Weekly Report for 7/27/08 - 8/2/08

Memory Work - This week we are adding new memory verses and a new poem to memorize. As we add new verses and poems throughout the year, we will continue to rehearse the old ones in order to ensure their permanent retention in the children's minds. This week's verses and poem are: Bible Verses - Genesis 1: 27-28
Poem - "Celery" by Ogden Nash

Bible Study - I had been doing my Bible study time separately from Octe and the children, but as I read the lessons I felt like there were lots of things I wanted us to discuss together, so we decided to change the time of day we did Bible study so we could all do it together, and we are starting this off by repeating last week's lessons and discussing them.

Math - RightStart math is proving not to be a good connection with Octe's teaching style, so we have decided to switch MelloYello and Jester's math to Unique Math, which is an individualized online math program that is produced by the same company that provides the Unique Reader program Jester and Princess are using for phonics instruction. All three of the children will be using this program, although Princess will be using it only casually as I will be taking over her math instruction and continuing RightStart math with her. This week the children completed the Diagnostic Online Math Assessment (DOMA), which is a similar assessment to the DORA, and serves essentially the same purpose. Princess completed lessons 8-9 in RightStart A this week.

Thinking Skills - Princess finished p. 13-17 in Developing the Early Learner

Phonics - Jester: Work on Unique Reader lessons as directed by the program.
Princess: Unique Reader: lessons as directed by the program
Ordinary Parent's Guide: lessons 34-37, with some review of older lessons
Family Readers: Set 1, Books 5-6; Set 2, Books 1-2
Explode the Code: Lesson 2

Science - The Bug Book: p. 86-103
Creepy Crawlies: This week we seperated out three individual males into seperate
terraria, and added females after a couple of days in an attempt
to observe courting behavior. No luck so far.
Worksheets: Walkingstick focus. MelloYello continues to work on his field guide.

Literature - MelloYello: Blackthorn Winter, chapters 1-4
Jester: Finished William Bradford: Pilgrim Boy and started an adaptation of
Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped, along with a corresponding
comprehension worksheet for each chapter. He also continues to
participate in the literature read-aloud with Princess.
Princess: Listened to read-aloud of Finding Providence, continues to listen to
readings of poetry and fairy tales.

Writing and Grammar - Princess continues with the Play and Write handwriting program, and MelloYello and Jester are doing copywork assignments I got as free printables off the internet. The copywork pages include, selections from Scripture, poetry and quotes of famous people from history. These will last the boys several weeks.

History - Our topic for the week: Charters, Creeds and the English Civil War. The historical figure who stood out in my mind the most for this week was a man named Roger Williams. He was a Puritan tuned Seperatist who lived in the Puritan colony of Boston in Massachusetts. He caused an uproar among the Puritans in his colony because of several beliefs that he held. Williams believed that no one should be forced to follow a certain religion, as men's hearts could not be changed by force. This flew right in the face of his fellow colonists in Boston because, ironically, although the Puritans themselves had come to America for religious freedom, they did not believe in religious freedom for people outside of their own faith, and had been trying to force the neighboring Native American tribes to convert to Puritanism. Along this same vein, Williams also rejected the idea that the government should be controlled by the Church. He was one of the pioneers in the idea of seperation of church and state. The idea that drove the Puritan leaders in Boston over the edge, however, was Williams' belief that the settlers had no right to forcefully take the Indian's land from them and that the king of England had no right to charter land that didn't belong to him. Because of this, the leaders of Boston called Roger Williams to trial and sentenced him to be sent back to England. Providentially, he escaped capture by the Boston authorities and fled into the wilderness. After several days, he was discovered and rescued by the Narangassetts, whom he had befriended in the past. They gave Williams their protection and a piece of their land which he used to start a colony of his own called Providence Plantation, which became modern-day Rhode Island. Providence Plantation became one of the first colonies in America to truly allow religious freedom, even to those from non-Christian religions and Atheists.

Spelling - MelloYello and Jester finished days 8-10 in Sequential Spelling.

Picture Study - Princess continues to study postcard-sized reproductions of Leonardo da Vinci's paintings.

Famous Kentuckians - This week we completed chapters 4-6 in the biography of Daniel Boone we are reading.

Movies - This week we watched a movie called Keeping the Promise about a family that settles in a colony in Maine.

Weekly Report for 7/20/08 - 7/26/08

(Sorry so late, but I hope to catch my reports up today.)

