Slowly-- Slowly Climb Mt. Fuji!

Week in Review- Duncan (wk9 - 1 day of 36) Woohoo, 1/4 of the Year!

2011-09-30T20:14:00.002-05:00

Duncan is my 8yo. Woohoo, we are ¼ of the way through our official year! Tonight I plan to begin putting together a portfolio. I have never done such a thing and oddly I am kind of excited about it. Anyway, here is week 9 minus one day of third grade:

Time4Learning
On Time4Learning Duncan completed at least one activity each day in Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Here is a breakdown of how much time (hours: minutes: seconds) he ended up spending on T4L this week:

LA 3 and LA extensions 3, combined- 2:09:04 (Agreement, Editing)
Math 4- 0:45:40 (Division)
Science 3- 0:47:17 (Energy)
Social Studies 3- 0:51:02 (Charts & Graphs)

So, 4:33:03 is the total time that Duncan spent doing the computer portion of T4L this week.

Classical Conversations
For Foundations Duncan listened to the week 1-4 memory work for English, science, Latin, geography, and timeline from a CD that was made here locally. From the Classical Conversations online tutorial he listened to the songs for history sentences from weeks 1-4.

Duncan continued studying Essentials of the English Language Grammar. This week he began nouns and continued reviewing the previous material.

In Essentials IEW composition this week, Duncan completed lesson 3 in U.S. History-Based Writing Lessons, Volume 1. In this lesson he completed an IEW Key Word Outline from a paragraph about Jamestown. He then rewrote the paragraph and included a strong verb, an adverb, an quality adjective, a vocabulary word, alliteration. This is actually a rough draft. Next week he will be editing it as he learns about sentence openers and who/which clauses.

Math
In Foerster’s Algebra this week Duncan finished Chapter 4 section5 and started section 6. He worked at Khan Academy one day for 12 minutes and received a proficiency in negative number word problems. He also spent between 20 and 30 minutes doing Kumon math four days. This week he began looking at functions in Mathematics: A Human Endeavor by Harold Jacobs.

Language Arts
In language arts he reviewed words from Spelling Plus and finished pages 32-36 in Spectrum Phonics and Word Study Grade 5. He completed week three of Daily Language Arts Review, Grade 4. He read pp.247-285 (seven stories) in The Beginner’s Bible. Duncan finished the second chapter of Edcon Publishing’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (We totally forgot this last week!) He also continued Jacob’s Ladder Reading Comprehension Level 1 and completed two more poems.

History
In history Duncan read chapter 9 in Land of Liberty and continued George Washington by Cheryl Harness.

Science
In addition to T4L, in Classical Conversations we reviewed the scientific method and did an experiment about muscle types. Duncan also cut out leg muscles for a human body that we will be assembling at the end of the semester.

Music, Drama and Art
He practiced violin almost every day this week and his lesson this week went well.

Duncan’s art and drama classes were fabulous again. In art they discussed Vincent Van Gogh and it was such a nice day and that they took their sketchbooks outside.

At Classical Conversations we continued our six weeks of drawing with Drawing with Children. We completed some upside down images, reviewed circles, dots, lines, angles, and curves, and drew Leo the Lion.

Week in Review- Duncan (wk8 - 1 day of 36)

2011-09-25T22:52:00.002-05:00

Duncan is my 8yo. Here is week 8 minus one day of third grade:

Time4Learning
On Time4Learning Duncan completed at least one activity each day in Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Here is a breakdown of how much time (hours: minutes: seconds) he ended up spending on T4L this week:

LA 3 and LA extensions 3, combined- 1:54:43 (Main Idea, Sequential Order, Fact & Opinion, Subject – Verb Agreement, Nouns)
Math 4- 1:03:59 (Multiplication and Division)
Science 3- 0:29:59 (Nature of Matter, Heat & Light, Earth’s Neighbors)
Social Studies 3- 0:47:46 (Latitude & Longitude, Adaption to Environment)

So, 4:16:27 is the total time that Duncan spent doing the computer portion of T4L this week.

Classical Conversations
For Foundations Duncan listened to the week 1-3 memory work for English, science, Latin, geography, and timeline from a CD that was made here locally. From the Classical Conversations online tutorial he listened to the songs for history sentences from weeks 1-3.

Duncan continued studying Essentials of the English Language Grammar. This week he studied verbs.

In Essentials IEW composition this week, Duncan completed lesson 2 in U.S. History-Based Writing Lessons, Volume 1. The lesson works on using adverbs and strong verbs in a fill-in-the-blank poem.

Math
In Foerster’s Algebra this week Duncan finished section 4. Twice he worked at Khan Academy- 5min on 1 day and 22min on the other. He also spent between 20 and 30 minutes doing Kumon math three days. This week he continued looking at geometric sequences Mathematics: A Human Endeavor by Harold Jacobs.

Language Arts
In language arts he reviewed words from Spelling Plus and finished pages 29-31 in Spectrum Phonics and Word Study Grade 5. He completed week two of Daily Language Arts Review, Grade 4. He read pp.216-246 (six stories) in The Beginner’s Bible and he read Thomas Jefferson by Cheryl Harness. We continued Jacob’s Ladder Reading Comprehension Level 1 and completed two poems.

History
In history Duncan read chapter 8 in Land of Liberty and started George Washington by Cheryl Harness.

Science
In addition to T4L, in Classical Conversations we did a demonstration of the human backbone using spools, card stock, and a rubber band. Duncan also cut out leg bones for a human body that we will be assembling at the end of the semester.

Music, Drama and Art
He practiced violin and his lesson this week also went well.

Duncan has another fabulous week at his art and drama classes.

At Classical Conversations in week two of drawing we looked at mirror images in Drawing with Children. We discussed symmetry and Duncan also did p.21 in How to Teach Art to Children.

Other News
A new puppy has joined our famiy via the animal shelter and she is so cute. Her name is Hidey, because she hides under things. It also works as a girl's name. For some reason googoo-ing over her ate up a lot of time this week. :-)

Week in Review- Duncan (wk7 - 1 day of 36wks)

2011-09-19T09:37:00.004-05:00

Duncan is my 8yo. I know I am so late, but last week was so crazy. Here is his seventh week minus one day of third grade:

Time4Learning
On Time4Learning Duncan completed at least one activity each day in Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Here is a breakdown of how much time (hours: minutes: seconds) he ended up spending on T4L this week:

LA 3 and LA extensions 3, combined- 2:11:01 (Main Idea, Theme, Subject & Predicate, Friendly Letters)
Math 4- 0:29:11 (Multiplication)
Science 3- 0:35:17 (Physical Changes, Properties of Matter)
Social Studies 2 & 3- 1:02:22 (Map Skills, Geographic Terms)

So, 4:17:51 is the total time that Duncan spent doing the computer portion of T4L this week. In social studies he finished level 2 and continued with level 3. I am glad I let Duncan go back and do the level 2 science and social studies. They are just videos. Many of the other things he does are ahead a level, so it was nice for him to have something light on his plate.

Classical Conversations
Our Classical Conversations group started and it was a lot of work for me, because I am tutoring Foundations and Essentials.

For Foundations Duncan listened to the week one and week two memory work for English, science, Latin, geography, and timeline from a CD that was made here locally. From the Classical Conversations online tutorial he listened to the songs for history sentences from weeks one and two.

Duncan continued studying Essentials of the English Language Grammar. He copied the 112 Different Types of Sentences Chart. We reviewed parts of speech, types of sentences, and we came up with sentences of our own modeled after the examples on the Essentials of the English Language chart. He wrote sentences and changed their purpose by changing their end marks and/ or by rearranging the words. We also discussed transitive, intransitive, linking, and helping verbs.

In Essentials IEW composition this week, Duncan completed lesson 1 in U.S. History-Based Writing Lessons, Volume 1. The lesson works on using quality adjectives in a fill-in-the-blank poem.

Math
In Foerster’s Algebra this week Duncan began chapter 4. He completed sections 1-3 and started section 4. This week he only worked on Khan Academy three days. For those days he averaged 19 minutes each day. He also spent between 20 and 30 minutes doing Kumon math three days. He continued Mathematics: A Human Endeavor by Harold Jacobs with his math tutor. This week they discussed geometric sequences. One of the days he was on Khan Academy, he chose to watch Khan’s video on geometric sequences.

Language Arts
In language arts he completed word list 63 and started list 64 from Spelling Plus and finished pages 26-28 in Spectrum Phonics and Word Study Grade 5. He completed week one of Daily Language Arts Review, Grade 4. He read pp.190-215 (five stories) in The Beginner’s Bible and he read Meet Benjamin Franklin by Maggi Scarf. We began Jacob’s Ladder Reading Comprehension Level 1 and completed the first two stories. Duncan also finished the first chapter of Edcon Publishing’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

History
In history Duncan read chapter 7- The Road to Revolution in Land of Liberty and he finished the first chapter of George Washington for Kids. I think that I am going to look on my shelf and find another book on Washington. George Washington for Kids has fabulous activities that Duncan has no desire to complete, so they are getting in the way of reading the biographical material.

Science
In addition to T4L, this week Duncan pulled out the microscope and looked at random slides. He mostly looked at amoebas and paramecia, but he also checked out the mouth parts of a mosquito. He also read Investigating the Scientific Method with Max Axiom. In Classical Conversations we did an experiment with finger prints.

Music, Drama and Art
He practiced violin every day again this week! I am starting to feel like the mom of a violin student. His lesson this week also went well.

Duncan’s art and drama classes were fabulous as usual. We have a friend who is attending a traditional classroom school this year and one of the things she misses about homeschooling is this art teacher.

At Classical Conversations we began our six weeks of drawing by looking at circles, dots, lines, angles, and curves in Drawing with Children. We also did p.11 from How to Teach Art to Children and drew a frog from Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book of Animals.

Wordless Wednesday- First Glasses

2011-09-14T11:14:00.000-05:00

Week in Review- Duncan (wk6, minus one day, of 36)

2011-09-12T00:59:00.006-05:00

Duncan is my 8yo. We took off a day for Labor Day and let me just say that 4-day weeks make me feel like we just didn’t quite get going. Anyway, here is his sixth week minus one day of third grade:

Time4Learning
On Time4Learning Duncan completed at least one activity each day in Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Here is a breakdown of how much time (hours: minutes: seconds) he ended up spending on T4L this week:

LA 3 and LA extensions 3, combined- 1:23:48 (Setting, Plot, Parts of Speech, Sentence Types)
Math 4- 1:21:56 (Multiplication)
Science 2- 0:31:14 (Patterns in Nature)
Social Studies 2 & 3- 0:38:46 (The World in Spatial Terms, Wants & Needs, Work in Society)

So, 3:55:45 is the total time that Duncan spent doing the computer portion of T4L this week. Duncan completed the level 2 science, so next week it is back to level 3. In social studies he did some level 2 and some level 3 this week and will probably do the same next week.

Classical Conversations
Our Classical Conversations group begins this next week and in preparation Duncan recited the presidents and we listened to the week one memory work for English, science, Latin, and geography from a CD that was made here locally.

Duncan continued studying Essentials of the English Language in preparation for Classical Conversations- Essentials. He copied the 112 Different Types of Sentences Chart. We reviewed parts of speech, types of sentences, and we came up with sentences of our own modeled after the examples on the Essentials of the English Language chart. We also discussed transitive, intransitive, linking, and helping verbs.

Math
In Foerster’s Algebra this week Duncan wrapped up chapter 3. He has not memorized all the information, but he can look up the axioms and whatnot and find the correct name. He does the work well and the vocabulary is coming along. Right now I am calling that good enough. I know it may bite me later, but I just never needed to know the name for each step I was doing. This week he worked an average of 13 minutes per day at Khan Academy primarily laughing his way through Sal Khan’s videos on functions. He also spent between 20 and 30 minutes doing Kumon math three days. He began Mathematics: A Human Endeavor by Harold Jacobs. He is doing this with a math tutor. This week they did chapter 2 section 1. It was an easy fun start.

Language Arts
In language arts he worked on word list 63 from Spelling Plus and finished pages 24-25 in Spectrum Phonics and Word Study Grade 5. This week we narrated and rewrote the paragraph about dance flies from his Key Word Outline. He added an –ly opener. He read pp.140-190 (ten stories) in The Beginner’s Bible and he finished Sign of the Beaver. He also began the first chapter of Edcon Publishing’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

History
In history Duncan read chapter 6- Life in the 13 Colonies in Land of Liberty and he started reading the first chapter of George Washington for Kids. In preparation for Classical Conversations- Foundations that will be starting the week after Labor Day, he recited his presidents and listened to the history song for this upcoming Tuesday.

Science
In addition to T4L, this week Duncan read Snakes by Jeff Corwin.

Music, Drama and Art
He practiced violin daily and I feel like we should receive some sort of award! I know this sounds silly, but it never occurred to me to just leave the violin out. Guess what, if it is out, he plays it. Yeah, I feel kind of silly. His lesson this week also went well.

Duncan’s art and drama classes started back up this week. He was so happy to be back.

Art and Drama Teacher

Out of focus, but Duncan and his drama teacher

Duncan in the left background, Mei in right foreground, and a close friend of theirs with the spectacular blond braids

Week in Review- Duncan (wk5 of 36)

2011-09-03T15:05:00.002-05:00

Duncan is my 8yo. Here is his fifth week of third grade:

Time4Learning
On Time4Learning Duncan completed at least one activity each day in Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Here is a breakdown of how much time (hours: minutes: seconds) he ended up spending on T4L this week:

LA 3 and LA extensions 3, combined- 1:25:10 (Adverbs, Prepositions, Interjections, Conjunctions, Characters, and Setting)
Math 4- 0:44:48 (Multiplication)
Science 2- 0:32:17 (Sun/ Earth/ Moon, Life Cycle, Food Chain)
Social Studies 2- 0:35:23 (Our National Identity)

So, 3:17:38 is the total time that Duncan spent doing the computer portion of T4L this week. I don’t want to stray too far from grade level, because I am viewing T4L as standardized test prep. However, this week I did go ahead and just let Duncan move over completely to level 4 math. For record keeping, after he takes the test for a section in level 4, he can go back and take the test for the same section in level 3. I also let him go back and do level 2 science and social studies. I had him do the level 2 social studies section titled Our National Identity, but next week he will continue with the level 3 social studies. The level 2 science is pretty much just cute videos. There are only fifteen of them and six quizzes, so I think we will finish them all before continuing with level 3 science.

Math
In Foerster’s Algebra this week Duncan wrapped up chapter 2 and completed sections 3-1 through 3-4. This week he worked an average of 27 minutes per day at Khan Academy and received his Master of Pre-algebra Badge! He also spent between 20 and 30 minutes each day doing Kumon math. On Thursday Duncan took the Kumon level G test and passed. WooHoo! He is officially in Kumon Math Level H- Linear Equations and Inequalities.

Language Arts
In language arts he worked on word list 62 from Spelling Plus and finished pages 19-23 in Spectrum Phonics and Word Study Grade 5. This week we narrated and rewrote the story of The Tortoise and the Hare from his Key Word Outline and he changed the judge of the race from a fox to a deadly shark. We also did a Key Word Outline on a paragraph about dance flies. Duncan continued studying Essentials of the English Language in preparation for Classical Conversations- Essentials. He copied the 112 Different Types of Sentences Chart. We reviewed parts of speech, types of sentences, and we came up with sentences of our own modeled after the examples on the Essentials of the English Language chart. We also discussed transitive, intransitive, linking, and helping verbs. He read pp.86-139 (eleven stories) in The Beginner’s Bible. In The Sign of the Beaver he finished chapters 10-19. He also read a couple of poems from Poetry for Young People: Walt Whitman.

History
In history Duncan read chapter 5- The English Settle in North America in Land of Liberty and Colonial Crafts by Bobbie Kalman. We also watched the DVD Colonial Life: Roger Williams in Rhode Island and Colonial Life: William Penn & Pennsylvania from Schlessinger Media. (Obviously, some of his literature is also tied to his history.)

Science
In addition to T4L, this week Duncan watched The Way Things Work- Sound. (Yes, this DVD series goes along with the book The Way Things Work by David Macaulay.)

Other Stuff
He practiced violin, not daily, but his lesson this week was went wonderfully. He played very well. In preparation for Classical Conversations- Foundations that will be starting the week after Labor Day, he recited his presidents.

Mei, the Cuppycake

2011-08-27T21:50:00.003-05:00

Mei, the Cuppycake, is back! She is my friend Sarah’s 11yo daughter and I am privileged to have her with me about two days each week. Mei is in the sixth grade.

Mei's Chick-Fil-A face paint from this summer.

Here is what Mei did at my house this week:

Time4Learning

LA and LA extensions, combined- 0:52:43
Math- 0:17:51
Science- 1:39:41
Social Studies- 1:36:09

So, 4:26:24 is the total time that Mei spent doing the computer portion of T4L in the two days that she was at my house this week. The level 6 T4L Science and Social Studies are quite time consuming. Mei is working through the reading and filling out fill-in-the-blank worksheets that I have created. It really is quite a bit of material to wade through. The T4L math is just supplemental to the rest of the math she is using, so the time spent on T4L math should never be particularly high.

Math

In math Mei completed Saxon 76 Lessons 10 and 12. She completed pages 10-14 in Key to Fractions Book 3 and also worked 11 minutes on day one and 11 minutes on day two at Khan Academy. She earned a proficiency star each day and a Moon Badge on the second day!

Language Arts

At my house in language arts she worked on Sequential Spelling both days. In IEW this week Mei narrated and wrote a paragraph from her Key Word Outline about vulture bees. We also did a Key Word Outline of The Fox and the Hare. Mei began studying Essentials of the English Language in preparation for Classical Conversations- Essentials. She copied the 112 Different Types of Sentences Chart. We reviewed parts of speech, types of sentences, and we came up with sentences of our own modeled after the examples on the Essentials of the English Language chart. She also read a couple of poems from Poetry for Young People: Walt Whitman.

