This week was Thanksgiving week. We finally finished up with the last Thanksgiving activities and crafts and getting it all into a lapbook. Mieke loved coloring the pictures of the Pilgrim and Indian kids.
For Math this week, I decided to just review some flash cards and practice some more addition since the next new lesson starts with subtraction (with borrowing etc) and we’re going into a 3 day vacation, I didn’t want to leave loose ends.
Since we didn’t work especially hard these 3 days I decided to really push the success in spelling.
On Monday Mieke did 2 tests, scored 100% on both. The words were: Quite, spine, whine, blame, flame, skate, spade, clear, spear, smear, mold and tore.
The second test’s words were: clasp, craft, grasp, small, stall, fall, wall, squall, cramp, stamp, grand and stand.
On Tuesday she wrote another success in spelling test. The words were: lamp, swing, bring, thing, moan, coast, toast, roast, book, good, took and foot.
On Wednesday she wrote the 4th test and the words were: spoon, stool, broom, horse, short, north, was, wash, what, pod, rock and soft.
Wednesday was our 100th day of school!!!! Wow, can’t believe it!! It’s like this year has just been whirring by so fast!!
Thursday was Thanksgiving day and we were invited to a friends house. We had such a wonderful time. It was absolutely the most fun I had in a looooong time :-)
The Bible verse for this week was 1 Chronicles 16:34
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever.
You know, I have the hardest time trying to remember the location of these bible verses. I mean, I have no trouble memorizing the actual verse but the place where it’s found...it just doesn’t stick. Any ideas with this regard will be highly appreciated....
This week we started working on some activities that can go into the lapbook that I’m planning for Thanksgiving. I love doing lapbooks especially for projects like these since the lapbook tends to bind every loose end together....and you have a nice folder to present at the end :-)
In Math this week Mieke did some more multi-digit column addition. I’m having her use the white erase board sometimes since the back of it has a grid and it’s easier, especially since some of the problems contain a mix of tens, hundreds & thousands to add. On Friday she scored 17/18 on the test.
This week I had to do an LLATL assessment and she did very well. She scored 33/37 on it and the only reason she missed 3 was because of a concentration issue...she just doesn’t stay focused enough to listen to the instructions and then she makes mistakes....got to work on that!!
The LLATL spelling words for the week was boy, toy, boil and coin.
We’re still going full steam on the sequential spelling and it’s going really well. On Friday we finished day 62.
On Wednesday we had a playdate at my friend, Liza’s house. Mieke loves playing with her daughter. My car needed new tires since they were pretty worn out.
Since this week had a holiday (and Thanksgiving is following closely behind), I decided to put Weaver aside instead of starting a new unit.
The first holiday was Veteran’s Day on the 11th of November. On Monday we started a lapbook all about Veteran’s day and on Tuesday we finished it. Mieke was very surprised to learn that we actually know some real-life veterans (men from our church). She was very enthusiastic about learning all about the holiday and I have to say that I’ve learned just as much.
Math this week was all about multiple digit addition. It’s getting very interested and I love to see the progress from week to week and the confidence increasing, not to mention the ease with which she solves these problems. Again, we love the curriculum and I cannot help to recommend it to everyone who asks about it.
On Friday Mieke scored 100% on her test.
Some of the LLATL spelling words for the week were shout, come, could and touch.
Because of the holiday on Tuesday we didn’t go for our weekly gym and swim.
I’m a bit behind on the updates. It’s already the first day of the new year (2009) and so I have a couple of weeks to catch up on.
Our Bible verse for the week was Psalm 90:12
So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Hmm, I think part of this is the importance of time management. And I’m very guilty as I’m often accused of not prioritizing the right things. I have a hard time putting things down when I’m in the middle of it and as a result I’m always running late. This is definitely going on the new year’s resolution list for 2009 (ps. this list doesn’t really exist :-) )
This week in Math, Mieke learned about estimation to the nearest thousand and also adding numbers with 4 digits (thousands). She’s becoming so smart :-) Can’t believe my little darling is already doing such grown-up things like this :-)
We’re still faithfully working on spelling every day following the days in Sequential Spelling 1. I love this program!! I recommend it to anyone!!
The words for Success in Spelling was: bride, globe, spire, stone, probe, shore, beam, bead, lean, fume, smite & spite.
Some of the spelling in LLATL was four, pour, piece and sauce.
In social studies and science we continued our study of plants and plant life. Mieke learned the difference between a dicot and monocot seed, the nutritional benefit of plants and she also learned about careers dealing with plants like horticulturist, naturalist, florist, landscape architect, botanist & biochemist. She also drew a cute picture of a row of flowers.
This week was an AHG week, so we attended on Monday night.
Being more than 2 months behind on updates makes it extremely hard. At my age, relying on my memory is becoming a very dangerous thing :-)
I honestly don’t remember what we did but I’m going to list the things I specifically wrote down and we’ll see how that goes...
Our Bible verse for the week was Matthew 6:28b
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin.
Why do we tend to get hung up on the little details when little details are God’s specialty??? He takes such good care of the birds and lilies, so why don’t we trust Him enough to do the same for us??
Our Bible readings centered around farming with the specific example of Abraham & Lot. In social studies we took a deeper look into farm life & plant uses. Our science contained a lot of observation and experimentation as we learned more about the importance of seeds, seed varieties & roots.
On Tuesday we visited the Boys & Girls’ club for some gym and swimming with fellow homeschoolers and as always we had a blast. Mieke is becoming more comfortable in the water.
