The HMJ/Weekly Wrap Up

     In Our Life For the Past Two Weeks: Last week we had to go take S. A. T. tests so after that we did not do any schooling. The weather was beautiful so we enjoyed our back yard.

     This week the weather has been beautiful and we would have loved to have spent the week again out doors, but I figured we might better do our duties and work on our school work so out side time came after school. Other than the norm of every day life, not anything spectacular has happened.

     In Our Home Schooling: We began Module 8 in our Apologia: Exploring Creation With Physical Science. This is the second Module about weather. Before last week when the weather was so beautiful my children have had a lot of time to study the clouds and the weather around them because it was raining every day, or every other day. There's not any thing like first hand experience to educate. They even had the opportunity to see a tornado coming down from a cloud. Thank goodness it went back up in to the clouds. They were riding with my mother-in-law when they saw it. When they returned to where their daddy & I was we got our ears full of the excitement of weather.

     Math has become fun in my house. We have finally made it to the day when math is not like pulling teeth around here. We are learning so many different things in our Saxon 8/7 math, but Ratio & Proportion has become by far my children's favorite types of problems. Thanks to the pnemonic, "Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally," they are having no problem with the order of opperations in the Algebraic expressions.

     Literature/English/Art has been great for my son. We are reading the book "Johnny Tremain." After we finish our reading each day they paint a picture about some part of the reading. Then, they have to write a paragraph about the picture/days reading. At first my son was having a problem with letting his writing be a bit choppy. We would have to sit down, read each sentence, & add/change the words to make his writing flow smoothly. The past three or four paragraphs he has done completely by himself. He is also doing a superb job with putting a topic sentence & drawing his paragraph to a close. Everything has an even flow from beginning to end. I'm seeing improvement in his writing skills.

     For history we read the book "Our Constitution: I Know America" by Linda C. Johnson. This book is small, but informational. It does a great job of breaking the Bill of Rights down on a very low level so that they are easily understood.

     My daughter had sewing lessons this week. She has been wanting to make a quilt from a small quilt top that she had acquired. My mother-in-law quilts, so she has been giving lessons to my daughter on a small quilt square before she starts her quilt top. I'm not sure who is more excited, my daughter or my mother-in-law that my daughter is wanting to learn to quilt. Here's a few pics of the sewing lessons:

     My daughter has decided that she likes quilting much more better than crocheting. It only took her one lesson to determine this.

     What I'm Thankful for This Week: that my children came through their S. A. T. tests with confidence. They were not intimidated by them.

     What we are cooking this week: southern food, collard greens with corn bread, pork steak, corn casserole, lima beans,red beans & rice with CONECUH sausage, bacon egg & cheese sandwiches for breakfast, & of course a bit of fast food style, pizza & french fries.

     I think that will about give you a peak at our home schooling. I'm linking up with the HMJ & the Weekly Wrap Up. Drop over to these links to enjoy some more great blogs. You will be encouraged.

Home School Mother's Journal/Weekly Wrap UP

     In Our Life This Week: things have been pretty good. I have been doing lots of praying & reading, thinking & planning for next year's curriculum. Most of the time I feel anxious when it comes to our home schooling, like any other home school mom, wondering if we are doing enough, are we covering the things that we need to be covering, etc. But, when I take the time to pull to the side, pray, really focus on what we've done & what we need to plan to do, I ALWAYS feel refreshed. God always speaks to my spirit and lets me know that it will all fall in place & in the end my children will be educated. My soul always feels refreshed also & feels the leading of the spirit. The leading of the spirit always puts a calmness in me, one that makes our home schooling flow smoothly.

     In Our Home Schooling This Week: Math was another great week, accomplishing four lessons in our Saxon 8/7.

     Science: Exploring Creation With Physical Science, we have made it to the end of Module 7, only our Study Guide & test left to go.

     History: has only been a review week. We've basicly just been walking through history in our conversation reviewing for the S. A. T. Test we will be taking next week. I always like to make sure that things are a bit fresh in their mind before we go to take our test. Monday will be a day of review in all of our subjects before we strike out on Tuesday for the big test. We use the test results to see if we are progressing. I know that the results to these test aren't always accurate if they have things on the test that we haven't covered, but it does show me what they do know.

     Literature: We began Johnny Tremain. After the second day of reading my children were begging for more. I did not give in this time. I made them wait until the next day. This has kept their enthusiasm up for the next day of Literature.

