About Me

My photo
I am a crunchy Christian mom to four boys and one girl ♥ We are a homeschooling Family. Our family can't stay still for long. We are always on the move. Our homeschool is inspired by The Well Trained Mind, Waldorf, and a bit of Charlotte Mason. Our lives are inspired by The Word of God, Jesus, Miracles, and sunshine when we can find it.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Week 4

We belong to a VA, so my boys shoot of an email once a week to their teacher.   So, here they are in their own words.  It's actually quite fun =) We are studying SOTW Vol. 3 for History this year.  They are on chapter 4. 



Escher

I make boats.  not wood boats.  I  made it with paper, tape, milk carton, and pencils.  (In the Little House in the Big Woods) they went to a city.  (Math started lesson 6) learned about circles.  (In Progressive Phonics) Bab can't see.  Her bad dog.  Her said bad, bad, dog.  Her put a bow on her top of her head. 






Porter (typed by mom this week)

Henry Hudson wanted to find the Northwest Passage.  His crew did mutiny.  They put him on a little boat with a little bit of crewmates.  The people that did mutiny sailed back with the big ship.  I did lesson 4 in Math.  I did a spelling test.  I build a ship.  I made it with milk cartons and coffee carton.  I haven't made my flag yet.




Gibran
i made boats and did these lessons
1 spelling test
3 math sheets
learned about henry hudson and the northwest passage in history

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Waldorf Inspiration

Here are some beautiful chalkboard drawings, as well as much, much more beauty from a waldorf school.  Hope it brings some beauty and inspiration to your upcoming week.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Making Butter

E and I have been reading Little House in the Big Woods. I wasn't sure if he would like it or not.  He is all boy and I always thought the series was rather girlie.  But, to my surprise (I guess it's been awhile) they start the book off will all kinds of food preparation for the winter.  He has asked all kinds of questions. Like what types of toys do they have.  He thought it rather funny that a pigs bladder was such a fun toy.

Here he is making butter for his friends.  We didn't take it out and rinse it.  But, it was still quite yummy. Kind of like whipped butter.  I usually make everyone eat Earth Balance, so it was quite a treat.

Monday, September 14, 2009

We spent today at the Zoo. Every time we go to the zoo we learn something new. How can that be? The boys thought there was a toy scorpion in the exhibit and were surprised to see it move. They had a black light on them and one was right under the light. It was a beautiful turquoise.

We fed the budgies. E screamed horribly when 5 or 6 of those guys flew into his face and landed up his arm. He was so brave.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

I made a .... gasp...... gulp.....LESSON PLAN

I fight the whole lesson plan thing. This year I got some more workbook type curriculum. I'm trying to do the next thing. But, here I am at the official week 2 of our school year. I'm ending my day at midnight. But, our school day. Well, it was pretty productive. But, it seemed so haphazard. I NEED time to enjoy my baby girl. I feel like I waste a ton of time trying to remember that next thing I need to do. The kids are running around and asking what next, what next, what next...oh wait I'm hungry. Then the baby is hungry. Then a diaper change. Then a chore. It's causing me some anxiety.

So, I did it.

*disclaimer: I don't take credit for the clipart. I got it off the internet. Names shortened to initial to protect the innocent. I'm more creative than that.

Week 2

7 September-11 September



2009-2010

Subject

G

P

E

History

Read SOTW Chapter 2

Type a Narration with a picture

Insert card on timeline

Mapwork

Notebook pages

Read Encyclopedia section

Outline Encyclopedia section

Read Aloud: The New Americans

Read SOTW Chapter 2

Oral Narration to Mom.

Insert card on timeline

Mapwork

Notebook pages

Read Aloud: The New Americans

Listen to SOTW Ch. 2

Notebook page

Mapwork

Read Aloud: The New Americans

Science

Read Chapter 2

Do Experiment 2

Finish Experiment 1

Start reading Chapter 2

Put Classification cards in order

Listen to Chapter 2

Insect Dominoes

Library Basket

Notebook pages

Reading

The Dark Frigate

Library Books

Keep track of Reading List

Magic Treehouse

Library Books

Keep Track of Reading List

Little House in the Big Woods

Progressive Phonics

Writing

Writing Strands 3: Lesson 2

Italics D M T W T F

Spelling M T W T F

First Language Lessons 3

* Lesson 5

* Lesson 6

* Lesson 7

Italics M T W T F

Spelling M T W T F

PP Worksheets

Math

Epsilon

Lesson 3

Lesson 4

Gamma

Lesson 2

Lesson 3

Primer

Lesson 3

Lesson 4

Notes:

Friday, September 4, 2009

The Prophet
Math: He started Math U See Epsilon. He finished lessons 1-2 and is almost finished with lesson 3.

History: He read chapter 1 of The Story of the World Volume 3. He filled out the map and wrote a short summary of the chapter. Topics covered were the beginning of discovery of the Americas and treatment of the Native Peoples. He outlined the Encyclopedia section for this chapter.

Science: He read chapter 1 of Biology Level 1. He learned how to classify living things. He did the chapter experiment. He found 11 items and categorized them.

Writing: Italics Handwriting D pages 1-3. Winston Grammar Lessons 1-3. Nouns and articles. He did Lesson 1 of Writing Strands 3. He did outlining in History.

Reading: The Dark Frigate-2 chapters. Treasure Island Comic book by Marvel. Don Quixote and the Windmills by Kimmel.

The Peacemaker
Math: He started Math U See Gamma this week. He printed out a multiplication chart to keep track of his progress in memorizing the multiplication table. He finished lesson 1 and started lesson 2. He learned about multiplication and area of a square and rectangle. He learned the three different ways to write a multiplication problem. Lesson 2 covered the factors of O and 1.

History: He read chapter 1 of The Story of the World Volume 3. He filled out the map and I wrote his Narrations for the two sections we read together. Topics covered were the beginning of discovery of the Americas and treatment of the Native Peoples. He did the coloring pages. He did a project that helped him realize how much Gold was taken from the Native people's by the Spanish.

Science: He read chapter 1 of Biology Level 1. He learned how to classify living things. He did the chapter experiment. He made cards for the different classification levels. He then practiced putting these in order. He caught crickets with his younger brother. They have been feeding and observing them this week. His apple and avocado trees are growing beautifully in his terrarium.

Writing: He started First Language Lessons 3. He did 4 Lessons this week. He learned about Nouns. He did daily spelling Tests with Spelling Power. He made it to Group A List 2.

Reading: Don Quixote and the Windmills by Kimmel. Magic Treehouse 2: Knights Before Dawn.


The Warrior
Math: He started Math U See Primer. He is up to lesson 3.

History: He listened to Story of the World: Volume 1. He did the map work for Chapter 1. We read the first chapter of The House in the Big Woods. He asked me questions about the house. We discussed how they cured the meat, cooking, and refrigeration methods.

Science: He caught crickets with his older brother. They have been feeding and observing them this week. We read Bugs are Insects by Anne Rockwell. We found insects have three body parts and six legs. He picked out the insects in the pictures.

Game to play: Insect Dominoes

Writing:
He had handwriting practice with his phonics letters and in Explode the Code 1. He learned the definition of a noun in Chapter 1 of First Language Lessons 1.


Reading: He finished pages in Explode the Code. He is using Progressive Phonics to learn to read. It's working very well. It's the first thing I've tried that has actually produced results. He read book 1.3 and did a few of the activity sheets that went along with it. They included some cutting and pasting of words, handwriting skills, and a memory game of the words dad, dod, and bob.

Read Alouds: Little House in the Big Woods, Bugs are Insects, and The Butterfly Jar