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Description A description of our homeschooling days and what we learn along the way. Home User Profile Archives General Categories • Homeschooling • Homekeeping • Recipe Box • Weekly Schedules • Weekly Reports • Monday Meanderings Recent Entries - Goals for 2008 - Plans for 2008 - Language Arts Part II - Wishing You - Weekly Report - Plans for 2008 - Language Arts Part I
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Tomie DePaola Christmas Basket Picture Book Basket |
Goals for 2008Over the past couple of weeks, I have been reading everyone's goals and resolutions for 2008. These have made me stop and think about what I really want to achieve this year. What has become clear to me is that I have many things I want to do and learn ... too many in fact. So this year I am taking my goals seriously and prioritizing them. My goals fall into a couple of areas. The first group are goals which I have been putting off but which I feel will change the quality of our lives if I achieve them. They are:
On a more personal level, I would like to:
Looking at this list its become clear that my goals are very
7:33 PM - Jan. 10, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentPlans for 2008 - Language Arts Part IIIn my post Plans for 2008 - Language Arts Part I, I outlined our reading approach for this year. We have already started reading books from this list and Munchkin has already read Bears on Hemlock Mountain. In addition to this reading list, Munchkin will continue with the reading that is assigned in her history and science lessons. For the remaining Language Arts areas, these are the plans: Writing This year we are going to begin using the Teaching Writing: Structure and Style program from the Institute for Excellence in Writing Company. The actual lessons themselves will be integrated with our history and science lessons. In the past, I have wanted to adopt a classical writing approach in our homeschooling. I have even gone so far as to try and implement the progymnasmata approach. I still like this approach, but as Munchkin is a reluctant writer, I feel that the Teaching Writing: Structure and Style program will be less work for me. It is outlined and I know I will be on the right track by following the syllabus. We will also continue with narrations. Spelling and Word Study Last year Munchkin began using the Mega Words books. This has helped her immensely with decoding multisyllable words. We will continue using these books this year. However, we are also going to begin a formal spelling program. At the moment I am still trying to decide between Sequential Spelling and Phonetic Zoo. At the moment I am leaning towards Sequential Spelling. Grammar To be quite honest, Grammar has never been consistently studied at our home. This is partly due to the fact that I have been putting more emphasis on areas such as reading. However, at the end of last year, Munchkin began the Lively Language Lessons at Serendipity. She now actually asks for a grammar lesson and really enjoys doing the drawings. So, for Grammar this is what we will continue to use until we have covered the basics. This covers Language Arts. Over the next couple of days I will post our plans for the remaining subjects. 5:27 PM - Jan. 6, 2008 - comments {0} - post commentWishing You
A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
7:44 AM - Dec. 24, 2007 - comments {0} - post commentWeekly ReportAnother busy week... Even so, we still managed to bake some gingerbread men.
The smaller gingerbread men took a dip in some milk.
For our Advent and Christmas Unit, we read Jingle, The Christmas Clown, The Clown of God and The Night of Los Posadas. For our standard lessons, in Ancient History Munchkin read about Roman Gods and a few more chapters from the Roman Mysteries book Pirates of Pompeii. She also watched a video on Roman Myths and Legends and Horrible Histories: The Rotten Romans. For Australian History, we read about how Governor Arthur Phillip dealt with the food shortages in Sydney. Munchkin used several paragraphs from this chapter for her copywork. In Science, we continued with our look at Mammals. Munchkin began reading The Story of Russ the Australian Tree Kangaroo by Leslie Rees. Also, Munchkin will be doing a report on a mammal. Her chosen animal is the Red Panda. We discussed what sort of information she should include in her report and she came up with sub-topics such as Anatomy, Diet, Habitat and Lifecycle. To refresh her knowledge of lifecycles, I had Munchkin read Which Came First? by Freddie McKeown. Finally, in Maths we continued working on unit conversions and long division. During all our hard work Teddy managed to keep himself occupied by playing
and sleeping.
1:56 PM - Dec. 23, 2007 - comments {0} - post commentPlans for 2008 - Language Arts Part IOne of the biggest challenges in our homeschooling journey to date has been Munchkin's difficulty in learning to read. It has taken a while for her to learn decoding multisyllable words. I've tried to supplement by reading books to her aloud. This has been only partly successful as her language receptive disorder makes it difficult for her to fully comprehend spoken language. Also, these learning difficulties have resulted in Munchkin disliking reading. I would really like to change Munchkin's attitude towards reading and I know that the only way to achieve this is by increasing her comprehension and reading skills. More importantly, I need to remember to provide material to her which is at her ability level. This is one of the reasons we have simplified our history plans. The frustration we experienced trying to use more advanced books has resulted in both of us disliking certain lessons. I want to bring back the love of learning and the only way to do this is by making lessons easy and fun. I will continue to challenge her but at an appropriate level; one which doesn't result in frustrating us. So, the first thing which is going to be implemented in the New Year is Munchkin's new Reading List. Basically, I have collated a list of books which I would like Munchkin to read. This list is ordered by the book's lexile level. We will begin with the easiest book to read, spending a minimum of 30 minutes reading a day, and move on from there. My initial list is available below. I will continue adding the books to this list beginning with My Recommended Books Lists (right-hand menu). If you would like to check the lexile level of any book, you can do this at the Find a Book with Lexiles webpage.
