His Treasure Seekers

This week felt more like we were mostly back into the swing of things after the holidays, and we’ve fallen into a workable routine.

Bible/Circle Time

The kids are making their way through the Animated Stories from the New Testament videos first thing each morning as they eat breakfast.  Then after they’ve gotten through their morning responsibilities we continue reading through two chapters from Little Pilgrim’s Progress each morning, with Ian creating pages for his book.  His pictures were all starting to look alike (two stick people), so I told him he needed to put a little more effort into making sure the pictures helped tell about each chapter.  I did see some improvement after that discussion.  Now we need to work on making sure every word gets written.  (He narrates back to me and then helps me come up with a sentence, which I write down for him to copy.)

Math

This week we worked on learning the 3s on the times table.  While I didn’t push Ian to memorize them at this point (though the lesson plans do suggest it), he was definitely becoming familiar with them.  Since he’s still working on this addition facts on xtramath.org, however, I’d rather he save his multiplication facts for later.  I don’t know of any other curriculum that expects 1st graders to know them, so I’m not too worried about it.

Literature

So far in our readings for Ambleside Online, Year 1, Ian hasn’t been too fond of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, but this week I realized that the problem may have been that I had him listening to an audiobook as we drove.  This week we read about the Armadillos, and he didn’t want me to put the book down.  Kipling does have a unique style of writing, and I think perhaps the accent of the reader made it hard for Ian to understand.

History Cycle

We continued reading Our Little Roman Cousin of Long Ago by Julia Darrow Cowles.  Ian enjoyed looking through pictures from my first trip to Rome many years ago, and especially seeing the same places I told him about when we watched the first episode on Imperial Rome from Kid’s Animated History With Pipo and the first episode on ancient Rome from Drive Thru History.

Science

This week we talked about the respiratory system (lessons 27-28 in The Human Body from God’s Design for Life).  Ian like the activity comparing our lung capacities by seeing how big we could blow up a balloon using only one breath.

These lessons sent Ian running to get our copy of one of his favorite books, See Inside Your Body.  He also enjoyed catching up on the pages about circulation and respiration in The Usborne Human Body Sticker Book.

 

Upcoming Reviews

I’m currently reviewing several products, especially now that the Schoolhouse Review Crew is back for 2015.  Watch for more about these soon!

• Theo: God’s Love (video)
• The Berenstain Bears and the Biggest Brag (book)
• In Freedom’s Cause (audio drama)
• products from Koru Naturals
• Math Analogies, Beginning from Critical Thinking Co. (software)

 I’m a bit late in writing about last week because life got crazy as we approached the weekend.  Between two family parties and then a Sunday morning trip to urgent care with two sick kids, I just couldn’t find time to write about our first week back after the holidays until now.

Bible/Circle Time

As I mentioned last week, I’ve given up trying to do a morning Bible time in addition to what we do in the evenings.  Instead, I’ve been putting on a Bible story video each day while the kids eat breakfast.

We started our school time reading two chapters of Little Pilgrim’s Progress each day that we were home.  On Monday as an introduction, we watched the video The John Bunyan Story from the Torchlighters series.

I’m having Ian put together his own book telling the story, so we first did a page “About the Author,” and then I hope to have him do one for each chapter of the book.  (Some days we combined both chapters on one page.)  Once we’re finished (if we keep it up), he’ll have his own book of the story.  This week he finished four pages:

I’m also requiring Elijah to stay with us while we read the story each day, though he doesn’t have any written assignments for it.

Math

Ian started into multiplication and division this week with lessons 91-95 in Mathematics Enhancement Programme (Year 2).  I was surprised at how quickly he caught on.  It almost seemed easier for him than addition and subtraction.  He’s back to working on xtramath.org each morning to keep trying to master his addition facts.

Literature

We didn’t quite get caught up on our literature selections in Ambleside Online, Year 1, but we did make some good progress.  For the first time, Ian really got into our story in James Herriot’s Treasury for Children.  We were just supposed to read “Blossom Comes Home,” but he wanted to keep reading, so we went a head a little.  He also requested the stories as we were driving since I keep the audiobook CDs in our van.  It’s always hard to win him over to new audio resources at first (he loves his favorites too much to risk branching out), and I think sitting with the book helped him realize what great stories these are.