Oooh, something else we did during this week was the Wiggles Concert we went to on Thursday night,6pm. The security gave me a hard time because of my camera (it looks fancy) and so DH had to go back to the car to take it back. I was peeved but we had fantastic seats, we were 6 rows from the front and for most of the time Mieke was singing and dancing with the other kids, practically touching the stage...that’s how close we were. It was great. Best seats ever!! We even took some roses for Dorothy :-)
We kept up with the LLATL and some the spelling words they used this week was knot, know, knit and knife.
The Success in spelling was easy enough for Mieke that she scored 12/12 the first round. The words were: blaze, state, craze, shape, crape, sneer, creed, sleek, fleet, crave, tribe and brine.
Friday was Halloween, but we don’t celebrate the holiday.
Monday was an observed holiday, Columbus day, but the Krugers only observed it from afar :-) We still had school but Mieke didn’t have any MAFA classes.
On Tuesday Mieke didn’t go to the AHG meeting either because I went to
Anyway, so this week our Memory Verse was James 3:11 “Can both fresh water and salt water come from the same spring?”
The answer of course is no, I just loved how our objectives flows and weaves into our Bible lessons and memory verse.
So we were still studying water, ponds, lakes, oceans and the water cycle and part of our study of the pond included the life cycle of a frog, with which Mieke is very familiar since we studied frogs in detail last year at the First Agape Homeschool co-op. We were also working on an ocean mural and we decided to go well into detail. Did you know that there are layers to the ocean?? Yup, it’s true!! First you get the sunlight zone (the part that we see, it’s pretty clear, the sun shines on it), then we get the Twilight zone (a little less light), the
Anyway, so our mural included the kind of animals (fish kinds) that you would typically find at each level…and yes, of course the animals that everyone thinks of that live in the sea are usually those found in the sunlight zone. We learned about many interested creatures, some are pretty scary looking but don’t worry, they don’t prefer human meat…or at least I hope they don’t….??
For Social studies we discussed and look at some ways in which the Ocean is useful to us…besides the obvious food option, there are also quite a few others like petroleum etc (ok, I’ll admit, I don’t remember what they are now but there are more than just 2)
Mieke made a list of equipment a fisherman would use or need and she was very “knowledgeable” since she has caught some fish with her dad before. In fact this very summer she caught a fish all on her own…I’ll have to dig up a photo of that and post it.
We also read some poems about the ocean and sang some songs about the ocean and all other kind of fun “ocean-y” stuff.
I think we should try and visit the aquarium soon. It’s just that we’ve had a couple of really full weeks and I would prefer to do this on the weekend when Dad can join us in the fun. I like to include him in her learning as much as possible.
For Math this week Mieke learned about perimeter and how to calculate it. Wow, it sounds so grown up J Well, I have to say I’m proud of her. On Friday she scored 100% on her test. She’s really doing well with the math.
There was a lot of testing this week. In sequential spelling there was an evaluation. We did it on Friday and she scored 15/20. It was tough…but I’m satisfied with the results. It’s hard to mention all the words she’s learned so far since we’re doing this every day and there are only small changes from day to day like the ending may change or it may change from singular to plural or the tense may change from present to past or future or something like that. But anyway, the words she was practicing on Friday (this was NOT the test) was petting, fretting, getting, forgetting, netting, quieting, cotton, hotly, jotting, tots, cannot, knotting, dotting, rotting, trotting, bloodiest, flooding, loving, lovely, shoving, lovingly, pretty, loveliest, eyes and ayes. I can really see that doing the spelling every day has greatly improved her spelling.
In the other spelling (Success in Spelling1) she scored 100% on the pretest on Tuesday. The words were: hint, lint, mint, bang, gang, rang, dime, fine, mine, rave, save and dull. The idea is that she tries spelling the words in the pretest, then we practice the one’s thoughout the week that she didn’t get right in the pretest and then she writes the actual test on Friday but there’s no use in repeating the test on Friday if she gets all of it right on the pretest J
In our regular language program, Learning language arts through literature (LLATL) there was also a test and as far as I remember she scored well in it too. She got only 1 wrong on the verbal part (one of the contractions) and scored full marks on the written part.
Our Bible memory verse for the week came from Matthew 7:25: “And the rain fell and the flood came…but the house did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.”
It was very appropriate since we started the new Chapter and it’s all about rivers, oceans, streams and the water cycle…rain, rain everywhere!!
Other Bible stories we studied centered around specifically rain. Rain is a blessing from God but if you are not prepared for the blessing you won’t appreciate it as such. The absence of a blessing like rain can lead to horrible things like famine. We studied some famine areas and focused specifically on
For Science we studied the water cycle and even though a lot of these words are new to Mieke she managed to remember what they mean even if she had to practice a little to get the pronunciation right…evaporation, condensation, precipitation, collection. She knows the forms of water (gas, liquid & solid) and can give examples too. We also briefly discussed and did a little project illustrating some different types of clouds like cumulus (big fluffy), cirrus(looks very feathery and light) and stratus (like a thick blanket). We also studied the distribution of water on earth and where it is found.
In Social Studies we studied the famine area of
For the Weaver’s language we learned how you can make a meaning negative by using the word “not” and also practiced contractions using not and pronouns.
I’m currently looking to buy an excellent English (specifically grammar) program named Shurley English. My aim is to have Mieke really get a good basis because I’m just itching to start teaching her latin and afrikaans. Latin is most important but one should really have an excellent grasp on the first language first. I’ve studied some Latin when I was in St.9 (grade 11) and it helped me tremendously in English & Biology. I’m researching some different programs and so far I’m settled on the Primer Latina. It’s followed by Latina Christiana and I just like the idea very much.
