Summer 2009

Wow! Where has the summer gone?

Big Sis graduated and starts college .....gulp.....tomorrow. Big Brother has moved out and is ready to join the Navy. We painted and re-arranged rooms so the Big Sis has her own study/sitting room adjacent to her bedroom. This means that we once again have a dedicated schoolroom/playroom. Since we didn't have enough going on this summer we also decided to rip up the old floor and lay down the new. I guess it is not a surprise that we only got about 6 weeks of school done this season!.

Our basic schedule hasn't changed much. Charlotte went through a phrase this summer where she did not want to participate in the morning activities so instead we did lots of informal activities throughout the day.

Starting around 9am with Sam we did MFW 1 , MUS, IEW Poetry, Nature Reader, Speech work, Song School Latin and our alternated readings

M- Geography ( Seabird)
T- History(D'Auliare Selection)
Th- Burgess( Birds)

Sam is reading his Bible reader. He has a selection of books that he can read all by himself and he spends about 30min each day reading all by himself. I have been so impressed with MFW 1 reading instructions. It is everything that I have been trying to put together on my own with our CM reading instructions. It is so awesome to just open the book and have the lesson planned out for us.....not too long....not too short...not too many manipulative......just perfect.

Sam has memorized 4 poems from IEW Poetry. The poems are interesting enough that he is motivated to learn them. He enjoys impressing friends and family with his poems and it is also good speech practice.

We've been doing SSL just for fun. If I find a Song School Spanish or its equivalent we are going to try it. We would have more use for Spanish but it never made it into our schedule this past year.

It's been an interesting summer but we are looking for a cooler, less hectic Autumn!

Our 2009 Graduate

Spring Quarter Update 2009

My feeble attempt of a weekly report failed after week 1!

We made quite a few changes this quarter. In March I evaluated our resources and thought I made a decision to stick with them but a month later I made a complete switch-a-roo!

Sam-

Reading/Language Arts- still coming along nicely. We are working with MFW 1 for phonics drill. I like that his writing is directly related to his reading and it is great reinforcement. We have dropped FLL/WWE. He is getting enough writing with MFW 1. MFW 1 is a resource that I wished I had found last year! Currently on day 23 with MFW 1.

Math- completed MUS alpha!

History- We are still reading SOTW 1. Currently on Chapter 22.

Geography- We started Seabird. We look up unfamiliar terms in Geography A-Z.

Science/Natural History-We continue a weekly nature study but I still haven't restarted the nature study blog. We are using MFW 1s science book/experiments with extra books from the library. Did I mention that MFW 1 is a great resource?? Love, love, love the science book list! We started CLNR book 2 this quarter and I really like the list of questions after each section.

Poetry- Random House Book of Poetry for Children is a huge hit around here. We read a couple a day and discuss which is our favorite and why. I finally purchased IEW's poetry book and will use it for an ongoing poetry memorization. We will start this in the summer quarter.

Literature/American History- Leif Erickson was a big hit! We read parts of Lang's Blue Fairy book. Sam says, "Fairy tales are lame- I prefer stories about real people!"

Art- Co-op fell apart and I've been trying to use MFW 1 suggestion of Drawing with Children with little success. I will restart Artistic Pursuits in the summer quarter.

Speech Therapy- Done? We will see our Speech Therapist in 3 months to see if he is doing well enough on his own or would benefit from a bit more intervention.

Charlotte is loving HOD's Little Hands to Heaven program. We will continue doing this program with her this year. LHTH + AO year 1 read aloud + our ongoing painting/wedgits/pattern block time = Happy Charlotte. Everyone likes a Happy Charlotte!

I plan to start our Summer Quarter June 15. We will continue MFW 1 for reading/writing/science/Music appreciation/handicrafts, start MUS beta and our weekly reading list. I will continue using HOD'S LHTH program with AO reading and our usual projects with Charlotte.

We will start working through IEW's Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization with a goal of completing level 1 in the next year. This is the resource I want to help him continue with his speech development after ST is complete.

No major changes! I promise!

Weekly report- 1 or 31?

I've always prefered to do a quarter report because it give me a bigger picture but I'm going to try doing a weekly report for awhile for fun. I wasn't sure if I should call this post WR 1 since it is our first or WR 31 since it is the 31st week of our school year.

Charlotte-We did 4 days of Little Hands finishing with day 1 of week 2. Highlight of the week was doing A-A-Adam with Big Sis' joining in! Watching Charlotte and Big Sis' fly like an albatross and slither like an anaconda was hysterical. Charlotte really enjoyed making the A with cheerios and has been finding A's everywhere.

