Weekly update for week of 2-22-10

This week seemed a little crazier than most since dh was out of town Monday -Thursday. I think N was a little out of sorts because of this. He was a little more emotional than usual, but after some praying and talking things through he did adjust his attitude.

In Preparing we continued on learning about the Dark Ages. One of the history readings was about the founding of Islam. I loved how this was done in the guide. We read the chapter in Child's History of the World and then the guide had us read several verses in the bible that showed things through God's word. N and I had a great discussion about this. We have a Mosque 2 minutes from our house and pass it often, but N has never noticed it. We had a great discussion comparing the two religions. He now understands why some of the girls in Karate keep their heads covered. He also learned about King Ezana who brought Christianity to Ethiopia.

He researched illuminated manuscripts this week and I helped him out by directing him to subheadings and other key words that would help him be more successful with skimming and researching. He felt much more positive this week about his research skills. Coloring has always been tough for him and therefore he doesn't always give it his full effort. We talked about that this week and giving his full effort on his notebooking pages and his projects. He was mad at first and tried to blame his Cerebral Palsy. I did use my physical therapist skills and help him figure out some ways he could move his wrist to be able to color with smaller strokes. He then drew an illuminated manuscript and loved doing it.


He finished Leif the Lucky and made a family tree for Erik the Red.


He performed "The Hayloft" for daddy today and dh was very impressed with his memorization and his intonation and the acting out he did for the poem.

In Science this week he made a Coral Reef out of blocks and did an experiment to see what shape fish mouths could pick up what type of food.


He decided on his own that he wanted to be more independent with Math and Language Arts, so he read the lessons himself and then asked me if he didn't understand anything. This worked out great.

Animal Friends

I have volunteered at Animal Friends Humane Society for over 5 years. I take all the pictures for petfinder.com . Sarah used to go with me all the time and she still does in the summer. N goes every week with me. We fit it in and make sure we still get all our school done for the day. It is a great way for him to learn to serve others. He has a real heart for the animals and loves to pick a few to spend time with. One week it was a very shy dog named Doc. Doc was very scared, so N quietly sat down and waited for Doc to come to him. Doc crawled into N's lap. It was so neat.


That same week there were 8 week old puppies that climbed into his lap and fell asleep. He would have sat there forever.


This past week there was an unusual guest at the shelter. A baby Pot-bellied pig was found wandering around as a stray. No one came to claim it. Most likely someone realized how much work they were and just dumped it to fend for itself. N was allowed to walk it on a leash and cracked up when the staff fed it cheesecake off a fork.


I love how homeschooling allows him to spend time doing something for others as well as he gets the opportunity to interact with the staff and other volunteers.

Weekly update for week of 2-15-10

This week started out with a major snowstorm. Co-op was moved to Wednesday so we shuffled things around which was easy to do. This week we continued to learn about the Barbarians who invaded the Roman Empire. We officially entered the Middle Ages in our journey through history. We read about the Franks, and the Vandals and Noah's favorite the Vikings. He made a Viking brooch and wore it the entire afternoon.

We continued reading "Raiders From the Sea" and we are both really enjoying it. It is an excellent book. I have to admit that I had to stop reading today because I was so choked up at the separation of a brother and sister.

In Poetry this is his week to start memorizing a Robert Louis Stevenson poem. He chose "The Hayloft". He has over half of it memorized already and is enjoying acting out climbing on Mount Rusty-Nail, Mount Eagle, Mount Clear and Mount High.


In Science he started reading "One Small Square: Coral Reef". He loves anything to do with animals so this is a big hit. We watched a Imax movie on the Coral Reef that we instantly downloaded from Netflix. For his science experiment he had to figure out what protects coral. To do this he built his own coral polyp. It didn't quite look like coral due to droopy tentacles, but he had fun and enjoyed eating it afterwords.


He finished up his project for Drawn Into the Heart of Reading this week. He made a scrapbook based on "Jed Smith:Trailblazer of the West". In it he wrote a diary entry, a letter to one of the characters, a page with items that would be important to Jed, and a picture of Jed.