Anyway, back to reality…for spelling we continued using sequential spelling and finished with day 35 on Friday. I think day 40 is a test, not sure, gotta double check. Mieke also wrote a SIS (Success in Spelling) spelling test on Friday and scored 100%. It was a pre-test but she aced it. The words were:deal, neat, meal, heat, tank, rank, tell, well, yell, belt, ill and fill.
In Math this week Mieke learned about measurement and that 12inches =1 foot. 12” = 1’. She really enjoyed these lessons and found it to be very easy. We practiced some of the flash cards again (which we haven’t done in quite a while) and it went very well. On Friday she scored 17/18 on her math test. She made a mistake with an addition regrouping problem (carrying over).
Monday’s are always MAFA days and there Mieke learned some more about George Washington & his military days. They studies some pictures of various styles of columns and then constructed their own out of clay. The listened to samples of different instruments and had to guess the instrument and played some games around that theme. For drama they practice improvisation when they had to act out different careers and the rest of the class had to try and guess who they were.
On Tuesday morning we went to the Boys and Girls club since they have a Homeschool gym/swim time for homeschoolers. I was very impressed with the facilities and we decided to sign up for the year. It only costs $15 and it includes 1hr of gym time and 1hr of swimming, every Tuesday!! What a great deal!! So, now we can officially add PE to our school schedule :-)
This weekend was a busy one. On Saturday we went to the Lull Farm’s new corn maze. It was $5 per person and took us quite a while to get out, it looked small from the front but it was huge!! Mieke was leading and we hid quite a few dead ends :-) And then we went shopping…Johan bought Mieke a new game for the wii (My Sims) and she has been playing it non-stop. We always let her play first because she figures the stuff out and then shows us how to do it :-) just another perk of having a kid in the house!
On Sunday we visited our good friends to celebrate their daughter’s 13th birthday…wow, how time has flown. I still remember her in first grade!! We had a great time, lots of food and good company.
Sunday was also a very sad day for our extended family as I lost an uncle due to a freak accident on the highway. God's peace and strength is amazing, even more pronounced during this sad time.
For Bible we continued with stories where specific modes of transportation was used (fish, walking, boats etc) and also about the great commission to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to obey in Christ Jesus."
The Bible memory verse was Matthew 5:41: "If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles."
This was something Jesus told his disciples and of course back in those days the Romans was rulers over the Jews. A Roman soldier, a Centurion, could pull anyone from the street and force them to carry things and they HAD to obey. So this was something that Jesus was talking to in relation to that but of course it can be applied in our lives too. Just do more of what is expected of you. Go over and beyond and show the great love of Jesus for all people.
In Math Mieke learned to do some column addition (where 3 or more numbers are added up) and she had to look for numbers that would add up to make a ten first. She had no problem with this and on Friday when she took the test, she scored 20/20 = 100%
Spelling went very good this week. On Monday I used the Success in Spelling and we did lesson 10. She scored 100% on the pretest. I'm so proud of her. The words for the test were: brag, clan, cram, dash, bent, best, vest, west, spit, gift, king & grit. And because she got them all right I thought it would be a good idea to do a little more and catch up since we skipped some weeks when we started the sequential spelling. So on Wednesday I had her write another spelling pretest and again she scored 100%. The words for this second test were: clog, stop, frog, bulk, just, drug, shut, hush, card, hard, bark and dark.
For sequential spelling we just continued and did our spelling every day like the instructions tell us and I know I said I'll list some words so you'll get an idea of the difficulty in the words and why the Success in Spelling is so easy comparatively. Some of the words that we got to on Friday were:spats, slats, chatted, spattered, that, mattered, chattered, shattered, admitted, permitted, commmitted, omitted, emitted, submitted, upheld, withhold, beheld, sold, gold, mold, retold, molded, moulded, shouldered, boulder, bold, littered, glittered, bitter, sitter. So as you can see, these are not exactly light in the pants kind of words :-) She enjoys it though.
In wordly wise (the vocabulary curriculum) the words she learned centered around New Year's celebrations in Haiti. In Wisdom words we did some compound words, discussed using Capitals and I when talking about yourself and also to always list yourself last. Remember what "JOY" stands for: Jesus 1st , Yourself last & Other's in between...
For Social sudies and Science we continued our study/project of hot air balloons with making and testing our own tissue paper model. It flies!!! Maybe not high and the husband thinks its only because I'm using a hairdryer and that's what's making it go up, but I stand by my "it's the hot air" argument :-) I'm including a picture so you can see for yourselves :-) We also continued our discussion on the modes of transportation and also including jobs in transportation and the titles that go with it. Like engineer (train), pilot ('plane) etc.
On Monday Mieke also attended MAFA and they learned about George Washington. In Art they learned about architecture, columns and relief architecture. In music they reviewed the instrument families and learned a little about the orchestra. In drama they watched a small portion of a opera and they also acted an opera. They also learned about pitch and practiced using the nursery rhymes.