Memory Work - Bible Verse: Genesis 1:1
Poem: "Ooey Gooey"

Bible Study - Love the Lord Bible Studies:
Genesis Lessons 5-8

Math - Princess: RightStart A, Lessons 4-7
Mello Yello and Jester - Right Start B, Lessons 7-19

Thinking Skills - Princess: Developing the Early Learner p. 7-12

Phonics - This week we added a new computer program to our Phonics curriculum. It is called Unique Reader and it can be found on this website: www.letsgolearn.com. Princess will be using this program, of course, and Octe and I decided to add Jester into the program as well, to give him some extra support for his reading skills. Both of them completed the Diagnostic Online Reading Assessment (DORA) this week, which will give me a detailed report of their reading level in several different aspects of reading, such as phonics skills, sight words, reading comprehension, vocabulary, etc., as well as place them in the Unique Reader program at their own individualized level in each of four tracks of lessons. I won't post their exact scores, but I will say that in both of them, I found both cause for encouragement and room for improvement. I will also say that I am very proud of the improvement that Jester has made in his reading skills over the last couple of years.

Science - The Bug Book: p. 27-47
Creepy Crawlies: We are continuing with informal cricket observation this week.
Worksheets: Grasshopper focus. MelloYello continues to work on his field giude.

Literature - MelloYello: Finished William Bradford: Pilgrim Boy this week.
Jester: Read chapters 6-9 in William Bradford: Pilgrim Boy and listened in on
Princess's read aloud selection for this week.
Princess: Listened to read aloud of Three Young Pilgrims, continued with fairy tale readings from Andrew Lang's Fairy Books and poetry readings
from A Child's Garden of Verses.

History - This week's topic: Puritans in New England. We learned several things about the Pilgrims this week. Many of the Pilgrims were Seperatists, meaning that they believed in separating themselves from the Church of England to serve God according to the dictates of their conscience. At that time, the Church of England was the only legal religion in England, which meant that the Seperatists were considered criminals in the eyes of the English government. As a result, they were banned from preaching, jailed, beaten and sometimes even killed by the English authorities for their beliefs. Many of them flad to Holland during these times and stayed there about 12 years before they came over to America on the Mayflower. During their voyage, the weather was horrible much of the time, food was inadequate for the number of passengers on board, and almost all of the Pilgrims became seasick and or afflicted with scurvy by the end of the voyage. Those who were less ill had to take care of those who were more ill. During the stormy times, the Pilgrims were forced to stay below deck and had no fresh air or way to dispose of their waste for days at a time. Miraculously, none of the Pilgrims died during the voyage to America, and a healthy baby was born in and survived the horrifically unsanitary conditions the Pilgrims had to endure. When the Pilgrims landed, they soon found a spot of land that had already been cleared by a tribe of Patuxets who had died out from disease and was at that time unclaimed by any groups of natives. The chosen leaders of the Pilgrims in their new colony made a peace treaty with Chief Massasoit and the Wompanoag people which lasted over 40 years. Sadly, by the time of the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving, half of the colony had died of sickness.

Spelling - MelloYello and Jester: Sequential Spelling - Days 4-7

Picture Study - Princess continues with her study of Leonardo Da Vinci paintings.

Famous Kentuckians - I read aloud the next two chapters of the Daniel Boone biography we are reading.

Movies - We watched a History Channel documentary on the Mayflower Voyage called Desperate Crossing, and Squanto: A Warrior's Tale, a Disney movie about a surviving Patuxet who befriended and aided the Pilgrims in the infancy of their colony.