The following resources provide information on how the lexile levels correspond to grade levels: Book List by Lexile Level
Book with titles in italics have been read by Munchkin
370L Freckle Juice 460L Sideways Stories from 460L The Littles 490L Bears on 550L Stone Fox 560L Sarah, Plain and Tall 590L Are You There God its me Margaret? 610L The Courage of Sarah Noble 650L Strawberry Girl 660L Dr Dolittle Series 670L Lon Po 670L Number the Stars 670L The Tale of Despereaux 680L The Family under the Bridge 700L The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane 700L Where the Red Fern Grows 720L Freedom Crossing 730L In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson 740L A Wrinkle in Time 750L All of a Kind Family 750L Misty of Chincoteague 750L The Westing Game 750L Trumpet of the Swan 760L Good Night Mr Tom 770L The Book of Three 780L Cricket in 780L The Borrowers 780L The Indian in the Cupboard 790L – 970L Chronicles of Narnia 790L Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh 790L The Year of Miss Agnes 800L Redwall 810L My Side of the Mountain 820L Maniac Magee 830L King of the Wind 830L The Summer of the Swans 840L Johnny Tremain 840L Year of Impossible Goodbyes 850L Anne of Green Gables Series 850L Witch of Blackbird Pond 860L Julie of the Wolves 860L Ramona Quimby 870L Pippi Longstockin 890L Caddie Woodlawn 890L Cheaper by the Dozen 890L 910L Dear Mr Henshaw 910L Mr Popper’s Penguins 920L Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry 920L Stuart Little by E. B. White 930L Little House in the Big Woods 950L The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 970L White Fang 990L Ginger Pye 990L My Father’s Dragon 1000L Homer Price 1000L The Island of the Blue Dolphins 1000L The Phantom Tollbooth 1010L Black Beauty 1010L The Egypt Game 1020L Wolves of Willoughby Chase 1070L Twenty One Balloons
12:30 PM - Dec. 22, 2007 - comments {0} - post commentShopping Masterlist for Homekeeping BinderA while ago I started working on my homekeeping binder. The latest addition to the binder is my shopping masterlist. My intention is to have a few of these lists printed and on hand, so that when I notice an item that we need, I simply tick the checkbox on the list. Hopefully this will get rid of the bits of paper floating around the house on which I write items as we need them. You can view the shopping masterlist here. (The original document has checkboxes beside the grocery item. However, when I upload it, these checkboxes are edited out).
2:49 PM - Dec. 21, 2007 - comments {0} - post commentChristmas MemeI have been tagged by Erin from Seven Little Australians. 1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? 6:55 PM - Dec. 17, 2007 - comments {1} - post commentMonday Meanderings
1. Must Do
2. Zone
3. Train Them Up
4. Menu Plan Monday
2:59 PM - Dec. 17, 2007 - comments {0} - post commentWeekly ReportHere is a snapshot of our past week: We continued with our Advent and Christmas Unit by reading The Legend of the Poinsettia, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and The Legend of the Candy Cane.
Other activities included making a God's Eye and
enjoying some Mexican Hot Chocolate.
Also, Munchkin finished learning about Alexander the Great and we began our Ancient Rome studies. We began with the Romulus and Remus myth and Munchkin completed a written narration. She also began reading the Pirates of Pompeii and I began reading to her The Bronze Bow. For Science, we examined the difference between Vertebrates and Invertebrates. Then we moved onto Mammals by watching a documentary and identifying the characteristics of Mammals. Munchkin composed a paragraph explaining the characteristics of Mammals and created a page about Extreme Mammals (the fastest, the slowest, the biggest, the tallest, and the stinkiest mammal). We also began listening to the Burgess Animal Book for Children. We also attended Group Learning, continued learning about unit conversion in Maths, looked at Collective Nouns in grammar, and baked an Apple Pie.
