12/12 - Read aloud - I have had some random books from the library that I have been wanting to read to the kids, so we read those today.
Math - Sierra is working on long division and is getting it easily now. I first introduced it when it showed up in her 3rd grade math book and she was not at all ready for it. One more point for homeschooling, we can wait until our kid is ready for concepts and they come easily instead of forcing them to struggle with ideas earlier.
Instruments
Independent Reading - I am having Sierra read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I read it aloud 2 years ago, but I thought it would be a great December book. Chalk another one up for homeschooling, my kid can read a book with religious ideas for school without the separation of church and state police hunting me down...
12/15 - Read Aloud - We finally got all of our Charlemagne books that I had put on hold at the library, so we did Chapter 13 of SOTW2. We have only been working on SOTW2 for a year and a half...
Math
Instruments
Independent Reading
12/16 - Read aloud - more random stuff
Math
Instruments
Independent Reading
Copywork
12/17 - Read aloud -random
Math
Instruments
Independent Reading
Freewriting
12/18 - first day of Christmas Break!
I love that I can decide when our break starts. I did struggle to keep doing school that last week and a half. It was especially difficult since my parents had been visiting the first week of December, but I pushed myself to get back into (sort of) school mode for 5 more days before finally gave in and proclaimed it "Christmas Break."
A couple of schooly moments to share. My oldest has been begging me to let her write at bedtime. The girls are allowed to read in their beds for 45 minutes at bedtime. For a while I would also let them write, but then my oldest would just end up drawing and she would never read. She doesn't read on her own during the day unless I make her for school, so bedtime is her reading for pleasure time. We ended up having to make the rule that the 45 minutes before lights out had to be used for reading. It is exciting to see her so motivated to write. We don't do a lot of writing for school at least compared to public school, so it is encouraging to see her have a desire to write.
My youngest is a trip. She would be in kindergarten this year. Some days, I feel guilty that I don't do enough school with her and other days I think, "Hey, it's only kindergarten." It's just that the public schools have started doing more and more academic stuff earlier and earlier. It is hard not to feel like she is somehow behind if she is not reading fluently and doing multiplication by the end of kindergarten... Anyway, the other day she was playing with these magnets that she had gotten for her birthday. She was going around the house finding things that were magnetic. I was like, science, check! I mean I have set up that experiment with my older girls and here she is doing it on her own. Also, she got a science kit for her birthday that she and her sisters have been begging me to do with them. Man, homeschooled kids are such nerds :)
Then on another day we were having read aloud time and Arwen gets out her math book and starts working on it. Just for fun. alright I think I will stop feeling guilty about my poor educationally neglected kindergartner.
So now we are on break. I plan to start back with school on January 5th. We'll see though. Who knows? We're homeschoolers we can start back up whenever we want. And we don't really stop learning during the break. We have been making goodies, doubling recipes, and reading aloud a Christmas book (The Family Under the Bridge). The girls are planning Christmas Eve festivities including a play, a parade, and stories. All of the activities are on schedule that is hanging on our wall. And I snuck some educational toys into the Christmas gifts. I will post any exciting educational moment we have during the break or I will post when we start back January 5th or whenever. We can do whatever we want. We're homeschoolers!
Monday, December 22, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
The Last Three Weeks
When I last posted it was the week before Thanksgiving.
11/24 - Choir rehearsal all afternoon.
11/25 - I think we did school this day... a short day - read aloud, math, worked on books the older 2 are writing for Christmas presents.
11/26 - Arwen's birthday
12/1 -read aloud, reading, math, instruments...
12/2 - read aloud, reading, math, instruments...
12/3 - read aloud, reading, math, instruments... Picked up grandma and grandpa from airport
12/4 - choir
12/5 - choir performance at Festival of the Trees
12/9 - visited museums on campus - earth science, life science, and peoples and cultures
12/10 - art class
12/11 - math club
Played with state and capitals cards with grandma and grandpa were visiting.
11/24 - Choir rehearsal all afternoon.
11/25 - I think we did school this day... a short day - read aloud, math, worked on books the older 2 are writing for Christmas presents.
11/26 - Arwen's birthday
12/1 -read aloud, reading, math, instruments...
12/2 - read aloud, reading, math, instruments...