On Tuesday I took her for some apple picking since we couldn't go with AHG due to the cancellation. So we went to Mac's apples in Londonderry, NH and we picked a whole peck of honeycrisp apples. Mieke enjoyed it a whole lot. A peck is a big bag of apples. I'm pretty sure we won't get through the whole bag before they go bad and these apples are big!! On Saturday we went to the Nursing home to bake some apple crisp for the residence there. At first Mieke was a little shy and she didn't participate. But after a while she warmed up and before I knew it she had rolled up her sleeves and jumped right in. She especially loved washing their hands and she seemed very concerned for their health. I mean, we know some elderly people but these people are all very ill, some not even that old but maybe disabled in some way. My heart just went out to them and I think we've both decided that we want to do this more often.
Today, Sunday we went to Mac's apples again since Mieke wanted to really feed the goats and geese and ducks but when we went prior my camera's batteries were just about dead and I really wanted to take some pictures so I promised her we'll go back to do that and take pictures too. Unfortunately they no longer sell the feed so you can feed the animals which is a huge disappointment. They did have a scarecrow exibit though and I took some shots of that.
On to school work : This week we're still continuing with chapter 5 on Transportation and everything related to that.
The Bible verse for the week was Psalm 139:7
"Where can I go from Thy Spirit or where can I flee from Thy Presence?"
God is everywhere, it should be a huge comfort to know that He is with us no matter where we go and nothing that happens to us goes by unnoticed. He always cares for us, He always watches over us. We are never without His Presence and His protection!!
We continued our study of Jonah and discussed the various modes of transportation that was available to him, wanted or not :-) I wonder what it feels like to travel by fish LOL. The other lesson we studied was the early church and how it was scattered. People really had to travel some ways to engage in fellowship with each other and today we take church for granted. Some people had to go through a lot of trouble to bring us the freedom and availability of the church and most of the time we take it for granted!!
We also discussed the travels of Jesus...and He did a lot of traveling!! We played an alphabet game where you have to try and remember all the stuff you take on your travels. I'm traveling and I'm taking ... an airplane. I'm traveling and I'm taking an airplane and ball. I'm traveling and I'm taking an airplane, ball and cat etc. Every round you add another word beginning with the next letter in the alphabet. We managed to get through the whole alphabet quite successfully.
In science we studied gravity. Mieke did some experiments with balls, books, light and heavy objects, paper etc and discovered that the rules of gravity applies to everyone and anything. We also studied buoyancy (that's a fancy word for floating). Mieke tested some objects to discover whether they'll float or sink in the bathtub. She used a piece of wood, marbles, rocks, cork, weeble toy, inflated ball, tactile ball with holes, styrofoam cup etc. She really enjoys doing experiments.
For social studies we continued our discussion of modes of transportation and focused specifically on land transportation. We are also slowly working on air transportation and one of the projects we are doing (I'm doing most of the work) is building a hot air balloon. I'll post pictures when we're done.
In Health we discussed CO poisoning. It's extremely dangerous since it's an odorless gas and it's also a heavy gas which means that it stays near the ground, or descends into the basement area. We discussed what to do if the alarm sounds since we've had it happen before.
In Language we discussed using pronouns like he, she and it, we and they. We continued using sequential spelling and finished with day 26 on Friday. Mieke also did the other spelling program (the original one named success in spelling). I gave her the pretest on Friday and she scored 100%.
The words were:
sped, chip, then, ship, drip, shot, spot, trot, bump, jump, lump and pump.
Since we've started the sequential spelling the Success in spelling seems very easy. I'll make sure to include a list of some of the words of the sequential spelling program next week. It works different in that we do spelling every day. She writes the words on a white erase board and the daily practice is going well. The only downfall is that I don't have any real record of the words, which is a bummer, but I have the book, so maybe that'll be ok.
In Math this week Mieke learned about adding money. She's doing well. I don't know what happened on Friday but she was really distracted so by the time it was time for the math test she just couldn't keep focus. She scored a lousy 11/19 on her test and only because the ones she didn't complete were the ones I had to mark as incorrect. I gave her 15 minutes to do it, which is more than enough time but she couldn't focus and so I had to do something drastic. She wasn't happy about the x's on her test but maybe next time it's go better. Afterwards I let her do the ones she didn't do on the white board and she got them all right.
This week at MAFA they continued their study of Benjamin Franklin and the directors brother came dressed in colonial costume. Mieke was convinced she'd met Benjamin Franklin...haha...I'm sure she had a blast.
We also had an American Heritage Girls meeting and there was some apple picking scheduled for Saturday provided we don't get rain. So in light of that we studied apples on Friday. She read some books, did some apple graphs, colored some pictures, did some crossword puzzles and dot-to-dots but then unfortunately we got soaked from Friday onwards and it doesn't look like we'll see the sun again any time soon. So the apple picking field trip was cancelled. Maybe I'll just take her out this coming week so she can at least still experience it...since we already did all the work :-)
I printed out a school days log so I can keep track of how many days of school we do in the school year and so far (Friday, 26th) we had done 64 days (11 weeks and 4 days) of school!! Wow!! It's hard to imagine it's been that much already!!
We started another new unit (unit 4) and the first chapter (chapter 5) is all about transportation, modes of transportation, transportation then and now, moving, travel safety, gravity, friction etc. This chapter's study will be 3 weeks long.
The memory verse for the week was Romans 12:1
"I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God."
The Bible studies for the week was about Abram and his call to uproot his family and move to Canaan and the call of Jonah to go the Ninevah.
God actually called Abram's father, Terah, to obey and move out of Ur but somewhere along the way he (Terah) got off route and distracted by idol worship and well...the rest is history. Abram was different though, he had a solid love for God...as much as we can tell...though he got a little distracted too once they entered Haran.