History Cycle

We finished up learning about Alexander the Great before Christmas, so we started moving on to the ancient Romans this week.  I introduced Rome by reading the story of Romulus and Remus from Story of the World, Vol. 1 by Susan Wise Bauer and Chapter 30: “Picking A Fight” in A Child’s History of the World by V.M. Hillyer.  Then we started Our Little Roman Cousin of Long Ago by Julia Darrow Cowles.

Science

In The Human Body we covered lessons 24-26 on the circulatory system.  Ian added the heart to his life-sized chart of the body from the My Body unit from Teacher Created Resources. (I downloaded it from CurrClick, but it’s also available as a book from Amazon).  We also watched two episodes of Bill Nye the Science Guy: Blood and Circulation and Heart.

 Whew!  We made it to our Christmas break!  Ian and I are both ready for a break, and I may just have to play it by ear in deciding when to get back to our school work.  Here’s what we finished up with before our break.

Bible/Circle Time

We finished going through  Walk With Me to the Nativity: A Journey to Bethlehem by Karen Harper and read from the books the kids opened for Advent each morning.

Math

I am actually amazed that Ian finished up lessons 86-90 in Mathematics Enhancement Programme (Year 2).  At one point it looked like this year might just be too hard for him, but he’s really risen to the challenge.

The only bit of school work I plan to do over the next few weeks is continuing to practice his addition facts.  I’ve tried so many fun ways to do this, but this week I resorted to good old-fashioned flash cards.  Ian actually really likes them, and I’m writing down how many he gets right each day so he’s enjoying trying to beat his score.

Literature

For poetry this week we read Voices of Christmas by Nikki Grimes.  I was so moved by these poems, each from the perspective of a different person from the Christmas story.  They are beautiful by themselves, but then you add the gorgeous illustrations by Eric Velasquez, and I think I’ve found my new favorite Christmas book.

This year I’ve been trying to include as many of the Ambleside Online, Year 1 books as possible, on top of all the other things I have scheduled.  Gradually I’ve been dropping some of the selections that repeating subjects we’re doing separately, and this week I finally came to the decision to only do the literature selections for now, dropping the AO history books. (We’d already cut the science and nature study books.)  Perhaps we’ll get back into some of them when they fit into our history cycle.

I decided to hold off on history until after our Christmas break, since we just finished up Alexander the great and are getting ready to move onto the Roman Empire.

Science

In The Human Body (part of God’s Design for Life) we covered lessons 19-23 on the digestive system and nutrition, as well as covering the corresponding pages in The Usborne Human Body Sticker Book.  Ian was glad to get back to the My Body unit from Teacher Created Resources, coloring and placing the stomach and intestines on his giant body outline.

We also watched Bill Nye the Science Guy: Digestion and The Magic School Bus: For Lunch.

And that’s it for school in 2014!

 I was planning on letting this be a light week and not worrying about catching up until after Christmas, but somehow we ended up doing more than I planned.  No complaints here!

Bible/Circle Time

For the two weeks before we break for Christmas, we’re going through the ten lessons in Walk With Me to the Nativity: A Journey to Bethlehem by Karen Harper.  This week we covered the time from Isaiah and Micah’s prophecies about Jesus’ birth through Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem.  This was a book I’d added to our library a couple years ago, and I think it’s a good fit for us right now.  It has some great information without going too deep for a first grader.  I also love that most of the lessons incorporate picture study with classic paintings.

We also used our morning circle time to read the Advent books the kids unwrapped each day.

Math

Ian worked through lessons Mathematics Enhancement Programme 81-85 (Year 2).  With Elijah, I switched over to the new version of Year 1, which has less pages in the practice books because the Friday revision lessons are separate.  Since Elijah is really quick at math, I’m going to skip the revision pages unless it looks like he really needs them.  He often wants to complete 2 lessons in a day.  My hope is that eventually he’ll catch up with Ian so we can work together on math.

Literature

We were weeks behind on Ambleside Online, Year 1, but this week we managed to get caught up on most of our books.  (Woohoo!)  I’m hoping by the time we start school again after Christmas break that we’ll be back on track.

History Cycle

I’ve been trying out some of the Magic Tree House books by Mary Pope Osborne.  I’m not entirely comfortable with them (due to the light treatment of magic and elements of pagan religions), but for now I’m willing to give them a chance with a lot of discussion.  We checked out some audiobooks from the library, and Ian is loving listening to them in the car (though I won’t let him take them into his room to listen by himself).

