Week 34

Grade 1

I did reading lesson.  I used a little book.  I read Pig Wig and Cat.  I figured out what a question mark is.  You put a three on a six.  Then put another three on it.  Then you write a three on the line.  Then a two, then a 6, and a 1.  I watched Bill Nye the Science Guy.  He says everybody needs water.  He make a cloud from water and matches.  Then put the little pump on it for a lid.  Then it pumping a little bit and he count to three.  Then he take lid off and it make a giant cloud.  I have a new PE class.  I have a new teacher.  His name is Matt.  I miss my other teacher, kind of.  I have the same teacher as Porter.  I play crab soccer just like Porter did.  

Grade 4

We are studying Ecosystems, Habitats, Cycles and whatever else we encounter in this lesson.  He played a food chain vocabularly game.  He read about Food cycles.  

...and in his own words

I read James and the Giant Peach.  James crawled into the Giant Peach and found a whole bunch of giant bugs.  Then they slept inside the peach.  The bugs started gnawing on the stem of the peach tree that was holding the peach.  Then they went rolling.  In Math, I'm still regrouping and multiplying.  It's getting easier.  I did three pages of Italics and they are all cursive writing.  They were just letters.  We watched Bill Nye the Science Guy, The Water Cycle.  He made a cloud with a jar. He put water in it.  He put a pressurizer tube on the jar.  Then he pressurized it.  And, it didn't work. So, he lit matches and put them in there for dust.  Then he tried it again.  He counted to three and it made a cloud.  In PE class, I did a whole bunch of warm-ups and then we played crab soccer.  My dad and me looked out at the rotting log.  We lifted part of it up and found a snake skin.  We found this little duck fuzz at the pond.  We, also, are hatching chickens with our Grandma.  We put chicken eggs in an incubator.  

Grade 7

Well in reading I read to chapter 19 in Oliver Twist where Fagin and Bill Sikes were planning on how to break into a house and Bill Sikes needed a small boy and Fagin suggested Oliver.

In math I used the multiplicative inverse to solve for the unknown and I guess its sorta like algebra or pre-algebra and I also am going to try out teaching textbooks but since I have to do this report I will tell you about it next week.

In jump in I did skill 5 which was about the introduction of my opinion paper and I did 2 pages of italics.

In science I watched bill nye which porter pretty much did my report on it for me:D

In P.E. we did a TON of warm ups then we played crab soccer which left my wrists pretty sore(if you want to know what crab soccer is you have to crab walk and play soccer).

The Peacemaker Grade 4 Week 28

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Originally uploaded by OakBlossoms

In P.E., we played hockey outside.
Our caterpillars turned in to chrysalis. We got the caterpillars in a container. They ate this orangey brown stuff that was in the bottom of the container. Then they crawled to the top of the container. Then they hung upside down. Then they made chrysalis and their heads popped off. And then, red stuff oozed from the bottom of the chrysalis.
We dissected our owl pellets. Mine had a mole or a rat in it. I think it had two animals in it. Mine was the biggest. It smelled disgusting.

Week 27

This is week 27 for us.  Doing this weekly reports was a bit painful at the beginning of the year.  It's sometimes still painful for the youngest boy.  But, our oldest-The Prophet-pointed out that we had done a lot this year and it was nice to see how far we had come this year.

The Prophet-Grade 7

In history I outlined pages 340-341 which was about the factory workers of the industrial revolution and pages 350-351 which was about how the U.S.A. expanded In the 1800s and the pages were in the usborne internet linked encyclopedia of world history, I also colored the haiti flag, read chapter 30 which was about the haiti revolution and did map work in story of the world.

In math I did lesson 19 which was reducing mixed numbers.

In Italics I did pages 49,50,51.

In spelling I did spelling tests 32 and 35.

In science we read about the comparison between blood In living beings and sap in trees and plants In a book (I forgot its name) and I did picture of the comparison.

The Peacemaker-Grade 4

In Story of the World, I colored the Haitian Flag.  The African slaves rebelled.  The Africans called it Haiti.  

In Math, I did lessons 21 and 22.  

The owl babies are big and fluffy.  There is one more egg left.   

We got Painted Lady Butterfly larvae.  They are already growing.  They are making some silky stuff.  

I am on chapter four of Superfudge.  Fudge is Peter's little annoying brother.  

The Warrior-Grade 1

We learned about our eyes.  They can't move in different directions.  They can't move this way and that way.  Our pupil is dark and it turns bigger so you can see better in the dark.  Then it's in the sun.  It turns small.  

I added tens.  It's hard!

We got caterpillars.  They will turn into cocoons and then turn into butterflies.  

The Peacemaker Grade 4

He is doing quite well this year. He needs to work on his confidence a bit. He is finally reading chapter books and I think that will help a lot with his upcoming work. I really need him to be more independent.

History

He will be working through Story of the World 3 (1600-1850). He will do written narrations, mapwork, and notebook pages for each chapter.

He will keep track of important dates and people in his Book of Centuries.

Supplemental library materials (i.e. books and DVDs) will be available. He will keep track of these in our family journal, Goodreads, or Bookadventure.org.

Suggested memory work for the period are Declaration of Independence, First 12 Presidents of the United States, and Major Wars for the time period.

Lots of reading from the library. I promised Hands on activities to him this year. So, I did get the SOTW activity guide.

