Week in Review

Week 15 ~ April 30, 2012 - May 4, 2012

Major computer issues handled. On with our regularly scheduled programming, even if it is LATE. The last Week in Review I did was for Week 14. We've done two more weeks of school since then, so here is my attempt at reviewing Week 15. This post will not be my usual wordy style (well, we'll see about that ~ not sure I'm capable of anything else). It'll be short and sweet, but let's try to see what we accomplished that week.

Week 15 was sort of a catch-up week combined with Momma not feeling well, our major monthly grocery trip and a trip to the Orchestra. Even though it wasn't a ton of "lesson plans", we still managed to get in almost every "subject" and the girls had a lot of fun. Rather than break it up by subject, I think I'll just share what we did as a family and what the girls did individually.


FAMILY:


As a family this week, we got to Art, Music, Literature, Nature Study and History. Let me break that down for you.


We read this lovely book about Mary Cassatt called "Suzette and the Puppy".

After reading the story (or was it while I was reading the story? I can't remember), the girls each colored one of the Mary Cassatt works that we had already done Picture Study on. They colored them with Water Color Pencils and then brushed them carefully with water. They thought that was really cool! The Princess was telling me how much she loved my school because she just knew that if she was in public school she wouldn't get to "learn about the Golden Rod or color with water color pencils". That Golden Rod must have really made an impression on her!

The Princess

We read another 15 pages or so in our Opal Wheeler biography about Beethoven.

We also listened to our Beethoven CD throughout the week. The girls really LOVE this CD.

A really cool addition to our week was when I took the girls to the city to a production by our city's Symphony Orchestra. The girls thought it was amazing. They got dressed up (well, their version of dressed up ~ skirts and t-shirts that didn't particularly match ... with shorts underneath so they were ready to play in an instant). This particular production was designed for children and the education of them. It was open to homeschoolers, but there were also a lot of school kids there on a field trip or something. It was really fantastic for my girls to get to see the instruments in person and the people playing them and how they all combine to make that beautiful music they've grown to love! And, it was a beautiful thing to see the recognition on their faces with each song they played! Say what you want about kids and TV, but my children know A LOT of classical music thanks to the Little Einsteins!

We started a new book for our Literature Read Aloud. This comes from my Waldorf background and ties perfectly into the Princess's "Waldorf First Grade" year. We started reading "The Wise Enchanter". It is a lovely little story and is beautifully written. I think we're really going to like this one!

We headed outside on Friday for a bit of Nature Study. We talked about the three main types of clouds ~ cumulus, stratus and cirrus. I asked the girls to draw whatever clouds were in the sky that day. The Princess followed my instructions, and in her usual form, the Hippie didn't. She went ahead and drew all three types and labeled them. I guess in this instance, her not following directions was okay ~ at least now she has all three types in her Nature Notebook. :)

The Hippie

The Princess

We continued reading D'Aulaire's "Leif the Lucky" this week. As expected, it's turning out to be a lovely book!

THE HIPPIE: 

As for individual work, the Hippie managed to get to math, copywork, cursive, language lessons, reading and drawing. She completed lesson 12 in math (we did A & B orally and she completed C - F and the test written). She completed two lessons in her cursive and finished reading Henry and Ribsy by Beverly Cleary. In her language lessons, the Hippie did some copywork by Robert Louis Stevenson, practiced some more with plural and singular words and completed her first "Creative Writing" assignment. Now, if you know her at all or have followed along in our educational journey together, you will understand when I tell you that I sort of dreaded that assignment. It was a simple assignment ~ "Tell a story about the boy and the dog in the painting". But, the Hippie has ALWAYS hated to write. I fully expected it to be like pulling teeth to ask for 3 or 4 sentences. I guess she's crossed a milestone or something, because she loved it! She had that look of dread at first (because she, too, expected to hate it), but after she got started, she wanted to keep going. Something clicked in her. The next day, she almost complained about not having enough writing for the day! Go figure. Anyway, she also completed some copywork about Moses this week and drew two pictures ~ she decorated her copywork from the previous week and drew a picture of Erik the Red.

