Our Week in Review

Did you know that the Alamo and the events depicted in Les Miserables took place during the same year?

Yep, they did.  1832.  We studied both of them and for Friday night movie night we introduced Little Man to the wonders of the 2012 Les Mis movie (we had him cover his eyes for two scenes).  His siblings had all seen it previously and go around singing the songs quite frequently, so Little Man could sing along with almost all of them even though he was seeing the movie for the very first time.  We are big Les Mis fans here, so it was a delight to share that with our youngest.

Do you have a favorite Les Mis song?

I am so in love with home schooling!  God has been renewing my home schooling joy this year, and I am so, so thankful.  There are always new things to learn, and it is such a delight to learn together with my children.  I am doubly thankful that after 17 years God is giving me fresh excitement for the task of teaching my children at home.

When looking at the big picture we are definitely in the home stretch.  Only 5 more years after this one and Little Man will graduate.  I know these next 5 years will fly by.  So my focus has shifted from active teaching to facilitating and cheerleading as my children take on the responsibility of learning for themselves.  Our days (and my priorities) have changed so much over these past 17 years.  It's kindof surreal and awesome and humbling to reflect on this journey we embarked on 17 years ago, and see God's faithfulness to us in so many ways.  He is good!

Little Man, checking his math with dad one evening.

And me, on a college planning lunch date with son L.  We had a very productive time, gaining clarity on a direction to pursue, if not a specific college yet.  I love him so!  He wants to be effective for God's Kingdom, and I love that about him.

We also got to attend another wonderful wedding this past week.  I love weddings!  They are such a beautiful picture of God's love for us (which of course is what God's Word says they should be!).  When I am at a wedding I spend as much time looking at old married couples in the audience as I do at the young couple up front.  Young love is beautiful and exciting and sweet, but old love is deep and rich and has gone through intense heat to make it more pure.  Older couples who have lived out their vows through "richer or poorer" and "in sickness and in health" inspire, challenge, and bless me.  I am thankful this beautiful young couple has such good examples of marriage to pattern theirs after!

In other news, son C's winter soccer season has begun.  This is not indoor soccer, which is played on a smaller field and you can hit the ball off the walls.  This is outdoor field sized soccer which happens to be played inside a big dome.  His select team is playing winter soccer for the next 4-5 months, until the outdoor fields are ready to be played on again in the spring.  So....in some ways it will be a long winter. ;)  This is a new team for son C, and he has lots of new things to adjust to.  But he is excited because this is a dream of his, and I just want to support him any way I can ("facilitate and cheerlead", remember?).

One day this week I looked out the kitchen window, and there in the back yard were Little Man and 18 year old college man (son G) choreographing a light saber battle with two lit up light sabers.  I just stood at the window and watched them for a long time.  It was something that probably wouldn't have happened if we weren't home schooling (and hence Little Man being home during the day around son G's college schedule).  It made my mama's heart very full and so, so thankful.  We are rejoicing that son G has TWO part time jobs now!!!  He had experienced quite a few closed doors of employment before these two opened, and we are (again) thankful!  So very much to be thankful for.....

What are you thankful for this week?

Our Week In Review

About three weeks ago we finished up a mini-unit on Victorian England.  This time period in England was really fascinating to learn about.  In addition to our reading, we watched several movies as a family that took place during this time period.  Two of them, the musical Oliver and Pride and Prejudice, showed two very different aspects of everyday life in England so after viewing and discussing, we did a Venn diagram to compare and contrast them.

We discussed together as I wrote on the whiteboard, and then the children copied this info down onto their own Venn diagrams.  Little Man did some of the writing, but mostly drew pictures inside his diagram!
 

A few days later we had a tea party with some of our favorite girls!  We spoke politely to each other during our tea party, and practiced proper manners (asking for things to be passed, saying please and thankyou, etc).  Probably the hardest thing for everyone was not interrupting each other!

It was a fruitful time of learning.  Since then we have covered four U.S. presidents, the concept of Manifest Destiny, and the Mexican/American war.  When we return to school in January we will be studying westward expansion and wagon trains!

Our Week In Review

This would be for last week.  :-)

Last week we began a three week study of Victorian England, but the week before that had been a study of the Texas War for Independence, including the battle of The Alamo in 1836.  Because I have several boys, and they were so into the desperation and heroism of the Alamo story, we let the Alamo spill over into our first Victorian England week quite a bit.  Which is a somewhat odd mixture I must say!

