Weekly Update 15 -17

We have been doing school, I've just been really bad at keeping up this month.   December for us, like for so many others, is so busy.   On top of that we've had 10 day long colds with coughs that are still hanging around.  We haven't missed a day of school, though and tomorrow we finish up our 17th week of the school year.     I can't really go back and cover everything we did the last few weeks, but I will start back with detailed updates in January.   Happy holidays!

Christmas Books

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is reading Christmas books together.    I wrap the books and place them in a basket.   Starting on the first of December the girls take turns opening them each night before bed.  We then snuggle in and read the books.   They have a game where they try to find The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and The Twelve Days of Christmas.    Much celebrating ensues when one of those books are opened.    

Some of our other favorites are:

• The Story of Holly and Ivy
• Twas the Night Before Christmas
• Christmas Day in the Morning
• Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
• The Legend of the Poinsetta
• The Nutcracker 

I love Christmas traditions.   What are some of yours?

~Quick Week 14~

It took is a couple of days to get back into doing school after taking a week off.    We had a good week, although there was some fussing about math and writing.  The girls worked through all of their schoolwork.  

The highlights were:

Ramona working on the nervous system in science.   She is absolutely loving this unit.

Hermoine finding a niche in her Music curriculum.   She enjoys learning about music from other cultures.

Ramona started memorizing the poem "Learning to Read" by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, one of my favorite poems from the First Language Lessons series.

Hermoine designing and building an add on for the robot in her Lego League challenge.   She worked really hard on it.

Both girls also had their monthly Nature Center class.  

I'll post a more detailed update next week.  

~Week 13~

We just finished our 13th week of the school year and our last day of school for the next ten days.   The girls and I were getting a bit burned out so I decided to take all of next week off for the holiday.    We'll do some crafts, some reading, and enjoy some lazy time.   We're supposed to get a storm tonight and we're hoping the snow sticks enough that we can do some sledding as well.

Back to the weekly report, though.   Hermoine finished Singapore Math 6A by doing reviews all week.   When we start back up with school she'll be moving on to 6B.   She finished her work in Grammar, Geography, Writing and Spelling.  She did three lessons of Rosetta Stone Latin and two of Getting Started in Latin.  She did three pages of Logic, one in Mind Benders and two in Dr. Dooriddles.   She is nearly finished with Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry for Literature.    In Art she worked on a self portrait.  

She studied the digestion system and took a unit review in Science.    For Music she covered Schubert.

Ramona has been working on finding the perimeter and area in five and six sided polygons for math.  She did all her Geography, Writing, Spelling and Grammar.   She did two lessons of Rosetta Stone Spanish.   She did three pages of Logic.   She has been practicing typing by playing games at freetypinggame.net three times a week.   She has been working on Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder for Literature.   In Art she studied Van Gogh and is really enamored of his story and art.

She spent both days of Science doing a review and Unit Assessment on density, buoyancy, lift, drag, etc. 

For History both girls learned about China in the Middle Ages.  

~Week 11 & Week 12~

I didn't get around to posting last week so I'm doing one post for weeks 11 and 12.   The girls have done all of their school work, including an optional unit Ramona chose to do in K12 Science.    I'm just going to cover the highlights of the last two weeks, though.

Hermoine is working on distances, percentages and fraction word problems in math.     She also finished The Giver and Abigail Adams, Girl of Colonial Days for her literature selections.   She is now reading Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry.   In Science she worked on the circulatory and respiratory systems in the human body.  

Ramona has been working on angles in math.   She finished The First Four Years and moved onto Farmer Boy for literature.   In Science she has been learning about air pressure, density, buoyancy, etc.    In Art she is studying the Impressionists.   Degas, Monet, etc.  So far this is her favorite unit in Art.

Both girls covered the Magna Carta, the legend of Robin Hood and the Diaspora in history. 

~Week 10~

We had a busy week once again.    The girls had five different Girl Scout meetings/activities between them as well as attending the Library Homeschool Hour and their Nature Center Class.   We're looking forward to a lazy weekend.  

Hermoine has been working on reviews all week in math.    She's having a very easy time with math so far this year, which is nice because when we battle it is always over math.

