Yesterday, our box from Rainbow Resource Center came and the kids were excited. The Ark immediately had to look at the prepared slides in the microscope, Ace went for Zoo 1 by Jeannie Fulbright and was able to read some of it on his own. He is excited to do Zoology, but he must finish Astronomy first. I love what I’ve seen in the Mystery of History. I will be looking through everything in more detail after my finals on May 07. Our Sonlight box is due to arrive tomorrow sometime. We probably won’t get the books from amazon until next week or even the week after, I spent way less there and they are taking the longest to get it out. *sigh*.
In the meantime we are working on our schoolwork and putting things into our portfolios to show our favorite evaluator this summer. I still need to order the math curriculum but I am waiting for the boys furniture and then will transfer the money for both all at once.
Mystery of History Vol. 1 Reproducibles CD
Mr. Popper’s Penguins
Harmony Fine Arts
Mystery of History Volume 1 Audio
Birds
Meet the Great Composers Book 1 with CD
Meet the Great Composers Book 2 with CD
Adam and His Kin
Writing Strands 1 Book and CD
Exploring Creation with Zoology 1: Flying Cre
Reason for Handwriting C Student Workbook
Mind Benders Beginning 1
Mystery of History Vol. 1 Creation-Resurrecti
Latin for Children Primer A Activity Book
Veritas Phonics Grade 1 Student
Mind Benders A1/A2 Software
Mind Benders A3/A4 Software
Latin for Children: Primer A Text
Horizons Health Teacher’s Guide Grade 2
Horizons Health Teacher’s Guide Grade 5
Horizons Health Teacher’s Guide Grade K
Greek Town – Qty:1
Here Comes Silent E
Mystery of History & Enrichment4You.com Vol.
Draw and Write Through History Greece & Rome
Big Screen Microscope Prepared Slides
“Stellaluna”
“Aesop’s Fables Coloring Book (Colouring Books)”
“Favorite Poems for Children Coloring Book”
“How to Draw Birds (How to Draw (Dover))”
“Stonehenge Complete, Third Edition
“Black Ships Before Troy: The Story of ‘The Iliad’
“The Children’s Homer: The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy”
“Build Your Own Stonehenge (Running Press Mini Kits)”
“Mummy Math: An Adventure in Geometry”
“Tirzah”
“The Last Quest of Gilgamesh (The Gilgamesh Trilogy)
“The Revenge of Ishtar (The Gilgamesh Trilogy)”
“Gilgamesh the King (The Gilgamesh Trilogy)”
“Jonathan Park: The Hunt for Beowulf (Jonathan Park Radio Drama)”
“What’s Your Angle, Pythagoras? A Math Adventure”
“Jonathan Park: No Looking Back (Jonathan Park Radio Drama)”
FEELY BUGS
CHILDREN’S BIBLE FIELD GUIDE
KINGDOM STRIKES BACK, THE
INSIDE, OUTSIDE, UPSIDE DOWN
GOONEY BIRD GREENE
MATHTACULAR PRIMARY A
1+2 TIME LINE FIGURES
AUGUSTUS CAESAR’S WORLD
6 TIME LINE FIGURES
MATHTACULAR 2
MATHTACULAR 3
SONLIGHTER CLASSIC MEMBERSHIP
GOLDEN GOBLET, THE
WESTING GAME, THE
OTTO OF THE SILVER HAND
TROJAN WAR
MASTER CORNHILL
FAVORITE POEMS OLD & NEW
I, JUAN DE PAREJA
EAGLE OF THE NINTH
SECOND MRS. GIACONDA, THE
SINGLE SHARD, A
BEYOND THE DESERT GATE
GOD KING: KING HEZEKIAH
FLAME OVER TARA
SHAKESPEARE STEALER
SAMURAI’S TALE, THE
BRONZE BOW, THE
ADAM OF THE ROAD
SHADOW OF A BULL
PHANTOM.TOLLBOOTH, THE
GREAT & TERRIBLE QUEST, THE
MARA, DAUGHTER OF THE NILE
BEDUINS’ GAZELLE, THE
GREEK MYTHS, D’AULAIRES
MYSTERY OF ROMAN RANSOM
LEONARDO DA VINCI – LANDMARK
HITTITE WARRIOR
ARCHIMEDES.& THE DOOR SCIENCE
IDES OF APRIL, THE
MARY BLOODY MARY
LUTHER
PROUD TASTE SCARLET & MINIVER
BLACK HORSES FOR THE KING
CATHERINE CALLED BIRDY
THERAS AND HIS TOWN
The only thing I need to add is their math from Math U See, I will probably buy that tomorrow. There are a few books on this list we won’t cover this upcoming year as they are geared for the medieval ages but Sonlight covers ancients and medieval in one year and I don’t. But it is cheaper to buy the books all at once and save them for the following year if need be. This list does not count the books I will read with Ace and the Princess, they were too young the first time through the ancients and will be hearing it for the first time. As I get a plan together I will add in the other books. But first I need to see how things flow with what is coming.