Weekly Report 7/13/08-7/19/08

Hello, everyone! I am back to blogging again. I was on hiatus for a few weeks to prepare for this school year and now we have begun. July 15th was our first day of school. This year, Octe and I are making a joint effort to teach all 3 of the children who are still in school: MelloYello, Jester, and Princess. I am doing all the planning and Octe and I are each doing two days a week of teaching. I must say that Octe has been a real trooper so far. Due to scheduling considerations, we ended up having to start school sooner than I had planned, which left me with a lot less preparation time. I got most of the planning for the first week done in time for the start of school, but there was still a lot of work to do if I was going to get very far ahead of the kids in my lesson planning. I was majorly stressing, but my sweet hubby did the teaching all four days this week! He was a bit overwhelmed and had a lot of questions, but still he hung right in there. I am working hard to get caught up on the planning so that I can do more of the teaching soon, but I am so glad I can count on him to help. Considering that I work full-time outside the home and therefore my time is really tight, that is a great blessing.
As for the weekly report, I am hoping in the future to be able to include some pictures of us as we go about our various activitues of the school day, but I still need to ge a USB cable for my digital camera right now, so that may be a while in coming about. In the mean time, I will attempt to give a brief narrative of some of the highlights of our studies in the many subjects we are learning about. And without further adieu, here is this week's report:
Memory Work - We will be learning a series of Bible verses and poems this year. Our goal is to learn at least one Bible verse and one stanza of a poem every 2 weeks. We are doing this subject as a group. Our selections for this week are: Bible verse - Genesis 1:1
Poem - "Ooey Gooey" (Author Unknown)
Bible Study - This year, we are using an online Bible study called Love the Lord Bible Studies, which is an extensive study of every chapter of every book of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. We won't even come close to finishing the study this year, so the plan right now is to study selected books while Octe and I decide what would be the best course for Bible Study for next year and all the subsequent years of the children's homeschooling career. This week we covered the first four lessons of the Genesis study (there are 60 lessons total in the Genesis study, so this should keep us busy for a while). We are doing this subject as a group also.
Math - We have started a new math program this year that is highly manipulative-based and concept-focused because I really want the children to understand math - not just the mechanics of how to do math, but the why behind what they are doing. So as to ensure, as much as possible, a strong foundation without any gaps, I have gone back to the basics with the boys. As you can guess, we are moving fairly quickly, and we have covered six lessons this week in their math. Princess is really just starting out in her math studies, so we are moving more slowly with her; she has covered three lessons in her math book this week.
Thinking Skills - This is a subject we are covering with Princess this year, using the Developing the Early Learner series of workbooks. She has covered the first five pages in the first workbook for the series this week.
Phonics - So far, this is also a Princess-only subject. This week we have read the first four books of Set 1 of the Family Readers, Lessons 27-29 in the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading (her phonics primer), and Lesson 1 in the Explode the Code level 1 workbook.
Science - For at least the first half of the year, we will be studying insects, and we will be reading living books and doing experiments related to insects. We are doing this subject mostly as a group as well. We read pages 10-26 in The Bug Book, which is a fantastic old Childcraft book we got at a yard sale a while back. We read pages 6-7 of DK: Insect, which is also a great book with very interesting and detailed pictures (what else would you expect from DK?). We are using the book Creepy Crawlies and the Scientific Method for the lab component of this class. For the first several weeks, we will be observing and experimenting on crickets. This week, the kids all set up their terraria for a proper habitat for the crickets and went on a field hunt to catch some crickets. Each of the kids has about 9-15 crickets in his/her terrarium and they are enjoying taking care of them and watching their behaviors.
Handwriting - For the first quarter, Princess will be using a really neat program called Play and Write, which teaches all the upper and lower case letters with lots of hands-on activities and only a bit of physical writing at this point. As she also gets some handwriting practice in her Explode the Code workbooks, I felt like this would be a good, gentle start for her.
Literature - MelloYello and Jester are reading William Bradford: Pilgrim Boy as part of our Tapestry of Grace studies this week. MelloYello has gotten to the end of chapter 6 and Jester has reached the end of chapter 5. Jester and Princess have enjoyed a read-aloud of Ingri D'Aulaire's Pocahontas this week. Princess will also be listening to many fairy tales and classical poems this year. We will be reading fairy tales from Andrew Lang's Fairy Books throughout the year and our poetry will come from various sources. For the first couple of months or so, we will be reading from Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses. This week we read "Rumplestiltzkin", "Why the Sea is Salt", and "Toads and Diamonds" from the Fairy Books, and we read the poems "To Alison Cunningham", "Bed in Summer", and "The Whole Duty of Children". Octe and I are loving the poems from A Child's Garden of Verses. They are so sweet and tender.
History - This week we are studying the founding of the Jamestown colony, and the lives of many famous people who were a part of those events. We learned that Pocahontas and John Smith actually didn't have a romantic relationship as myth would have us to believe; they were actually just friends. Pocahontas was only about 11 or 12 during the time when John Smith was in the Jamestown colony, and he was 28. Several years later, she did marry a colonist named John Rolfe, however. Here are the books covered this week by one or the other of the kids:

Read in their entirety -



Sections read -



Writing/Grammar - MelloYello and Jester wrote out the poem we are memorizing for copywork.
Spelling - MelloYello and Jester finished the first three lessons of Sequential Spelling, our spelling text for the year.
Picture Study - Princess studied "Self Portrait" and "The Mona Lisa", both by Leonardo da Vinci, this week using postcard-sized reproductions of the works.
Art - As a group, the kids painted an American flag and a Christian flag onto art canvas for us to use for pledges this year.
Famous Kentuckians - We are studying one famous Kentuckian each quarter for Kentucky history. My goal for each person we study is to read a biography about them, watch a movie about their life (or an event in their life), and go on a field trip related to that person. This quarter we are studying Daniel Boone. We are reading Daniel Boone: Master of the Wilderness by John Bakeless and this week we read chapter 1.
Movies - I am planning for us to watch at least one movie each week related to the period of history we are studying. We have a subscription to Netflix, which has a WIDE selection. This week we watched episodes 3&4 of 500 Nations, which is about the Native Americans' clashes with the Europeans as they settled in this country. We got a whole new perspective of Christopher Columbus through this video, and I'll have to say it is not a good one. He was actually a very greedy, brutal, ruthless and wicked man. Watch the video and you'll see what I mean.