She worked her way through Spelling, Grammar and Writing.   Her Writing was focusing on Venn Diagrams and how to use them in a persuasive paragraph.   She thinks Venn's are cool, so she had fun with this weeks lessons.    She is reading The Giver by Lois Lowry for Literature.

In Art she finished up her ancient seals and cartouches artwork and moved on to the significance of solar discs in ancient art.   I can't express how much she loves this art curriculum.

For Music she learned about traditional Caribbean music.   In Science she is working on cell division and osmosis.    She also did three lessons of Rosetta Stone Latin and two from Getting Started With Latin.   She worked on memorizing all the seas in Geography.  She is supposed to be working on the continents as well, but she knows them already.

Ramona also had reviews for four of the five days of math this week. The fifth day was working on bar graphs.

She did all of her Spelling, Writing and Handwriting.  In Grammar she is working on learning the complete subject vs the simple subject and the complete predicate vs the simple predicate.   She finished memorizing "Ozymandias" and has moved on to "How Doth..." by Lewis Carroll.    For Literature she is reading The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

In Art she learned about optical illusions.   For Music she had a Unit Review and Assesment.   In Science she is learning about the way organisms interact.   She finished the BBC Typing program and is now working on speed by typing daily.   She did two lessons of Rosetta Stone Spanish and is working on memorizing the oceans and their spellings in Geography.

Both girls learned about the Crusades in History.  

Rascal

Our most recent book club choice was Rascal by Sterling North.  Nick read this book to Hermoine when she was six or seven, but it's one of those that isn't a hardship to repeat.    It's about a boy in the early 1900's who finds and tames a raccoon.   We all really loved it and the girls did a lapbook on raccoons to go along with it each night while I read.   I had initially printed up the lapbook for Ramona, but Hermoine asked for one as well.    Homeschoolshare.com is a fantastic site for free printables including lapbooks.   This is the link for the one we used.   Below are some snapshots of the girls' lapbooks. 

Our next book club choice is The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo.   I can't wait!

~Week 9~

A quick post on week 9.    The girls worked through all of their subjects.  We managed to get five days of work into four so they could take Friday off and go to Art class and the corn maze with Girl Scouts.    I'm glad the first quarter is over and am looking forward to getting through the second one.    I'll do a more detailed review for week 10. 

~Week 8~

Last week was really busy for us.  The girls both had hard weeks and school was a bit stressful.  So far this week seems to be going smoother, but we're trying to fit five days of work into four this week so we'll see how it goes.   Here is a very brief re-cap of our week.

Hermoine started working on statistics in Math. 

She did well in all her Language Arts subjects.  She is still reading The House of Arden for Literature.  She is finished up her pottery in Art.   Her Science was about crystal making and she had two science experiments.  She did her Geography and her Latin.     Her Music was about traditional African music.  She really enjoyed that.  

Hermoine painting her ancient spiral bowl

One of Ramona's experiments

Ramona was working on story problems with mixed fractions.     She worked through all her Language Arts.  She is more than half way through These Happy Golden Years for reading.    Her Science was crazy...lot's of fun, but five experiments for two days of science.   At one point our kitchen windowsill and counter were covered with several different experiments.    She did Geography, three lessons of Spanish and two of Typing.   Her Music was about how to read So and Mi on sheet music and she learned about the cello.    For Art she learned about patriotic paintings and how people use flags in artwork to inspire others.   

Two more of Ramona's experiments

In History they learned about early England, William the Conqueror and the beginning of the English language.    

Week 7

Week 7 is in the bag.   A pretty non-eventful week overall.   We had a few activities...scouts, book club and a scout event tonight as well.

Hermoine is working through some fairly hard percentage problems.    They look like this:   There are 42 boys and 24 girls in a chess club. How many more percentage of boys are there than girls?  

In Language Arts she worked through her spelling, grammar and handwriting.  In Writing she worked on putting events in the proper sequence and then wrote an essay with the events she had been working with.  For literature she finished reading The Silver Crown,  read Seabird by Holling C. Holling in it's entirety and began The House of Arden by E. Nesbit.  

