Weekly update for the week of 10/25/2010

We did lots of cool stuff this week. In Poetry they were back to painting watercolor paintings to go along with Robert Frost poems. This week they painted one that had a cool background with a feathered outline of a leaf.


In Science N. read about snakes and lizards. For his experiment this week he colored squares of paper towel different colors and then layered them like a chameleon's skin and dropped water on them to see how it all became one color. He learned that they don't really change color because of the background they are on but that it has to do with amount of light, heat and if they are trying to attract a mate.


In history N. learned about King Saul and David and the Philistines. N. and S. made a sling like David's. It was pretty funny watching them try and hit a target.


We finished reading about Israel in Geography. I learned as much as he did. In storytime we continued reading Jashub's journal.

N. continues to struggle some with reading comprehension when he reads more difficult books like the Story of the Ancient World. I have gotten some ideas from people on the HOD board to try with him and will try those next week. It is a book that uses a lot of older language so I think that is part of the challenge. In DITHOR he is reading Dragons of the Deep and he does a pretty good job with his activities in his workbook that have centered around finding the theme and the Main idea of a passage.

He finished his description of a place for Write with the Best and did a nice job with it. He also wrote a paragraph for Rod and Staff about the responsibilities of dog ownership which he did a nice thorough job on. I continue to see nice improvements in his creative writing.

Weekly update for the week of 10/18/2010

This week just seemed to fly by. It is hard to believe that October is almost done. In Poetry Noah finished memorizing "Fireflies in the Garden" by Robert Frost and presented it to his dad. He did a great job. Both kids are excited to get back to painting next week. In Language Arts Rod and Staff continues to go well. He continues to work through the dictation passages and I am noticing that it is helping his spelling. Now if he spells something wrong he often will catch it by looking at it.

In Math he moved into multiplying fractions by canceling out numerators and denominators and also how to multiply decimals and make sure that he has the correct placement for the decimal sign. He still seems to like the CLE math and lessons I think are going to be tough for him he does well on. He still says his favorite lessons are the ones that are geometry based. He likes angles and quadrilaterals. Must be like his daddy.

In Science he continued to read about various hoofed animals. He did a science experiment to see why Giraffes have to have high blood pressure. I didn't take pictures because I was being a pair of extra hands, but he sure enjoyed squirting water all over the kitchen as he demonstrated the high blood pressure with a water bottle with a tiny hole in it and a balloon. He was already trying to figure out how he could apply that and build his own water gun.

In Geography we continue to read about Israel. He also looked at a map to see where the 12 tribes of Israel were located. He loved reading about Samson this week in his Bible Quiet time and in History. His history project this week was to make a Philistine helmet. His sister couldn't let that go without making one of her own. She decided that since she is studying American History that hers was a Native American headdress. I loved hearing them laugh and giggle together as they worked. That is something that never happened when she was in school and he was home.



In Storytime we are reading Jashub's journal. Noah is enjoying this book and likes to see how Jashub will interpet the law to make rulings for the people.

I have to admit that I wasn't super excited about studying Ancient History, but with CTC and all the living books and projects it is very interesting and enjoyable.

Weekly update for the week of 10/11/2010

We had another good week this week. N. has really gotten where he can get his work done fairly quickly. In poetry he is choosing to memorize the poem "Fireflies in the Garden" by Robert Frost. He has been practicing the first half of it this week. The cats love that he uses a flashlight as a prop.
We officially switched to Rod and Staff English 5 this week. I wanted to see how he did with his writing assignment and it was the best writing I think he has ever done. Rod and Staff presented things in a gentle way and he wasn't overwhelmed at all. I also think it was easier because Write with the Best is giving him some confidence in his writing.

We are learning about Israel in Geography. I am learning things I never knew. N. still sometimes tends to "space out" when I am reading out loud the lesson, but if I stop here and there and make comments like "wow that is really cool" then he tends to get drawn back in. He enjoys doing the mapping activities. In "Genesis Finding our Roots" he learned all about the Tree of Life and how it is depicted in art in many cultures.

In Science he learned about horses and had fun with the science experiment where he tapped out the horses gaits with his fingers. He has heard the terms gallop, canter and trot since he was young, but never really knew what those were.

For Storytime we read the book of Ruth. That was a story we did last year and he remembered the characters in it, but not all the details so it was fun to see him anxiously wanting to know if Ruth married Boaz. One of the narration activities was doing an advertisement for the book. He was hesitant at first and then he really got into it and it was hysterical. I wish I would have videotaped it.

In history he learned about Deborah, Gideon and Joshua. He loved that his dad didn't remember anything about Deborah and he was able to tell him about her. His written narration was about Gideon and the Middianites. He still struggles right after he reads to answer the questions without looking. I don't know if it is still the difficulty of the text or what. Once he looks up the answers he seems to understand the story much better. He really liked this story and did a fantastic narration independently. This is huge for him.

His history project was making a model of the Jordan river and re-enacting how the river parted to let the Israelites through when the priests held the ark of the covenant in the water, and then how they took 12 stones and made a memorial. He had fun telling his dad this story.


