The First Week Down - September 7-10, 2004
Well, we started on Tuesday, and we were off to a great start! What a difference a summer makes. My biggest prayer this summer was for an increase in enthusiasm about writing. This prayer was answered in a BIG way after we sat down to write about our experiment with conductors. Experiments are always big in our house, but the follow-up write-up sucked all the fun out of the room! Not this week. We attached aluminum foil to a D-size battery on both ends and connected it to a flashlight bulb by wrapping one end around the bottom with a clothespin (We used Physics for Every Kid by Van Cleave). We used coins, paper, rubber band, and knife to see which were conductors and which were non-conductors.
After it was all said and done, I had them draw a picture of the experiment and write whatever they wanted about it. Michael (6th grade) did a step-by-step description that was almost a page! Paul did about a half of a page of very coherent writing. Hallelujah! Writing is underway at the oue household, and I am doing the happy dance!
I am also continuing through about 100 pages of the Usborne Internet-Linked Science Encyclopedia in the sections on "Energy, Forces, and Motion" and "Light, Sound, and Electricity." We are also watching two BrainPop (www.brainpop.com) videos a day. I was going to subscribe to their family plan, but it is $80 now! OUCH! I will just limit them to the two free videos a day. So thorough and reinforcing of the science concepts. BrainPop is first-rate in my opinion.
We also started reading The Story of the World: Volume 3. We learned about the Moghul Empire and the reason behind why the Taj Mahal was built. I found a picture of the Taj Mahal on a website, and we pasted it in our Sonlight Book of Time and on our Knowledge Quest Wall TimeLine for the Early Modern Period (1600-1850). They each wrote a little paragraph and colored a Knowledge Quest map after I read to them. Again, history is going to be quite the hit.
We also read about all the American Indians in a little Gorsline book just to review what we learned last year. We are also praying through the American Indian Prayer Guide. We prayed for the Inuits last week.
Bible is our favorite, yet simple Lady Bird Bible Story Book. We are also making a movie of the book of John using the Jesus in the Spotlight inductive study for kids by Kay Arthur. We made "Story Boards" of John 1 and will look at an actual movie of the book of John that has word for word from the book. I thought this was a fantastic way to reinforce the book and the concept of making a movie!
The kids are really excited about their new zip up notebooks. It came with pencils, pens, ruler, scissors, and a calculator! All for $10 at Fred Meyer! They had fun organizing all their sections.
Bob Jones Math is going to be so nice. Michael was so bored with Math U See, and he hasn't complained after two days of math. I can see that it is organized it a much better fashion, has more interesting application questions, and I will be able to overlap some things with the two kids even though they are two grades apart. I will just have to rearrange the order a bit in their books, but I don't think this will cause serious problems to either of them.
This is my second year of Spectrum Spelling for Michael, and he does really well at this. Paul was a bit apprehensive, but I told him that he could write his answers on a white board instead of on notebook paper, and he was tickled.
This is my second year of Daily Grams (Easy Grammar), and they both love the simplicity of this. I do too. I am so thankful to Michelle Briggs for telling me about this useful series. They get little doses of 10 minutes a day of punctuation, capitalization, parts of speech, dictionary skills, library skills, and sentence combining. I am also supplementing it with Nitty-Gritty Grammar, and they love the cartoons sprinkled throughout the book.
In addition to all of this, I am reading them the book Rascal by Sterling North. It is the true story of the author as a boy in the early 1900's. I am using my subscription to The Arrow (www.bravewriter.com) to do their copywork and dictation with exerpts from this book. They will do this in their new composition books. They really enjoy this. Michael's cursive has improved tons and Paul's manuscript is more and more legible.
I noticed Paul reading in bed a few times this week. He is reading Calvin and Hobbes, Hank the Cowdog, and The Bionicle book series. Michael is still reading the bedtime story of the Beverly Cleary Ramona Books (He finished the Henry books in the middle of the summer) to Paul before he goes to bed, Hank the Cowdog books throughout the day, and Calvin and Hobbes during reading times.
Paul has started doing Piano Discovery. He got through 5 out of the 11 lessons in 2 days! We are still trying to figure out music forMichael. He says tuba, and we wonder where he could get lessons for this. Still praying and looking. Guitar is another option. We will also be listening to The Time-Life Story of Great Music records starting in the Baroque era. I will probably resurrect the Classical Kids CD's too.
