WEEKLY REPORT - Week 11 - November 15-19, 2010

If I could sum up our week in three words, I would say Clocks, Franks, and Flowers. Diva learned number 11 and letter K. Boy earned Cub Scouts belt loops in Reading and Writing, Horseback Riding, Bicycling, Nutrition, Flag Football, and Tennis. He got a prize too, and he was proud of his accomplishments.

ENGLISH

In PLL, Boy did more copywork, which helped him practice sentence structure, syntax, penmanship, and grammar.

PHONICS
We're done with reviewing Tanglewood Phonics! I still believe we should continue some, so I'm thinking of buying Simply Phonics Book 3 by Shoelace Books.

READING
We read pages 112 to 119 of Tales of King Arthur, and although it's disheartening to see Camelot torn apart by hatred and jealousy, it's still an exciting read. It's sad to see King Arthur pitted against Sir Lancelot.

LITERATURE
On day 2 I read to him from Favorite Medieval Tales. As we were covering the Franks in our History studies, I read to him The Song of Roland. It was a sad story about a man of courage who died saving his people, which makes it timeless. Boy took it well, and listened in rapt.

HISTORY
SOTW Chapter 11: On day 1 we listened to Clovis, the Ex-Barbarian, discussed it, and Boy answered review questions. The second day we listened to Four Tribes, One Empire. We discussed again, and narrated and did mapwork.

MATHEMATICS
New topic: Clocks! I have tried unsuccessfully to teach Boy clocks since he was three, but I think he's finally catching on. MM 1B p. 42-48 including computer games this week. Now Boy not only knows the time to the hour and half hour, but he's gaining an understanding of the concept of clocks, and how the minute hand goes around. I credit Maria Miller for doing a great job with explaining the concepts in a way children really understand. My Big Picture Boy really benefits from this.

GEOGRAPHY

No Geography this week. Waiting on Daddy to teach about surveying and finding your bearings. Too complicated now that I'm in my third trimester LOL

NATURAL SCIENCE
On day 1 we watched a Happy Scientist video (love him!). On day 2 we read Nature Smart and learned about Winter Wildflowers. On day 3 the kids went on a Nature Walk with Daddy and picked green flowers (I know, we didn't know that those were flowers). They came home and Boy sketched them and identified one, using the book Florida Keys Wildflowers as our guide. On day 4 Boy did the stickerbook again.

SPELLING
Boy finished Lesson 9 and went on to complete Lesson 10 in the remaining three days.

THEOLOGY
In Theology, I read Brothers Jealous of Joseph. I find Boy gets more of a background story and depth with these Bible stories. They are right up to his level of understanding.

POETRY
Every day, either I read aloud or Boy read the poem "Buck In The Snow" by Edna St. Vincent Millay. It is a poem about death and its sudden tragedy. It's also about the majesty of nature.

SPANISH
We did Spanish twice a week this week. The kids watched Muzzy disc 4-5 a few times in one day, and Boy learned a lot. He's using vocabulary from the program. I reinforce and talk to him in Spanish during Spanish lessons. Now if I can only find those written exercises.. ugh.

PICTURE STUDY
This week we continued to learn about Giotto di Bondone, and found that his depictions were leaning more and more towards realism and conveying emotion than ever as he progressed.

COMPOSER STUDY
We keep reading about Tchaikovsky, and learned that he used real cannons in his 1812 Overture. Boy enjoyed the piece tremendously (I searched it on YouTube). It was awesome! The Mike Venezia cartoon was hilarious.

ART
This week Daddy printed out a favorite character of the show Ben 10, cut it in pieces, and had Boy draw each piece separately so he could concentrate on the shapes. Diva did the same thing. As usual, she loves

WEEKLY REPORT - Week 8 - October 25-29 Happy Halloween!

We only did four days of school this week, as it was Husband's birthday on Wednesday. It was fun to be able to give him all of us for the whole day. Almost the whole day, that is, as the kids still had taekwondo and ballet. Daughter 1 had a Halloween party at her ballet class, and Husband didn't want her to miss it. She had so much fun. Son is practicing for his yellow belt test coming up soon, so missing class would have been detrimental to him as well.

ENGLISH
We did themed Halloween word search and a word scramble printed off Enchanted Learning. Son enjoyed himself as well as learning inadvertently how to spell Halloween words like skull, pumpkin, ghost, etc. On Friday we did a lesson in PLL where he had to explain, in correct English, how to take care of pets.