Now Jonah is a whole different story. I find it very sad. He just couldn't get past the fact that salvation was for everyone, not just for a select few. Of course there's always consequences for disobedience, it has always been that way and I'm sure it will always be that way....not sure why some people think this don't apply to them...? But anyway, so Jonah thought he could run and hide from God, that somehow if he doesn't obey God wouldn't find out about it. But He does!! He always does!! Nothing that is hidden will stay hidden. Ok, so Jonah learns a lesson. He should be smarter now, right? But he isn't!! The people in Ninevah turned from their wicked ways and repented, starting to only worship God but still Jonah wants God to destroy them, wipe them from the face of the earth. From this story it's just clear that God does have a sense of humor...lol, read the last part of the story again...the part where God grew a vine to help Jonah be in the shade while he's sulking and pouting . . . I can only shake my head in sad disbelief. I think at one point he (Jonah) forgot that he's a messenger FROM God and not exactly God himself. This of course is not unique to Jonah...no matter who's history you are studying there's always something off, always something where the person faltered and got off course and almost make me tend to feel disappointed in them...David, Moses, the list goes on and on. The only real, true, no mistakes, no disappointments, example is Jesus. What a great privelage to be able to know and learn about Someone so pure, so perfectly God and yet so perfectly human and what a great example. Of course it's hard work but He's worth it :-). God doesn't love you because of who you are but because of Who He is!! Let that speak to you...
In Social studies we discussed and studied the various reasons for moving. Why did Abram move? Why do people move today?
In Science we studied friction. We used a wooden block with a nail it it and an elastic to test it on different surfaces to experiment with how friction works and how the surface acts upon the wooden block. Mieke loved doing the experiments.
As an observation project we made a floating boat out of a bar of Ivory soap. It's always fun to have toys in the tub :-)
In Language we worked on turning telling sentences into asking sentences...something little kids need to really work at and of course the correct usage of I and me or me and I :-) Me, myself and I? LOL, ok, we're just being silly. Ok, I'm stopping now :-)
In Math this week, Mieke learned to estimate to the nearest hundred. She had no problem doing the work, it went really well and she scored 100% on her test on Friday.
With regard to spelling, I've decided to start using a spelling specific curriculum that I had purchased but never used before. So we were just going on with that. I can see that the spelling in this book is a level up from the spelling we usually do. As soon as we're a little on the way with this, I'll bring back some of the older spelling and just finish that curriculum too. I don't like doing things half way, so we WILL finish itl. So this week we did it a little different and she wrote the regular language test on Tuesday. Mieke scored 100% on the pretest and so there wasn't any re-test on Friday. She makes me so proud. :-)
The words for this week's test were:
mute, use, dune, huge, cue, crab, grab, drab, slab, stab, bled and fled.
On Monday Afternoon Mieke attended MAFA (Master's Academy of Fine Arts) where they are studying the Classical Era. This week they studied Benjamin Franklin and they started their own almanacs. They also learned about how kids in those time did school with quill pens and bluberry ink and played hopscotch since that was the type of games kids used to play during colonial times. The picture people took some portraits that we should be receiving in about 2 or 3 weeks. Can't wait to see how they came out :-)
Onto some other news. We took the camper out for it's first camping trip to Jellystone Park. Mieke loved it. Their swimming pools were closed and Johan couldn't catch any fish but other than that it was nice. We enjoyed the camper. It was a bit cold so we were inside most of the time, which was just perfect. Of course it wasn't free of trials either. We quickly discovered that when they tightened the bathtub they broke a seal (by now that was fixed already by Johan) and they also wrongly labeled the gray water and black water hoses but that's a minor problem. At least we know which one is which now and even though it did put a damper on the weekend it wasn't serious and we're still very happy with the camper.
Tuesday was Mieke's first meeting of the American Heritage Girls. She like that very much too. We got an idea of what the program is all about and it's also a year commitment with meetings every 2nd and 4th Tuesdays. You can read more about this Christ-centered scouting program on their website
www.ahgonline.org It's great!! I love everything about it!!
Ok, now back to school...
We focused some more on really knowing those New Testament names and I think both of us know it now :-) It's so much fun learning right alongside with Mieke. Just one more reason why I absolutely LOVE homeschooling :-)
In language we worked on changing telling sentences into asking sentences. In creative writing Mieke had to draw some pictures of things she can smell and some things that are hard and soft. She also wrote a little poem (or rather she narrated with my help and I wrote it down) about our family. I'm planning on putting that into the memory book too.
In Math she learned about dollers ($) and cents (c) and learned how to correctly write money amounts. On Friday she scored 11/15 on her test. Not perfect but acceptable. I don't remember what she did wrong and I'm too lazy to get up and go check now...so sorry :-)
We continued with the sequential spelling and finished 5 days of spelling practice. It's going great.
This week was a little more difficult than usual because she started 2 extracurricular activities (that's what I'm calling MAFA and AHG) and we sort of had to adjust to the new schedule. On top of that we were all sick. It started on Tuesday I noticed Mieke's a little stuffy and her eyes look a little droopy and that's when I realized I'm feeling about the same way she's looking. Johan got sick too and was home for 3 days!! It's just silly to get a cold in the summer!!
In science Mieke took a nature walk and scavenger hunt. She loves this type of activities and was very excited.
In social studies we worked some more on the Bible time line and for history we studied some presidents, the 1st, George Washington, the 16th, Abraham Lincoln and the current president, George W. Bush.
For language we studied verbs (action words), adjectives (describing words) and nouns. For creative writing Mieke had to draw pictures of her grandparents, something soft, paper bags and postcards.
