Weekly Report April 20 - 24

It's been a few weeks so I thought it was time for another update. As you can tell from my Wordless Wednesday post, it's curriculum selling time. So far so good. My girls are getting tired of going to the post office.

This week was pretty productive. L is winding down on her Latin class. Her last class is Tuesday and she's excited to have it over. We'll be doing Latin with Veritas Press next year instead. She wrote a ballad for CW Intermediate Poetry. I thought it was great.

Oh little town of Gettysburg
Above you death awaits.
A thousand men in uniform
Today will meet their fate.

The battle has been raging now
For nearly four full days.
You have to ask when will it end
This horrible deadly haze.

The number of the casualties
Is higher than e’er before.
The cost of liberty is high
But we are grateful evermore.

For years to come this darkened hour
Will be your glory and fame.
On account of men who died these days
The world will know your name.

R had a good week too. We took Monday off to recover from her state gymnastics meet. Last Friday she came down with the stomach flu and we weren't sure how the weekend was going to go. Adrenaline kicked in and she did great. Then she crashed. After the 4 hour drive home on Sunday night she went to bed and slept until 1:00 pm Monday. He body needed the rest. We have decided to enroll her in Veritas Press' History Transition class next year which is basically a survey of their elementary history beefed up to prepare students for Omnibus. So in preparation I have her focusing on memorizing the remaining timelines we have not learned yet. Life of Fred Algebra is going great. We'll be done with CW Beginning Poetry in 2 weeks. Next week for science we are going to grow protozoa and view them under a microscope.

C is steadily improving. Phonics Road continues to be a huge hit. I sold Right Start and I couldn't be happier about it. Right now I'm just working with her without a curriculum and it's going well. We started subtraction and continue to focus on place value.

Wordless Wednesday April 21, 2010

Wordless Wednesday April 7, 2010

Weekly Report March 8-12

Well I skipped the weekly report last week. Sorry about that. This week was pretty good. We finally got some signs that Spring might really be around the corner. It's been so long since it's been warm I jokingly told my girls that there was a strange yellow ball in the sky that seemed to be making things warm. I couldn't figure out what it was. The older girls thought that was funny. Of course I forgot that a 6 year old doesn't get sarcasm so she piped up and said 'Mom, I think it's the sun'. LOL. Thanks sweetie :-).

L - Last week a Chemistry test went very amiss. It was clear that there had not been enough studying. GRR. So I took away non-school related computer access and told her she could retake it. This time it was a 92. Much better. She took the National Latin Exam on Monday. We'll see how that went. I don't know how long results take for that. She began her CW Intermediate Poetry class last week. It's very good but combined with Herodotus is making her a very busy young lady.

R - She finished Life of Fred Pre-Algebra this week. It's an excellent book. We'll start Life of Fred Beginning Algebra on Monday. I debated on what to do next since we don't school all year round but LOF is what works for her so we'll just keep going. Breaking the Barrier French is going well. We are working through the beginning lessons that teach basic sayings and conversation. Then we'll move into the grammar and structure. It's kind of a nice setup so they get speaking quickly and don't feel like they are just burying in grammar without really knowing how to say anything. We are about 1/2 way through CW Beginning Poetry. I never learned poetry beyond reading it so this is interesting to me. Who knew there was so much to it.

C - She got an ant farm for Christmas and we pulled it out this week to make it. It's a plaster of paris thing so we got it all set up. We don't have ants to collect yet because it's raining today but with the warm weather there should be ants crawling all over the place for us to gather very soon. We are still enjoying Phonics Road. She loves it and is really getting the rules and markings. In math I decided to add Calculadders to her day. I'm not usually a huge 'drill the facts' person but she seems to need it. Plus she isn't complaining so why not :-). We finished the 'Tower of Babel' card in VP's lesson.

Weekly Report Feb 22-26

Another week down. We had some fun moments this week.

L - She started a 4 week seminar on the Crucifixion week. She said it's great. Classical Writing has the week off but next week she'll be adding Intermediate Poetry to her Herodotus schedule so it's the calm before the storm. Omnibus continues to be excellent. She watched Gods and Generals this week to go along with Killer Angels and she said it was one of the best movies she's ever seen. Absolutely done very well. Geometry and Chemistry continue, both going well, neither her favorite. We are considering switching the group we do our online Latin class with for next year. More on that when we decide. We have set up her schedule for next year (10th) for the most part and I registered her for an elective through Veritas Press Scholars Academy. She will be taking World Religions.

R - She is pretty much in autopilot mode. Each week we just keep going. Poetry is getting more interesting. She wrote a couple of beautiful couplets as imitations for lesser known verses of Twinkle Twinkle. My favorite was -

Behind the hills the sun's away,

And all the light has left the day

She is begging me to start another language. Latin isn't her favorite but it isn't optional so I am considering starting a modern language. Not sure yet. Somehow our Leonardo study got put on the back burner this week so that will need to be given more focus next week. And the big news - she got her 2nd set of braces on Tuesday. She's glad they are finally on and hopefully the next 2 years will fly by without too much pain. She's been through enough with her teeth.