12/3 - read aloud, reading, math, instruments... Picked up grandma and grandpa from airport
12/4 - choir
12/5 - choir performance at Festival of the Trees
12/9 - visited museums on campus - earth science, life science, and peoples and cultures
12/10 - art class
12/11 - math club
Played with state and capitals cards with grandma and grandpa were visiting.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
11/17-11/21
Weekly posts seems more realistic than daily posts, so I will most likely post our accomplishments weekly instead of daily O.K.? O.K
Here is what we did last week...
Oh curd, I can't remember what we did. I could go upstairs and look, but I am too lazy for that. We FINALLY got back to SOTW2 I believe we did chapters 10, 11 and 12. Australia, The Franks, and Islamic empires expansion into Spain. We did some math, writing, and reading. I decided that our schedule needs some tweaking and grammar and spelling got skipped most of the week. I will post our new schedule on my regular blog soon. Kali had violin practice, the girls went to choir and we did storytelling theater at the library.
I am feeling less than motivated to do any school next week. I was thinking of doing school on Monday. Then taking a "teacher in service"day on Tuesday and then Wednesday is Arwen's birthday, but then I remembered that the girl's have a special choir practice on Monday at 1:30 which I will need to leave at 12:30 to get to because it is in Salt Lake City... we may just take all of Thanksgiving week off.
Of course, then the following week my parent's are coming on Wednesday, so I wonder if I will be up for doing any school Monday and Tuesday... By the time my parent's leave it will be the 11th of December... Shall we just call the next month Holiday Break Month? We shall see...
Here is what we did last week...
Oh curd, I can't remember what we did. I could go upstairs and look, but I am too lazy for that. We FINALLY got back to SOTW2 I believe we did chapters 10, 11 and 12. Australia, The Franks, and Islamic empires expansion into Spain. We did some math, writing, and reading. I decided that our schedule needs some tweaking and grammar and spelling got skipped most of the week. I will post our new schedule on my regular blog soon. Kali had violin practice, the girls went to choir and we did storytelling theater at the library.
I am feeling less than motivated to do any school next week. I was thinking of doing school on Monday. Then taking a "teacher in service"day on Tuesday and then Wednesday is Arwen's birthday, but then I remembered that the girl's have a special choir practice on Monday at 1:30 which I will need to leave at 12:30 to get to because it is in Salt Lake City... we may just take all of Thanksgiving week off.
Of course, then the following week my parent's are coming on Wednesday, so I wonder if I will be up for doing any school Monday and Tuesday... By the time my parent's leave it will be the 11th of December... Shall we just call the next month Holiday Break Month? We shall see...
Monday, November 17, 2008
Last week 11/10 -11/14
Monday - Middle East picture books, spelling, math, copywork, reading, Kali's violin lesson
Tuesday - Visited Art Museum to see Japanese wood block prints, errands
Wednesday - ME books, grammar, math, reading, art class
Thursday - Choir, Sierra goes to Space Program, Kali and Arwen go to Math club
Friday - ME books, grammar, writing, math, reading
Practices instruments at various times, not every day...
Tuesday - Visited Art Museum to see Japanese wood block prints, errands
Wednesday - ME books, grammar, math, reading, art class
Thursday - Choir, Sierra goes to Space Program, Kali and Arwen go to Math club
Friday - ME books, grammar, writing, math, reading
Practices instruments at various times, not every day...
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Catching up - 10/31,11/3,11/4,11/5,11/6,11/7
Yikes, I have forgotten to post in a while. I have probably forgotten exactly what we did.
10/30 - Halloween - we did a short school day today. I am sure we started late because I have been feeling lazy lately. We were getting to the end of our government/presidents books. Both Kali and Sierra had gotten to the review pages in their math books. They both cried because their were SO MANY PAGES... there were 5. They are so spoiled and I told them so. If they went to school they would have 5 pages just for homework and several pages during school. Sierra eventually bucked up and did it without complaining. Kali cried almost the whole time complaining that she didn't know how to to do it. She did fine after I explained some of it to her. Sierra and Kali also practiced their presentations. Practiced instruments
11/3 - Last of the government books, Math, practicing presentations, Government class, did presentations, had friends over that evening - girls did presentations again, daddy gave a mini government lessons. Practiced instruments
11/4 - Election day. Practiced instruments, Sierra is still working on Caddie Woodlawn. Took the kids voting with us. Watch election results and colored a map blue and red.
