School Summary - Constantinople Falls, Spain Unites, England's Roses War, and Africa

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Tracking the Movement of the Sun

A Summary of March 10-21

If you are paying attention to the dates (which I don't blame you, if you don't; I only include them for our personal records), but you might have noticed that March 3-7 went missing. I had originally planned to take a week-long winter break the third week of February, but my folks asked to take the younglings to Washington D.C. Um, yes! :) They needed to schedule their trip around my dad's work schedule so they wanted to go from March 3-5. It was really, really hard to push our winter break off a couple weeks, especially since I had been talking it up to the younglings and we all really needed a break. We pushed through those weeks of school though and they had a great time with my parents. Of course, a trip with Gram and Pop-pop usually means eating out more than usual, extra treats, souvenirs, and extremely late bedtimes. They went to the Air and Space Museum, the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History, the Capitol Building, and quite a few of the monuments (Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington, WWII, Korean War, and the Vietnam Wall). It's not quite what we're studying in history but it's a good foundation for next year and the year after.
We took the remainder of that week off to recover from those late bedtimes. :) The next Monday we were back to our routine.
Here's what we did for the past two weeks:

Things that were scheduled:

Math

Tenor finished Saxon 7/6 and went right into Saxon 8/7. We're planning to finish all of the maths before his last semester of his senior year so that he can take a math class (or 2 depending on timing) at a local college to earn dual credit. He's doing well. Soprano is also working through Saxon but at a reduced pace. I'm debating on exploring switching her to Teaching Textbooks.

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

Electives:

Typing, Spanish, and Civics for both.

Tenor continued with Greek and PA History while Soprano had her Home Ec lessons - more beginner sewing.  She finished her PA History book a few weeks ago. I'm not sure how it ended so soon because I tried to schedule all the electives to last the entire year but it's completed.

My Father's World Rome to the Reformation

MFW has been anything but boring these past few weeks. We are studying a wide range of topics in European history and then spent a week on Africa in the early to middle ages. We tend to think of Africa as not being as advanced as our western society but back then, they were equal to or more advanced than their European neighbors. As we keep studying, I'm interested to find out why they did not advance the way Europe or the U.S. did.

Bible: We continued learning our passage in Philippians (Chapter 2:3-11), and read all the way through the book of Philippians.

Science: We completed several lessons from AIG's Our Universe. We talked about the sun, its structure, solar eclipse, solar energy, the moon, and Sir Isaac Newton. We did several demonstrations and experiments including tracking the movement of the sun:

History: 

Like I mentioned, we've been tackling a variety of topics in history. The Muslim Turks conquered Constantinople. Ferdinand and Isabella united Spain. Henry the Navigator from Portugal began exploring the African coast. The War of the Roses took place. 

The War of the Roses was particularly funny to the younglings because we live in Lancaster (the Red Rose city) and not too far from York (the White Rose city). Yes, both towns were named after their English counterparts. I'm pretty sure that's where the city symbols came from too. Fortunately, the only "war" going on in our towns today is the minor league baseball rivalry.

After touching on events in European history, we looked at the main three African kingdoms during the Middle Ages. The younglings played mancala too.

Other MFW: 

Music: We finished the Beethoven biography and listened to the 5th Symphony.

Art: They had a couple of lessons with no assigned projects and a few drawing assignments.

Extras:

Web:
We are really far behind on watching our web videos but they're saved in my playlist. You can see them all in my Youtube playlist for MFW weeks 19-34.

Videos:

All About the Sun by Schlessinger Media

Favorite Books: 

Ludwig Beethoven and the Chiming Tower Bells by Opal Wheeler
Isabel Saves the Prince by Dan Holub
The Moon Book by Gail Gibbons
What the Moon is Like by Franklyn Branley