Math Lesson

Math lessons this year are more traditional, we are using Saxon 5/4 and lucky for me my dh is teaching it to the boys. I am so excited, and the boys are enjoying the lessons. I was afraid they would find the text book dry but the opposite is true, they love it! They love the variety of the exercises and I love that they are learning to read the instructions and follow them. This means their reading vocabulary is growing. Yeah, language arts in math who said school is not interdisciplinary.

Zak reluctant to get his picture taken.

When I say that they love the math it isn't that we never have tears or they are never frustrated, because we do have tears and frustration. Often the work is simply hard and long from their point of view. We still assign only what can be done in 20 minutes. Short lessons to keep the attention. But when all is said and done they feel they are "getting it". My dh is a wonderful math teacher and the Saxon math curriculum is very well laid out adding precept upon precept which appeals to the boys. So when I asked them if they liked our new text book for math they all shouted, "we love it!"

Though we are using a text book the math manipulatives are not forgotten. I learned last year that one thing that makes math living is if the child understands it. So often the boys use objects like monopoly money to figure out the right answers to the problems in the book. They are still 'getting it' and thus it is alive and living math to them.

We include math every day of the week in our Three R's Rotation. Because my dh is now helping me we can do this rotation. It works like this. I begin with one student to do some language arts practice as I am working in the kitchen cleaning up from breakfast and beginning lunch etc. I have a little desk nearby where my student works on handwriting, reading aloud and a short phonics lesson. While I am doing this my dh has another student working on math near his desk in his office where he is doing his work. The third student is taking time on his bed to read from his bible and clean up his personal area, something we called space inspection last year. When my student is done I send him along to my dh and begin with the next student who was reading his bible and cleaning up his space. It usually tales us about 1- 1 1/2 hours to do all three boys through the whole rotation. It is the first thing we do each day.

BTW

I found out that the Saxon student manual for 5/4 FREE online here.

And the answer book FREE online here

Enjoy!

Week Twenty One Wrap Up

You may observe as you read more of this post that our schedule has shifted. Last week the boys had a go at rearranging the schedule for project day and as that went so nicely and I wanted to make a change to the existing schedule I let them have a go at that as well, in their free time. We went about it the same with with slips of paper with each lesson title on it and they each fashioned what they thought was the best of schedules. Then they each took turns explaining their schedule and answering questions we each had about it. Then since they were all so similar we talked about the benefits and draw backs of each one.
After that there was a little bit of rearranging of lessons and they glued down the pieces of paper to another and turned in their ideas to me.
I changed only one thing and asked that the reading lesson be at the end of the day and they all agreed my reason for it was a good one so it was established. They all wanted to get the work done before lunch and have the afternoon to be more laid back, so I was very happy with that. They decided to split up art and music so one day we have art before lunch and the next day we have music after lunch because we usually read or listen for those lessons. When we have a work type music lesson it gets put before lunch.My ideas was to put the work t the front of the day and all the reading aloud after lunch and to the end of the day. Cool thing was that the boys all wanted to do that too. However I took the risk of letting them come up with the idea on their own. Makes the transition easier when we all want it.

Now we have a new schedule which I think works so much better than our last one and it gives us a good new feeling right in the middle of the year which refreshes us all. The new schedule is as follows...

Bible: Finished reading through 1 Peter, Next week we are on to 2 Peter. (still over breakfast with Dad)

Latin: Making paper soldiers the templates are part of the Minimus teachers manual. Most of the week was spent learning to read the dialogue in Ch. 7 called Do As You Are Told!

Aesop Copy Work: Max has just a few more pages to go before he finishes up his Aesop's copywork book, Zak and TJ are both done and enjoying some free time as a result of their hard work.

Language Arts: From Primary Language Lessons by Emma Serl we practiced how to write letters. We even made our own envelopes and stationary pages.

And we had a conversation about what various animals and plants do to prepare for winter. We focus mostly in this lesson on answering orally in complete sentences.

Then the next day we did a picture study lesson and used the discussion about it as a basis for writing a story using the picture as a prompt. Below is Zak's picture and story. The picture is from Living books curriculum Primary Language lessons Workbook which we use oft and on for these language arts lessons. However I was just at their site and found it not there. Cynce's Place has also made a lovely workbook too and at a better price. It can be found here.