Other Stuff

In preparation for Classical Conversations- Foundations that will be starting the week after Labor Day, we headed over to youtube and watched the first three weeks of the Lake Norman timeline song with hand motions. She also recited the U.S. Presidents. I wish I could blog that we did some cool art project or something, but alas that did not happen this week. IEW and Essentials of the English Language really sucked up our time this week.

This summer we made clay critters.

Week in Review- Duncan (wk4 of 36)

2011-08-27T19:14:00.009-05:00

Duncan is my 8yo. Here is his fourth week of third grade:

Time4Learning
On Time4Learning Duncan completed at least one activity each day in Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Here is a breakdown of how much time (hours: minutes: seconds) he ended up spending on T4L this week:

LA and LA extensions, combined- 2:22:06 (Verbs, Adjectives, Thinking Skills & Comprehension)
Math- 0:47:11 (Addition, Subtraction, and Multiples)
Science- 0:54:34 (Physical Properties, Magnetism, and Relationships between the Sun/ Earth/ Moon)
Social Studies- 0:57:47 (Inuit, Geographic Tools)

So, 5:01:38 is the total time that Duncan spent doing the computer portion of T4L this week.

Math
Duncan barely looked at Foerster’s Algebra this week although he did finish section 2-8. We actually put this on the backburner this week so he could spend more time on Khan Academy. This week he worked an average of 26 minutes per day at Khan Academy. Duncan finally received proficiency in Units and received his Artisan Pre-Algebraist Moon Badge! We haven’t worked much with measurement. Consequently, he had never worked with problems that say things like: An alien rocketship is traveling at a speed of 0.023 miles per second. At this speed, how many inches will it travel in 1 hour? Round to the nearest thousandth. Not having completed measurement problems previously made that units exercise a real bugger! He was very determined to watch the videos and learn how to do those problems. That silly little moon icon motivated Duncan to work harder than I could have... even bribing him with real money. I began requesting that he look at least one exercise with the orange review icon before beginning to work on exercises where he hasn't yet received proficiency. He also spent between 20 and 30 minutes each day doing Kumon math.

Language Arts
In language arts he worked on word list 61 from Spelling Plus and finished pages 15-18 in Spectrum Phonics and Word Study Grade 5. This week we narrated and rewrote the paragraph from the Key Word Outline about vulture bees. We also did a Key Word Outline of The Fox and the Hare. Duncan began studying Essentials of the English Language in preparation for Classical Conversations- Essentials. He copied the 112 Different Types of Sentences Chart and we came up with sentences of our own. He read pp.39-85 (eight stories) in The Beginner’s Bible. On Wednesday he started The Sign of the Beaver and finished chapters 1-9. He also read a couple of poems from Poetry for Young People: Walt Whitman.

History
In history Duncan read chapter 4- Africans in America in Land of Liberty and The New Americans by Maestro. We also watched the DVD Colonial Life: Settling the New World from Schlessinger Media. (Obviously, some of his literature is also tied to his history.)

Science
In addition to T4L, this week Duncan watched The Way Things Work- Springs (Yes, this DVD series goes along with the book The Way Things Work by David Macaulay.) and Disney’s Oceans.

Other Stuff
He did practice violin more than last week, but not daily. In preparation for Classical Conversations- Foundations that will be starting the week after Labor Day, we headed over to youtube and watched the first three weeks of the Lake Norman timeline song with hand motions.

Duncan in CC the end of last year.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-08-24T18:43:00.000-05:00

Week in Review- Duncan (wk3 of 36); Hasta Luego to Christian

2011-08-20T20:04:00.001-05:00

Duncan is my 8yo. Here is his third week of third grade:

On Time4Learning Duncan completed at least one activity each day in Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Here is a breakdown of how much time (hours: minutes: seconds) he ended up spending on T4L this week:

LA and LA extensions, combined- 1:28:00 (nouns, verbs)
Math- 0:31:59 (subtraction)
Science- 0:56:29 (Scientific Investigation)
Social Studies- 1:31:29 (Inuit)

So, 4:27:55 is the total time that Duncan spent doing the computer portion of T4L this week.

In Foerster’s Algebra Duncan continued with chapter two and completing section 2-6 on Monday, 2-7 on Tuesday and Wednesday, and starting 2-8 today. He also averaged about 11 minutes each day at Khan Academy and spent between 20 and 30 minutes each day doing Kumon math.

In language arts he worked on word list 60 from Spelling Plus and finished pages 10-14 in Spectrum Phonics and Word Study Grade 5. This week Duncan finished nouns and began verbs on T4L. Last week we watched some IEW and did a Key Word Outline for a paragraph about booklice. This week we narrated and rewrote the paragraph from the outline. We also did a Key Word Outline of a paragraph about vulture bees. He was scheduled to read Matchlock Gun this week, but he read it last month, so this week he read a couple of Encyclopedia Brown books and pp.7-38 (the first five stories in The Beginner’s Bible).

In history Duncan read chapter 3- Europeans Settle America in Land of Liberty and Exploration and Conquest by Maestro. He also read a couple of poems from The Oxford Book of American Children's Poems.

In addition to T4L, this week Duncan watched Bill Nye- Probability and The Way Things Work- Wheels & Axels. (Yes, this DVD series goes along with the book The Way Things Work by David Macaulay.) He also looked through Sea Monsters: Prehistoric Creatures of the Deep by Mike Everhart. I say he looked at it rather than read it, because it comes with little 3D glasses and that is really the fun part.

It was another slacker week in violin. In my defense, I am pretty amazed that he finished as much as he did. We were packing up my oldest for his return to college and Duncan didn’t get as much attention this week in anything.

Mr. Christian was excited to be back at college.

Christian, Grayson, Duncan in front of Christian's dorm

After a long day in the car, Grayson is getting silly

Home Education: Mules and Boulders and Self-Doubt

2011-08-15T11:39:00.002-05:00

Duncan is so easy to homeschool. It would be really easy to take the credit and say, “Look at me. I am such a good homeschooling mom!” However, I have two older children and know that this is not the case.

My oldest hates confrontation, so he was all about the yes, ma’ams. This didn’t mean that anything that came out of Christian’s mouth correlated with what he actually completed. He is also 2E (mildly gifted, mildly dyslexic). Encoding and decoding, as it related to language, had been dealt with before I brought him home in fifth grade, but imagine my surprise and confusion when I found out that he couldn’t do math- at least not as well as I thought he could based on his grades, standardized test scores, and the little evening homework assistance that I had given him after working all day to pay for the private school.

Christian is a living-a-learning-lifestyle guy and the things he is interested in he knows about deeply. Unfortunately, his interests and the things he needed to have completed for college admission were not always the same. Only when he fully understood that he had to do something did he decide to work through the material. Trust me- he did this for himself and not because I asked him to. While I could revel in his independent reading and research, he was also very frustrating. You can lead a mule to water, but you can’t make him drink until he decides he needs the water.

My middle son, Grayson, can move so slowly you wonder if he is moving at all. As an elementary student, some days he could drag four hours of work into 12+ hours of work. He also doesn’t mind confrontation. He will look at a situation and determine how much going against what is asked will cost him. If he determines that not doing what is asked is worth the punishment, he will simply tell you that he isn’t doing it. You never have to guess or follow up behind Grayson. If he says it is done, then it is done. If he says he isn’t going to do it, go ahead and mete out the punishment, because he isn’t going to do it. Then, the next day try a different angle. Sometimes homeschooling can be like dragging a boulder through mud.

With Duncan I am finally blessed with a child who is easy to homeschool. He may not love schoolwork, but most days he will move quickly through whatever I say needs to be done. He clearly has his sassy, I-think-I-am-a-teenager moments, but, unlike Christian, he can’t keep a straight face and tell me that he has completed something that he hasn’t (although occasionally he will try.) In general, Duncan understands that the faster he completes what I say he needs to do the faster he can get to what he wants to do. Also, he enjoys having his free time without restriction, so he is rarely defiant like Grayson. My primary challenges with Duncan fall in the is-he-being-challenged, am-I-doing-enough, oh-no-am-I-rewarding-schoolwork-with-more-schoolwork, self-doubt category.

I just wanted to share that when I write about Duncan I know how fortunate I am, because I know what it is like to homeschool a mule and a boulder.

Week in Review- Duncan (wk2 of 36)

2011-08-14T12:11:00.003-05:00

On Time4Learning Duncan completed at least one activity each day in Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions, Science, and Social Studies. He completed at least two activities each day in T4L Math. Here is a breakdown of how much time (hours: minutes: seconds) he ended up spending on T4L this week:

LA and LA extensions, combined- 1:54:54 (suffixes, homophones, idioms, nouns)
Math- 0:55:32 (number theory and systems, addition)
Science- 1:39:50 (investigation)
Social Studies- 1:04:02 (Inuit)

5:34:18 may not be much time, but in our three weeks of using T4L it is the greatest amount of time that Duncan has spent doing the computer portion of this product. This week, after he finished the activities and quizzes for the number theory and systems section of grade three, he took the test over that section. When he completed the test, we discovered something fun. When you finish a section test in math, the star you click to enter that section says mastered across it. He went ahead and took the test for the level 4 number theory and systems section. Sure enough, not only did the section star have mastered written on it, but so did every activity within that section.

We added Foerster’s Algebra back into the mix. Duncan started chapter two and completed sections 2-1 through 2-5 without any difficulty. He also averaged about 18 minutes each day at Khan Academy. This week he received his Earth Badge for reaching proficiency in 40 lessons. I think he was more excited about that than any of the previous badges he has earned. One of the lessons he did was scientific notation. I am now supposing I should show him some science where it is used. I just don’t know that he will remember what it is if he doesn’t have any opportunity to use it. He did spent between 20 and 30 minutes each day doing Kumon math.

I guess I should note that, yes, Duncan burned the end of his nose. He was playing with his electric car track when I told him it was getting too hot. He asked how I knew and I told him that I could smell it. At that point he picked up a car to smell the bottom and burned his nose! All I could do was laugh at him.

In language arts we watched just a little bit of IEW’s TWSS, did a word list from Spelling Plus, 4 pages in Spectrum Phonics and Word Study Grade 5, and some grammar ditto sheets from the proper noun sections of the 2nd and 3rd grade free online Scott Foresman grammar texts. It is always bizarre to me what children trip over or forget. This week Duncan worked on nouns at T4L and acted like he had no idea when or what to capitalize, particularly in book titles and other multi-word proper nouns. I wondered if this was due to typing so much, but Word doesn’t always catch those sort of capitalization errors. (I tried several of the typical mistakes he was making.) This makes me wonder if he either just doesn’t write proper nouns frequently enough or if I always correct them without thinking about it. Anyway, it was nice to have a free resource with beginning level activities to do as a reminder.

In history Duncan read chapter 2- Europeans Explore the Americas in Land of Liberty and The Discovery of the Americas by Maestro. He also read chapters 8-26 to wrap up Pocahontas and the Strangers and read poems from The Oxford Book of American Children's Poems.

His science section in T4L this week had him looking at tables, charts, and graphs. The notebooking suggestions had him taking a poll and creating some of his own, so we did this instead of adding any additional science this week. I had planned to cover some oceanography while we covered explorerers in history. I also thought it would have been an appropriate follow up to the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, but it didn’t happen. I may see if I can work some in next week.

Violin this week was a disaster. I told the violin teacher that until the week after Labor Day our home was going to be too busy to complete much practice. Honestly, if I am short on time, violin is where I am a slacker. I really need to work on that.

This week we also went to Chik-Fil-A Family night. Mei was with us and both of them got balloon things and painted on bandanas.

Mei's kissy-face horse

Duncan's green shark

Week in Review- Duncan (wk1b of 36)

2011-08-06T17:15:00.007-05:00

On Time4Learning Duncan completed at least one activity each day in Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions, Science, and Social Studies. He completed at least two activities each day in T4L Math. Here is a breakdown of how much time (hours: minutes: seconds) he ended up spending on T4L this week:

LA and LA extensions, combined- 1:45:59 (antonyms, prefixes, and punctuation)
Math- 0:39:23 (numbers)
Science- 1:07:06 (investigation)
Social Studies- 1:23:16 (finished Viking studies and began Inuit)

Another big total this week- not quite five hours.

In science we also did some of the off the computer T4L activities for science, so science ran a little longer than just the total computer time. Duncan also watched Bill Nye- Light Optics and The Way Things Work- Telecommunications (Yes, this DVD series goes along with the book The Way Things Work by David Macaulay. They are not spectacular, but they are sort of cute in a corny way.) Additionally, we watched many shark episodes that aired on the Discovery Channel for Shark Week.

He also spent between 20 and 30 minutes each day working on Kumon math and spent 83 minutes on Khan Academy for an average of 16.6 minutes each day.

He read 30% of Alice in Wonderland on the Kindle and 6 chapters in Pocahontas and the Strangers.

He practiced violin and had a lesson on Thursday.

We started history this week. Duncan read chapter 1- The Earliest People of the Americas in America’s History: Land of Liberty, finished the picture book- North American Indians by Douglas Gorsline, finished at least one poem each day from The Oxford Book of American Children’s Poems, and listened to about 2 hours total of Johnny Tremain on audio.

I definitely feel safe in saying that between this week and last week we completed 5 full days. Next week I know that we will add math and spelling. We may also start listening to IEW TWSS or looking at Essential of the English Language in preparation for Classical Conversations Essentials, but this depends on how emotionally draining it is to add the math and spelling. I am so thankful that I am home educating, so my little guy can ramp up into full days instead of jumping into being in a classroom all day.

First Day of Third Grade- 08/01

Week in Review for Duncan (wk 1a of 36) and a Little News about Grayson

2011-07-30T19:13:00.007-05:00

This is the week for my 8yo, Duncan, and a small brag for my 17yo, Grayson.

We are beginning to ramp up into fall schoolwork. Next week we will begin more materials and I hope to add the hours from this week and next week together to count as 5 full days. Our first full day is scheduled for 8/8. Then we will have a whole month to find our groove before activities begin in September. The goal is to be able to complete 90 days by Friday, December 16th and still take off Labor Day, a Wednesday- Friday in October, Halloween Day, and the entire week of Thanksgiving.

T4L Page

This week Duncan began using Time4Learning. He completed at least one activity each day in Language Arts, Language Arts Extensions, Science, and Social Studies. He completed at least two activities each day in T4L Math. Here is a breakdown of how much time (hours: minutes: seconds) he ended up spending on T4L this week:

LA and LA extensions, combined- 1:54:27
Math- 0:44:58
Science- 1:36:01
Social Studies- 1:19:05

As you can see this is a whopping total of just slightly over five and a half hours. I am viewing it as test prep for third grade standardized testing. I hope that after we start Classical Conversations this fall that there will still be enough time in the day to squeeze in T4L.

This is from the spring, but it is Duncan at our Kumon Center snarling at me to back off with the camera.

This week in math outside of Time4Learning Duncan spent between 20 and 30 minutes each day working on Kumon math. The little man also spent a whole whopping 29 minutes on Khan Academy for an average of less than 6 minutes each day. :-/

Khan Academy's Exercise Dashboard.

He read Encyclopedia Brown #3 and Landmark Books The Vikings by Elizabeth Janeway. This week he began looking at Vikings in T4L, so this book seemed the obvious one to grab at the library.

He also practiced violin about 15 minutes each day and I am so proud of myself for managing to get that done.

Proud momma brag on my 17yo: Grayson finished his very first course at the community college. He took United States History 2 in the second short summer session and made an A!

Summer Is Flying By... Can I Make It Fly Faster

2011-07-08T18:04:00.002-05:00

Duncan is 8yo and will be beginning 3rd grade in the fall. Grayson is 17yo and will be a senior this year. Christian is 20yo, home from college and hanging out with us.

I dislike summer greatly. I dislike any temperature above the low 80s. Don't get me started on how I feel about humidity. The short response is that I dislike feeling out of breath from trying to breathe liquid air. Of course, I can't forget the joys of grass pollen. I don't sleep well and I'm grouchy. So, there!

Back to the regularly scheduled program.

No school Monday as we were celebrating July 4th. We barely made it to our local fireworks. When we arrived, there was no music! Arghh, this happened last time we went to the local fireworks and I had just forgotten! Next year I will remember to bring my own i-pod full of patriotic tunes.

This week Duncan read The Chalkbox Kid, Help! I'm a Prisoner in the Library, and Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. These are on the 3rd-4th grade Kumon reading lists. Our Kumon center is doing a raffle for reading program this summer and thanks to the immediacy of receiving a raffle ticket Duncan is motivated to read.

Even with taking off for several weeks, the little guy is rolling along in Kumon math. He may actually finish this level before we start back to school.

Last week was Duncan's last lesson with our violin teacher, Aaron. He moved back to his home town and will be sorely missed. Last week we also started with our new violin teacher, Jessica. We will see how it goes. Aaron will be a difficult act to follow.

Duncan also watched a couple of science videos from the library.

In the last week of June, Grayson began a 5 week summer session American History 2 class at the local community college. So, while cramming a semester into 5 weeks, he is pretty much just doing American History. I wouldn't have considered it a good idea to take a short summer session class, but my oldest had this professor and absolutely loved her. When I saw that she was the instructor, I was all for it. This week he made a 94 on his first test. Some smarty britches made a 99. The class received a 1 point curve, so his finally score was 95. He was satisfied. Monday he has a paper due and there is another test next week. Whew, those short sessions are crazy fast.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-04-06T09:02:00.000-05:00

Little Tree Hugger

Mei with her monkey.

Manly Motorcycle

Duncan with his bike.

Handsome Husband

Week in Review- Duncan

2011-04-02T18:58:00.001-05:00

What have we done this week?