11/5 - My turn to host our Middle ages group. Spent most of the morning getting ready for that. I had the girls practice their instruments. Do some reading. We may have skipped math. For the middle ages group we focused on Japan and wrote Haikus, play a shell game, made and ate onigiri, and made pretend wood block prints out of foan meat trays.
11/6 - choir, called our friends in Colorado, Kali went to a Space Center and did a simulated space ship thing with aliens and everything - fun, fun.
11/7 - Back to a real school day. I was highly unmotivated since it was Friday, but I pushed on anyway, but we didn't start until 11:30am. Started our new unit. Finishing up our trip around the world via picture books - the Middle East. Grammar - articles. Kali cried the whole time because she said figuring out whether to use a or an was too hard... Luckily I have had a crying 8 year old before and I know that this will pass. Copywork, Math, Reading, Instruments.
Sierra FINALLY did her multiplication test in under 3 minutes, so now we can stop doing it every day. I am now going to focus on simple division with her, not timed, but just have her do a page each day until she becomes more confortable with it, so we can do long division soon.
10/30 - Halloween - we did a short school day today. I am sure we started late because I have been feeling lazy lately. We were getting to the end of our government/presidents books. Both Kali and Sierra had gotten to the review pages in their math books. They both cried because their were SO MANY PAGES... there were 5. They are so spoiled and I told them so. If they went to school they would have 5 pages just for homework and several pages during school. Sierra eventually bucked up and did it without complaining. Kali cried almost the whole time complaining that she didn't know how to to do it. She did fine after I explained some of it to her. Sierra and Kali also practiced their presentations. Practiced instruments
11/3 - Last of the government books, Math, practicing presentations, Government class, did presentations, had friends over that evening - girls did presentations again, daddy gave a mini government lessons. Practiced instruments
11/4 - Election day. Practiced instruments, Sierra is still working on Caddie Woodlawn. Took the kids voting with us. Watch election results and colored a map blue and red.
11/5 - My turn to host our Middle ages group. Spent most of the morning getting ready for that. I had the girls practice their instruments. Do some reading. We may have skipped math. For the middle ages group we focused on Japan and wrote Haikus, play a shell game, made and ate onigiri, and made pretend wood block prints out of foan meat trays.
11/6 - choir, called our friends in Colorado, Kali went to a Space Center and did a simulated space ship thing with aliens and everything - fun, fun.
11/7 - Back to a real school day. I was highly unmotivated since it was Friday, but I pushed on anyway, but we didn't start until 11:30am. Started our new unit. Finishing up our trip around the world via picture books - the Middle East. Grammar - articles. Kali cried the whole time because she said figuring out whether to use a or an was too hard... Luckily I have had a crying 8 year old before and I know that this will pass. Copywork, Math, Reading, Instruments.
Sierra FINALLY did her multiplication test in under 3 minutes, so now we can stop doing it every day. I am now going to focus on simple division with her, not timed, but just have her do a page each day until she becomes more confortable with it, so we can do long division soon.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
9/27, 9/28, 9/29
I should know better by now than to plan stuff for the week of Halloween. I used to think that Halloween week felt busy because I was always getting back from visiting my parents and trying to get settled back into real life and then suddenly it was a holiday, but it has been just as busy this year and we didn't go to Ohio this year (we went in August instead).
Monday - I didn't go to the grocery store on Saturday, so I needed to go today... So no time for a regular school day. I had the older girls work on their multiplication tables and the presentations that they are doing for our mini government class. Sierra is doing hers on Eleanor Roosevelt and Kali is doing hers on Abraham Lincoln. I also "made" them practice their instruments. Government class in the afternoon. Then Kali's violin lesson. Sierra and Arwen and I stopped at the library to get a few things. Busy, Busy, day
Tuesday - Still working through the government and president books. I thought we would be done by now, but the girls are really enjoying it. We are learning the presidents in order with a song I found on You Tube. I think we did math this day. I think the older 2 just worked on multiplication. I also encouraged them to work on their presentations and practice their instruments. Did weekly chores, Went to a Physics demonstration at the University in the afternoon, came home and went to our church Halloween party. Thank goodness there was a dinner. Another busy day, I was definitely not up for cooking.
Wednesday - Read about women in political positions, math - still working on multiplication. Ran out of time to do anything else before running off to Art Class. My turn to teach the younger class. Stopped to get fabric and patterns for the choir outfit I have to make for Sierra (ugh! I have never sewn clothes before...), Some time before bedtime the older girls practiced their instruments and worked on their presentations.
