School Summary - The Finish Line (aka We're done!)

A Summary of May 13 - 24

We did it. We finished our second year of homeschooling. Looking back, there were weeks when it felt like we were just treading water and not making any progress or getting anything done. The planned folders of worksheets and projects seemed countless. And then, just like that, I blinked, and our year is over.

I have often thought that with children (especially the real littles) that the days are long but the years are short. It seems that is becoming more evident as I get older and the years pass by quickly. 

It was a great year!

Here's what we did our last two weeks:

Things that were scheduled as usual:

Math

Tenor finished Saxon 6/5 and started 7/6. 

Soprano finished Saxon 3. Can I just say how excited I am to NOT have to do the meeting or teaching of her math lessons next year??

Language Arts (Grammar, Spelling, Penmanship, Reading, and Writing)

Tenor completed Rod and Staff English 5 and Spelling 5. He did his last handwriting practice sheets a few weeks ago and won't have any next year. He also did all of the IEW Ancient-History based Writing Lessons that corresponded with our MFW studies. He'll finish out the lessons in that book next year when we start with Ancient Rome.

Soprano finished Rod and Staff English 3 and Spelling 3. Her last reading book was Misty of Chincoteague (a perfect fit for our resident horse-lover.) She also finished A Reason for Handwriting C to learn cursive. Next year, we'll use Queen's Copywork for Girls as her penmanship lessons. Her Millenium Girl's writing project was also completed this week. She wrote a great creative short-story about a horse-riding girl who meets a foreign princess with a problem.

Electives:

Typing: They did another year of Typer Island. I think there's still room for improvement so we'll probably continue with it next year.

Spanish: Tenor finished his workbook and Soprano finished Switched on Schoolhouse Elementary Spanish. I'm looking into using Mango (free through the local library) and Dora and Diego Homeschool Spanish next year.

Health: workbook finished with worksheets on Lance Armstrong, Exercise in the Olden Days, Worry, Happy Being Yourself, and Being Sunsmart.

PA History: Another finished workbook with worksheets on the State Fish, a word search, and some PA trivia.

Geography: We did half of a workbook this year and finished out with one last worksheet on the Islands of Oceania.

My Father's World Creation to the Greeks-

Our official MFW work was done but we spent the last two weeks of the school year reading more book basket books and finishing up Ancient Greece lapbooks. I have realized that my younglings hate lapbooking so while I think it's really cool, I probably won't use any next year. I felt like a broken record for the past 2 weeks... 'did you work on your lapbook? did you read any book basket books?' over and over and over.

Soprano's lapbook

Tenor's lapbook

So that's it. I've been typing up summaries, filing papers and projects, making photo collages, and getting all of our official documents in order so that we can have our yearly evaluation. Then all I have to do is submit our portfolios to the school district and start prepping for next year. :)

School Summary - Nehemiah, Ezra, and Ancient Greece

A Summary of April 29 - May 10

We are a mere 2 weeks away from the end of our school year. I'm in shock at how quickly it has gone by! The days tend to seem long but the years overall are very, very short. It's been a good school year thus far. We finished up our MFW studies this week although we have some extras to do next week.

Here's what we did:

Things that were scheduled as usual:

Math

Soprano's math is getting to the end of the book so we're spacing out her lessons until the end of the year. Only 3 times per week these two weeks.

Language Arts (Grammar, Spelling, Penmanship, Reading, and Writing)

Electives:

Typing

Spanish

Soprano finished up her lessons with Switched on Schoolhouse's Elementary Spanish so she's done for the year.

Health: three worksheets on nutrition labels, what exercise is, and why exercise is good for us.

PA History: Just like Health, I changed my mind about this year's PA History book. They are working to finish it up by the end of the year. We did worksheets on PA weather, Indian Tribes, a website page, and the state dog.

My Father's World Creation to the Greeks-

We completed week 33 and 34 of MFW which means our journey from Creation through the Greeks is at an end. I'm not a huge ancient history fan (although I love history) but seeing how ancient history was so completely influenced by and interwoven with the history and narrative of the Old Testament has changed my mind about it.