PHONICS
We covered Lessons 18 and 19 in Tanglewood Phonics review.

READING
Tales of King Arthur continues as thrilling as ever, getting darker as Morgan Le Fay carries out her evil plan to have Arthur killed by his own sword. It's a challenging read for Son, but the plot is so exciting he hardly notices. He reads it aloud while I explain vocabulary pertinent to the story, but otherwise he's improving greatly. There are some big words in there for him! We started on page 67, and ended at page 79 this week.

LITERATURE
Instead of Pinocchio, we read The Legend of Saint Nicholas by Demi this week. We revisited the Byzantine Empire as well as explored the legends that have immortalized St. Nicholas into the Sinterklaas we cherish and celebrate each December 5-6. Even though I've been putting out my shoe for gifts for as long as I remember, I didn't know exactly how the legend came to be. The book was very interesting. Some of it was over Son's head (I had to explain what patron saint was even though we're Roman Catholic), but the beautiful drawings managed to hold Son's interest, especially the relevance.

HISTORY
We went to Early Medieval China this time, where we explored the Great Dynasties (Chapter 8 of SOTW2), specifically the Sui and the Tang Dynasties. Son was fascinated that gunpowder was accidentally discovered by Chinese scientists attempting to make gold. This is what he narrated. It's interesting what children take from the story. Son really likes narrating now. He even has titles for his narrations. I would like to include some of his narrations here when I get the chance. He also colored the Tang warrior page and did the mapwork.

MATHEMATICS
Not Son's favorite subject, as he has to think. I like it, as he has to think. Still practicing place value, albeit in more subtle ways, number charts and patterns, from p. 29-34 Math Mammoth 1B. He has these lightbulb moments where he sees the big picture. I like this program. It is everything I was looking for in Asian Math, except that it's a heck of a lot easier for me to teach. In addition, Son is learning gradually to take control of his own education as the directions are written to him.

NATURAL SCIENCE
Continuing with our theme of wildflowers, we did the experiment about insects and colors as mentioned in Kingfisher's Young Discoverers' Flowers, Trees, and Fruits. I cut out four squares out of cardboard, then four squares out of colored construction paper: one blue, one white, one yellow, and one red. Then I let Son and Daughter glue the construction paper squares onto the cardboard pieces. I helped Daughter fill empty bottle caps with sugar solution from a dropper. Son was able to do it himself. We placed each filled bottle cap on each colored square, and we set the squares on the outside porch to observe. We observed that the ants (the only insects we saw) went for the white one first, to our surprise, then the blue one, the yellow one, and the red one last. We think we're going to repeat the experiment and try this in another location, perhaps the backyard. Son also drew the parts of a flower (including stamen and stygma), and we went on a Nature Walk to find pink flowers. He sketched it in his sketchbook (as did Daughter in hers), and we identified the specimens we found as Blackbead (ubiquitous in the Florida Keys), but we could not find the second one, which was extremely tiny. It may not be pink after all. I suspect it's in the red/orange family, to be explored later. We found no other pink wildflowers. Son found one, but it was from the purple family from last week. We also were witness to the pollination process, I believe it was a cicada that was flying from one Blackbead to the other. Blackbead has a pleasant fragrance, but we found the plumeria (not a wildflower, or native if I'm not mistaken), has a beautiful fragrance. I do love plumeria, or frangipani, as it's more commonly called here. It reminds me of leis in the Hawaiian islands.

SPELLING
Son spelled short 'e' words this week, and completed his lesson in Spectrum Spelling. No dictation this week.

THEOLOGY
We read aloud The Trickster Tricked, as poor Jacob was tricked into working seven years to only marry Leah instead of his beloved Rachel. He still had to work another seven to marry Rachel! At least he became rich and successful, and Son was excited to learn of Joseph's birth. Rachel had finally conceived a son.

POETRY
Son finally recited Afternoon on a Hill by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Two weeks in the making, but Son got it down pat. This is the longest poem he's ever memorized. Three four-line stanzas.

SPANISH
Son watched Muzzy, copied a two sentences from the Muzzy Storybook and decided to copy "Me gusta Ben 10" as well, which means "I like Ben 10" (his favorite TV show that he only watches on DVD).

PICTURE STUDY
We continued reading about Giotto's life.

COMPOSER STUDY
In reading about Tchaikosvky, we find out how he incorporated folk songs into his music, and although he wasn't the only one to do it, that he had a flair of doing so.

