Daily Theme: Abraham
Books:
Room for a Little One by Martin Waddell (for Arianna)
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski (for Ian–a good choice for a day when I’m not feeling 100% because he can listen to the story on the CD)
For their Jesse Tree LEGO Challenge, Elijah built a rather fancy tent for Abraham, and Ian built both a tent and a camel.
Daily Theme: The Flood
Books:
A Star for Jesus by Crystal Bowman (for Arianna)
The Christmas Story: The Brick Bible for Kids by Brendan Powell Smith (for Elijah)
In the Jesse Tree LEGO Challenge, we read the story of the Flood, and the boys built arks.
Daily Theme: The Fall
Books:
Mouskin’s Christmas Eve by Edna Miller (for Elijah)
The Little Fir Tree by Margaret Wise Brown (for Ian)
Arianna has patiently been waiting for her day to open the door on the Advent calendar, light our candle, and hang our Jesse Tree LEGO Challenge ornament.
Books:
Christmas Angels by Crystal Bowman (for Arianna)
What Nick and Holly Found in Grandpa’s Attic by Melody Carlson (for Ian)
Along with Ian’s book, which talks about 12 important aspects of Jesus, I included the box of “Adorenaments” a friend gave us last year. He had never seen them, but he loves going through our Resurrection Eggs with the book Benjamin’s Box (by the same author) every year at Easter, so I knew he would enjoy going through this story and pulling out the ornament that goes along with the picture at the top of each page. After we read through the book, I had him go through all the ornaments again, telling me what they meant. I liked that the book discussed less common names for Jesus, like “Bright and Morning Star,” and “The Door.”
The boys have pretty much memorized the first two verses and sing through them with enthusiasm, and even Arianna has caught on to the refrain and loves to sing along with us. It’s such a sweet way to end our days, gathered close together as a family to read the lyrics, singing a song with such a rich history. I hope our children grow up thinking of Advent as a wondrous, enchanting time of considering the mystery of Christ’s Incarnation as a family.
Books:
Baby Jesus is Born by Juliet David (for Arianna)
The Light of Christmas by Dandi Daley Mackall (for Elijah)
Now that it’s December, our Advent celebration is in full swing (since a few of our activities just start on December 1 regardless of when Advent really begins, which is the fourth Sunday before Christmas). There are several things we do each day, and we’ve found it works best to have one child do them all on his or her special day. Today was Ian’s turn, so he got to open a door on our wooden Advent calendar, place the item he found inside wherever he chose, hang our Jesse Tree ornament, light the candle on our Advent wreath during Bible Time, and blow it out after prayers. (This picture is from last year, when we’d already opened several items. Right now it only has one star, but Ian did put it in the exact same corner.) Elijah and Arianna got to open our books (above), and we read them throughout the day.
We started the Jesse Tree LEGO Challenge from Tauna at Proverbial Homemaker, using it to kick off our family Bible Time in the evening. First we read the Scripture together, and then hung the day’s ornament on the small tree in our school room that acts as our Jesse Tree. By the time we get to Christmas, it will tell the whole story of Jesus.
Today the building project was a stump. Ian also included a mini-figure as the shoot coming out of the stump. Since we’d talked about how the shoot represented Jesus, he wanted a person.
Books:
Jesus, Me and My Christmas Tree by Crystal Bowman (for Arianna-3)
The Pine Tree Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs (for Elijah-5)
The Legend of the Christmas Tree by Rick Osborne (for Ian)
I’m going to try to give you a glimpse into our Advent celebration this year. I may not manage to blog every day, but I’ll try to cover what we do.
Each day in December leading up to Christmas, one child will open a door on our wooden Advent calendar, and the other two older ones get to unwrap a book for us to read together. Since we didn’t have a door to open today, I passed out 3 books instead, focusing on the theme I chose for the day: Christmas Trees. They were already on our minds because we’d spent yesterday getting all our Christmas decorations out, so it seemed like a good time to talk about the symbolism behind Christmas trees, reviewing what we learned in Buck Denver asks…Why Do They Call It Christmas?, which we watched last night after our decorating was done. I want them to think of Jesus every time they see a Christmas tree, and focusing on it for the whole day right at the beginning of the season seemed like a good way to work toward that goal.
For our evening Bible Time, we lit the first candle on our Advent wreath, started reading Jotham’s Journey by Arnold Ytreeide, and sang the first two verses of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” It was fun seeing Arianna’s sweet face lit up with the wonder of this special moment. The boys remembered our Advent devotions from last year and were excited to be reading by candlelight once again, but it was all new to her. The only thing I would change about this time was that I only read from the book. All three of the kids pointed out the fact that we never got our Bibles out. Jotham’s Journey ends each day’s reading with a devotional based on Scriptures, so I thought that was enough, but I think tomorrow we’ll have everyone get out their Bibles the way we usually do so they can read the verses themselves.
This week we gathered with our homeschool support group for a Thanksgiving celebration, and I was overwhelmed by the richness of the place to which the Lord has brought us in this season. As the kids delighted in relay races and fun crafts, I soaked in the joy of living life with an amazing group of friends. My cup truly overflows.
… for a country where we are free to gather together to worship openly in public.
… for the opportunity to homeschool, allowing us to disciple our children day in and day out.
… for friends who are more like family in many ways.
… for Your steadfast love that truly does endure forever.
On Monday, we just did math, games on the MiniLUK, Reading Rainbow videos and a trip to the library. Elijah turned 5 last week, so he was excited to be able to get his own library card. Of course, I forgot to bring in my ID so we didn’t actually get his card yet… but I got the form to fill out! Mommy fail. Still, I checked his books out on my card, and Ian proudly ran his own pile through the “self check-out” station, and then they happily curled up on the couch and read their books for several hours. That’s as good a school day as anything I had planned, right? (Maybe better.)