In Art she finished painting her cave art, and moved on to ancient pottery.  She started a pottery project that she'll finish next week.   For Music she studied Tchaikovsky.  In Geography she covered projection maps, the Robinson Projection map in particular.    She completed three lessons in Rosetta Stone Latin and two lessons in Getting Started with Latin.

She learned about DNA and RNA in Science.  K12 had some fun activities to go with these lessons.

Ramona is working on adding and subtracting mixed numbers and then taking them down into their simplest form.   

In Language Arts she did her spelling lessons and handwriting.   Grammar was all review.  When First Language Lessons does review the lessons are really long.   She is about half way through memorization of Ozymandias.   She was also working on sequence in Writing and wrote a paragraph about major events in her life.   She began reading These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder for Literature.

In Art she learned about American Folk Art, in particular the quilt.  She made her own quilt designs on paper and read about how the women and girls would come up with their designs.   She really loved this unit.     In music she began a unit on string instruments starting with the violin.   In Geography she was practicing finding coordinates of cities in South America by using the degrees of longitude and latitude.    She worked through two lessons of Rosetta Stone Spanish and two lessons of BBC Typing.

She learned about solutions and mixing molecules in Science.   We had two fun experiments that were also quite easy with mixing liquids.

Both girls learned about the Vikings arriving in the British Isles for history.

Images of our Day

Random images of our school today.  In case you couldn't tell, Tuesday is an Art day around here.

Ramona working on her paper quilt designs in Art

Hermoine did this "cave art" painting yesterday

Hermoine working on Latin

Hermoine's diagramming.   She has one diagram plus two pages for each lesson in Grammar.

Ramona's math textbook. She also had three pages in her workbook.

Hermoine's logic

Hermoine's spelling sentences.

Hermoine working on a pottery lesson in Art.

~Week 6~

This week we wanted to attend the K12 Zoo field trip on Friday so we really packed the work in for four days to make that possible.  It made for some extra long school sessions, but we get to go to the zoo tomorrow.  

The girls also had Cadettes for Hermoine on Monday, Nature Center class on Wednesday, Juniors for Ramona and Lego League for Hermoine tonight.  A very full week.

Every sixth week they have a week off of their writing program, which made it easier to double up on other subjects.  Also, they like every sixth week of Spelling Workout because it is all review and puzzles.  

Hermoine is working on percentages in Math.   She is working through diagramming complex subjects and verbs in Grammar.   She has done this before so it's not an issue for her.  Spelling was a review, handwriting was basic cursive practice.    In Art she is learning about early cave art and sketched her own cave art which she will transfer to a painting next week.   She studied Beethoven in Music and basic cell structure in Science.  She had two fun experiments this week with petri dishes and the microscope.  She completed 3 lessons of Rosetta Stone Latin and two of Getting Started with Latin.  She is nearly finished reading The Silver Crown for literature.  

Ramona is still working on basic addition and subtraction of fractions with common denominators in Math.   She finished memorizing her first poem in Grammar and has moved on to her second which is Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley.    She has also been working on adjectives and diagramming sentences with them.    Spelling was a review.  Her handwriting is improving, the book is getting ready to transition her out of manuscript practice and into cursive.  Her cursive is much better than her manuscript.   In Art she completed her sketch of George Washington crossing the Delaware by adding color and moved on to American art in the west, a very fun unit.    In Science she delved deeper into symbiotic relationships.   She finished two lessons of Rosetta Stone Spanish and two lessons of typing.   Ramona also finished Little Town on the Prairie for literature. 

For History the girls learned about Norse Myths, the vikings and the beginnings of Norway.   In particular we covered Leif the Lucky and Eric the Red.       

~Week 5, Part 2~

We finished up the second part of our fifth week from the schedule.  It was only two days worth of work, but we stretched it to three.    

We've also been busy out of the house this week.   On Tuesday the girls had their American Girl club.  They are doing the Josefina books this time around.   The girls in the club are making crafts and recipies from the books as well as putting on a play about Josefina.   They will be working on the play until December when they will perform it.    My girls are super excited about it.

Today they had a pizza party at the park with their K12 teacher and about 12 other families that attended.   We left that activity a bit early to get to our book club on time at a different park.   We all came home hot and tired, but happy.    

The library on base has started a "Homeschool Hour" every Thursday, so we're going to give that a shot tomorrow.