Bible: We finished learning Isaiah 40:21-31 adding the last 2 verses this week. We also reviewed our other Scripture memory passages from earlier this year: 2 Timothy 3:16-17, the Old Testament books, the 10 Commandments, Psalm 1, and Psalm 23. 

We read passages in Nehemiah to finish up our Bible studies.

Science: We finished reading about Archimedes life and discoveries. Thankfully, the latter chapters have been much shorter than the earlier ones.It was great to read about part of his life that was on the Galileo and the Stargazers recording by Jim Weiss.

History: We did a notebooking worksheet about Greek children and a map of Alexander the Great's empire. We read about all different aspects of Ancient Greek culture and Alexander's empire.

They held their own mini Olympics in the backyard and tried to play knucklebones.

Other MFW: 

Music: For week 33, they again each picked one of the Messiah songs and copied out the verse that Handel based that song on and drew a picture.

Art: They did lessons on drawing a Greek building and learned about the Greek orders of architecture and epicureanism. They finished their year of art with some lessons on drawing Samson and using contrapasto.

Extras:

Web:

no web videos these weeks

Videos:

Ancient Greece by Schlessinger Media

Favorite Books:

Count Your Way Through Greece by Jim Haskins
You Wouldn't Want to Be a Slave in Ancient Greece by Fiona MacDonald
How We Learned the Earth is Round by Patricia Lauber
A Greek Potter by Giovanni Caselli

School Summary -- Daniel, Esther, and the Persian Empire

A Summary of April 15 - 26

Co-op is done, Easter has passed, and we're rapidly approaching the end of our school year. Subjects are getting finished up which is making our days a little lighter and easing us into a summer schedule. We are all quite ready to take a break but until we're officially finished, the younglings are enjoying the lovely spring weather and playing outside as much as they possibly can!

Here's what we did:

Things that were scheduled as usual:

Math

Tenor finished up Saxon 6/5 and we moved him right into Saxon 7/6. He'll most likely end up doing all of the higher maths so we wanted to keep him going right onto the next level.

Language Arts (Grammar, Spelling, Penmanship, Reading, and Writing)

Electives:

Typing

Spanish

Civics: I didn't realize but we finished up for the year last week. I'm looking for ideas on how to incorporate civics next year without a lot of extra work.

Health: I've been going back and forth several times about whether or not to finish the whole health book that we used this year. I had copied all the worksheets at the beginning of the year and then decided we'd only do half the book. Looking at next year's MFW, they'll get 2/3 of a year of anatomy so we won't need health. They'll also be getting one term of health with our co-op. But I have all the photocopies which will be too 'young' for their grade level in 2 years so we're going to finish out the book. It's not too much because everything else is already finishing up. They did a worksheet on 'Water and the Body' this past week.

PA History: worksheets on the highs and lows (elevation) and the rivers of PA.

My Father's World Creation to the Greeks-

We continued with the story of Daniel and then read about Esther, both of whom lived during the time of the Persian empire.

Bible: We kept working on learning a long passage from Isaiah 40 adding several verses this week. To help us remember, we're making up motions to go along with the different phrases. We also reviewed the 10 Commandments and Psalm 23. 

We read passages in part of the book of Daniel and most of the book of Esther.

Science: We continued reading about Archimedes life and discoveries. Some of the early chapters have been pretty long but the book is well written and engaging.

History: We did some notebooking worksheets about Daniel and Esther. We also read how the Persians captured Babylon and their subsequent wars with Greece.

We also added a few pieces to our timelines.

Other MFW: 

Music: Two more weeks of Handel, including Lascia Ch'ia Pianga (one of my favorites) and several pieces from the Messiah. The younglings notebooked about 1 song during week 31 using these sheets and then for week 32, they each picked one of the Messiah songs and copied out the verse that Handel based that song on and drew a picture.

Art: They did lessons on light against dark, painting vases, and drawing columns.

Extras:

Web:

Lego Purim

Persian Wars

The Persian Wars

Greek Philosophers

Time Warp Trio: My Big Fat Greek Olympics (part 1, 2 and 3)

Videos:

no videos this week

Favorite Books:

Esther's Story by Diane Wolkstein
Artemisia of Caria by Shirin Bridges
The Greek News by Anton Powell