That's all for this week's (well, actually, last week's) report. Hopefully, I'll be able to get the next report up by the end of the week. Thanks to everyone for your interest in our journey. It's nice to be back on the blog again.

Weekly Report : June 2 -6, 2008

Weekly Report for Princess:

Phonics:
The Family Readers -
Fizz Mix (set 2, book 5)
Fizz in the Pit (set 2, book 6)
Max's Box (set 3, book 1)
The Bon-Bon Box (set 3, book 2)
The Box Mix (set 3, book 3)
Mom and Dad Hop-Jig (set 3, book 4)
(I think this may have been a little fast; I think I will use the next 1-2 weeks for review)

Bible:
Bedtime Bible Story Book -
Fire Rains on Sodom (day 13)
Abraham's Two Sons (day 14)
Ishmael's Desert Journey (day 15)
Abraham Offers Isaac to God (day 16)

Literature:
Here are the books we read this week -





Memory Work:
Our telephone number

Poetry:
My Very First Mother Goose -
Warm hands, warm ...
Ride a cockhorse to Banbury Cross ...
Hey diddle, diddle ...
Sing a song of sixpence ...
Smiling girls, rosy boys ...
Dickory, dickory, dock ...

Science:
In My First Animal Encyclopedia, we studied the following animals -

Aardvark
Albatross
Alligator and Crocodile
Amphibian

Math:
Singapore Earlybird 1B as desired

Weekly Report, May 26-30, 2008

Sorry this post is late. In this post and the next one, I will bring you up to date on what princess has been doing in our homeschool.

Weekly report for Princess:

Phonics:
The Family Readers -
The Kit (set 2, book 2)
The Big Pit (set 2, book 3)
The Tin Lid (set 2, book 4)

Bible:
Bedtime Bible Story Book -
The Rainbow of God's Promise (day 9)
God Appears to Abraham (day 10)
God Makes a Promise (day 11)
Sarah Laughs at God (day 12)

Literature:
Here are the books we read this week:







Memory Work:
Our telephone number

Poetry:
My Very First Mother Goose -
To market, to market, to buy a fat pig...
Wash the dishes, wipe the dishes...
Rain on the green grass...

Tapestry of Grace, Here We Come!