We doubled up on math this week, completing lessons 71-80 in MEP Year 2. I’m really torn about what to do with math. As I look at the lessons ahead, I think this year might get too challenging for Ian. Lots of people use Year 2 for 2nd grade, so part of me feels like we should set it aside once it gets challenging. But another part of me thinks Ian would be fine if we just went through it letting him pick up what he can without me expecting mastery. I’ve been praying about this whole thing for weeks, and I still don’t have a clear answer. I hope the week off will help me come to a decision about whether or not to print out the next set of practice book pages.
The books we’ve read over the last few weeks have made Ian somewhat familiar with the names of a few Greek gods, but I think it’s important to know some of the basic stories. We watched several videos from the Greek Mythology for Students series, which says it’s for 4th-8th grade, but both my boys enjoyed them. I had only checked out 3 from the library, but they wanted me to go back and get the others as well.
We kicked off the week a little early with a field trip to Bodies: The Exhibition, a fascinating chance to see what we’ve been learning about in science up close. I know it’s not for everyone, but I was pretty sure the boys could handle it, and they did really well. It was a great chance to get out of our books and really see all the different muscles in our bodies, the layout of the nervous system, how blood vessels are all over our bodies, where our organs really are, etc. Ian’s already asking to go back, but I told him he’d have to wait four years, and then we could go again the next time we study anatomy.
A friend expressed concern that the exhibit showed a lack of respect for human life, but I thought it was carefully done, and if anything, I thought it was a powerful testimony of God’s creative glory.
So that was our week, limping our way to Thanksgiving break!
That’s quite a list! It makes me a little tired looking at it, but really it has been such a blessing to be a part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew. I’m already getting excited about next year!
Some of these products we just used during the review period, but others became a more established part of our family. Here are the things that have stuck around:
Ian also requests Science4Us occasionally, but our subscription ran out and I chose not to purchase a new one. I’d like to finish the full courses from Middlebury Interactive Languages and ARTistic Pursuits, but we haven’t touched them recently.
The boys haven’t gone on Mathletics much lately, but I’d like to encourage them back on it (perhaps over the holidays when we take a break from our normal math program). It’s the one online subscription I’ve considered purchasing for our family to continue using.
There were lots of additional products other members of the Crew reviewed as well. It was hard to choose our favorites in each category, but if you want to see what products were the most popular with Crew families, check out the 2014 Blue Ribbon Awards.
Elijah turned 5 this week, and between the school holiday for his birthday, Nicholas fighting a cold for the third week, and Arianna coming down with something as well, school looked a little lighter than usual. I’ve realized, however, that even when we don’t accomplish everything in my lesson plans, we still manage to do quite a bit. As long as I keep an attitude of flexibility, I can see weeks like this one as successful, even if they bear little resemblance to my written plans.
This week in Old Story New we covered the early days of Jesus’ ministry as he proclaimed the good news in his hometown of Nazareth and other cities in Galilee.
We continued reading in Thanksgiving: A Time to Remember by Barbara Rainey. I’m try to keep our Thanksgiving focus very simple this year. Ian has already heard so many of the details, so I’m trying to help him think a little more deeply about the Pilgrims’ experience.
To support what we’ve been reading about Thanksgiving, we watched The Mayflower and the First Thanksgiving from Learn Our History and “The Mayflower Voyagers” (part of the This is America, Charlie Brown series).
It was with a great sigh of relief on my part that we moved on to lessons 66-70 in MEP (Year 2). Ian was really starting to struggle with the complex double-digit equations, so it was nice to move onto measurement. He still had a chance to practice the addition and subtraction concepts, but the problems were much simpler, and there were other things that he found easy, so math was not such a battle this week.
I remember getting into a struggle with some difficult material with Year 1, and I tried to make it easier on Ian by breaking down the lessons and doing them over several days. I finally ended up taking a break from MEP, coming back to it a month later and realizing that we were actually just at the point of moving on to something new. When those hard concepts came up again later, Ian did surprisingly well with them.
I tried to keep that experience in mind this year when we hit a difficult patch. I looked ahead and realized that if we could just plow through one or two more lessons, we reach something easier. So I offered Ian a little extra support, walked through the hard problems with him without expecting him to master them, and this week we were rewarded with a change in subject matter. I know we’ll come back to those concepts, but I’m confident that with a little time Ian will be able to sort them all out in his mind and have a better understanding that next time they come around.
We’re a little behind on two books in Ambleside Online, Year 1, but that’s because we’ve been focusing a lot on our history cycle and science over the last couple weeks. I’m sure we’ll be caught up soon.
We finished Our Little Spartan Cousin of Long Ago by Julia Darrow Cowles this week, which led neatly into a discussion of the Greco-Persian wars. That’s what we would have been talking about if we had stuck with Story of the World, Vol. 1 as I had planned after dropping Mystery of History. I think using the “Little Cousin” books is actually working really well for Ian. He’s learning a lot through the stories, and he seems to be enjoying them.
This week I introduced the boys to the UK television series Horrible Histories (based on the books by Terry Deary). We’ve only watched episodes that feature a “Groovy Greeks” segment, and it’s been a fun way to reinforce some of the things we’ve read about in our books about Athens and Sparta. (The boys LOVE these shows, and I know we’ll come back to them when we study other periods of history.)
We also watched Kids’ Animated History With Pipo (Classical Greece, Part 1), which gave a good overview of everything we’ve learned about Greece over the last few weeks.
In The Human Body we covered lessons 11-12 on the nervous system and the brain. Ian completed pages 12-13 in The Usborne Human Body Sticker Book and we watched Bill Nye the Science Guy: Brain.
