Aug. 27, 2008 - Summer time schooling
OK, everyone!
I do not believe in summertime school. However, I needed my little guy to keep up with math. So, we did do worksheets that I made up. I also let him be the banker a lot in Monopoly. There is multiplying and dividing in these problems. He has to learn them all.
The biggest hit is the Encyclopedia Brown readings. My children were doing logic studies the Charlotte Mason way without even knowing it. You might be wondering, but here's how:
1. I would read aloud a story.
2. The children figured out the clues by telling the story back to me.
3. They had to figure out which clue was a rabbit trail or red herring and which was the actual clue.
4. They had to remember science lessons to see which clue did not fit.
5. After they came up with their conclusions, we looked in the back to see if we were close. Sometimes we got it and sometimes we did not.
Now, is that Charlotte Mason style logic? They did narrations. They did discussions and they used logic through deductive reasoning to solve the mystery. Isn't that neat?
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Aug. 14, 2008 - My Updated Schedule
We start the first week in September.
Now that we are doing FIRST Lego League(FLL) and Junior FIRST Lego League(JFLL), I have to add that into the schedule. We have it set for Fridays after school, but it could be more as we get closer to the tournaments. It is also after school since I have some private school children on my FLL team.
Here goes:
My Fifth grader:
Singapore Math 5 A/B and on Fridays, Hand-On Equations Verbal Problems(that will be his word problems for this year)
Growing with Grammar 5 (five days a week)
Latina Christiana II (3 days a week, I am breaking this up into 2 years since it looks a little harder than LCI)
Writing Tales 2 (5 days a week, my son wanted it 6 days, but I cut down to 5)
Building Thinking Skills Level 2- Chapters 7-10 (I broke this up into 2 years since it was such a big book. I assign 6 pages a week)
Mindbenders B series (this is intermediate level. My son breezed through the A series, but I heard the B series is harder.)
Year 5 for Amblesideonline and Plutarch(Mondays) and Shakespeare(Tuesdays)
FIRST Lego League team: Science (Friday afternoons until December)
My Third Grader:
Singapore Math 2B/3A??? and Family Math(four days a week) and on Fridays Challenging Word Problems
Grammar Songs (three days a week)
Prima Latina (four days a week)
Writing Tales 1(five days a week)
Building Thinking Skills Level 1- Chapters 6-10 (six pages a week usually on music day during piano lessons)
Mindbenders A series (one day a week)
Year 2 for Amblesideonline (the readings which is daily and broken up)
Junior FIRST Lego League Team meetings: Science (once a month on Fridays)
Travelling Soccer for Physical Education (Sunday games, but we never miss church)
The Work together:
Story of the World Volume 1 (Monday and Tuesdays)
Lyrical Science- Human Anatomy(Wednesdays and Fridays)
They are still learning cursive. (Thursdays)
Thursdays are music days. They are in a music program through the homeschool support group. It is professional teachers. They learn traditional piano, Suzuki violin, and choir. My sons learn solfege during their choir lessons so that covers that area for Ambleside. They practice for an hour first thing in the morning and then jump in the shower.
We do hymns, artist study (after Bible readings since that is table talk time), poetry readings and folk song as morning ceremonies. It is only ten minutes in the mornings. Hymns on Mondays, Artist Study on Tuesdays, Poetry on Wednesdays(it is the same poem for a month and we go over some time during the days), and folks songs on Thursdays.
I read aloud the One Year Bible to them during breakfast everyday until December, then they will do their own devotions. We discussed this. They also have AWANA on Wednesday night. My heaviest season is from September to the end of November. Then we lighten up in December.
I know that I am crazy this year. So, I am asking for lots of prayer besides your thoughts.
Blessings to all who read this in your homeschooling journey!
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Aug. 13, 2008 - What do I know
I love to review products. I realize though that everyone does. I have decided that I do not know anything about homeschooling products out there. I will write my opinion only on the products that I have used and why I use it. I have used products that are great. I rarely buy products that I don't use. I also do not buy a lot of products. Whatever I buy, I keep.
I will share what I have been faithful to using for the past 3 years. I think that being with a curriculum for that long, you start to get a sense of the program.
The following are programs I have used for about 3 years or more
Singapore Math= going on 4 years
Memoria Press for Latin= going on 3 years
Story of the World= going on 5 years
All of these products were wonderful for me and my sons. I enjoy Singapore Math because it is a very different approach to math than American math. So, I took it. It is so deceiving though because it is these little soft covered book that make it look easy. It is hard work.
Memoria Press for Latin: My older son will start Latina Christiana II in the fall. He started with Prima Latina and now will do Latina Christiana II this year.
Finally, Story of the World is my oldest son's love. The idea of telling history in a story fashion makes it so fascinating to him. He just loves reading about the different people in history. Ms. Bauer does a good job of writing the stories of history too. The funny thing is volumes 3 and 4 start to become more factual than story, but he got into the mode from volumes 1 and 2 that he does not realize that the latter volumes are more intense.
What do I know anyway. I only do stuff that I know will really keep my children's attention. I know that it will work.
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Aug. 10, 2008 - Lego excitement blossoms!
I went down to Florida last week to help my sister out with her toddler and newborn baby. My sister just gave birth the last week of July. I came down this past week to spend time with her. My new niece is sooo adorable. I cannot wait to see what God has in store for her.
While we were in Florida, the Legos set for FIRST Lego League was delivered to my house. Well, when we returned home yesterday, it was like Christmas in August for the boys. My husband stayed home so he told us that we had five boxes waiting for us. The boys were estatic to open boxes and boxes of Legos. You should have see the looks on their faces. The joy was overwhelming.
I did not let them open everything because they might loose some pieces. We have a training set for August 23, 2008. This training is from another FIRST team that will teach our team how to build and work on the project.
Now, for some more exciting news, I do have two more members that joined our team. So, I have about 8 children. I will work with them and see. I pray that the children will have a good time but come away learning something. I hope they will learn how to work with other people and trust God to show them how to be creative.
If anyone reads this blog, please pray for my team, the Lightningbots, whenever you get a chance. Thank you!
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Aug. 1, 2008 - Team update
More chidren have been added to the FIRST Lego League team. This is a mom that spoke to me months ago. I have been amiss. I just saw her email and called her today. She said that she was still interested. So, she is going to ask her children. We will have eight children instead.
I am excited. We are going away for a week. Hopefully when we get back, we will get our equipment and start working.
I am a crazy woman. I have two teams this year that I am going to coach. The Junior FIRST Lego League which is mild and the FIRST Lego League which is competitive.
Pray for me for the coming semester of school. I need God's guidance.
