Here's what we did for school:
Things that were scheduled as usual:
Math
Soprano is not loving her math (Saxon 3) and now battle after battle, I'm wondering if I should switch it. We went through something similar with her language arts last year. I ended up changing the curriculum with much success. We borrowed a new program from the teacher ed section of the college where Bass works. We're going to give it a try for the next few weeks and see how it goes.
Language Arts (Grammar, Spelling, Penmanship, Reading, and Writing)
Electives:
Typing
Spanish
Civics: They read about Mail Carriers this week.Health: They did a worksheet to create a healthy advertisement (as opposed to a junk food commercial.)
Geography: The next few geography worksheets focus on each of the continents. This week they reviewed a little about Africa.
Co-op: They each had music and gym and their elective class (Soprano-Art and Art History; Tenor-Chemistry).
We completed weeks 10 and 11 which, yes, is still focusing on ancient Egypt studies along with Joseph and Moses.
Bible: We continued learning the 10
Commandments from Exodus 20, adding the next commandment, Do not murder. We added Israel in Egypt and Moses being born to our timelines. Our first one was so full that we started on our second timeline sheet. Eventually, they'll get hole-punched and added to a binder.
Science: We moved on to the next 'day of creation' and started learning about seas and land and plants.
They did a few observation activities but I didn't get any pics this time around.
History: Yup, still working on ancient Egypt. They were the dominant civilization for several thousand centuries. The kids have been working on lapbooks about ancient Egypt and finally finished them up this week. Here are pics of Tenor's book:
We explored Pharaoh's court, Egyptian clothing, weaving, and clay pots, chariots, and warfare. It was really interesting to read about Hatshepsut, one of the few women Egyptian rulers, who declared herself Pharaoh. She even wore the faux beard when in court.
Music: They listened to "Winter" by Vivaldi and painted a winter scene.
Art: Drawing the Egyptian eye and a mural as well as drawing a tree and designing an obelisk.
Web:
The Magic School Bus Gets PlantedVideos:
The Animated Kid's Bible: Brothers At War by The Kids Bible Company (about Jacob and Esau)
Joseph King of Dreams by Dreamworks
Eyewitness: Ocean
Favorite Books:
How Do Apples Grow? by Betsy Maestro
Crinkleroot's Guide to Knowing the Trees by Jim Arnosky
Crinkleroot's Guide to Walking in Wild Places by Jim Arnosky (love his books!)Hatshepsut, His Majesty, Herself by Catherine Andronik
Linnea's Windowsill Garden by Christina Bjork
The plan is to do school Monday and Tuesday then take off this Wed.-Friday. Bass took off from work so we're going to have a Star Wars movie marathon. (It's set in a galaxy long, long ago... that's ancient history, right?) Anyways, next week we'll then do school Mon.-Wed. and take off the remainder of the week for Thanksgiving. I hoping that stretching out the break will be just as effective as taking off a full week in one shot.
Whether it works or not, that's what we're planning. We're looking forward to a change of pace.
Linking up at www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com
and 2 ladybugs and a lizard
Ooooh, thanks for the lapbook link :) Have you ever looked into Math U See? We switched from Abeka to it this year and the kids have LOVED it. There are about 30 main sections and each section has about 6 lessons (4 are only over that concept and the other 2 also contain review sections, plus a test.) Each main section also has a short DVD video where the teacher shows and explains each concept. (There are 30 of them total.) The kids enjoy them (and so do I). They are short (like 5-10 minutes) and the guy is not boring at all. The beauty of this is, once the kids grasp a section concept, you can skip ahead to a review section, then on to a test. No need to bore them to death with something they understand right away. It also allows you to 'hang out' in a section for longer too. My daughter was having trouble grasping the 9 family in multiplication, so we spent more like 2 weeks in that section (versus our usual 1 week) and did every lesson in that section. Math U See as TONS of free online worksheets as well in case they need even more practice.Anyway, sorry to ramble, but we have really liked this. Math deosn't seem like such a chore to my kids anymore :)
ReplyDeleteMath U See is definitely an option. I've heard lots of great things about it. After some long discussions with the hubs and with Soprano, we're going to just continue with Saxon for the time being. It's not really a math thing as much as an attitude issue. But if things really don't improve, we're going to reevaluate what we use. Thanks for the great review!
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