Art is fun. I got this great book called Usborne Introduction to Art. It is internet-linked, and it is FANTASTIC. Colleen recommended it, and she says we are even in that I introduced her to Story of the World a few years ago, and she introduced me to this book during the summer. We will learn much about looking at art this year, and I hope to take them to a really GOOD art museum, but I am not sure where there is one in the Pacific Northwest! We got a kick out of looking up the painting entitled, "This is not a Pipe." I hope to have them write about this.
We did just a teeny bit of Spanish. I have Rosetta Stone Explorer, and they will go to Spanish class in North Albany in the end of September. We will combine this with our Shut-In's Book Delivery since one of our people is right on the way to North Albany, and it is out of the way other times. So efficient! This will be every other Wednesday. George will take them on the off-Wednesdays.
I will also do a modified version of The Vocabulary Vine for Greek-Latin studies. I am not going to go into quite the detail that her notecards go into, but I will have them do flash cards to memorize the roots. We will probably do this about two days a week.
Still don't know if I will use the Intermediate Language Lessons by Serl. I have mixed emotions about it. It reminds me too much of Simply Grammar which I really disliked. I might pick and chose what I take out of there or sell the book. Haven't decided on that one.
For exercise, we are going to do Homeschool Swimming from 2-2:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we will see if the chlorine is too much for Michael's skin. Paul will also do the Volleyball Clinic on September 25th, and we will see if that leads to games. I can't believe Soccor is $200! Volleyball is only $15!
Oh, we also went to a presentation of dictionaries to the 4th grade homeschoolers at the Republican Headquarters on Friday. That was fun.
Still to be worked out is which plays we will go to and who we will go with to the plays. Mary Beth hasn't said anything about doing it again this year. I have seen that the ones in Corvallis are Fantastic Mr. Fox by Raold Dahle, Treasure Island, and The Seven Voyages of Sinbad. The ones out of town don't interest me as much. This will save time and gas money if we stick to just the plays in town! It was so fun to go to the 5 we went to out of town last year, but I just don't see ones that really grab me this time! We will also try the symphany with the kids.
Kids that came over this week were Jacob and Megan and Sam and Kaylin.
Service this week included helping Teala move into her new sorority and delivering Dial-A-Book books.
Well that was long, but it is my first Blog! This should be a fun way to keep track of our homeschool year.
After it was all said and done, I had them draw a picture of the experiment and write whatever they wanted about it. Michael (6th grade) did a step-by-step description that was almost a page! Paul did about a half of a page of very coherent writing. Hallelujah! Writing is underway at the oue household, and I am doing the happy dance!
I am also continuing through about 100 pages of the Usborne Internet-Linked Science Encyclopedia in the sections on "Energy, Forces, and Motion" and "Light, Sound, and Electricity." We are also watching two BrainPop (www.brainpop.com) videos a day. I was going to subscribe to their family plan, but it is $80 now! OUCH! I will just limit them to the two free videos a day. So thorough and reinforcing of the science concepts. BrainPop is first-rate in my opinion.
We also started reading The Story of the World: Volume 3. We learned about the Moghul Empire and the reason behind why the Taj Mahal was built. I found a picture of the Taj Mahal on a website, and we pasted it in our Sonlight Book of Time and on our Knowledge Quest Wall TimeLine for the Early Modern Period (1600-1850). They each wrote a little paragraph and colored a Knowledge Quest map after I read to them. Again, history is going to be quite the hit.
We also read about all the American Indians in a little Gorsline book just to review what we learned last year. We are also praying through the American Indian Prayer Guide. We prayed for the Inuits last week.
Bible is our favorite, yet simple Lady Bird Bible Story Book. We are also making a movie of the book of John using the Jesus in the Spotlight inductive study for kids by Kay Arthur. We made "Story Boards" of John 1 and will look at an actual movie of the book of John that has word for word from the book. I thought this was a fantastic way to reinforce the book and the concept of making a movie!
The kids are really excited about their new zip up notebooks. It came with pencils, pens, ruler, scissors, and a calculator! All for $10 at Fred Meyer! They had fun organizing all their sections.
