I respectfully ask that you not pin pictures of my children to Pinterest. Thank you!
A Summary of January 19 - February 6
If you look at the dates, you'll see three weeks of time. Despite the dreary winter weather, the days do seem to be flying by. Way back, sometime last summer, when I was planning our year, I intentionally scheduled our MFW work to allow for a catch-up week after we studied the War for Independence. I figured we'd have a lot of book basket reading and other activities to fit in. I was partially right. We weren't behind but it was still nice to have a week that was less full.
Here's what we did:
Things that were scheduled:
Math
Language Arts (Grammar, Reading, and Writing; Spelling for Soprano)
Tenor started his next reading book, "Where the Red Fern Grows". Soprano completed "Island of the Blue Dolphins" and began "Caddie Woodlawn." They both finished their three paragraph research
reports on important figures from the Revolutionary War for writing.
Tenor chose George Washington while Soprano picked Benjamin Franklin.
Tenor also finished Saxon Math 8/7. He'll be starting Algebra I next week.
Electives:
Typing, Greek (Tenor), Spanish (Tenor), Home Ec (Soprano)
My Father's World Exploration to 1850
We continued studying the people and events of the Revolutionary War before learning about the creating of the U.S. Constitution and our first, somewhat reluctant, president, [the original G.W.] Mr. Washington.
Bible: This
year we're doing an in-depth study of the book
of James and attempting to memorize the entire book. We're now reviewing chapters 1and 2 and finishing up learning chapter 3.
Science: Since we
did all of our botany work, using AIG's The World of Plants, over the
summer, I'll try to give an overview of the experiments and
demonstrations that we did. Currently the younglings are working on a
botany lapbook from
In the Hands of a Child.
They're reading a section and doing an activity three days per week to review what we learned.
These weeks we would have covered lessons 15-20. That included studying stem growth, photosynthesis, leaf arrangements, leaves changing colors, and identifying trees.
We did a bunch of experiments and observation but I have no pictures.
History: We read about the Revolutionary War again this week. Lots and lots of reading. We learned about the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights. [It's amazing how our government is operating today so far away from how our founding fathers intended it to based on that Constitution. Crazy! and scary!]
 |
| Our THREE branches of government -- or how it's supposed to work |
We finished Johnny Tremain as a read-aloud that I added in, and the younglings also really enjoyed the rest of the Liberty's Kids DVDs.
We skipped the silhouette activity, but made colonial flags.
We also did the quilt activity. I had a bunch of pre-made quilt squares from my late grandmother's craft stash. She quilted for years and participated in a club which swapped squares amongst its members. These squares were headed for the get-rid-of pile but I rescued them knowing this craft was scheduled. Soprano made a doll blanket,
and Tenor made an envelope pillow cover.
We started our state study too.
I added in some map work from SOTW (The American revolution). No extra timeline pieces though.
Other MFW:
Music: We listened to several pieces by Chopin.
For our hymn study, we spent one week on "Jesus, Lover of My
Soul" then the following week learning "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing."
Art: We read about Turner and tried painting atmosphere.
Extras:
Web:
You can see them all in my
Youtube playlist for weeks 15-34.
Botany extras (we didn't use them)
Revolutionary War lapbook (we didn't use it yet but I still might add it in)
Videos:
Liberty's Kids
American History for Children: American Independence by Schlessinger
American History for Children: United States Constitution by Schlessinger
Animated Hero Classics: George Washington by Nest Entertainment
Johnny Tremain by Disney
Ladies of Liberty: Boston 1775 by Learn Our History
The Presidents [George Washington] by The History Channel
Favorite Books:
What If There Were No Bees? by Suzanne Slade
From Bird Poop to Wind by Ellen Lawrence
What is a Fruit? by Jenifer Day
Revolutionary Friends by Selene Castrovilla
The Boston Tea Party by Russell Freedman
Those Rebels, John & Tom by Barbara Kerley
When Mr. Jefferson Came to Philadelphia by Ann Turner
Will you Sign Here, John Hancock? by Jean Fritz
D is For Democracy by Elissa Grodin
Eight Hands Round by Ann Whitford Paul
The Quilting Bee by Gail Gibbons
We the People by Peter Speier
F is For First State by Carol Crane [Delaware]
Journey Around Philadelphia from A to Z by Martha Zschock
Lives of the Presidents by Kathleen Krull
Night of the Moonjellies by Mark Sasha [New Jersey]
George Washington by Mike Venezia
