Weekly-ish Report for September 2-20, 2014

One of my overarching reasons for blogging is to track our homeschool successes (and failures).  I have been a bit lax in the last few weeks, not getting to the computer to spend the time to think through what we’ve been doing and what we ought to be doing.

This will be a general update.

We’ve been working at our Circle Time somewhat diligently.  We have learned ‘O Worship the King’ and began working on ‘And Can it Be.’  I’ve put off a lot of hymns that require parts, but N-boy is capable of doing some of those repeats (and relishes doing it!).  We are mostly done with learning Colossians 3:12-17, and are going to begin Psalm 23.  M-girl and N-boy continue reviewing catechism questions, while R-girl is learning about the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.  We have just about finished Covenantal Catechism Book 2 (I need to order book 3! I might buy the workbooks this year instead of just the teacher’s manual)  They have learned Jamie Soles’ song The Kings of Israel and now are reviewing the OT and NT Books of the Bible from Wee Sing.  They’re learning ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in poetry.  We’ve read some about Pythagoras in Mathematicians are People Too and the Lamb’s version of The Tempest.

They’ve been working on Math. We’ve been doing Calculadder, and everyone has advanced a level.  M-girl has been working more on XtraMath, she needs to shore up those math facts. R-girl has been doing her math on Khan Academy, reviewing and making certain she understands before we go back into MEP full time. M-girl is working in MEP on a section of spatial relationships, which she finds frustrating.  She has a hard time seeing symmetry and following spatial directions.  N-boy is working on a Geometry section with parallel and perpendicular lines.  During Circle Time, we’ve been working on the Math Sound Off Level I which gives definitions for some of these things.  That has made these easier for N-boy.

In History, we learned about some African tribes during the colonial period and how they fought for their own national sovereignty.  We studied about Triangular Trade and the colonies.  The children read some from American History Stories, Volume I.  They all worked some on Geography Blobbing.  They’re getting the shapes, but maybe not so much the placement.  R-girl continued working through the Memoria Press States and Capitals Book.

We did some Science, reading through sections of The Elements.  We got to learn about notation for electrons that chemists use.  They also read some from the Basher Chemistry or Periodic Table books.  On Facebook, I lamented the lack of readable books about Chemists and/or Chemistry.  Our library has three books in the juvenile section under the subject “Chemist” … and they’re all about Marie Curie.

Basher Book

 I gave them the first Logic Liftoff book to be done on their own time.  I don’t know if anyone has completed a page yet, though.

Highlighted Grammar

We worked somewhat diligently in Writing and Rhetoric.  I’m really enjoying this, and I think the children are too.  R-girl is close to finishing FLL2 in Grammar; N-boy is working through Grammar-Land and doing very well with it.  He and I parsed through this paragraph with highlighters.  M-girl is diagramming sentences with prepositional phrases and learning ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’ by Yeats.

For Literature, the children finished reading The Silver Chair, which is probably my favorite Narnia book other than The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, but not theirs.  They read Looking for Atlantis, which is fun.  They also enjoyed some of E Nesbit’s The Book of Dragons.

Art with Friends

In Latin, we worked some on Lesson 9 in Latin for Children A and reviewed some of what exactly we’re doing.  I challenged the kids to be Latin Detectives who are following clues to decode the mystery.  That seemed to catch the fancy of some of them.  We all need to keep working together.
I’ve got to find my CD so we can review vocabulary chants in the car.

M-girl and N-boy have been doing some programming on Khan Academy. M-girl is helping with the programming on her First Lego League team, as well.  R-girl has enjoyed her Art class so far.  She missed this week’s lesson because I forgot.  Oops. We enjoyed our Art with Friends group this week.  Soccer has been a big part of our evening time. The children have not been doing their Piano practices this past week.  I really, really need to find a teacher.

Soccer!

We had a fun trip to our county fair on Monday.