Summer

Hard to believe we are almost 1 month into our summer break.  I thought I would do a post about what summer looks like here.  As far as school stuff we go pretty light.  I do encourage N. to do 1/2 hour of reading a day, he is in the library reading program so that is good incentive.  S. is reading some on her own.

For S. the big thing I have her doing is working on more ACT prep books so she can retake it in the fall.  Her score was very good, but I think she can bring her English up a little bit. 

For N. he rotates off on different days working on a typing program, doing math using Khan Academy, some handwriting practice and watching Discovery Streaming videos of his choice.  He is also working on a 500 word essay that he has to write in order to get his karate black belt.  He is doing this fairly independently, something I never thought he would do.

As far as fun things we did this for vacation and had so much fun.

N. and I are volunteering at the animal shelter and S. is working hard at her job at Chik fil a.  They also both volunteered at VBS at church and are doing other mission type work days with the youth group and of course the highlight of summer is church camp. 

We will start school back on Aug. 20th but until then they are enjoying every minute of summer while I busily plan for next school year.

Update for 5/13/2012

Well this week N. finished up RTR.  It has been a fantastic year.  I have seen growth in his reading abilities and in his writing abilities.  It has been a fascinating time period to study.   I love that he learned so much about church history.  I haven't updated in a few weeks so here are some pictures from the past 2 weeks.

He made a bag like the Lenape Indians used.  He realized that he missed one detail of the directions and went back and corrected it.  He has done this a few times and I love that it teaches him to pay closer attention without me really having to say much.

Here is his flap book that took a few weeks.  It has key verses to understanding salvation.

One of his favorite things each week has been to write his research postcard.  He writes to a dog out at the animal shelter we volunteer at.  He always picks his favorite and adds a line at the end about hoping they get adopted.  He says he wants to continue to do this during the summer.  One area that has also really improved is how careful he is now with his timeline.

The final history project was making Amish Sugar Cookies.  He is becoming quite the cook thanks to HOD.

For his last science experiment he made a glider and had to experiment with how much weight to add to the nose and also making sure the wings were rounded on top.  This demonstrated Bernouilli's Principle. This experiment was a huge hit.

 Finally here is the official "so sad I am done with this guide" picture.

It is always sad to end a guide, but I have already read over half of the books for Revival to Revolution, which is the next guide, and it also is fantastic.  He does still have to finish up 5 lessons in math and take his annual testing required by the state, but then it is on to summer.

Update for the week of 4/23/2012

You can tell it is near the end of the year as I am falling behind in posting on my blog.  The month of April has flown by.  We have 3 weeks left of RTR and then a few days of testing and finishing up math. He continues to just plug along.  He was starting to get a complaining attitude about math, but some of the things in Boyhood and Beyond really spoke to him and now he is focusing on having a positive attitude.

In Bible Study he finished the actual book part of his Philippians study.  He was sad to finish it.  When we went to convention and he looked at next years things the first thing he went to was the Hebrews book he will be doing and was so glad to see it was in the same series as the book he has down this year.  He and I also finished Boyhood and Beyond.  I can't recommend this book highly enough.  It is a wonderful book for teaching our boys what it means to be a Godly men.

For his Independent history he drew a musketeer using Draw and Write through History.  You can tell by his death grip on the colored pencil that it isn't easy for him to do, but he loves it.

In science he continues to read "Planet Earth" by John Hudson Tiner.  Last year when he did a Tiner book he really struggled with finding the answers to the questions in the back.  This year it has come much easier, which is encouraging for me to see.  He did an experiment about pendulums and was fascinated with how that worked.  I really see the science sparking his deeper thinking and often asking "What if...". 

In DITHOR he finished the first part of "Little Pilgrim's Progress".  He has loved this book.  In fact he is going to read the second part in the 3 weeks of school we have left since we are done with DITHOR for this year.  He made a Lit Box for his project.  He made a castle for the Celestial City and inside it put objects that were significant in the story.  He also made a story board with the characters and he dictated a summary of the story to me.

