Weekly Wrap Up Week 4

     In Our Life This Week: It has been a wonderful productive week. The end of the week has turned out a lot brighter than it began. We began the week thinking we may have a hurricane, but thankfully, for us, it moved over and we didn't receive anything except for a few rain showers. I'm so sorry for those that did get the storm.

     In Our Homeschooling This Week: My son finished 2 Saxon Algebra 1/2 lessons & my daughter finished 2 1/2 lessons. Bible (God's Amazing Creation) and Literature (the reading of Oliver Twist) are moving right on track.

     History consisted of us reading a few more pages in our Josephus book and notebooking some pages to go along side it. As we read the Josephus book, we are reading the book of Genesis from our Bible to see how history lines up with it. This week we learned that the first musical intsrument, Martial arts, & Blacksmiths all came from the descendants of Cain.

     Our school goal this year is to turn in one Current Event per month, so both of them turned in one today. Here's a pic of my son's:

Matthew's current event about a Christian girl under persecution.

 

 

     English was on a light note this week. We did one Shurley English lesson & attended the online class given by Alpha Omega on Thursday.

     Apologia Physical Science has us studying Newton's Laws of Motion. We are learning all about how friction & force affect inertia laws.

Today was a big coupon day so we did not get to our American Sign Language.

Here are a few pics of our Apologia Physical Science experiments for Newtons Law of Motion, 10.1 two inertia experiments: 

 

Here we are spinning a raw egg & a hard boiled egg. the raw egg did not like to spin & when we stop it quickly, then let it go, the raw egg starts moving again because the liquids inside were still moving.

 

We loved the hard boiled egg! It would spin on its side if you spun it slowly, but if you would spin it quickly the egg starts on its side & then it stands up on its own.

 

In this experiment we lay a coin on an index card over a jar. Now we pull it off the jar slowly the first time & the coin moves with the index card. Then we snatch the index card off quickly the second time & the coin stays in the same spot, then drops down.

 

Enrichment: This is what I call any extra work that my children do outside there norm for school.

     This week was the big week for our family developed BrOOK-it Program. Today was the deadline date for them to turn in to me a folder with a title page of the book they had read, an introduction paragraph to the book, 12 vocabulary words with definitions, & a conclusion paragraph to the book. Both were successful with extra in their folder. My son had a page with quotes he had read in his book, and my daughter took it upon her self to just write an essay about her book. I'm proud of the both of them.

My daughter's essay needs some grammar corrections so we plan to let that be her English for next week.

Page 1 - Title page.

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6 - Vocabulary words.

 

 

 

Pics of the BrOOK-it Program:

Matthew showing you his McDonald's Spicy Chicken Bites coupon for a clean room.

Sarah showing you her McDonald's Spicy Chicken Bites coupon for a clean room.

Sarah with her BrOOK-it prize, Little Ceasar's Pizza & breadsticks.

Matthew with his BrOOK-it prize, Little Ceasar's Pizza & breadsticks.

My son has been making models of old war ships this week. Here are some pics of them:

Matthew's replica of a galley ship that "so conveniently" floats in tub water.

 

Matthew says, "this one is called a Spanish War Sloop." Believe me they are both tried, tested & water ready!

     As for the hurricane projects that were began this week, they are still a work in progress. I'll post pics of them later. My daughter had to purchase some more supplies for her diorama so she had to put hers on hold until we went to town today.

People I've Been Praying for This Week: everyone that was in the path of Hurricane Isaac.

     This post has been tremendously long so I'll wrap it up. I'm linking up with Kris for the Weekly Wrap Up. Drop over there to see some more great weeks of other families. I know you will be blessed, I have been. Happy Homeschooling!

Video Links For Appologia: Exploring Creation With Physical Science & More

     I have not always been a fan to Science, but since I began home schooling my children I have become very interested. For a few years we followed the Charlotte Mason method of education & just found library books on a particular topic and just went with the flow, studying from one topic to the next. This year we are taking a more formal approach. We are weaving our way through Exploring Creation With Physical Science by Apologia. We are having a great time with it, but could not move out of the CM style of education. We are still adding library books along side our textbook.
    The reason for this post is I wanted to say thanks to Judy over at Contented at Home. She shared another blogging friend with me that has done a superb job at showing what she has done with her children while they worked through Exploring Creation With Physical Science by Apologia (also their General Science & Biology). She has links to videos & all. I feel like I have been blessed by Judy and Marty today. Much of my lesson plans will just fall in place due to someone paving the road ahead of me.
    Thanks Judy for sharing Marty's blog with me & thanks Marty for the hard work that you have done, all of your time & effort.
    If you are using one of these Science's or intend on using one of them, you will want to definitely check out Marty's blog.