C- it's been a great week for C. She is still loving VP's self-paced history course. I blogged about that below. We started Phonics Road to Spelling and Reading this week too. It's going to be great. She is loving it. We made a box for her "tools" where she keeps her phonogram cards and covered it with tool stickers. I'm not that creative - it was an idea from the author but it was a good one. The tadpoles are still alive - yea - no signs of legs yet.

In other news - I am completely unhappy with all options for science next year for R and C - especially R. There are so few good options for middle school. They are either lame, extremely boring and textbooky, or just Bible studies wrapped in a science book. Christian content is fine, but I hate to see it in lieu of good science content. So the search continues. I'm sure I'll blog about that again.

Have a great weekend!!

Veritas Press Self-Paced History for Elementary...

I recently started Veritas Press' self-paced history program (Old Testament/Ancient Egypt) with my soon-to-be 7 year old. I have had several requests for info on it so I thought I'd blog.

First - I LOVE it. It is just perfect for her. We have finished two weeks worth of lessons now and she is retaining the information very well. Each week has 5 lessons and correspond to a weekly VP history card. The two "guides" are a man named Simeon and the 'talking Sphinx' as my daughter calls him. They start the day singing the history song. It's a following the bouncing ball type so my daughter can see the words on the screen as well as sing along. This is important for her because she learns best by seeing and doing rather than just hearing, which is why it wasn't going as well when I would just read the lesson to her. The first lesson of the week is usually the longest and includes telling the story of the event/person. So far both stories have been from the Bible and when they read from the Bible they put the text up on the screen so the student can follow along. Again, this is excellent in my daughter's case because it reinforces her retention.

Every day (except the last day which is a test) there is some kind of game for review and reinforcement. Today was a memory matching game where you turned over cards and tried to match up questions and answers about the Fall in the Garden. There have been ordering games (put events in order), fill in the blank readings with a word bank. All of these my daughter has found to be great fun. One day a week they fill in an on-computer map and timeline.

At the end of each lesson there is a 'Historical Literature' section. This is optional. If you choose to have your student read the assigned literature, they will choose 'Level 1' (for 2nd or 3rd graders) or 'Level 2' (for 4th and up) and they will see their reading assignment. Then they click on Finished and they are done. Level 2 has more reading assignments than level 1 so some days Level 1 doesn't have any. I don't know if Level 2 has them every day - they have so far. We are doing Level 1.

OT/Egypt is the only card set out so far. I talked to VP last week and they said they do expect the rest out for the 2010-2011 school year with the possible exception of Middle Ages - but they hope that one as well.

You can see a full sample week on their website (Noah and the Flood). Go to 'http://www.veritaspress.com and click on the Sphinx. It is not a cheap option but if you choose not to do the literature you only need the cards and the computer. No other readings, lesson plans, materials, etc. I sit with my daughter as she does it but older children, or ones more focused than mine, could do it on their own. She loves it. She begs for the Sphinx every day. More importantly, she is learning and remembering. I think they give a grade at the end as well but I didn't pay much attention to that because it wasn't important to me.

Heather

Wordless Wednesday Feb 24, 2010

Weekly report Feb 15-19

I wasn't going to write a weekly report this week since it wasn't very eventful. But I figure, why not? We took Monday off so it was only a 4 day week.

L - Reflections on France finally arrived so we are back on track with Omibus primary readings. She's almost done with Killer Angels. I rented Gods and Generals for her to watch when she's done. Chemistry and Latin are proceeding nicely. Classical Writing will be light next week since they have next week off for classes. She starts Intermediate Poetry along side Herodotus on March 5th. She took a Lukeion project workshop called 'Meet the Romans' to help review for the upcoming National Latin Exam. It just finished this week. She said a lot of the info was not new but it was still quite interesting and she did learn a good amount. She'll be taking a workshop on the Crucifixion week coming soon.

R - Her week was a little choppy. We had Monday off and then Tuesday she only did CW Poetry and math because she had to have 2 teeth pulled. UGH. She was fine by Wednesday but didn't feel so well Tuesday afternoon. I decided not to do a VP card this week but she continued her reading in George Washington's World and Awakening of Europe. CW Poetry is good. I am pleased with what we are learning. She was excited to discover that her gymnastics coach is a self-proclaimed math geek so she brought her our collection of Life of Fred books to show her. That was the last I saw of our LOF Calculus book. I have been assured that it is being well loved by a math geek gymnastics coach LOL.