Math: Every Day Number Stories by Emma Serl and once a week we do The Matrix.

Art: This week we finished up our Ode the Matisse Mural... YEAH!!!! and we read Matisse Drawing With Scissors

Lunch

After lunch we read the following. Subjects with and astrix * were narrated.

Music: Robert Schumann And Mascot Ziff by Opal Wheeler

Science The Study of Insects: The Tale of Daddy Long Legs by Arthur Scott Bailey*

Geography: Our Little Carthaginian Cousin From Long Ago

Ancient Greece History: D'Auliers Book of Greek Myths*

Stories of Faith: Martyrs of the Catacombs Audio (this links to a free copy)

Reading Practice: Elson Reader Book Three. When they are through with this TJ wants to read Outcast by Rosemary Sutcliff, Zak wants to read Twice Freed and Max wants to read Elson reader book four.

Piano Lesson with Dad

Bed Time Read Aloud: The Secret Seven Adventure Collection by Enid Blyton

Hope you have a good week!

Week Twenty Wrap-Up

Project Day, how it came about. This is something we started new this year, it is a way to have time for projects or lessons that take more than 20-30 min. to accomplish. Last year, I noticed that in many subjects the lessons the boys would benefit most from would involve lessons that took time. Lessons that gave them the space to think, create and then execute. I was very inspired by the bloggers Kim, Sara, and Tracy over at four& twenty and how they made this extra space in  their school days for creativity. After ruminating on the ideas from their blog posts I bought Kim's book Habits of Being. Inspired more I also bought one of their literature guides for Douglas Florian's books of poems. I came up with the idea of adding a day to our 5 day school week to practice doing this type of lesson. So our sixth day of the week has been project day ever since. Recently I found this fun book called Project Based Education which I have only just begun to read through, but so far I have found it useful to provide many very practical ideas of how to implement projects in any style of homeschool of classroom setting you have. I like this idea for I think structure is important for creativity and it is often misunderstood that creativity needs no limits however the limits appropriately set will allow a young creative person to really soar. It also prepares students to develop more skills towards a self education; meaning the child does the work of learning. On our project days I am handing to them little by little the reins of structures and let them make more decisions and have more time to follow them through.

This week we spent a good twenty minutes developing the schedule for the day. I gave them the subjects, some of which they had already helped me decide on, written on strips of green paper. I described what each lesson entailed so they could see how long or short each one was. They each were given a turn to arrange the subjects how they thought the day would go best, and in an orderly fashion the other two gave feedback. Responding in an "orderly" fashion was the difficult part of the exercise. (smile) In this way we talked through the benefits and disadvantages of each schedule. I was pleased to see they were already in a habit to arrange the work so that the hard work would be done first and then the easier lessons would follow. They also already knew it was best to stagger the work with hard lesson next to easy lessons so that they did not tire before the work was done. All in all it was a good exercise for them to think it all through. Here is the schedule they came up with and followed.

In the end the day went much smoother and quicker because the boys had a mental picture of how it would go, they had a say in the plan, and they owned it. The ownership aspect for them is very motivating, and I have seen them thrive knowing they have this amount of control over their education. As they grow and use it wisely they will be given more.

Bible: We are continuing our reading from 1st Peter over breakfast.

Stories of Faith: Martyrs of the Catacombs: A Tale of Ancient Rome Audio book.

Mathematics: Everyday Number Stories by Emma Serl.

Aesop Copy Work:

Ancient Greek History: D'Aulier's Book of Greek Myths

Greek Myth Literature Pockests by Evan Moor

Stickers from DK The Ultimate Greece & Rome Sticker Book

We added Mt. Olympus (the home of the gods) to our map.

Science the Study of Insects: The Tale of Kiddie Katydid by Arthur Scott Bailey

Nature Notebook:

Ha ha, Max drew his own thumb!

Geography: Our Little Roman Cousin from Long Ago

Language Arts: We completed our dictation exercise (PLL Lesson #47) and next week we will learning how to write letter. Looks like fun!