Whew, only 2 more days until Halloween. There is a party for homeschooled tweens on Thursday and a Healthy Trunk or Treat on Friday - I am skipping them both... what my kids don't know won't hurt them. Between the church Halloween party and Friday night's trick or treating, I think that will be plenty of Halloween for one year. Then I will catch my breath for a few weeks and then it will be Christmas time. Luckily most of our regular activities will be on break in December. Next year I will remind everyone that we should also take Halloween week off, too.
Monday - I didn't go to the grocery store on Saturday, so I needed to go today... So no time for a regular school day. I had the older girls work on their multiplication tables and the presentations that they are doing for our mini government class. Sierra is doing hers on Eleanor Roosevelt and Kali is doing hers on Abraham Lincoln. I also "made" them practice their instruments. Government class in the afternoon. Then Kali's violin lesson. Sierra and Arwen and I stopped at the library to get a few things. Busy, Busy, day
Tuesday - Still working through the government and president books. I thought we would be done by now, but the girls are really enjoying it. We are learning the presidents in order with a song I found on You Tube. I think we did math this day. I think the older 2 just worked on multiplication. I also encouraged them to work on their presentations and practice their instruments. Did weekly chores, Went to a Physics demonstration at the University in the afternoon, came home and went to our church Halloween party. Thank goodness there was a dinner. Another busy day, I was definitely not up for cooking.
Wednesday - Read about women in political positions, math - still working on multiplication. Ran out of time to do anything else before running off to Art Class. My turn to teach the younger class. Stopped to get fabric and patterns for the choir outfit I have to make for Sierra (ugh! I have never sewn clothes before...), Some time before bedtime the older girls practiced their instruments and worked on their presentations.
Whew, only 2 more days until Halloween. There is a party for homeschooled tweens on Thursday and a Healthy Trunk or Treat on Friday - I am skipping them both... what my kids don't know won't hurt them. Between the church Halloween party and Friday night's trick or treating, I think that will be plenty of Halloween for one year. Then I will catch my breath for a few weeks and then it will be Christmas time. Luckily most of our regular activities will be on break in December. Next year I will remind everyone that we should also take Halloween week off, too.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Last Week, etc.
OK, so I guess I am not going to be posting daily. Hum... where did I leave off.
Wed the 15th - We've been learning about presidents and the US government, so we must have read more books this day. Kali has been working on thank you notes for her birthday gifts - practical and writing practice.
Thurs the 16th - Choir. I probably made the girls do some stuff in the afternoon - practice instruments, multiplication test for Sierra, etc.
Friday the 17th - more presidents books, park day
Monday the 20th - presidents, cont. math, writing, grammar.
Tuesday - Government Class, Poetry in the Park
Wednesday - presidents, cont. math, writing, art class
Thursday - Choir, came home and organized play room
Friday - meant to do school, but hubby is out of town, so I worked on projects and gave the older girls a list of things to do before we could go to park day - practice instruments, multiplication test, etc.
Wed the 15th - We've been learning about presidents and the US government, so we must have read more books this day. Kali has been working on thank you notes for her birthday gifts - practical and writing practice.
Thurs the 16th - Choir. I probably made the girls do some stuff in the afternoon - practice instruments, multiplication test for Sierra, etc.
Friday the 17th - more presidents books, park day
Monday the 20th - presidents, cont. math, writing, grammar.
Tuesday - Government Class, Poetry in the Park
Wednesday - presidents, cont. math, writing, art class
Thursday - Choir, came home and organized play room
Friday - meant to do school, but hubby is out of town, so I worked on projects and gave the older girls a list of things to do before we could go to park day - practice instruments, multiplication test, etc.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Monday and Tuesday
Monday - Morning -Read books about US presidents, Math, spelling
Afternoon - Government "class" with another homeschool family. Really we just read the book, Woodrow for President, and discussed a few things before the kids got restless and we let them go off and play while the other mom and I chatted.
Kali's Violin lesson
Girls played around on the keyboard. One of the friends that came over loves to play the piano and taught Kali a few songs. Kali played the songs over and over. Sierra play around with the different tones the keyboard can make. This may have happened on Tuesday. I have lost track of time already...
Tuesday - went to Pumpkin patch, kids painting pumpkins when we got home. Did weekly chores.
Afternoon - Government "class" with another homeschool family. Really we just read the book, Woodrow for President, and discussed a few things before the kids got restless and we let them go off and play while the other mom and I chatted.
