasons for this is that one of my majors in college was English and my sister is incredibly anal about using -ly endings appropriately so I think that it has rubbed off on me too. Kara is learning about helping verbs. Darin is reading and is incredibly cute when doing so. And he LOVES to do schoolwork. He still begs to do more and is quite sad when I tell him it is time to put it away. He does his little happy dance whenever it is time for reading.

Ellie took her chapter four test and will start chapter five next week.

Latin: Ellie continues with LCII. She is still doing review from LCI and will start new content next week. This week she had a friend over (from Schaeffer) and they were talking about Latin. Her friend loves Latin and will began extra Latin lessons this week from her Latin teacher and Ellie was commenting how she didn't like Latin. It was kind of funny to hear their different points of view. Ellie says she doesn't really mind the memorization of the Latin words and forms but she doesn't like the application part--you know, the part where she actually has to think.

History: Last week we studied Christopher Columbus. Ellie wrote a one page compare/contrast paper about Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Kara wrote a paragraph about Christopher Columbus. This week Ellie continued to learn about different explorers. She's not been happy about the volume of schoolwork this week so we've been working on not getting overwhelmed with the amount of work, but instead just plugging away at it so that it gets done, little by little. We also read about latitude, longitude and how to read a map.

Science: We read another couple pages in our One Small Square book about ponds. The kids learned about how the male sunfish is the one that protects the eggs at the bottom of the pond. He fans the water over the eggs to keep them clean and to deliver oxygen to them. They also learned that lily stems have air spaces in them to help them stay up in the water.

Art: We learned three more elements of design (we learned three last week). We then looked at different works of art and described them using the six elements of design. We also learned about the five principles of design.

Weekly Update (of sorts)

We only sort of did school this week. Last week Ellie and Kara spent the week at Grandpa and Grandma's (see pics here) and it was our planned week off after finishing Unit 1 of Tapestry of Grace. We had planned to restart school this week, but I was nowhere near prepared come Monday morning. While the girls were gone I was going to get their history notebooks ready (I make them a notebook for each unit that includes all reading assignments, questions, maps, etc). I think I thought I had more time. Problem was I worked the previous weekend so I didn't do much on Monday. Not sure what I did on Tuesday, but on Wednesday I made a bunch of applesauce (thanks Tami for coming and keeping me company). I started on Kara's on Thursday but didn't get it done. And then on Friday I went to meet my mom to pick up the girls and had a conference on Friday night and all day Saturday. Plus Sundays are our day of rest so I wasn't about to spend my whole Sunday afternoon working on the notebooks when I also had to prepare the food for our unit celebration. All this to say I was sorely prepared for Monday morning.

This week was also very busy with the older three having choir dress rehearsal Monday evening, church Wednesday evening, long choir practice Thursday afternoon and choir concerts on Thursday and Friday evenings. So we took it easy this week as well. Ellie did some math lessons and worked on her math facts. Kara did some handwriting and spelling and Darin learned how to read a few words, write a couple of numbers and the letter A, and did some other pages in another workbook he has. He did the most this week-mostly because he is always begging me to "do school." He hates it when I tell him it is time to put it away.

I did work on the notebooks and I've got them all done. I just need to make the labels for the maps but that isn't urgent. I'm working this weekend so that will get done at some point next week.

Weekly review

I originally started this post last weekend but with me working, it never got done. So this review will be for the last two weeks.

Math: Not much new here again. I did buy Ellie a couple of wipe-off mats to help her with her math facts. I've been hearing horror stories of the Everyday Math that they are teaching in the public schools around here and I'm very thankful that my kids are not subjected to that. I feel for those kids who are being taught this as they are mostly confused as to how to do basic addition problems, etc and how math will continue to be a struggle for them as they grow older. For those of you who don't know what this is, it is basically relativism in the classroom--i.e. there are several different ways you can solve this math problem (most of which are painfully confusing) and you (generally speaking here) as the parent shouldn't inflict the way you learned how to add on your children. Sad, really.

English: Ellie finished up her chapter on diagramming compound sentences, identifying comma splices, and identifying run-on sentences. She has also learned about appositives (yeah, I didn't know what they were either) and the proper comma usage with them. Kara is memorizing a poem called "The Goops." She is also learning the being verbs. Part of her English curriculum is copywork. At one point this week she had a meltdown during copywork because she was convinced that I was making her write way too much. Afterall, she had already done her spelling and handwriting!!! Needless to say, it didn't get her out of her copywork that day. Ellie is also writing a paper about life on the Silk Road. This pertains to our current history topic. She's about done with it--I just have to go over it with her to make a few modifications and then she'll copy it for her final draft. Ellie is actually quite good at her writing and rarely needs to make modifications to her rough draft. She usually thinks quite a bit about each sentence before she writes it down. I'm pretty much the same way. In college I rarely edited a paper since I knew what I wanted to say the first time I wrote it.

Latin: Ellie is now working in Latina Christiana II.

