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A Summary of February 6-27
February went by quickly! We had a full week of school, a full week off for a winter break (love, love, love Sabbath schooling!), and then another full week of school. Of course, my winter "break" was mostly spent planning next year's schoolwork but I'm hoping the work I put in now will let me have more time off this summer when I'm sitting in the sun, relaxing by the pool, bees a'buzzin', kissable dandelion fuzz, a drink in my hand, up against the sand... in SUMMER! (I might be getting too far ahead of the weather here. Time to reign it in.) Back to school...Here's what we did:
Things that were scheduled:
Math
Language Arts (Grammar, Reading, and Writing; Spelling for Soprano)
Tenor started Saxon Algebra I. So far so good. He doesn't have a drill each day anymore. Nice for him and one less thing to correct for me. We have had a few tear-inducing, head-scratchers... sometimes the answer key asks for just a formula like (20 + 4π)m and sometimes it finished out the calculations and wants a final answer like 24π ft = 75.36 ft.
Tenor started Saxon Algebra I. So far so good. He doesn't have a drill each day anymore. Nice for him and one less thing to correct for me. We have had a few tear-inducing, head-scratchers... sometimes the answer key asks for just a formula like (20 + 4π)m and sometimes it finished out the calculations and wants a final answer like 24π ft = 75.36 ft.
In each instance it looks like the same type of problem to me so I'm not sure why the book doesn't always end up one way or the other. But we're figuring it out together. I did have to remind him though that I haven't done Algebra longer than he's been alive so I need a little time to catch up before I can work through those problem spots with him.
Thankfully Soprano's math and their L/A are both right on track with no troubles.
Electives:
Typing, Greek (Tenor), Spanish (Tenor), Home Ec (Soprano)
My Father's World Exploration to 1850
We shifted focus for these two weeks, away from the fledgling US of A back to Europe and Asia. We read about Captain Cook's journey to find the great Southern continent, which he thought he missed. We read all about how the American War for Independence spurred the French Revolution and how quickly that went south, and we read about Catherine I of Russia and how she earned her name, Catherine the Great.
Bible: This
year we're doing an in-depth study of the book
of James and attempting to memorize the entire book. We've now learned all of chapters 1-3. By "we", I mean the younglings. My poor old brain is only getting bits and pieces to stick.
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. The younglings finished their
botany lapbooks from In the Hands of a Child.
These weeks we would have covered lessons 21-26. That included studying flowers, pollination, fruit, annuals/biennials/perennials, and meat-eating plants.
They made models of flowers:
They dissected a few flowers (alstromeria and daisy):
We examined different types of fruit:
And because we had so much fruit on hand, we invited friends over for dessert fondue! Isn't school fun??
History: We read about Captain Cook discovering Australia. I was reading in SOTW and said that the botanists and scientists with him arrived at the island and discovered a hopping animal that the natives called kan-goo-roo. One of my younglings says, "Ooh, dolphins!!"
Wait, wha?
The other youngling and I laughed and laughed. Yup, we homskool. ;)
After we touched on Cook's journeys, we read a lot about the causes of, the events of, and results of the French Revolution. Then we came back to Catherine the Great. We had touched on her life earlier in the year. This week we went further in depth as to how she gained the throne and brought in Western ideas to Russia. Like she said, to really change Russia, she'd have to live to be as old as Methuselah. But she did quite a bit.
We notebooked about the Revolution and Catherine:
We played "Storm the Bastille", a trivia game in the SOTW3 Activity Book.
I added in some map work from MapTrek (The French Revolution) and SOTW (Catherine the Great instead of the MFW assignment). No extra timeline pieces though.
Other MFW:
Music: We listened to several pieces by Chopin.
For our hymn study, we spent one week on "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" then the following week learning "When Morning Gilds the Skies (May Jesus Christ Be Praised)".
Art: We read about French Artists, including Fragonard, tried a pen and wash technique, and tried painting realistically. Our schedule was a little off this week so we pushed the painting until Friday but I think the younglings were "over" school by then. We had some fussing about finishing so this was the end result.
Extras:
Web:
You can see them all in my Youtube playlist for weeks 15-34.
Botany extras (we didn't use them)
Printable Leaf and Needle Poster
Botany extras (we didn't use them)
Printable Leaf and Needle Poster
Videos:
No extra videos this week.
Favorite Books:
Moi and Marie Antoinette by Marie Cullen
You Wouldn't Want to Be an Aristocrat in the French Revolution! by Jim Pipe
A River Ran Wild (Massachusetts) by Lynne Cherry
Berlioz the Bear (Massachusetts) by Jan Brett
Letting Swift River Go (Massachusetts) by Jane Yolen
Louisa May and Mr. Thoreau's Flute (Massachusetts) by Julie Dunlap
M is for Mayflower (Massachusetts) by Margot Raven
N is for Nutmeg (Connecticut) by Elissa Grodin
B is for Blue Crab (Maryland) by Laura Stutzman
Deep in the Swamp (Georgia) by Donna Bateman
P is for Peach (Georgia) by Carol Crane
Carolina Shout (South Carolina) by Alan Schroeder
Ron's Big Mission (South Carolina) by Rose Blue
The Blue Hill Meadows (Virginia) by Cynthia Rylant
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