This week I have once again been reminded of how easy HOD makes it to homeschool, especially since S. and I have decided we don't like her English and are having to totally revamp things. That is very stressful, but I don't have to worry about that with N. at all.

Weekly update for the week of 10/4/2010

It was a good week this week. We had a fun time with school and I noticed some improvements in some areas. In History N. continued to study Egypt and biblical history that ties in with Egypt. Noah amazed me with some of his insight. Usually he reads and doesn't say much after he reads, but this week he was really starting to makes some connections which is huge for him. He read about Moses and the golden calf and he says "Mom don't you find it kind of amazing that while Moses was up receiving the 10 commandments, the people were down already breaking the first 2 of them." I also have seen growth in this area when we do the Friday activity during storytime where we both find verses from Proverbs that connects to the story we are reading. At first this was hard for him, but now he is really doing a great job with it. He also showed increased independance with his written narration this week. He did it 95 % on his own and I saw him taking things he is using in his writing curriculum and carrying these over. He was careful about his wording and he made sure that everything flowed and stuck to the topic.

His history project this week was Aaron's Breastplate and the 12 stones that symbolized the 12 tribes of Israel. It was pretty cool because S. helped him figure out how to mix the colors of paint to most accurately resemble the stones in his notebook. He worked very hard on his Hebrew writing.


For Science he was learning about various animals in the Rodentia family. His Science experiment was about Anteaters. He and his sister tried to pick up Chocolate Chips with their tongues. S. was actually very good at it and N. and I decided she would make a good Anteater.


He started a new book for DITHOR reading this week. It is for the non-fiction genre and it is called Dragons from the Deep. He is enjoying, but needs to work a little bit on remembering what he read.

Both kids once again really enjoyed doing the watercolor paintings. In fact S. is very upset that for the next 2 weeks there isn't a painting since N. will be memorizing a Robert Frost poem.



We finished reading "The Boy of the Pyramids" for storytime. Noah really enjoyed that book and again I saw him making predictions and connections that he doesn't usually make.
He continues to enjoy his Bible Quiet time and is working on memorizing Philippians 2.

In Grammar we continued our trial of Rod and Staff 5 and it is going very well. I want to see how he handles a writing lesson in there before I decide to completely switch over, but so far I am impressed with his retention and how much he seems to enjoy it.

Weekly update for weeks of 9/20 and 9/27

I didn't have my act together to post last week so I am posting a review of 2 weeks. It has been a good 2 weeks. Things are flowing smoothly now and I am starting to see some growth in some areas. In Science N. continues to read from the Exploring Creation with Land Animals of the 6th day. He loves this book. Last week he made air dry clay and put our 2 cats foot prints in it and then also one of the dogs. They weren't sure what they thought of it, but N. liked to see the difference in the 2 cats footprints since one is a big boy and one a dainty girl.


He continues to do well with CLE math, but I haven't been completely sold on CLE Language Arts. The looks of Rod and Staff had always intimidated him, but I asked him to give it a trial and see what he thought of it. We have done 2 lessons so far and he says he really likes it. We do most of it orally and I like that since I can make sure he is getting the concepts. I keep the writing down so his hands don't fatigue and I let him do things like write on the white board which seems easier for him. We are going to continue another week and see what we think. I have a feeling we will stick with it.

Last week he finished his first paragraph for Write with the Best. It was supposed to be a descriptive paragraph about an object and he chose our big cat Rudi. He still gets a lot of mental blocks when it comes to writing, but I thought he did a pretty good job with this one.
"My cat Rudi thinks he is king of the world. He sits on the cat post like a panther looking over his kingdom. He gets mad when everyone ignores him. He then randomly chomps the first person he sees. However, if you pet the furry beast he will purr loudly. My large tuxedo king can make you do almost anything."

Both kids continue to enjoy the painting. In fact I know it is S's favorite part of the week. Here is N's paintings from last week and this week.


Here is S's painting from this week.


In History we continue to learn about Egypt along with stories about Moses. For storytime we are reading "Boy of the Pyramids". Noah loves this book and is probably giving his best narrations ever. His narrations about his readings in History of the Ancient World are improving. I have taken Carrie, the curriculum authors suggestions and before he starts to read I write just the main people and places and tell him which is a person and which is a place and that seems to help him not get bogged down when he reads. He also is highlighting and that seems to help him.
He enjoyed working on his history project this week.



He continues to work hard on his notebooking pages. He likes to write in pen because it is darker and his hands don't get as tired, the down side is that his tremor shows up more in his writing. I continue to let him dictate some, type some and write some depending on how much space is available for him to write.


The highlight of this week was working on his Drawn Into the Heart of Reading Project for his book "Buffalo Bill". He dressed up and answered questions his dad would ask him about Buffalo Bill. We don't exactly have cowboy outfits around here so he had to improvise with an Indiana Jones hat and a marshmallow gun. It was pretty funny.



The other big news of the week is he started trombone lessons. He wanted to practice at 6am, thankfully his daddy stopped him.