I finally decided to go ahead and start. I'm finally going to be joining the proud ranks of the Tapestry of Grace homeschoolers. I ordered most everything we'll need for our first unit a few days ago. I have already gotten my first shipment of books (even though there were only two in this one) and very soon I should be able to start planning for our next school year (which will start in the first week of August). This is something I have been wanting to do for a long time, and I am thrilled at how things have worked out.
So that you'll understand my thought process and the circumstances that brought me to this place, let me go back to the beginning of the story and give you a little background. Over the years since I read and fell in love with the first edition of The Well-Trained Mind, I have frequently noticed vague references to TOG from classical homeschooling enthusiasts on the net. For a long time I didn't pay much attention to them because I was planning to use the WTM recommendations for history and I didn't know enough about TOG to think that it could help me in that pursuit. Once we began homeschooling and theory gave way to the reality of practice, I quickly became overwhelmed by the amount of work this style of teaching was taking for all of us. Many days we would start school in the morning and still be doing school when it was dark outside. Just about every subject was taking them longer than expected and even then they often just didn't seem to "get it". On the planning end, I was floundering on the amount of choices that I had in the content areas and it was very difficult for me to decide what was most important to cover. As a result, I was probably overloading them with work. In the skill areas, I really struggled to match the level of work with what they could handle. So I probably overwhelmed them on that end, too. I loved TWTM's philosopy of education (and I still do), but the successful application of the philosopy was evading me. We had some bright spots (they loved the hands-on projects and the living books in the content areas), but on the whole, the kids were reluctant and I was discouraged, and I realized we needed a change.
For about 2 years, that change came in the form of a private Christian school. They got along fairly well there, I suppose, and I even worked as a teacher there for about a year. But somewhere in my soul, deeper than I could put into words, and I suppose deeper even than I was fully conscious of at the time, I could sense that I wouldn't be able to settle for this. I couldn't let go of my dream of homeschooling, and I became restless. Due in a large part to this dissatisfaction with the educational circumstances of our family, teaching at the school lost its appeal and I moved on to the job I have now at the hospital. The kids remained at the school at first, but one by one over the next couple of years they decided to come back home to school.
I knew this time around we would have to do things a little differently. What we had done before didn't work for us. So we just relaxed for a while. We used textbooks/workbooks for the very basics, and covered the rest with good books and educational movies. This sufficed as a temporary fix, and is actually close to what we are doing to this day. Still, I never lost my love for TWTM, and after several months of our relaxed schedule, I began to put in a lot of time looking for curricula that would allow me to accomplish my original goals without overwhelming the kids or getting bogged down in my own planning. I like to tweak, but I am a major perfectionist, and tweaking gets me into trouble if I'm not very careful. I started to realize that I would need a lot of structure in order to be my best and healthiest as a teacher.
It was during this time that I first learned about TOG in earnest. I was surfing the web one day doing some research on history curricula when I found an article and audio presentation on the Knowledge Quest website that compared several different history programs. One of the programs discussed was TOG. The things I heard about it really intrigued me and so I went to the TOG website to learn more. After only a few minutes on the website I was amazed. I couldn't believe the things I was seeing and reading. This was exactly what I was looking for! Here before me was a 4-year chronological history program that incorporated geography, literature, writing, fine arts and many other subjects into an intricate and long range unit study that was rich with classical rigor and filtered beautifully through a Christian worldview. Realizing all of this, I saw TOG as my path to accomplish the goals that TWTM had formed in me long before, and in a manner that was more spiritually rich than I had even hoped for. Praise God that he always exceeds our expectations!
After that day, generally speaking, the question was no longer WHAT I would use, but WHEN I would begin. I went ahead and bought everything I would need to start Year 1 Redesigned the next school year (2008-2009). We had been casually studying 20th century history this school year in preparation. However, I had this nagging feeling that Princess wouldn't really be ready by the start of the upcoming school year to get the full benefit of a grammar stage rotation, and I didn't want her to miss out. I knew that the boys would have to do a partial rotation of the program at some point no matter when we started, so I had mainly based my timeframe decisions on Princess, as she WAS still young enough to get the full benefit of the program. Add to that the fact that I had decided recently to wait 2 years to "officially" start 1st grade with Princess, and I pretty much came to the conclusion that I would need to wait 2 years to start TOG. The only problem was that this would leave me, for the next two years, once again without a solid plan for the kids' education. I considered several things, such as Sonlight, the Robinson Curriculum, a modified version of Ambleside Online, or even continuing on with what we had been doing. Then, one day a couple of weeks ago, I had a revelation. I was browsing the TOG website and looking at the new Year 3 products they've put on there (drooling over them would probably be more accurate!) and I got to thinking about a suggestion I had gotten from the WTM message boards that I could start TOG with Princess in the fall without overwhelming her if I did it in a fashion that was very relaxed. I also got to thinking about how the fact of Princess starting 1st grade a year later changed our time frame for starting Year 1. This new time frame would mean that all four year plans would be complete before we started year 1, as year 3 would be coming out this upcoming school year. Then I got to thinking about how kids in the public schools usually started history with American history. I realized that if I started with unit 3 of Year 2, I could get through most of the traditional American history progression by the time we would start Year 1 in two years. I found the idea that Princess would have some common historical knowledge with her public-schooled peers attractive, but I still didn't know how to start her in TOG now without it affecting her future years with TOG.
Then it dawned on me. Something that had been right in front of my face the whole time. There were actually FOUR levels of TOG! As I knew from the time I had spent with the Year 1 materials I had obtained, the book selections for the lower grammar and the upper grammar levels are almost entirely different. The only thing that really overlapped much was the geography, which I could easily wait until 1st grade to start. I had here a ready supply of history readings, literature readings, and arts and crafts activities that I could use while still basically leaving three intact levels to use for her formal school years. As Princess had already begun to read short-vowel readers, and had been progressing nicely in her reading skill, I felt confident that she would be able to read the upper grammar book selections within 2 years. Even if she didn't completely make it by that time, I could read the upper grammar books to her just as easily as the lower grammar books until she was able to read them completely on her own. I could also incorporate the boys very easily into this progression, and this would give them back the things they had enjoyed in our first attempt at classical education in a way that could easily be matched to their abilities and that would take away the planning stress for me. And we could have all this NOW, instead of having to wait two years to gain all these benefits.
At this point in my thinking, the decision was pretty much a no-brainer, so I'm sure you have guessed that I decided to act on this plan, which is exactly what I did. When the upcoming school year begins in August, we will start Unit 3 of Year 2, which roughly coincides with the traditional starting point of American history study. Hopefully, by the end of the school year, we will have reached the end of Unit 2 of Year 3. This should allow us to come to the end of Unit 2 of Year 4 at the culmination of the two years we have to spend before starting Year 1, allowing us to cover almost all of the major events of American history in that time. Below is a rough description of my plans for the upcoming school year for TOG and the other subjects I plan for us to cover (although the subjects not covered by TOG are still a bit tentative):