Science

Real Science-4-kids Biology

Language Arts

I like the methods outlined in The Well Trained Mind, but they seem to work at a slower Charlotte Mason approach with my boys. I'm using the the scope and sequence at Ambleside Online for most of our Language Arts planning. As budget permits, I will add in suggestions from The Well Trained Mind, although at lower grade levels.

He will continue with Italics Handwriting. I would like to see him to start some cursive this year. I'm waiting on purchasing writing curriculum or making further plans. I want to see hwo much work First Language Lessons 3 is for him first. I will keep a collection of good literature, as well as History books on the current topics we are covering. He has just started The Magic Treehouse Series. He will probably have some type of memory work for each month. Poetry or speeches from the time period are suggested in TWTM. He will do a short period of oral reading for a parent. We need to keep up with him and make sure he is doing well. We are going to start using Spelling Power this year, as well.

Math

Math U See Gamma

Optional Resources

Field Trips
YMCA
Critical thinking press Mind Benders: Warm Ups A1, A2, A3, A4
Typing Program

2009-2010 Printables, Plans, and Goals TAKE 1

I'm going to start making strange posts to keep track of stuff I would like to plan for the upcoming year. I would like to print off what I need before the actual year, if not just 6 weeks at a time.

I'm going to get more notebooking going this year, too. We end up with scattered papers a lot and no real method to organize them.

I'm posting plans for each child, as well. I'll update them as we go along this summer according to budget restraints mostly.

We are on the waiting list for a virtual academy. So, that will really change how I plan for the year. The VA would allow us to purchase more curriculum especially workbooks that would make things easier to open and go. It would, also, give us the allowance to do some fun stuff like field trips and the YMCA. I will need to keep better track of what we are actually doing including insuring that goal hours are met.

Planning & Goals

I'm going to give the children a 6 week planner sheet at the beginning of the Term/quarter. That way they can do a check off each day. I'm going to use the form from Ambleside Classical. It's on the right hand column of the page and is for Openoffice. It's easy to use it for my own subjects/curriculum. I think I will use the boxes in the right hand corner for keeping track of books read, character traits, or inspirational quotes. If we join the VA, I will include a spot to keep track of hours. They are going to get it printed on their favorite color. The Prophet is red, The Peacemaker is Green, and The Warrior is blue.

Character and Habit Training

I can't believe I'm even considering it. But, we started discussing a chart of character qualities that I printed up. I'm not sharing it because I don't entirely agree with some of the families methods. The boys have responded really well. We did get some character lessons in when we used KONOS, but we haven't used that in the last few years. It's nice to have the chart because I don't think I could come up with a list like that on my own.

These free cards might be helpful. I can print them up and insert what they need to work on. But, I wouldn't have them earn anything for them. I can't keep up with reward systems.

History

I'm pretty certain we will use at least Story of the world 3 for the upcoming year. I've never had much luck using the Activity Guides. It seems to slow us down and I end up feeling guilty for not doing activities. Activities that my children never seem to enjoy.


I'm trying to decide if I want to do a History Notebook as described in The Well Trained Mind. My oldest is not fully at the Logic Stage yet and I think it would be to confusing to keep track of.

I have a good size set of History Scribe pages. I plan on printing those out to go along with some of the chapters. If I run out, I think I will utilize the Free History printables here. I like the looks of either the second one down on the left or the top middle one with the timeline. I would like to use google images and pull up images to use for notebooking, as well. I might throw in a few packs of "real" notebooking paper to liven things up a bit.

I've been wanting to start a Book of Centuries for years. But, we start and stop and loose the pages. I like the look of this one. I should probably put it on some nicer paper to make it more durable.

There was a lot of talk on the Well Trained Mind Forums about creating History notebooks. I'm not interested in binding anything. But, I would like to have everything prepared for the 6 week period. Anything that helps with keeping me from having to recall all the steps I want to take. I'm getting way to distracted with having all these kids and now there is going to be a baby. I know Peace Hill Press offers the notebooking pages from SOTW already printed up. We tried those with SOTW 1 and they didn't go over well. But, it's one of those things that I might consider if we join the virtual academy.

I love using these Story of the World planning sheets. I use them more as a log of what we read or notebooked during the week. I don't like planning supplemental materials. We never have the budget for extras. So, we depend on the library. I never know if we will enjoy something from the library or if it will even arrive around the time of study. It, also, lines up the 42 chapters into a "real" school year. I've been using the one for SOTW 2 and it's keeping me on track and giving me some focus.

Science

I would like to do some sort of Life Science with the boys. We did a little introduction a few years back. But, they were really young then. It really depends on my budget constraints. I have Apologia General Science and I might start doing that with my oldest. I can stretch it out over two years.

Read Alouds

I might do notebooks for some of these. Here and Here are some samples. A narration per chapter.

This Country of Ours

Language Arts

Here is the scope and sequence at Ambleside Online.

We use Italics for Handwriting.

We started some copywork this year. I will continue with that for a bit in the summer and pick it up again during the school year. It made a huge difference in handwriting. I like the Italics because the boys are doing better with it. But, there isn't much practice in the workbooks.

I would like to start some studied dictation, as well. I think I might try with the oldest and see how it goes. I think it could do a lot to help with his writing skills.

Grammar

I plan to start with First Language Lessons 1 for The Warrior. He needs to be reading well before we start. I'm looking at Rod and Staff or First Language Lessons 3 or 4, for the older two. Neither have done any formal grammar yet.