ART
In keeping with the Drawing with Children, the children drew horses this time, not an easy feat and not bad first tries. Afterward, they wanted to do their respective heroes: Son drew Humongosaur (from Ben 10, what else? ;)), Daughter drew a princess.

WEEKLY REPORT - WEEK 3, September 20-24, 2010

I'm a bit behind in my posting, but here's Week 3.

ENGLISH

We did Lessons 4-6, and Son, to my surprise, really enjoyed dictation. He liked the challenge of memorizing the spelling of the words, then writing the sentence including these words on his own. We use the Charlotte Mason method of dictation. He's doing well, especially considering it was his first ever try at doing this! Very happy with our gentle yet effective this method looks to be.

PHONICS

We reviewed Lesson 5 and 6 orally. We're reviewing Tanglewood Phonics, which is a free program you can download at the Tanglewoodeducation.com site.

READING

He finished reading Fantastic Mr. Fox the first day of this week, and a few days later we all watched the movie featuring George Clooney and Meryl Streep as the voices of the Mr. and Mrs. Fox. The only way I can describe this movie is quirky and cute. Our youngest enjoyed it the most. We all did, but she was riveted. Son contrasted the book and the film, and found that the original story was simple, as they added a lot to the movie.

LITERATURE

Chapters 11 through 14 this week. Son looks forward to Pinocchio every day, and I find myself intrigued as well. It's tempting to read ahead, but I want to share in the experience with him. The story has many twists and turns, which keeps him on the edge of his couch seat.

HISTORY

SOTW Ch. 3, Christianity Comes to Britain. We had so much fun this week, and Son really understands monks and monasteries. I have a much deeper understanding as well, and their role in recording and preserving the literary treasures. Husband and Son made a cross out of foam and tied it with a simple rope for him to wear around his neck, and we visited the Usborne Quicklinks (corresponding Internet pages to the Usborne World History Encyclopedia) and delved rather deeply into monastic daily life. We listened to Gregorian chants, saw ruins of old monasteries and monasteries still functioning today. He marveled at how strict their lives were (at least for the first few hundred years), and in took a quiz testing his knowledge. He learned about Gregory and the pretty children, and how Gregory told Augustine to spread the news of Christianity to all the Angles in Britain. I find it interesting how quickly and easily the Anglo Saxons converted to Christianity from paganism.

MATH

This week took a short break from Math Mammoth (after regular days), and focused on money. I printed off pages from Enchanted Learning and we reviewed pennies, dimes, nickels and quarters, and how to count and add them.

NATURAL SCIENCE

The focus this week was on human bones and the skeleton. For us it was a review, as we studied the Human Body last year. We revisited the joints, how they move and how in turn muscles move them. After reading his Kingfisher Human Body encyclopedia (four pages), Son rebuilt our miniature human skeleton and spent quite some time manipulating it.

SPELLING

Finished the writing part of Lesson 2, then went on to do all of Lesson 3. New set of words. This reminds me, I'm going to quiz him on both Lesson 3 and Lesson 4 next week.

THEOLOGY

We discussed the other five commandments: do not worship other gods, do not say God's name in vain, etc. It seemed pretty self-explanatory and easier to understand for Son than the last five commands.

GEOGRAPHY

I read Maps and Mapping Chapter 2 to Son, and he was able to give good directions from our house to Grandma's house and Publix (the local supermarket).

HEALTH & SAFETY

We discussed preventing accidents, e.g. seeing a toy on a flight of stairs (removing it), seeing a baby playing with something she can choke with, etc.

PICTURE STUDY

We are reading from Getting To Know The World's Greatest Artists, Giotto. We examined typical figures from the medieval times, which looked like flat cut-outs with mysterious eyes, without any continuation or backgrounds. We read that Giotto was the first painter to change all that.

ART

This week the kids practiced the five elements of drawing. Daughter participates in art as the program is for 3-9

POETRY

We continued with the biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay, and read about her childhood, and how her mother Cora made sure she had plenty of books and time to write her poetry. She started writing poetry at five! What a talented lady.

COPYWORK

This week Son copied from three of Millay's poems, a fact about bones, and History (about Augustine and the other monks to came to settle in Britain).

SINGING

We actually skipped this this week. We were thrown off by the change in plans, when Daughter had swimming lessons that Friday.

I'm baaaack!