Princess:
TOG - lower grammar history and literature selections, lower grammar hands-on activities and maybe an occasional lower grammar evaluation.
Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading
The Family Readers
maybe a phonics workbook
Reason for Handwriting K
Write On! Printing DVD Tutor Kit
RightStart Math A
Sonlight Science P4/5
nature walks regularly
the rest of Sonlight's P4/5 book selections for extra reading
the Developing the Early Learner series
a few picture books from the library for fun and as an opportunity to develop familiarity with the library and what it has to offer
Bible Study Guide For All Ages updated Beginner Level, Unit 1
Memlok Bible memory system
Classical Magic in some fashion

Joker:
TOG upper grammar
Exploring Creation with Botany incorporating the WTM grammar stage science suggestions
nature walks regularly
Simply Spelling or Sequential Spelling
Writing With Ease (start at the beginning and accelerate as tolerated)
First Language Lessons (start at the beginning and accelerate as tolerated)
Harp and Laurel Wreath memory work, as well as TWTM grammar stage memory suggestions in the various subjects
RightStart Math B (accelerate as tolerated)
Prima Latina
Atelier Art (may supplement the art appreciation component somewhat with Harmony Fine Arts grammar stage selections)
Classical Magic in some fashion
Bible Study Guide for All Ages updated Intermediate Level, Unit 1
Memlok Bible memory system

MelloYello:
TOG dialectic
Exploring Creation with Botany incorporating the WTM logic stage science selections
nature walks regularly
Simply Spelling or Sequential Spelling
Writing With Ease (start at the beginning and accelerate as tolerated)
First Language Lessons (start at the beginning and accelerate as tolerated)
Harp and Laurel Wreath memory work, as well as TWTM logic stage memory suggestions in the various subjects
RightStart Math B (accelerate as tolerated)
Prima Latina
Atelier Art (may supplement the art appreciation component somewhat with Harmony Fine Arts logic stage selections)
Classical Magic in some fashion
Bible Study Guide for All Ages updated Intermediate or Advanced Level, Unit 1
Memlok Bible memory system

I have covered every subject, I think, but I'm still a little afraid this may be too much in the non-TOG sujects . I'd like to know what all of you think about this, as well as the rest of the post. Feel free to comment.

Weekly Report: May 19-23, 2008

Weekly Report for Princess:

Phonics:
Family Readers - The Map (set 1, book 5)
Razz (set 1, book 6)
Kim (set 2, book 1)

Bible:
Bedtime Bible Story Book - Adam and Eve Leave the Garden (day 5)
Cain Murders His Brother (day 6)
Noah Builds the Ark (day 7)
Noah Lives in the Ark (day 8)

Literature:
picture books - Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, by William Steig
The Amazing Bone, by William Steig
Doctor De Soto, by William Steig
Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose, by Dr. Seuss
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, by Judith Viorst
Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday, by Judith Viorst
Alexander, Who's Not (Do you hear me? I mean it!) Going to Move, by J. Viorst

audiobook - Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1st three CDs)

Memory Work:
our telephone number

Poetry:
My Very First Mother Goose -
Down at the station, early in the morning...
Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool...
Cackle, cackle, Mother Goose...
Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn...

Weekly Report: May 12-16, 2008

Weekly report for Princess:

Phonics: Family Readers - set 1, books 1-6

Bible: Bedtime Bible Story Book -
God Creates the Earth (day 1)
God Creates the Earth (day 2)
Adam Lives in the Garden (day 3)
Eve is Tricked by the Serpent (day 4)

Literature: picture books -
Animal Orchestra, by Ilo Orleans
The Lion's Paw, by Jane Werner Watson
Baby Animals, by Garth Williams
The Golden Egg Book, by Margaret Wise Brown

audio books - Chronicles of Narnia:
The Horse and His Boy
Prince Caspian

Memory Work: our phone number

Poetry: My Very First Mother Goose -
Jack and Jill went up the hill...
Shoo fly, don't bother me...
Boys and girls come out to play...
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall...