Art: Last Thursday we went to a fundraiser at the Art Center. The fundraiser was for the local food bank and was called Empty Bowls. Basically, you pay a certain amount (either per person or per family) and get lunch (a bowl of soup and some bread) and you get to take home a bowl that was donated by someone. With the purchase of a family ticket, you only get to take home 2 bowls. However, there were several people around us who found out we didn't have enough tickets for each of us to have a bowl and gave us their tickets. We got 5 tickets so each kid could pick out a bowl and I picked one out. The kids were very thankful to the generous people around them. Dan went with Natalie and she picked out a really ugly bowl (according to Dan--I didn't see it) so he put it back and chose a different one for her. She said she liked that one too. I think she was just excited to pick out her own bowl so she just grabbed the first one she saw. :-) The museum was open to the public without an extra admission fee so we toured the current exhibits and went to a kids activity. The theme for the activity was installation art. Basically it is art you can walk through. The kids each made their own installation art--sort of like a diorama. There were some really weird exhibits there that I'm not sure were really art and the kids didn't really care for some of them either. One of the exhibits had a video with it that we watched. When it was over, Ellie asked me what in the world that was all about. I told her I didn't have any idea and to ask the museum docent who was standing outside the exhibit. She did and the lady told her it was for her to figure out. Ellie didn't really appreciate the answer. :-)

History: We've studied Kublai Khan, Ghengis Khan, Marco Polo, Joan of Arc and the Black Death.

Science: We learned about the life cycle of the frog and about the function of a lily pad and all of the life that lives under a lily pad. We also watched some videos on National Geographic's website about the life cycle of the frog and some of the dangers of frog life. The kids had a blast watching them.

Weekly review

Our school week this week wasn't as productive as normal since we had illness going around our house. Ellie spent most of Wednesday lying on the couch. Dan was also sick with a cold this week and Kara's had a cough. So far Darin, Natalie and I haven't been ill.

History: We continued to study the influences of feudalism in the Catholic Church and some of the reformers of that time--namely St Dominic and St Francis of Assisi. We also learned that St Dominic developed a system of governing that the current English and American governments are modeled after. We also read about the Crusades--the good, the bad, and the ugly. Ellie and Kara learned how to play 9 Men's Morris--a medieval game similar to tic tac toe. They also finished painting the salt map they started almost a month ago. A few of the geographic features that they chose to put on there are an island, a peninsula, the source and mouth of a river, an estuary, and an ocean. Here is the map sans labels.

Math: Not much new here. Both girls continue in their studies.

Bible: We are still working on the catechism questions (and will be for quite awhile) and singing hymns. Kara is working through an Explorer's Bible Study book for her devotional time and Ellie is working on a study about willingness that I got from Keepers of the Faith.

English: Didn't get much done here this week--only 1 lesson each I think.

Science: This week we learned about complete and incomplete metamorphosis. We looked at the life cycles of several insects and caterpillars/moths/butterflies. One of the insects we studied was the mosquito. Only the female mosquito bites as it needs blood before it can lay its eggs. We also learned about surface tension and how some bugs use it to either stay on top of the water or hang just below the surface.

Latin: Since Ellie wasn't feeling well we didn't start a new Latin lesson this week.

Handwriting: Kara started a couple of lessons on beginning cursive this week. Ellie is a bit bummed that Kara is learning cursive because now Ellie can't be cryptic by writing in cursive.

Weekly review

I haven't posted a school update for awhile so I'll just summarize what we've been doing the last few weeks. We still haven't gotten into a good school schedule yet since we've taken a day off here and there to do some canning, some deep cleaning, some purging of toys and getting out the winter clothes. The weather has been just about perfect so it's made it hard to buckle down and do school. We're still getting the basics done just not a lot of the extras.

Math: Ellie and Kara are moving right along. Ellie has been skipping lessons here and there since it seems she is still having some review (even at lesson 40!!!). Kara usually does a couple at a time because there don't seem to be many new concepts introduced and when they are, she picks them up right away. Both girls are working on increasing their speed on their math facts. I need to make sure this gets done more often, especially since Ellie doesn't particularly like to do them.

English: Ellie is finally almost done with the English book we started last year. She's finishing up a chapter on diagramming prepositional phrases. Kara is almost done with her first grade section and has been working on sentence types, i.e. statement, command, etc. She's also still memorizing Mr. Nobody. She's just got the last stanza to finish up.

History: This week we've been studying the Vikings (not the football team) and last week we studied King Arthur and Charlemagne. We also built a salt map to cement some of the geography terms we've been learning. The kids still need to paint it so maybe they'll do that today. They would have had it done by now but it was taking forever to dry cuz I kept putting it out on the porch and I'd forget about it. Then the dew would settle on it making it wet again!!!
Ellie and I have been discussing the level that she is working on in Tapestry and for the next unit I plan to move her up to the dialectic level (she's currently working in the upper grammar level). The reading selections have definitely been too easy for her so I'll have to figure out if I'm going to move her up in all the areas or just literature.