Moses copywork & decoration

Erik the Red Copywork & Drawing

THE PRINCESS:

The Princess also squeezed in math, copywork, reading, language lessons and drawing this week. This week's math lesson was an easy one, so for Lesson 6, we just did all of it orally and she took the test. Then, we started on Lesson 7 ~ she did A & B orally and C written. For copywork this week, she copied a sentence about the fairy tale "Snow White and Rose Red" and she finished her Erik the Red copywork from last week. In her language lessons book this week, we had a bit of Picture Study and Narration as well as some more copywork ~ a sentence about a mouse. For reading this week, she read to me "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse" as well as a few more poems by Christina Rossetti. The Princess also drew a picture for Erik the Red this week.

Snow White & Rose Red copywork with decoration

Erik the Red copywork

 
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Now, I'm sure plenty more educational stuff went on that week. But, it was so long ago now and I've lost some of the pictures, so it is really hard for me to remember. That is the best I can do. Hope you enjoyed that little summary ~ stay tuned for a summary of Week 16. :)

So blessed to be a Homeschooler!

I'll leave you with some other pictures from the week and our awesome Family Beach Day!

 

I'm back ... thanks for your patience!

I'm so sorry to have left you all for so long. If you are still with me and still checking back in, I so very much appreciate your patience and your sticking with me.

In case you were wondering, my computer fried about 3 weeks ago. I struggled through trying to fix things on my own for a while before finally accepting that I needed a new hard drive. Fortunately, I had copied most of my pictures and my documents to a separate "E Drive", but other than that I am starting over. That is a funny feeling. It's crazy how attached to our computers we've become in this decade / century. And, how lost we feel when we get them back but they are different. I've lost all of my favorites and programs and settings ... and I don't even know what I'm missing, but I feel lost without it. LOL

Anyway. I wanted to thank you for your patience. In case you were wondering, school did go on. We've been moving along nicely, I just couldn't post my Weeks in Review the past two weeks. I'm planning to attempt that in a moment. We had a lovely Mother's Day and life has gone on. We are on vacation now ~ heading out of town this Thursday. I will try my best to get "caught up" here on the blog today (have to pack tomorrow). Whatever I can't get to, just know that we've been doing well and we'll get back to our "regularly scheduled programming" when we return from our vacation.

I hope this post finds all of you well. I've so missed my online buddies!

Many blessings ... now, to attempt writing about something that happened so long ago I don't really remember it. :)

Bear with me, folks.

I just wanted to let you lovely people know that I am having major computer issues and will most likely not be able to post my Week in Review this week. I am so bummed about this. I'll try my best because I don't want to miss even one week on here, bit it is highly unlikely. :( Keep checking back, though. And, pray that I can get this computer fixed!

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Box Day ... Creating your own

If you've been in the homeschool world for even a minute, you've heard of Sonlight. If you've heard of Sonlight, you have probably heard of "Box Day" and the excitement it creates in families that use Sonlight. If you happen to receive the catalog from Sonlight each year, you've probably drooled over it once or twice, wanting to be those little families in the pictures who just love Sonlight. You've probably wished you could have "Box Day" at your house. You've probably thought that the grass was greener at a Sonlight house than at yours.

Now, if you are lucky, you've come to your senses before spending your life's savings. If you're lucky, you've realized that the plans you've already made are just fine. If you're lucky, you've realized that your family is having fun with the materials you have chosen, using them in the way that you have already set about using them. If you're lucky, you've realized that you don't need Sonlight to have a great year. If you're lucky, you've realized that you are those families in the catalog. Your children do love to learn. Your family already uses the best literature to teach the concepts you wanted to cover. You've realized that the simplicity of the Charlotte Mason method works. You've realized that you don't need that giant, confusing Instructor's Guide to teach your children. You've realized that reading the great literature and narrating it is enough. You've realized that copywork and dictation are enough. You've realized that your plan is just fine and you don't need to throw it all away just because it looks better in the Sonlight catalog.

Disclaimer: If you already use and love Sonlight, please do not be offended by what I have said thus far. I most certainly do not think that there is anything wrong with Sonlight. I love Sonlight. I am only speaking to those of us who have already made plans. I am speaking to those of us who doubt our own plans because of the amazing marketing that Sonlight has. If you use and love it, please trust your own instincts and know that you know best what works for your family. That is the beauty of homeschooling!

Back to what I was saying. If you're lucky, you've realized that your plans are good enough. But, "Box Day" still sounds like so much fun, doesn't it? It does to me. So, I recently went about creating my own "Box Day" of sorts. Did everything come in one box? Nope. It came over the course of many days, in many individual envelopes with the occasional box or two. But, the fun can still be had if you create the excitement. My kids were ecstatic to get new books to call their own. They were excited to see the things we would be reading in school. And, my checkbook was much more pleased with the prices you can get when you buy your books used! Plus, I'm doing my part to reduce/reuse/recycle books! I plan to have lots of "Box Days". We are building our home library and having fun with it! Here are a couple of shots of our recent "Box Day" events. :)

Happy box day ... and Happy Homeschooling!
 

