Our Week in Review

By the end of our first week of school we had learned about the gift to the United States of the Statue of Liberty by the people of France in 1886, the presidency of Grover Cleveland (the only president to serve two non consecutive terms!), and the childhood and young adult years of Teddy Roosevelt.

To cap off this first week of school, I had son C and Little Man work together to build a model of the Statue of Liberty out of toothpicks and packing peanuts!  It may sound silly, but even with these materials, it was a bit of an engineering feat to get this thing tall enough.

They decided to begin with a circular base, but quickly switched to a triangular shape for each layer of the statue, thinking that would save time.  They quickly realized the triangular shape was not as stable as they wanted, but by this time they had built it tall enough that they just kept going.

Little Man built each layer, and then son C added it to the overall statue.

They worked well together as a team, and we could even more easily marvel at the design and construction of the actual Statue!

This past summer I painted, purged, and rearranged the school room.  This is our new couch area under the stairs, which the boys are enjoying very much!

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays we do what we call "morning routine" in our school room, which includes reading devotions from the Bible, singing a hymn, having  prayer, reading a poem (we take turns picking it), talking about one piece of art, learning a Greek or Latin word, and labeling one sentence with its parts of speech.  All of that takes about an hour, and it is time WELL spent.  I love our morning routine.  Here Little Man was labeling all the nouns and the predicate nominatives in the sentence on the board.

We also colored covers for our history binders.

It was a fantastic first week!

Our Week in Review

All winter long son C has been playing both indoor soccer (shorter field, ball can be played off the walls) and winter soccer (large field, outdoor rules, under a dome), which means many watching of games for Little Man.  Little Man recently got glasses, so when we said he could watch half the game and read the other half, he didn't mind coming along so much.  Right now, any excuse to wear his glasses is a good excuse! :)

Little Man is working through Algebra 1 and doing well.  He is currently learning how to multiply equations that contain exponents.  The Math U See blocks that we have used so well for so many years, can even be used to build these types of equations, so they are still being used!

In history right now we are learning about the civil war.  We are watching selections from the Ken Burns "Civil War" documentary series, and they are SO excellent!  I snapped this photo of all of the boys doing history in their pajamas.  Reason #87 we love homeschooling!

Brothers collaborating over science.

Little Man is working through the Apologia General Science book, and recently made this terrarium as part of module 9.  He has been taking care of this as if it were a baby - watching carefully to make sure it doesn't create *too* much water on the inside, and if it does, taking the lid off to let some of the water evaporate.  It has been such a good learning experience!

I am so thankful for the joys of homeschooling, and that I get to spend my days with my children!

Our Week in Review

Last week wrapped up our study of the Civil War.  The middle schoolers and high schooler learned about the final battles of the war, the surrender, and how Lincoln's assassination set a different stage for reconstruction.  Our younger two boys finished reading in depth about Abraham Lincoln.  We recorded a great docu-drama off the National Geographic channel called "Killing Lincoln" and watched that as a family.  (Disclaimer:  one rather violent stabbing scene, and another graphic barn fire and shoot out during which Booth is killed.)  Very, very well done.

Son G (8th grade) is writing a 5 paragraph essay on the Battle of Gettysburg,  Son L (7th grade) is writing a 5 paragraph essay on Robert E. Lee, and son C (fifth grade) is writing a 3 paragraph report on Abraham Lincoln.  Those papers will all be finished and turned in this week.

New daughter H has been formally withdrawn from her public school and is officially a homeschooler now!  She received her new Math U See Pre Algebra book in the mail this week and has been very excited to start that.  As excited as I have ever seen her about math!! :-)  I have been working on a school plan for her that will fill in the gaps she has, while allowing her to learn at her own pace and in the manner that best fits her style.  It's a work in progress, but we are slowly getting there.  It is quite a thing to take a middle schooler out of public school mid-year, unexpectedly, and plop her into a homeschooling family!  By God's grace we are all doing pretty well with the adjustments, but the flow and rhythm of school is not yet what I would like it to be.