I went to the library and checked out every book the children's department had on The Alamo.  I selected one in particular to be our fifth grader's history book for that week, and left the rest in the family room for everyone to look at during book time.  This one captured the imagination of son G: The Alamo, a day that changed America, by Shelley Tanaka.  It is the story of the battle as told through the eyes of a young Mexican boy inside the Alamo with his mother when the fighting began.  Some of it was historical fiction, but much of it was historical fact, and the pictures were AWESOME!
  

I read a short book about Davy Crockett to Little Man, and afterward he made a flapbook of Davy Crockett's life.  He dictated to me what he remembered from the book we had just read, I wrote down his words, and then he drew accompanying pictures.  This is the page about Davy's childhood.  The picture on the right shows him atop his horse, whipping some cattle into shape!  (when he was just 13 years old he helped herd cattle across several states).

Then we got the idea to make a diorama of The Alamo mission/fort itself, and that idea grew into this:

The perfect size for little Lego Mexicans and Texans!  Take a note of the flag ~ at the time of the battle, the flag did not yet bear the symbol of the lone star.

The boys poured over their books to break the battle down into smaller pieces.  Who was defending what part of the fort?  Who fell first?  They designated a lego man to be Davy Crockett, one to be Jim Bowie, and another to be Colonel Travis (who was very likely the first, or among the first, to be killed on that fateful last day of fighting).  They carefully set everyone where they were thought to be in real life on that day.

And then....

Some revisionist history began happening.  Somehow the Texans acquired medieval era weapons.  And blood began to spill....

We even had a few beheadings.

Here is Davy Crockett in the middle of the picture, with a pile of dead Mexican bodies nearby (which did happen in real life).

Here is Jim Bowie, fighting from his bed inside the chapel of the fort.  He was sick with pneumonia at the time, but bravely fired from his bed until his ammunition ran out, and then fought with his famous knives until he finally succumbed.  He was very likely one of the last ones killed.

Our boys have had tons of fun with this, and aside from the medieval revisions they made (which they *know* are revisions!) they also learned details of the battle that I am sure they would not have known otherwise.

We watched the John Wayne movie version of The Alamo, and the three middle boys are all polishing up writing assignments having to do with The Alamo (son C wrote a story about Davy Crockett, son G wrote a biographical essay on Crockett, and son L wrote a report about Jim Bowie).

Son C usually had a dog by his side as he did his history reading!

We have acquired a second dog to "dog-sit" and while I have never really cared for the look of pugs, we are learning to love this one!

Next week:  Pride and Prejudice, and tea and scones!

Literature

We are utilizing a somewhat eclectic approach to literature this year.  Daughter G, a 10th grader, is not taking a formal literature class in order to focus more on writing.  She is, however, reading 19th century literature at home, to go along with the same time period as our history studies.  She and I are both working our way through Les Mis right now, with an eye to the new movie due out next month! 

My bookmark is the purple one and hers is the pink one.  I work hard to try and pass her, and she works hard to make sure I don't.  :0)  My hubby is listening to the audio book of Les Mis while he drives to work, so that when all three of us are finished reading/listening we can have a fabulous discussion of it!  Hope that discussion actually materializes.... and that it materializes before we go see the movie.

Son G, an 8th grader, is taking an online literature class this year.  After experimenting on child #1, I realized that an introduction to literary terms and the experience of being accountable to someone other than mom were both good things to have prior to starting high school.  So this is the year for child #2.  He is currently reading The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald, and enjoying it a lot more than he thought he would!  In class they are discussing the plot of this story, and delving deeply into an analysis of each major character.

Son L is reading solely for pleasure right now.  He is on book 5 of the Redwall series, and is completely enthralled with it!  My regular readers will know that he has had a rough start to 7th grade, and is having to work very hard in a few other academic subjects.  So I am thankful that literature for him can be purely pleasure reading right now, without the expectation of having to be prepared for a class.

Son C is reading books that correlate with our history studies, and recently finished the complete, unabridged version of The Swiss Family Robinson!  This book even looks old, doesn't it?!

He loved it and I was so proud of him for soldiering through the somewhat awkward manner of speaking.  When he was done, I had him do a simple "beginning, middle, end of the story" assignment just to solidify the flow of the plot.  He drew pictures down one side of the paper, and wrote a description beside each picture of what was happening.

Little Man's literature is still me reading stories to him.  I try to read every day, but must confess that is a challenge.  If I have an extended reading time with him three times a week I feel very successful.  Okay, make that two times.

In addition, my husband is reading The Book of the King (Book 1 of The Wormling series) outloud to all of us, and though it is our goal to read at least 5 nights a week, in reality it happens about two or three times. 

See what I mean?  Eclectic!