Math
The little man is wrapping up chapter 1 of Foerster’s Algebra 1. Next week I think we will review and take the test. He finished MUS Geometry lesson 1 (for which I located the DVDs hiding in my homeschool closet) and will be moving on to lesson 2 next week. He is also working through his Kumon without a bump in the road.

Language Arts
Although Duncan is still reviewing the cycle of Classical Conversations English grammar, there was no official grammar again this week. He did, however, manage to finish a few pages in Plaid Word Study D and a few lessons in Reading Comprehension in Varied Subject Matter. Duncan is cruising along through Spelling Plus. The teaching extensions and covering every homophone presented allows us to spread some of lessons over more than one day. This week he finished the third grade level D word lists. I know that so far the lists have been easy, but we are reviewing all of the spelling guidelines and phonics as we go. Owning this knowledge is very important to me, so I do not feel like we are wasting our time by spending a few minutes each day discussing the material. Also, Duncan seems to be enjoying it!

On the other hand, I had a horrible feeling this week that I have failed the wee one by playing to his strengths and allowing him to become inexcusably lopsided in his education. Duncan strongly prefers math to reading. Like many eight-year-old boys, he prefers activities that he can complete in one sitting and he doesn’t like sitting still for long. This means chapter books that would increase his reading level or vocabulary cause such griping and moaning that they are seldom completed. While evaluating this dilemma, it suddenly occurred to me that I should have him read a classroom literature book. So, this week he began reading an old 1994 Prentice Hall Literature Silver. He read four short stories aloud to me including a science fiction story by Asimov and The Adventure of the Speckled Band by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Science
We studied light, based on our Classical Conversations science memory work.

History
We studied history based on our Classical Conversations history memory work.

Other
Duncan practiced violin and went to his lesson. On Friday, he went to drama and art.

Week in Review- Mei

2011-04-02T18:55:00.001-05:00

Mei‘s mother had a birthday this week. Happy Birthday, Sarah!

Math
Mei finished through lesson 96 in Saxon 65, wrapped up Math Mammoth Division 2, and almost finished Key to Fractions Book 1. We also read Life of Fred: Fractions, chapter 1. Mei’s math skills have really taken off this year… to the point where I actually heard her say that her Saxon lesson was easy! :-)

English
Mei worked on Classical Conversations English memory work, completed four pages in Megawords book 1, and read a chapter in The Story of the U.S.A. book 3. She has also been flying through Future School’s grade 5 language arts and only has six lessons left to finish the whole year. The plan is to do two each week for the next three weeks, but she is on such a roll she may finish sooner.

Our gameroom on a homeschoolin' afternoon.

Science
We studied light, based on our Classical Conversations science memory work.

History
We studied history based on our Classical Conversations history memory work.

Other
On Friday, Mei went to drama and art. She has also started piano lessons again.

Classical Conversations- Pros and Cons

2011-03-26T02:42:00.003-05:00

This semester we joined Classical Conversations. Ultimately for our family we decided that Classical Conversations would be a postive addition to our home school experience by providing a supportive home education community and by scheduling the survey topics of science and history so that I can focus on the mastery subjects of reading and math.

There are numerous reasons for and against joining Classical Conversations, but here are my top 6 reasons for and against joining a CC community.

6 Reasons to Join Classical Conversations

The Support Group- If having a group of people working on the same material helps you to stay on track, then CC may be for you. If having a group of people to support and encourage you while you all travel a very similar homeschool journey makes you feel more confident and comfortable, then CC may be for you. If you want to be able to ask questions of a veteran homeschooler who has BTDT with the exact material that you are wanting to teach, then CC may be for you. There are a number of if, then statements related to a support group that can be a real help to a homeschool family.

Schedule of Topics- If you have other things going on with older students and would like a schedule of topics for your younger just to remove some of that responsibility from plate, CC may be for you. If you are burned-out on hs and need a year to get yourself energized without losing ground academically, CC may be for you. If you have a family member with medical or other issues going on, etc and want your child to continue on a classical education path, but don't have the time to devote to planning and scheduling, then CC may be for you. If for any reason you would really like a schedule of topics to follow, then CC may be for you.

Inexpensive Tutorial- I keep hearing about the cost, but, when compared to other tutoring services like Kumon or Sylvan, a private tutor, or even the other mom taught tutorials in my area, $13 a week for Foundations is cheap- dirt cheap.

Motivational for the Child- A child can't complain that he is the only child in the world learning XYZ if every week he sees a whole group of kids learning the same material. Also, if you have a competitive child, he will really be motivated to know the material.

Presentations- Every week your child will have the opportunity to stand in front of a group and speak. This is a skill that is best learned young, so that the child doesn't develop an irrational fear of public speaking.

Classical Material for a wide range of learning styles and abilities- Unlike TWTM, CC is doable even for children with reading delays, lower IQ, and a myriad of other learning differences. Auditory learners will really enjoy all the songs and memory work chants. Kinesthetic learners will enjoy all the movement in the timeline song and the speed of the class with all the getting up and sitting down (sit and draw geography, up for science, up to front for presentation, down for snack, move around for arts). Visual learners have not only the material presented in class, but tons of printed material that they can read at home.

6 Reasons NOT to Join Classical Conversations

The Group- If having a group of people working on the same material causes you to continually compare yourself and/ or your child to other families in such a way that is detrimental to your or your child’s home education experience, then CC may not be for you.

Schedule of Topics- If you are the type of person who loves to design and schedule your own materials, then CC is going to be frustrating. At first this was one of the deal breakers for me. When CC first began in my area, I couldn’t fathom letting go of one of my favorite parts of hs in order to follow someone else’s schedule of topics. After all, couldn’t I do it better? Didn’t I have a better handle on what my child needed to learn and when? Isn’t this a huge factor in my decision to hs especially in the K-6th grade years- the same years as Foundations?

Tutorial, Cost vs Participation- Although I do not think of CC as expensive, for some people it can be a real turn-off to pay for tutoring that they (the parent) then must also attend. For me, I tend to think of CC material as being like Kumon and Suzuki violin. My little man does Kumon and violin, and I must be there with him. My involvement is crucial to the way these programs are designed. It is my role to continue with and build on what has been presented by the CC tutor, but I know that for many families the thought of needing to be at a program for which they have paid someone else to teach is a real deal breaker.

Upsetting for the Child- If you have a child who feels overwhelmed by the amount of material, the group setting, having an instructor other than you, or being in a classroom for several consecutive hours, then CC may not be the best option.

Memory Work Issues- Initially another deal breaker for me was the CC memory work. Most of my issues with the CC memory work fell into these 3 categories:

Out of context- Unless they find it interesting or useful my children simply do not remember things learned out of context. They may as well memorize a list of random names from the phone book, because unless it is interesting, useful, or in context they will not remember it the day after they stop reciting it. When we started CC this semester, I knew that I was going to need to spend time at home doing further exploration of the material or resign myself to the fact that we were wasting our time.
Choices of memory work- For example- Why in the world would a child need to skip count for 6 or 7 years unless they had no idea what they were saying therefore it was out of context and they didn’t remember it?!?! Also, for young children I find it more appropriate to memorize things like Mother Goose and other poetry that exposes them to a broad range of vocabulary and syntax.
Accuracy of memory work- I am not a scientist or historian and looking at a few of these makes me scratch my head and feel the need to explain, alter, or add.

Classical Material- Unlike TWTM, CC is light classical. CC just doesn’t have the meat that you will find in other classical programs, particularly in 5th through 8th grade.

Thursday with Mei

2011-03-25T12:09:00.005-05:00

On Thursday Mei, who just turned eleven (Happy B'day, Mei!), and I discussed operation words and 2-step word problems and together we finished two exams on Future School. I covered Saxon 65 lesson 92 and a Math Mammoth Division 2 lesson on divisibility. She completed 14 pages in Key to Fractions Book 1, reduced a page of 30 fractions, completed the practice section problems and 12 of the problem set problems from Saxon, finished the Math Mammoth divisibility pages, and read Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi.

We didn't sit down in one spot and do all of the math at once. It was broken up by other subjects and room changes, but I don't think that math took over an hour and a half. Of course, I don't know for sure, because I don't time it. Why would I? Math is fun! We have extra time this week, because Classical Conversations and our other activities are on spring break, so of course we used that time for extra math.

Mei began at 10 and we were through with school by 2. During those 4 hours she also did 2 pages in Megawords 1 and a spelling test, finished a lesson on suffixes through Future School, completed a Story of the USA reading comprehension lesson, reviewed 21 weeks worth of Classical Conversations memory work, chomped on a granola bar and two clementines while I talked, moved from the living room to the hearth room to the gameroom, and we hopped in the car and ran something to a friend's house.

I am always baffled when people complain about middle school math taking over an hour. I am baffled, because middle school math often/ typically takes that much time and because why would someone want to cut short such an interesting and foundational subject!

Winter Quarter- Duncan

2011-03-23T10:55:00.004-05:00

Are we there yet? I am ready to play with new curriculum! I admit it. I have had the winter blahs this quarter and have not been updating my blog regularly. However, we have been chugging away at our studies. So, a big thanks to Beth in SW WA for typing her Winter Quarter Wrap-Up and kicking me in the pants.

Duncan is wrapping up the winter quarter of second grade. He is terribly asynchronous in his subjects. His math ability is way ahead of his language arts. I have high hopes that sometime in the next year and a half he will suddenly decide that he likes books, because my mother has reminded me that while I read early I didn’t read for pleasure until somewhere between 9 and 10.

He is also asynchronous in development. Although he is academically ahead of his age-level peers, his emotional development is right at his age level and his motor skill development (both large muscle group and fine motor skills) may actually be below his age level. So, he may figure the tip on the dinner bill, duck down because the waiter embarrasses him, and then fall out of his chair because he has no sense of balance. He went from being a tiny middle schooler, to a normal second grader, to a giant preschooler in the span of a few minutes.

The biggest change for this quarter is that we started Classical Conversations!

Math: Duncan wrapped up Key to Algebra books 1 through 3 and the geometry section of The Complete Book of Algebra and Geometry.

This week we began Foerster’s Algebra with the Math without Borders lectures. About two weeks ago Duncan pulled it off the shelf and brought it to bed. After perusing it he informed me that he already knew everything in the first three chapters. While I think that he is familiar with the material, I want him to go through the lectures and problem sets in order to become familiar with the format and to work with the more challenging problems at the end of the sets.

He really wants the Teaching Textbooks Geometry that I have borrowed from a friend, but I am leaning towards Math-U-See Geometry first. (If I can just remember where I put the stinkin’ DVD set!) Patty Paper Geometry is out of the running, because his lack of fine motor skills would make it more frustrating than educational. However for now, while we get into a flow with Foerster’s, I am having him use Math Mammoth Geometry.

Last night I pulled out Jacob’s Mathematics: A Human Endeavor. Although I know I shouldn’t plan too far ahead, I really think that he will enjoy this book. Maybe, it can be a Friday/ Fun-day book next year.

Reading: Duncan can read. He just doesn’t like to sit still, quiet, and alone. Last night he was reading Percy Jackson on his Nook, but he has started that book before and not finished it.

Around Thanksgiving my extra student began using a reading comprehension book, so in February Duncan started Early Reading Comprehension in Varied Subject Matter Book D. I wanted to start him where he already had complete mastery of skills in order to just work on this type of answering the questions format. When he is finished with this, I plan to go directly into Reading Comprehension in Varied Subject Matter Book 1.

Writing: Duncan has a fabulous Classical Conversations tutor who has scheduled topics for presentations each week. I know that some of the other tutors/ groups/ classes are not as organized about or excited over the weekly presentations, but Duncan’s classmates are fabulous with this. So, our writing and typing this quarter has been built around Duncan’s presentations. I have used IEW with my older two children and in preparation for Duncan to go into Essentials next year I have been introducing him to some of the IEW material through his presentation work.

Grammar: Grammar this quarter has been very minimal. I have been writing sentences on the white board from the beginning of Practice Island for review, but this isn’t happening regularly. Where is the embarrassed emoticon? I hope to get back on the ball spring quarter. On the other hand, Duncan wanted to go back and learn the Classical Conversations English Grammar memory work from first semester, so he has had some grammar through that.

Spelling/ Word Study/ Phonics: In February we started Spelling Plus! This is the first spelling program that Duncan has used. He is also plugging along in MCP Plaid Word Study D.

History/Geography: Duncan memorized the history sentences and geography for Classical Conversations. He also went back and memorized the first semester history sentences (but not the geography). We used our handy Kingfisher History Encyclopedia to further cover the information. (As a side note- my pretty red cover has fallen off of my old handy Kingfisher that my college age son used many moons ago and I am sad.) He has given presentations on Robert Fulton, William the Conqueror, his favorite Bible story, how to build a catapult, the Black Plague, and the Colossus computer. He memorized the Presidents song.

Science: We are using the weekly Classical Conversations science sentence and exploring it using Sciencesaurus and The Usborne IL Science Encyclopedia. He also went back and memorized the science from first semester. We covered astronomy first semester and half of the first semester of Classical Conversation's science covers astronomy, so this wasn't a big stretch. This quarter Classical Conversations did weekly science experiments from Van Cleave’s 201 Awesome Experiments. I didn’t think they were particularly awesome, but they were completed experiments that focused on the scientific method! Also, Duncan’s fabulous tutor is very enthusiastic and in part thanks to this all the kids seemed to really enjoy themselves.

Music: I must say that music just isn’t our thing. Although Duncan likes his violin teacher, music isn’t where his heart is. Classical Conversations covers a little bit of orchestra and music history the last six weeks and so we pulled out the old Calvert music videos and are watching them again.

Drama/ Art: The third six weeks Classical Conversations covers some art history with projects. That was so quick and fun and easy! On Fridays Duncan attends a drama and art program. He loves drama. Art isn’t his favorite thing. Like music, his heart just isn’t in it except unlike music there is also a getting dirty aspect to art that is unappealing to Duncan. LOL

Friday- Week in Review

2011-03-05T15:55:00.011-06:00

Duncan is my 2nd grader.
Mei is my friend’s 5th grader.

Over on The Well Trained Mind forums there is a thread about what you are doing consistently. I thought I would do a weekly update talking about the things that Duncan and Mei are doing consistently.

The Well Trained Mind is a history/ LA focused curriculum. The Latin-Centered Curriculum is of course focused on Latin. We do math, math, and more math. Is there a curriculum that has math at its center? If so, I probably ought to check it out.

Duncan
The little man is wrapping up Key to Algebra book 3. I had pretty much planned on using Art of Problem Solving beginning in the fall… until I saw Foerster’s Algebra. Now I am the proud owner of the Prentice Hall Classics Edition of Foerster’s Algebra 1. I want to order the Math without Borders lectures to go with it. Instead of waiting until fall, when this arrives, we will go ahead and start Algebra.

Duncan still has quite a bit to go before he finishes the geometry section of The Complete Book of Algebra and Geometry, but this week I pulled out Patty Paper Geometry. I am debating whether or not to do this or MUS Geometry. I own them both and need to look through them to decide where I want to go next. Duncan doesn’t have fabulous fine motor skills and he isn’t very patient with origami, so I am leaning toward MUS.

Duncan is chugging through Kumon Math level G, but we are only doing a few sheets a day and doing multiple reps, so this level may take until next fall.

In language arts we are plugging away. Duncan is still working through MCP Plaid Phonics D. Towards the beginning of February he started Spelling Plus. I started at the beginning doing it orally just to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. A couple of weeks ago he started Early Reading Comprehension in Varied Subject Matter Book D. I wanted to start him where I felt he would already have complete mastery of skills in order to just work on this type of answering the questions format. When he is finished with this, I plan to go directly into Reading Comprehension in Varied Subject Matter Book 1. He finished his beginning cursive book and I don’t really want to start a new one this year, but he is asking for handwriting. Although we are on hiatus from MCT, I am still covering a couple of sentences each week.

Mei
Mei is plugging away at Saxon 65. She has completed through lesson 78. She was working in a Kumon division workbook, but this week she began working in Math Mammoth Division 2 and completed through page 16. She also started Future School Grade 5 Mathematics back in January. She will not finish this by the end of the school year. However, through its exams it is a good testing tool to determine if a skill has been mastered or as a quick review of topics that are not covered in this level of Saxon.

Mei began doing language arts grade 5 through Future School in January. I don’t think that it is unreasonable to anticipate that she will finish the entire year before the end of May. She is reading The Story of the USA for reading comprehension and to cover some of the US history that may be included on the 5th grade standardized test that she may take. She has completed Book 2 A Young Nation Solves Its Problems and is now working in Book 3 America Becomes a Giant. I hope to be well into Book 4 Modern America before the end of the school year. Mei is also still working in Evan Moor’s Daily Handwriting Practice: Contemporary Cursive. She is on hiatus from Winston Grammar, but we are still looking at a couple of sentences each week.

Both
Both Duncan and Mei are using Classical Conversations as the spine for their history and science. This has been an easy to accomplish thing. I write the history sentence on the white board and we go through it many times while I erase sections of it until they can say it with the entire sentence erased. Then, we read about the topic in one of the many reference books that I own. We do the same thing for the science. Whenever we are in the car, we listen to the audio CD. I like taking the focus off of these subjects and placing it squarely on math and language arts. (alright, I admit it: primarily math)

The weekly presentation at Classical Conversations on Tuesdays has been great. Mei and Duncan are both talkers and a weekly presentation where everyone must listen to them is just fabulous. This past week Mei had to do a presentation on a prominent historical figure from somewhere around WW2. She did her presentation on Eleanor Roosevelt. Duncan had to do a how-to presentation. He had his class build simple catapults from Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction. (We have been enjoying this book. Thank you, Karen in CO!)

Mei sending a small marshmallow into our common area.