As for the second part of our fifth week, Hermoine worked on her math, finished up her spelling, logic, geography and writing.  She also did science, which was a Unit Review and Assessment.  She passed with flying colors.    She is still working her way through The Silver Crown for literature.   

Ramona moved on in math to adding and subtracting fractions with common denominators.  She also finished her spelling, logic, geography and writing for the week.   She did her typing lessons and her science, which was all about symbiotic relationships.  (She loved, loved, loved this week in her science.)    She is continuing to read The Little Town on the Prairie for literature.   

Next week we will be back to our regular schedule, but these two shortened weeks in a row were a nice little break.

Doc Night

One of our favorite activities is our "Doc Night," or Documentary Night.   We try to do them once a week, but really we average about once every two weeks or so. It's a fun change from regular old movie night and Project Runway night.  (My girls are obsessed with Project Runway.)    We tend to be more consistent in the fall and winter when the weather is bad.    We pop large amounts of popcorn, get the fuzzy blankets out and snuggle in for something we'll all enjoy.  

Having Netflix makes Doc Night extremely easy.   We can shop ahead of time and have a DVD ready to go or add something to our streaming queue to watch on the Wii.  

Nick and the girls tend to enjoy nature shows and I prefer the historical ones.    We have many favorites, including anything by Les Stroud (Survivorman, etc.) and BBC Nature.      I made a little widget above of our all time favorite family documentaries.  Although, the widget includes the show How It's Made that I do not enjoy or watch. Nick and the girls LOVE it, though, so I added it.    

Tonight we're ready to watch a documentary from National Geographic on lions and hyenas that was available to stream from Netflix.   

~Week 5, Part 1~

We had a three day school week, so this week and next will be our "Week 5" for my records.    We had many things going on this week and we just decided to cap it off at Wednesday and pick it up next week where we left off.    For this reason, we didn't get to Science or History.


Hermoine has been working through a few Reviews in her Math book.   She has reached the end of the first unit and there were two Reviews she needed to do.   I usually assign her one Review per day when they roll around, but this year they are about 8-10 pages long so I've split them in half (or thirds)in her plan book.

In Language Arts she finished her work for the week in Spelling, has been working on diagramming sentences with both compound subjects and predicates in Grammar and is working on determining important details in Writing.   She began reading The Silver Crown by Robert C. O'Brien for Literature.

In Art she finished her relief sculpture with paint and took the end of unit assessment.   For Music she studied Mozart.

Logic, Geography and Latin are all moving along smoothly.

Ramona also finished a unit in her Math book.  She was able to work through both Reviews in her textbook and workbook as well as a Practice that was in the textbook.

As for Language Arts she moved her through her Spelling and Handwriting.  She finished memorizing her poem in Grammar and is working on proof reader marks.   For Writing she is working on story webs and the proper order of her ideas in a paragraph.   She is still reading Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder for Literature.

For Art she learned about the different places artists get inspiration for their artwork.   The main focus was the famous painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware by Leutze.  She then had to create her own sketch using the painting as inspiration.   She gave the soldiers modern clothing and placed them in different areas. 

I'm still not happy with her Music.  It's silly and way too simple although she absolutely loves is, making it at least tolerable for me.

Her Geography was centered on the lines of latitude an longitude.  She is still enjoying her Logic.   She did one lesson of Typing.  She did get stuck on one lesson in Spanish, repeating it all three days this week and still not passing.    She's having trouble with the verbs hungry, tired and thirsty.   I know she'll get it next week, though.

Scholastic Teacher Dollar Deals

Scholastic is having it's Dollar Deals sale this week.   There are 800 downloadable and printable education ebooks on sale for $1 each, including many literature guides.

Art Class - September

The results of the girls' Art class with Miss Annette this month.    They said the focus of the lesson was color and the art work was done with a combination of oil pastels and chalk.

Ramona's art

Hermoine's art

~Week 4~

This week was extremely hectic for us, but we got everything done.   I don't know how, but we did.    We did school Sunday-Thursday morning.   We have three different Scout events tonight, Art class tomorrow morning and my uncle flew in from Germany this morning, so we wanted to be done today.   I have a couple of hours until Scouts starts, so I thought I'd post before I forgot all about it.  And for the weekly wrap-up, I finally have some photos!