Reading Practice: Elson Reader Book Three. As we are getting closer to the end of this reader my mind began to think about what would be next. Although we do own book four it seemed like perhaps the boys would like to pick out a real book of their own to read. I proposed this idea to them and they were very enthusiastic! yeah! So soon the boys will get to have their pick. I am so curious what they will chose. I will put a bottom limit on their choice, nothing easier than this for example but I'll let them shoot as high as they want to. TJ already has a keen interest in Rosemary Sutcliff's book Outcast because he loves the character Beric so much. He is willing to read a page a day until he finishes it. We'll see what the other two decide.

Bedtime Read Aloud: Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff

Latin: Chapter 7 of Minimus we are working on reading and translating the dialogue entitled "Do as You're Told!" our grammar points this chapter include the command form of verbs.

Art: Ode to Matisse Mural still in progress.

Music: We have been enjoying Opal Wheeler's book about Robert Schuman.

I hope your week was as delightful as was ours!

Week Fifteen Wrap-Up

We would be half way done with this year but we plan to school the whole year round with a month of in May and part of June. So our halfway point is really in Feb-March. At that point we switch to Ancient Roman history and the study of Insects. I can't wait! But for now we took another day off to celebrate Max's 9th birthday!

Happy Birthday Max!

Bible: We are finishing up Genesis this week and moving on the the last book of the Bible, Revelation.

Stories of Faith: We finished This Way to Christmas as well this week and Have begun to read The Christmas Porringer.

Math: We have completed the Usborne math skills Multiplying and Dividing Puzzles and will begin to work through Everyday Number Stories in rotation with The Multiplication Matrix. We did work through Everyday number stories last summer but I know that this year now that we have had some good work on multiplication tables and division that the book will be much more beneficial. 

We are continuing to read about Albert Einstein from Kathleen Krull's book entitled Albert Einstein (Giants of Science series)

Aesop Copywork:

Ancient Greek History: We are reading Alexander the Great by John Hunter.

Geography: Our Little Spartan Cousin of long ago by Julia Darrow Cowles.

Science the Study of Birds: We are reading Reddy the Woodpecker by Arthur Scott Bailey this week. I am thrilled. The living books we have been reading about birds is igniting an interest and the boys are doing a lot of looking up birds on their own. Yesterday was a typical day in this area as Max had out the large volume of Birds the definitive guide by DK and finding birds he knew. Birds from Winged Migration a movie we watched umpteen times when he was only three-six years old or so, Birds from our readings, Birds form our yard and neighborhood. As he poured over the pages looking at flight migration paths and where each bird can be found he felt as if he was looking at old friends. At the same moment the twins were playing the birds of America concentration game I picked up at Good Will this summer and naming all the birds they "knew". Earlier this week I found them all three out in our yard with their binoculars searching the skies for birds and looking  up in the trees for nests. TJ finds the littlest birds nests often after they have fallen out f the tree where they were perched. We think it is the warbler who is making them.

And look what we found 'stealing' grain from the chicken pen.

I also found a handy link to many living nature books by Thornton Burgess and Arthur Scott Bailey over at Manybooks.com.

Nature notebooks: This week we learned to draw an owl.

Langaue Arts: We completed lessons #35-38 in Primary Language Lessons which includes work on has and have, a little dictation, an oral lesson about cows and milk where I focus on having the boys answer the questions in complete sentences. The lesson was about milk so we made homemade marshmallows and hot chocolate for a lunch time snack!

Bed time story: Little Town on the Prairie.

Afternoon Audio book: Narnia, The lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, The horse and His Boy, Prince Caspian several times over.

Reading aloud: Elson Reader Book Three, still working on two pages a day for each boy. They are getting much more fluent and it is more and more of a pleasure to hear then read.

Latin: This week we learned a new dialogue using adverbs and verbs. We have spent the week learning the new verbs and adverbs as vocabulary and as parts of speech and how they are used in Latin and in English. How to identify them and how to use them ourselves.

Art/Music: Drawing lesson #15 evolved into a multimedia painting. The lesson was about drawing ellipses which create a bowl with fruit in it. So their were examples in our drawing book of different fruits and how to draw a bowl. The boys practiced drawing a bowl and then I showed them this picture that I found on pinterest:

The foundation of all painting is drawing so it seemed an easy step to take our bowl drawing and make a painting out of it. Our source picture was created by Mrs. Anderson for her art class but there were no instructions on the website were it was pinned from on how to do it so we just winged it and had some fun. 