In Math we reviewed addition and started counting in 5's and learning about money: the nickle (5c). On Friday she scored 100% on her test.
We continued using sequential spelling. She writes 25 words on a white board every day and I can really see how her spelling has improved overall. I like this program and she actually looks forward to it every day :-)
Occassionally she still does some work in the Explode the code books. It's really just review and I'm not too strict about it since we have and use so many other language arts programs already.
Oooh, some non-school related news: We've purchased a new camper. A travel trailer with a refridgerator, A/C, furnace, bathroom with a mini-tub, a queen bed and 2 double bunk beds and with a kitchen with a microwave, oven, cooktop....ooh, and did i mention a radio/cd player, mp3 player/dvd player and flat screen tv!!! We are loving it!! We picked it up on Thursday and can't wait to use it for the first time!!! It's manufactured by R-Vision. Maxsport 23-RS. It was brand new even though it's a 2007 model. We got a free weekend at Jellystone Park from the RV retailers. I just have to make reservations. It's only valid until the end of September, which doesn't give us a lot of time.
In science we did the history of science and practiced measuring. In social studies we started with making a memory book and also charting our family's time line.
In language Mieke practiced writing the days of the week and the months of the year. We also learned about verbs. For creative writing Mieke drew a mile of smiles :-) and also draw pictures of the things she measured and also did a self-portrait.
In Math we reviewed all the work prior to our long vacation and then we started to skip count in 10 and money: the dime / 10c.
For our spelling I decided to try a new program names Sequential spelling. It's a lot harder then the usual spelling and it's something we practice daily.
In Vocabulary the unit we focused on was about building a tree house.
First we went camping, our annual camping trip to Freedom NH at Danforth Bay. As usual it was lots of fun.
We didn't have great weather at all but enough good days to spend a whole day on the lake in a rented pontoon and to Storyland.
Then when we came back it was all about VBS. Vacation Bible School. The curriculum we chose was Friendship Trek VBS. The next week we had a lot of work to do and we were quite busy. The week after that was the actual VBS event. It was a success. Everyone had fun and we'll definitely do it again next year.
In science we learned about sound and how it travels in waves. We even made a paper cup telephone and had lots of fun experimenting with it. We even made music with the use of water bottles filled with different amounts of water and learned about pitch and high and low sounds.
In social studies we learned about Helen Keller. Do yourself a favor and read a biography about her life. It's just amazing what this lady accomplish regardless of all the difficulties she faced since becoming blind and deaf at a young age. Imagine not being able to hear but still being able to learn to talk. We also learned about trees, where paper comes from and how paper is used in communication.
In Wisdom words (weaver's language) we learned about nouns and plurals and titles, capitalizing etc. Mieke also had the opportunity to practice some alphabetizing.
In Math she learned regrouping during addition. Basically it's just a fancy term for carrying over. On Friday she scored 100% on the test. She had no problem doing it and it went smoother then what I expected.
In Spelling she scored 9/12 on Monday and then for the retesting on Thursday she had them all right. The words this week were: rope, dote, cope, note, vote, hold, lure, pure, cure, cube, tube and lute.
We took a fieldtrip to the library to have an interview with the librarian. I took the voice recorder with so that she could have a little record of the interview. It went well. Mieke was very prepared, read all the questions and patiently waited for the librarian to answer them before asking the next one. And the librarian was great too, she totally played along and Mieke enjoyed it. Next she wants to interview the pastor :-) Anyway, unfortunately mom was a banana and in my haste to gather everything and head home I accidently pressed on the erase button and we lost everything!!! I know, i felt like crying...and didn't want to go back to re-do the whole thing. So we got to go into the special area where all the really old books are kept and if I remember correctly the oldest book was from 1815 or something like that. The librarian also explained that the library has a special room where they try to rebind the books that got damaged especially if it's out of print and can't be just replaces. Wow!! And to think that this is just our little town library.
Another camping trip is coming up and in that case you know it's going to be a crazy Friday. We're not as prepared as we usually are :-) Danforth Bay, here we come!!
We were working on Unit 2, Chapter 3.
We studied some speech habits that are pleasing to God and that we should try to practice often and we also made a list of speech habits to abandon. We talked about communication, specifically with God through prayer and that God made people to communicate with each other. The big focus of this unit is communication, listening, language and speech.
In Science we studied the stars and how they sing (produce sound) in accordance with what the Bible say about them (Job 38:7). We also studied bats and radar/ultrasound.
In Social studies we played some games on body expression and tried various ways of expressing without using speech. Mieke enjoyed this since it looks as if she really has a passion for drama.
In Health we focused on taking care of our voices and having good posture. Having good habits now will prevent pain later on. We all know the advantages of having good posture....remember: no slouching!!
For language and creative writing we studied loud and quiet sound, drew some stick people, learning about statements and questions and distinguished between little and big shapes.
In Math Mieke learned to skip count by 2's. On Thursday she scored 100% on her test.
The unit we were studying for vocabulary was all about Jobs, with the focus on "cook".
The spelling words this week were: bode, dolt, rove, jolt, molt, bolt, bone, cone, hone, tone, hope and pope. She got 8/12 for the pretest on Monday and then when I retested on Wednesday she scored 12/12.