Hermoine is still working on some really tough story problems using ratios in her Math book.   It's a good thing Nick has been home in the mornings to help her, because I usually need to grab the Teacher's Manual to figure out where to even start.    She really enjoys this type of problem solving, though, which is a good thing.

All of her other subjects are moving along.  She finished reading The Birchbark House for literature.    She learned about Hadyn in Music, relief sculptures in Art(and then started one of her own,) and single celled organisms in Science.

Hermoine working on her very messy art project

For her Science experiment, she added sugar and yeast together and put them in a bottle covered with a balloon.   She had to explain what was happening to make the balloon expand.   She did it completely on her own and when I checked her work and talked to her later, I found she has a firm understanding of the dynamics of single celled organisms.   I took pictures of this experiment, but the camera appears to have eaten them.  

Ramona is plugging along in Math.   Division and Multiplication are still the focus.   She's doing much better with the extra Wrap-Ups practice.

She started memorizing her first poem of the year in Grammar.   Her current poem is Afternoon on a Hill by Edna St. Vincent Millay.   She has the first two stanzas down pat and is working on the third.

She finished up The Long Winter and began on Little Town on the Prairie.

For Art she learned about Colonial architecture and how it related to Greek and Roman architecture.   She then sketched an entryway using some of the features she learned about.

Ramona used columns and a frieze in her entryway

 We had a busy week in Science.    She checked the progress of her week one compost project:

Finished up the Limiting Factors experiment she did last week:

Sponges last week

A few of the sponges after having spent time in different temperatures

And focused on populations and competition of animals in the wild.   There were no new experiments scheduled for her this week, but she had a blast playing the population game that went with her lesson.

Typing

Ramona has started a typing course this year at the BBC website.    I decided to start her last week when I noticed her pecking away one finger at a time and remembered that Hermoine had learned to type with this site when she was in 4th grade.  She'll do it two or three times a week until she's finished with the program.

I, personally, think the voices are extremely annoying, but they don't bother her.   We've decided that she will wear her earphones while doing the lessons to save my nerves.

There are many free typing programs on the web or available for purchase on CD's.   This is just one of the many options out there. 

Ramona's Reading Test

Ramona took a reading test through her K12 teacher on Thursday.  The state decided to test kids in grades 1-4  in an effort to diagnose kids with reading problems.  I made it clear that I wasn't happy about the test for a few reasons.   First, she is extremely shy and she really didn't want to read to a "stranger" whether it was over the computer or in person.     Second, we are not doing any of our Language Arts through K12, so I didn't feel like they needed to take the initiative to test her.   Third, when we signed up for K12 through the state we agreed to testing at the end of the year for subjects we take through the State only.   That would be Science since they don't test for Music or Art.   And fourth, I told the teacher that her reading was fine and I didn't feel like she needed the test.   

At any rate, she did take the test.  In a web conference with her teacher she was given material she had never seen before and asked to read it.   She did so well the teacher then gave her the 5th grade test, and then the 6th grade test.   The teacher was very impressed  and told me we needed to keep doing whatever we've been doing.  I told her that we intended to.   She also asked if we read aloud to her often and I told her we did.  She said she could usually tell the kids who had been read aloud to a lot because not only are they advanced readers, but they read with expression.    That made me smile. 

I did like her teacher, she was very nice.   It's hard to give up control on these little things like the reading test, but I'm happy that we have a great teacher to work with.     

~Week 3~

I'm without the camera for the weekly update again.   This was our last week without the craziness of Scouts that will be next week.   Hermoine had her GS Lego League, as she does each week, but that was it.   Next week they both have troop meetings, Nick has a Service Unit team meeting, I have a Service Unit leaders meeting and Hermoine has a Lego meeting on top of that.   That is just Scout activities.  Add in Art class and Book Club and all of a sudden we're back in the swing of things.  Next week will be a tough one.  Back to this week, though.

Hermoine is working on ratio story problems in math.   She thought these would be fairly easy since the books give her two problems a day and she enjoys ratios.  But, she found out the story problems are so complicated that there is a reason they only give you a few problems.   She is understanding it well, but it's not going as quickly as she had initially thought when she saw the number of problems.   