We began by mixing acrylic paint to get the color Mrs. Anderson had in her background. Then the boys painted that color onto a canvas panels. These are wonderful, They are much less expensive than a real canvas but it gives the feel and look of a canvas when painted. I love them. While the paint was still wet, with the back of our brush we drew swirls and designs into it. Then we set it aside to dry.

While the background was drying I printed off some paper with words on it. Any print will do. Then the boys drew fruit with pencils using the ideas from the drawing book to guide them. It was hard to think to draw the fruit big enough to make a presence on the painting but they got it in the end. Once the fruits were drawn they got out their gauche paints (opaque water colors) and painted them. Then those were set those aside to dry while the table top was draw and painted as well on printed paper.

Once all the printed fruits and table tops were dry the boys "glued" them onto their now dry backgrounds. done for the day.

The next day as we listened to Chopin the boys painted on the black outline of the table, the fruit stems and leaves, the q-tipped white dots (you can use the back of your brush too) and signed their names.

Merry Christmas!

Week Fourteen Wrap-Up

What a fun week we have had.  It wasn't a fun week because we did anything particularly exciting or new, or that all went really perfectly. It was fun because we were together and our lessons are finally gelling into place. I have made quite a few adjustments this year that I did not think I would be making but I am ever so happy I did. This week was fun for me because I did not adjust much of anything and have been riding along on the plans we have already made. I can see some of results of handing over my way of doing home education to Charlotte's wise advice and it makes those elusive smooth and easy days seem more tangible. Not that there were not trying moments in our week, for there were melt downs and discipline was still applied, but trusting in an idea and just hanging on until you see results gives a measure of peace and rest. In my own mind the days are smoother because I know where I am going, I know how I will handle it and most importantly I know why I am doing it.  I love this quote by Louisa May Alcott and the lovely way that Emily McDowell has rendered it in this poster. It sort of sums up why my week was so much fun, I am now enjoying the waves as they hit against my ship.

Bible: Genesis with Dad over a tasty breakfast. I made a huge (because I have a new range in my kitchen that is bigger than the one I had before) batch of granola with medjool dates which we all love. Makes starting a new day even sweeter. :)

Stories of Faith: We have begun a fun Christmas story called This Way to Christmas. It was part of the amazing deal I purchased last summer from Yesterday's classics. They are doing it again just now before Christmas too! I have always adored their selection of vintage books but with so many free online it was hard to pay for a printed book and feel good about it. I use my kindle a lot so when they offered their entire kindle collection for only $50 I snatched it up. This way to Christmas was in the package deal and we are now enjoying this heart warming tale.

Math: Much to the chagrin of the boys we are still doing a rotation of The Matrix and the Usborne Math puzzles book, we call it the caveman book. They are enjoying the math puzzles but they are getting weary of doing the Multiplication Matrix. So I read to them what the author of the matrix said about why he made it and we looked at some strategy to learn how to fill in the table faster and easier. Seemed to help. Here is a quote from the author:

"The history of this matrix goes back to the ‘70’s when my wife and I operated an individual learning center teaching reading, math, and English, K – adult. We used a lot of programmed-learning materials and audio-visual aids, computer, etc. Students beyond third-grade (even adults) were found to be shaky in their multiplication tables, which affected their insights into numerical relationships and their work in the higher operations. “The Matrix” became a standard drill until they could do one correctly in 2 minutes or less, three days in a row."

Our best time is 6 minutes so we are almost there.

We read about Albert Einstein in Mathematicians are people too Vol. 2 and began a longer book about the same guy by Kathleen Krull. This book is part of her giants of science series. We read her book about Isaac Newton last year and really enjoyed it, and we are enjoying this one too.

Ancient Greek History: Alexander the Great by John Gunther is our text this week and the boys are doing so much better at their narrations. They are better at summing up what the main ideas is and adding supporting details to explain that idea better. This is such a great tool for beginning to write. I am so glad they get to do this orally before they have to struggle with the mechanics of writing. Getting ones thoughts clear is such and important skill to have. Not only for writing but for basic good conversations with others. i count narration as I think about socialization skills etc.