Kali's Violin lesson
Girls played around on the keyboard. One of the friends that came over loves to play the piano and taught Kali a few songs. Kali played the songs over and over. Sierra play around with the different tones the keyboard can make. This may have happened on Tuesday. I have lost track of time already...
Tuesday - went to Pumpkin patch, kids painting pumpkins when we got home. Did weekly chores.
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
My in laws flew home on Wednesday. The girls had art class in the afternoon.
Thursday - Choir in the morning, Watched Magic School Bus videos when we got home. Math club in the afternoon and more Magic School bus after that.
Math club was mostly a success this month. Last month - the first month - only one other family showed up. This month there were about 8! It was a little crazy and disorganized at first because I wasn't expecting so many families, but I think it turned out well. For next month another mom offered to host and I asked moms to volunteer to facilitate the different age groups. Yea, delegation! Next month I won't be hosting and I will only have to plan games for one age group.
Friday - We hadn't done "school" since the previous Tuesday due to Grandparents visiting, but it was Friday so I wasn't feeling very motivated. so I made the girls a list of thing I wanted them to do before Park Day in the afternoon. For the older girls this included:
Doing their timed multiplication tests - all facts for Sierra - still... and the "2's" for Kali
Picking out and working on memorizing a poem for our Poetry in the Park event next week.
Taking Baths
Reading
and Practicing their parts for our church's children program.
Thursday - Choir in the morning, Watched Magic School Bus videos when we got home. Math club in the afternoon and more Magic School bus after that.
Math club was mostly a success this month. Last month - the first month - only one other family showed up. This month there were about 8! It was a little crazy and disorganized at first because I wasn't expecting so many families, but I think it turned out well. For next month another mom offered to host and I asked moms to volunteer to facilitate the different age groups. Yea, delegation! Next month I won't be hosting and I will only have to plan games for one age group.
Friday - We hadn't done "school" since the previous Tuesday due to Grandparents visiting, but it was Friday so I wasn't feeling very motivated. so I made the girls a list of thing I wanted them to do before Park Day in the afternoon. For the older girls this included:
Doing their timed multiplication tests - all facts for Sierra - still... and the "2's" for Kali
Picking out and working on memorizing a poem for our Poetry in the Park event next week.
Taking Baths
Reading
and Practicing their parts for our church's children program.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Monday, Tuesday...
Monday
Read Alouds - still Russia
We combined writing and spelling today and I had the older 2 write a story using their spelling words, but then we couldn't find Kali's list. Usually I make them write the words they missed on the spelling quiz in their spelling notebook right after the quiz, but Kali wanted to wait until later and of course later never came. We tried to put together the list and by that time she was frustrated and didn't want to write a story, so I just had her copy her words in to her notebook again.
Math
Reading - Arwen is getting better with her reading and is starting to read some words the "fast way." It is still a struggle with her because she is so active ( ie wiggly). The other day I played a game with her where I attached a letter or phoneme to a balloon with a post it note and threw the balloon to her and she would say the sound. She loved it. Now only if I had the energy to do that with her all of the time...
Tuesday
Read Alouds - finished our Russia books
Grammar - adverbs
No Writing
Math
Reading
Field Trip - Da Vinci exhibit - Leonardo's inventions from his notebooks. Some were hands on. Copies of paintings. Kali was super excited to see the Mona Lisa even after I pointed out that it was just a copy.
Grandparent arrived at 10pm. Girls stayed up late to hang out with them.
Wednesday - Kali's birthday, Middle Ages group in the afternoon.
Thursday - Watched a panda video that Kali got for her birthday and several Magic School Bus videos before I made them turn off the TV. Grandparents are out touring the campus and I am doing random things. With Grandma and Grandpa here we are on Fall Break...
Read Alouds - still Russia
We combined writing and spelling today and I had the older 2 write a story using their spelling words, but then we couldn't find Kali's list. Usually I make them write the words they missed on the spelling quiz in their spelling notebook right after the quiz, but Kali wanted to wait until later and of course later never came. We tried to put together the list and by that time she was frustrated and didn't want to write a story, so I just had her copy her words in to her notebook again.
Math
Reading - Arwen is getting better with her reading and is starting to read some words the "fast way." It is still a struggle with her because she is so active ( ie wiggly). The other day I played a game with her where I attached a letter or phoneme to a balloon with a post it note and threw the balloon to her and she would say the sound. She loved it. Now only if I had the energy to do that with her all of the time...