Wordless Wednesday

The Wonders of the Internet

It has only been recently (in the last year or so) that I have been consistently online, and I have found that it has been endlessly useful to me. I have been able to stay better connected to my family and friends than I probably would have otherwise. I have found a multitude of freebies for homeschooling (games, worksheet sites, lapbooks, multimedia, public domain books, etc.). I have found it to be a wonderful creative outlet. And the shopping possibilities are endless! It seems one can find a use for the net in almost every aspect of life. I know that I've certainly found many reasons to be thankful for it.

My Blogging Dreams...

As I sit here tonight working on my blog, I consider all the things I want it to become. I see in it an ongoing family letter, a photo album, a scholarship report, a lesson-plan book, a shopping list, a useful link collection, a sounding board, a networking tool, a writing class for myself. Essentially, I want a well-rounded portrait of all the thoughts and activities that make up our homeschool and our lives. And I want the commentary of my family and friends on all the pieces of that portrait. I want to look back years from now and revisit the love, the learning, and the growing that we shared down through the years and feel the thankful smile inside that I took the time to capture it all. If my blog can become all of these things, I will consider it a success indeed.

My Plans for ME in the Upcoming School Year

When I was on the WTM board today I happened upon a thread that really got me to thinking. It discussed the idea of the homeschooling parent making out an educational plan for themselves when they plan out the year's curriculum for their children. 'What a marvelous idea!', I thought. I had already been mulling on the idea of educating myself on some of the subjects I want to teach my children later on to make myself a better teacher for them. And these mullings had led to some rudimentary plans for self-education in some areas such as nature study and life skills. I am thinking now, though, that I will make myself a formal education plan each year along with the children. Lets call it Mommy University. Maybe I'll even start a separate blog on this eventually. I am going to start browsing around at some things and put down a plan on paper of what I want to learn this year. When I get it figured out (at least basically) I will come back and write it on the blog. Any comments and suggestions are welcome.

My Plans for the Fall (or maybe sooner if I can get it all together to start)

This is the plan that I have got worked out so far for my 3 dc that are still being homeschooled. This year has been kind of relaxed, but I would like to have a little more structure next year. Although, my dd is 4 (5 in June) and my dss13 and dss15 have special needs, so I don't want to be overly rigorous. I just need to find that sweet spot in the middle, KWIM? So anyway, here is my plan:

dss15: Oral reading: McGuffey's Reader (not sure what level yet)
Writing: Oral Narration (Andrew Lang's Fairy Books)
Spelling: Simply Spelling (not sure what level yet)
Grammar: Need help on this one.
Literature: 1000 Good Books List grades 4-6 selections; participate
in family read aloud.
Math: Right Start B (this was the level recommended by the
Right Start representative)
History: James Baldwin books (50 Famous People, 50 Famous
Stories Retold, Thirty More Famous Stories Retold)
Edward Eggleston book (Stories of Great Americans
for Little Americans)
American Experience Documentaries (one a week)
Science: Nature Study (Mostly I am just going to learn this
myself this year so I can teach them better
afterward and just kind of have them along for
the ride this year)
Bible: Ergemeier's Bible Story Book (and assign reading of
corresponding Bible passage in Bible)

ds13: Oral Reading: VDB or McGuffey Readers?
Writing: Oral Narration (From history readings)
Spelling: Simply Spelling (not sure what level yet)
Grammar: need help on this one.
Literature: 1000 Good Books List grades 1-3 advanced selections;
participate in the family read aloud.
Math, History, Science and Bible: same as ds15

dd4: Phonics: OPGTR, Family Readers
Writing: RFH K;
Oral Narration (Aesop's Fables)
Literature: 1000 Good Books List grades 1-3 Picture Books;
Andrew Lang's Fairy Books; participate in family
read aloud
Math: Right Start A
History and Science: Same as ds15 and ds13 except for the
documentaries (although she can watch
them if she wants to)
Bible: Ergemeier's Bible Story Book

I also want to add some daily poetry, but I am still trying to decide what to use for this. I want to do some memory work also, especially scripture and poetry memorization. I probably won't do fine arts or foreign language with the kids this year. I need a chance to get these things running smoothly and cemented in our routine before I add anything else. Also, getting a routine for home management down is a DESPERATE need for us this year. Once I am comfortable with doing this much, then I plan to start adding in some of the other things.