Vacating in Pompeii in the Magic Tree House

In Our Week This Week:
    We've spent most of our time out side of our home. The week started off with my M-I-L falling, shaking her brain, causing a concussion. From that point our entire week was turned up side down. Our plans were totally changed.
    My daughter was going to stay at her Me Mah's to make sure that she wasn't having any complications. Well, that lasted through the night & over in to the next evening. Everything was going pretty good, with the exception that Me Mah did not want to eat or drink anything. Naturally, that was making her sick & have a headache, but how was we to be sure. What if it was due to the blow to her head? So we had to pack our bags and go stay also so we could black-mail Me Mah, "If you don't eat, we're taking you back to the hospital (which she hates)." She began to eat in small portions and all of the sickness and headaches disappeared.

I Have Been Inspired By:
    my daughter showing me that she was able to step in & run a home should the need ever arise. We have not had a Home Economics course, just training from time to time through her chores. I found out this week that she has learned what she has been taught.

Homeschooling This Week:
    Was a very light week. We managed to do one math lesson on Monday & read a couple of chapters in a Magic Tree House book, Vacation Under the Volcano.

    This is a book where Jack & Annie go to Italy to visit Pompeii. Even though the Magic Tree House books are pretty easy reading, my children love going on the adventures with Jack & Annie. If we can find one that deals with a topic that we have been studying, it is just a fun way to reinforce our study. (We have also found the Box Car Children books to be like that also.) There's not anything like adding a great fun & relaxing book in to our schooling.
     We finished up Vacation Under the Volcano by the end of the week. With all that we had to do this week, this was all the schooling that was accomplished, just some fun reading.

    We did not finish up my plans for this week so we'll pick them back up next week.
Linking up with Kris @ Weird & Unsocialized blog & with Sue for the Homeschool Mother's Journal. Drop over to their sites to see what others have been doing this week.

Educating From Library Books To Encyclopedias To Erupting Volcanos & Even A Blog Give Away

In My Life This Week:
    My scales are going in the wrong direction. I'm not sure if it's the week I don't pay much mind to the scales because of mother nature or if I've been enjoying too much food. Regardless of the case, it aggravated me that the scales went in the wrong direction after I counted calories & carbs, 20 carbs or less each day & less than 1600 calories per day, with excercising. Can you believe that? Uhh!!!!

Uhh!!!

Me trying to thin down

I'm Grateful This Week For:
    the relationships I have with my children. I know we only have that closeness due to all the time we spend together. Here's a link to a post with a pic of the card my DD left on my desk for me.
I have special tea parties with my children (individually) to build our relationship. My DD sends me little notes & cards from time to time laying a few building blocks to the relationship. I'm grateful that we are both working on the building.

I've Been Inspired By:
    two tapes that I checked out from our local library this week. They are by Inge P. Cannon. I have not heard of her before this week. It appears that she has lots of books/audio tapes that I am interested in reading/listening to. The two that I listened to this week are: Schooling or Educating: Which Are You Doing? & Eliminating Crucial Gaps While Individualizing Education. She never mentions Charlotte Mason, but her teachings could very well pass for CM methods. These tapes were a great encouragement this week to remind me (again) that we don't have to move at the pace of the public school system. We can remain in our subjects/topics for as long as we desire.