C - She had a good week. One RS lesson took three days but it was set up to be 2 - 3 days so I guess that's ok. We learned about exchanging with addition, not on paper but with manipulatives. She seems to really get the concept so that's good. She is nearly done with Phonics Museum and I finally made the decision to order Phonics Road to Writing and Reading. I am anxiously awaiting it's arrival. Darn Media Mail LOL. Dh and I also decided we needed to be more visual with our history lessons (she has auditory learning issues) so we signed up for the self-paced history course with Veritas Press. We did one demo week last week to check it out and signed up this week - finishing the first card - Creation. She absolutely loves it and begs for more. Even better, the interactive, visual nature of the course is really helping her understand and retain the information much better than when I was just reading to her. So we'll continue reading other history books (SOTW, American history etc) but we'll do the bulk of our history through this.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. Yet another gymnastics meet for us. But since she's already qualified for state championships, the pressure is off some and it's just about trying to improve. But as a mom - you are always stressed LOL.

Beam routine....

Here is a beam routine from a recent meet. She got an 9.0

Weekly report Feb 8 - 12 (otherwise known as SNOW, SNOW and Tadpoles )

Did I mention snow? Yep - Most of my week consisted of the following conversation... 'Yes I know your friends are off school because of the snow.' 'Yes we are still doing school. We can't go anywhere and it's too cold to play outside so we might as well.' 'Yes I know they are still out of school.' No I don't want the day off anyway so we will have to be in school until the end of June like they are.'.... You get the picture. We still managed to get some school done between complaints and bouts of shoveling. I've also decided that it's annoying to keep calling them my 9th grader, my 5th grader and my 1st grader - so henceforth they will be L, R, and C respectively.

L - She was a victim of 'mommy brain cramp' this week. I have been going along great with Omnibus, having planned in advance, had the books on the shelf, writing lessons chosen etc. That works great until you forget that you only did that for the 1st semester and you are now in the 2nd semester. Oops. No problem - I have Amazon prime. Get the book her right away. Nope - 36 inches of snow later and the book isn't coming until today. So we didn't start Reflections on the Revolution in France this week LOL. Meanwhile since her secondary book is about the Civil War, I assigned her an essay in which she will be contending that the Civil War was a just war. It fits in very well with her Judicial Rhetoric lesson she's currently doing in CW Herodotus. She even found a great quote from Churchill. She was excited and said that when you quote someone like Churchill you really sound like you know what you are talking about LOL.

R - Nothing terribly exciting this week. We finished Unit 1 in First Form Latin and she got a 97% on the unit exam. CW poetry continues to go well. She's closing in on the end of LOF pre-Algebra. I finally told her that I will let her start LOF Algebra next year. She's so excited. I do think we'll finish Pre-algebra before the end of the school year but I'll probably have her do VT Module A (if my friend who has it is done). If not, I have a stack of other things she can do in the meantime. I want to start Algebra at the beginning of the year rather than start and then have a summer break. She's mostly been stressed this week because the snow has cancelled nearly all of her gymnastics training for almost a week and 1/2. She has a big meet in PA this weekend and isn't happy about having to go in 'cold'. But she'll be ok. She's not the only one.

C - Did I mention tadpoles? What a comedy of errors this has been. In another 'mommy brain cramp' moment, I decided to get C tadpoles to raise. Ok. I'm not a fan of amphibian creatures but oh well. So a couple of weeks ago I order them. You pick a day to have them delivered because they need to make sure you are ready for them so they don't stay in the transportation bag too long and die. (you can see this coming right?) So yes - they were scheduled to arrive on Wednesday Feb 10th: the day we were getting 10 -12 inches of ice and snow on top of the 26 inches already there including 40 mph winds and white out conditions. They didn't come. Poor C spent the whole day standing at the window saying 'maybe they will come anyway'. The next morning I go out to shovel the walk and the FedEx guy had come that morning and deposited the tadpoles in a big snow bank. EEk. We rush them inside and start getting them acclimated. That takes a while so I shovel us out. We get them into their tank and C and I head off to get tadpole food. We come home to find that the cats (we have 4) have pushed the tank onto the floor and there are tadpoles all over the place on the floor. EEk again. Luckily it must have just happened because I freaked out and scooped them all back in the tank which still had a little water left. They survived. Amazing. Now the tank has been kitty proofed. LOL. These guys have now survived an extra day at FedEx, burial in the snow and a cat attack. Hearty little creatures.

School-wise C is up and down. She's almost done with Phonics Museum and doing very well LA wise. I think I'm going to start Phonics Road with her after PM. Math is driving me batty. She has a lot of trouble making connections. She's coming along with place value and addition. She does very well with Addition War and Go to the Dump. Then today's lesson with money nearly sent me over the edge. 'How many cents in 1 penny' - 1. 'How many cents in 100 cents'. 100. How many pennies in 100 cents... blank stare. UGH. How many cents in 1 dime. 10. How many dimes in 100 cents. 10 (great I think) How many cents in 1 dollar. 100 cents. (still great) How many dimes in 1 dollar - blank stare. I could use some prayers for patience. I know she's trying and not just goofing off but I get so frustrated.