Tuesday
Read Alouds - finished our Russia books
Grammar - adverbs
No Writing
Math
Reading
Field Trip - Da Vinci exhibit - Leonardo's inventions from his notebooks. Some were hands on. Copies of paintings. Kali was super excited to see the Mona Lisa even after I pointed out that it was just a copy.
Grandparent arrived at 10pm. Girls stayed up late to hang out with them.
Wednesday - Kali's birthday, Middle Ages group in the afternoon.
Thursday - Watched a panda video that Kali got for her birthday and several Magic School Bus videos before I made them turn off the TV. Grandparents are out touring the campus and I am doing random things. With Grandma and Grandpa here we are on Fall Break...
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Thursday, Friday, Saturday
Thursday - We normally have choir in the morning and the do stations in the afternoon because I am too lazy to really do school, but no choir this day, so we just had a regular day.
Read Aloud - Russia - stories about Baba Yaga, fin
Writing, etc. - wrote letters to the girls' friend in Colorado using proper letter writing format and addressing the envelope
Math
Reading
Friday
Read Aloud topic - Russia - more Russian legends, Snow Princess, Sea King's Daughter
Spelling - quizzed on week's words
Writing - freewriting
Math
Reading
Saturday
Kali's birthday party - We went to a trampoline place called Jump On It (PE?)
Went to see Shakespeare's Pericles on campus. The library's summer interactive theater program did this play and Kali got to be in it, so it was fun to go see a production of it. This was meant for kids and was condensed to an hour, but used mostly Shakespeare's language. It was very good.
Read Aloud - Russia - stories about Baba Yaga, fin
Writing, etc. - wrote letters to the girls' friend in Colorado using proper letter writing format and addressing the envelope
Math
Reading
Friday
Read Aloud topic - Russia - more Russian legends, Snow Princess, Sea King's Daughter
Spelling - quizzed on week's words
Writing - freewriting
Math
Reading
Saturday
Kali's birthday party - We went to a trampoline place called Jump On It (PE?)
Went to see Shakespeare's Pericles on campus. The library's summer interactive theater program did this play and Kali got to be in it, so it was fun to go see a production of it. This was meant for kids and was condensed to an hour, but used mostly Shakespeare's language. It was very good.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Wednesday, 9/24
Read Aloud Topic - Russia, Talked about why so many Jews immigrated from Russia and read 2 picture books about Jews in/from Russia. we had read a bunch of books about immigrants this summer after going to an Ellis Island reenactment on the 4th of July and many of the books were about Jews from Russia. I had my genius husband explain why so many Jews left Russia and then talked about it with the girls this morning before reading the books
Grammar - abbreviations and types of sentences
Writing - cursive copywork. Kali is using Handwriting without Tears and Sierra is copying from a regular book, but transferring it into cursive.
Math
No time for reading time. We had art class from 1 - 2:30pm.
Piano and Violin practice. No Typing today.
Grammar - abbreviations and types of sentences
Writing - cursive copywork. Kali is using Handwriting without Tears and Sierra is copying from a regular book, but transferring it into cursive.
Math
No time for reading time. We had art class from 1 - 2:30pm.
Piano and Violin practice. No Typing today.
Tuesday, September 24th
Ok, it's not technically Tuesday anymore, but this is what we accomplished today (yesterday?):
Read Aloud Topic - Russia continued. Today was books about matroishka dolls
Spelling - made the older 3 girls study their words and quiz each other. They did not enjoy this... I am going through Rebecca Sitton's "no excuse" list before moving on to individualized lists.
Writing - dictation for Siera and copy work for Kali. I am just starting to do dictation with Sierra she is doing pretty well. Kali did not want to do dictation. She thought it would be too hard. She is not quite 8, so I will let her do copywork instead for a while longer.
Math
Reading - silent reading for the older 2 and phonics for my youngest. Teaching Arwen to read is proving to be a huge test of my paitence. "No, look at the sound. Don't randomly guess while looking around the room..."
Piano practice for Sierra, Lesson for Kali
Violin practice for Kali
Made cards for great -grandma who has been in the hospital
Weekly chores
Activity Day at Church for Sierra
Read Aloud Topic - Russia continued. Today was books about matroishka dolls
Spelling - made the older 3 girls study their words and quiz each other. They did not enjoy this... I am going through Rebecca Sitton's "no excuse" list before moving on to individualized lists.
