LLRHomeschoolmom - Homeschool Blogger

Happy November

Wed, 4 Nov 2009 13:22:00 -0600

We had eight boxes today:

1 - Our Read Alouds: Two history books & the Boy Scout Chemistry Merit Badge book
2 - Alek's Math
3 - Bible: We used Bible Study Guide For All Ages for the first time today. I think we're really going to like it.
4 - Phonics & Vocabulary Workbook

5 - The Story of the USA
6 - States & Capitals review
7 - Words on the Vine: Write sentences using words with the root 'foli'
8 - Our artist for November, Hokusai: read his biography in Lives of the Artists and watch a Youtube video about him

We also watched some Liberty Kids videos during lunch & he'll do his reading tonight.

Other things we've done in the last week:

We went to Marquette State Park with some of the other families in our homeschool group. First we had a lesson in owls & eagles, and then a two mile hike.

This view is from the top of a mound on the river bluffs. Our guide said that on a clear day, you can see the St. Louis arch from here. Our day was VERY foggy!

Our state menu this week was from Maine: Lobster Casserole, Roasted Asparagus & Blueberry Pie. (I cheated a little on the pie - a frozen pie from the grocery store) Everything was delicious!

Tuesday was time for Kate to register for the 2nd semester of college already! She'll be taking English, Math, Psychology & Music Theory. Her schedule will be a little easier this semester - no classes before 10 a.m.

We finished Witch of Blackbird Pond on Tuesday. Luke will finish up his book about Pocahontas by the end of the week. He is supposed to finish reading his Chemistry book before the merit badge seminar on Saturday, so we'll concentrate on that for the rest of the week.
I've been working on Dewey, the Small Town Library Cat and The Life and Adventures of Harry Bibb. Both of them are good books, but I just haven't had much time to read.

Almost weekly update & Workbox Wednesday

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:35:00 -0500

I'm a little behind on my weekly blog entry this time, so I'll combine it with my Workbox Wednesday. Our week started with a Chili Cook-off after church on Sunday. These were the judges:
and Luke after three bowls of chili:
We managed to get a few good days of school in this week. We're reading Witch of Blackbird Pond together, Luke's reading a book about Pocahontas, and I started Jumping Through Fires by David Nasser. I just picked this book up at random from the New Biographies shelf at the library, but it's turned out to be pretty good. It's the story of a boy's transition from Iran to America, and eventually Christianity. It's a short book that you could probably read easily in one or two settings, but lately I seem to be having a hard time keeping my eyes open by the time I sit down to read in the evening.

We've been adding one or two states a week to our list of states/capitals to memorize. Last week I bought the book Eat Your Way Through the USA which has recipes for a dinner from each state. We started with New York.
Chicken Noodle Soup, Baked Creamed Cabbage & Red Velvet Cake

Luke decided that he wanted this week's Friday theme to be 'airplanes'. I usually put my own theme days together, but this time I ordered the Airplane Lapbook from Hands of a Child. We only got about 3/4 of the way through it, so next Friday's theme will be: Airplanes, Continued. He decided that when he's done with everything, he'll mount it on a display board and save it for our end-of-the-year Homeschool Fair.

Kate is half-way through her semester at college now. Last week's English assignment was a research paper on the death penalty. She was the only one in class that got a 100%!!

Every Friday & Saturday this month, Luke is working with his Boy Scout Troop at the "Haunted Hayride." The area Scout Troops organize the ride every year as a fund raiser. They had over 400 people go through this weekend! Here's Luke in his spooky make-up:

Our Last Rose of the season. This plant didn't have a single flower all summer!

I filled all 12 boxes today. We'll see if they all get done.

1 - Read Alouds: The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Story of Jamestown
2 - Alek's Math
3 - Phonics & Vocabulary Workbook
4 - Vocabulary: We're starting the Words on the Vine workbook. Our first Latin root is 'foli'.

5 - Make a shopping list for tonight's "Maine" dinner
6 - Practice Math Facts
7 - States Notebook
8 - Tree photo
9 - Read 2 chapters of Pocahontas

10 - All About Spelling
11 - Growing with Grammar: We're on the last lesson of the chapter which is a writing exercise. It may take more than one day to finish.
12 - Boy Scout Chemistry Badge book - Luke will be attending an all day seminar, in a couple of weeks, to earn his Chemistry merit badge. We'll read a few pages of the book each day in preparation.

Workbox Wednesday 10-14-09

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:05:00 -0500

Tuesday was a sick day here, so this is what I originally had planned for yesterday. We had 11 boxes today:

1-Our read alouds (BIble, Witch of Blackbird Pond, Bach Biography)
2-Alek's Math
3-State Folder - Today is NEW YORK. We're working on 1 or 2 states a week - Luke fills out an information sheet for the state, makes a flashcard with the state name & capital, and tomorrow we'll try the New York recipes from Eat Your Way Through the USA.

4-Phonics & Vocabulary Workbook Grade 6 from the Carson-Dellosa Publishing Practice & Apply series - We just started this book today.
5- Luke read a couple of chapters from Pocahontas and the Strangers.
6-Growing with Grammar lesson
7-Flashcard practice
8-Copywork
9-The Story of the USA - We reviewed Chapters 1-7
10-All About Spelling
11-A Pikachu paper model

One Month of School Done

Thu, 8 Oct 2009 14:04:00 -0500

After a month of school, I'm finding out what works & what doesn't. This was my first time with Sonlight and although I Love the book selections, that's the only part I'm really using. We talk about what we've read, but I don't usually use their study guide questions. Since I don't seem to be conforming to their plan, we'll just use their reading schedule as a book list and continue to do history the way I always have - adding in my own activities and lapbooks, reading from the various history books that I already have about each topic, etc.