Bible: For our devotion time in the morning, we've added singing hymns and the kids have loved it. It's really added a dimension to our devotions. We've also begun reviewing the catechism questions in Westminster Shorter Catechism that we learned awhile back.

Art/Music: Haven't done any.

Latin: Ellie is on her last lesson in LCI. Then she'll move on to LC II.

Science: We did make it out to Quarry Hill once to observe the pond and take some pond water samples. We have a Brock Magiscope at home and have been having a blast looking at things under it. In our pond water we've seen several protists and looked more closely at the different types of algae. There have also been a few snails that we've looked at too.

Here is a story that Ellie wrote for one of her writing assignments this week. She used a graphic organizer that used all of the senses to describe something.

A Viking Family
It's a fall afternoon and I'm hiding behind a rock watching my father fight. I see the slaves as they scurry about, the spears as they whiz through the air. The smell of blood pierces my nose. The scream of a child echoes in my ears. I taste the delectable beans I picked from our garden and the satisfying milk I milked from Hazel, our cow. I feel the rock now stinging my hands for I was clutching it tightly in fear my father would die.

School has started!!!

After taking part of the summer off we have started school again. It surely is nice to be back into a routine again. Towards the end of the last school year I bought the Managers of Their Homes book and implemented a schedule that worked wonderfully. I still need to tweak a few things on it for this year's schedule since we've changed our history curriculum and added a few things. I hope to get that done soon-hopefully within the next week or so.

So this past week we did a decent amount of work but didn't hit it too hard. I worked Sunday and Thursday night so the days after weren't as productive.

Here is what we did:

History: We've switched to Tapestry of Grace this year and love it so far. It is a classical history curriculum that integrates history, church history, writing, literature, geography and art history. In high school it also adds philosophy and worldview. I made each of the girls their own notebooks for the first unit--it has all of their assignments and they are responsible for getting them done. The kids have been loving it so far. Ellie even asked if she could work ahead in her history reading because she loved the book so far (a book about King Arthur). For our read aloud, we've been reading about the visigoths and others who contributed to the fall of Rome. We also read the story about Saint Valentine--his work and how his faith got him killed. We had planned on starting our salt map one day this week but 4 very tired children required naps so we didn't get it started. Instead we just reviewed some of the geographical terms that we had planned to put on our map.

English: We didn't completely finish Ellie's text from last year so we are just highlighting the grammar parts and skipping the writing since she's doing writing with Tapestry this year. With Kara we reviewed nouns, pronouns and action verbs. She's also memorizing the poem Mr. Nobody. She's got 2 of the 3 stanzas memorized.

Math: Ellie took a few tests in Saxon 65 and she started with lesson 15. She also did some math fact review using Quarter Mile Math (a computer program). Kara did a couple of lessons in Saxon 2 and a few lessons in her Singapore Math workbooks.

Science: We started a unit on ponds. We had planned on going to Quarry Hill to look at the pond and do some drawings but it didn't work out. I had worked the night before so was really tired, we had a picnic that we were going to that night so I needed to do some baking, and there were 40mph winds. So we just started reading about them and learning about muskrats.

Latin: Ellie is still working her way through Latina Christiana I and did lesson 23 this week. She'll move onto LC II when she is done with LC I.

Typing: Ellie started typing this week which she has been really excited about. She's been doing it in the evenings after Darin and Natalie go to bed and has been asking every day if she can work on it.

Logic: Ellie has started working her way through MindBenders A2. She uses grids to find out the answers to the puzzles--such as who lives where, etc--based on the clues given. We aren't doing any formal study of logic till 7th grade, but she loves working on these and does them in her spare time.

Weekly Update

History: We read about the Nazca people which made drawings in the ground that could only be seen from an airplane. Historians speculate that they used mathematical calculations to make these drawings although no one really knows why since airplanes weren't even invented at the time (around 200 BC). We also learned the legend of Romulus and Remus and began studying the rise of Rome.

Science: We finished our chapter on Jupiter. One of Jupiter's moons is a greenish color due to the volcanoes that spew forth sulfuric acid.

Math: Ellie and Kara each did several lessons. Ellie has been doing a few Singapore math lessons along with her Saxon so as to increase her mental math abilities.

English: Ellie is learning about adverbs and Kara is learning about verbs.

Reading: Ellie drew a picture to depict a scene from the last book that she read--Around the World in 80 Days (see pic below). She is now reading a book about the founders of the Salvation Army.

Art/Music: We reviewed our hymns and started learning O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing. They also did 3 pages in their How Great Thou Art books (see examples below).

Weekly Update

I didn't post an update last week (just got too busy) so this will be for the last 2 weeks. I suppose that is a good thing since this week was a bad week for getting anything done. The week before was a great week--we got everything accomplished that we wanted to. We even did science twice and history twice. This week we ran our once-a-month errands on Monday, I recovered from working a night shift on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I spent most of my time dealing with a very testing-the-limits almost-3-year-old. Friday Emily graciously took the kids for awhile and I primed the laundry room and went out for lunch with Dan.

History: We finished reading about the Parthenon and read a chapter about Alexander the Great.