On Tuesday we went to the middle school for the Fitness University. It's a fitness program for kids, aged 3 and up. This was just practice but in a few short weeks we'll have the finals. Mieke is looking forward to it. I have to say I feel pretty sorry for her because I think they do a lot of running. Given she's only 5. They had to run around the track 1 time (400m) and then they did some stretching warm up exercises. After that they had to run another lap around, then they played some games, all kind of active type games, with lots of running, jumping etc even some mini relays and then before the hour was over they had to run around the lap one final time!! So that's about 1200m!! It's tough!! Poor kid!!
Anyway, so on Saturday they had the finals day. She did great, poor kids had to run around the track 2 or 3 times again, same format as the practice. But when they finished they all received medals and she couldn't be prouder about it. She was so impressed, even though she was dead tired :-)
We'll definitely participate again next year since it's a pretty good program.
We started a new unit and it's all about speech, sound and language.
The memory verse for the week is Philippians 2:14 "Do everything without complaining or aguing." It's good advice, no one likes a whiner :-)
In Science we studied the anatomy of the ear and the science of hearing sound. How sound waves enter the ear and through electrical impulses travel along nerves to the brain. I love human anatomy and physiology and seeing Mieke just as excited about it brings great joy. We put together a model of the ear that I bought when we went to visit our friends in Georgia and Mieke could hardly contain herself when I said that we'll be doing it since she's been begging me ever since I bought it.
In social studies we discussed the fact that in different countries people speak different languages and that even in America where most everyone speaks English there's still a lot of accents. Southerners (y'all for you all) speak differently than people from Boston (ka for car) etc.
In spelling this week Mieke scored 8 out of 12 on Tuesday. I don't know what happened but when we got to some harder words she refused to even try to spell it. When we retested on Thursday she got them all right. The words were: pike, tire, fire, sire, life, rife, wife, bide, hide, ride, code and node.
In Math we covered multi-digit addition but she already knew this and flew right through it. I'm expecting the next step will involve carrying over since she hasn't learned that yet. She scored 31 out of 32 on the test on Friday.
Tuesday afternoon we participated in Fitness University which is a fitness awareness program geared towards kids. Mieke had a fun time playing all kinds of games with kids of her age. This event was much bigger than I expected. We have one more practice to go to and then on Saturday the 26th of July is the finals.
More exciting news. Mieke has outgrown her 12" bicycle and we got her a new one. She absolutely loves it. I'm really glad we got some elbow and knee pads when we upgraded her helmet too. Who knew the street was so steep? Well she already has some war battle scars to boot. It wasn't pretty but it was a little funny... I'm just being honest ;-) She now has a very bright purple/pink bmx. I still haven't downloaded the photos off my camera and since it's 1GB is totally full I couldn't take any photos yet but keep an eye on the inbox and I promise I'll try to get it done before the end of next week.
Vacation in Maine was lovely too. The weather was good. We took Mieke to Santa's Village and I'll be honest, I was a little apprehensive about the whole trip since I do not, at all, like the commercialization that goes with Christmas but it wasn't bad at all. Throughout the whole park they play Christmas music and they even have a little chapel and a life-size nativity scene complete with 3 wise men on camels. Upon entry into the park every child (or anyone who wants to) gets a card with the alphabet on it and then throughout the park there are elves. Every elf has a letter and a punch to go with it, so the idea is that you stamp your card whenever you see/find an elf and by the end you take your stamped card back to the elf university where you get a diploma as proof of your graduation and a cute little bike numberplate (vanity plate) and a choice between a pencil (12" long) or stickers. Mieke picked out a blue pencil.
The other day trip we did was to rent a canoe (we didn't take ours along on the trip) en paddle down the Saco River. We took the route that's about 7 miles long and it took us just about the whole day to do it. We entered the water around 11am and exited around 4pm. We really took our time and enjoyed everything along the way. Along the riverbank at some points were some rope swings. I went on a little one (with a little push from a child) and the dear husband, as crazy as always, took a huge plunge down a very high swing...just looking made my tummy turn.
Vacation is so much fun but since we stay up late playing cards and chatting with friends and then getting up fairly early in the morning to join in whatever activities the campground offers, we don't get a lot of rest and almost need a vacation after vacation...
Ok, so keep an eye out for the long promised photos...
I'm trying to stay positive here but it's hard when your spending all your energy making it through the day. I wish I can just sleep until I feel better...ok, enough complaining.
We cannot pack the camper until it stops raining so it's been put off until 4th of July. Independence day...next year I'll have to plan better because other than the fireworks show there's not much Mieke knows about the country's history - something to keep in mind for next year. I wanted to take her to the parade but we were so busy packing that there was no way we could squeeze that in.
Ok, so this week the Bible was still flowing with the previous week's work, although the focus shifted to stones, foundations, the importance of having a cornerstone (Jesus) in a building. The memory verse this week was: Job 38:4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand."
In Social studies we just further discussed the changes that Mieke went through and how she has grown. She made a little booklet of herself with various pictures. It came out quite cute.
In Science we studied various building materials needed in building a house, the importance of a foundation, the significance of the cornerstone in building and how some stones are considered precious in terms of rarity and beauty. We did a gemstone dig. Basically I bought it in a kit. A piece of brick (plaster of paris) with a little chisel and hammer and you use it to dig through the brick to find the "gem" stones which is basically just polished rocks. Annemieke enjoyed this and looked so cute with the safety goggles, she imagined herself to be a real explorer :-)
In Math Mieke learned to estimate to the closest 10 and then to add and get the actual answer. The concept was quite easy to her and I'm impressed that she is going along so smoothly. She scored 100% on her test Thursday. We're taking Friday off since we need to pack for camping and it is a national holiday.