Week in Review

We have come to the end of Week 2, Term 2. We actually still need to do the "Day 4" stuff from Week 2 and we will do that on Monday, but as far as school week's go, we had a full one. We started the week off with a family field trip. You can see that here. That was lots of fun, beautiful weather, family time and history lessons to boot. We also had a field trip with our Homeschool Group on Thursday this week. We went to see an adorable Theatreworks production of Henry and Mudge at the beautiful historic theater downtown.

 

If you're keeping track, you realize that only left us with 3 full "school days". Hence, the need to do Day 4 stuff on Monday. :-)  Anyhoo, guess I should get down to telling you what we did.

BIBLE:

This week we read about how God chose Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. We read about the burning bush and Moses basically arguing with God, saying that he didn't want to go. We read about God convincing Moses that He would be with him every step of the way. We read about God showing Moses the "tricks" he could pull (you know, turning the staff into a snake and back into a staff again, turning his hand white with leprosy and back to health again and turning water into blood). We read about Moses taking his brother, Aaron with him to Pharaoh and trying to convince Pharaoh to let the people go. Of course, unless you've been under a rock (or are in no way associated with Judeo-Christian stories, and if that is the case, I apologize if I've offended you), you know that Pharaoh did not give in so easily. Anyway, out of the readings we did, the Hippie was inspired to draw the snakes. Here is a shot of Moses' snake and the Pharaoh's magicians' snakes. And, for good measure, she added a cat in the background being scared enough to jump into the air, hair raised and everything, as cats do. :) As for the copywork, she will finish that up on Monday.

FAIRY TALE

This week's fairy tale was the story of Snow White and Rose Red by the Brothers Grimm. This was a cute story and reminded us of our own two girls ~ one being quiet and liking to help Momma and the other being exuberant and wanting to play outside all the time. That describes my girls quite well. Even though the fairy tales are for the Princess to draw and copy from, the Hippie was inspired to draw, so she also drew a narration for this story. The Princess will do the copywork from this story on Monday.

The Princess

The Hippie

LANGUAGE ARTS

I'm starting to wonder if I should really separate out our subjects like this in my Week in Reviews, seeing as how "language arts" happens across the curriculum on a regular basis. Either way, let me share some of the more common "Language Arts' things that took place this week.

The Hippie continued practicing her cursive this week, copying short phrases about the picture "Ofeningen Op De Gitaar" by Henriette Ronner Knip. She and I did a bit of Picture Study together, allowing her practice with oral narration and creative "writing" (She told me the story about what was happening in the picture. Next week she will write the story). She also copied the following poem:

A wise old owl lived in an oak;

The more he saw the less he spoke;

The less he spoke the more he heard:

Why can't we all be like that bird?

The Princess and I talked about types of poetry and I introduced the "Couplet" to her. As for phonics, we talked about how "ou" and "ow" can both sound like OW as in out and owl. She got plenty of practice with this concept through reading words and sentences that follow the rules as well as copying words that follow the rules. We also completed two lessons in our Delightful Reading lessons. This week we worked on the Aesop fable, "The Dogs and the Fox", learning new words and creating new words from the words learned.

Finally, she read several more Christina Rosetti poems aloud to me. I don't think she really likes to read these to me. They just don't flow like a story does. Lucky for her, she's finished with the poems and can get back to reading stories to me.

Other than above, there was a LOT of reading around these parts this week. Momma and Daddy are currently enthralled in the Hunger Games trilogy ~ Daddy is in the middle of the first book; Momma has read the first book and is in the middle of the second.

We read a bit more of Twig aloud. We have two chapters left, I believe. I have the hardest time getting around to the regular old "literature" read-alouds after reading history and Bible and nature and poetry and tales and geography and biographies and such all day. Either way, we're working on it.