Science: We finished our chapter on space rocks and started learning about Jupiter. They learned that Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a giant storm that is twice the size of the earth and has been raging for over 300 years. Coincidentally, last Saturday's episode of Beakman's World was about Jupiter.

Math: Ellie is almost done with Saxon 54. She did several lessons and a test. The last lesson was about the distributive property and she is having a little trouble understanding it. So we took a little break from Saxon on Thursday and she did 3 lessons in a Singapore workbook I have at home. Kara did several lessons last week and 4 lessons this week. Her math is still mostly review since we are at the beginning of a new book.

Handwriting: Kara's handwriting continues to look great since I have been checking her work everyday. She has asked me to put an A+ on her paper if it looks good. I continually have to remind Ellie to write in cursive and she prefers to print.

Latin: For the last 2 weeks Ellie has been working on Latin review. There are some worksheets on Memoria Press' website for the Latin program she has been using, so she has been doing 1-2 worksheets a day. I found that she really didn't understand when to use which case endings and these worksheets have a lot of translation on them, so it is really solidifying her understanding of Latin (mine too!).

English: I didn't get any English done with Ellie or Kara this week but they both got a fair amount done last week.

Spelling: Kara did 2 lessons this week and 2 lessons last week.

Art/Music: Last week we reviewed our hymns learned so far and did several lessons in our art book How Great Thou Art.

Reading: Ellie is working on Around the World in 80 Days. Last week we read Understood Betsy out loud. Kara doesn't have any assigned reading books--she just reads books from the library or ones we have around the house.

Weekly Update

This update will be for the last 2 weeks since I didn't write one last week (mainly because I worked last weekend). Last Thursday we took the day off from school and read the book House of Love, a Lamplighter publication. It was a great book and the kids didn't even want me to eat lunch so I could continue reading. It is a fairly lengthy book so we finished it on Monday.

Math: Ellie did several lessons and took a test. She only missed 1 on the test pertaining to milliliters/liters. She has a hard time remembering how many milliliters are in a liter and other metric conversions so we really need to work on those. Thursday she had a really bad attitude about math. After 45 minutes or so of "working" on her math, she came out for a snack and I assumed she was done. When I asked her about it, she said she was on problem number 4!!!!!! So I asked her what she was doing the whole time. After much prodding and pulling of teeth, she admitted that she was just sitting there thinking about how much she didn't want to do her math! So as a consequence she folded 3 large baskets of laundry (her bad attitude continued, hence the total of 3 baskets). The other days she didn't have a bad attitude about her math.
Kara reviewed her math facts again last week and this week we started Saxon Math 2. It is pretty much review right now so we are still averaging 2 lessons per day. I was explaining to her what an AB pattern was and she just looked at me and said, "Mom, I learned that already in Kindergarten!!!" That was the end of that math lesson. :-)

English: Ellie did several lessons. We usually do a few lessons in one sitting since we don't get to it every day. We are currently learning about adjectives. Kara did a few lessons in FLL.

Handwriting: Kara did a couple of the copywork selections from FLL and several of her pages from Daily Handwriting. Her handwriting was getting sloppy again so I am watching this a bit more closely and when she actually tries, she has great handwriting. As someone posted somewhere once--you get what you inspect not what you expect. So true.

Latin: Ellie finished lesson 17. We hadn't been very good about saying her recitations every day, but we've picked that up. She knows them pretty well thankfully.

History: We read chapters 23 and 24 from SOTW about the Greek gods (a review for us) and about the war between the Greeks and the Persians. We also are reading a library book about the building of the Parthenon and the Athenians contribution of architecture. It is quite a fascinating study. The Parthenon is held together by gravity--no mortar, nails, etc.

Spelling: Kara continues in SWO B. Ellie didn't do any spelling. She is such a natural speller that mostly we just correct any misspellings in her writing.

Reading: Kara is reading like crazy. She read 2 books from the library that I picked out and she has read several others. She is trying to fill out several McDonald's redemption certificates since she likes the current Happy Meal toys. Another week or 2 an she'll be done with OPGTR. Ellie finished Pinocchio and is currently reading Around the World in 80 Days.

Science: We continued our chapter on space rocks. They learned the difference between asteroids, meteoroids, meteorites and comets.

Art/Music: We listened to several selections from Mozart. The girls also colored their own Van Gogh painting. This was our last week on Mozart and Van Gogh so we'll move on to new artists next week. We also really need to get back into doing the How Great Thou Art lessons.