Her Langauge Arts, Logic and Latin all went well.   She is reading The Birchbark House for Literature.   She finished working on her mosaic for Art and studied Bach in Music.   

She worked on classifying plants and animals by kingdom, domain, class, species, etc., in Science.  She now says that she wants to become a Taxonomist because of this Science unit.   For the last four years she's insisted she wanted to be a Botanist, so this came as a surprise to us and is evidence of her enjoyment of the K12 Science program.

Ramona is working on division and estimating in division.   Her problems this week looked like this:

8650 ÷ 50  

She would have to estimate the total and then do the long division.   Time consuming, but still review for her.  She gets her 6 and 9 times tables confused, so we've been doing extra practice at the end of the school day with Math Wrap-Ups.

She took a reading test through her K12 teacher this week, which I will write another post about.  Her Language Arts, Logic, Music and Art all went well.   Her Science focused on limiting factors and we did an experiment with temperature as a limiting factor.  We planted seeds that are covered and have no access to light.  We then placed the seeds in areas of different temperature,  the freezer, under a heat lamp(but still covered) and at room temperature.   She is supposed to check them in a week and see if they meet her hypothesis.   It was a fun experiment.   

She moved through three different lessons in her Spanish this week, which is very fast for her.   I make the girls get 95% before they move on in Rosetta Stone, despite the program letting them move on at 85%.    Ramona usually takes a week to move through one lesson and master it, but she was on a roll this week.

For History they learned about Clovis and the Franks.   I have several books from the library for them to choose from to go along with this chapter, but they didn't get to them.   Next week continues with France so I'll keep the books out for that.

Morning Snapshots

A few photos of schoolwork this morning.

Ramona doing Spanish

A bit of Hermoine's Grammar

Hermoine's Classification Lab for Science

A page of Ramona's Logic

Used Book Sale

My sister and I try to hit every Library book sale we can.  It's something we love to do together and we spend a couple of hours picking through the selection together and trying to find great copies of the titles we want.   We went to one of the smaller area sales this morning and this is what I walked away with:

That would be 47 books for $18.25!

I have the following rules for book sales simply because it's so easy to let myself get out of control:   

• I only pick up books in good shape.   No torn covers, falling out pages or marked up books.
• I go with lists of things we want.   I don't buy books I know we won't read.
• I always allow myself to "upgrade" a book.  For example, this morning I bought copies of Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice for .75 cents a piece.  They are nice hardbacks with gold leafing and I bought them because I knew they would look great on shelves.   The copies I had of these books before will be donated to our library so they can raise money at their next book sale. 

Yellowstone and Grand Teton

For the first week of public school in our area we went on vacation.   There are several things I enjoy about doing something special for the traditional first day of school.   First, the girls thought it was funny that they were standing outside packing the car for a trip to Yellowstone at the same time the buses were going by on our street.  They didn't figure in that they had already been back to doing school for a few weeks, they just enjoyed the irony of vacationing the first week some of their friends were heading back to school.

Second, even though we were in two different major National Parks, we were there at the end of the tourist season.  There was very little traffic, and about 1/4 the crowds compared to the five other times I have visited Yellowstone.     

Third, our cabin was discounted half price because of the week we chose to go.  If we had went the week prior, it would have been full price.  Our cabin in Grand Teton was the same price as usual.  

I've been to Yellowstone several times, but this was the first time for everyone else in the family.   I enjoyed this trip more than any of the others I've been on, though.   Watching the girls discover all that Yellowstone has to offer and enjoying themselves so much that they had a hard time choosing what was their favorite site and animal was a joy for me.   

   

Besides enjoying the hot springs, mud pots, geysers, wildlife and overall beauty of Yellowstone, our girls participated in the Junior Ranger Programs.  They were able to attend Ranger programs with less than 10 kids in them with no waiting.  Hermoine's requirements were harder than Ramona's because they are based on age level.  But, they both earned two great patches for their Scout Uniforms.   Of course, you don't need to be a Scout to do these programs and once you've completed the requirements you can choose between the patch or a pin-on badge.  This is the packet for Grand Teton and this is the one for Yellowstone.

