School and Life Changes

School started back up just as planned after our Christmas break and has been going well these past 3 weeks.
Our school year runs from August through May, but January always seems to be a time for a fresh start and a good time to add in a few things or change things that are not working well.
For the most part, I have not made a lot of changes but I've added in a few things here and there.
For Miranda, my 7th grader, we've added in the Wordsmith writing program. She is such a natural writer that is has not been easy finding the right "fit" for her but I think this might be it. We also added in Fallacy Detective finally, and that is great and a fun addition to school. She is also now working through the Life of Fred math series and LOVES it. Miranda has never been a math lover but she actually looks forward to this series and gets ahead to what I require her to do. We are still doing A Beka math also for now but as she gets further into the LoF series, I'll re-evaluate what we need to be doing. We're continuing everything else we were doing and have started our weather unit study. When this is accomplished, we'll begin Christian Kids Explore Physics along with Janice Van Cleeve's Physics for Every Kid and a physics science kit. This will be for all three of the kids.
There are no big changes to Levi (4th) and Maya (2nd) although I've added in Paragraph's Made Easy for Levi and that is going slowly but well. Levi is also continuing to write one research report per week and that is a favorite of his. He is learning so much just by this one simple assignment and is now on his 9th report.

On a personal note, I have been blessed with a great part-time job that is perfect for my family. I am able to take the kids along and I enjoy it very much. It is very, very flexible and is a blessing to us and I am very thankful for it. I am also very involved with our church Master Club program( I am the secretary) and I am delighted to see how that ministry is shaping up. Keeping my priorities in order has been easier than I thought and I have truly "grown" in so many ways this past few weeks. Blogging will be sporadic for the time being but I plan to update from time to time. I enjoy my blog but I've been so busy (in a GOOD way) I haven't missed it! I've also been able to get some sewing started back up-I've missed sewing.

I hope school is going well for all of you-I hope to check up on everyone from time to time!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of you as we celebrate the birth of our wonderful Saviour!

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6

Blessings to you all-we'll be back in a few days.

Weekly Report: Week 15

I hesitated to post this week because I have been sick and school has not gone as planned! We did the basics this week and really nothing extra. Those of you who have schooled while not feeling well know how hard it is. I feel a sense of guilt that we did not accomplish more than we did but I know that I was simply unable to achieve any more than I did.
Miranda-7th grade:
She worked through some math problems-though not a weeks worth. I have ordered her a brand new math program-more on that later-and she will begin it in January. She also did 3 days worth of grammar and language and continued to read All Things Wise and Wonderful. She helped the other two with memorizing the layers of the atmosphere from our Weather Unit Study. She also worked on badge work in our church Master Club program. She is working on a missionary project, Bible Study project, and a Family project-it is all good stuff! We did only one lesson in Mystery of History Volume 3-Ivan the Great.
Levi-4th grade-
He worked through 3 math lessons and we worked on multiplication tables and fractions. He also wrote a report on polar bears-we're continuing to work on researching and writing one report per week and that is going very well. We worked also on his spelling list and he did very well. He is continuing to read every day. I ordered him a new Pathway reader because he finished his other one and really liked it so much. Until that comes in, he is reading from an A Beka reader and liking it pretty well. He is currently memorizing the Old Testament books of the Bible.
Maya-2nd grade-
She accomplished three math lessons this week and we worked on Lesson 25 of LLATL. She also is continuing to read The Boxcar children series. Maya also wrote a song about our dog including picking out the melody on our keyboard. She then typed it up and printed it on her own-this is the type of things she does when left to her own devices. :) She painted lots of beautiful pictures for me as well.

The most important happening of our week was that Maya turned 8 on Monday!! Fortunately, I was not feeling as bad on Monday as I did later on in the week. Here she is in all her birthday glory:

I hope all of you had great weeks-I anticipate ours being much better next week.

I must add in here that on the days I felt my worse-my children were at their best. What a blessing.

Weekly Report: Week 14-Short and Sweet

We had a short but happy week for our school this week. We pretty much relaxed everything and concentrated on enjoying our Thanksgiving week. The kids used Psalm 100 and Phillipians 4:6 for copywork. Here is one of Maya's:

I made some copies of Thanksgiving stationary for them to write on, then they colored in the borders to make them pretty. Miranda and Levi each wrote a short Thanksgiving report.

We read Cranberry Thanksgiving which is a leftover tradition from our Five in a Row days. The older kids are kind enough to still indulge me reading it to them. We also baked a loaf of cranberry bread from the recipe in the book. I added a glaze to it by mixing powdered sugar with orange juice until I got a nice consistency.