It is still a great temptation for the little ones especially as they are not global thinkers to parrot back the information detail by detail. I think the open ended questions I have been asking after each narration  has helped. I do this because I watched a DVD of Eve Anderson a PNEU teacher who visited a CM school in Texas do this. She had pre-read the passage and thought of other information to add to it. She did not repeat information the children were to have retold but as one might do in a conversation she asked further questions about the information and added information that led to a wonderful discussion. I was a bit surprised as I have read that the teacher is not to interfere and she didn't she added more richness. I want to do this more too.

As we have been doing this the lessons which include narrations take on a different feel. They are less mechanical and more like a conversation aided on by help of the book. We add our thoughts about the passage and ask questions the passage brought up in us and we learned out loud you might say what the book is telling us. None of us are experts though I know more than they do they have good insights and I love giving them the chance to express them, question them and hear insights of others. I think this sort of dialogue makes the books more interesting and while they are interested they are learning to learn from a book and also to think about what is said. They get to participate. I also keep a good handle on etiquette for narrating and responding. They practice waiting ones turn, interrupting politely etc. so they participate with a measure of self control. All great skills for future conversations with others as well.

Geography: We are enjoying Our Little Athenian Cousin this week, also from the Yesterday's Classics Kindle package.

Aesop's Copy Work:

The paper Mache' armor has been put on hold as our original designs are not working. So after the holidays I think we will try again using some plans and ideas from this website, storm the castle.

Science Bird Study: This week we completed reading Blacky the Crow by Thornton Burgess and  have begun to read The Tale of Reddy Woodpecker by Arthur Scott Bailey. I am so pleased with these books. The stories are giving them more than just information about birds but more than that they instill a sort of reverence for living things and practical ways to care and respect them. In Blacky the crow Farmer brown's boy discovers a hunters duck blind near the big river. he discovers it is not only a blond but that the hunter has been baiting the ducks to come to this part of the river just before his blind with corn. Each afternoon he has been spreading the corn then after a few days and the ducks sense no danger he waits for them with a gun. Farmer brown's boy is outraged and decides he must do something to stop this unfair kind of hunting and devises a plan of his own. You will have to read the story to see just what he does. teaches the boys some right and wrong ways of dealing with the little feathered folk in our lives. I am loving reading these to them each day. :)

I found a fun website with patterns for making felt bird ornaments. All of the birds she has patterns for are well done and very close to realistic. Not to mention a great way for a beginning hand sewer to begin as the projects are small and can be completed in about 30 mins to an hour. We began with the robin and each of the boys has selected another bird to do next, results next week.

Nature Notebook: This week we stayed inside to learn to draw a cardinal and read a little from A pocketful of pinecones.

TJ drawing his cardinal and the photo of a cardinal in the background from DK Bird the Definitive visual guide.

Max is drawing his cardinal.

Max's final drawing and the drawing steps he used to draw the cardinal.

Language arts: This week was spent entirely on dictation. This is no longer their favorite lesson. I have decided to begin stretching them in this skill and have been dictating the whole sentence only once instead of dictating word by word. I also challenged them more so after dictating each sentence once I  then dictated all three at once. They did very well and on their first try they missed only one word each, but it was nerve racking for them to try it. Zak just about hyperventilated himself onto the floor. :)

Reading aloud still in our Elson reader book three.

Bedtime read aloud: We are again celebrating another Christmas with Laura and Mary, Pa, Ma and little Carrie and now baby Grace in On the Shores of Silver Lake. It fits nicely into our Christmas time readings.

Latin: We completed out letters written in Latin last week but not or rings and seals. So now our project is complete. Below is TJ's Letter to his grandma in Oregon. We sent her and Grandpa this note to see if they could dicipher it and they did! I am so amazed...so were the boys.

The directions for making these was in the Minimus Teacher's guide. I enjoyed having time to do some hands on projects without missing any of the good mid food in our daily readings and narrations. Perhaps we are discovering a way to fit them in after all. :)

Art/Music: We completed I Can Do All Things Drawing Lessons #11-14 drawing ellipses. And we are still enjoying reading about Fredrick Chopin and hearing his music.

Handicrafts:

Max's Felt frog on His felt pillow.

