School Summary - Massachusetts Bay and Rhode Island Colonies

A Summary of September 8-12

This is an overview of just one week of work. We are all very excited to take our first break week and head to the Historic Triangle in Virginia for Fall Homeschool Days. The younglings did a great job keeping on task despite the excitement.
Here's what we did:

Things that were scheduled:

Math

Tenor is plugging away with Saxon 8/7. He's getting into more complex concepts but we're not having any real difficulty. He would probably score much better if he would just do the work on paper rather than in his head. Most of his errors are minor computation issues.
Soprano is doing very well with Saxon 6/5. She might tell you that she's not a math person but she isn't really struggling at all. Every once in awhile we come to a new concept that I need to walk her through but so far she's just getting it done and building on what she learned last year. She will say that she LOVES (with hearts and curly q's) Life of Fred. I add a chapter from LoF every 7 lessons to break up the Saxon work and to stretch the Saxon book through the entire year. She's only in LoF Butterflies which is an early elementary book but she enjoys the stories and doesn't mind doing the work. I'll keep using LoF as a supplement for her in the years to come.

Language Arts (Grammar, Reading, and Writing)

Writing is still going well. It does add *one more thing* to my part of the school day. I keep forgetting that I need to teach it until we've already finished everything else for the day. Then I remember and think, "Oh yeah, *sigh* writing". It's not that it's hard to teach... maybe I should write myself a note to do it before we start our other MFW things.

Electives:

Typing, Greek (Tenor), Spanish (Tenor), Home Ec (Soprano)

Tenor fit in three Greek lessons this week which will help us get on track to finish two levels this year. It's all still letter review so I'm not worried that he's moving too quickly.

My Father's World Exploration to 1850

When I was in elementary school, I thought Roger Williams was 'all that' for starting the Rhode Island colony and offering religious freedom. Reading about him this week changed my perspective. He did offer religious freedom but only because he was kind of a fanatic and got kicked out the other colonies for causing division.

Bible: This year we're doing an in-depth study of the book of James and attempting to memorize the entire book. We're up to verse 11 of chapter 1. This week they used the study book to dive into the text more thoroughly. We didn't any verses to our memory work.

Science: We learned about marsupials this week using AIG's The World of Animals. The younglings made a craft that simulates how a marsupial mom's pouch works. Since I have the entire AIG set with teacher books, I'm making them take the quizzes this year too. They finished quiz 1 and also read about Charles Darwin.

Tenor's marsupial baby and pouch

Tenor's marsupial baby and pouch

Soprano's marsupial baby and pouch

Soprano's marsupial baby and pouch

History: We read about the Massachusetts Bay colony and the famous Pilgrims. We looked more closely at Miles Standish and how his actions saved the colony from Indian attack. I'm not sure I agree with what he did but if he hadn't, our country's history might be very different. We also read about how Rhode Island got its start. Between Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, they had some very, um, fervent people. We also read about the Salem witchcraft trials. I summarized some of the more graphic info because Soprano gets upset easily about that type of thing. I can hardly take her into any stores in October because of the Halloween things for sale.

I added in some map work from MapTrek (Plymouth Colony). I also added two timeline pieces from Homeschool in the Woods (Massachusetts Bay Colony, Salem Witch Trials).

Other MFW: 

Music: We listened to several selections by Franz Schubert and learned our third hymn, "The Lord's My Shepherd." We are having trouble singing the words with the correct rhythm. It doesn't flow in certain places. If this is one of the few hymns that have survived from the Scottish Psalter for more wide-spread use, it makes me wonder what the rest of the Psalter is like.

Art: Gerrit Dou and painting with golden light.

The backgrounds were supposed to be dark to emphasize the light of the foreground.

Extras:

In preparation for our trip next week, we focused a lot on colonial life in general, not just in New England.

Web:

You can see them all in my Youtube playlist for weeks 1-14.

Videos:

Colonial Life for Children by Schlessinger Media

Felicity: An American Girl Adventure by Revolution Studios (because we are headed to Williamsburg next week. This might be a better fit during week 18.)

Favorite Books: 

A Day in the Life of a Colonial ____ series by Kathy Wilmore

A Visual Dictionary of a Colonial Community by Bobbie Kalman

Colonial Women by Niki Walker

The Milliner by Niki Walker

The Colonial Cook by Bobbie Kalman

The Blacksmith by Bobbie Kalman

The Woodworkers by Bobbie Kalman

Finding Home by Sandra Markle (marsupials)

Koala by Dee Phillips

Tree Kangaroo by Dee Phillips 

Wombat's Burrow by Dee Phillips

What is a Marsupial? by Bobbi Kalman

What to Expect When You're Expecting Joeys by Bridget Beos

Marsupials by Nic Bishop

Platypus by Joan Short