Ian’s a good reader, but he’s usually reluctant to read on his own, so I was pleasantly surprised when he decided to read through Stallion by Starlight, about Alexander the Great (which is next on our schedule for history).  That’s one of the reasons I’m sticking with the books for now, though I think we’ll only use them as related to things were studying for school.

We also read 2 chapters about Alexander the Great in A Child’s History of the World by V.M. Hillyer.  Ian liked knowing so much of what was going on in these chapters since many of the details had been included in the Magic Tree House book.

Science

God’s Design for Life is the one curriculum I’m using that is structured enough to make it hard when we get behind.  This week we did science every day to catch up, making it through lessons 13-21 in The Human Body, covering the brain, reflexes, and the five senses.  Ian completed the pages on the senses in The Usborne Human Body Sticker Book.

The boys really enjoyed these lessons and the activities that went along with them (although Ian keeps asking if any of the lessons will let him build a model, like we did in the animal lessons).  We tasted bitter cacao powder, which wasn’t nearly the treat they thought it would be until we added some sugar.  They also checked out how pupils adjust to let in just the right amount of light.

 

 I debated taking this week off.  Instead I decided to just make our load a little lot lighter.  After all, we’re already a little behind in a few things, and I didn’t want to add math to that list.  So I used this more as a catch-up week, and then I shifted things around on my long-term lesson plans to make sure we don’t end up way behind come the end of the school year.

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.)

Math

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.

History Cycle

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.

• “The Gods of Olympus“
• “The Trojan War“
• “The Journeys of Odysseus“

Science

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!

 I love writing lesson plans.  I get great satisfaction from having my ideas organized on paper.  Yet I also try to stay flexible so I can bend and not break when things don’t work out as I plan.

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.

Bible/Circle Time

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).

Math

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.

Literature/Ambleside Online

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.

History Cycle

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.

  

Science

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.

 Like I said, it was a bit lighter than usual, and I think we’re all looking forward to some time off over the holidays!

I love this time of year as we approach my two favorite holidays.  Somehow I made it to Sunday night before I realized we could start focusing Thanksgiving with some of our school work.  My plan was to keep things simple this year, just reading through Thanksgiving: A Time to Remember by Barbara Rainey, but Ian remembered some books by Kate Waters that he enjoyed reading when we talked about the Pilgrims last year, and we ended up pulling those out as well.  He read through Samuel Eaton’s Day: A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Boy on his own, and then read Tapenum’s Day: A Wampanoag Indian Boy in Pilgrim Times with Daddy.

Bible

Our family devotions in Old Story New had us learning about the nighttime conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.  To reinforce the story during our school day, I decided to try a lesson from Draw to Learn: The Life of Jesus by Charlene Notgrass.  Ian really enjoys art, and I’m trying to give him lots of hands-on assignments he can do while I read to him in the mornings.

Ian immediately decided that he wanted to use a technique we learned from a lesson in ARTistic Pursuits where he covered a page in black pastels and then used a paper clip to etch a drawing.  It wasn’t exactly following the directions in the book, but I wanted to encourage his initiative and creativity so I told him to go for it.  I love the details in his night sky and the men with torches guarding the buildings while Jesus and Nicodemus talk.

We had gotten out of the habit of morning worship during our crazy October, but the kids have really missed it and I finally managed to start back up again.  This week we worked on learning the hymn “I Sing the Mighty Power of God.”  (I recently bought Singing the Great Hymns from Simply Charlotte Mason with the hopes of it taking care of our hymn study.  I love the selections, but I was disappointed to find that it didn’t have any information about the hymns beyond the music and lyrics.)  It was fun to hear the kids singing a hymn so enthusiastically.

Math

As I’ve been sharing, I’m determined to find fun ways for Ian to master his addition facts, so I’m trying to have him spend a little bit of time practicing them each day using various fun methods.  This week he continued enjoying extra screen time to play Medieval Math and the math section on More Starfall.

We also did activities from several videos in the “Addition and Subtraction to 10” section on Education Unboxed.  Ian enjoyed building Number Bonds Towers, and Elijah had fun being a part of our math time playing What’s in the Box? with Ian.

 

Using base ten blocks has really helped Ian this week as lessons 60-65 of MEP (Year 2) have a lot of adding and subtracting of double-digits crossing tens.  (The set of blocks we use is no longer sold, but I really it because it uses different colors for ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands.  Now it seems like I can only find one made of foam if I don’t want all blue blocks.)