     Art: We combined our Art work with our Literature this week. They have been painting a picture after each day's reading about some part of the story. Here are a few pics of their Art Work:

Matthew sketching a scene from Johnny Tremain

Sarah's painting of Johnny carrying Isannah to the wharf to get fresh air

Display of Sarah's paintings from the book Johnny Tremain

Matthew's paintings from Johnny Tremain

Sarah & Matthew busy painting their own scenes of their read-a-loud of Johnny Tremain

     English: Did not get to it this week, but this was our plans. We are going to write paragraph summaries to go along side of our Art pictures to make our on Johnny Tremain book in the end. We have plans to catch up with our pictures next week.

     Places We Are Going: made a trip to the library this week. The children schooled there while daddy & I pulled books from shelves and made plans for our next year. We have a ways to go, but much was accomplished. I also took me a few hours at the library to sit and read. The ME time was great! Daddy took the children to the doctor while I was enjoying my ME time, thanks daddy, you're the best!
My diligent scholars:

         

     Home Schooling Tip For the Week: "Set your house in order." I have found that as my children are getting older their schooling intensify's. By keeping up with our household chores, the house is decent, & we have more time to devote to our school work. When the house is maintained on a day to day basis it keeps an appearance of being presentable when company arrives, and also allows for plenty of time to do schooling. If we let the house go it may take us all day one day to clean it, leaving no time for school that day (probably leaving a grouchy mom behind, upset because of no schooling being accomplished). Twenty to thirty minutes a day gives 2 to 2 1/2 hours of cleaning each week. If you use team work, as we do, multiply your minutes time the amount of people on the team & look at the results of how much house work can be done. Plenty of time to keep the house in order.

     What I'm Reading: Lots & lots of things from books I'm wanting to use next year to books about home schooling.

     What I'm Praying About: Lots of needs for others & a closer walk with the Lord. I need His closeness to guide me along this journey. And not just along this journey, but until I make heaven my home. I want to be one of the chosen few.

     I think this about wraps us up for the week. Check out the other home school blogger's weeks at the HMJ & the Weekly Wrap UP.

HAPPY HOME SCHOOLING!

Can't Get Away From Charlotte Mason

In Our Homeschool This Week:
     When we began our school year this year I wanted our year to be a bit more formal than what we were accustomed to. So I decided we were going to use more text books this year. Off our year began and we've been moving right along, BUT something just wasn't quite right. We've kept trudging through our books, accomplishing things, but just not receiving what we have received in the past with our studies. What was wrong with us? Sometimes we would even have a lot of tension between teacher and student. I asked my children what was wrong. Immediately they told me, "We want to dive deeper in to our studies like we were doing when we were doing Charlotte Mason style of education. So this week we made a trip to the library & grabbed some books to reinforce what we have been studying in Science and pulled a book off of our shelf for history that they had been wanting to do. The tension has lifted & our week has been fun & refreshing.
What's Working:
    We've decided that we will keep our Apologia: Exploring Creation With Physical Science (which wasn't giving us a problem, & we love), but would slow it down and also add in library books along side of it. This just means that we won't finish this book this year & will carry it over in to next year.
    Our library book we used for Science this week was: The Atom By Elizabeth R. Cregan

    A very interesting book, filled with information. My DH grabbed this book in hopes of reinforcing our study on atoms. The book covers atoms pretty good, but has a lot of info on radium, radiation, & cancer. My children seemed to be more excited over the things they learned about them than they were the atoms. Like how they used radium in paint to paint the numbers on watches, getting some of the paint in their mouth due to the method they used to paint, not knowing that that the radium would begin to destroy their cells & cause cancer. A very interesting book. Here's a pic of my children drawing a model of an atom.
    For our history this week (& will go in to next week) they wanted to learn about the buried city of Pompeii. My DS had gotten a book from a thrift store about Pompeii so we began a study on it this week. My DS has had to do most of the reading in our book due to some nudity for their bath ceremonies. Other than that we have enjoyed the book & have looked at some pics on Internet this week. The book we are using is: The Buried City of Pompeii By Shelley Tanaka.

    Three math lessons were accomplished in our Saxon 8/7 math this week. We are getting in to Perimeter, Area, & Exponents. We have worked on this some in the past. My DS enjoys the square root part of the exponents.

Helpful Homeschool Tip:

  To pull in some English/Grammar this week I pulled out a handbook I had bought several years back and just picked out a rule for a particular type of verb & that is what we worked on this week. I chose Active & Passive verbs.

    We read the rule from the handbook, along with its examples & then worked on our dry erase board making our own sentences. Today the children had to write me three Active verb sentences then three Passive verb sentences that would accompany their Active verb sentences. That was English for the week. Here's a couple of pics of the handbook I had purchased.