Once again just a fun filled week.

Snowy days

We have had 3 snow storms in 2 weeks. At this point we have over a foot on the ground. The dogs are not happy about this fact. Poor Brina can hardly move in it.

Even Snickers who usually loves the snow is having a tough time running in this stuff.



N has continued to school, but he has enjoyed having Daddy around. Every morning we start with dancing to a Praise song. N recruited Daddy to dance with him, although they look like they are flying.


He has had plenty of time to play in the snow and go sledding though.

Weekly update

N and I had a good week. We started off Monday at co-op where he is taking a drama class. He loves it. This week they talked about props and developing characters. He had fun with the props. He messed around with a crazy green wig and in a skit they did he was a dog, using a towel to make his ears.


In Preparing this week we read about different Roman Emperors and how they dealt with Christians. We learned about Nero and Constantine. His history project this week was making a golden laurel wreath like a commander or emperor would wear. He loves wearing this.



We finished our Read Aloud book "Fountain of Life" and started a book on the Vikings called "Raiders from the Sea". He loves this book and doesn't want to stop reading each day. He started reading "Leif the Lucky" for his independent history study.

In Science he finished reading "Find the Constellations". He did a great job with his star book and loved learning all about constellations and space. He can't wait until it is warm enough to take his telescope out and find different things.

In Poetry he read the Poem "Block City" by Robert Louis Stevenson. He loved this poem because he could relate to it so well. He loves to build cities and things out of legos and K'nex. He did a creative writing assignment based on this poem and wrote about building a hideout for our cat. We made the switch from "Growing with Grammar" to CLE Language Arts today. I felt like he just wasn't retaining things as well as I wanted him to. I can already tell CLE will be a better fit. He loves their Math program and was very excited today to start the Language Arts program. When he was done he told me how fun it was.

We also worked on our Winter Olympics Unit study and he is very excited that they start tonight. We have a map made with all the countries that are participating labeled and he has a chart ready to record what medals each country wins. He has been re-enacting the torch relay for days now with the torch he made. Of course putting his laurel wreath on his head and running around with his torch made it even more fun.

Curriculum

The main curriculum we are using this year is put out by Heart of Dakota. It is called "Preparing Hearts for His Glory". I feel God led us to this curriculum, just as he led us to homeschooling. Preparing is a history/ literature based curriculum done in the Charlotte Mason style. It is supplemented with a more textbook approach for Math and English. This year focuses on an overview of World History. It completely intertwines World History with Biblical History and shows how it overlaps and meshes together. It includes a History project every week, independent history study, a history read aloud, geography, research and vocabulary words. In the Language Arts department N is doing a year long study of the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson. He loves it! He has been using a curriculum called "Growing with Grammar", but we have a different curriculum on order and will see if we like it better. He also does a writing curriculum called "Igniting Your Writing". For Math he is using Christian Light Education and he is doing great and loving it. He also is memorizing Bible verses each week. Science is done from "living books" and includes an experiment each week.

In addition to the above he is also doing a study of the 50 states that he started over the summer and is doing a vocabulary program called "Vocabulary from Classical Roots". With all of this he still has time to fit in fun things like the Unit Study on the Winter Olympics that we are doing now.

He loves being homeschooled and is eager to do school each day. He would start at 7:30 every day, but I usually push him off to around 8. He goes to co-op on Mondays and this semester is taking Drama, Tennis, Sign Language and Work Centers.

That brings you up to date with what we are doing this year so from now on I will post a weekly update and also plan on posting other fun things as they come up.

Trying again

I tried blogging before and I wasn't very good at keeping up with it. Now that I am homeschooling I am going to try it again and hopefully be more faithful with updating it. I am hoping this can give some insight into our day for family and those just curious about homeschooling.

I have 2 children. My dd is in 9th grade in the public schools. My ds is in 5th grade and came home this year at his request. I have a wonderful dh who is very supportive.

In my next post I will give more details about our curriculum and what we are doing this year.