I am taking a much needed break from studying for my classes to talk about some of my thoughts for next year. While I love Sonlight and have used it exclusively since The Ark was in preschool we are taking a bit of a deviance this year and only using part of it. One of the reasons is because I didn’t like Children’s History of the World for younger grades and I switched it to Story of the World by Susan Bauer. Well here we are getting ready to go into our second rotation of history and Sonlight uses SOW but we have done them. So we are going to Mystery of History with Sonlight Readers and Read Alouds. I had already left Sonlight’s science since I’m not fond of it, we are doing Astronomy, will finish Botany this summer and then go to Zoology 1 this fall. If we get through it on a good pace, we will move onto Zoo 2 next spring.
The Ark has been flying through Saxon math for the last two years but I want him to have a solid foundation in fractions since they are so important in Algebra and I want to wait for his brain to hit the logical thinking stage before we hit algebra, meaning not earlier than 8th grade. While Ace and the Princess have been doing Horizons Math. Ace has the hardest time getting through that work, I guess it is not hands on enough for him so we are switching all three of them to Math U See. I like their newer program, so we will see how it goes. The Ark was complaining a bit until I explained how Algebra is mostly fractions and then he realized that he really needed to get fractions down pat.
The next change is grammar, the kids hate it. So we are going to take a year to do more hands on things with it as well. Starting with reading GrammarLand
We will also do Hands of a Child ’s Operation: Grammar and Mission:Paragraph Island Rescue for lapbooking. For writing we will use Writing Strands for all 3 of them.
I had panned Latin for The Ark since he was still struggling with his dsylexia. We are adding in Ace and will start it back up in the fall.
For Art and Music we are doing Harmony Fine Arts, with Artistic Pursuits and Meet the Great Composers.
Of course we will be doing swim lessons, swim team for the boys,bike riding and hiking this summer, as well as lots of playground time while we are waiting for swim team and swim lessons to be over.
My Daisy girl (Kendra’s nick name from a friend) and The Ark are going to camp in June. I’m helping out with VBS again in June.
I have some books at my amazon wish list that I want to add into our homeschooling. I will post them as i buy them. I found some really great math stories and will probably get the ones that fit into our ancient history theme.
Ok, enough of an update for now.
Today was a beautiful sunny day in NE Ohio and it wasn’t too cold for a change so we went to the metroparks and went on a tour of maple sugaring. First thing though you need to tkae cash with you so that you can sample the maple sugar…
Then the tour guide comes up and it was a friend of ours from our church!!! So he leads us off to learn all about sugaring. Did you know that 5% of the maple sugar comes from NE Ohio? No??? Either did we, last year they collected 118,000 buckets of sap from the metroparks. They are doing well this year as well. So the first thing we saw was……
Sinzibukhud~ Native American for maple syrup. Next on the list was of course the buckets that were used to catch the sap and did you know that the sap is clear?
The story of hte next picture is in question but The Husband says he thinks that the Pilgrims would trade the big metal pot to the Native American’s for maple syrup.
I loved the next photo, if you use your imagination you can pretend for a few seconds that you are back in time.
They had a small drying something or another for drying skins.
The was elk, coyote, raccoon, deer, muskrat skins that I can remember. I didn’t realize how big muskrats can get.
Trough that the Native American used to use to turn sap into syrup, they used to heat up rocks and then throw them into the sap.
The back of the drying rack.
We finally made it to the colonial ages….
Unfortunately by this time the kids were restless and and there was a huge crowd by the boiler so we packed up the kids without any photos of that. All in all it was a great day. I almost forgot that when we first got there we saw a red headed woodpecker. I’m still lamenting not having a better lens to get a great photos of him.
The Ark asked if he could take this week off with me since I”m on Spring Break from college. After asking him a few questions and making sure he understood that when his sister is on break in April that he will be schooling, I agreed. So we will be taking a much needed break this week and praying that it will revive us. Although I will probably be working on curriculum for next year. I bought The Ark a book to read this week, that is not a schoolbook!!! He will be reading Chuck Black’s Kingdom’s Dawn. I hope he doesn’t struggle with it too much and enjoys it. I’m hoping to get him more interested in reading for enjoyment.