Duncan's marshmallow flying.

All our memory work is now from Classical Conversations and this too has been fabulous. This time the fabulousness is for me, because I no longer need to figure out memory work!

On Friday they both went to their art and drama classes which they thoroughly enjoy.

Duncan went to his individual violin lesson on Wednesday and went (for the first time) to a group lesson on Friday afternoon. Monday wrapped up school year swimming for Mei.

We also do a number of things inconsistently, but I guess if I cared about those things they wouldn’t be inconsistent!

Friday- Week in Review

2011-02-11T14:32:00.003-06:00

Yeah, I haven’t posted a week-in-review since before Christmas. This is partially due to the blahs that I go into this time during the school year and partially due to needing to begin the college search and application process with my second ds, Grayson. So, what have we been doing and where are we now?

I spent Christmas looking at schools/ tutorials for my youngest. I was a little panicked about Grayson and was feeling like I needed to free up some time to work with him. We ended up visiting and enrolling my youngest in Classical Conversations- Foundations. I was looking for next year, but my little man loved it. They didn't have space for my extra student, but she will now be following some of the Foundation material as well.

Anyway, back to our week. We picked up Foundations in Cycle 2 week 12. Our group meets on Tuesday. On Tuesday afternoons I have my extra student Mei and review the material from that morning for her benefit. Duncan has a fabulous tutor and I like to see how she covered the material and reinforce that at home.

I have decided to introduce new Foundations material on Thursdays. I do this on Thursday, because Mei is here and I want her here on the day I introduce the new material. Yesterday, I introduced week 16.

Our director gave me the list of the Kingfisher 1999 pages that coordinate with our history statement and I cover these. I have been using the Usborne Internet-Linked Science Encyclopedia to go over the science memory statement, but I think that I will use something else next year. (This is just the science encyclopedia that I had on my shelf.) Right now we are on the art history portion of the arts rotation, so we look at the artist that will be covered on Tuesday. I also go over the rest of the memory work.

Either before Mei arrives on Thursday or after she leaves I discuss with Duncan his presentation for the upcoming week. I have not been doing very structured composition lessons with Duncan, so now I am doing a lot of modeling of IEW methods to prepare for the presentations. However, as next week he is just needs to read a favorite passage from the Bible, we haven’t had to do keyword outline or anything like that.

For those who don’t know- My dh was raised Muslim. I was raised Christian. I am completely aware that CC is a Protestant organization. Anyway, Duncan is going to read excerpts from the NIV Bible’s story of Noah in Genesis. Noah happens to be one of dh’s favorite prophets and he was the one who chose this passage.

We review memory work, blob maps, and other CC stuff the rest of the week. Currently this is taking some time, because the little man wants to memorize everything he missed first semester. He is not doing the Veritas Press timeline (I don’t want to spend the money on all those cards right now.) and I see no point in going back to do the Latin as they repeat the same material second semester. Duncan would love to do this too, but there are only so many hours in the day and if he wants to do this he will need to do it independently.

He is almost caught up in everything else except geography. I can’t tolerate memorization out of context. History and geography are taking some time, because I am not giving him new memory work until he understands the material. And argh doing it this way is not ideal. I have no idea how much he will retain.

OTOH- Duncan really wants to be able to compete in the weekly reviews. There is also a quarterly jeopardy type game where our entire CC group is divided into 4 teams that compete. We watched this when we visited and Duncan thought it was fabulous.

In addition to CC Foundations we are continuing with our own math and language arts. This week Duncan completed Key to Algebra Book 2, worked in the geometry section of the Complete Book of Algebra and Geometry, and did some Kumon. Mei worked in Saxon 65. Duncan, Mei, and I are continuing to read MCT’s Sentence Island together. We will be finished soon, but I may read through it again. They were missing things that I thought they should know, so I decided to back up in both Practice Island with Duncan and Winston Grammar with Mei. Duncan is still working through Plaid Phonics C and this week Mei started ElizabethB’s phonics lessons. Duncan also practiced violin.

This is long and without exciting pictures, but I think it gets me caught up.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-02-09T09:10:00.000-06:00

Shout out to Miss Mei who has pointed out that I have not really started back to blogging after Christmas break!

Here is Mei's cow from Chik-fil-a last week. This week's was so cute- a face full of hearts- but I didn't get a photo of it. :-(

OTOH- this week I did get a photo of Duncan with his face painted! Mei gets hers painted every week, but Duncan has always refused.

LOL! Here is Duncan with his moustache and goatee. I wish the photo was better, but he wouldn't stop jumping around.

Read-Aloud Thursday

2011-01-20T20:32:00.001-06:00

This week my 8yo read me The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses. This is a Caldecott Award winner and the illustrations are just fabulous. The story has a daydream quality that really ties into a child playing pretend- like when a child decides that he loves elephants and spends the afternoon pretending to be an elephant. In the book the girl loves her tribe's horses. One day when she is with the horses a storm comes up and when the horses run off in fear of the thunder she gets lost with them. In the end it is implied, though never stated, that she may have become a horse. We really enjoyed it!

Read-Aloud Thursday

2011-01-13T12:11:00.004-06:00

We read Jumanji by Chris Van Allsberg.

I must confess that (gasp) although I saw the movie I never read the book! The book is really very cute- a good read. Duncan and I really enjoyed the drawings.

Wordless Wednesday- Snow Fort

2011-01-12T10:39:00.001-06:00

Mei and Duncan (well mostly Mei) used our movie theater popcorn bucket to build a snow fort last night. We needed photos, because this may be the one time in their childhoods when we have enough snow to do such a thing.

Can you see the gum in Duncan's happy mouth?

Their fort had snow bucket pyramids on 3 sides.

Mei was pretty pleased with her work.

Finished with the last bucket still in place!

Wordless Wednesday- Christmas Decorations

2010-12-15T09:17:00.000-06:00

Ramblings about Accelerated Math with My Little Man

2010-12-12T19:13:00.004-06:00

I have been in a tizzy about math the past several days. I really try not to plan math too much other than to say that this is what we plan to do next. You never know when a child will fly through lessons and when he will need to squat on a topic. One of the benefits of home education is that I don't have to take into consideration an entire classroom full of students. Anyway, Duncan has used Saxon 54, Saxon 65, and half of Saxon 76 and I had planned to use Saxon 87 next.

With Duncan the problem, in addition to his sloppy 8yo boy handwriting making workbook type materials look really attractive, is that due to Kumon, Key to Algebra Book 1, Math Mammoth Order of Operations, and Hands on Equations he has jumped ahead of his current material in Saxon 76. However, I can't just skip him ahead through testing or whatever, because he hasn't worked with some of the geometry presented in Saxon and it is integrated into the rest of the program.

Another problem is that it is pretty clear that at Kumon Duncan will be hitting Algebra 1 topics by next fall at the latest. Even if I slow him down by requesting less work and stall by requesting more repetitions, he will be hitting Algebra topics long before he could complete the second half of Saxon 76 and all of Saxon 87. Kumon is implicit learning, so I want to explain concepts at home before he hits them at Kumon. It is unlikely that he will want to sit still and listen to the whys of a topic if he can already fly through multiple pages of the topic and come out with the correct answer.

Grayson, my middle son, used Saxon from Saxon 3-87 alongside Singapore Primary Maths. I wish that I had never moved him out of Saxon. I don't really want to be in this same place with the little guy, but the grass is looking greener and all that.

After banging my head against this dilemma for a few days, I have decided that next semester Duncan will be using Key to Algebra Books 2 and 3 while simultaneously doing Math Mammoth Blue Series Geometry 1 and 2 (all the sections with unfamiliar material and any other sections that interest him). Key to Algebra Books 2 and 3 cover the pre-algebra material included in his current Kumon level and Math Mammoth Blue Series Geometry will cover the geometry that is in Saxon. He will also continue with Hands on Equations.

After this is finished, I have several good ideas for math, but I am trying to resist actually planning it.

Wordless Wednesday- Finger Knitting with Loops

2010-12-08T11:12:00.002-06:00

Favorites of Classical Literature

2010-12-05T14:45:00.002-06:00

What is your favorite classic? I don't really have a desire to discuss the definition of classic, so just think of classic as meaning whatever you want.

I wrote my high school senior research paper on Shaw, so I must have put high value on him at one point. Everyone should be familiar with Gilgamesh, Odysseus, and Beowulf, even if only in summary, because epic heroes are, well, epic. And frankly, Moby Dick is quoted too often to be missed. My boys have read quite a bit of Shakespeare, but while I have included the required Macbeth, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet, they are not my favorites. Oh, also, while I see the value of discussing The Scarlet Letter, I detest Hawthorne's writing! Basically, I am really girly when it comes to my favorites of classic literature. I mean I do adore Lord of the Flies, value the message of Animal Farm, think that Poe should be mandatory reading, and appreciate Great Expectations, but my favorites are just plain girly. So, while these all of the previously mentioned literature may be of value none are favorites.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is the work that leaps to mind as a favorite, because it is delightful. Everyone should see it as a ballet before reading and then after reading they should all memorize Puck's ending monologue. This should be done about 7th grade or at least before high school. (If a family enjoys bawdy humor, I also recommend Much Ado About Nothing. All boys should memorize at least one of Benedick's monologues. If a family wants a strong female character and to discuss the treatment of Jews and the trade of money lending in Europe, The Merchant of Venice is fabulous!)

Branching out from Shakespeare into my other girly favorites, I really like Alice in Wonderland and Sense and Sensibility. Along with A Midsummer's Night's Dream, these are the stories that I will read again, because I want to revisit the characters and the plot. How corny is that?

On the other hand, outside of what is probably considered classic into modern science fiction, if your family can deal with a lot of sex, Stranger in a Strange Land should not be missed. This is another that I have read again just because I wanted to watch the message in reruns. Hhmm- well, now I guess I must reconsider Poe, I go back and read him again and again.

Friday- Week in Review

2010-12-03T22:12:00.004-06:00

Duncan is my 2nd grader.
Mei is my friend’s 5th grader.

Our poetry, language arts and history memory work.
Poem 2
The Tiger by William Blake

List the 8 parts of speech.
Noun, Pronoun, Adjective, Verb, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction, Interjection

Tell me about Charlemagne.
In 800 A.D. Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor of Europe.

Duncan's memory work for math.
What is the legal move when solving an equation.
Whatever you do to one side of an equation you must also do to the other side.

Mei’s memory work for math and LA.
What do we call the answer to a division problem?
The answer to a division problem is called the quotient.

Language Arts
Together we continued with MCT’s The Music of the Hemispheres and Sentence Island. Duncan tried Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. He tried it a while back and couldn’t get into it. This week he finished through chapter 11, so that is going well.

At my house Mei read The Story of the U.S.A. Book 2 Chapter 1 and completed the comprehension work. I think this will give some of the comprehension guidance I was wanting.

We finished the noun side of our parts of speech lapbook.

Mei's completed noun section.

Duncan's completed noun section.

The plural noun minibook is the coolest!

We reviewed verbs (action verbs, linking verbs, helping verbs and verb tense) using worksheets from the Scott Foresman Grade 5 Grammar Book.

Math
Mei has completed lesson 51 in Saxon 65, continued working in Math Mammoth Blue Series- Fractions 1, and finished lessons 3 and 4 in Hands on Equations.

Duncan did Kumon, continued Math Mammoth Blue Series- The Four Operations, and completed Hands on Equations Lessons 3-7.

History
In history Duncan and Mei covered Chapter 21 of Gombrich’s A Little History. We also read about Charlemagne and Vikings in SOTW2. We completed a minibook for Charlemagne and match books for Erik the Red and Leif Eriksson.

Outside of Duncan's left. Inside of Mei's right.

Duncan's inside green. Mei's closed pink.

Science
We didn’t really move forward in science this week, but Mei and Duncan did watch the Moody science video The Red River of Life.

Spanish
Both Mei and Ducan started Learnables Spanish 1.

Other Stuff
Cool Stuff
On Tuesday Mei and Duncan went climbing.
Mei is a spider. She moves so fast I had a difficult time snapping photos and keeping her in frame. She made it to the top on 10 of her 12 climbs.

Duncan is just a little too small and just couldn't reach quite far enough with his little legs and arms, but he gave it a good try. While he never made it to the top he made it a pretty good way.

On Friday Duncan, Grayson and I went to see the Impressionist exhibit at the Frist with Mei, her mom and the rest of our art class. Of course I couldn't take photos in the exhibit, but the all kids had a great time in the art project room after the tour.

Duncan's print.

Mei's print.

My print.

Not So Cool Stuff
This afternoon we had the thrill of taking Grayson to the doctor to get an ankle x-ray. His ankle has been wrong since sometime during volleyball, but the x-ray showed no problem with the bone so it is a muscle/tendon thing.

Wordless Wednesday- Thanksgiving

2010-12-01T11:24:00.001-06:00

My mom and I. She left Sat. morning, so this is how I look without make-up and jewelry and before using a hairbrush. LOL But, I got the photo.

The big guy upon rolling out of bed.

Grayson managing to open his eyes.

The little man squinting beside his Gigi.

Taking the big guy back to college I65 north through KY was inching along.

Yes, some people back there are switching drivers on the interstate. This wasn't the only time I witnessed this move.

The big guy read.

Grayson read some and slept some.

Curriculum, Method and Philosophy

2010-11-21T18:06:00.010-06:00

There is a difference between curriculum, method and philosphy.
Here is my how our homeschool operates.

Curriculum: Eclectic- This is code for I use whatever materials I want.

•Math- Classical
Saxon, Kumon Drill Work, lots of extras- currently Hands on Equations and Math Mammoth

•Poetry, Grammar, Composition, Vocabulary- Textbook
MCT Island

•Literature- Eclectic
Sonlight books, Open Court Readers, history related, etc

•History- Weekly Unit Studies
Based on Gombrich's Little History

•Science- Trimester Unit Studies
Great Science Adventures- Space
Great Science Adventures- Human Body
Great Science Adventures- Tools and Technology

•Memory Work- Classical

I like to pull our curriculum together using several methods.

•a little bit of Waldorf- the part that emphasizes imagination and creativity in learning

•a little bit of Montessori- the part that emphasizes supporting a child's nature by allowing them self-exploration within prepared materials

•a chunk of Charlotte Mason style Classical- the part that emphasizes narration, chronological history, living books, enjoyment of poetry and short lessons

My overriding homeschool philosophy is adapted entirely from Charlotte Mason.

My child is not a blank slate, but is a whole person complete with his own personality and capacity for good and evil. I respect that he is born whole and that his mind is naturally designed to learn. I can provide the nourishment of education for his mind to grow healthy through a learning lifestyle where he is trained to be disciplined not in subject matter but in life for "education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life."

My child must be taught the difference between what he wants to do right now and his will to do what is appropriate/ right. He must also be taught to be careful not to rationalize something to be right simply because he wants it to be so. Along these lines, there can be no true happiness without first taking care of responsibilities. “…the chief responsibility which rests on them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of ideas. To help them in this choice we give them principles of conduct, and a wide range of the knowledge fitted to them.”

"I am, I can, I ought, I will." is the place from which I instruct, because we achieve through diligence not through intelligence or imagination. I use habit training as a road to success, but I exercise this alongside the idea that “perhaps the business of teachers is to open as many doors as possible.”

Gotta love CM.

Friday- Week in Review

2010-11-19T19:41:00.008-06:00

Duncan is my 2nd grader.
Mei is my friend’s 5th grader.

Is it Friday again?!
We have finished week 16 and next week we will be taking time off from school to celebrate Thanksgiving. Hopefully, Duncan will not be sick, but this week both Mei and Duncan had a pretty good case of the sniffles.

Our poetry, science and history memory work.
Poem 2
The Tiger by William Blake

What does the cardiovascular system consist of?
The cardiovascular system consists of blood, the heart, and the blood vessels.

Tell me about Muhammad.
At age 40 Muhammad received his first revelation from God. Three years after this Muhammad started preaching these revelations and by the time he died most of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam.

Duncan's memory work for math and LA.
Tell me the order of operations.
PEMDAS
Please excuse (my dear) (Aunt Sally)
parentheses, exponents,
multiplication/division from left to right,
addition/subtraction from left to right

List the 5 uses of a noun within a sentence.
subject, direct object, indirect object, object of preposition, possessive

Stuffy nose Duncan in front of the computer

Mei’s memory work for math and LA.
What is circumference?
The length of the smooth curve that makes a circle. Circumference is to a circle as perimeter is to a polygon.

Tell me about interjections.
An interjection is an emotion word.

Mei and her weekly Chik-fil-A face painting. It was supposed to be a bouquet, but it looks like an ice cream cone!

Language Arts
Together we continued with MCT’s The Music of the Hemispheres and Sentence Island. Duncan continued reading from Open Court titled From Sea to Shining Sea. He finished section one which wrapped up with a Thanksgiving story. At my house Mei began reading from Open Court’s Sound of the Sea. I like the stories, but I think that I would prefer to use something that has some guidance. I lean toward McGuffey, because I can get it online free. However, I would like to have a nice textbook like Glencoe or EMC Paradigm.

We reviewed nouns- definition, proper, plural, collective. They both began working on a parts of speech lapbook. We spent way more time than I had anticipated decorating the front of the lapbook.

Duncan left. Mei right.

Mei's minibook

inside Duncan's lapbook

Inside Mei's minibook

Math

Mei has completed through lesson 50 in Saxon 65 and finished her Kumon multiplication workbook. She continued working in Math Mammoth Blue Series- Fractions 1. Duncan did Kumon and continued Math Mammoth Blue Series- The Four Operations. They both completed Hands on Equations Lessons 1 and 2. It is sooo nifty! I am so glad I finally worked up to spending the money on it.

