~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.