In storytime we finished up "The Story of Blaise Pascal".  This story started a little slow, and I wasn't sure how well he was following it because he was struggling a bit with the oral narrations.  By the end however, he was really in to it and said that he liked it.

I had a friend ask him this week if he was ready for the school year to be done.  He got a very funny look on his face and said "No, not at all."  I love that.  I love that he loves school even though it doesn't come easy for him.   

Cows, college and other things

I don't update on S. very often, but here goes.  She is really enjoying her Junior year.  She has enjoyed her subjects this year for the most part.  Algebra 2 has been known to make her crazy, but math will always be her least favorite subject.  We did 2 college visits, both private Christian colleges.  The one that is her first pick has online dual enrollment classes.  She just finished applying for that program.  She would love to be able to take 2 classes each semester and get some of her general education credits done.  She should find out in a few weeks if she is accepted.  She also took the ACT for the first time on Saturday.  She was very stressed, but knows that she can take it again.  She also just keeps holding on to the knowledge that God is in control of her future and she posted on facebook on Friday  "I know that I will get the score God wants me to get and will go to the college where he wants me to go." This is such a change from where she was a few years ago.

One fun thing for her has been getting to be the Chick-fil-a cow at work on kids nights.  I guess she has done a good job because she was asked to be one of the Chick-fil-a cows in the opening day parade for our cities major league baseball team.  This was a great experience for her.

Co-op is now over.  She enjoyed this years co-op and made some strong Christian friends.  She also learned to play the guitar.  This is serving as a nice stress reliever for her.

We had a wonderful Easter with just us and I love that this picture of my 2 kiddos.

Now it is time for the homestretch of her Junior year.  Hard to believe that next time this year she will be graduating.  I can't think about that too much or I get very emotional.  I am so thankful to have these past 2 years of homeschooling her to get to know her better and to watch from a front row seat as she becomes the young lady God wants her to be.

Update week of 4/2/12

This week we are actually on spring break which gives me time to catch up on this blog. It seems like the weeks are just flying by and it is so hard to believe that we only have 6 weeks left of school. 

In the past 2 weeks we finished up listening to The Legend of Squanto for storytime.  He also read about Squanto in MOH 3 and watched a NEST video on Discovery Streaming about William Bradford that talked about Squanto.  Each version was slightly different and we discussed how sometimes it is good to read from several sources and compare because facts can get altered over time.  We have just started reading "A Piece of the Mountain: the story of Blaise Pascal.  N. loves books about scientists so I am sure this one will also be a hit. 

In Science he continues to read the story of Isaac Newton.  He has had a good time with his science experiments.  Although they are simple they have really sparked an interest in Newton's laws.  He has even been making up experiments on his own to show Newtons Laws.  I love that. Here are pictures of the experiments that his guide had him do.  First he looked at how gravity influences the orbit of the earth.

Then he did 3 experiments that demonstrated each law of motion.

His history project for the week was to make a paper mache shaker like the Algonquin Indians would use. I have usually avoided paper mache, but he was so excited to do this.  It was messy, but he really enjoyed making it.

 He is really excited to start learning more American History.  Since we started HOD at Preparing he didn't get the 2 years of American History in Beyond and Bigger.  In fact he thought that Pocahontas wasn't real.  I asked him why he would think that and he said it was because Disney made a movie about her and they don't make movies about real people.  I had to laugh, but then we talked about who Pocahontas really was.

In Grammar he is learning more capitalization rules.  These are mostly review which is nice after learning many new things in the last chapter. 

He is learning to write a response to a writing prompt in IEW.  This has been really good for him.  It is making him think through things on his own and back his thoughts up with examples. 

All in all a great last few weeks.

