Weekly update 9/19/2011

We finished up another week of RTR and once again things went well.  In Science using the AIG book N. made a tornado using a tornado tube and 2 pop bottles.  He has done this before, but he loves doing it so I let him do it again.

We continue to do Rod and Staff for Grammar.  I will say that the chapter on pronouns has been challenging for him.  He has a hard time remembering the names of the different pronouns.  He usually can pick the right one to use in a sentence, but telling what type of pronoun it is can be tough. 

In Math he is almost done with LU 602.  He is learning many pre-algebra type concepts as well as some Geometry and graphing.

I think one of my favorite parts of this year is Boyhood and Beyond.  It is really challenging him to strive toward becoming a Godly man.  This week his assignment was to pick a task he hadn't done before and do that to take a step towards becoming the man God wants him to be.  He has started going to men's bible study with my dh and they were on the team to fix breakfast today.  So N. decided his task would be to plan and make the fruit salad.  He wrote up the grocery list, shopped and then cut up a lot of the fruit. He even got up at 5:30 so he could get to church by 6:30 am.   One of the leaders even sent him an e-mail checking in with him.  N. was so excited to be treated in a more "grown up fashion".  

His history project this week was a grid of a monastery.  He enjoyed this project as usual. He is wearing headphones in the first picture because his sister was doing an art project and was loud and disrupting his concentration.

He also did a map of the Byzantine Empire.  He likes doing the maps this year because he said he can do them and not struggle with the writing.

In storytime we are still reading "The Mystery of the Silver Coins".  What a fantastic book.  I have trouble stopping each day without reading on.

World Geography Charlotte Mason style

My dd came home last year as a 10th grader.  She was very used to textbooks and so that is what we did.  She had a good year, but she would watch N. doing his projects and commented that she would like at least one subject where she could do something other than textbooks.  She had already done World History and American History so we decided that this year she would do World Geography.  She didn't get much of this in school since it isn't on any achievement tests.  We are using the free plans from Harmony Art Mom's blog.  I tweaked them a little bit to add in "Operation World" and "Windows on the World" to give  a mission focus.  She is loving doing the notebooking, art projects and cooking.  This week she made Irish Stew for dinner.  Not only did we do World Geography, but also Home Economics, because peeling potatoes and carrots is not something she has really ever done.  I think she loves having this class in the middle of things like Physics and Algebra 2 and English Lit..  It definitely breaks up the day.

She is reading about the different World Religions and then doing a notebook page.

 Here is her sketch of Big Ben

 Here is her very creative Coat of Arms

 Notebooking page for Ireland

Weekly update for 11/12/11

This week was interesting.  It started off with N. having a reaction to Claritin.  I had never given it to him before and 1 1/2 hours after giving it to him he became a totally different child.  He became argumentative, refused to do his work and became very mean, which is totally not his personality.  I was totally confused as to what was going on until I googled Claritin behavior side effects and found out that was I was seeing was actually not that unusual. After that was out of his system the rest of the week went very smooth.  He was back to being my hard working kid.

In science we continue with the AIG book and he has had fun doing the small experiments like making fog in a bottle and sucking the air out of a bottle to look at air pressure.  He made the different types of clouds out of cotton balls. 

He also did a written narration for science this week about the dust bowl, and did a pretty good job on it.

In math he continues to plug along with CLE 600 and seems to have remembered most of the things he forgot over the summer. He continues to read Gentle Ben in DITHOR, he seems to have good reading comprehension for this book.  I have him doing Megawords to help with his ability to decode longer words.  I have realized that he sometimes mispronounces words and I think that might interfere with his comprehension. He decided on an easy Megawords sheet to show me how neatly he could write.  He said he can't write like this all the time because his hand cramps.

His history project this week was a board game he made called Race to Rome.  I like that as we play it the different tribe names are reinforced. 

In Storytime we are reading "The Mystery of the Silver Coins".  This is the second book in the Viking Quest series and N. loves it!  He loves doing his oral narration 1x a week with this book and likes to move around and act it out while he narrates.

He continues to make gains in his independence and really only needs help now with the I boxes if it is something to do with his fine motor skills. 

Weekly update for 9/5/2011

This was a very good school week.  We finished week 3 or RTR and N. has really found his groove.  He is finishing in the 4 1/2 to 5 hour time frame now and is becoming more independent daily.  In history reading he is finishing up "Peril and Peace" and that is being scattered between days of reading "The Story of the Middle Ages" and "Famous Men of the Middle Ages".  He has wanted to read everything by himself on some days, but I still end up helping him figure out what the main points of the story were.  He is growing in leaps and bounds with his written narrations and his postcards for research.  He really is wanting to write more complex sentences and that is something new.

His history project was one I was not sure how much he would be able to do.  He was to make a parchment that had a bible verse in Greek and then the translation below it.  I figured he could do the cursive verse on the bottom, but I didn't see how with his dysgraphia he could do the Greek and not get frustrated.  I told him we would be flexible and I could help as much as he needed.  I wrote the first line to give him a model and I put lines on the paper as a guide and then to my amazement he wrote all of the rest!  He really enjoyed it and I think he did a great job.

He and I are really enjoying "Boyhood and Beyond" and I already see him trying to put the things he is learning in there in practice.  This week was his first week in the Wed. night Youth Group at church.  He was so excited to go.  There is a group of about 5 boys that have all just moved up.  They met in a small group for prayer with the Youth Pastor and the Youth Pastor said that he was so encouraged because the first prayer that this group of boys prayed that night was "Lord help us to be godly men."  The boy who prayed that was N.  I got tears in my eyes when I read that on our Youth Pastor's facebook.  I know those ideas are partly coming from our reading and discussion with "Boyhood and Beyond". 