Sam- We finished Paddle-to-the-Sea last week. This week we read the first chapter of Seabird. He immediately found Greenland on the globe because it is where Leif the Lucky is growing up in our D'aulaire title that we are also reading! We started reading about Ancient Greek in SOTW and found an interesting picture of bull-jumping in our Usborne World History book. He really enjoys looking at Usborne's pictures and has spent part of every afternoon this week looking at these pictures. He has remembered far more that I expected with SOTW and was able to recognize the Hanging Garden of Babylon when he found that picture.

We did the first week of MFW 1. The phonics was review but working on the blending ladders was beneficial. I wish I had thought of doing that sooner. He would make a blend and try to think of as many words as possible that had that particular blend. It was such a confidence booster for him! We also worked on re-reading several of our 100 Easy lessons stories. Great week for reading skills.

This week in MFW 1 we also were doing science experiments with earthworms and ants. Unfortunately we killed off all the ant beds in the yard last weekend and not one ant decided to participate in our little experiment. We will retry that one in a few weeks. We had much more success with our earthworm experiment and they are participating as expected in their container! We will watch them over the weekend then let them work their magic in Sam's vegetable garden.

We attempted to make a clay pot with MFW 1 directions for salt dough but I must have added too much water because it would not hold a form. The kids did enjoy making handprints with it. Fortunately I did have some clay in a closet and we successfully made a clay pot. Sam had a lot of fun making his pot but thought that the clay pot craftmen of ancient times had a really hard job!

We have a collection of wildflowers growing in our backyard due to lack of fertilizer and mowing. We had wildflower scavenger hunts all week long. Charlotte thinks that the Fleabane Daisy is the most beautiful flower in the world and didn't want her older brother to mow the yard and destroy them! He kindly left her a section of the backyard so her flowers can continue to thrive. Her flower garden is finally starting to sprout so hopefully she will have lots of cut flowers this summer.

Spring Schedule

Our day has streamlined again!

Starting around 9am

Charlotte- We do the activities with Little Hands to Heaven, read a selection from AO Year 0 and start an activity.
M-Mighty Minds
T-Pattern Block
Th-Watercolors
F-Wedgits.

Sam joins us and participates with above activity as interested while we do

Poetry
Speechwork
Nature Science Reader
M-Geography , T- History , Th- Burgess , F-Fairy Tale

We do a quick tidy of our activity then:

MUS
MFW 1
reading
AAS
Read from our current Literature selection

Having their activities overlap a bit has helped our schoolday go faster and I have also noticed that Sam listens better when his hands are busy. By the time we finish all readings Charlotte is ready to play and Sam is excited that all he has left is math, writing and reading!

We listen to our composer while getting lunch ready.

After lunch we complete any projects/science experiments from MFW 1 then we head outside to play! I have been able to do a short focused nature study observation almost each afternoon. Weather permitting we go on a long hike at a local park at least weekly.

Sam's age 7 basic plan

Language Arts/Reading/Science/Bible/Art/Music appreciation/handwriting/handicrafts

My Father's World 1

Math-MUS Beta
Poetry/Memorization-IEW's Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization

Our planned reading each week:

History/Biography
D-Aulaire titles

Geography
Holling C. Holling- Seabird, Tree in a Trail
A-Z Geography

Natural History/Science
Burgess' Animal Tales
Christian Liberty Nature Reader Book 2

Literature
Readings to be determined by interest

Little Hands & My Father's World.

I've had a couple of exciting finds this month!

For Charlotte I made a purchase of Little Hands to Heaven. She LOVES it. Adorable! Super easy to use, non-time consuming and keeps her happy.We are still reading selections from the AO year 0 booklist and working each day with Mighty Minds, pattern blocks, painting and Wedgits.

For Sam....and eventually Charlotte....I made the discovery of My Father's World. I haven't tried to think too far ahead with a plan for these younger two but I really didn't expect to be able to combine them. Using MFW....I can. That's exciting. MFW uses many of the books I already own. That's exciting! MFW combines classical , Charlotte Mason in a unit study approach for the whole family AND has a schedule with 1 easy day each week which makes it workable with my work schedule. Yikes...I'm overcome with joy! I am practically giddy with excitement if this works out and I don't have to come up with elaborate plans each year trying to mesh two kids who are 3 years apart in age! I just hope it works out. We shall see.... one day at a time...

We still need to work on phonics with Sam so I got my hands on a copy of MFW 1. MFW 1 claims to cover all needed phonics to create an independant reader and does cover more than 100 Easy lessons. We are starting from the beginning and so far it's a hit with him. I am continuing our other reading instruction during this review stage of MFW 1. This week we made a clay jar, started working on a scroll, did experiments with earthworms and ants, and did lots of work with blending ladders for reading. We are continuing our readings in history, etc so we have a nice full day. It has been an interesting and varied week with lots of fun stuff scheduled in. I do work best with a schedule!