Apps for our homeschool part 2

It seems like every week I discover new apps to try on the Ipad.  Some of them we use a lot and some of them are fun for a short period of time and then don't get used anymore.  Here are some of the more recent ones we have used.
1. Puzzleography- This is a fun quiz game for learning World geography.  It teaches as well as quizzes.  S. is learning all the countries of Africa so she has been using it to practice.  It gives you either the name or the puzzle piece shape whichever you choose and then you figure out where it goes on the map.  You can "cheat" by touching any country on the map and it will tell you the name of the country.  I don't mind this though because she is still learning.
2. 7notes HD premium-  I downloaded this app because it does handwriting to text. I wanted to see how that would work for N.  So far it has been somewhat frustrating because it doesn't always recognize what he writes.  He is a messy writer, but I think what throws it is that he doesn't write his letters in one fluid motion.  I think I will have him write in cursive and see if that helps.  There is a lot of potential if it would recognize his writing quickly.
3. Solids Elementary HD:  N. is studying solids in Math and learning about faces, edges and vertices.  This is a great way to give a clear illustration of these concepts.  He really didn't need it for understanding, but he has had fun playing with it.  I can see how for someone who has trouble visualizing things (like me) that it would be a great learning tool.
4. Tourwrist:  Just downloaded this today and it is a hit.  It has panoramic photos of various places and you move through the 360 degree scene by moving you Ipad in different directions.  There is a different tour a day as well as many other tours that have been done by either individuals or the company.  Today he toured Paris around the Eiffel Tower, the Coliseum, as well as Venice. These are often aerial photos and you can't zoom in, but wow it really gives you a feel for what the area looks like. 
5. Wolfram Alpha-  This is like one of those smart computers you used to see on Science Fiction shows in the 70's.  You type in an equation or a question and it spits out the answer.  S. needed to know the average high temp for Kenya.  It spit it out in seconds and also gave the average high and low for today and other information.  I can see a lot of use for this as both of them do research etc.

On one other note, the last one of these I did I talked about Notability and how N. was still figuring it out.  He has now become very proficient at using it and it does make writing up his Science lab reports much easier.

Weekly update for 3/12/12

This week in RTR he moved more into the Age of Reason in his readings.  It is amazing to me how much he is learning about and covering this year. He loved  learning about Japan and what was going on there during this time period.  He read about Shogun rulers and the class system that was different than what he would have thought it would be.  As he is reading he can't help but stop and tell me all the interesting things he is learning.  He learned how Christianity was outlawed and Japan was closed off to the outside world for 200 years.  I have to admit, I didn't know that.  He has gotten where he wants to watch a Discovery Streaming Video for the topics we are studying so I found 2 short ones about Japan during this time period and also some things about Samurai warriors.  He loved that.  His history project for the week was making foods from the Shakespearean time in England.  The first day he made seed cake.  The second day he made baked pears and we had them for dinner.  He didn't make Yorkshire pudding because his sister had made something similar when she studied England and he knew no one like it. 

In storytime we finished reading "The Story of Sir Walter Raleigh".  Noah decided it was very depressing how he was treated at the end of his life.  We then started listening to the audio drama of "The Story of Squanto".  This also starts our fairly intense and sad.  I love how this isn't watered down history for this age.  He is seeing more the good and bad of history.  I wouldn't have wanted to present this to him when he was younger, but this is a very good age for it.  We have some good discussions about the evil of man and how greed causes them to do some pretty awful things. 

In Science he finished reading "Along Came Galileo" and is now reading "Isaac Newton".  He then did a science experiment looking at the path of comets and how the coma of a comet is formed.  It was kind of cool that as he was taking a ice cube and realizing that comets were cold and learning about how as it traveled close to the sun part of it melted leaving the coma that we had a hail storm.  I brought some hail in and this helped him visualize even more what happened. 

He continues to love the Art study "Looking at Pictures".  He loves studying the pictures and talking about them.  He also is challenged weekly by "Boyhood and Beyond".  All of the resources in this guide have just been so good.