TJ's felt travel pillows.

Hope your week has been a good one!

Week Ten Wrap-Up

Bible: Ephesians with my dh.

Stories of Faith: We took a little break from The Adventures of Missionary Heroism this week and next so we can read The Stories of the Pilgrims by Margaret B. Pumphrey in celebration of Thanksgiving next Thursday.

Mathematics: We completed our times table lessons according the CM prescribed method found in Mathematics the Instrument of Living Teaching. The method has worked well for each of the boys. prior to the lessons when they recited story problems they were still figuring it out. Now, they spout off the answer as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Next week we will move along to something else that will further this acquisition of knowledge and sink init still deeper.

We read about Mary Fairfax Somerville from Mathematicians are People Too Vol. 2 on project day.

History of Ancient Greece: We read about Solon, Aristides, Themistocles, Cimon and Pericles from the Children's Plutarch by FJ Gould. Max was particularly impressed with Cimon for he was so generous to the poor.

Aesop's Copy work:

History Project: We are beginning what will soon be a rather long project of making paper mache' weapons and armor. We began this week by first choosing whether we were going to make roman or greek armor and weapons. Then we built the cardboard armatures for each of the pieces. Next week we will begin to applying paper mache'

Our rough materials

Their inspiration

Science Birds: We completed our reading of The Tale of Bobby Bobolink by Arthur Scott Bailey and began to read The Tale of Jolly Robin by the same author.

Nature Journals: My dh has purchased ten chicks to raise into laying hens. Now they are our subjects for nature study.

Pocket Full of Pinecones: We read six chapters this week as they are somewhat short and the boys are loving the story. We do not narrate this book we just listen and enjoy it.

Language Arts: We spent four of the five days this week on dictation from Primary Language Lessons by Emma Serl. I am not yet happy with our current approach to it for there is al lot of anxiety on the part f the boys. So I am re thinking how we go about this lesson and hope to try something different next time this comes around.

Currently I have them copy the sentence we are about to dictate three times. Then they look at the sentence and visualize the harder words. This usually takes about 5-10 minutes if they all get to work right away. Then I dictate the sentence one word at a time. I read the whole sentence back to them and they check their work. Then with pens down they self check their sentence to see if it is correct. If there are mistakes more than one or two I have them rewrite the whole sentence, visualize the words and we do the dictation again. If it is one word or two they copy just that word a few times and visualize it before we go on.

The difficulty seems to be that they do not yet know how to teach themselves the sentence. Inevitably they think they know it until the dictation and then there are often tears. Earlier on when the sentences were easier they loved this exercise. Now I will need to do something so they begin to teach themselves the new words successfully.

We also did an observation/composition exercise on trees. This they found enjoyable. They still marvel that answering questions in a full sentence can add up to a short composition. I love it!

Evening reading: We are half way through Sea Star by Marguerite Henry. Our evening readings are not narrated and simply for enjoyment.

Latin: First day of this week I had the boys highlight all the verbs in the dialogue from our Minimus Latin Book. Then I reintroduced the -o ending and the -t ending. Then I introduced the -nt ending used for "they". They found it fun to discover that they had not noticed the -t and -nt difference. They were delighted to have it pointed out. I used inductive questions to led them to the discovery and it is working very well. :)

The rest of the week was spent learning a new dialogue.

Art: We began our drawing lesson with a practice drawing sheet from Art Projects from Kids. The boys had not done a drawing lesson since last year and thus did not know that they could do better this year. They were so encouraged with the results of the drawing sheets for they could clearly see how much easier they found it this time as opposed to last time. We practiced drawing laces on shoes and Wally the worm and his family.

Max's drawing of my hiker.

Music: We are wrapping up Tchaikovsky this week. To complete our study of this fascinating composer we listened to Symphony No. 1 in G minor and drew what we imagined onto a music appreciation notebook page as we listened.

We filled in the composer info in our composer lap book.

We Placed Tchaikovsky onto our timeline.

Have a great week end!