Hope you all had a good week.

Heather

Wordless Wednesday Feb 10, 2010

Weekly report Feb 1 - 5

This was one of those weeks where I constantly felt like we weren't getting things done. We started out exhausted - but for a good reason. The 5th grader had a gymnastics meet early on Sunday morning and qualified for the State Championship. We were very excited. If I can find my firewire cable, I'll post a video of her performance.

The 9th grader continues to enjoy Omnibus. We finished Tale of Two Cities this week and she is really enjoying Killer Angels. The reading load is getting heavy - about 150 pages a day between the two books plus her reading for other subjects. We should finish Traditional Logic in the next week and move on to Art of Argument. She is enjoying making the connections between her Logic work and her Geometry problems. She did this week's Chemistry lab while I was working with the 1st grader so I missed getting pictures. Why do I think she did that on purpose :-). Next week we start Reflections on the Revolution in France.

For 5th grade we started a new book for science. She is reading Amazing Leonardo da Vinci Inventions You Can Build Yourself. We just got started but the book looks great. She's already got her eye on projects coming up. Nothing this week as the reading was more of an introduction to da Vinci and the Renaissance. She wrote a couple of narrations for her readings. We are studying a few of his painting too. This week was the Mona Lisa. I was stunned by the 1st grader. I put a picture of the Mona Lisa on the wall and as she walked by she said - 'Hey Mom, that's the Mona Lisa. Its in a museum in France.' I nearly fell over and asked -'How do you know that?' 'Oh I saw it on Madeline.' LOL I guess TV isn't all bad. CW Poetry continues to be fun. We discussed meter, foot, breve, stress etc. This week's poem was Benjamin Franklin. It was pretty funny. The volume of writing is a lot less than Homer so she's enjoying the break - although I'm increasing the written narrations. Mean mom. Oh and in Life of Fred she started solving for X in simple algebraic equations like 13x+19+2x = 21x+1. Nothing complex but she thought it was fun.

The first grader had a decent week. She worked on place value up through the thousands, building and adding numbers up into the hundreds. She still uses manipulatives for the most part but is starting to understand the concepts well. She had been struggling with narrations but fortunately a friend reminded me to go back to WWE and see if I was unrealistic in my expectations. I was choosing selections that were far too long. It was much better

when I shortened what I expected her to narrate. We had finished our AO Year 1 readings and I

had been debating on how to proceed. I like AO but the 'oldness' of some of the books seemed to cut into the enjoyment. So I decided to start our Ancient Egypt studies and use Living Books Curriculum. I had many of the books already and the other looked very good. We started this week and it's just what I wanted for her. She is loving the engaging non-fiction books and I like how flexible and easy to use it is. We are learning the VP cards and reading SOTW along side. The science books especially are lots of fun

Weekly report Jan 25 - 29

We had a pretty good week. The 9th grader continued reading her primary Omnibus book, Tale of Two Cities and started the secondary book, Killer Angels. Her Classical Writing class is going very well. I am very pleased with her writing. She was less pleased to discover I was taking pictures for my new blog.

My 5th grader is proceeding with First Form Latin. We are now 5 weeks in and I am very pleased. We are using it along side Cambridge Latin for extra translation and it's just the right combination. First Form explains the grammar so well, they don't just learn it, they understand it. We are in our Homer A break and started CW Beginnig Poetry A this week. The first lessons are very basic and not too thrilling so the student can understand the basics of rhyme, meter, foot, line etc. So the imitation poems are childhood rhymes. One was Jack Be Nimble. They removed many of the words and had the student replace the words with words of their own, keeping the correct rhyme and meter. I didn't think she'd come up with much since it's such a simple rhyme with limited options but I loved her poem:

Hank be bouncy,

Hank be slick,

Hank jump over the tiny tick.

I thought it was hilarious.

1st grade has really turned the corner on copy work. She was struggling with where to start on each line and I kept having to point out the top, middle and bottom of each line as she started the new one. And she was having problems with appropriate spacing between words and letters. But all the practice has really helped and she's doing great. She also worked on place value this week, learning to add up to the hundreds. Math continues to be her trouble spot but she's making great progress. She's reading up a storm and loving Story of the World that we recently started. I'm going to load a picture of one of her copy work assignment this week. It's a bit light but hopefully it will show.

Wordless Wednesday

Inaugural Blog Post

Well here I am. I have a blog now. I was encouraged to create a blog so I could join the Well-Trained Mind weekly homeschooling report. I thought it'd be fun, so I created one. Hope it's interesting to someone.