History

Moving on to history, Duncan and Mei covered Chapter 20 of Gombrich’s A Little History. We also completed an Enchanted Learning worksheet on the Saudi Arabia and made a minibook on Charles Martel.

Duncan green. Mei pink.

Science

This week we discussed the circulatory system in Great Science Adventures and looked over this section in DK’s The Human Body Book.

Other Stuff

On Monday we did the cub scout and Kumon thing. On Tuesday we went to Chik-fil-A's family night. On Wednesday Duncan went to violin, Grayson went to his math tutor, and we went to the library. On Thursday we took Grayson to his IEW composition class, Cici’s Pizza and 4-H. Then, Thursday night Duncan, Grayson and I went to see Harry Potter with Mei and Sarah (my friend and Mei’s mom)!

Wordless Wednesday

2010-11-17T09:25:00.004-06:00

Sitting in the window of the church lounge waiting on Grayson, Mei shares her funny book with Duncan.

Grayson holds my aunt's little yorkie, Dolly, who looks like a little stuffed dog. She is so cute with her little chocolate chip nose.

Yeah, I know these photos were in my week in review, but I posted that so late and these photos are some of my favorites from this fall, so I posted them again.

Memory Work

2010-11-15T10:16:00.005-06:00

This an update on the memory work that I am doing with Mei and Duncan.

I like Anki, but my little man likes to have index cards to hold in his hands. Honestly, this is nice, because he can do them in the car or take them anywhere we may be going. Although I like the organization of the Simply CM file box and Rose's Mnemosyne design, we are just not that strctured yet. When we were just starting, it seemed silly to have so many tabs with nothing behind them.

I own Living Memory and the CC Foundations book and I do pull some ideas from there, but mostly I just pull from what we are studying. While our memory work isn't as structured as some of the systems online, our weeks of history and science are. So, for those two subjects I typed in the memory work for the semester. For math, I underlined things I would like them to memorize on the content pages of their Saxon books. When we get to one, I type it in. Mei is using Winston Grammar fairly scheduled, so I went ahead and typed up her grammar/ LA memory work for the first semester. For the Duncan who is using MCT Island I am more free form. I pull things based on what he is studying, but I am deciding at the last minute.

I write the week and the subject in the upper right corner of the side with the question. For example, the memory work from this past week all says (subject)15 in the upper right corner.

M15 for week 15 of school and M for math.
HG15 for week 15 of school and HG for history/ geography.
LA15 for week 15 of school and LA for language arts.
S15 for week 15 of school and S for science.

Poem1, Poem2 for poetry.
Some weeks a topic will have more than 1 card and some weeks it won't have any. For example, we just began poetry in Nov and just added poem2 this past week.

We use the large size 4 x 6 index cards and keep them in a soft box. I can't find ours, but it is a 13 pocket and similar to this.

Here is ours.

All the cards the kids are currently memorizing are in the front. Once a card is memorized, we move it to the back pockets where the cards are organized by topic. Occasionally, we will review cards. This past Tuesday we reviewed all the LA cards and Thursday we reviewed all the science cards. If they lack immediacy on a card, it comes back to the front. When they have more cards, we will need to be a little more structured in when and what we review. Currently, they only have about 75 cards each, so we can be pretty laid back and I can spot check as we go. I don't think that we could be this relaxed with 250 cards.

Oh, I did mention that I typed these. I print them off and glue them to the index cards. (You could print them on card stock or printable cards, but that is a different story.) Anyway, I keep a typed file for a couple of reasons. If they lose a card, I know exactly what was lost and can print it out again. Also, I print the Mei's cards in a cursive font and the Duncan's in a bradley hand font (next year I plan to switch him to cursive), because I think it is important they can read cursive. I never write anything in cursive except my signature, so this was an easy way to meet that goal.

If you look very closely at the tabs, you can see where initially I thought we would try the Simply CM method.

Memory work gives quite the bang for the buck. For very little time and effort it develops memory skills, installs pegs on which a child can hang additional information, incorporates independent learning, and so much more. Also, it is wonderful how all these things have built confidence in my students!

Friday- Week in Review

2010-11-13T20:16:00.008-06:00

Duncan is my 2nd grader.
Mei is my friend’s 5th grader.

Our poetry, science and history memory work.
Poem 2
The Tiger by William Blake

List the 3 layers of skin.
The three layers of skin are the epidermis, dermis, and subcutaneous tissue.

Tell me about St. Benedict.
St. Benedict, 480-547, wrote one of the most influential religious rules in Western Christendom. For this reason Benedict is often called the founder of western Christian monasticism.

Duncan's memory work for math and LA.

Duncan view the giant bone at the Science Center.

How do we find the area of a parallelogram?
We find the area of a parallelogram by multiplying the base times the height.

Tell me about indirect objects.
If there is a direct object, then there may be an indirect object: a noun or pronoun between the action verb and the direct object, and the indirect object is affected by the action.

The pelicans gave Mud a headache.
Mud told Oopsy a story.
Mud gave him and her an idea.

Mei’s memory work for math and LA.

Mei again has her face painted at Chik-fil-A.

What is perimeter?
The distance around a polygon is called the perimeter.

List the coordinating conjunctions.
FANBOYS- for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so

Language Arts
Together we continued with MCT’s The Music of the Hemispheres and Sentence Island. Duncan and I also read Clovis, King of the Franks. Duncan also began a reader from Open Court titled From Sea to Shining Sea. It is a fairly easy read, but I am excited because he really hasn't covered much U.S. history. At my house Mei read finished Why Snails Have Shells. They both did some handwriting and some grammar (Mei- Winston Grammar, Duncan- Practice Island). They both are rolling along with NaNoWriMo and are doing very well.

Math
Mei has completed a couple of lessons in Saxon 65, continued working in her Kumon multiplication workbook, and started Math Mammoth Blue Series- Fractions 1. Duncan did Kumon and began Math Mammoth Blue Series- The Four Operations. I also ordered Hands on Equations and it arrived on Thursday, so we will be starting it next week!

History
Moving on to history, Duncan and Mei covered Chapter 19 of Gombrich’s A Little History. We also completed an Enchaned Learning worksheet on the Huns and made three minibooks titled: What were the Middle Ages?, Clovis, and Saint Benedict.

Mei's pink. Duncan's green.

Science
Our chicken bone in vinegar wasn't ready last week, but look at it this week.

Kind of makes me want to run take a calcium supplement!

This week we discussed the skin, hair and nails in Great Science Adventures and also looked over this section in DK’s The Human Body Book.

Their minibooks- Mei left and Duncan right.

Other Stuff
On Monday we did the cubscout and Kumon thing. On Tuesday Grayson went to his economics class and as usual we went to Chik-fil-A's family night. On Wednesday Duncan went to violin, Grayson went to his math tutor, and we went to the library. On Thursday we took Grayson to his IEW composition class. Mei and Duncan study in the lounge while we wait for him.

Mei and Duncan do memory work on the couch.

Reading in the lounge window. Evidently Mei's book was so funny it needed to be shared.

On Friday we went to Arts Alive! and then I took Duncan and Grayson to the Science Center.

They needed to design something that caught the ball regardless of which of which of the three places it fell and then would guide it back to the entry hole.

Duncan's reflection on the bees.

The giant lever lifts the car.

Making bottles shoot into the air.

Friday night we went to my aunt's house. She has the cutest little yorkie named Dolly.

If you didn't notice, then I will point it out to you. Yes, Duncan wore the same shirt Thursday and Friday.

Read-Aloud Thursday

2010-11-11T18:42:00.000-06:00

This week we are reading Clovis, King of the Franks. This is another in the Biography from Ancient Civilizations series. Again, this is great content with nice visuals, but again it is a little dry like a giant encyclopedia entry. On the other hand, like the others in this series, it is divided into five chapters that are easy to in one day, so it lends itself well to being read over the course of a school week.

All said, have you ever tried to find a children's biography of Clovis? I think that this is it.

Friday Week in Review

2010-11-05T22:28:00.009-05:00

Duncan is my 2nd grader.
Mei is my friend’s 5th grader.

Our science and history memory work.
List 3 types of muscle.
The 3 types of muscles are skeletal, smooth, and cardiac.

Tell me about the fall of Rome.
Taxes, slavery, unemployment, and diseases all contributed to the fall of Rome. The last emperor of the Western Roman Empire was deposed by the Goths in 476.

Duncan's memory work for math and LA.
List the names and characteristics of 6 quadrilaterals.
trapezium- no sides parallel
trapezoid- one pair of parallel sides
parallelogram- two pairs of parallel sides
rhombus- parallelogram with equal sides
rectangle- parallelogram whose corners form right angles
square- rectangle with equal length sides

Tell me about possessive pronouns.
Possessive pronouns show ownership and they never need an apostrophe.

List the possessive pronouns.
my, mine, our, ours
your, yours
his, her, hers, its, their, theirs

Mei’s memory work for math and LA.
skip count by 8's and by 9's
8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 72, 80, 88, 96
9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 63, 72, 81, 90, 99, 108

Tell me about conjunctions.
A conjunction joins two words or two groups of words together.

Language Arts
In poetry we continued with MCT’s The Music of the Hemispheres and Sentence Island. Duncan and I continued reading Arabel’s Raven finished story one. Duncan and I also read Who in the World Was the Acrobatic Empress? The Story of Theodora. At my house Mei read a several fables from Why Snails Have Shells and some more in Ballet Shoes. They both did some handwriting and some grammar (Mei- Winston Grammar, Duncan- Practice Island). They both began NaNoWriMo and are doing very well. On the other hand I admit defeat. I do not have the time in my day to write 2000 words- at least not this year.

Math
Mei has completed through lesson 47 in Saxon 65 and continued working in her Kumon multiplication workbook. Duncan is really squatting in order of operations at Kumon. He has been sitting here for what seems like forever, so this week we really just looked at Kumon worksheets.

History
Moving on to history, Duncan and Mei covered Chapter 18 of Gombrich’s A Little History. We also read a couple of pages in Kingfisher and the section on Justinian and Theodora out of Power Basics World History 1. We made three minibooks titled: the modern country of Turkey, The Byzantine Empire, and Justinian & Theodora.

Duncan's front in green. Mei's inside in pink.

Outside of Mei's in pink. Inside of Duncan's in green.

Science
We discussed the bones and muscles in Great Science Adventures. We did the chicken bone in vinegar, but it wasn't very spongy, so we returned it to the vinegar and will check it again next Tuesday. They looked over the muscle section in DK’s The Human Body Book and finished their cool skeletal and muscular systems lapbooks.

Outside of Mei's in purple. Interior right side of Duncan's on right.

Outside of Mei's minibook on left. Inside of Duncan's minibooks on right.

Inside of Mei's minibook on left. Outside of Duncan's minibook on right.

Other Stuff
Mei and Duncan went out trick-or-treating and raked in quite a lot of loot. My neighborhood is fabulous at Halloween.

Goddess and Ninja

They sort the candy by type and then toss all the unwanted candy into the center. You can grab candy you do want from each others discard. When all was said and done, Mei gathered the unwanted candy to take to swim team.

Unwanted Candy in the Middle

Eating lots of candy

Mei had her face painted at Chik-fil-A on Tuesday family night.

Duncan went to violin on Wednesday.

Grayson had a birthday and turned 17! Woohoo!

Read-Aloud Thursday

2010-11-04T14:35:00.000-05:00

This week we are reading Who in the World Was the Acrobatic Empress? The Story of Theodora. It reads like a good picture book except that it has many more words than an actually picture book and it covers an actual historical figure. I have been very pleased!

Wordless Wednesday- Happy Halloween

2010-11-03T09:29:00.002-05:00

less messy than a pumpkin and when I am ready for it to go away I just shake it :-)

I plan to post more about Halloween in my weekly update, but I wanted to share my EtchASketch Halloween sign.

NaNoWriMo Schedule

2010-11-03T01:19:00.002-05:00

This is the NaNoWriMo schedule that I am using with Duncan and Mei. It has been so easy for them. I wish I could say the same about myself. I can't seem to get the words on the page. :-(

We have shut up their editors. I am however correcting spelling, because I can't have them doing things like spelling very as vary for a solid month.

They needed a little bit of guidance as this is their very first NaNoWriMo, so I created a 15 day writing schedule with an IEW challenge for each session. I plan to let them complete days 4 through 6 in any order that makes the best sense for their story.

Day 1 Topic: Setting- Write about the when and the where of the story.
   LA (IEW) challenge: Include a simile or metaphor.

Day 2 Topic: Write a description of the main character.
   LA (IEW) challenge: Include quality adjectives.

Day 3 Topic: Describe a normal day in the main character's life.
   LA (IEW) challenge: Include strong verbs.

Day 4 Topic: Describe the extraordinary day in the main character's life when things change.
   LA (IEW) challenge: Include a www. asia clause.

Day 5 Topic: Introduce the supporting character.
   LA (IEW) challenge: Include a who/which clause.

Day 6 Topic: Write about what the main character wants or needs.
   LA (IEW) challenge: Include a quality adverb/ -ly word.

Day 7 Topic: Write about the villain and/ or the obstacle/ problem. (part1)
   LA (IEW) challenge: Include alliteration.

Day 8 Topic: Write about the villain and/ or the obstacle/ problem. (part2)
   LA (IEW) challenge: Include a because clause.

Day 9 Topic: Write about how the main character feels about the villain and/or the obstacle/ problem.
   LA (IEW) challenge: Include dual verbs (compound predicate).

Day 10 Topic: Write about how the supporting character reacts to this situation and their role in it.
   LA (IEW) challenge: Include dialog.

Day 11 Topic: Write about how the main character feels about the supporting character's reaction to the problem and how he now feels about the supporting character.
   LA (IEW) challenge: Include a question.

Day 12 Topic: Write about the sequence of events leading up to what the character wants being blocked by the villain or obstacle.
   LA (IEW) challenge: Include 3 SSS (short staccato sentences).

Day 13 Topic: What happens? Does the main character get what he wanted? How does he feel about getting or not getting what he wanted?
   LA (IEW) challenge: Begin a sentence with a prepositional phrase.

Day 14 Topic: What happens to the supporting character and the villain? How do they feel about the outcome?
   LA (IEW) challenge: Include dual quality adverbs/-ly or dual quality adjectives.

Day 15 Topic: Write about what the main character learned and facts supporting this.
   LA (IEW) challenge: Begin a sentence with a clause.

My 2nd grader has a 1,750 word goal and thus is shooting for about 120 words in each session.

My friend's 5th grade dd has a 2,500 word goal and thus is shooting for about 170 words in each session. I have also challenged her to use at least one word from the MCT 100 Classical Words list in each session.

They have completed day one and day two without any problem. I hope the rest of the schedule is as uneventful. OTOH- I am starting to think that maybe I set the word counts too low.

I am in no way expecting an incredible story. I am just expecting the words to get on the page.

Friday- Week in Review

2010-10-29T22:13:00.007-05:00

Duncan is my 2nd grader.
Mei is my friend’s 5th grader.

Happy Halloween!

This week for memory work we continued to work on the witches’ chant from Macbeth. Next week we will add a new poem, but keep this one around. Now, if I can just find that list of poems I wanted them to memorize. Oh, also, Mei doesn’t have a black eye. She has eczema.

Our science and history memory work.
How many bones are in the skeleton of an adult?
An adult human skeleton has 206 bones.

Tell me about Constantine.
In 313A.D., Byzantine Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity.

Duncan's memory work for math and LA.
List some U.S. Customary units of length.
12 in = 1 ft
3 ft = 1 yd
5280 ft = 1 mi
1760 yd = 1 mi

Tell me about a verb phrase.
When a group of words is used as a verb, it is called a verb phrase. However, we refer to the whole verb phrase as the verb.

List the helping verbs.
am / is / are / was / were
be / being / been
do / does / did
has / have / had
may / might / must
can / could
shall / should
will / would

Mei’s memory work for math and LA.
skip count by 6's and by 7's
6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48, 54, 60, 66, 72
7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56, 63, 70, 77, 84

Tell me about a prepositional phrase.
A prepositional phrase begins with a preposition and ends with its object. In a sentence a prepositional phrase acts as either an adjective or an adverb.

Language Arts
In poetry we continued with MCT’s The Music of the Hemispheres and reading from The Random House Book of Poetry for Children. Duncan and Mei are enjoying Sentence Island. Duncan and I began reading Arabel’s Raven and he also began reading Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm on my new Kindle. This book is suggested on the Old Fashioned Education website. At my house Mei read Macbeth in Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare, a couple of fables from Why Snails Have Shells, and some more in Ballet Shoes. They both did some handwriting and some grammar (Mei- Winston Grammar, Duncan- Practice Island). Mei has created some fabulous characters for Nanowrimo which starts Monday. Eek!

Mei's main character

Math
Duncan has completed through lesson 80 in Saxon 76 and Mei has completed through lesson 43 in Saxon 65. Duncan is working in Key to Alg book1 and Mei is working in a Kumon multiplication workbook.

History
Moving on to history, Duncan and Mei covered Chapter 17 of Gombrich’s A Little History. We also read a couple of pages in Kingfisher.

Science
In science we began Great Science Adventures- Human Body! We discussed the skeleton. They watched the Eyewitness Skeleton video, looked over the skeleton section in DK’s The Human Body Book, and started a cool lapbook appropriate for Halloween time.

Duncan's left. Mei's right.

Inside Duncan's left flap.

Inside Mei's skeleton mini-book.

Other Stuff
They boogied through some Spanish in their workbooks. On the other hand Duncan didn’t even open Song School Latin. Good grief, I have fallen off the Latin wagon.

Duncan and Mei are really enjoying their Friday Arts Alive! classes. Duncan has also been going to a new violin teacher the past 4 weeks and that has really been going very well. The new teacher is Suzuki trained for books 1-3. I personally can't tell you what is different about the lessons, but I can hear the difference in Duncan's violin playing.