Writing - dictation for Siera and copy work for Kali. I am just starting to do dictation with Sierra she is doing pretty well. Kali did not want to do dictation. She thought it would be too hard. She is not quite 8, so I will let her do copywork instead for a while longer.
Math
Reading - silent reading for the older 2 and phonics for my youngest. Teaching Arwen to read is proving to be a huge test of my paitence. "No, look at the sound. Don't randomly guess while looking around the room..."
Piano practice for Sierra, Lesson for Kali
Violin practice for Kali
Made cards for great -grandma who has been in the hospital
Weekly chores
Activity Day at Church for Sierra
Monday, September 22, 2008
Monday, September 22nd
Read Aloud/ Topic - We are doing a mini geography unit on Russia. Last year we spent a lot of time studying the cultures of the world via picture books. We didn't get to Russia or the Middle East, so we are finish that up this year before we start our United States studies.
We had a good time this morning reading about and discussing Russia . I got to find out all that my children know about Russia thanks to watching Time Warp Trio. And we had an especially good time looking through a book about The last Russian czar's youngest daughter, Anastasia. We have the Disney movie, Anastasia, but I had no idea that the movie was (very loosely) based on a true story. It was fun discussing how Disney took real facts and changed them around to make their movie.
Grammar - Quotation Marks
Writing - typing stories that they already wrote and edited
Math - Kali - multiplication
Sierra - decimals
Reading time/Phonics for Arwen
Now I am off to take Kali to her violin lessons. While Kali is at her lesson I will be giving Sierra her piano lesson. I am not a skilled teacher, but since we couldn't afford lessons this year, I decided to just help Sierra and Kali continue on in their books from last year.
We had a good time this morning reading about and discussing Russia . I got to find out all that my children know about Russia thanks to watching Time Warp Trio. And we had an especially good time looking through a book about The last Russian czar's youngest daughter, Anastasia. We have the Disney movie, Anastasia, but I had no idea that the movie was (very loosely) based on a true story. It was fun discussing how Disney took real facts and changed them around to make their movie.
Grammar - Quotation Marks
Writing - typing stories that they already wrote and edited
Math - Kali - multiplication
Sierra - decimals
Reading time/Phonics for Arwen
Now I am off to take Kali to her violin lessons. While Kali is at her lesson I will be giving Sierra her piano lesson. I am not a skilled teacher, but since we couldn't afford lessons this year, I decided to just help Sierra and Kali continue on in their books from last year.
Catching up - the first 3 weeks
We started school the Tuesday after Labor Day. At first it made sense to start that day because my husband started back teaching at the University that day and also it gave us a full week to recover from our trip to Ohio to visit my family. But really it was kind of a busy week to get focused on school. Monday being Labor day gave us a 4 day week. Wednesday we had a Homeschool group meeting in the afternoon, so we had to scramble to get school done that day. Our Thursday morning choir started that week and a homeschool picnic was held on Friday starting at 10:30, so Friday was a no school day. For our read aloud/topic time I just read some books for our own collection that I had been meaning to read and we did math and copywork both Tuesday and Wednesday and grammar and spelling one day each.
The following week we started our Weather Unit, which included bunches of books from the library and an experiment kit. It took us 2 weeks to get through everything. Most days we did math and some kind of writing and we alternated days of grammar and spelling.
Other activities of the first 3 weeks of school included art class, storytelling theater, math club, tamale making, and of course, park day.
Oh, I should mention that the week before we "officially" started school, we went to the $2 day at the Dinosaur Museum and Botanical Gardens and also the local Storytelling festival.
The following week we started our Weather Unit, which included bunches of books from the library and an experiment kit. It took us 2 weeks to get through everything. Most days we did math and some kind of writing and we alternated days of grammar and spelling.
Other activities of the first 3 weeks of school included art class, storytelling theater, math club, tamale making, and of course, park day.
Oh, I should mention that the week before we "officially" started school, we went to the $2 day at the Dinosaur Museum and Botanical Gardens and also the local Storytelling festival.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Welcome to Behind the Mess
I have created this blog as a way for me to keep records of our daily homeschool activities. I figured this might be boring for any "regular" people reading my blog, so I set up this new blog. Any homeschool blog junkies like myself can feel free to read about our daily activities here and steal any ideas you like.
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