As for the girls, the Hippie continued reading "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". She doesn't read as much of this at one time. I think that is because to her it is an "assignment". That just changes it for her, even though she likes it. Whatever. At least she's reading, right? She also read "Mary Geddy's Day", Mike Venezia's Getting to Know Mary Cassatt, Mike Venezia's Getting to Know Beethoven, "Pompeii: Buried Alive" and "The Titanic: Lost and Found". Her real joy this week, though, has been "Henry and Ribsy". She's almost finished reading it and loves it. I believe from now on, instead of "assigning" literature to her, I am going to allow her to choose the next book (from my approved choices, of course). If she feels like it was up to her, maybe she'll read more. Like the difference between "Henry and Ribsy" and "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". Both are on my "list" for this year's readers, but since she picked up "Henry and Ribsy" on her own, she's been reading it at all times of day. The other one, she only reads the chapter I've assigned each day during "school" hours.

The Princess has been a reading machine this week. I am kicking myself for not starting a reading log for her when she first started reading whole books. At this point, I wouldn't be able to remember them all. I guess I should start now, though, Better late than never, right? Anyway, just this week, she has read:

• Small Pig
• The Fire Cat
• Puss in Boots (Step into Reading, Level 3 Reader)
• Sleeping Bootsie (Step into Reading, Level 3 Reader)
• Little Lucy (Step into Reading, Level 3 Reader)
• Some of Tales of Amanda Pig
• Some of Porky and Bess
• Some of The Perfect Pony

She's also been reading some of the books she has already read that she got for Christmas this year, a couple of Breyer readers she loves about horses. And, she has probably read more that I missed.

 
MATH:

Not much to report here that is very interesting. We're just moving along. The Hippie moved on to Lesson 12 and the Princess completed Lesson 5. Ta-da. See. Not that interesting. :)

WORLD HISTORY:

We read about the Bronze Age in Hillyer's "A Child's History of the World" this week. The Hippie created a little Timeline card for our wall timeline and we hung that on the wall. We also read two more chapters in "Life in the Great Ice Age". That included the story of the Tower of Babel from the Bible (we already knew this one, of course). It also included a pretty detailed account of a Woolly Mammoth Hunt. While interesting, the story was a little bit sad for my little vegetarian, animal-loving kids. But, we made it through. We also read about cave art and stone tools. It blended quite well with our Bronze Age reading. As far as retention, the girls took turns narrating as I read.

AMERICAN HISTORY:

All we did this week for American History was start reading D'Aulaire's "Leif the Lucky". It really is a beautiful book! We are splitting this up over two weeks, so we didn't get very far into it. As far as the content, it was just a review of what we'd already learned from reading about Leif's father, Eric the Red. Next week, we will finish reading the book and the girls will do some copywork from it.

NATURE:

The focus of the week this week was the Dragonfly. We read "The Bumblebee's Mistake" from Outdoor Secrets. Even though it sounds like it would be about a Bumblebee, it was actually about the Dragonfly. We followed that up by reading "Are you a Dragon Fly?" by Judy Allen and Tudor Humphries and reading the poem "A Dragon-fly" by Eleanor Farjeon. Did you know that dragon flies are born under water? They can breathe water through the end of their tail! They eat and grow, shedding their skin several times before finally coming out of the water two years later. When they finally come out of the water, they shed their skin one more time and then they grow those beautiful wings. Now they can breathe air through little holes on their bodies. Did you know that they can see all around themselves all the time? They can fly forward and backward. If you don't already love the dragon fly, you should. They eat mosquitoes. I don't know about you, but that alone makes them my friend!

Of course, there was also the usual exploration in the yard.

POETRY:

We read aloud several more poems by AA Milne this week. They really do have a fun feel to them. Nice, bouncy rhythm. Fun and silly kid-friendly topics. The Hippie says she likes AA Milne more than Robert Louis Stevenson. The Princess likes them both.

GEOGRAPHY:

We read one lesson in Charlotte Mason's Elementary Geography this week. It was about Galileo and about the Sun and the stars. Short and sweet.

CHARACTER:

We read chapter 5 in "Wisdom and the Millers" this week. We talked about how it isn't good to talk just to be talking. If you don't have anything good to say, it is better to just keep quiet. Idle talk will get you into trouble. When we try to fill the air just to fill it, we often find that we say something stupid or end up offending someone or hurting some one's feelings. I loved how it fit nicely with the little Owl poem that the Hippie copied:

The less he spoke the more he heard:

Why can't we all be like that bird?

**********

I think that about covers it. Maybe. I never can remember exactly by Saturday morning. I'll leave you with a few pictures I captured this week. I hope your week was lovely and inspired!

Running laps ~ another trick to get the wiggles out.

Running laps ~ another trick to get the wiggles out.