Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Weeks 4 & 5

These past two weeks the kids and I have:

  • ...Completed our first read aloud from Core 3, The Secret of the Andes.  I enjoyed this book even though it was a little strange. The kids however have deemed it boring. 

  • Started CBS. I am so glad to be back. We are studying the book of Acts this year. It's going to be awesome. 

  • Quinn is reading The Hobbit and has completed several other books. Evelyn finished Squanto and a few others.

  • ...Started our next read aloud The Birchbark House which actually isn't from Sonlight but I wanted to read it anyways. So far so good.   

  • Read Pedro's Journal, placed Columbus in our timeline book and traced his route on our giant map.



 
  • ...Wrote lots of letters to family and friends.  What better way to practice handwriting, spelling, grammar, life skills and of course manners!

  • ...made some good progress in math. Quinn is finally up to completing an entire lesson a day. We were slowly working our way back into things. When he started complaining over having to do a half of a page of work I realized that we would be better off to just jump in all the way. 


  •  ...Completed two papers mini reports. Quinn wrote one on turtles and one on Sulcata Tortoises. (He got one for his birthday.) Evelyn chose to do one on Labradors and another on jungles. They each completed a key word outline, rough draft and final draft. In addition Quinn was required a who/which clause, 'ly' word and a quality adjective. Evelyn was required a who/which and 'ly'.
  • ...Mostly completed our Native American Dioramas.
Making the base of the terrain


Evelyn's has a river in the middle.

Paper Mache


Painting the base just so that no white will show through.

Evelyn made a weir in her river.

She even stuck some fish in her river before it hardened



Quinn's scene is at the edge of a Great Lake.




Evelyn painting her corn stalks for her "Three Sisters Garden"

Evelyn used a hair dryer to add waves and ripples to the top of the water as it hardened.



Quinn soldered some wires to a light bulb that he painted orange.





We ran out of E-Z Water so Quinn's lake is not filled yet.


Quinn did a great job soldering, wiring and designing his campfire.



Evelyn's Three Sisters Garden: corn, beans and squash (pumpkins)

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Week 3 Slow and Steady

We stepped it up a small notch this week by throwing one small IEW writing assignment into the mix. I didn't put a whole lot of thought into the source text selections. I find that if I try to think about it for too long it doesn't get done.  I just grabbed a random paragraph from one of the many Usborne books laying around. Quinn's paragraph was on sea snakes and Evelyn's was on seals. I did the outline with each of them separately. The only dress-up I required was a who/which clause. It went pretty well. Outline and rough draft on Wednesday, editing on Thursday and final draft on Friday.

We continued to work on our Native American dioramas. A few things are left to do for next week but they are very close to being finished.It has been a lot of fun and I look forward to posting a slideshow of the project once they are done!

Soccer started this week




Saturday, September 4, 2010

Week 2

This week we went on a field trip. I had noticed a while back that our library has passes to Mount Kearsarge Indian Museum. It is a pretty small library and it doesn't have many passes but this seemed to be just the one for us right now! We decided to go Wednesday and prayed for low crowds. Well, not only did we have no crowds but we were actually the ONLY people there during our entire visit. It was so relaxing taking our time to look at everything and talk about things we saw. No lines or packs of noisy kids to push through. Of course this is temporary since it is so early in the year but I will take it for now. Our lives will become super busy in another two weeks when all of our regular activities start up again. So for now I'll take the quiet.  Anyone considering this trip should check it out. It isn't huge but it's big enough. Go in nice weather so you can explore the medicine woods.












We also started our Native American dioramas. Evelyn's is almost done. By the end of week three I plan for both to be completed and can post pictures!
Other than history, this week we started L'Art De Lire and are working on learning the basic french vocabulary from that first lesson. We have begun our memory file box that we do every year though we are using a small recipe box this year instead of the giant one. Quinn and I are finishing up a Kay Arthur Bible study on Revelation while we wait for CBS to start. Also, math and dictation have been getting done pretty regularly. Next week has a holiday and a birthday in it however my goal is to add in some basic IEW keyword outlining and rewriting with Who/Which clauses using some usborne science books as sources. That way i will be adding some science and writing at once! If I can accomplish that then we will be getting up to speed pretty well. :)I still haven't decided what to do about science this year so for now we are winging it.