By the word of their testimony - Homeschool Blogger

My Weekly Report

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:47:00 -0600

I have been trying to figure out how I can refine my report. I want to stop putting the label of grades with my sons' work. I want to share that I have had a tough school year. I started a new FIRST Lego League team. It has been a difficult road trying to teach and train young children how to work professionally and act graciously to each other.

OK, here are some pictures of the team:

We went to the municipal building in order to speak to the Director of Public Works in our town. This was part of our research project.

Another picture:

In this picture, the team is working hard to try and solve some missions.

Programming!!

Building!!

On Thursdays, the boys go to the homeschool music program. Here are some pictures of them in the Junior Ensemble group.

The boys at the music program!!

Playing music!

This is my weekly report. It consists of pictures of the activities that we have done through out the week. We are extremely busy due to the FIRST Lego League competition. My sons and I have decided that this will be our last year.

Thank you to all who read.

My Sons' Work

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:50:00 -0600

For those of you who would like a view into my homeschooling world, here it is:

My older son's work:

Reading: Our Island Story and Story of the World Volume 2

Writing: Classical Writing: Beginning Poetry

Math: Primary Mathematics 6B, Challenging Word Problems 5, and Life of Fred: Percents and Decimals

Logic: Building Thinking Skills and Mindbenders

Latin: Henle I

Spanish: We are doing our own style of Spanish

Music Appreciation: Some Suzuki Violin, Folk Songs and Hymns at homeschool support group, and private piano lessons.

Science: FIRST Lego League Robotics

Bible: AWANA TnT book 4

My younger son's work:

Reading: Story of the World Volume 2

Writing: First Language Lessons 3

Latin: Latina Christiana I

Math: Primary Mathematics 3A and Challenging Word Problems 2

Science: FIRST Lego League

Music Appreciation: Some Suzuki violin, folks song and choir. Private Piano lessons.

Bible: AWANA TnT Book 2

I have not done our art study and nature walks due to the time eaten up by FIRST Lego League. We all decided as a family that this would be our last year of this program. It is too demanding. My younger son is still struggling with math. We made some strides and now some losses again. I need to concentrate on programs that will not eat up my time.

Blessings to all who read

My Weekly Report

Sat, 7 Nov 2009 07:22:00 -0600

This reporting has gotten by the wayside because I have been so busy. I have been doing the FIRST Lego League. It is so demanding this program. I will not continue this next year. We spend two days a week and about 5 hours a week working on programming, building, and research. This is a tough job. The children do not know how to program a light sensor. So, I realize this is too hard. They will have to pray and seek the Lord as to how to make these missions work.

We manage to get reading Story of the World, Plutarch, and Shakespeare into our schedules. We have manage to get Primary Mathematics in for both boys. We have soccer practices, piano and violin practices too. Since the FLL has consumed a lot of my time, I realize that we need to do something different. I did summer school and then I did FLL in the fall. I really overextended myself. My children are learning a lot, but I feel it has come at some price.

My younger son got a staph infection. I do not know where. I pray the rest of us don't get it. I took him to the infectious disease doctor who put him on strong medicines and a body cleanser. This is hard. He has missed games this season due to illness and the staph infection. We are battling our bodies and our wits at the same time.

That is my report.

I am going to do this.

Sat, 7 Nov 2009 07:14:00 -0600

I always go back and forth with a plan, but I am sticking to this plan.

I am not going to continue with Classical Writing Homer B. I am going to trust the Charlotte Mason method. I am going to take the stuff from Ambleside Online and use to finish up Homer B myself.

I am going to teach my son how to write in a slow and progressive practice. He will learn how to write a draft and then rewrite what he has written. My struggle will be how to teach him how to write a persuasive piece. That is what I will work on with him starting in January. I how that I can find pieces that can teach you how to write persuasively. Pray for me. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

I will not complain

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:58:00 -0500

You know the Bible says do all things without grumbling or complaining. I should take heed of this statement because I complained about a curriculum. The program, Lyrical Life Science: Human Body, was confusing. The full words to the songs were in the appendix at the back of the book. That was confusing because for months we kept saying how aweful it was that we did not have all the words to the song to sing a long to the CD. Well, we found the words after two months, duh. I had already written on my blog how I was not a fan of the program. It turns out the words were there in the book just not with the title and other stuff.