Weekly Update

History: This week we read chapter 22 from SOTW and learned the differences between the Spartans and the Athenians. The Spartans were trained to be soldiers and were uneducated. The Athenians valued education and were a democracy.
Math: Ellie did 3 lessons and a test this week. Kara finished her math book last week so this week we just worked on reviewing math facts. I think we'll do this again next week as she doesn't have them solidified yet.
English: Kara started copywork this week from FLL and has most of the poem "The Days of the Week" memorized. Ellie did a lesson from R & S and had a test. She so far hasn't had any problems with the material.
Science: We began our chapter on space rocks this week. They learned that the center of a comet is called a nucleus and that comets are like dirty snowballs. They also learned that shooting stars are comet dust burning up as the earth passes through a comet's orbit. They are looking forward to the Perseid meteor shower in August (last year I got them up in the middle of the night to watch it).
Handwriting: Kara did 3 pages of handwriting this week. She is almost finished with this.
Reading: Kara finished "The Hundred Dresses" this week. Ellie wrote her book report on the differences between "The Wizard of Oz" movie and the book.
Latin: Ellie finished lesson 16 this week.
Art/Music: We decided to take Friday off since none of us really felt like doing much and we knew we would be going to the Eagle center on Saturday. They did listen to the final CD of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" while they were playing school downstairs. Funny how they didn't feel like doing school; however, they were more than happy to play school for several hours yesterday. :)

Here is a pic of Kara reading:

Weekly Update

We had a short week this week since we didn't come back from my parents' house until Tuesday afternoon and I didn't take any schoolwork along since last week was our week off. However, our week at home was a more productive week than we've had in a few now that we are all healthy again.

English: Kara did several lessons in FLL. She is working on memorizing a Mother Goose poem about the days of the week. Ellie did a lesson on R&S and wrote a letter to her great-grandmother. She also did 2 pages in her editing book.
Math: Kara finished Saxon 1 this week so we'll probably just review her addition and subtraction math facts next week before we move into Saxon 2. Ellie did 2 lessons.
Reading: Kara is working on reading The Hundred Dresses. She also did several lessons in OPGTR. Ellie finished The Wizard of Oz. We are waiting for the movie to arrive; then she will write a book report on the differences between the movie and the book. She started reading Pinocchio.
Latin: With only 2 days of full school this week, we opted not to cram a Latin lesson in.
History: We read ch 21 in SOTW about Cyrus.
Handwriting: Kara did 2 pages in her handwriting book.
Spelling: Kara finished SWO A and will start book B next week. Ellie took the pretest for her list this week and only missed a couple. It was a list on apostrophes.
Music: We finished reading about the storyline of The Magic Flute and listened to the first 2 Cds. We also finished learning the verses to A Mighty Fortress.
Art: We memorized 2 paintings by Van Gogh and the girls each colored their own Van Gogh. Kara's is the first, Ellie's is the second.

Week in review

We didn't get much done for school this week since we were all sick. We didn't do any history, science, art or music so we'll have to do them this week to catch up (this coming week is our scheduled week off). Also Kara was pretty sick this week so she didn't get any schoolwork done. Here is what Ellie got done.

Math: 1 test and 3 lessons. She missed 1 question on her test. I cut down the number of problems she has to do so her lessons have been going better.

Latin: She reviewed the last 5 lessons.

Reading: Ellie continued to read in the Wizard of Oz. She'll finish that this coming week.

Spelling: Ellie took the test over the word list we started last week. She missed 4 (out of 25). The word list was on whether or not words had 1 consonant or 2 (such as committee).

Bible: She continues to work through her Genesis book. We didn't do any family devotions this week.

English: The mommy was too sick this week to help with this so we'll do it this coming week.

Weekly Update

We did fairly well keeping on track this week so I am pleased with the progress we made this week.

History: We read some books about the Greek Olympics, the Minotaur and the Trojan horse. We were going to start reading The Story of the Greeks but didn't get to it so we'll start it next week. I imagine that it will take us a few weeks to get through since it is quite a lengthy book.
English: Ellie is almost done with her chapter on pronouns. She'll be taking a test over it next week. Kara got through several lessons in FLL--she has the definitions of a common and proper noun down. She also memorized another poem. She also did several lessons in OPGTR. We usually do 3-4 lessons a day in that book.
Latin: Ellie did lesson 15 in LC1 this week. She'll do a review of lessons 11-15 next week. Then we'll take a week off.
Science: We read more on our chapter on Mars. They narrated what we read.
Math: This has been a continual struggle for Ellie. She hates math and takes forever to get it done. She got all of her lessons done but not in the time frame we had been working on. She has been using a timer so that she can work towards getting that done in a shorter time. Next week we'll implement some other changes as I'd really like her to have a better attitude about it and get it done in 30-45 minutes. Kara did several lessons and she'll be finishing up Math 1 next week.
Handwriting/Editing/Spelling: Kara did 2 spelling lessons this week and several pages in her handwriting book. Ellie started on a spelling lesson but I haven't tested over it and she still needs a little more review so we'll finish it next week. Ellie did 4 pages in her editing book.
Reading: Ellie is currently reading The Wizard of Oz and she actually likes it!!
Bible: We are still reading through the Psalms and Proverbs (there were some days we didn't do from last month). Ellie did 4 lessons in her Genesis study.
Art/Music: We listened to Mozart's Requiem during breakfast and the girls colored their own Van Gogh pictures. Today we need to go over a hymn and do picture study.