MEP has the students work through multiple steps to solve the problems, which Ian has found really confusing until we used the blocks.  They are supposed to break up ones in order to complete a ten, and then add the tens together before finally adding the remaining ones. For example:

48+24=

48+(20+2+2)=

(48+2)+(20+2)=

50+20+2=

70+2=72

It seems so much more complicated than simply writing the numbers on top of each other and adding them up the way I learned to do, but it definitely is helping Ian develop greater number sense rather than simply working through a formula.  (Plus, until he is quicker at his math facts, that way still takes a while.)  With subtraction, Ian caught on to the idea of “borrowing” right away, which I don’t think would have happened without the blocks.

Literature/Ambleside Online

This week in Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin we read about Inchcape Rock, a reef which sank many ships before a buoy with a bell was finally placed to mark it.  A pirate thought he’d be sneaky and cut off the bell just for spite, but of course then his ship ended up running into the rock in a fog later on and he received his just rewards.  While looking for pictures of the rock (which now has a lighthouse on it), I found a poem by Robert Southey which told the story in rhyme.  Ian enjoyed listening to it again that way.

This week we started As You Like It.  Ian was drawn in immediately by the description of the wrestling match.  I don’t think I’ve ever read the story before, so I’m enjoying it as well.  I love how Ambleside Online introduces stories from Shakespeare at such an early age.  I’m looking forward to filling in some gaps in my own education.

History Cycle

We’re still learning about Ancient Greece, and we read a little further in Our Little Spartan Cousin of Long Ago by Julia Darrow Cowles.  While I read, I had Ian color a blank map of Greece and gave him a list of cities we’ve talked about (Athens, Sparta, Olympia, Troy, Corinth, and Ephesus) to label with the help of a more detailed map in a book.

Science

We read through lessons 8-10 (on muscles and the design of hands and feet) in The Human Body, and read a little more about muscles in The Usborne Human Body Sticker Book.

Then we did the pages on muscles from the My Body unit from Teacher Created Resources (available as a download from CurrClick or a book from Amazon).  Ian was not happy last week when we only put bones on one leg of our life-size outline of his body (he wanted to do a whole skeleton), but he was a bit mollified this week when he understood what I’d been trying to tell him about adding more.

This unit has probably been Ian’s favorite thing we’ve done in school so far.  He can’t seem to learn enough about the body, and I’m looking forward to the rest of our study this term.

Is it just me, or was October the longest month ever?  I can’t begin to describe how thankful I am to be in November at last.  We ended October with a great week of school.  I normally try to do a little history and science twice a week, but Ian was so into what we were doing that we ended up spending one long day on science and then one long day on history.  I don’t know if we’ll adjust our schedule permanently, but it was great to see him enjoying our subjects so much.

Bible

This week in Old Story New we looked at the story of Jesus clearing the temple.  Since we’re not doing a separate program in the morning anymore I’d like to find a way to do some notebooking related to our evening devotions, but I haven’t figured that out yet.

We finished Prudence and the Millers.  Ian has really enjoyed these books, and we still have one more, but I think I’m going to save it for later while I figure out how I want to use our morning Bible time.

Math

This week in Ian’s MEP lessons (Year 2, #56-60) we worked on double-digit addition crossing tens.  Ian’s main struggle seems to be related to not knowing his basic addition facts.  We have tried several methods to help with these (all basically fancy flashcards on the computer) that just have not worked for him because they were missing an element of fun.  So I went searching for some sort of game that could help his addition facts become more automatic.  I found Medieval Math, a free game he can play on my Kindle Fire, and so far it seems to be a hit.  That is, he really likes it, but only time will tell if it helps fulfill its purpose.

Literature/Ambleside Online

In addition to our regular Ambleside Online, Year 1 reading for Week 15, we read the d’Aulaires’ Pocahontas (one of the free reads we need to get to this week).  Ian and I were both fascinated by the story, so then we watched Animated Hero Classics: Pocahontas, which went along with the book really well. (Ian also wants to watch the Disney Pocahontas, so we’re saving that for our next family movie night.  I’ve never seen Pocahontas II, but since they’re both available on Netflix right now we may watch that one as well to see how it compares to the details of her life that we read about.)

History Cycle

This week for our study of Ancient Greece we finished Our Little Athenian Cousin of Long Ago by Julia Darrow Cowles and began Our Little Spartan Cousin of Long Ago (also part of the original e-book bundle from Yesterday’s Classics.)