     It's not very thick, but jam packed with info. It covers just the rules & gives examples in a very basic way. Easy enough that my children can take it down & find the rule they would like to use by themselves. I got it from a used book store for a dollar, great investment.
    We are still reading through Pilgrim's Progress for Literature & On the Banks of Plum Creek for a Library Read Aloud. I'm not sure if I put a pic of the version of Pilgrim's Progress we are using on here or not, but we are using a children's version. Here's a pic of it.

    Other than my children spending a lot of time outside after our studies, I think that about concludes our week. Here's a pic of my DC having P.E. this week.

     Kris usually has the Weekly Wrap Up on her blog, but she had a close friend pass away and left behind are her husband and five girls. Kris said that she will not be blogging for a few days. I'm not sure if she will have her Weekly Wrap Up this week. I encourage you to visit Kris's blog and give her a nice comment in her time of grieving. I am so sorry Kris for your loss and hope the best for your friend's family and we will be praying.
     I am also linking up with The Homeschool Mother's Journal this week. Drop over & check out what everyone has been up to this week. I'm sure you will be encouraged.

     By the way I will be starting a Give-a-Way tomorrow that is going to be continuing for a while. I have lots of books & workbooks for all ages. So get the word around, I'm sure you'll be blessed & encouraged.

Spending Time At The Gulf of Mexico

     We are having a wonderful time spending our spring break at the Gulf of Mexico this week. I have enjoyed taking in the breath freshing air and some reading while the children have enjoyed the water, sand, and cousins. Well, I suppose I have enjoyed the sand also this week. It has been so cool feeling to my feet as I have been walking in it and I've also have enjoyed playing in it with the children.
     I thought I'd share a few more pics with my blogging friends. We had gone walking down the beach and discovered some sand art that some one had done. Immediately, my children were ready to go back to where we were staying so they could create in the sand. Here's a few pics of our creations and others:
　

 A gator created by unknown artist.

A sea turtle by unknown artist.

An octopus by unknown artist.

A fish by unknown artist.

A dog laying down by unknown artist.

Homeschool artist Traci, Daniel and Landin at work.

Sand artist Sarah creating her masterpiece.

 Artist Matthew's dolphin.

Matthew's octopus eating a fish.

Artist Traci working on her turtle, between phone calls. LOL

Traci's sand art turtle.

Artist Sarah's smiling starfish.

 All children playing in the condominiums swimming pool.

Traci sitting by the pool with laptop sharing her homeschooling adventures to you.

     Sand art wasn't in the books for our lesson plans, but it has been done now and they had a blast doing it. Honestly, I didn't have lesson plans for this week due to our spring break, but I've seen my children learning and observing things this week that could be used for schooling. Homeschoolers don't get vacations. Our minds have been opted in to learning mode and we don't know where to stop.     My husband and I wasn't suppose to stay at the beach this week. We were to get my library organized. My sister kept at me until we did stay for two days. We have come home for two days and will go back again tomorrow to stay for two more days. So, that means that very little has been accomplished on my library being organized. All in due time, that's what I'm telling myself, it will all be organized in due time.     Well, got to go for now so until next time, everyone have a happy homeschooling.

Sketch Tuesday

     My children are excited about Sketch Tuesday. This is the first time that they have participated and they are just a little over joyed. Their dad uploaded their sketches to the computer and sent them to Harmony Art Mom's email. Since then they have asked a couple of times, "When can we see our pictures?" That will probably be the first thing on our agenda tomorrow because I'm sure that will be the first thing that will come out of their mouths as soon as they arise and begin to wake up.
    We will be leaving Thursday for a short vacation so the next few days we are going to be quite busy. We are trying to finish up what I have on my first round of lesson plans for the year. I only make my plans up about 3 to 4 weeks at the time. Our studies usually last longer than 3 weeks for a topic, but we love pulling in extra library books to suppliment our study so I don't like getting to far ahead in my lesson plans. Depending on how many extra books we pull in depends on how quickly we move through my lesson plans.
    Today my children started working in some beginner piano lesson books that we had found at a thrift store over the weekend. They seem to be understanding the material pretty good so far. My daughter seriously practiced the exercises. My son was kind of funny. Shortly after he had started he was ready to quit. Supposively his hand was hurting. I can assure you that he had not done enough of the exercise for that to be happening. We will just see how his lessons go. I play some by ear so I really hope my children do pick up on it.
     I'll wrap up our week towards the end of the week before we leave, lor's willing. Happy home schooling to everyone this week, Traci