Weekly Update

It was our first week back at school after the 2 weeks we took off for Christmas and it went pretty well (except for Thursday's dryer incident--see below post). So here is our summary for the week.

History: We learned about the Phoenicians who were the first people to dye fabric purple. Apparently the shellfish that they got the dye from really stunk so you could insult someone by saying that he stunk like a man from Tyre. We also learned about King Asherbanipal who brought the Assyrians back to power after being in captivity under the Babylonians. He was a mean king whom all the towns were afraid of and he liked to hunt lions for fun.

Science: Didn't get it done this week. On Tuesday I was a zombie from working Monday night and Thursday school got sidelined due to needing to fix the dryer.

Math: Both girls got several lessons done.

English: I started Kara on First Language Lessons this week. It is very easy to use and we both like it. Kara learned the definition to nouns and common nouns. She also memorized a poem. Ellie got some of her lessons done but we'll have to play catch-up next week.

Handwriting: I've started Kara on Daily Handwriting Practice. She seems to have forgotten how to properly write some of her letters so we are working on that. Darin started working in Getting Ready for the Code. He finished the letter f and started on the letter b. He loves doing his schoolwork and keeps asking me to do more.

Latin: Ellie finished lesson 12 this week.

Music: We learned the 2nd verse of A Mighty Fortress is Our God. We also reviewed Holy, Holy, Holy which Natalie also knows how to sing. We also read about Mozart. He died at age 35 after working himself to death. They also suspect he had some kidney problems. The girls also listened to a CD of Mozart's music. While they did that, they drew pictures of images that the music conjured in their minds.

Art: We finished our book about Rembrandt and memorized The Self-Portrait. We also reviewed all the other paintings we have learned this year so far.

Bible: Ellie continued her work in Genesis. We have been reading several Psalms and a Proverb for our devotional time. We have also started to have time for prayer requests and everybody praying, not just one person.

Reading: Ellie is reading Caesar's Gallic Wars and we have been reading various stories throughout the week.

Weekly Update

Here is another weekly update. We had a great week for school this week and are enjoying our current unit on the history of Christmas.

Math: Ellie got 2 lessons done and then we paused to review her multiplication and division facts. We'll probably do this again for the first couple of days next week and review her long division. She really needs to get her facts down. She is doing well with the multiplication but is having a little bit harder time with the division. Kara got 3 lessons done this week. Next week I hope to get much more done.
Spelling: Ellie reviewed the words she missed last week and took the post test. She still missed several (it is a list of homonyms such as bizarre/bazaar and oversees/overseas) so we will review it again next week.
Latin: Ellie did lesson 10 this week. We are using the Latina Christiana curriculum for this. On Mondays she watches the video lesson, on Tuesdays she does an online review, on Wednesdays she does her workbook and on Thursdays she does Ludere which is a book that has puzzles that helps her put her Latin into practice and takes a quiz. She practices her new vocab words each day and learns several derivatives of her Latin vocab.
English: Ellie finished the chapter on imperfect verbs and will take the test on Monday. Kara did several lessons in OPGTR.
Reading: Ellie continues to read the Voyages of Doctor Dolittle. She'll finish that up next week and write a book report.
Science: This is on hold until after Christmas.
History: We have decided to put The Story of the World on hold until after Christmas. Instead we are studying the history of Christmas and Christmas traditions of other countries. This week we studied Christmas in the Philippines (we'll also study Mexico, Switzerland and Russia). They learned that the most common Christmas decoration in the Philippines is the parol. The girls each made one (Ellie's is the red one and Kara's is the yellow one). They also learned that instead of evergreen trees, Filipinos often use palm trees for their Christmas trees. The children also go around the neighborhood singing Christmas songs and collecting coins.
Aside from the Philippines, we are also learning about how Christmas came about. We learned about the Roman holiday of Saturnalia where the slaves and masters traded places. During this time of celebration in December, people exchanged gifts, usually candles or dolls. In 274 December 25 was celebrated as natalis Solis Invictus (the birthday of the unconquered sun). According to the Roman calender, December 25 was the winter solstice so the festivities on this day celebrated that the days would be getting longer.
Early Christians did not celebrate Christ's birthday or any birthdays as they thought it worldly and pagan. Instead, early Christians celebrated the days on which martyrs died. Christians did not begin to celebrate Christmas until after 313 when the edict of Milan was issued which granted toleration of Christianity. Christians in those early years chose December 25 to celebrate Christ's birth because they were hoping it would provide a way to evangelize to the followers of Mithra (a sun god).
We also learned about the origin of wassail and the yule log. Wassail was often served only in wealthy people's houses in England. It was made of ale, crab apples, beaten eggs, sugar and spices. Sounds gross. The yule log was present in several European countries and was basically a large tree that was burned on Christmas. There were several superstitions surrounding the burning of the log that were thought to bring good luck during the next year. The girls have asked to make a yule log cake this week so we may do that.
The kids also learned that Christmas trees used to be decorated with gingerbread men and edible treats. Taking down the Christmas tree used to be a day that was anticipated since that was when they could eat the treats. We are going to wrap up some small candies and put them on the tree (we didn't get to it this week) and we made some gingerbread ornaments. We still have to decorate them and hang them up.
Art: We learned the true story of Good King Wenceslas and sang the carol. We also read about Rembrandt and memorized his painting The Feast of Belshazzar. In the Oxford First Book of Art, they saw pictures of imaginary creatures and drew an imaginary creature of their own. They each drew fairies. Ellie's is the first one.