Read-Aloud Thursday

2010-10-28T10:04:00.000-05:00

Just yesterday Duncan and I began reading Arabel's Raven. We are doing the I read a page then he reads a page route. I am excited to be sharing it with him, but we are not very good at completing books that we read in tandem, so we'll see how it goes. I really like the book, so I have high hopes.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-10-27T22:59:00.003-05:00

My New Kindle!

better photo

Friday- Couple of Weeks in Review

2010-10-22T17:08:00.011-05:00

Well, let's see. Friday 10/8 I was on the road and Friday 10/15 I was on the road, so those updates have come and gone. However, we took fall break from 10/11-10/15. Here is a quick photo overview from then until now. We had a visit from our college freshman, two birthdays, and won a volleyball tournament! This has required a drive to Memphis and back and forth from middle TN to eastern KY twice in addition to all the driving here in middle TN.

First Cub Scout bonfire. Duncan is a wolf and at the bonfire received his bobcat badge.

Christian came home from college for a long weekend before midterms.

Mei and Duncan learned how to make balloon animals.

Mei likes her giraffe.

Grayson tries to teach tired Duncan how to play a video game.

Duncan has a birthday and turns 8!

Duncan and Mei drive through Cici's pizza.

Christian and Mei have hats.

Duncan and Mei began their Nanowrimo workbooks. Duncan's inner editor.

Mei's inner editor.

Duncan dances in theater.

My poor little camera doesn't take action shots well.

Duncan in art class.

Mimi has a birthday

and turns 88!

Part of the undefeated volleyball team. I didn't get a single good shot at the tournament, but in this photo the young lady in the white tank looks so happy that I chose this one to put here.

Grayson with his tournament t-shirt.

Duncan was making baskets right and left after the volleyball game.

Today art class was at the lake. See the 3 turtles sunning on the log?

The view to paint- just ignore the foreground.

Mei and Duncan painting.

As a general overview, we are plugging along in LA and math. We didn't do any new science this week and we studied Jesus in history.

Read-Aloud Thursday

2010-10-21T09:05:00.001-05:00

Whew! This week we are trying to read Jesus by Demi. I have to say that of all the books I have read by Demi this is my least favorite. I guess she didn't want to offend anyone by abbreviating anything, so it is just many, many selections from the KJV Gospels arranged in chronological order. The pictures as always are lovely, but in order to finish this book in the timeframe that I have allowed I am doing the paraphrasing myself.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-10-20T08:52:00.003-05:00

Mimi, my grandmother, turned 88 years old! So, just in case anyone wonders what I will look like should I make it 46 more years- here is a preview. Just color those brown eyes gray.

Read-Aloud Thursday

2010-10-14T19:02:00.002-05:00

I have been out of pocket this past week, so I our here is our read-aloud from this week and last week. For October we are going with the Halloween-y theme of ravens.

Last week we read Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest by Gerald McDermott.

Like many other Gerald McDermott books, this is a visually stunning folk tale. This one is a retelling of a Native American trickster myth that explains how Raven stole the sun and placed it in the sky for humans. We loved it!

This week we read The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe and illustrated by Ryan Price.

As we have discussed alliteration in MCT Music of the Hemispheres, this was a perfect time to read The Raven!

Despite the comment by this reviewer on amazon, I do think that the images in this book clearly show the sorrow of the man at loosing his love, respect the words of the poem, and clarify the meaning especially for younger readers. Mei said that the man in the book reminded her of the old man in Disney's movie Up. The pictures must be pretty clear if a 10yo got it.

The book is filled with pictures of Lenore and the raven is drawn as a sort of macabre shadow, so that you aren't sure if he is really there. In fact after-

And the lamplight o'er him streaming

throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow

that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted -

On the last page with the single word nevermore is a drawing of the man squatting on the floor scratching the shadow of the raven, but the way it is drawn it allows you to question if he is actually tracing his own shadow. This was a wonderful purchase that I plan to keep on my bookself for years to come.

Friday- Week in Review for Grayson

2010-10-01T22:50:00.000-05:00

Honestly, I haven't looked through Grayson's work. He says that he has completed his literature, history, chemistry, and art. I know he went to his economics group, his math tutor, and his IEW class. And I know his volleyball team is still undefeated!

I also know that he spent tonight sitting in bed reading fan fiction on his laptop.

"Yes, I love you, too."

"Now, talk to the hand."

Friday- Week in Review for Mei

2010-10-01T22:32:00.001-05:00

Mei is the dd of a good friend who was with us 2 days this week. Mei is in the 5th grade and here is what she did at my house.

We didn’t do any ABFIAR, except that she did finish reading John Audubon: Young Naturalist. Next week hopefully we can find the end of this rabbit trail and return to Hitty.

Mei is a hoot. Tuesday night we went to family night at a Chik-Fil-A where they have a young lady who paints little things on the children. Mei said that she wanted to get something on her face this week. Well, she definitely got something on her face.

We added the ears back at my house.

I can’t talk Duncan into a little alligator on his arm, but Mei comes back to the table painted as a dalmation!

Memory Work
This week for memory work we reviewed our material and continued to work on the witches’ chant from Macbeth (Double, Double Toil and Trouble). Science was our only new memory work this week.

What are the three main parts of a comet?
Nucleus, Coma, Tail

Math
Saxon 65- Lessons 27-31 (some at my house, some at hers)

Language Arts
John Audubon : Young Naturalist
Daily Handwriting Practice Contemporary Cursive
Ballet Shoes
Music of the Hemispheres pp.18-25
The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (selections from)

History
Gombrich’s A Little History Chapter 14
assembled Panda minibooks
Great Wall of China by Adele Richardson

Science
Great Science Adventures- Lessons 19 and 20 (Comets and Meteors)
Watched comet and meteor videos at howstuffworks
Watched Bill Nye’s Comets and Meteors

Spanish
Mei also worked in The Everything Kids’ Learning Spanish Book.

Friday- Week in Review for Duncan

2010-10-01T21:35:00.001-05:00

Duncan is my 2nd grader.
This week for memory work we reviewed our material and continued to work on the witches’ chant from Macbeth (Double, Double Toil and Trouble). Science was our only new memory work this week.

What are the three main parts of a comet?
Nucleus, Coma, Tail

In poetry we continued with MCT’s The Music of the Hemispheres and reading from The Random House Book of Poetry for Children. Duncan finished Grammar Island and began Sentence Island. He also began reading Henry and Ribsy in SL LA2adv and did some handwriting. Oh, and I set up accounts for both Mei and Duncan for the NaNoWriMo Young Writer’s Program. This will be the first year that we have participated in NaNoWriMo, so we will be spending October going through the elementary workbook.

Duncan has completed through lesson 71 in Saxon 76. Today, I handed him Key to Algebra book1 and he finished the first 5 pages in 10 minutes. I am still waffling on Hands-on Equations. I may let him finish Key to Alg books 1-3 and then do Hands-on Equations.

Moving on to history, Duncan and Mei looked more at ancient China in Chapter 14 of Gombrich’s A Little History. We read Great Wall of China this week and completed a Panda mini-book from Enchanted Learning.

In science we discussed comets and meteors with Great Science Adventures Space. Duncan and Mei colored and labeled a comet. They also watched videos on howstuffworks and watched Bill Nye’s Comets and Meteors. Next week will be our last week looking at space and then we move on to human anatomy!

They boogied through some Spanish in their workbooks. On the other hand we didn’t even open Song School Latin.

Good news- today Duncan and Mei finally started their Friday Arts Alive! classes. Yay! They are both taking art and theater. Theater is a little dance, a little singing, and a little acting. Mei is with the older group and Duncan is with the younger group, so when one is in theater the other is in art. Each class is an hour and twenty minutes with a twenty minute snack break in between classes. In addition to Mei and her mom Sarah, we know a couple of other families there. I am so excited to have Duncan involved in this homeschool group that isn’t doing school work. I know that sounds funny, but do you know how difficult it is to find a homeschool group these days that isn’t trying to do school work?

The other good news- I found a drawing thing to replace The Draw Squad. I purchased Scribbles: A Really Giant Coloring Book and Duncan is drawing without becoming frustrated that it doesn’t look perfect. Woohoo!

He isn't learning to draw well, but he is learning to draw without becoming upset!

And even more good news- I think I have found another violin teacher. I haven’t heard back from him, but I am hoping that he has a slot available when we are available!

My School Log for Duncan

2010-10-01T21:04:00.001-05:00

Memory Work
LA, Math, History- Review

What are the three main parts of a comet?
Nucleus, Coma, Tail

Poem 1
the witches’ chant from Macbeth

Math
Kumon Math (not daily)
Saxon 76- Lessons 66-71
Key to Alg Book1 pp.1-5

Language Arts
Henry and Ribsy chapters 1-3 (reader)
Handwriting Help for Kids: Create Cursive
Sentence Island pp.7-19
MCT Grammar Island pp.136-145; pp.170-172
Music of the Hemispheres pp.18-25
The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (selections from)

History
Gombrich’s A Little History Chapter 14
assembled Panda minibooks
Great Wall of China by Adele Richardson

Science
Great Science Adventures- Lessons 19 and 20 (Comets and Meteors)
Watched comet and meteor videos at howstuffworks
Watched Bill Nye’s Comets and Meteors

Spanish
Perused and completed random pages in The Complete Book of Spanish

Art
Arts Alive!
Scribbles: A Really Giant Coloring Book

Read-Aloud Thursday

2010-09-30T22:22:00.001-05:00

This week we read Great Wall of China by Adele Richardson. It provided a fair amount of information, but it also provided tons of wonderful pictures!

I wish I had stuck to my original plan and covered the 2 chapters on ancient China from Gombrich's A Little History back to back. Alas, I did not. We had already talked a little about the Great Wall and Qin Shi Hwangdi when we covered Confucius, but this week we look at them again in more depth.

This book contains fabulous photos and enough information for a basic report, but it is set up in a 32 page, hardback, picture book layout. It was a really good book to read aloud side by side on the couch.

Wordless Wednesday- What's inside your purse?

2010-09-29T12:14:00.000-05:00

Thanks, Daisy!

Why is my passport in here? That is being put upstairs now.

Oh dear- where is my little bag of Neosporin spray and band-aids? I had it at the park on Sunday. I also don't see my suglasses that I had at the park on Sunday. hmm, maybe they are in dh's vehicle.

It is also common for me to have a gameboy and/or a book, but my keys and phone do not stay inside my purse.

Friday- Week in Review for Grayson

2010-09-24T12:39:00.001-05:00

Grayson is my junior. I wish Grayson's was more interesting, but since it isn't here are some photos of my big guys from our last visit.

Grayson and his "big" brother. Yeah, Christian didn't realize that Grayson was trying to be as tall as possible.

Since the other photo is such a bad one of Christian, I thought I should include a good one.

Language Arts
Grayson read selections from EMC’s World Lit. This week he read selections from Tartuffe by Moliere.

He completed his homework in IEW, Mother Tongue, and reviewed puctuation rules in The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation.

Precalculus
On Wednesday he went to the math tutor. This week he is finishing up Sullivan’s Precalculus Chapter 2: Linear Functions and Models.

Chemistry
He began chapter 4 and all is well.

History
This week in Glencoe high school World History Grayson read about Southeast Asia.

He also watched lecture 14 from The Teaching Company’s A History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts. Lecture 14 covers Edward VI. Grayson filled on a TRISMS Famous People sheet for him.

Economics
On Tuesday he attended his one semester economics class using ABeka.

Arts
Grayson watched lecture 9 from The Teaching Company’s The Art of the Northern Renaissance.

Volleyball
Grayson’s fourth game was last night. They won again, but I didn’t’ stay to watch, so I can’t comment on the actual game.

Friday- Week in Review for Mei

2010-09-24T12:05:00.003-05:00

Mei is the dd of a good friend who was with us 2 days this week. Mei is in the 5th grade and here is what she did at my house.

We didn’t do any ABFIAR, but we did set up a Autumn Table. After the picture, we opened the runner and spread everything out, but I wanted to get everything in one shot. (It's fun having a girlie visiting to appreciate these things!)

Memory Work
Tell me about parentheses in an arithmetic problem.
When there are parentheses in arithmetic problem, operations inside the parentheses must be performed first.

Tell me about a clause.
Each group of words with a subject and a predicate in it is called a clause.

What are dwarf planets?
Dwarf planets are astronomical objects that orbit the sun and are round, but, unlike planets, they have not cleared their orbital path.

Tell me about the Punic Wars.
The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage that resulted in the utter destruction of Carthage.

Poem 1
the witches’ chant from Macbeth

Math
Saxon 65- Lessons 22-25

Language Arts
John Audubon : Young Naturalist
Daily Handwriting Practice Contemporary Cursive
Music of the Hemispheres pp.14-17
The Random House Poetry book on Thursday

History
Gombrich’s A Little History Chapter 13
assembled Roman minibooks
Kingfisher pp.34-35; pp.62-63
Selections from Mr. Donn’s History

Science
Great Science Adventures- Lessons 18 and 13 (Pluto and The Asteroid Belt)
Read about Dwarf Planets at Starchild
Watched asteroid and planet videos at howstuffworks

Spanish
Mei and Duncan continued playing with Chapter 2 in Spanish Every Day. Mei also worked in The Everything Kids’ Learning Spanish Book.

Friday- Week in Review for Duncan

2010-09-24T11:53:00.005-05:00

Duncan is my 2nd grader.

Have I mentioned how much I like memory work? Here is Duncan’s for week 9.

Tell me about prime numbers.
Numbers that have exactly 2 factors are prime numbers.

Tell me about a clause.
Each group of words with a subject and a predicate in it is called a clause.

What are dwarf planets?
Dwarf planets are astronomical objects that orbit the sun and are round, but, unlike planets, they have not cleared their orbital path.

Tell me about the Punic Wars.
The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage that resulted in the utter destruction of Carthage.

Poem 1
the witches’ chant from Macbeth

In poetry we continued with MCT’s The Music of the Hemispheres. That reminds me- does anyone know of a good online explanation of aspirated sounds, guttural stop sounds, etc.? It has been a long time since my oldest was in speech therapy and I think a quick review would really help me teach this first section of Music of the Hemispheres. (I think that I will ask this on TWTMforum. Duh.)

Duncan also covered clauses in Grammar Island and some handwriting. After being sick last week and not covering SL LA, I decided just to start over. Something irritates me about being on week 9 of school, but week 8 of SL. Oh, well.

Duncan is moving along in Saxon 76. It is pretty certain that he will finish the book before the end of this year, so here soon I will be dropping down to 3 lessons each week. I am considering doing Hands on Equations and reviewing some before beginning Saxon 87 to give him time to master the material and approach some information in a fun, hands-on way. He really liked Cuisenaire rods and the MUS blocks, so I think that he would like some time with manipulatives.

Moving on to history, Duncan and Mei held on to their seats and did a fly-by of ancient Rome from Romulus and Remus through the Punic Wars. I use Gombrich’s Little History as our spine and all of this is in Chapter 13. I read aloud two Roman spreads from my handy old Kingfisher, a short version of Romulus and Remus, and information from Mr.Donn’s Roman history online. They made 5 little minibooks for a lapbook of ancient Rome. (Even in this quick overview we will spend 4 weeks on Rome including our week that covers Christianity. So, I decided that it needed its own lapbook. Mei is excited!) Without Mei, Duncan and I read Hannibal by Robert Green. Whew! So much history, so little time!

Mei's Left; Duncan's Right

In science Mei and Duncan explored Pluto, dwarf planets, the Kuiper Belt and the Asteroid Belt. They completed two lessons of GSA Space and filled in information on Pluto for their solar system book. They read about dwarf planets at Starchild and watched some space videos at howstuffworks.

Last year our Spanish was just fun relaxed exposure. This year I actually purchased materials, but rather than curriculum I just bought some books at Borders. Duncan and Mei are just having fun looking at the books and filling in the pages. I am not doing much in the way of instruction other than just reading the words on the page. Even though I don’t mention it often, we are still plugging away.

Latin for Children- Lesson 9: swimming through it splashing and having fun.

My School Log for Duncan

2010-09-24T11:25:00.001-05:00

Memory Work
Tell me about prime numbers.
Numbers that have exactly 2 factors are prime numbers.

Tell me about a clause.
Each group of words with a subject and a predicate in it is called a clause.

What are dwarf planets?
Dwarf planets are astronomical objects that orbit the sun and are round, but, unlike planets, they have not cleared their orbital path.

Tell me about the Punic Wars.
The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage that resulted in the utter destruction of Carthage.

Poem 1
the witches’ chant from Macbeth

Math
Kumon Math (not daily)
Saxon 76- Lessons 61-65

Language Arts
SL LA 2 adv week 8 copywork and activity sheet
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill chapters 5-8 (reader)
Handwriting Help for Kids: Create Cursive
MCT Grammar Island pp.124-135; discussed pp.168-169
Music of the Hemispheres pp.14-17
The Random House Poetry book on Thursday

History
Gombrich’s A Little History Chapter 13
assembled Roman minibooks
Kingfisher pp.34-35; pp.62-63
Selections from Mr. Donn’s History
Hannibal by Robert Green (without Mei)

Science
Great Science Adventures- Lessons 18 and 13 (Pluto and The Asteroid Belt)
Read about Dwarf Planets at Starchild
Watched asteroid and planet videos at howstuffworks

Spanish
Mei and Duncan continued playing with Chapter 2 in Spanish Every Day. Mei worked in The Everything Kids’ Learning Spanish Book while Duncan learned animal names in The Complete Book of Spanish.