He continues to read "Gentle Ben" for DITHOR and we are talking about perspective and how books are written from a certain perspective.  He has enjoyed taking different scenes and writing them from a different characters perspective than the original.

We started our co-op this Friday and because HOD is a 4 day program this allows us to be in the co-op without getting behind.  He is taking an art class, a science experiments class and a drama class that is Intro to Shakespeare.  Should be a fun year.

Weekly update week of 8/29/11

This week started out kind of rough, but ended on a very good note.  N. was getting frustrated with his history reading in "Peril and Peace".  The readings are long with lots of names and he was having trouble following the story.  Midway in the week I started partnering in the reading with him.  I will read around 3 pages so that he has a good idea of the story and then he finishes it up.  This has really helped him figure out what is going on in the story and to retain more of the information.  God has shown me through some good advice on the HOD board and through just speaking to my heart that it is ok to make this modification for him.  It doesn't lessen his accomplishments in any way and it will help him get the maximum benefit from the program as well as then he is able to give more energy to other subjects.
His history project this week was a stained glass cross that he did with chalk.  He worked really hard on this and really gave it his best effort.

In storytime we finished up reading "Forbidden Gates."  This was another wonderful selection from HOD.  N. loved it and did very well with all the follow up activities.
In Science we continued with AIG's Wind and Weather book.  He enjoys the little demonstration type activities in it.
He continues to love Looking at Pictures.  I am amazed at how many details he can remember from the paintings we are studying.  This box rotates with a Poetry box as well as reading Boyhood and Beyond which is a fantastic book.  This week we talked about honesty and being a man of integrity. 
In DITHOR reading he is reading "Gentle Ben" and he loves it.  I am glad to be back to DITHOR.  He is really enjoying the book and the activities that go with it.
The big gains this week have been in his writing.  He is doing very well with IEW's Medieval writing lessons.  The style of instruction is really clicking with him.  He wrote a nice paragraph based on a source document and did it all on his own.  I am also seeing what he is learning there carry over to other writing assignments like his research post card and his written narrations.  

He is really enjoying school again this year and for that I am very grateful. 

Weekly update week of 8/22/11

We started our new school year on Tuesday.  We started with the official first day of school pics.

N. has grown so much this year.  He is almost as tall as S. and she isn't happy about it. 
N. jumped right in to RTR.  We have taken each box a little slower than usual so I can make sure he sees what is different this year and also I can make sure he knows what is expected of him.  He always starts his day with his bible quiet time.  He is studying Philippians this year and memorizing Philippians 1.  I think he is going to like the bible study book he is doing.  He and I are reading Boyhood and Beyond together and he learned this week to see God in His creation.  Tomorrow he wants to go to a park to spend some time really observing all the wonderful things God has made.  I see a maturity in his bible discussions that I didn't see last year. 
One day a week he is doing a picture study using the book "Looking at pictures".  He really enjoyed studying a painting and then trying to see how much of it we could each remember.  For my visual learner this was right up his alley and much easier for him then narrating after he reads.
In Science we switched things up a little since he had already done the Apologia Astronomy book so he is doing Answers in Genesis Wind and Weather book.  He enjoyed the 2 small experiments we did this week.  He did a great written narration about Joseph Priestly.
In History he is reading "Peril and Peace" and learned about Paul, Polycarp, Justin the Martyr and Constantine.  He enjoys this book, but oral and written narration from it are a little tough for him at this point. I think all the hard  names confuse him.  With a little help he did do a nice written narration.
His history project this week was a Roman Arch with a background.  This is where I am seeing the biggest gains.  He paid close attention to the quality of his work and really took his time each day with this.  Here it is with the background almost done and before he painted the arch.

When we finished the week N. said he thought it was a good first week and a few nights when his Dad would ask him what his favorite part of the day was he said "I can't pick, I like it all." 

The End of Summer

I can't believe summer is almost over.  We are starting school next week.  On Monday I will meet with each kid and talk about goals and expectations for the summer and give them an overview of their curriculum.  On Tuesday we will dive right in.

It has been a wonderful summer.  S. and  N. went to church camp and had a wonderful time and came back with new spiritual things to focus on.  S. has been working 15-20 hours a week.  N. went on a local mission week and had a fantastic time and even let his true goofy self show by break dancing at a concert in the park.  The adults and teens on the trip got a real kick out of seeing this side of the boy they thought was shy and quiet. 

We just got back from a vacation in PA.  Went to the Pittsburgh zoo, Hershey Chocolate World, Gettysburg and Amish Country.  We stayed at a farm bed and breakfast and had a fantastic time.  N. is now convinced he wants to be a farmer.  He was up and talking to the sheep by 6:45 each morning and would stay out in the barnyard until dark.

S. had been more unsure about staying on a farm because she said she was afraid of chickens and didn't like goats.  She ended up loving collecting the eggs and even attempted to milk a goat.  Her favorite thing was the sunset ATV ride that the owner of the farm took us on.

It was a fantastic end to summer and I think we are now ready to dig in to a new, and hopefully wonderful school year.  I have been scheduling things in homeschool tracker all summer.  Sarah is taking a pretty tough load of classes.  Noah is moving on to the next Heart of Dakota guide entitled Resurrection to Reformation. It will include longer reading and more challenging, thought provoking activities.  I am looking forward to seeing his progress this year.