 

Book Recommendations

 Some recent reads that are well worth the time.   Recommended ages are my opinions only and are based on subject matter and vocabulary.

Number the Stars

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

Ages 10+  This is a story of a girl, her family, and how they try to get her Jewish friend into hiding during the Holocaust.  This book really touched my 11 year old and sparked some great discussion.   When I read this about a year ago, I immediately added it to her literature pile.  It took awhile for her to choose it, but I knew when she did that it would be a powerful reading experience for her.  I wasn't wrong. 

The Star of Kazan

 The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson

Ages 7+  The rags to riches story of an orphan, a kidnapping, a miserable boarding school, stolen jewels, and the power of family.   We did this as a read-aloud during the summer and loved it.   We've read a handful of books by Ibbotson and they have all impressed me.

The Long Winter

The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Ages 6+  The story of the Ingalls family during a long hard winter in the town of DeSmet, South Dakota.  This was my series growing up.   The books that I read so much that the covers were held on with tape.   The Long Winter was my second favorite book of all the Little House books, and still is.   When I became a parent, I read and re-read this series aloud to both of my girls.   My 11 year old enjoyed them, but my 9 year old loves them.   She's listened to me read them, listened to them on audio and is now working through the series for literature.    You can never go wrong with any of the Little House books!

And, just for fun:

How to Train Your Dragon

How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell

Ages 5+   The story of Hiccup, the viking, and his dragon.   According to my girls, the books are nothing like the movie.   My 9 year old started reading these and talked about them so much that my 11 year old, and their 10 year old cousin, got hooked on the series.   These would appeal to any child with a sense of humor, particularly boys.   My 9 year old is anxiously awaiting the 8th installment, due out in November. 

Story of the World

Story of the World Vol 2 Audio Book

Oh, how we love The Story of the World.   So much so, that we are working our way through the four volume set for the second time.   This year our focus is on Vol. 2 which consists of the Middle Ages from the fall of Rome to the beginning of the Renaissance.   

There are so many things we like about Story of the World:

• It moves in chronological order, from the earliest nomads to the Cold War in four volumes.  
• It is told in story format and is never dry. The chapters are short and sweet, yet convey a lot of information.   You then decide how much you want to add on from the Activity Guide.
• The Activity Guides for each are awesome.   Mapwork, games, recipes, coloring pages, corresponding encyclopedia pages, and about 20 suggested titles of additional reading books in non-fiction, fiction, picture book and chapter book form for each chapter.   
• Each volume is now available in CD or MP3 format, which is fantastic.  I wish these were available the first time we worked through this curriculum.   The girls adore the narrator, Jim Weiss, and I get to assign them plenty of extra reading from the Activity Guide and Encyclopedia without them thinking they are getting too much history reading.

How we do it

Everyone I know does The Story of the World a bit differently to fit their needs.  We do History twice a week on Thursday and Friday.   On Thursday the girls listen to the first section of whatever chapter we are doing.   While they listen they color or do mapwork.    My girls love to color while they listen and sometimes end up listening to both sections of the chapter the first day.   Hermoine then reads several pages in the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia that go with that days lesson.   Ramona often reads with her or picks up a picture book from the library I have ready for her.    

Kingfisher History Encyclopedia

On Friday they listen to the next section for the chapter if they didn't do it on Thursday.   Hermoine then writes a 1-2 page essay on the chapter.  Her coloring page, mapwork, and essay go into a three ring binder and at the end of the year she has a great History notebook, again in chronological order.

Fridays,  Ramona perhaps reads another book, then gives me a short narration of 2-5 sentences.   It's recommended that I write these down for her and they go in the notebook.   I've never done that , except the first year with Hermoine.  Ramona will start later this year with half page essays of 2-5 sentences on her own to prepare her to do full page essays next year.

We also often use that weeks lesson to find something on Netflix for our family documentary nights. 

Both of my girls thoroughly enjoy history and have a much better grasp on the major events of Ancient and Medieval History than I have ever had thanks to The Story of the World.    And that makes me very, very happy.

~Week 2 ~

I have a goal to post at least once a week this school year, so let's see how I do.   So far, I'm two for two.  