Week Two Wrap-Up

I can't say enough about our new schedule...I just LOVE IT! We start at 11am do four lessons, break for lunch and then do four more lessons ending at 3pm or 4pm depending on the day. What I love most is having the time in the morning to get a lot done before we begin. By that time I have accomplished something or often many things and I am feeling I am ready for the boys. I am prepared to focus on them, be more patient, more relaxed and thus a better teacher and mom. I also LOVE having lunch right in the middle of the lessons to give us all a mental and emotional break. Seems to take the weight off of the day and allows us time to talk during the meal about things we have learned in the lessons. Often as they linger over the meal I read the next lesson while they are eating the last morsels of food. Ahh multi-tasking I love it too!!

This week we have been reading through Daniel. My dh does this over breakfast. We have heard the stories before many times but still I am amazed at Daniel's trust in God up to the last almost fatal moment. I would have cried "unfair!" "Enough!" when the satraps slandered him and plotted to usurp him even to kill him. But Daniel believed God would save him even though he was being thrown into a den of hungry lions. Amazing. How far would you let God seemingly ruin your life before you stopped trusting He is good enough to save you?

First lesson of the day is reading from Buchko. I read about two chapters before the 30 minutes for the lesson is up and we are moving along to math. (I changed the order of our lesson this week to to coincide better with my planner.) We are loving to hear how Bruce is telling the stone aged indians about the gospel. How he puts it into terms and ideas the indians can understand. I simply love the idea of tying my hammock into God and getting in with both feet. This is more challenging then it seems when you realize the Motilone indians he is speaking to sleep in hammocks 25 feet off the ground. Yikes! That takes a bit of trust to tie in way up there. It is also a way they invite you to be part of them. If a girl likes a boy she ties her hammock next to his and they are then officially married. Hearing ideas we know so well put into new terms makes it more clear to us. The boys all heartily agreed tying their hammocks  into God is a wonderful idea!

We are having a lot of fun with the skip counting songs in math. We moved on to the X3 and X4 songs this week. The X4 song is a country western tune which really resonates with my bluegrass heart. Yippe i kie aaaay we skip count every day! In addition I introduced the boys to Sal from Khan Academy. (Thanks Debbie for the pointer) He has been explaining to them about what Multiplication is and what a multiplication table is. Then we made our own tables this week. Max especially liked it. We played An old style version of Multiplication Bingo that I found at the Goodwill this summer for our game-activity-fun day.

After Math we are reading from the Story of the Greeks and preparing for our Saturday Scrapbook day. The boys want to scrapbook about the Greek Olympics. So we will be working on that theme for a few weeks. We did get our books started last Saturday, see Max's inside cover and title page below.

We are using a basic wire bound sketch book for our scrapbook. The map on the cover came from Homeschool in the woods packet of old world maps. The title page is from Notebooking Pages packet of Ancient Times pages. On the other cover of the book we plan to add the old world style map for Ancient Rome. Thus the book will open left to right for Ancient Greece and right to left for Ancient Rome. Somewhere in the middle they will meet. We did more this week preparing things for the pages on the olympics but the boys wanted me to wait to show you it all when they have it done. So I will let it remain a mystery until then.

Also last week on our 6th day/fun day we did our first nature notebook entry. Using Keeping a Nature Journal by Clare Leslie Walker I introduced the boys to the scientific aspect of nature hikes/walks...recording your observations. Following Clare's advice from Chapter 2 "Beginning Your Journal" we entered our daily observations. There are eight of them noted on page 22:

1. Name
2. Date
3. Place
4. Time
5. Weather
6. First Impressions
7. Wind direction
8. Cloud Patterns

Then we drew something we loved:

Before we do an entry I read a little from her book that I think would help them form an idea about what a nature journal can be or  something that would inspire them. I love this quote form the book (Zak did too!)

"Think of a nature journal as a treasure hunt. Ask yourself, "what's out there beyond  the doorstep? What treasures will I find?" You will be amazed when you actually get outside at all the things there are to draw or write about." - Clare Walker Leslie

Following a reading from the Stories from Ancient Greece we  continue our reading through the Burgess Bird Book. We have met the fly catchers and the woodpeckers, the cow bird and many other friends of Peter Rabbit in the Old Orchard. There happens to be copious resources to go along with this book, but here are three of my favorite ones:

Audio version
Free Printables that go well with the stories
Burgess Book Companion Web site

I am however going to keep our reading simple and just read and look up birds in resources books I mentioned last week. Having said that I did decide to add one more resource, The Handbook of Nature Study. It was a DUH! moment when I realized I had the text on my shelf and the questions Max was asking could easily be answered by reading there. SO we are reading more from that book next week.