While I read, Ian worked on two notebook pages using lapbook elements from Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus (PreK-K unit) and Homeschool Share.  I’ve never wanted to venture into the world of lapbooks because I didn’t want to have to figure out what to do with them afterward, but Ian does love creating a notebook, so this seemed like a fun way to incorporate the learning aspects of lapbooking.  He loved having pages with things to open and flip through.

We were reading a chapter about Hiero competing in the Olympics so the page on events in the ancient Olympics was perfect.  He pasted on the appropriate figure from the History Through the Ages-Collection CD so there would be dates on the page.

Also, because we finished the book on Athens, I had him write about what he remembered about Athenian life (using a page from biblestoryprintables.com).  I thought it was interesting that the details that stood out to him most were about how girls were rarely allowed to leave the house but just stayed home to spin and sew.

Science

Ian is really getting into our lessons in The Human Body from God’s Design for Life.  This week we read lessons 4-7 covering the skeletal system.  Ian cut out “Sandy Skeleton” (from the curriculum CD-ROM) and put it together with brads.

Then we read pages 4-5 in The Usborne Human Body Sticker Book and Ian placed all the stickers.

That alone would have been enough, but I decided to get out the My Body unit from Teacher Created Resources (available on CurrClick or Amazon).  We used part of it before (when we rowed Madeline), but now it’s right at Ian’s level.  I’m going to try to do the whole book (or most of it anyway, as I can tie it into our lessons).

The first thing we had to do was trace an outline of his body on a large paper.  We’ll use it for each lesson in the unit, adding different parts of the body as we learn about them.  This week we did the pages on the skeleton.  I had Ian read aloud the page “My Skeleton” (which was mostly a review of things I’d read to him from our textbook and the sticker book so he was able to make out even words like “ligaments” and “cartilage”), and put it in his science notebook along with his “Sandy Skeleton.”  Then he cut out the bones on the other pages and glued them onto the body tracing we had made earlier.

 

As I look back at this week I realize that what we didn’t do is almost as significant to me as what we did do, so I’m reflecting a little on some of the adjustments I’m going to be making to our curriculum/schedule.

Bible

This week I tried to get back into Bible Road Trip: Year Three (we’re on Mark), but I found myself dragging my feet and had to take a look at what was going on.  I decided that it’s just not a great fit for us right now.  There is so much that I love about this curriculum, but I think we’ll get a lot more out of it in a few years.  We’ve been been trying the Lower Grammar lessons, but they’re still just a bit too advanced for Ian, and I’d rather use the preschool/Kindergarten level as part of a multi-age family Bible program than a stand alone curriculum.

I have a couple ideas for what we’ll do for our morning Bible times, but things may be hit and miss for a while, especially with the holidays coming up.  We’re still going through Old Story New by Marty Machowski as a family in the evenings (this week we were on Week 7, which talks about the wedding feast at Cana and Jesus turning water into wine), so I’m trying not to feel like I’m neglecting anyone’s spiritual education too much.

(We also set aside Prudence and the Millers when vacation, sickness, and baby woes disrupted our schedule.  We’re pretty close to the end, so I want to get back to that as well.)

Math

We had a field trip on Monday, but I really didn’t want to get behind in math, so we plowed through lessons 51-55 (Mathematics Enhancement Programme (Year 2) and just didn’t do any sort of extras.  Ian seems to be catching on a little more, though he still gets confused sometimes when we’re adding double digit numbers.  I’m not worried, however.  He’s really close to getting it, and I think MEP’s spiral approach will do exactly what it’s designed to do.  In a few months, I’m confident he will have a solid, lasting understanding of everything we’re working on now.

Literature/Ambleside Online

We finally got completely caught up with our reading from Ambleside Online, Year 1.  (Yay!)  When we read in Our Island Story about Hengist and Horst cutting a leather thong so long it encircled a large piece of land, Ian enjoyed cutting a paper in a spiral and seeing how the thinner we made the strip, the longer it ended up being.

History Cycle

We didn’t do anything in our history cycle besides reading chapters 9-12 in Our Little Athenian Cousin of Long Ago by Julia Darrow Cowles.

Science

Ever since he was very small, Ian has had a fascination with all things related to the human body, so I’ve been looking forward to the science I scheduled for this term. This week we started The Human Body, our second of the three books in God’s Design for Life.