I made a Thankful tree for the dining room. Several blogs I've visited this week had done similar projects and I was inspired. I cut out (with help) some colorful leaves for everyone to write down some things for which they are thankful. The tree was an instant hit and everyone added leaves of thankfulness to the tree.

Other than that, we've read together and done some art together and had a relaxing and blessed time. I decided to take Wednesday off to relax and clean and just enjoying having a few calm days. After Wednesday, I'll also take a few days off of the computer for lots of family time.

I hope everyone has a wonderful, warm holiday with loved ones!

Books Review and Giveaway: Our Winner is... TRUDY!

Congratulations, Trudy on winning the books! These are very charming and I think you'll like them. E-mail me with your address. :)

Weekly Report: Week 13

We finished up week 13! I am mostly going to post highlights since I have not yet re-done my weekly report form that disappeared last week somewhere in cyberspace.

Miranda-7th grade:

I have mentioned that Miranda has not been enjoying the business math she has been learning. Over the weekend, I made a new binder for her and titled it "Boutique Math." I took the same problems from her book and re-worded them so they would relate to one of her favorite activities: shopping! In the first portion of her book was the "Shopping" section. She figured out sales, percents, and savings. In the second portion was the "Selling" section. She named her new boutique and had to figure cost of items, overhead, profit and loss. She really enjoyed this waaay more than her usual math. I made sketches of dresses and jewelry items to add some colorful graphics.

She continued on in all of her language arts.

We began our first week of Mystery of History Volume 3. Our first three lessons were: The War of Roses; Cosimo de Medici, and Ferdinand V and Isabella I.. We are so loving this volume so far!

Last Friday to wrap up her volume 2, she served us a Middle Ages Dinner.

We had to do this the easy way because we had errands and one child had an eye appointment but she really wanted to do this. Be encouraged that this can be pulled off even if the timing isn't perfect! :)

For our meal we had chicken quarters (we called it pheasant). We cooked those in the slow-cooker for 4 hours then popped them in the oven for 20 minutes to brown. Also, a dish of cabbage and onions, brown bread (I purchased this and they hated it-I had to eat most of it) and blocks of cheese. For wassail we did a simple apple juice warmed up with cinnamon and apple pie spices. We turned off the lights, lit candles and enjoyed trying to eat everything with our fingers (we wimped out and wound up using forks). It was a lot of fun and it is nice that theme dinners can be kept simple and still be enjoyed. Our plans to dress up went out the window because by the time we arrived home the kids were too hungry to care what they had on!

Levi and Maya-4th and 2nd grade

They both covered all of their main courses and Levi wrote another report: this time the subject was tiger sharks. This is a big accomplishment for him and he is enjoying it. We finished their 1st quarter of Mystery of History Volume 1 with these lessons: The Trojan Horse, Naomi and Ruth , and Gideon. For a review I made them a timeline game which they enjoyed. You can read more about it here if you would like: History Timeline Game.

We also got a brief start on our Weather Unit study by studying the different layers of the atmosphere. They started on this layered poster and will add to it. They are memorizing the different layers.

We had a good week and are very much looking forward to next week. We'll school for three days then enjoy our Thanksgiving.

To see more weekly wrap-ups, visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Our Mystery of History Timeline Game Volume 1, Quarter 1

I finished up the first quarter of Mystery of History Volume 1 with my two youngest this week. For a fun review idea I decided to make a board game based on what we had studied.

I took a small (11 x 14) poster board. I wish that I had a colored one but all I had was white and that turned out just fine anyway. :)

I used timeline figures from the Mystery of History Volume 1 Yahoo Group. Reducing the figures by 50% made them the perfect size for our game. For the spaces I took half size index cards in various colors and cut them into fourths. I then laid those down in a pleasing pattern and glued them on. I took some of the figures and glued them in chronological order leaving one or two spaces blank between each figure.

In the blank spaces I wrote out "Draw a What Do You Know card. If you are correct move up to play games with the Minoans. Incorrect? Back to the Tower of Babel." This is just one sample of what I wrote out. Sometimes they would visit Stonehenge, Abraham, or the pyramids, etc.

For the "What Do You Know" question cards I simply used the question and answers in the book. I wrote the question on one side of a half sized index card. On the other side I wrote a big ? question mark. I lay these face down beside the game board.

With leftover timeline figures I glued those on the board in various places and kept four of them to make game pieces with. To play the game we roll a dice (you could also use a number spinner from another game) and move our game pieces (Joshua, Esau, Ruth, and Naomi) ahead to our space. If we land on a "Draw a card" space we answer the question.

To finish the game whoever gets to the last space first ("Time to continue on to Quarter 2: Samson and Delilah") wins the game.

It would be easy to adapt this game idea to any history curriculum. For us, this is a fun and effective way to review.