We've been doing a lesson from Growing with Grammar about 2 or 3 times a week. On the other days, I assign some kind of writing exercise. Sometimes it's copywork from the book he's reading or the ideas I find here: Online Grammar and Writing Handbook. The Remember Me Pockets have some daily writing prompts that are great for handwriting.

I'm not getting to Science as often as I had hoped, but I'm giving myself two or three years to get through Apologia General Science. That will give us time to get into some other science topics that catch Luke's interest.

Math & Spelling are both going well as we continue with what we were using last year. Our "Theme Fridays" are definitely a hit! Luke has requested that next week's theme be "Airplanes", so if you have any suggestions let me know. Today's theme was "Columbus"

Columbus Boxes
Box 1 - Listen to the "You Are There - Columbus Discovers America" recording which I downloaded from homeschoolradioshows.com
Box 2 - Christopher Columbus Reading Sheet from theholidayzone.com
Box 3 - A maze, also from theholidayzone.com
Box 4 - A Math Worksheet from softschools.com
Box 5 - We made a Columbus Day Poster:

So far this month, we've finished Walk the World's Rim by Betty Baker. We read this book together & I think we both enjoyed it....a little sad at the end, but a good story.

One of the foods that they mention in this book is "Yam Cakes". We tried this recipe: Cherokee Yam Cakes and they turned out really well.

Luke read Om-kas-toe on his own.

I usually read biographies or non-fiction books, so this month I decided to try to read a fictional book: Peace Like A River by Leif Enger. I really enjoyed the story and it didn't end the way I expected.

We've also started books about our composer & artist of the month - Bach & Michelangelo.
In honor of Alice Dalgliesh's birthday, we read Bears on Hemlock Mountain. Donald J. Sobol's birthday is this month too, so we'll be reading some Encyclopedia Brown books. I have his Two-Minute Mysteries book on order from Paperback Swap.

Workboxless Wednesday

Wed, 7 Oct 2009 15:43:00 -0500

No workboxes today. We went on a field trip to the Nature Institute. I forgot to take my camera on the hike, so I only have photos of the kids in the lodge.

Our Week

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:37:00 -0500

This week we went apple picking:

and had church in the park:

Luke camped out at the airport all weekend with his Scout troop:

worked the day of the fly in:

and then went for a ride himself:

Kate went for a ride in this one:

Workbox Wednesday 9-23-09

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:20:00 -0500

The end of Summer '09 at LLR

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 11:17:00 -0500

For our last week of Summer, we had beautiful weather here at LLR! Schooling just seems so much nicer with all the windows open, clear skies, and a light breeze coming into our living/dining room a.k.a. the school room.

Artist & Musician of the Month Activities: We continued to listen to Vivaldi this week and collected some items from the yard - leaves, dirt, flowers.
We'll let them dry out over the weekend, and then Luke is going to make paints with them according to the directions in Amazing Leonardo Da Vinci Inventions You Can Build Yourself.

Remember Me September Pockets: I purchased a Remember Me Pocket from fortunatelyforyoubooks.com for the first time this month & LOVED IT. We're not making the pockets as they have it laid out, but it is filled with activities & information that can be put in Luke's workboxes throughout the month. One of them was a short biography of Tomie DePaola (his birthday was this week) and a colorful timeline of his life that Luke put together.

Science: We're continuing Apologia's General Science Book. We did this experiment on Tuesday.

Friday was Cloud Day!

We started out by reading The Man Who Named the Clouds by Julie Hannah & Joan Holub. We also used these books:
The Cloud Book by Tomie dePaola
Clouds by Gail Saunders-Smith
Clouds by Anne Rockwell
Here are a few of the other things that we did for Cloud Day
***A crossword puzzle & a cloud worksheet that I found online.
***Made a cloud wheel that I got here: http://www.homeschoolshare.com/docs54478/time_wonder/cloud_wheel.pdf
***Math practice was an online multiplication cloud game: http://www.echalk.co.uk/tasters/taster3/taster.html
***Watched several cloud videos on YouTube.
***We printed off a cloud journal sheet here: http://www.goalongs.com/pdf/Cloud%20Data%20Sheet.pdf
***Took cloud photos outside
***After dinner, we tried this: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Cloud-in-a-Bottle It took several tries and adaptations to get it to work, but Luke really had a lot of fun with it.

Workbox Wednesday 9-16-09

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:35:00 -0500

Other than our regular subjects, we only had a couple of 'fun' boxes today. But, one of them was a dvd which I knew would take a lot of time.

For one box, I had Luke pick a tree in our yard and take a photo of it. I'm hoping to make that a weekly box so that at the end of the year, he'll have a collage of the same tree changing through the seasons.

The second box was in honor of Roald Dahl's birthday this week. First, we read his book, Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Then, we watched the movie based on his book 'Witches'. This movie was about a little boy that was turned into a mouse. There were several scenes in this movie that reminded us of both Stuart Little and Ratatouille.

Four Seasons

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 13:04:00 -0500

Luke's abstract watercolor paintings done while listening to Vivaldi's Four Seasons