Lunch Break!!!

After eating is a Language Arts lesson or two. We have been working through a dictation lesson this week from Primary Language Lessons. The word SQUIRRELS was hard for the boys to master so we wrote the word over many times and did dictation a few days in a row on the same sentence until they got it! Boy were they proud! In the same book, PLL, we did an short lesson on when to use "is" or "are." They also wrote a short story about squirrels using "is" and "are" in their composition notebooks (which we picked up at Walmart for cheap). Take a look...

I recommend getting the teacher's edition to supplement the student text of PLL as it has some wonderful ideas for how to implement and further use the lessons. When it sugested writing a story or drawing a picture about squirrels I knew that would be  good switch from dictation. It also allowed them to use the word they had mastered their own way. I addition to the teacher's guide, I recommend either Living books curriculum layout workbook or Cynce's because it makes doing the lessons so much easier having places already set out to write your answers.

Here is Max's drawing from the poem "If I knew" (Where the box where the smiles were kept)

I enjoyed hearing the boys read out loud to me from Elson Reader book Three and narrate the story this week. They chose to go through this series last year and they still love it. I love it too, as the stories they read to me are good ones and though not modern they have timeless values woven into them which is refreshing. So I have them read two or three pages for me this fall. We were reading 5 to 7 this summer from Peter and Polly in Summer, but the words in these short stories are bigger, and more challenging to sound out. I don't want to tire them out, I want them to practice, so we read what they can get done in about 15-20 minutes. So far it has worked out very well. The truth be told...I don't know if I could do much more than that. Listening to three emerging readers for one hour is about my limit too!

To complete L.A. for the day we have one more lesson. Just before bed we are reading  The Wind in the Willows. Oh how I love this book! It is chocolate to the ears. To supplement my own readings I also play an audio version of the  chapters I have already read. (They just can't get enough) The audio version we have I picked up a garage sale for next to nothing. It is part of a set called The Children's Classic Library. It includes more than Wind in the Willows, it also contains  40 other classic stories like Treasure Island, Pinocchio and Heidi. I love that they are unabridged and dramatized. Gives my throat a break and they get their fill of good literature. Win win!

Onto Lain! We have made some good progress with our dialogue "meet the family" in the Minimus  Latin curriculum we are using this year. We must have listened to the dialogue about 7 times before the boys were able to read it all the way through making no mistakes and understanding the dialogue. Each time we listened to the dialogue more details became clear. Then each one was given a chance to read it out loud while the others listened. Once that was complete, we took about half of the vocab words at a time and wrote them onto 3 X 5 cards. The latin they wrote on the front and a picture of the word or the english word on the back. These flash cards that they are making for themselves was an idea from the teacher's manual. Take a look at Max's card for Feles (cat).

Once they had completed all of the vocab words we played a sort of spelling bee type of game to reinforce them. They stood up together in a line and I gave them first the latin and they gave me the english, then I gave them the english and they would give me the latin. If they failed at a word they sat down and the last one standing was the winner. We played several times and all won in the end. Today (Thursday) we translated a birthday invitation which was found at Vindolanda in an excavation.

You know a boy loves a book when he puts his legos aside just to listen. Well that is what they do when I bring out The Story of Peter Tchaikovsky by Opal Wheeler. Zak said, "I just love that horse boy."

Our look at Paul Klee this week has resulted in some fun drawings and paintings of cats.

Tj is painting a 'the cat head' based upon the coloring page we did last week called "The Head of Man."

Here is Max working on his 'cat head.' We began the drawing by tracing a bowl form the kitchen. Having the circle thus define the space made the rest of the drawing/painting a piece of cake.

We then morphed from "The Head of Man" to "The Cat head" to Klee's "Cat and Bird". There is a great site we used to guide in drawing this. You can check it out here.

Can you find their signature in the drawing? We used oil pastels to color these.

Zak said this is chocolate cat! And so it is.  I hope it is a chocolate ice cream cat!

That is all for this week. I hope you are having a good one too.