Well, my older son does well on the IOWAs, but he never scores too high in the science. The highest he gets is about in the high 70s. The last one he got in the low 90s, specifically 93, in science. He told me that he clearly remembered the words to one of the songs from lyrical science and that helped him answer a few questions correctly. Wow! The songs did come in handy. Well, I am humble to say that most curriculae are good out there. Most of the time, I realize that it is what I feel is comfortable to teach and user friendly to me. So, if I don't like a curriculum, it might be that it did not work for me. I realize that when you read a review and it is negative look at why.

I think that I need to look more at what kind of a mom I am and the kind of mom a person reviewing may be. I know that as long as the curriculum is following some standard and your child is learning than it is a good program.

My Weekly Report

Fri, 9 Oct 2009 07:31:00 -0500

We had a rough week since my sons were sick on Thursday. I am just going to summarize the week by subjects.

Mathematics:

My first born son went through several exercises this week in Primary Mathematics 6B. He is doing the reviews in the textbook to wrap up the week, then he will complete 3 chapters of Life of Fred and the bridge today. So, he has completed 6 exercies and 2 reviews in the beginning.

My second son has slowly worked through several pages of practices in Primary Mathematics 3A. It is a struggle for him, but he is slowly working it through.

History:

My first born completed 3 chapters of Story of the World. He completed 4 chapters in Our Island Story.

My second completed one chapter of Story of the World. They both summarize by narrating to me.

Writing and Grammar:

My older son completed week 2 of Classical Writing Beginning Poetry.

My younger son completed lessons 28- 31 of First Language Lessons 3.

Logic:

The older is doing Building Thinking Skills book 3 Verbal. He has completed he is doing maps and directions in the sequencing section.

The younger is doing Building Thinking Skills book 2. He is just beginning the book.

Latin:

My older son started Henle Book 1 this week. He is only doing two exercises a week because I want him to learn more Spanish this year.

My younger son completed lesson 1 of Latina Christiana I.

Science:

The boys are on a FIRST Lego League team. They are currently doing research about pot holes as our theme is about transportation. I think what is neat is my younger son's Latin word is porto. He learned transport as a derivative of that word and he is learning about transportation.

We are doing this program for science for now.

This week for our FLL team we went to the library to learn how to do research.

My Younger Son's Soccer Team

Fri, 9 Oct 2009 07:17:00 -0500

My younger son's soccer team is in first place in their division for soccer!!! The Raiders are moving up the charts! My son's team won this last game against the first place team. My son unfortunately was not there. He was sick. He is conjested and was on antibiotics. He missed his recreational soccer game and his travel game. They all won.

Well, the first few games they won. The teams that he is on have only lost one game each. We are hoping for a winning streak! Congratulations to the Raiders for a 5-1 win on Sunday. We hope that my son's team can win it for recreation on Saturday. His travel team, the Raiders, gets off this Sunday for the Columbus day holiday. So, he can relax, but come back strong for Sunday. Way to go!

Extracurricular crazy!!

Sat, 3 Oct 2009 10:54:00 -0500

Well, school is back for me, but it is starting with an overwhelming bang.

My sons' Suzuki teacher is doing this Jr. Ensemble group and has the children doing homework. Yuck. The exciting thing is that my older son is almost done with book 2 of Suzuki and is going into book 3. Finally!!! His teacher is hard. It almost seems as if it is a difficult task to get into a new book with her. My son is doing it. He is in book 2.

My younger son is still in book 1. I pray to God that he will try to advance. He needs to improve. Whoa is me!!!

I have an extremely busy schedule this semester. I am a coach of a robotics team. I have 7 children at my house 2 days a week, Mondays and Tuesdays. My younger son is in recreational soccer and travel soccer. Saturdays and Sundays are busy. He practices three days a week.

They have piano lessons on the same day that they have violin. My sons get on music day, violin, choir, and piano lessons.

So, that is all the extra curricular activites. What about school? Oh, yeah! That thing we do Monday through Friday.

It is coming soon.

Excursions Really This Time

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:24:00 -0500

Next stop after Boston was Portland, Maine.

A lighthouse in Maine.

Our excursion in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. Yes, a horse drawn trolley.

The excursions of our trip

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:06:00 -0500

Here are pictures of the excursions we did on our cruise:

First stop was Boston, Massachusetts.

A building in Boston.

We found one of these guys every night when we came back to our room after dinner and a show.

This is the view from our deck. I woke up one morning to this image. I could not help, but open up the curtains and see this sight.

More of the same beautiful sight!!!