Nick and the girls were off for three days of archery hunting as soon as Hermoine finished with her Girl Scout FIRST LEGO League meeting tonight.    They couldn't wait to get up to the mountains.   I had plans to post pictures of schoolwork, but they took the camera with them.   I'll just give some brief updates instead.  

School is always much easier for us when we have little else going on.  Things are going to get hectic in the next few weeks when all of their activities are in full swing again. 

As for school this week, all went well.   No tears, no tantrums, no fussing at bedtime or in the mornings.   The only out of house activities we had were Hermoine's Lego team and Book Club.    For Book Club we met at a local splash pad and had a great time with friends.

Hermoine's math moved on from Pre-Algebra to some basic Geometry.   Her Language Arts is going smoothly, her literature selection is currently Number the Stars by Lois Lowry.  Art History was about mosaics and she started a project making her own mosaic that will cover four lessons.  History covered the beginnings of Australia and New Zealand, her music lesson was all on Handel, and her Science was all on Biological Classifications.   That was right up her alley, let me tell you, the girl started learning Latin three years ago simply because all the books on plants she checked out of the library had so much Latin in them due to the classifications.   She's been moving quite quickly through both of her Latin programs after stagnating last week.   I think taking the entire summer off of Latin made her forget quite a bit, but she picked it up after repeating several lessons.

Ramona's math is still in first-of-the-year review mode and so is going quickly each morning.  Spelling, Grammar, and Essay Writing all going well.  I'm buckling down a bit more on her handwriting and she's not loving me for that.  (She tends to put capital letters in the middle of a word, a very bad habit.)   She's reading The Long Winter for Literature and is almost finished with it.    She's loving her Logic, this is her first year doing it for a subject and she wants to do it every day despite the fact that it's only scheduled three times a week.  Her music is fun, but silly, not much learning going on there.   History was the same as her sister.   Her Art was about perspective and she did several sketches of stuffed animals from different views.    Her Science was all about food chains and webs.   She made a little ecosystem complete with crickets, etc.  She's moving along in Spanish at a snail's pace, but that's the way she likes it. 

First Week -- Done

 We started school last Saturday because the girls want to go camping with their grandparents tomorrow morning.  So, this morning we finished our first full week of the school year.  It was also the first full week with the new K12 components in our curriculum.    I was really nervous about the amount of stuff we have scheduled and adding K12 into that seemed a bit extreme.   But, I am pleasantly surprised by how well it went and how much the girls enjoy it.    We finished about an hour to an hour and a half later than we are used to each day, but the girls aren't complaining.   Yet.  

  Both girls are doing Life Sciences through K12, but on different levels.   It's only week 1, but it's all material we have already covered.  Of course, review is fantastic and I've noticed from looking ahead that Hermoine's in particular gets a bit more difficult.    Ramona's on the other hand...   Her first week was all about producers, consumers and decomposes.   Her project for the week was an experiment where she had to put several objects, such as aluminum foil, paper, egg shells, apple skins, and plastic, in a bottle with soil and then predict which ones will decompose and which ones won't.    

Ramona's 1st K12 Science project

   This is a great activity.  My only complaint is that our family is very green and we have composted for two years now. So, our girls are well versed in what will decompose and what won't.  They know exactly what to put in the compost and what not to.  Ramona's response was, "Plastic and aluminum?  That's not going to decompose."  But, she did do the project and she had fun doing it.

  Review is always good.  And as long as she's enjoying it then I'm happy. If I could change one thing then I would have there be more new-to-her material in her Science program.

Where We Do School

Ramona's cubby next to her desk

I enjoy seeing examples of schoolrooms so I thought I would post some photos of the places we "do school."

We have a schoolroom and spend a few hours each morning there, but we are not tied to it.   Each girl has a reading chair in their room that they love to use while they read or listen to audio books.  Ramona, in particular does not like any kind of distractions while reading and often ends up in her reading chair during her assigned reading time.

Our favorite room by far is our library.   It's where we store most of our books, read, watch documentaries, and do things that don't count as school such as play Wii, watch movies, play games, etc.  We remodeled that room about a year and a half ago and use it every day.

  

Schoolroom -view 1

Schoolroom view 2

Library -view 1

Library - view 2

Ramona's reading chair