In Our Homeschooling This Week:
    we accomplished three math lessons in Saxon 8/7. My children are enjoying their lessons right now. The lessons have had geometry & prime & composit numbers. Their words are, "This is easy. We like this." My son has decided this week that he wants him some drafting tools.
We have not yet returned back to our Exploring Creation with Physical Science through Apologia yet. Hopefully that will be next week. We chose another library book this week. It is:

Exploring The Sky By Day by Terence Dickinson

    This book is easing us in to the different types of clouds & the water cycle. Our next Module in our Physical Science is going to be on water so I just eased this book in to introduce them to the water cycle a bit more in debth than what we have studied in the past. I like to ease in a library book for a review from time to time.
    We place two different bowls of water outside for an experiment, one in the shade & one in the sun. We are checking the temp. of the water each day & measuring the debth to see the warmth & how much it is evaporating. This is to reinforce our Module that was bringing out humidity. We've been testing to see if there was already enough of moisture in the air already or not. We've also checked the sky for clouds to see if we could identify them.
    We are still reading Little Pilgrim's Progress for Literature. We should have this finished up by next week. My son said this has become one of his most favorite books.
History has been a pretty relaxed week. We finished reading our book about Pompeii & pulled down the encyclopedia for further reading. After that Sarah & Matthew drew maps of Italy for some geography skills. Here are the pics of their maps.

Sarah's map of Italy

Matthew's map of Italy

    We've done this in the past, but my children thought it only right that we do another volcano experiment since Pompeii was buried by Vesuvius erupting. Here are some pics of them recreating Mount Vesuvius's eruption burying Pompeii again.

This is the Lab Tray

They are filling the 2 litter bottles with their mixtures

Matthew's volcano erupting and destroying Pompeii.

Sarah's volcano erupting. We used to big of a bottle and not enough mixture to have a more powerful eruption. So now we are planning to do it again for the third time to get it right.

    For English/Grammar this week they wrote narrations on what they have learned about Pompeii. Here are their essays.

Sarah's Essay on Pompeii

Matthew's Essay on Pompeii

    Other than getting in a drawing lesson today, I think this about Wraps up our week.
I am linking up with Kris over at the Weekly Wrap Up & with Sue for the Homeschool Mother's Journal. If you'd like to read more about other's weeks, drop over to one of these blogs & check out the others that linked up also.

On another note, I am having a give away on my blog. Click here to check it out.

Composition Comes By Nature

                What is composition? Composition is the make up of anything, a putting together of parts to form a whole such as writing sentences, making pictures, and setting type in printing.

                Teaching a child to write can be a tedious task. Words don't always just flow for every child. For some children their words flowing on their paper can sound like a trip to the ocean. The words on the paper can sound like the waves lapping on to the shore. They roll in and they roll out. Sometimes they may even appear as the ocean might on a stormy day, a might bit choppy. Regardless of how they are sounding, the child is composing. The reader may not like the tune that is being played in his or her ear, but the writer has a great composition in progress. The writer is at work and the reader has to wait for the finished product.

                Charlotte Mason said, "Composition comes by nature." A child has an inner writing ability if he or she has not been hampered by instructions. Give the child a great book to read. Leave the grammatical rules out. Let the power of the eye connect with the mind. What the child sees will be the foundation laid for the child's writing ability to derive from. Composition is the putting together of parts to make a whole. The child will take what he or she sees in the great book and begins constructing his or her paper. The power of the eye will cause the child to take notice that the first sentence in the paragraph is indented. He or she will see that the first letter in that first word of the paragraph is capitalized. As images are reflected to the eye, brain waves are sending information to the mind to be stored for later reference. When the child takes up his or her pen and puts it to the paper, those images come back to the mind. The natural ability of remembrance comes forth. As the child is writing the power of the eye is focused on the paper. The child takes notice. Something is wrong with the view. "Ah," the mind thinks, "I need to put a comma after that group of words. This sentence needs a period at the end of it. I should place a question mark at the end of that sentence because a question is being asked. I'd better put an exclamation point there where that excitement is being shown." Even though the grammatical rules aren't being taught, the images that were stored in the mind will cause the child to want his or her paper to look like the pages in the book. The power of the eye and a great book will produce a marvelous composition.

                Our business as the teacher is to provide the child with wholesome material for his or her lesson. The power of the eye will take over at that point and send the images that are reflected to the brain. Later, readily enough the child will compose in his or her own time Composition should not have to be taught. It should come by nature. Charlotte Mason said, "Composition is as natural as jumping and running to children who have been aloud due use of books." VOL 1 PG 247

                Choppy papers that a child begins writing will develop in to a master piece as the wealth of material given to the child to read instills in the mind. As the child grasps the material the reader will no longer feel as if he was standing on the seashore listening to the waves lap the shore. Structure will begin taking place and the writer will come forth. The child will take the parts he or she has learned and put them together to form a whole composition.