Weekly Update

I worked this past weekend so haven't gotten around to an update yet. Here is the update for last week. There will be no update for school this week as we are off and the girls are in Des Moines.

History: We finished up a King Tut activity book that I found online and read about Moses and the Exodus from Egypt. We'll take a break from Story of the World until January as we will be studying Christmas and Christmas traditions for the month of December.
Science: We started the chapter on the moon. We got our telescope last week so this will be of great use during this chapter.
English: Ellie got 3 lessons done. Kara got several lessons done in OPGTR and read a couple of books.
Spelling: Ellie took her pretest but we haven't gotten around to her post test yet. We'll have to do that this week.
Reading: Ellie is currently reading The Adventures of Dr. Doolittle.
Math: Ellie did 3 lessons and 1 test. She needs to work more on her multiplication and division facts. Kara did several lessons also.
Art and Music: Didn't get it done on Friday as planned. The girls were doing their chores and packing so they could go to grandma and grandpa's on Saturday morning.
Latin: Ellie finished lesson 9 in LC1.
Bible: Ellie did several of her lessons in her Genesis book. We discussed commandment number 9--thou shalt not bear false witness.

Weekly Update

Here is our weekly update from last week. We didn't get nearly as much done last week as I had hoped, partially due to me working 2 nights last week.

Spelling: Ellie did a review lesson with 50 words--she got 1 wrong on the pretest and got them all right on the post test.

Math: Ellie got 2 lessons and 1 test done. Kara got 2 lessons done.

English/Reading: Kara's reading has really taken off and she is now reading Frog and Toad books, among others. She got several lessons done in OPGTR. Ellie got 2 lessons done and finished the ending she wrote for Clubhouse Magazine. We mailed that off on Saturday. She also finished reading A String in the Harp and wrote a one-page summary. She was glad to be done with the book as she didn't really care for it. It was a fantasy book and she says she doesn't really like that genre.

Bible: Ellie continues to work through her book on Genesis. We are continuing our study of the 10 commandments. This week we studied commandment #8--Thou shalt not steal.

History: We first studied Queen/King Hatshepsut. She was the only successful woman to rule Egypt as a pharaoh. She dressed like a man since the Egyptians weren't too keen on a woman ruler. Later we studied King Tut and learned what they found in his tomb.

Science: Didn't get any done.

Other: The girls started a theater class a couple of weeks ago. It is a 6-week class run by a home school dad who also does lots of theater stuff. I'm not sure what sort of training he has had but I've seen him working with other home school theater groups and he's good at what he does. He also relates to the kids well and can draw out the shy ones. I had originally planned on only sending Kara as she is a bit more dramatic than Ellie, but when I mentioned it, Ellie was immediately interested. So I signed them both up. They are both enjoying it although Ellie is getting more out of it than Kara. Kara's a bit young, I think, for acting classes. She sees it more as just playing, whereas Ellie sees the technique behind the acting.

Art/Music: Didn't get that done either. Here are the photos of the Mary Cassatt they colored the week before.

Weekly Update-a week late

It has been a busy couple of weeks so I haven't been on here much to post so I'll do the best I can with what I remember (I'm not currently at home).

Math: Ellie took another test and got through a few more lessons. Kara got at least 15 lessons done.

English: Ellie did 4 more lessons and has been working on her story ending for Clubhouse Magazine. We'll get that finished up this next week I hope. Kara has been doing 2-3 lessons in OPGTR. I was doing only 1 lesson per day but it was going to take me too long to get through the book and she isn't having any problems with the material. She was reading out loud today and Dan commented, "When did Kara learn how to read?" She did great.

History: We read chapters 11 and 12 from SOTW and the girls made paper necklaces from wallpaper. We also read assorted books that corresponded.

Spelling: Ellie finished another spelling lesson. This week's lesson was a little easier and she only missed a couple on the pretest and did great on the final test. Kara is off from spelling for a few weeks until she learns how to read the words on her list.

Latin: We continued the lesson from the week before since there was some confusion about 2nd declensions. We've got that figured out now so we'll move on next week. She is doing a great job remembering all the words she has learned so far.

Science: We continued studying the earth and learned about how the tilt of the earth affects the amount of sunlight a country gets and the temperature of the seasons.

Art: We continued studying Mary Cassatt. They memorized her painting "Lydia Crocheting in the Garden at Marly." We also reviewed the other paintings they have memorized by Renoir and Bruegel. They each colored their own Cassatt paintings again. I forgot to scan them in so I don't have images of them yet (I'll do this later). Kara was in a bit of a hurry this time so she didn't pay as much attention to the detail. Ellie was frustrated with her painting since she couldn't quite get the colors to match the original. She noticed that the original of the one she was coloring was overall a grey color except for the rosy cheeks of the kids playing on the beach (Cassatt's Children on the Beach).