We took a fantastic field trip this past week to a special presentation by our symphony orchestra!  It was specially designed for students, and was masterfully m.c.'d by the conductor.  We all enjoyed it immensely, but probably me the most!!  Symphony orchestra has always been one of my dearest loves....I do not think my sweet husband knows how deeply orchestra music resonates with me.  If he gave me nothing but orchestra tickets every birthday and Christmas for the rest of my life, I would die a happy woman!   (local friends, hint, hint)

(a note to Grandma...Little Man has since had a hair cut and looks quite snazzy now!)

We had a girls night out this week, and stamped home-made cards!  Great fun, and lots of beautiful cards to show for our effort.

I'm not a huge fan of grades, as they are often an artificial representation of what the student actually knows, but if you will allow me a proud mom moment regarding grades...daughter G received an A as her mid term grade in chemistry!  She worked HARD for that grade, and I am pleased that the letter grade shows how her hard work is paying off.  Her chemistry teacher is fairly tough (and it's NOT me!), so it was definitely an earned grade.  Great job G!!  We are proud of your work ethic!

Our Week in Review

We continued our study of the Civil War this week.  Over the weekend we watched Gone With the Wind.  It had been YEARS (decades actually!) since I had seen this movie, but it is such a classic movie depicting life in the south.  I'm afraid I falsely advertised it to my boys, telling them it had both romance and war in it.... turns out the war was almost all referenced but not actually shown.  Oh well!  Surprisingly they enjoyed it anyway.  We all hated Scarlet's devious behavior, and that brought us together. :-D

I gave a creative assignment to the children which is proving to be lots of fun.  I divided the 6 children into 3 groups of 2, and each group is designing their own regimental flag on posterboard.  Regimental flags were proudly carried into battle, with men actually clamoring to be the one to carry it.  It was not unusual for 10 or 12 different men to be killed from under the flag during a single battle, and it was always quickly picked up to be carried by another soldier.  The children have all chosen their regiment's name and are working on their insignia.  These "flags" will be displayed at our unit celebration next month.

We focused our efforts last week on the major battles of the second half of the war ~ what actions helped lead the war to its end.  So many stories within the story ~ such a fascinating time!!

During our virtual history co-op sons G and L presented mini reports/powerpoints on the battle of Gettysburg and on General James Longstreet, respectively.  Daughter H worked hard on her presentation of General Sherman, to be given this week.  They each did a fantastic job!  Our virtual co-op, which meets once a week for online history discussion, is such a blessing to our family, and such a great educational experience for our children to have as they prepare for college.  I am thankful for it!

Our Week in Review

In history we completed the first week of a three week mini unit on the Civil War.  War is awful, of course, but if it were possible to have a war be near and dear to your heart, the Civil War would be it for us.  Our summer 2011 vacation was to Gettysburg, PA, and that was just an unforgettable trip for us.  So in learning about the Civil War now, we have a lot of memories to tie information to.  We even rode on horseback through the Confederate side of the Gettysburg battlefield ~ definitely a highlight for us!  We can picture exactly where they fought.  That is a very cool aspect of educational vacations!

Our older students learned about the reasons for the war, the "politics" behind it so to speak, as well as some of the early battles of the war.  Our two youngest boys focused on the life of Abraham Lincoln.  I was able to get some good reading in with those two this week (doesn't always happen) so that was a happy thing for me!

Our second daughter H joined our virtual co-op this week for an online history discussion, and she LOVED it!  She did a great job too ~ participating eagerly and adding much to the conversation.  So proud of her!

Our children pushed really hard to have Valentine's Day off school, but since I'm a mean mom and teacher we did school anyway. :-D  (in my defense, we did take a surprise snow day last week, so I'm not all that mean)  There was surprise candy waiting for each child at the breakfast table.

And a heart shaped meatloaf for dinner!

We are reading Across Five Aprils for our read aloud during this study of the Civil War, and we look forward to that time each afternoon.

Our Week in Pictures

In history last week we learned about the opening of China and Japan to the west, so instead of pizza on Friday night, we had Chinese food!

Son C and Little Man, during recess.

Daughter G has entered an art contest for black history month, and she is busily working on a picture collage that tells the story of blacks in America from the days of slavery to modern day.  This was her concept, and she is doing a fantastic job!

Building pans of lasagna for dinner.  These two boys are *always* eager to be my kitchen helpers ~ awesome!

$378 worth of groceries....

My hubby reading The Hobbit outloud to the family in front of a cozy fire on a cold night.  Love!