We started our new school year this week. Things went very well. We are trying a new way of scheduling everything plus we started our new year with Tapestry of Grace 2. The kids are doing great and we have had a great time. We will be doing music and art tomorrow but I thought I would go ahead and post our regular subjects today and music and art tomorrow. Here is a look at what we got done this week.
Journals-Each day the kids started out with their daily journals. I get their daily topics from
here. They have a topic for every day of the year. The kids are loving this. Catlyn and Charles do this all on their own. I read Colin his topic and write down what he says or he draws a picture.
Charles working on his journal
Math-Catlyn is still working through Teaching Textbooks 6. She started this a month or so before we took our summer break. She was working on long division this week. For Charles and Colin we have decided to take a little more time on memorizing those dang addition and subtraction facts. They are doing great. I got some spider man workbooks at the dollar tree and they are just plowing through them. Charles even used the words "I love math"*gasp* after working in this workbook!:)
Working on a page from his Spiderman workbook
Grammar-Catlyn is still working on Switched on Schoolhouse Language Arts 7. She is doing really well. This week she worked on spelling, putting words in alphabetical order and writing a report on her and 3 of her friends last names. She had to look up the meaning and the origin of the names. Charles is working on adjectives in FFL3 and Colin was working on memorizing a new poem and review nouns and pronouns in FFL2.
Spelling-Went great for all three.
Literature-Catlyn started to read Black Beauty. She says she LOVES this book. Charles has started Stuart Little. He is making a lapbook to go along with his reading. Colin and I read Stellaluna and he made a lapbook about bats to go with it.
The start of Charles' lapbook. He will be doing a little bit each day. Probably for the next couple of weeks
Colin will start a new book and lapbook next week.
Reading-Colin started Ordinary Parents guide to Reading. We were doing Hooked on Phonics last year and he was just not getting it. He loved having his own little books but was reading the pictures not the words. So, I love OPG since there is no pictures and he is having to actually look at the words! He says that he loves his new reading. We do the extra enrichment with each lesson. He loves building his words with the letter tiles on the lap size dry erase board. Colin also did 2 pages each day in his Explode the Code 1 workbook.
Writing-Charles and Colin finished one lesson of WWE 1.
Handwriting- was done each day by all kiddos. Charles is really working hard on getting his handwriting pages to look nice. Now he just needs to carry that over into all of his other work!!:)
Read Aloud-I am reading King Arthur out load to the kids. They work on color sheets of King Arthur while I read. And yes the boys have been knights all week. Well, actually Charles has been King Arthur and Colin has been his knight.
Catlyn's King Arthur
Nature Study-It is to hot to go out so I am having the kids us books and magazines for nature study during these hot months. This week I gave them each a nature magazine and told them to find one interesting thing to read about and record in their nature journal. Catlyn did dophins, Charles Lungar Monkey and Colin Firefly.
Free Reading-Kids have also had 30 minutes free reading time each day.
Science-We learned about the digestive system this week. Let me just say that it is not all that fun teaching little boys about the digestive system. The have to make everything gross!:) We learned about how teeth grind the food, then we made a paper model of the esophagus to show how food goes down into the stomach. We learned how the stomach, lower and upper intestines work. We placed our organs from this week's lesson on each of the kids' My Body that they have on the wall. Harper did an experiment with the kids on finding out which foods have starch using a couple different kinds of food and iodine. Catlyn is also working through the Americain Girl book Caring and Keeping of You. She is doing the lapbook that goes with this book from Homeschoolshare.com. She is making it into a notebook instead of a lapbook.
Tapestry of Grace
History-We are learning about how the Middle Ages started. We read together chapter 1 of SOTW and parts of chapters 2 and 3. Catlyn read Story of Europe ch. 1-3 and Our Island Story Ch. 1-8.
Literature-We read Brigid's Cloak. This was a really good book. Catlyn was suppose to read Medieval Myths but it never came in at the library. I am hoping it comes in this week so she can read it next week.
Geography- We learned a couple of geography terms and made notebooking pages for them. Catlyn was suppose to make a salt map of Europe with Harper but this didn't get done. Hopefully, next week.
Church History-We read about St. Valentine and Augustine.
This week went very smoothly. We have started doing the subjects we do together first. Which is Tapestry of Grace and Science. Then they go to their desk to do their individual subjects. We are doing a modified version of the WorkBox System. All the kids are doing great and working a lot more indepently. Which I love.
Here is how it is working with each kid.
Charles-This is really working great for Charles. He has been the first one done with his school everyday this week. He loves seeing what he has to do at a glance and dives right in. He only needs me to help explain directions if he doesn't understand. Right now math is only review so he is completly independent with that also. But that will change when we start back up on Horizons but he will still be required to do all review on his own. We also do grammar together. I can not get over how well he did this week!!:)
Colin-is doing well also. He still does so many subjects with me since he is not reading. He does handwriting, math(review), Explode the Code and most of his spelling on his own. Together we do OPG, grammar, and literature. But he did great in everything and staying focused really well.
Catlyn-is doing everything on her own. Most of her work is now on the computer and she does it all with very little help from me. We are in the process of putting a computer in her room. When this happens I think she will be able to stay focused more. She gets very distracted by the boys.
I am very excited about our new system and schedule. I am praying it stays going smoothly!:)
And this is what our dog Argos does during school time!:)
Charles doing some math.
All the kiddos working on their nature journals.
Harper teaching about how our lungs work.
Our model of a lung.
Colin's My Body.
Catlyn's notebook pages on St. Patrick.
One of Charles's notebook pages on St. Patrick.
Charles's
Colin's
Catlyn's
Charles, Colin, and then Catlyn's
Catlyn did some copywork from St. Patrick's Breastplate.
Working on Geography
Catlyn's geography page.