Music: We reviewed the hymn Holy, Holy, Holy that we had learned previously and learned the first verse of a hymn which of course, right now, I can't recall (I have Chris Tomlin's How Can I Keep From Singing in my head and can't seem to remember what hymn we started).

Periodically I'll get some beans out for the 2 younger ones to play with while we are doing school. Natalie recently has been keeping herself occupied for long periods of time with these. She absolutely loves them and frequently asks if she can play with them. And she isn't interested in sharing. Here are a couple of pics of her playing with the beans, a few of her farm animals and other miscellaneous toys.

Weekly update

Math: Kara got through about 10 lessons in her math this week. I have ordered the next level of math for her which she will probably start in about 6 weeks. Ellie did 4 lessons this week learning about number placement and division with a remainder.

English: Ellie finished chapter 3 on nouns and Kara continues with OPGTR. Ellie also started working on the story ending she is writing for a Focus on the Family writing contest. We still have quite a bit of work to do on that yet.

Reading: Ellie continues to read A String in the Harp and we are reading The Horse and His Boy for read-aloud. Ellie of course reads several other books per week on her own that aren't assigned.

History: We learned about ancient Africa and heard the ancient African tale of Anansi the spider. We also finished our chicken mummy project. Here are a few pics from that:

Science: We are continuing to learn about the earth and why we have seasons.

Spelling: Kara finished 2 lessons in her Spelling Workout and Ellie finished 1 lesson this week. She learned how to spell ukulele. :-)

Art: This week we started learning about Mary Cassatt. We'll be learning about her for the next 3 weeks also. We reviewed the previous artists' works we had memorized, memorized Mary Cassatt's "The Bath," and they each colored their own Mary Cassatt work.

Week in Review

I can't really call this our weekly report for school since we didn't get much school done this week. We did what we had planned on Monday and part of Tuesday, but Wednesday morning we left for Rock Valley, IA for Dan's grandma's funeral. We came home Thursday afternoon in time for small group. It seems like such a long time ago that it was Monday. Since I don't have the schedule in front of me, I can't even remember what we did for school.

We had a good trip to NW IA. Dan's sister Sara had flown into Minneapolis so Dan picked her up and she rode along with us. Evan and Mandy also came out from Chicago. While we were in Rock Valley, I went to a great consignment shop there. I didn't know it existed but Mom told me about it so I went shortly after we arrived. They will have been open 2 years already this coming January, but we aren't in NW IA very often. I found some great deals while I was there. I was in desperate need of some new winter clothes since I am 2 sizes smaller than last winter. So I found a pair of brown corduroy pants, a denim skirt, a pair of Nike running pants, a sweater and a long-sleeve T. I also picked up a set of 7 fiction books for Ellie and Kara that were published by Focus on the Family. And I only paid $47 for the whole lot!! I was quite happy. Later I went back with Kara and got her a pair of jeans.

After the burial on Thursday morning, we all went to Pumpkinland over by Orange City. The couple that owns it is Gar's cousin. They have a corn maze and a petting zoo. The kids had a blast and Grandpa bought them each a prize. I'll post pictures later. While we were there I saw an old friend from high school/college (Carrie (Ver Heuven) Borchers for those of you who are wondering). We were in the barn where they have the gifts, etc that they sell and I looked over at her and she waved. I said, "Carrie?" She said, "Yep." Couldn't believe it. I never expected to see someone I knew while we were there. She also has 4 kids--ages 1, 4, 6, and 9. She stays and home and runs an in-home daycare part time. They just got back 6 weeks ago from China (they adopted their youngest from there).

After that, we headed to Sioux Center to eat lunch at Pizza Ranch and then headed home. Dan brought Sara back to the airport and we went to small group.

Yesterday we did our monthly grocery shopping and running errands. I menu planned last week so I had everything ready to go. We stopped at the Indian market cuz I am finally going to make some of the things that I learned in the Indian cooking class Emily and I took together in January. We also made runs to Target, Aldi and HyVee. Ugh. I wish groceries would get cheaper, not more expensive!! I do, however, like having my menu planned for the whole month and only having to do grocery shopping once a month (except for milk).

Today we are on our way to the cities for the marathon. This is the one I was planning on running in; however, my body had other ideas. I've been plagued with knee problems (interestingly only on one side) and I can't run more than 5 miles so a marathon was pretty much out of the question since there are a whole lot more than 5 miles. :-) Before we check into our motel today, we are making a quick run to the Albertville outlet mall and Cabela's in Rogers. The Albertville mall has a Children's Place outlet (our favorite kid clothing store) and Cabela's has zip-up fleece sweatshirts on sale for $9.99. And the kids love to go to Cabela's anyway. They have lots of cool animals on display and a shooting range (not a real one) that Darin loves.

Well, that's about it for this week. Have a great week!