I haven't posted since September 28? What a crime. A shame indeed. We've done sooo many interesting projects, read so many engaging books, went on field trips, played games, traveled and now we're here.. 28 weeks into our school year. I still have at least 8 weeks left, and I'm not going to let my previous absence deter me.

For the most part, things have been going well. However, ds has done much complaining overall, and we have listened to his complaints. He wanted more projects, we're working hard to offer him even more projects. Who would have thought my son liked hands on stuff? Hands on is not easy for me, but I'm starting to see its educational and emotional value, and enjoying the projects as well. We work on projects in History (SOTW-1), Natural Science (Young Discoverers Series books), and ds is in Cub Scouts, where he does work often on crafts and projects as well.

If I could sum up what ds enjoys doing, it would be reading and projects. This is why I'm seriously considering (but not sold yet) using WinterPromise's American Story I in Third Year. However, I love doing my own thing and planning my own books, as time-consuming as it can be. I may just get a few good project books and have a go without an actual curriculum. Don't fence me in is my motto.

I'm busy planning the following year, ds' Second Year (I prefer using Years as opposed to grades, a la Harry Potter). So far I have lots of juicy living books I can't wait to sink my teeth into and know ds will love (he loved the books selections in Ancient History and literature this year). Here are the sure materials I will be using:

Story of the World Volume 2 - The Middle Ages and Activity Guide (SOTW -1 is a big hit, for both ds and me)
Poetry for Young People Series: Edna Vincent Millay and Rudyard Kipling
The World's Greatest Artists Series (Mike Venezia): Giotto and Titian
The World's Greatest Composers Series (same author as above): Beethoven and Tchaikovsky
Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding (BFSU) K-2: 12 more threads
Primary Language Lessons by Emma Serl and Teacher's Guide put out by My Father's World
Natural Speller
Young Discoverers Series: Butterflies, Bugs and Worms (Insect studies this year)
Florida Wildflowers
Eyewitness Explorers Rocks and Minerals
English From the Roots Up

Items I'm still waffling about:

Spectrum Phonics 3rd Grade
Spectrum Spelling 3rd Grade
MCP Math Book B
Miquon Math
MEP Math (free curriculum online)

MCP Math is going okay. It just may be that ds just doesn't like math (like I did - oops!). However, I notice he gets into doing math hands-on, I just don't teach math hands-on very well. To me, MCP Math works as a teacher, as the teacher's guide is excellent and provides hand-holding for a teacher who's insecure about teaching math. It fits me to a T. However, I can see how ds would find it boring, and tedious. I'm not entirely sure it gets the job done either. I wonder if he would understand concepts better if he had another program. On the other hand, I don't want to be constantly switching programs and as a result, end up with gaps. I do supplement with Miquon, but I need to step up and read the Annotations beforehand instead of just handing him a sheet. Do the Miquon activities with him, pique his interest, spark his learning. I think with Miquon I can do this. I like Miquon, even if it is a bit baffling at times.

MEP Math. My newest discovery. I'd heard about it, but didn't even give it the time of day as I didn't have a working printer from the computer I normally use. That problem solved, and MEP Math is a very attractive alternative, or supplement. As much I don't like the idea of juggling too many math programs, MEP appeals to me, and I think will appeal to ds as well. A big part of the attraction is that it's free online, so I can test it out, print out as many pages as I see fit, and have a go at it. Not sure how it will work to actually teach, though. What I've seen so far has been intriguing, and the worksheets look very, very interesting and would appeal to my ds.

I'm having ds take the test first, and see where he is. I had him take the Singapore placement test, and I wasn't pleased with the results. He scored as if all our 28 weeks didn't matter at all. as if he could start all the way at the bottom of Singapore. Not pleased at all. This is the reason I'm thinking perhaps MCP is not working as I thought it did. But then I see glimpses of understanding, and I'm not sure anymore. It could be simply that he's not ready developmentally, emotionally, to do the subtraction or to really get a grasp on the subject. I should know this, having been there myself.

Thus far, I believe trying out MEP is not going to hurt, and may even be beneficial. I think continuing MCP could be a good foundation for ds, and adding in Living Math book selections once in a while doesn't hurt either. Ds really digs the I Love Math series so far. We also do occasional Family Math games, which is hard for me to do, actually. I don't know why. When I make the effort, we both have fun.

Would MCP, Miquon, AND MEP be too much? Or perhaps do 4 days of intense worksheet math, and Fridays do a Family Math game, Miquon Math? Can I replace MCP with MEP? Should I? These are questions that I don't see any definite answer to just yet.