Latin
Song School Latin Lesson 9 (review lesson)

Read-Aloud Thursday: Hannibal

2010-09-23T15:40:00.002-05:00

This week we are reading Hannibal by Robert Green. Alongside our whirlwind overview of Rome from Romulus and Remus through the Punic Wars, this book was just perfect. It has 5 chapters, so one can be read each day of the week. While it could certainly be used to write a report, the book is a good read and contains numerous pictures of paintings, sculpture, maps, and photos that add to the written information.

Wordless Wednesday- Trivia

2010-09-22T12:46:00.002-05:00

This week I painted my toes blue, because I thought my little guy would like them. I thought wrong. He informed me that they were "a little too Halloween town" for him and that he likes my toes pink!

One of the Indian ladies at Kumon brought in a henna cone and was kind enough to put a little vine on my hand while I taught in the junior room. I like it, but I never knew that, when it is applied, wet henna smells bad. I guess I never thought about it.

Oh, and Happy Autumn! I hope it cools off soon!

Friday- Week in Review for Grayson

2010-09-17T01:27:00.001-05:00

Grayson is my junior.

Language Arts
Grayson read selections from EMC’s World Lit. This week he read selections from Fables by Jean de La Fontaine.

He completed his homework in IEW, Mother Tongue, and reviewed comma rules in The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation.

Precalculus
On Wednesday he went to the math tutor.

Chemistry
He wrapped up Chemistry chapter3. Woohoo.

History
This week in Glencoe high school World History Grayson read about Africa.

He also watched lecture 13 from The Teaching Company’s A History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts. Lecture 13 wraps up the personal life of Henry VIII. Grayson filled on a TRISMS Famous People sheet on Henry VIII.

Economics
On Tuesday he attended his one semester economics class using ABeka. He wore a NOM NOM NOM t-shirt where he used duct tape taped ECO over the first NOM and ICS over the last NOM. I was amused.

Arts
Grayson watched lecture 8 from The Teaching Company’s The Art of the Northern Renaissance.

Volleyball
Grayson’s third game was this week. Again they won, so they are undefeated.

Friday- Week in Review for Mei

2010-09-17T01:13:00.001-05:00

Mei is the dd of a good friend who was with us 2 days this week. Mei is in the 5th grade and here is what she did at my house.

Mei and Duncan enjoying a puddle

Memory Work
Three ways to show division.
a division box
a division sign
a division bar

What is an adjective?
An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or a pronoun.

What is a mnemonic phrase to remember the order of the planets?
My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nachos.

Tell me about Alexander the Great.
Alexander the Great, 356B.C. to 323B.C., became king of Greece at 20 and went on to conquer Asia Minor, Egypt, Persia, and Northern India.

Math
Saxon 65- Lessons 19-21

Language Arts
Winston Grammar Lesson 11
Daily Handwriting Practice Contemporary Cursive
Music of the Hemispheres pp.4-13
The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (selections from)

History & Science
See Duncan's Review

Above and Beyond Five in a Row
We continued down our John Audubon rabbit trail. We finished our lapbook on France and it is Mei’s favorite lapbook so far. I added a little extension and I think that is part of what she liked.

Outside

Inside

Inside with some of the mini-books open

Inside with extension open

Friday- Week in Review for Duncan

2010-09-17T00:58:00.002-05:00

Duncan is my 2nd grader.

Well, I have not been up to par this week, so we didn’t do as much as I had planned. However, we did trudge along and covered what needed to be so that we wouldn’t end up behind schedule especially in MCT with Duncan, Saxon with Mei, and the history and science that they do together. Oh, and they continued with their memory cards and Duncan did Song School Latin.

In language arts we began MCT’s The Music of the Hemispheres and Mei and Duncan began memorizing the witches’ chant from Macbeth- “Double, double toil and trouble.” I would like to them to have it memorized by 10/8 , but I really want them to have it memorized for Halloween! Duncan also covered prepositional phrases in Grammar Island and some handwriting. What we didn’t cover was our SL stuff- his reader, activity sheet, and MCT Word Study D. I have high hopes that he will catch up in his reader this weekend, but I think that we will be skipping the activity sheet and next week pick up word study where we left off.

Fortunately, the section of Saxon covered fractions. As Kumon has already beat Duncan over the head with fractions, I didn’t need to use my limited voice to explain his lessons. He did some problems in lessons 52-59, but we really focused where I am not seeing speed and accuracy- decimal problems. I feel naughty for skipping problems in Saxon! LOL

Moving on to science and history, Duncan and Mei covered Alexander the Great using a variety of materials. They explored Uranus and Neptune in science. They also watched the Magic School Bus video that covers weather/ the water cycle, not because it was relevant to anything we are doing but just ‘cause they wanted to watch Magic School Bus- so there.

Last week's Saturn that Duncan wanted me to post.

Mei's Neptune

Past this is just my accountability journal. If you are interested in reading everything that I am logging as school this week, continue. If not, don’t bother. The rest is boring.
Memory Work
Tell me about a prepositional phrase.
A prepositional phrase begins with a preposition and ends with its object. In a sentence a prepositional phrase acts as either an adjective or an adverb.

List some common prepositions that do not indicate location.
about, after, against, before, down, except, off, until

What is a mnemonic phrase to remember the order of the planets?
My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nachos.

Tell me about Alexander the Great.
Alexander the Great, 356B.C. to 323B.C., became king of Greece at 20 and went on to conquer Asia Minor, Egypt, Persia, and Northern India.

Math
Kumon Math (not daily)
Saxon 76- Lessons 52-59

Language Arts
Betsey and Tacy GO Over the Big Hill chapter 4 (reader)
Handwriting Help for Kids: Create Cursive
MCT Grammar Island pp.115-123; he completed the story maker on p.121 & 166 (in addition to identifying the underlined part of speech we analyzed some of these for words and parts of a sentence.)
Music of the Hemispheres pp.4-13
The Random House Poetry book on Thursday

History
Gombrich’s A Little History Chapter 12
colored in an Alexander the Great Mini-book
You Wouldn’t Want to Be in Alexander the Great’s Army
Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History pp.160-161

Science
Great Science Adventures- Lessons 16 and 17
(Uranus and Neptune)

Latin
Song School Latin Lesson 8

Read-Aloud Thursday

2010-09-16T21:49:00.000-05:00

This is another good one from this series. You Wouldn't Want to Be in Alexander the Great's Army follows the military campaigns of Alexander from the perspective of foot soldier. It has all the sort of information that little boys love- soldiers freezing to death, starving to death, being trampled by elephants, etc. That said it doesn't give much information about Alexander.

We did read the page on Alexander the Great out of Usborne's Internet-linked History Encyclopedia and that helped. I had planned to read The Life and Times of Alexander the Great. However, I have almost lost my voice this week, so my throat just wasn't up for it.

I read/skimmed through it and I think Duncan would have enjoyed it. It gave some really good historical information about Alexander the Great.

Tuesday Teatime Poetry

2010-09-14T12:43:00.001-05:00

We began MCT's The Music of the Hemispheres today. WooHoo! We read pp.4-11 which included a poem by Emily Dickinson. We also read the witches' song (double double toil and trouble) from Macbeth. Mei and Duncan will be memorizing it over the next several weeks.

Grayson, Weekly Review: 9/6-9/10

2010-09-13T13:02:00.002-05:00

Grayson is my junior and here is my very late week in review.

Language Arts
Grayson read selections from EMC’s World Lit. This week he read a selection from “Of Cannibals” by Michel de Montaigne.

He completed his homework in IEW, Mother Tongue, and reviewed comma rules in The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation.

Precalculus
On Wednesday he went to the math tutor. He is using a Sullivan Precalculus text. Yesterday (9/12) we bought him his own graphing calculator. He had been using Christian’s, but Christian took his to college. Imagine that.

Chemistry
Alright, things are better. He read RS4K Level2 Chemistry 1.1-1.2 and chapter 3 in his Prentice Hall text and there was no problem!

History
This week in Glencoe high school World History Grayson read about Africa.

He also watched lectures 11 and 12 from The Teaching Company’s A History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts. This completes part 1 of the 4 part series and covered the break with the Catholic church and the power of the monarchy through the end of Henry VIII’s reign.

Economics
On Tuesday he attended his one semester economics class using ABeka and he made a B on his test. This is wonderful since we were running so late that not only didn’t he have time to shower but he also didn’t eat lunch. When Grayson is rushed like this, it is not uncommon for him not to do well.

Arts
Grayson watched lecture 7 from The Teaching Company’s The Art of the Northern Renaissance.

Volleyball
Grayson’s second game was this week. They played two 25 point games and one 15 point game and won all three. In the final game, the first 11 points were while Grayson was serving!

Mei, Weekly Review: 9/6-9/10

2010-09-13T12:41:00.001-05:00

Mei is the dd of a good friend who was with us 2 days this week. Mei is in the 5th grade and here is what she did at my house.

Memory Work
Describe horizontal, vertical, and oblique lines and line segments.
A horizontal line is level with the horizon, extending left and right. A vertical line extends up and down. An oblique line appears to be "slanted."

Name the four kinds of sentences.
declarative- states.
interrogative- asks?
imperative- orders.
exclamatory- exclaims!

List the outer planets.
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune

Tell me about Confucius.
Confucius, who lived from 551 B.C. to 479 B.C., taught obedience and respect.

Math
Math drill- reviewing multiplication facts 3s and 6s
Saxon 65- Lessons 15-18

Language Arts
Winston Grammar Lessons 10
Daily Handwriting Practice Contemporary Cursive
Reader- John Audubon: Young Naturalist
Teatime Poetry

History, Science, Spanish
See Duncan's Review

Above and Beyond Five in a Row
We continued our John Audubon rabbit trail. Mei read about millers, wind mills, and owls. She also began a cool lapbook on France. Hopefully we will finish that soon, so I can post pictures!

Duncan, Weekly Review: 9/6-9/10

2010-09-13T12:32:00.002-05:00

Duncan is my 2nd grader. This is so late that it is obviuosly just for my journal, so it isn't very interesting.

Memory Work
Duncan’s math memory work is pulled from Saxon 76, his LA memory work is pulled from MCT Grammar Island, and his science memory work is pulled from Great Science Adventures Space. His history/ geography memory work is based on what we are studying.

What do we do when the divisor of a division problem is a decimal number?
We remove the decimal from the divisor by writing an equivalent division problem multiplying both the divisor and dividend by a multiple of 10.

Tell me about a direct object.
A direct object is a noun or object pronoun that gets acted on by the action verb.
Subj. Act.V. D.O.

Tell me about a subject complement.
A subject complement is a noun, subject pronoun, or an adjectives that comes after a linking verb and renames or describes the subject.
Subj. L.V. S.C.

List the outer planets.
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune

Tell me about Confucius.
Confucius, who lived from 551 B.C. to 479 B.C., taught obedience and respect.

Math
Kumon Math
Saxon 76- Lessons 48-51

Language Arts
SL LA 2 adv week 6 copywork and activity sheet
Ralph S. Mouse chapters 8-end (reader)
Betsey and Tacy GO Over the Big Hill chapter 1-3 (reader)
MCP Word Study D (he did this, but no idea where the book is now!)
Handwriting Help for Kids: Create Cursive
MCT Grammar Island pp.104-114; he completed the story maker on p.113 & 164 (in addition to identifying the underlined part of speech we analyzed some of these for words and parts of a sentence.)
Tuesday Poetry from the Random House Poetry book

History
Gombrich’s A Little History Chapter 11
colored in a China map and flag from Enchanted Learning
The Life and Times of Confucius
Ancient China DVD from Schlessinger Media

Science
Great Science Adventures- Lessons 13 and 14
(Jupiter and Saturn)

Spanish
Barron’s Spanish Every Day Chapter 2
The Complete Book of Spanish- the pronoun you

Latin
Song School Latin Lesson 7

Read-Aloud Thursday

2010-09-09T17:54:00.001-05:00

This week I am reading The Life and Times of Confucius as our history read-aloud. It contains 5 short chapters, so it is easy to cover in a week. The vocabulary isn't your simple picture book vocabulary and it has nice little FYI sections with pictures at the end of each chapter. I like it enough that we will be using a couple of other ones, but it isn't beautiful. This book on Confucius fits the bill for Duncan, but it is definitely a library book that a middle school student could use to write a report IYKWIM.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-09-08T14:18:00.001-05:00

Over Labor Day we took more stuff to my oldest ds, Christian, at college.

See Christian egg on Grayson to climb the tree.

See Grayson easily ascend the branch.

See smug Grayson view his brothers on the ground.

See Grayson move higher. The dangling leg was a hook to be pulled.

See Grayson enjoy the view.

Tuesday Teatime Poetry

2010-09-07T23:24:00.000-05:00

While we read from The Random House Book of Poetry for Children, Mei, Duncan, and Grayson had Pillsbury Cinnabon Rolls. The kids had a good time. We didn't discuss anything, so I have nothing to add to this yummy picture.

Friday- Week in Review for Grayson

2010-09-03T12:40:00.002-05:00

Grayson is my junior.

Language Arts
Grayson read selections from EMC’s World Lit. This week he read a selection from Don Quixote.

He completed his homework for comp class using IEW and Mother Tongue and worked a little in Queen’s Language Lessons.

Precalculus
On Wednesday he went to the math tutor. He is using a Sullivan Precalculus text. He is almost finished with Chapter 1 Equations, Inequalities, and Functions.

Chemistry
Well, he finally finished Chapter 2. Aarrgh, Chemistry is my nemesis!

History
This week in Glencoe high school World History Grayson read about exploration and expansion.

He also watched lectures 8 through 10 from The Teaching Company’s A History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts. The final lecture dealt with Henry the VIII divorce from Catherine of Aragon and his split from the Catholic church- exciting stuff!

Economics
This Tuesday he attended his one semester economics class using ABeka

Arts
Grayson watched lecture 6 from The Teaching Company’s The Art of the Northern Renaissance.

Volleyball
Grayson’s first game was last night. Grayson's serves were consistent and definitely helped win the game!

Friday- Week in Review for Mei

2010-09-03T11:59:00.001-05:00

Mei is the dd of a good friend who was with us 2 days this week. Mei is in the 5th grade and here is what she did at my house. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to complete any ABFIAR this week. :-(

Memory Work
What do we call the answer to a multiplication problem?
The answer to an multiplication problem is called the product.

Tell me about contractions.
A contraction is a shortened form of one or two words (one of which is usually a verb).
In a contraction, an apostrophe takes the place of the missing letter or letters.
example:
you are = you' re
she will = she' ll

List the inner planets.
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars

Tell me about Hinduism.
Hinduism began in Northern India near the Indus River about 4000 years ago.

Math
Math drill- reviewing multiplication facts 3s and 6s
Saxon 65- Lessons 11-14

Language Arts
Winston Grammar Lessons 9
Daily Handwriting Practice Contemporary Cursive pp.10-11
Readers: Milly, Molly, Mandy; Beezus and Ramona; John Audubon: Young Naturalist
Teatime Poetry

History, Science, Spanish
See Duncan’s week in review

Friday- Week in Review for Duncan

2010-09-03T11:26:00.008-05:00

Duncan is my second grader.
Where did the week go?

Math is usually no problem for Duncan. However, this week something came along and threw him for a loop. In Kumon his pack went from 27 x 2/3 = 36/x at the bottom of page 158 to y x 2 + 3 = 9 at the top of page 159. This is when I realized that he could look at 18 = 36/x and just know the answer without really understanding what he was doing. So, out came the white board and we looked at equivalent fractions and then at the equivalent division problems that he has been doing in Saxon. We also reviewed division of fractions. So, then we applied those same concepts to solving for an unknown. I think he has it, but because he didn’t get it immediately all of a sudden he is feeling a little mathematically insecure and this is something new for the little guy.

Last week I posted that we would do the composition exercise in MCT orally, but Friday evening I decided to let the little guy have a go at it. (thanks in part to blog posts where other kiddos had completed a similar exercise in MCT Town!) And, well, what do you know, he really enjoyed it. The book had columns of words and the child had to build a sentence by choosing a word from each column. Then, he had to write a story based on the sentence. He liked it so much that he did it again on Saturday.

Saturday- working on the rough draft

Finished story on Saturday-
Full but Thirsty Life

Yikes! The muddy chicken clucked greedily toward the worm. He was muddy, thirsty, and hungry. Then, the chicken found a big, juicy-looking worm. The chicken snuck up quietly behind the worm and gobbled the enormous, soggy worm in three delicious bites. He felt good and full, but he was thirstier than he had ever been in his entire life. Yikes!

This week we talked about ancient India. We read a library book about the Indus Valley Civilizations, sat in on an Indian dance class, and read Buddha by Demi. (Demi's books are just beautiful!) With Mei we colored in an Indian map and flag from Enchanted Learning, read from Grombrich’s A Little History, and looked at selections from The Little Book of Hindu Deities by Sanjay Patel.

Mei's India page

Thanks to my 16yo I learned a new word this week- chibi. I said that the Little Book of Hindu Deities was like Hello Kitty. However, my 16yo informed me that there is actually a name for that style of animation where the characters are little with big heads- chibi.

Chibi Hindu Gods!

In science we studied the inner planets and added Mercury, Venus, and Mars to our book. We also made a minibook comparing and contrasting Earth and Venus. Duncan also watched a video from the library.

Duncan tab-top book top; Mei tab-top book bottom

Mei and Duncan continued looking at Barron’s Spanish Every Day chapter 2. Duncan looked at numbers through 59 in The Complete Book of Spanish while Mei looked at numbers, question words and Spanish articles in The Everything Kids Learning Spanish Book.

On a fun note, Duncan joined Boy Scouts this week. We bought his little wolf things on Wednesday and he promptly memorized the cub scout pledge. Yesterday I had to take and hide his wolf book, because for some reason he thinks we must complete or begin everything in it immediately.

Past this is just my accountability journal. If you are interested in reading everything that I am logging as school this week, continue. If not, don’t bother. The rest is boring.