We are working steadily, I”m really pushing the kids to learn how to learn vs. just doing their schoolwork. Last night I had The Ark come to swim lessons with us and had him practice his latin, then on the way home I quizzed him on vocabulary. We bought a laptop that runs windows so he can improve his reading with a program that helps dyslexics. He is only on lesson 6 since the lessons are very long about an hour. I’m trying to work out a schedule for him. maybe 3 lessons a week. There are 88 total lessons. If we do that he will be done by mid sept. counting time for spring break and summer camp. As well as any days that we need to take off. Once he is finished he should be pretty close to an 8th grade reading level and hopefully able to sound out words phonetically.
Ace is reading ok, I think he needs more practice so I have him reading his bible every day in addition to reading for school. He seems to like to read somewhat. Not as much as I would like but better than before. He still drags at doing his work and that frustrates me to no end.
The Princess is starting to read, I give her lots of practice. She should be reading her first book Pan and the Mad Man in about 2 weeks. We have always used Veritas Press Phonics Museum for them and The Ark read that book much earlier, with much less practice. They must have revised their curriculum somewhat. She still draws all the time. I need to find time for her to do more art.
Ok, I’m done for the moment.
We are part way through our school year and working steadily if a bit behind still. This week we spent time working on the Louisiana Purchase, Harriet Tubman, French Revolution as well as Simon Bolivar and the revolution of South America. I think before we move on we will do a few projects on the above subjects. Probably coloring pages, lapbooking, some mapwork etc. I did get movies from the library on many of the subjects even a cartoon of Harriet Tubman.
The boys watched the inauguration, even though I dislike Obama, I’m glad that we have finally elected a black president. Although I’m not naive enough to believe that racism is dead in our society. They will do some lapbooking on that as well. Noah even wrote a paragraph for me of things he saw on tv.
Since tax time is close, I need to research our curriculum for next year. I feel like Ace and the Princess need more hands on with their math, so we will be switching to MUS until they are older. The Ark will also be taking a year off from Saxon to do MUS until he really understands the concepts of fractions. We are only going to be using the readers and the read alouds from Sonlight next year. For science we will study Zoology 1. History is going to be a bit rough, as The Ark has already done SOW 1 and we are back to ancient history. So he will be using Mystery of History and the others will be using SOW1. We have lots of great books to supplement, so that will be fun. We love our history. Ace will be staying on with First Lang. Lessons, but for 3rd grade and the Princess will be starting with FLL gr. 1. The Ark is probably going to be using Shurley Grammar but I’m not sure what grade as of yet, it only goes to 7th grade and he is weak there so I might use 5th grade next year to give him an extra year with it. We will still be using Artistic Pursuits for art as well as adding in Harmony Fine Arts. I’m looking into Bagpipe lessons for the Ark. hmmm gotta find those numbers again. if we can afford them he will take them, he really wants to learn how to play. I’m kind of looking forward to a bit of a change with our schooling, it has been a bit dry lately. I think we need a few more projects or hands on thing to liven us up.
Ace received his bible today, in our lutheran church when the children hit 2nd grade they receive a bible in front of the congregation. Yesterday he went to a brief fun day and learned more about the bible he would be getting and spent time with the other 2nd graders. The Ark has played 4 basketball games and his team has won 3 lost 1. So we are quite proud of all of them and the coach for all their hardwork.
Well that is all for now. I will keep you posted on any events.
I know I’ve not been posting much but between schooling, college classes and children. I don’t have a great deal of time. Our plans for next week are:
- Start The Ark on Saxon Math 76
- Finish SOW vol. 3 within 2 weeks, then spend two weeks on a Ohio unit study.
- Get Ace motivated in his schoolwork
- Get back into a routine!!!
- Find time for science again….we are doing Astronomy, we love it but we are lacking time
- Need to find time for our read alouds as well.
- I found a new bible study for us here
- I’m also planning for our schoolbooks for next school year. I have to buy them with our tax money so planning starts about now.
- So planning for next year is rolling around in my head.
I need to get the boys to write out their individual goals for this year as a writing project for them. We are also checking out prices for The Ark to take bagpipe lessons and if we can afford them will be adding them into our life, as well as art lessons for the Princess, who also starts back to swimming monday night for 9 weeks. Kendra is also in the final months of confirmation class. I start my classes on Jan. 12th.
