School Summary - We are finished!

A Summary of May 11-15

We DID finish a week earlier than I planned. Yay for the younglings! I'm sure I say this every year but I can hardly believe we've been doing this homeschool thing as long as we have. I said I would never, ever, ever, ever homeschool, and here we are finishing our 4th year. Wow!

Here's what we did in our last week of the year:

Things that were scheduled:

Math

Tenor is up to lesson 53 in Saxon Algebra I. He'll pick up there next year. Soprano finished Saxon 6/5 and through Life of Fred Cats chapter 9. She'll pick up with LOF at the beginning of next year.

Language Arts (Grammar and Writing; Reading and Spelling for Soprano)

Soprano finished her last reading book, Caddie Woodlawn as well as her Rod and Staff English 5. Tenor completed Rod and Staff English 7. We also finished the last of the lessons in IEW's U.S. History Based Writing Lessons, Volume 1. I've got different plans for next year's writing... the younglings are excited!

Electives:

Typing, Greek (Tenor), Spanish (Tenor)

Their typing has actually improved this year. I was pleasantly surprised when I printed the end-of-year results from the typing program. I think we'll do one more year of it (bumping up the words-per-minute goal) and then be done. Or maybe I'll have them work on it this summer... hmmm. That's an idea. :)

My Father's World Exploration to 1850

Just a little bit of finishing up.

Bible: The memory work is done so we just reviewed. I also completed a project I've been wanting to do for-EV-ah. I printed all of our previous memory verses (from ECC, CTG, RTR, and this year) on cardstock. I cut them into 3x5 cards and added them to the notecard box each youngling has on their desk. I'm hoping to relearn and review those verses next year when we do 1850-Modern Times.

 

State Reports: 

Finished!

 

Other MFW: 

Music: We're listening to composers from this year at lunch for review. We listened to Chopin this week. For our hymn study, we learned our last one for the year, "O Worship the King".

Extras:

Web:

You can see them all in my Youtube playlist for weeks 15-34.

Although there aren't any science or history videos, there are videos of the hymns.

 

And that's it for the year! 

We didn't really have a celebration because I went away for the week following but they each got a little gift. Portfolios are completed; our evaluation is scheduled; finished curriculum has already been sold; books were cleaned out; and next year's paperwork (for the state) is ready to go. I've been planning and preparing for next year already so I'm hoping that I'll actually have a bit of a summer break this year!

We are doing next year's science over the summer but so far that's gone very well and not been overwhelming. Year 4 done and year 5 coming up!

Crafty Patriotic Mantel with a Rag Garland, Pennant, and U.S.A. Picks

My mantel's year is usually winter, St. Patrick's Day, Easter/Spring, Summer, Fall, Christmas.
I skip Valentine's Day because I'm usually worn out after Christmas and don't feel like doing two quick changes. It felt like there was a hole though between my spring mantel and my beach-themed summer mantel. I decided that a patriotic display would be a great fit for Memorial Day through July 4th.

 

From left to right...

I left my white lantern and added two candle holders (Hobby Lobby 50% off) and a picture frame stand (Michael's 'Make It Market' 50% off). I resized this cute printable for the frame.

 

I made a little pennant banner for the window using DCWV's Nantucket stack and red & white baker's twine from Queen and Co. I cut the pennants from Cricut's Pretty Pennants cartridge. The wood star is from Christmas Tree Shops, and the painted Mason jars are from Michael's (50% off). I made three little picks for the jars using the Nantucket stack, Spellbinders Nestabilities Large Scalloped Circle and Large Circle, and Cricut Extreme Fonts for the letters. To hold the picks in place, I wadded balls of tin foil and stuffed them in the jars.

On the far side, I put a bunch of mini flags (Hobby Lobby) into a white ceramic vase (Michael's 50% off) and set it on a couple books to add height.

 

Altogether, it looks like this.

Hanging on the mantel is a rag garland i made using this tutorial. I cut the fabric (JoAnn's all on sale plus an extra 15% off everything coupon!) into 1" x 10" pieces and knotted it onto shoelace rope that I doubled up.

Of course with all the red, white, and blue on the mantel, I needed to make new pillow covers for the couch too. :)  I used the same envelope pillow cover method that I use for all of them. (Fabric from JoAnn's 50% off plus that coupon).

 

Now my living room is all decked out for the good ol' U.S. of A!

 

Behind the Scenes: what the photos don't show you is that I didn't buy enough of the floral pillow fabric so the loveseat still has plaid St. Paddy's Day pillows. Ugh! 

Linking up to some or all of these great blog parties:

Sunday: It's Overflowing; Sunday Showcase at Under the Table and Dreaming;
Monday: Inspire Me Monday at Sand and Sisal; Tutorials and Tips at Home Stories A to Z; Monthly Before and After at Thrifty Decor Chick
Wednesday: Wicked Awesome Wednesday at Handy Man, Crafty Woman; Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts; 
Friday: Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest; Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring;

This post was featured at Handy Man, Crafty Woman. Thanks, Laurie!

School Summary - State reports and getting done

All those books are completed - wow!

A Summary of April 27 - May 8

The younglings are working hard (I think!?) to try to finish a week earlier than planned. I'm going away for a week so Bass will be taking over. The younglings thought that finishing up early would allow for a more fun week with Dad. I'd love to get it all done and wrapped up before I go away too. What they don't know is that if they finish early, they'll be starting our summer science with Dad while I'm away. But they're both looking forward to the science subjects we'll be studying (chemistry and physics) and school is just more fun with a substitute teacher anyway. :)

Here's what we did:

Things that were scheduled:

Math

Language Arts (Grammar and Writing; Reading and Spelling for Soprano)

Soprano finished her spelling! Tenor had already finished his reading while Soprano has about 8 more lessons to go.