Improving our Homeschool Plan - Week One - Update

It has been a busy week of cleaning! Though we didn't accomplish every goal I had set on the list, dh and I made big progress toward getting our bedroom clean (Thank you, Lord!). We got about the first half of the tasks on my list accomplished, which was really the bulk of the work anyway. We had one really strong working day, after which we kind of lost our motivation and didn't get a whole lot more done. Even though I am a little disappointed in what we got done, I am not going to let it get me down. We are just going to keep plugging away at the work ahead of us, knowing that God is faithful.
I have been doing some thinking as to how we could accomplish more with our time and keep our motivation high in the things we need to do. This is what I have come up with so far (not just for the bedroom cleaning, but our homeschooling/home management system as a whole):
*Make our goals shorter range, such as daily instead of weekly on things like housecleaning.
*Dh is going to do most of the homeschooling with Will and Sam, leaving me to concentrate on Grace, as I work a full-time job outside the home.
*Put the work and the day in God's hands and take it one day at a time, as I tend to get overwhelmed when I think about the entirety of what needs to be done (who wouldn't get overwhelmed like that?)
*Change up the tasks that we are working on more often, to stave off boredom.
From now on, I hope to post at least weekly updates as to what has been going on with our plan, our homeschooling and life in general. In the spirit of what I just wrote above, I think I am just going to write a couple of goals for today, and then maybe give an update tomorrow on how it went. So here goes with the goals:
1) Do another load of laundry
2) Work on Grace's Bible curriculum
Thank you for your prayers, and please continue to pray for us. Through Christ we will succeed in all that has been set before us.

The Improving Our Homeschool Plan - Week 1

I have many plans over the next couple of years to make our homeschool more structured and streamlined--such as chronological humanities study from ancient times to the present, a strong language arts program, lots of hands-on activities, games and field trips, a rich home ec education for dd4 (and myself), and a custom-built Bible curriculum, amongst other things (whew!). To get there, we are going to first of all need an overhaul in our organization systems in our home. It's a big job, but if we all work together, we'll get there by and by (praying for a miracle) :-).
So... I figure that getting organized is as good a place as any to start improving our homeschool.
To start down the road to get there, I have come up with a few goals to accomplish by the end of next week. (I work five out of the next six nights, starting with tonight, so I'm giving myself a little leeway on the time frame. After that, I plan on posting weekly goals.) My goals for this post are as follows:
1) Work at least two hours on cleaning and organizing the house every day that I am off work.
2) Clean our (dh's and mine) bedroom in the following phases --
* Find a home somewhere in the house for all my movies and put them there.
* Organize my desk and the area beneath it.
* Organize the space between my desk and the bed.
* Find homes for the books that are spread out to the left of my desk ~ 4 feet.
* Organize the rest of the area between my desk and dh's closet door.
* Organize the area between dh's closet door and the bed.
* Organize the area between the bed and the clothing shelves.
* Organize the area between the bed and my closet door.
* Organize the area between the bed and my dressing table.
* Organize the area between the bed and the bathroom door.
* Organize the bookshelves.
* Organize the clothing shelves.
* Organize my dressing table.
* Organize my sewing cabinet.
* Organize my closet.
* Organize dh's closet.
* Set up a reading/breakfast nook in front of the bookshelves.
* Set up the bedside table.
3) Enlist dh as my assistant in this job.
I will post at least by the end of next week and let you know how all this went. Pray for me and ttfn.

Introduction

A note of introduction. We are a family of homeschoolers with five children, three of whom we homeschool . Our oldest two have graduated, dd recieving her GED a couple of months ago and ds in the process of getting his. Our three children remaining in school are ds14, ds12, and dd4. We are also temporarily sharing our home with 3 extended family members-- dh's mother, dh's older brother, and a nephew. We hail from rural Kentucky and revel in the country life. We dabble in farming (a few horses, a beef cow, a few chickens and, last summer, a partly successful run at Square Foot Gardening). Dh works from home rebuilding pallets and I work at a local hospital on the night shift (3 12hr shifts/week) as an RN on the psychiatric unit (a job that I love, by the way).
At present, due to my work hours and unpredictable schedule, we are doing a relaxed version of classically educating our children, heavily influenced by The Well Trained Mind. We are using textbooks for math and english, reading lots of books and using a more free-form approach for everything else. We school four days a week year round at present (although I am considering 5 days a week with less weeks in school next year). About three times a month, we attend co-op with our local homeschool support group.
While I enjoy our present homeschool experience very much, I have even bigger and better plans for us in the coming years. I look forward to sharing our journey with you in the weeks and months ahead.