Week Thirteen Wrap-Up

HI, something we have been enjoying lately....

Bible: Genesis

Stories of Faith: Grandpa's Box

Math: Same old same old this week in the Matrix Caveman Rotation, except that the boys are upping their accuracy and their end time on the matrix. TJ has the current best score of 6 min 66/67 correct. The other tow are getting 100% however they are taking more time to do it. It is working really well to have them try to beat their own score, for it has eliminated some of the competitiveness that was destructive between them. Conversely they are enjoying doing the math and finding it more interesting.

We learned about another female mathematician named Sonya Kovalesky in Mathematicians are People too Vol. 2.

Ancient Greek History: We have begun two new books this week relating to history. Firstly, I added a lesson right after lunch because we were regularly ending school at 3 pm an hour earlier than I have scheduled for. This is happening because the boys are really getting better at following directions and just getting their work done without a lot of moaning or complaining. Amazing how much time is lost here. I intend it to be a geography lesson for I realized that we already have several books that would lend to this kind of lesson and I saw that Amblesideonline.com schedules for one so why not try it. It would be more food for the mind. So we have begun to read My Little Macedonian Cousin by  as it relates so well to the other book we started which is Alexander the Great by John Gunther. It was a tremendous fit and the boys adore it so we are still on schedule and getting more mind food served. Cool! Charlotte says,

"Our aim in education is to give children vital interests in as many directions as possible-to set their feet in a large room..." Vol. 3 pay. 231

Aesop's Copy Work:

Max's Aesop copy work.

Science the observation of Birds: We continue on this week with Blacky the Crow by Thornton Burgess. I also mention a fun game we picked up at the local Goodwill store this summer. It is a memory game of 100 photos of birds. I introduced the boys to the game one night  a few months ago and they have been playing it themselves oft and on, more recently as they have been listening to the bid stories we read in our lessons. They have decided that the Red Tail Hawk and the Big Horned Owl are the best and most desirable to win their other favorite is the wren. This year they are able to read the names of the birds on the cards and so without me they are learning. I love it!

Nature notebooks:

Language Arts: This week the boys wrote a composition about a rabbit family and what they did in their free time, completed some sentences that asked the question when? and they did dictation with sentences that distinguished there from their.

TJ's composition "What I do in my free time..."

Bed Time Read-Aloud: We all felt sad that Jack died in our new read aloud On the Shores of Silver Lake the next book in the Little house series. We all cried when Pa tried to wake him so they could travel west together. I am aiming at reading two books of the series each year so On the Shores of Silver Lake will be our last one until next year. Last year we read Little House on the Prairie and Farmer boy.

Latin: Our lessons last week pertained to a dialogue about Julius and Flavia in writing class with Corinthus. As the dialogue was about writing we have been doing some exercised involving roman or old latin writing. We wrote a message in latin script, we completed a worksheet about roman numerals, we translated some latin verbs into english and we made our own seal stones and a letter written on a thin board like they did way back then.

Art/Music: In drawing lessons this week we drew circles, snowmen and completed a drawing practice sheet.

And we continue in our rotation of reading about Chopin in his early years and listening to his piano music.

Have a great day!