Electives:

Typing, Greek (Tenor), Spanish (Tenor)

My Father's World Exploration to 1850

These last four weeks of MFW will focus on Bible, our hymn study, and doing state reports. The curriculum has nature study scheduled but the younglings just haven't gotten into that. We'll be skipping it and focusing on the state reports as we finish up the rest.

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 1-5. We're still working on those last 8 verses of chapter 5 but I had them learn it early so we could spend the next few weeks reviewing.

 

State Reports: 

I debated whether or not to do the report or just do lapbooks. Lapbooks would be much easier... just read, fill out, cut and paste, but I wanted them to have a little practice on doing research from multiple sources and then compiling the info. Soprano decided to use the sheets from "Writing a State Report." Tenor wanted to use those sheets to take notes and is writing his own paragraphs from those notes I think after another week they'll have them finished up.

 

Other MFW: 

Music: We're listening to composers from this year at lunch for review. We had a week of Mendelssohn and then a week of Schubert. For our hymn study, we learned "In the Cross of Christ I Glory".

Art: is done!

Extras:

Web:

You can see them all in my Youtube playlist for weeks 15-34.

Although there aren't any science or history videos, there are videos of the hymns.

Make a Card Monday - Hexagon Blessings

During Stampin Up's last Sale-a-bration I got the hexagon punch and matching stamp set. I decided it was time to put them to use and found this card for inspiration. I'll use these to send out for anniversaries this year.

Details:
cardstock: teal (Recollections), white (Georgia Pacific)
patterned paper: So Sophie (My Mind's Eye)

embellishments: heart brads (unknown)
color: Violete ink (Palette)
tools: hole piercer (Making Memories), hexagon punch (Stampin Up!)
stamps: Tag Tidbits (The Angel Company)

School Summary - Samuel Morse, The Alamo, New Zealand, and the CA Gold Rush

A Summary of April 13-24

We came back full throttle after our intense, week-long field trip to Philly and Massachusetts. The end of the year is in sight, and I've been pushing the younglings to double-up so we can finish sooner. It seems like they're doing lots of work but nothing's getting done.

Here's what we did:

Things that were scheduled:

Math

Language Arts (Grammar, Reading, and Writing; Spelling for Soprano)

Electives:

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

Soprano finished her Home Ec. book and is quite glad that we won't be using the third volume in the series next year. We'll be focusing on sewing instead.

My Father's World Exploration to 1850

While we still have four more weeks of MFW left, these are the last two that have history, state and president study, art, music, and read alouds scheduled. The next four weeks will focus on Bible, our hymn study, and doing state reports.

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 1-4 and up to chapter 5, verse 8.

 

Science: Done, done, done! I added in a couple lessons from AIG's Inventions book (L2 the telephone, Samuel Morse, and L24 ) because they fit with our history reading.

 

History: 

We read about China and the ongoing Opium War, then about Samuel Morse and his invention of the telegraph. The younglings wrote their names out in Morse Code and then practiced tapping it out on their desks. We read about the Alamo, how the British settled New Zealand, and the California Gold Rush. I bought a gold panning kit for them to do but we haven't gotten around to using it yet.

We continued our state and president study. 

I added in some map work from SOTW (Mexico, the Repulic of Texas, and the U.S.; Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand) and MapTrek (Gold Rush in CA). No extra timeline pieces though. 

I've found that it works well for me to read the chapter in Story of the World while having them do the map work from the SOTW Activity Book. It takes some thinking on my part to read a portion, jump to the activity book, and then back to the text but I think it helps them cement where things are happening in the text.

 

Other MFW: 

Music: We read about the Romantic Era of music in Meet the Great Composers and Young Scholar's Guide to Music. For our hymn study, we learned "The Solid Rock".

Art: We learned about landscape art and tints, shades, and half-tones.

Extras:

Web:

You can see them all in my Youtube playlist for weeks 15-34.

Arkansas comic 

Things we didn't get to but looked fun:

Westward Ho! lapbook

Little House virtual field trip

Little House building craft

Covered Wagon paper model

Pioneer town paper model

California comic

 

Videos:

The Presidents (Van Buren, W.H. Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor) (History Channel)

Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier (Disney)
The Santa Fe Trail (Digiview Productions) (with Olive de Havilland and Ronald Reagan)

Favorite Books: 

John Tyler by Mike Venezia

Zachary Taylor by Mike Venezia

An Orange for Frankie by Patricia Polacco (Michigan)

The Bee Tree by Patricia Polacco (Michigan)

Clever Beatrice by Margaret Willey (Michigan)

Eat My Dust! by Monica Culling (Michigan)

The Great Pig Search by Eileen Christelow (Florida)

Sam the Sea Cow by Francine Jacobs (Florida)

Buffalo Music by Tracey Fern (Texas)

Pecos Bill by Steven Kellogg (Texas)

The Legend of the Bluebonnet by Tomie dePaola (Texas)

Tomas and the Library Lady by Pat Mora (Texas)

Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers by Kathi Appelt (Texas)

Flood by Mary Calhoun (Iowa)

McBroom Tells the Truth by Sid Fleischman (Iowa)

Christmas in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (Wisconsin)

Don't Forget Winona by Jeanne Whitehouse Peterson (California)

Nine for California by Sonia Levitin (California)

First Day in Grapes by L. King Perez (California)