7:59 PM - Dec. 16, 2007 - comments {0} - post commentThe Beauty of Toymaking Fair for December
This month's Beauty of Toymaking Fair has been posted at Footprints on the Fridge. There are lovely ideas for Christmas and other Celebrations. 8:03 AM - Dec. 13, 2007 - comments {0} - post commentOur Lady of Guadalupe
Today was the Feast for Our Lady of Guadalupe. The day for us was simple. We read the book The Lady of Guadalupe Mexican Hot Chocolate Ingredients 1/2 cup water 1/3 cup sugar 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa 1/2 to 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 3 cups of milk 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract Ground cinnamon (optional)
Preparation Serves 4 (serving size: 1 cup)
1:52 PM - Dec. 11, 2007 - comments {0} - post commentMonday Meanderings
1. Must Do
2. Zone
3. Train Them Up
4. Menu Plan Monday
5:38 PM - Dec. 10, 2007 - comments {1} - post commentA Change of Plans for HistoryAs the end of the year draws to a close, I have been reviewing the work that Munchkin has completed. Unfortunately, we have fallen behind on many subjects. I did forsee this happening with the pregnancy and birth of Teddy, but I continued with our original plans anyway hoping to get the majority of the work done. Looking at where we are now, I have decided to revise our plans beginning with history. One of the first things I've decided to alter is our history spine. We have been using a combination of Story of the World and some books from the Baldwin Project. I've noticed that Munchkin prefers the Story of the World books due to their simpler language. As she has some language processing difficulties, I have decided to simpify our program and use only the Story of the World as our spines. This will still be supplemented with living books. What we need to cover by February, which is the start of the new school year for us, is the remaining Ancient History portion of our program. This week we are going to be finishing off with Alexander the Great. If we continue working through the summer holidays (as much as we can), and only do the Ancient Rome parts from Story of the World, we should be able to finish of Ancient History. This way we can start the new year with the Middle Ages as originally planned. With this in mind, this is how I envision the remaining Ancient History unit:
7:55 PM - Dec. 8, 2007 - comments {0} - post commentWeekly ReportThis week was quite different to last week. This week we managed to get so much more done. Some of the activities Munchkin completed include:
8:09 PM - Dec. 7, 2007 - comments {0} - post commentSaint Nicholas DayToday we continued our Advent and Christmas Unit Study by celebrating Saint Nicholas Day. We began by reading The Life of Saint Nicholas by Verena Smith. You can find this book at the Saint Nicholas Center. This was followed by Munchkin making Santa Clause salt dough ornaments. During this whole time we listened to Christmas music. The day was simple but enjoyable. Here are some photos from the salt dough ornaments activity:
We still need to bake the ornaments and paint them. 7:54 PM - Dec. 6, 2007 - comments {0} - post commentRaspberry and Blueberry MuffinsI'm hoping to get around to baking these muffins today for Group Learning tomorrow:
Preparation Time 15 minutes Cooking Time 25 minutes Ingredients (serves 8)
Method
Notes & tips
Source
6:12 AM - Dec. 4, 2007 - comments {0} - post commentMonday MeanderingsSince Teddy has arrived, I have found myself forgetting to do certain things and, at the same time, feeling overwhelmed by the amount of things I want to do but not having enough time to do it all. So, to help myself stay organized and keep track of my tasks I have joined Monday Meanderings. This is my first entry:
1. Must Do
2. Zone
3. Train Them Up
4. Menu Plan Monday
5:48 AM - Dec. 4, 2007 - comments {0} - post commentWeekly ReportLessons are continuing and Munchkin is completing most of her work. Some days have been quite difficult as Teddy won't nap during the day without putting up a fight. Naptimes consist of me trying to settle him, at which point he usually falls asleep in my arms only to wake up shortly after I put him in his bassinet. This is preventing me from spending time with Munchkin on the lessons which require one on one time. Consequently, Munchkin often completes the basics such as her Mathematics, Copywork and Reading but doesn't always get to what I call the fun stuff. On several days, though, we have been able to do Science and History as well. Some of the work we covered this week includes:
8:53 PM - Nov. 30, 2007 - comments {1} - post commentAdvent and Christmas Unit PreparationWith the beginning of Advent just a few days away, Munchkin and I have been getting the Advent and Christmas unit materials prepared. We took an empty nappy box and covered it with christmas wrapping paper. This will be used to store all our Advent and Christmas books, music, and movies. At the end of the holidays, the box will be put away until the following year. The books which we are putting into the box include (in no particular order):
This morning we also finished our paper chain calendar for Advent. I was hoping to prepare something more creative, however, with Teddy around and me still learning to juggle everything, we ran out of time. I especially like the idea of using Tags (Tags of Comfort and Joy), or notecards which also teach about Advent and Christmas symbols. These are ideas that I am definitley going to keep in mind for next year. Tomorrow I'm hoping to prepare our Advent giving box.
1:54 PM - Nov. 29, 2007 - comments {0} - post commentGetting Back to Our RoutineThis past week I decided to try and slowly get back to homeschooling. I didn't have very high expectations but was surprised with the ease with which we fell back into our routine. Not every day went smoothly but the most important thing is that we were able to get some things accomplished. With a bit more organization on my part and self initiative by Munchkin (these are the habits we will be working on for the remainder of the year), I feel we will be back on track in no time. The things which we did manage to accomplish this past week include:
Here are some photos from the past week:
   12:48 PM - Nov. 25, 2007 - comments {0} - post comment
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by Tomie dePaola. Then we drank Mexican Hot Chocolate and made a 
by Hans Baumann. 
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