In Language Arts this week, Mieke was assessed on the past 4 week's revision and scored 100%.
Oh, and in some other exciting news she also managed to score 100% on her pretest for spelling on Monday. The words she was required to spell was:
deed, reel, keep, weed, deep, peep, weep, pile, tile, mile, dike & like. We are very proud of her. She never seizes to amaze me!!
The week went really smooth. She absolutely gave her full participation and despite the craziness in getting ready for camping we had a good week.
The Bible memory verse for the week was Psalm 102:25
In the beginning You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.
Bible lessons we learned included the tower of
Spelling went really well this week. Again Mieke totally surprised me with her spelling skills. The spelling words this week (11 out of 12 right on Monday) was: me, we, fee, feel, seek, jeer, veer, she, feed, meek, beef & heed. She missed fee, she spelled it “fe”. I think the short words like we & me threw her off a little :-) On Wednesday when I retested her she scored 100%
We worked hard during the mornings so we can be ready for VBS – Power Lab (aha!!). It’s about 30min. from home and we had to leave at least
In Social studies we looked at birds as architects and how God had instilled a sense of architecture in their DNA. Some animals make really beautiful homes, lots of details and very well laid out, like an anthill and a beaver lodge. We also studied change, change is all around us, it’s part of us and sometimes it’s a concept that’s a little hard for young kids to understand. We looked at how our city changed over time, how Mieke has changed over the past 5 years and also how we can change water to ice and back again to water. Sometimes things cannot change back to their original form and we experienced that through our own growth.
In Science we studied volcanoes and Mieke really loved this. We made a model of a volcano, painted it and she enjoyed making the volcano erupt (bicarbonate of soda & vinegar does the trick) and we tried our hand at brick making…not quite as successful as I would’ve liked but that’s o.k too. Mieke didn’t really enjoy getting her hands dirty and in the end it was just really me who wanted to do it. Maybe next time:-)
In Math Mieke learned about inequalities and she really enjoyed it. At first I thought it would be a hard concept to teach but it went well. I got some extra hands-on games for her which reinforces this concept and she really enjoyed it. She zoomed through the work and scored 100% on her math test on Friday. I’m so proud of her.
VBS was great!! She’s still singing songs and talking about it. She’s even getting really excited about our Church’s VBS and that is not until middle August!!
I'm keeping a daily record of all the things we do because it's so easy to forget these kind of things and sometimes it's important to remember them.
Our Bible memory verse for the week was Romans 13:1 "For there is no authority except from God". Oh and Mieke just wanted me to write down Romans 12:2 (she knew this one already but for everyone else's sake) "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will." Hehe, don't feel bad if you don't know this one, she only said "Romans 12:2" and I had to ask her what does Romans 12:2 say.
Some of the other Bible lessons we covered this week was about being salt & light to the world and The new Jerusalem. We made a little booklet of the 12 foundations as they are described in Revelation 21. Wow, I think it's going to be beautiful!! It's really a good idea to look some of those gemstones up so you get a better visual of just how beautiful Heaven will be.
Anyway so in Science we looked at the effects of the Global flood (you know...Noah's ark) and fossils and how they form, we looked at electricity and water in the house and where it comes from. We talked a little about static electricity and did an experiment with a balloon testing static electricity and we discussed erosion, what causes it etc.
Social studies this week was kind of a mix of things. We looked at the comparative location of family members to where we are. It was supposed to be more of a local oriented exercise but we ended up turning it into an international one since we have family & friends all over :-) This was really only review for Mieke. We also discussed some service jobs of city people (police/firefighters/mail carrier etc - the regular community helpers theme) and we practiced some map skills.
In Math this week we learned how to put numbers in order from smallest to largest or the other way and usually they weren't numbers who logically follow each other. I was surprised at how quickly this concept sticked. For some reason I assumed we will be on this for awhile and yet we zipped right through it. On Friday when she wrote the weekly test she scored a perfect 100%.
In Language I taugh syllables. I can still clearly remember when we learned this in school. The clapping of the syllables. Annemieke, too, loved doing this and now she wants to do it will all the words. We learned about nouns, proper and common and even pronouns. Vocabulary was just a continuation of last week's lessons. It seems that the vocabulary program follows a 2 week long schedule with every unit lasting for 2 weeks. So we just finished the lesson on vacation.
With the spelling pretest on Monday Mieke got 10 out of the 12 words right. She had to practice the missed words the same day and then on Wednesday when I re-tested she scored 12/12. I was surprised too since she 1) has never had to write spelling tests before and 2)I didn't even know she could spell these. Here are the 12 words, just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about:
came, same, dame, cage, page, wake, fade, mate, late, sage, lace, sane. She missed sage (sayg) and lace (lase).
I'm a little late on this update so I've forgotten what else we've done. Next week we are going to attend VBS (vacation Bible school) so I'm not sure if we'll be able to do our week's worth of work. I'm taking one day at a time.
Oh, I just remembered one fun thing we did was to make a "flood in a jar" we added some rocks, water, sand, sticks, leaves etc in a clear glass bottle with a lid. Then you shake the bottle well and everything mixes and then as it settles you can see how the water becomes clear again and how the heaviest things settle first and the lightest things on top, and this explains why the biggest animals were buried the deepest and how fish fossils ended up on top of mountains. It's not hard to see how this is possible during a catastrophic event such as the Biblical global flood that is written about in Genesis 10. There, you've just had a mini lesson on the formation of fossils :-) Isn't learning fun??