Memory Work
Duncan’s math memory work is pulled from Saxon 76 and his LA memory work is pulled from MCT Grammar Island, and his science memory work is pulled from Great Science Adventures Space. His history/ geography memory work is based on what we are studying.

List four ways we may indicate multiplication with numbers and variables.
1. with a times sign
2. with a dot
3. with parentheses
4. if one or both of the factors is a variable, then the factors may be written side by side.

What is the subject of a sentence?
The subject of a sentence is the part about which something is being said. (What are we talking about?)

What is the predicate of a sentence?
The predicate of a sentence is the part that says something about the subject.

List the inner planets.
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars

Tell me about Hinduism.
Hinduism began in Northern India near the Indus River about 4000 years ago.

Math
Kumon Math
Saxon 76- Lessons 43-47
Keys to Decimals looked at the end of Book 2 and the beginning of Book 3
Penrose pp.12-19

Language Arts
SL LA 2 adv week 6 copywork and activity sheet
Ralph S. Mouse chapters 2-7 (reader)
Catwings by Ursula LeGuin (reader)
MCP Word Study D pp.26-29
Handwriting Help for Kids: Create Cursive
MCT Grammar Island pp.91-103; p.160 & 162 (in addition to identifying the underlined part of speech we analyzed some of these for words and parts of a sentence.)
Tuesday Poetry from the Random House Poetry book

History
Gombrich’s A Little History Chapter 10
colored in an Indian map and flag from Enchanted Learning
The Little Book of Hindu Deities by Sanjay Patel (selections from)
Indian dance class (without Mei)
Library books (without Mei)
Buddha by Demi (without Mei)

Science
Great Science Adventures- Lessons 10, 11, and 12.
The Inner Planets VHS (without Mei)

Spanish
Barron’s Spanish Every Day Chapter 2
The Complete Book of Spanish- numbers

Latin
Song School Latin Lesson 6

Friday- Week in Review for Grayson

2010-08-27T11:44:00.002-05:00

Grayson is my junior.

Language Arts
Grayson read selections from EMC’s World Lit, completed his homework for comp class using IEW and Mother Tongue, and worked a little in Queen’s Language Lessons.

Precalculus
On Wednesday he went to the math tutor. He is using a Sullivan Precalculus text. He also discussed Chemistry with the math tutor, because he was stuck squatting on a section.

Chemistry
Actually, an online friend ended up helping him figure out what he needed to know. Today, we will be trying to move forward in the text.

History
This week Grayson read chapter 12 section 5 in the Glencoe high school World History by Spielvogel and completed this section in the Active Reading Notetaking Guide workbook.

He also watched lectures 6 and 7 from The Teaching Company’s A History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts. I have not watched any of these lectures, but Grayson likes the professor. He says that he is very enthusiastic. He bounces around a lot, but after the first couple of lectures the camera man figured out to keep a wide frame, so that the camera doesn’t need to move around so much.

Economics
This Tuesday he attended his one semester economics class using ABeka. It is a fun group of high schoolers. This week one of the young men brought some little magnets to keep his hands busy while he studied, but apparently the fun little things were far too entertaining and the group played with magnets while they studied. The group leader asked these not come to class anymore.

Arts
Grayson watched lecture 4 and 5 from The Teaching Company’s The Art of the Northern Renaissance. The professor is a character- she is a little stiff and moves her mouth much more than her jaws when she talks. Something about her reminds me of Sister Wendy. Maybe it is that she comes across as being knowledgeable and reserved. She isn’t as opinionated in these lectures as Sister Wendy, but you get the feeling that she could be if this were a different format. I like the choices of lecture topics and the material presented, but that is something I knew from reading the information on The Teaching Company website.

Volleyball
Grayson began volleyball last night. It is co-ed, but there is only one other guy on his team. The funny thing is that there also only one other guy in his IEW composition class!

Grayson in blue with the only other guy. LOL

Friday- Week in Review for Mei

2010-08-27T11:12:00.002-05:00

Mei is the dd of a good friend who was with us 2 days this week. Mei is in the 5th grade and here is what she did at my house.

Memory Work
What do we call the answer to an addition problem?
The answer to an addition problem is called the sum.

List the helping verbs. (The helping verbs that can also act as state of being verbs are listed on the back of the Winston Grammar verb card. We discussed this and studied these helping verbs this week.)
may / might / must
shall / should
will / would
can / could
has / have / had
do / does / did

What are the phases of the Moon?
New, Crescent, Quarter, Gibbous, Full

Name the two rival city-states of ancient Greece.
Athens and Sparta

Math
Math drill- reviewing multiplication facts 5s
Saxon 65- Lessons 7-10
Making Math Meaningful Level 5 pp.60-61

Language Arts
Winston Grammar Lessons 8
Daily Handwriting Practice Contemporary Cursive pp.8-9
Teatime Poetry
Beezus and Ramona Chapter 3

History, Science, Spanish
See Duncan’s week in review

Above and Beyond Five in a Row
For ABFIAR we continued down our first rabbit trail looking more at birds. This week she did a worksheet from Enchanted Learning on the food chain, researched bird beaks at KidWings, and made a minibook on what different birds eat. She also looked at eggs on KidWings website and completed a sheet labeling the parts of an egg.

Other Stuff
Mei and Duncan learned how to wash their clothes… while still wearing them.

Full Santa regalia

Yes, that is my towel in the tub instead of hanging on the wall.

Mei explored the idea of becoming a chiropractor.

Friday- Week in Review for Duncan

2010-08-27T10:42:00.002-05:00

Duncan is my second grader.

Memory Work
None of the memory systems out there really fit what we are doing, so I am winging it. I like Anki, but Duncan really likes cards that he can hold, so we are using large index cards. Until now, we have been reviewing everything in addition to the new cards I add for the week. This week, however, we went through the cards and the ones that Duncan knew without hesitation we moved to the back of his card box. In a few weeks, when it is time to pare down our cards again, I plan to pull them back out. If he doesn't remember them, I will add them back into his drill deck. At least this is the plan.

Tell me about multiplying decimal numbers.
We do not align decimal points. After multiplying, we count the total number of decimal places in the factors and place the decimal point so that the product has this number of decimal places.

Tell me about conjunctions.
A conjunction joins two words or two groups of words together.

List the coordinating conjunctions.
FANBOYS- for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so

Tell me about prepositions.
Prepositions show how two things are related.

Tell me about interjections.
An interjection is an emotion word.

What are the phases of the Moon?
New, Crescent, Quarter, Gibbous, Full

Name the two rival city-states of ancient Greece.
Athens and Sparta

Math
Kumon Math- daily drill
Saxon 76- Lessons 39-42
Keys to Decimals Book 2 pp.29-30

Language Arts
SL LA 2 adv week 5 copywork and activity sheet
The Children of Noisy Village chapter 10-end (reader)
Ralph S. Mouse chapter 1 (reader)
MCP Word Study D pp.22-25
MCT Grammar Island pp.72-90; p.156; p.158; p.90 (orally)
Teatime Poetry on Tuesday

History
Gombrich’s A Little History Chapter 9
colored in the Greece minibook from Enchanted Learning (I wondered if Enchanted Learning would be worth the cost of the subscription, but it has been worth every penny and then some. I have used something from there every week.)

Mei's cover

Mei top. Duncan bottom.

The First Olympics from The History Channel DVD (This was a little too much for Mei and Duncan. Although they did sit fairly quietly and assembled a craft project, I don’t know that they got anything from it.)
You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Greek Athlete (without Mei)

Olympics Mei and Duncan style. That is Grayson in the blue shirt playing volleyball.

Science
Great Science Adventures: Space
Lesson 8: What do we know about the Moon?
We complete an lab designed to demonstrate that the Moon and Earth reflect the light of the sun.

Mei left. Duncan right.

Lesson 9: What is an eclipse?

DVD- Bill Nye: The Earth’s Crust
DVD- Bill Nye: The Planets (yes, this was made prior to 2006, so, yes, we discussed the reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet again. Also, he says counterclockwise about a million times, so Mei and Duncan definitely know that planets move in a counterclockwise motion around the sun.)

Spanish
Barron’s Spanish Every Day
began looking at some vocabulary from Chapter 2

Latin
Song School Latin Lesson 5 (And we just keep rolling along! At this point I am almost positive that we will continue with Latin for Children next year.)

As sad as it is, I must admit that, unless I can find a cheap tutor, we are dropping Farsi. Ditto for violin.
:-(

Read-Aloud Thursday

2010-08-27T09:08:00.000-05:00

Yes, yes, I know that it is Friday morning, but I had no time to blog yesterday until after midnight when I arrived home from my moms meeting. So, here I am on Friday morning.

You Wouldn't Want to Be a Greek Athlete!

This isn't one of my favorites from this series: it just isn't as engaging for a 7yo boy as some of the others. It presents the basic information, but it isn't as silly/ laugh-out-loud entertaining or as eewww/ gross as some of the titles. Also, based on the presentation of the information in the book, a better title would be If You Are A Poor Male Athenian Child, Athletics May Be a Way to Recognition.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-08-25T09:51:00.002-05:00

dorm

bikes and athletic building

Nashville out car window

sky welcomes us home

Note to self-
Never send a 10yo and a 7yo together to wash their feet.

Tuesday Teatime Poetry

2010-08-25T09:19:00.002-05:00

While we did read poetry yesterday on Tuesday, it wasn't much of a teatime. Mei, Duncan, and I munched on carrots and looked at poetry while Grayson was at his economics class. Mei shared specific poems from and Duncan and I continued to march through The Random House Book of Poetry for Children.

When we picked up Grayson, we went through the drive thru at Chik-Fil-A and grabbed some milkshakes. At home Mei shared her poems again. This one seemed particularly relevant to the chocolate shake in my hand-

Chocolate
Chocolate
by Arnold Adoff

                i
love
       you so
                i
want
       to
marry
        you
        and
live
   forever
            in the
            flavor
of your
brown

And then there were 2

2010-08-22T18:30:00.003-05:00

Yesterday at 3am after less than three hours sleep, I pulled out of the driveway south of Nashville, TN and the boys and I headed to Berea, KY and Berea College. We set up the Christian's dorm. Then, he received his laptop, his work assignment, and his POBox info. We left the big guy to listen to a welcome speech from the college pres, have dinner with his advisor (the group assigned to his advisor all met and had Papa John's Pizza), meet with his RAs, and go to a welcome mixer. They kept the freshmen busy until 11pm. Well, I guess nobody had time to be homesick!

Boxes piling up in our living room

Standing near window looking into hall

Under Christian's bed

The Draper Building (modeled after Independence Hall)

The boys (now just 2) and I exited the highway into town at about 7:30pm and pulled directly into Carrabba's where we met dh for dinner. When I finally fell into bed, I was so exhausted that the room was sort of swaying.

I am so excited for him, but a little sad at the sight of his empty bedroom here at home.

Almost Friday- Week in Review for Grayson

2010-08-19T22:47:00.001-05:00

Grayson is my junior. He will continue to add to his schedule until the week of August 23 when volleyball begins.

Language Arts
He read selections from EMC’s World Lit.

He completed his homework for comp class using IEW and Mother Tongue.

Precalculus
On Wednesday he went to the math tutor. He is using a Sullivan Precalculus text.

Chemistry
This just didn’t happen this week. I am a Chemistry bomb.

History
This week Grayson read chapter 12 section 4 in the Glencoe high school World History by Spielvogel and completed this section in the Active Reading Notetaking Guide workbook.

He also watched lectures 5 from The Teaching Company’s A History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts.

Economics
This Tuesday he began his one semester economics class using ABeka. I should have added this last week, because they had to have chapter 1 completed before the first class.

Arts
Grayson watched lecture 3 from The Teaching Company’s The Art of the Northern Renaissance.

Almost Friday- Week in Review for Mei

2010-08-19T22:43:00.003-05:00

Mei is the dd of a good friend who was with us 2 days this week. Mei is in the 5th grade and here is what she did at my house. I am very fortunate in that Mei and my little man Duncan are very bright and very focused, fast workers.

Memory Work
What is the commutative property of addition and multiplication?
a + b = b + a
a x b = b x a

What is a verb?
A verb is word that expresses action or a state of being.

List the layers of the Earth.
Inner Core, Outer Core, Mantle, Crust

Name 4 important kings of ancient Persia.
Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius, Xerxes

Math
Math drill- reviewing multiplication facts 9s
Saxon 65- Lessons 4-6
Making Math Meaningful Level 5 pp.58-59

Yes, I am letting her write in the Saxon book.

Language Arts
Winston Grammar Lessons 5-6
Daily Handwriting Practice Contemporary Cursive pp.half of 6 and 7
Teatime Poetry
The Random House Book of Poetry for Children
Beezus and Ramona Chapters 1-2

History, Science, Spanish
See Duncan’s week in review

Above and Beyond Five in a Row
For ABFIAR we continued down our first rabbit trail looking more at chapters 1-4 in John Audubon: Young Naturalist. This week Mei read about swallows and completed a minibook on Haiti.

She chose her favorite setting from last week’s second worksheet and used it to fill in The Writer's Craft- Setting Worksheet. Then, she wrote a paragraph based on the worksheet. She revised her paragraph using some IEW material. I banned the verb see, so she used the IEW reference page to replace it with witness. She added in a bunch of great –ly words using the IEW -ly ending sheet. I also snuck in a triple and introductory clauses without explaining what we were doing. Finally, I typed it up correcting punctuation (which we are not focusing on right now) and spelling (which she will be doing at home and I didn’t want to focus on in this lesson). I meant for us to paint a tropical bird and discuss folly, but alas it didn’t happen this week.

Mei's Paragraph-
I can’t believe we walked away from that car crash. Guido chased us relentlessly. I witnessed people dying while Guido drove dangerously after us. When our cars scratched together, there were lots of sparks. I heard the tires screeching, the glass breaking, and the metal bending. I could smell all of the gas when the cars flipped over and burst into flames. When I flipped over, I could taste blood in my mouth. Quickly, the airbag exploded saving my life. Although I was frightened and in pain, I was astounded by what I discovered. Happily, Guido was crushed in his corvette!

Almost Friday- Week in Review for Duncan

2010-08-19T22:03:00.003-05:00

Duncan is my second grader.

Memory Work
Tell me about adding and subtracting decimals.
We line up decimal numbers for addition and subtraction by lining up the decimal points.

What is an adverb?
An adverb modifies a verb. (There is a teacher’s note in Grammar Island that explains that adverbs also modify adjectives and other adverbs, but for right now we will focus on modifying verbs. I read this to Duncan, but did not include the info on the back of his index card.)

List the layers of the Earth.
Inner Core, Outer Core, Mantle, Crust

Name 4 important kings of ancient Persia.
Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius, Xerxes

Math
Kumon Math- daily drill
Saxon 76- Lessons 35-38
Keys to Decimals Book 2 pp.27-28

Language Arts
SL LA 2 adv week 4 copywork and activity sheet
The Children of Noisy Village chapter 1-9 (reader)
MCP Word Study D pp.19-21
MCT Grammar Island pp.52-71; p.162 (5); p.154
Teatime Poetry on Tuesday
The Random House Book of Poetry for Children

History
Gombrich’s A Little History Chapter 8
colored in Iran minibook made from sheets off Enchanted Learning
At the Court of the King of Kings DVD
Rostam: Tales from the Shanameh

Mei's on left. Duncan's on right.

Science
Great Science Adventures Space
Lesson 7: What do we know about Earth?
We completed our Earth page for our 10 page booklet on our Solar System and did the daytime/ nighttime lab with a ball and a flashlight.

Duncan's on top. Mei's on bottom.

Spanish
Barron’s Spanish Every Day
Reviewed chapter 1 and index card vocabulary

Latin
Song School Latin Lesson 4 (Have I mentioned how easy to implement and fun this is!)

Well, this is all we accomplished. I cancelled violin this week and we didn’t do art or Farsi. In my defense we are trying to pack up my oldest to get him out the door to college this weekend. Yay, Christian!

Read-Aloud Thursday

2010-08-19T09:43:00.004-05:00

This year in order to help my second grader better connect with what he is learning most of our read-aloud Thursday books will be tied to our history lessons. This week we are studying ancient Persia, so imagine my delight when I found a comic book version of a selection from the Shahnameh.

Rostam: Tales from the Shahnameh is a wonderful visual introduction to the story that still manages to capture the elements of an epic. There is the flawed hero living and fighting for what he believes to be right, but caught in a web of love between himself and his country, himself and a woman, and the love for him from the child he doesn't know he has. Then, of course, the web is made more complex by the treachery of another who wants more power for himself. This is like the tales of King Arthur, but from a rich, foreign culture that many children don't have the opportunity to know. Good stuff!

Wordless Wednesday

2010-08-18T13:49:00.000-05:00

What's beside the bathtub?

Tuesday Teatime Poetry

2010-08-17T20:07:00.002-05:00

The Random House Book of Poetry for Children

This is by far my favorite compilation poetry book for young children. It has a ton of poems- 572. They are all appropriate for young children. The arrangement is fabulous. We will be starting MCT's Music of the Hemispheres in week 9, but even then I plan to add in poems from this book.

Today, only Mei and Duncan participated in Teatime Poetry, because Christian and Grayson were out and about. But, Mei's mom Sarah joined us in their place! Mei read Rules by Karla Kuskin and Leave Me Alone by Felice Holman. After Leave Me Alone, Duncan commented that he feels like that sometimes and compared himself to the child speaking in the poem. I love these connections!

Duncan read I'm Glad the Sky is Painted Blue. As he doesn't have a wide selection of favorites, I am just going to have him start at the beginning of the book and read the next short poem that appeals to me.

I am also starting at the beginning of this book. I read The Universe by Mary Britton Miller. Sarah really enjoyed this one and we all discussed it for a little bit before rapping up.