School Summary - War What Is It Good For? Nothing (Except Women's Suffrage)

I respectfully ask that you not pin pictures of my children to Pinterest. Thank you!

 

A Summary of January 4-15
Christmas break went much faster than I had hoped. I had way more things to cross off my to-do list. But we're back at it and have finished 19 weeks. Which means we're over halfway through our school year.

Here's what we did:

Things that were scheduled:

Math

Tenor finished Algebra I and started right into Algebra II. I didn't realize that the first two lessons (A and B) were part of the curricula and not just extra practice from the previous year. So his first few lessons were a little rough until he went back and did A and B.

 

Language Arts (Grammar with Writing and Literature for both; Spelling for Soprano)

Electives:

Greek and Computer Science (Tenor), American Sign Language, Photography, and Sewing (Soprano)

Um, yeah. The sewing is going super slowly. We did not finish that potholder. We didn't even touch sewing over break. I'm going to try to be more diligent about it this spring.

My Father's World 1850 to Modern Times
We moved into the turn of the century and war after war. Sometimes I think people today think of war as being something that happened a long time ago and shouldn't be happening today. Unfortunately, while I wish it didn't happen so much, it hasn't ever stopped. I'm not sure there's ever been a time in history when war wasn't occurring somewhere in the world.

Bible: This year we will be learning (reviewing) basic Christian beliefs and memorizing key Bible passages. The curricula allows for several weeks of reviewing verses of our choice. We jumping back to the book of James from last year. We reviewed chapters 1 and 2. It took a couple days for it to start coming back.

 

History and Geography: 

We studied the Ottoman Empire at the end of the 1800s and then the Balkan Wars. Then the Mexican and Russian Revolutions and World War I.

We skipped the martenitsa craft, adapted the Armenian Khachkars (ie only colored)

did not write our own Mariachi song, make Faberge Eggs, research hemophilia, or bake Anzac biscuits. Outlining, timeline, and maps got done though. 

Science: We're also using the World of Science reading assignments to review what we learned this summer.

Other MFW: 

Music:  Sousa to Satchmo is done. We began George Gershwin but my CD doesn't have the booklet, and I have the older TM. I read about him from Young Scholar's Guide to Composers instead.

Art: We kept on with Impressionism by studying van Gogh and painting his sunflowers. (Totally makes me think of a Doctor Who episode. BBC messes up my view of history. lol) I was impressed with their efforts.

Extras:

Web:

You can see them all in my Youtube playlist for weeks 17-34.

Ottoman Empire history video

Titanic Lapbook

Titanic Resources

Sergeant York audio book

War Horse movie curriculua

If WWI was a bar fight (no major liquor references... very funny) 

WWI slang, pics of helmets, soldier paper doll, by-the-numbers infographic, coloring pages, In the Trenches activity, Telemann telegraph, diorama tutorial, and trench tour.

Faberge Egg craft    

Gershwin unit study

Gershwin notebooking page

Gershwin poster

Videos:

The Presidents by The History Channel
Meet Me in St. Louis
Music Man
Winter's End
War Horse (highly recommend!)
There is a Sergeant York movie but we're waiting until the read-aloud is finished before watching it.

Favorite Books: 

Big Moon Tortilla (Arizona) by Joy Cowley
American Girl Josefina books (New Mexico)
The President and Mom's Apple Pie (W.H. Taft) by Michael Garland
Vincent Van Gogh by Mike Venezia
William Howard Taft by Mike Venezia
You Wouldn't Want to Sail on the Titanic by Stewart
Switch On, Switch Off by Melvin Berger
Welcome to the Sea of Sand (Arizona) by Jane Yolen

Winter PomPom Wreath

I've seen several cute pompom wreaths on Pinterest (like this and this)and wasn't really loving my post-Christmas front door decor. So... I decided to make a pompom wreath for winter with icy but fun winter colors.

Michael's had a big yarn sale so I picked up 6 skeins in white, ivory, red, aqua, teal, and gray for under $10. My first step was to cut a base from cardboard and then wrap it with yarn. (I've learned that hard way that because my front door has windows, the back of my wreaths need to be pretty too.) I took the aqua, teal, and gray and braided them into a long strand to use as a hanger. If you go that route, be sure to measure how much of a hanger you need before you cut your length.

After the base was prepped, I made a bunch of pompoms using a maker tool from Hobby Lobby. I know there's a way to do it with a fork or by wrapping it around your fingers but the tool made it much easier.

I made 3 small, 3 medium, and 3 large pompoms in each of the colors.

 

Assembly was pretty easy. Just a lot of hot glue and squishing. 

 

Easy Peasy. It reminds me of ice skating and winter mittens.

 

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;