                As children's teachers, we should give them wholesome material for their lessons and wait for the writer to emerge.

On a different note, I'm having a Give-a-Way on my blog. So click on the link and see what I got for you.

Give Away: Social Studies Made Simple

     I have quite a bit of work books that I was blessed with that I am not using so I am going to do some give-aways over the next few months trying to clear my home of them.
    The first give-away consists of 3 work books that would go with American history. These books are not informational enough to stand as a full curriculum, but could be used as a Scope & Sequence that you could check out library books to go along with the worksheet/activities to have a fun schooling.
Here's a few pics of the books.

    The three books range from 2nd to 4th grade level (what front of book recommends). I personally don't pay any mind to what the book says if it is something I think I can use.
    The book jacket on back reads like this: Social Studies Made Simple will spark the interest and imagination of children as they explore the worlds of civics, the creative arts, economics, geography, history, and language arts.
    The Social Studies Made Simple series is packed with interesting activities and projects that are designed to reinforce the knowledge, skills, and values children need to become informed and involved citizens.
    I will choose a winner on November the 1st so I can mail the books out that week after I contact the winner.
    I have several types of work books to give away from math, history, a few science books, reading comprehension, geography, etc. that I will be giving away over the next few months. Hopefully they can be a blessing for someone.
    I don't have a lot of blog traffic on my blog, so if you think any of my give aways will be something one of your blogging friends would like, feel free to invite them over to post a comment on the give away to enter the drawing that is going on.
    Some books I have several copies of so as I do the give away I'll contact the winner to see if they will need more than one copy for their family.
    Hope this give away can be a blessing to someone. Just leave a comment to be entered in to the drawing.

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.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Camping & Hands-on Schooling

      We have had a blast this week! First, Mount Cheaha in Alabama & then F. D. R. State Park in Georgia. The week has been filled with fun. Tomorrow it all comes to an end, back to home we go.
Here are a few picts from our week.

 Sarah & Matthew Welcoming you to Mt. Cheaha State Park in Alabama.

 Here they are at the highest point in the state of Alabama 2,407 feet.

 This is the Doug Ghee Accessible Trail which is a boardwalk that ends at an overlook.

 The boardwalk is about 1/4 mile long & is very well built & maintained. This is a pleasant walk in the mist of nature.

 Breathtaking scenery from the overlook. We saw Redtail Hawks & other birds. Awesome spiritual meditation!

 There are several places you can get off the boardwalk & follow hiking trails or giant stones for picnic tables like the one we used.

 Matthew was in charge of preparing the meat for our Hobo Burgers.

 Sarah was over the red potatoes.

 Here is one of four Hobo Burgers going on the grill for chef Matthew to cook.

 On the highest point is the CCC Tower.

Clowning around in the tower windows.

 As we were leaving Cheaha we visited the Indian Museum by the gate. Our little indians were on the warpath. Now we are on our way to FDR State Park & Warm Springs, Georgia.

 Our children checking the warmth of the spring water that stays a constant 88 degrees. They only fill the three pools two times a year.

 This is a scale model of the Roosevelt Museum & Pools.

 We are standing in front of the Little White House in Warm Springs.

 This is the servants quarters.

 Sarah at the fountains.

 Matthew at the fountains.

 The museum held many Roosevelt treasures. Here pictured is 1 of 107 walking sticks or canes, all very unique.

 Lots of exercise on this trip. Many hiking trails at FDR State Park.

 The children enjoyed the Jr Ranger challenge for patches.

 A short rest stop & forward we go.

Mama's short meditation time on a log while hiking.



    We haven't done any paper work this week, but have learned so much from our adventures. Sarah & Matthew have been doing hands on geography by navigating our travels with a map. Plotting the roads and calculating mileage between towns. Oh, yeah, we did do a little paper work this week. They have been working on their Jr. Ranger badges, & they also did a scavenger hunt answering questions about different things at F. D. R's Little Whitehouse.
     I think I am the one that has enjoyed the week the most. I wanted to go to Warm Springs for my 10th aniversary, but was not able. So this week has been a treat to me.
     It has been a bit nippy in the mornings for us southern folks. We have survived it though.
I suppose this about summarizes our week. If you would like to read other's weekly wrap-ups just hop on over to Kris's blog for all of the others. Happy homeschooling!!!