We read through lessons 1-3 and did a couple of the suggested activities for Ian’s notebook.  For lesson 1 Ian drew a self-portrait as he looked at his face in the mirror.  I love the details he noticed (like freckles, various parts of his eyes, and his uvula).  We read Psalm 138:13-18, and I pray that as we study the body this term, he will gain a new understanding that he really is “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

The activity for Lesson 2 involved creating a “Body Wheel” that describes the various systems of the body.  Most of the terms don’t mean much to Ian yet, but we read through all the descriptions just to start building familiarity.

For lesson 3 on cells, I decided to skip the suggested worksheet. Instead Ian enjoyed examining several new slides on our microscope.  We also watched Bill Nye the Science Guy: Cells and went through pages 16-17 in The Usborne Human Body Sticker Book.  Ian really likes sticker books and carefully put all the stickers in the correct places after I had read the pages to him.

Extras

The highlight of our week was definitely our field trip to Legoland on Monday.  In addition to having fun on the rides and admiring the amazing Lego brick creations throughout the park, both boys really enjoyed the class we attended (Simple Machines 1).  They worked through a book building specific models and then had a chance to use what they learned to create their own “ride.”  I was impressed by the class and really glad we took the time to attend in the midst of a day of fun.

Upcoming Reviews

Our Schoolhouse Review Crew season is wrapping up, so while I may do a few book reviews over the next few months, that will be about it.

 

The emotional and physical toll of my miscarriage affected our whole week, especially when it came to school.  We limped through and did manage to do something every day, but never even touched on our Bible lessons outside of family devotions in the evening.  (What?  Whatever happened to Bible first?  What sort of priorities does that show?  Believe me, I needed a lot of grace for myself.)  The week flew by quickly, however, and here’s what we did.

Math

Math is the one subject I tend to stress about getting behind in, mostly because we started Year 2 of the Mathematics Enhancement Programme a few weeks after all our other subjects for first grade.  Last year I had taken some time off from Year 1 when Ian was struggling, which meant we ended working on it all the way through our summer break and then into the first few weeks of this year.  I’d really like to finish up Year 2 when we finish the rest of our school year, but that means we don’t have a lot of wiggle room.

This week Ian got through lessons 46-50.  As I’ve said in the past few weeks, he’s starting to get frustrated by some of the concepts we’re working on, primarily adding and subtracting 2 digit numbers.  To help him visualize the numbers he’s working with I tried having him use math blocks this week.  It was really helpful for adding 10’s and 1’s, and I think we’ll keep using these until he’s better able to keep the place values straight in his mind.

Literature/Ambleside Online

We started term two of Ambleside Online, Year 1, which meant new poetry selections.  This term we’re reading the poems of A. A. Milne. We started through When We Were Very Young this week, and if we have time in the next few months we’ll move onto Now We Are Six.  (If we don’t get through both books during this term, I think I’ll save it for summertime because I don’t want to rush through these delightful poems.)  I’ve owned copies of these books since my childhood, but I’ve only ever read a few scattered poems over the years.  I really enjoyed getting into them this week, and they’re especially fun for my boys because the poems occasionally mention Christopher Robin.

History Cycle

This week for our study of ancient Greece we continued to read through Our Little Athenian Cousin of Long Ago by Julia Darrow Cowles.  One day while I read, Ian worked through the drawing instructions for the Parthenon from Draw and Write Through History: Greece and Rome and added that to his history notebook.

Science

We finished up The World of Animals this week, reading about microscopic creatures like protists and bacteria, (which aren’t really considered animals, but neither are they plants, so this was as good a time as any to talk about them).  It was a great week for getting out our microscope to look at both prepared slides and homemade ones with water from the stream at our local park.

Ian made a picture of a paramecium for his science notebook (although my fuzzy brain couldn’t remember where I had put my yarn, so he just drew the cilia rather than cutting little pieces of yarn as the book suggested).

Extras

This was our last week reviewing Middlebury Interactive Languages (Spanish K-2), so Ian completed a few more lessons.  He has really enjoyed this program, so I intend to finish the rest of the units in the semester he’s working on before we go back to our Salsa lessons for Spanish.

We took school pictures one morning this week, and since that spoiled our regular schedule for the day I decided to take the kids to our local Children’s Museum.  They’ve been begging to go back, and everyone enjoyed the current exhibit on space (as well as all our other favorite permanent exhibits).

Upcoming Reviews

We’re currently getting familiar with the following products.  Watch for reviews soon!

• Middlebury Interactive Languages (Spanish K-2)
• Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls from New Liberty Videos
• The Legend of St. Nicholas by Dandi Daley Mackall