Bob Jones Math is going to be so nice. Michael was so bored with Math U See, and he hasn't complained after two days of math. I can see that it is organized it a much better fashion, has more interesting application questions, and I will be able to overlap some things with the two kids even though they are two grades apart. I will just have to rearrange the order a bit in their books, but I don't think this will cause serious problems to either of them.
This is my second year of Spectrum Spelling for Michael, and he does really well at this. Paul was a bit apprehensive, but I told him that he could write his answers on a white board instead of on notebook paper, and he was tickled.
This is my second year of Daily Grams (Easy Grammar), and they both love the simplicity of this. I do too. I am so thankful to Michelle Briggs for telling me about this useful series. They get little doses of 10 minutes a day of punctuation, capitalization, parts of speech, dictionary skills, library skills, and sentence combining. I am also supplementing it with Nitty-Gritty Grammar, and they love the cartoons sprinkled throughout the book.
In addition to all of this, I am reading them the book Rascal by Sterling North. It is the true story of the author as a boy in the early 1900's. I am using my subscription to The Arrow (www.bravewriter.com) to do their copywork and dictation with exerpts from this book. They will do this in their new composition books. They really enjoy this. Michael's cursive has improved tons and Paul's manuscript is more and more legible.
I noticed Paul reading in bed a few times this week. He is reading Calvin and Hobbes, Hank the Cowdog, and The Bionicle book series. Michael is still reading the bedtime story of the Beverly Cleary Ramona Books (He finished the Henry books in the middle of the summer) to Paul before he goes to bed, Hank the Cowdog books throughout the day, and Calvin and Hobbes during reading times.
Paul has started doing Piano Discovery. He got through 5 out of the 11 lessons in 2 days! We are still trying to figure out music forMichael. He says tuba, and we wonder where he could get lessons for this. Still praying and looking. Guitar is another option. We will also be listening to The Time-Life Story of Great Music records starting in the Baroque era. I will probably resurrect the Classical Kids CD's too.
Art is fun. I got this great book called Usborne Introduction to Art. It is internet-linked, and it is FANTASTIC. Colleen recommended it, and she says we are even in that I introduced her to Story of the World a few years ago, and she introduced me to this book during the summer. We will learn much about looking at art this year, and I hope to take them to a really GOOD art museum, but I am not sure where there is one in the Pacific Northwest! We got a kick out of looking up the painting entitled, "This is not a Pipe." I hope to have them write about this.
We did just a teeny bit of Spanish. I have Rosetta Stone Explorer, and they will go to Spanish class in North Albany in the end of September. We will combine this with our Shut-In's Book Delivery since one of our people is right on the way to North Albany, and it is out of the way other times. So efficient! This will be every other Wednesday. George will take them on the off-Wednesdays.
I will also do a modified version of The Vocabulary Vine for Greek-Latin studies. I am not going to go into quite the detail that her notecards go into, but I will have them do flash cards to memorize the roots. We will probably do this about two days a week.
Still don't know if I will use the Intermediate Language Lessons by Serl. I have mixed emotions about it. It reminds me too much of Simply Grammar which I really disliked. I might pick and chose what I take out of there or sell the book. Haven't decided on that one.
For exercise, we are going to do Homeschool Swimming from 2-2:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we will see if the chlorine is too much for Michael's skin. Paul will also do the Volleyball Clinic on September 25th, and we will see if that leads to games. I can't believe Soccor is $200! Volleyball is only $15!
Oh, we also went to a presentation of dictionaries to the 4th grade homeschoolers at the Republican Headquarters on Friday. That was fun.
Still to be worked out is which plays we will go to and who we will go with to the plays. Mary Beth hasn't said anything about doing it again this year. I have seen that the ones in Corvallis are Fantastic Mr. Fox by Raold Dahle, Treasure Island, and The Seven Voyages of Sinbad. The ones out of town don't interest me as much. This will save time and gas money if we stick to just the plays in town! It was so fun to go to the 5 we went to out of town last year, but I just don't see ones that really grab me this time! We will also try the symphany with the kids.
Kids that came over this week were Jacob and Megan and Sam and Kaylin.
Service this week included helping Teala move into her new sorority and delivering Dial-A-Book books.
Well that was long, but it is my first Blog! This should be a fun way to keep track of our homeschool year.
posted by Carol Ann Weaver @ 8:12 PM
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