Wrapping Up Our Week

   Here's a quick wrap up of our week. We did a couple of math lessons, read Romeo & Juliet in Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare, Started reading a new read aloud, walked for our getting fit, and read and watched some videos on tornado weather.
   We watched a version of Romeo & Juliet on TV Monday night. It was highly different, more of a 20th century version. It had some comedy in it, but not exactly what I call Shakespeare.
Our new read aloud is Tiger ,Tiger by Lynne Reid Banks (Author of Indian in the Cupboard). It is about Julius Caesar and the life style of Romans during the Gladiator period. Tiger, Tiger is giving us a great view of tragedies and triumphs in Ancient Rome. We have it on audio. The reader does a great job reading it so she is keeping my children's attention. My children were captured in the first chapter when Julius Caesar bought his daughter a tiger for a pet. The author went in to lots of detail when describing the events that took place at the Colosseum. There's no doubt of the cruelty that took place.
   As for our walking this week and trying to get fit, I am extremely proud of my family. We walked 18 miles this week. We would do our 2 mile walk in the morning and decided it would do us good to do it in the evening also. So we walked in the evenings too. It's taking us about 1 1/2 hours to walk 4 miles a day. Hopefully, our timing will get better. Oh, and our dog, Prissie, is enjoying the walking also. Walking has been an enjoyable event this week with our entire family. Dad has walked with us. That was worth the walking to me.
   I suppose this about summarizes our week. So we'll up date more later. Blessings

Spring Break is Over

Last week was a wonderful week. All of us enjoyed our spring break. We finished it up by having a chocolate party on the way home in the van. Dear hubby stopped at Walmart and bought Reese's Cups and a gallon of milk. We each grabbed a Reese's Cup and a glass of milk and our party began. We reminist about our week and then the children slowly faded in to sleep. Dad was driving so I blogged going down the road.
Saturday night we watched The Wizard of Oz together as a family. It was the first time my children had seen it. Lot's of childhood memories came back to me. My son's favorite character was the scarecrow. He thought he was smart. My daughter's favorite character was the lion. She liked the way his role brought comedy to the movie. Her favorite part was when the lion was on his way to see the wizard to receive courage and he was pulling his own tail and thought someone else was doing it.
Today we hopped back on the school wagon. We worked on our math, walked two miles, read Romeo and Juliet from Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare, watched the annimated version of it on youtube, and tonight we are watching a version of Romeo and Juliet on cable tV.
I think this about brings us currrent on our happenings. Hope all of you have been having a great schooling. Blessings to you all.

Peaking Their Interest in Shakespeare

                My children’s interests are being peaked. We went to the library yesterday for our book club presentation and this is what my children came running up to me with afterwards.

                These are two of the plays that we have read this year by Shakespeare. I say plays, but we are actually reading from Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare by E. Nesbit. We are also watching animated videos. All I am interested in this year is familiarizing them with Shakespeare.

                When they came running to me with the books that have a comic book style and wanted to check them out, I knew something had to be arousing their interest.

                Here’s what the books look like on the inside of them.

                They seem to be pretty basic, but appear to be great as a review. My children want us to act out the plays, using these books. They also informed me that I could be the queen so I could hug on the donkey (he he, such love they have for me).

                My children also found these books on the table that the library was discarding.

                Naturally, my children knew we needed them. “Especially this one Mama, so we will know how to act out our plays,” they are insisting. For $ .25 each, we brought them home with us.

                There’s going to be a live theatrical production of Julius Caesar about two hours from our home. We are hoping to get to attend.

                The Shakespeare interest is arising. I’m accomplishing my goal for this year, yea! Happy homeschooling everyone.

Shakespeare With My Children

Today is another beautiful day here in the south. God has blessed the weather and spring is coming alive. I can hear birds chirping all during the day and squirrels are in our yard. I am running behind schedule. I'd better get my humming bird feeders going. Oh, and I am excited to get the leaves raked up so I can put out my two new bird baths that my hubby bought me. The weather is so nice, I think my children and I will school outside next week if the weather stays like it is.
We may just have to plan us a picnic and go to our nature area that is only about 2 miles from our house. My children will love that. We have not been there this year so it will be a treat for them. Especially for my daughter. She has gotten her a new video camera that I'm sure she would just love to get out in nature with, if she can keep her brother quiet enough for her to capture some wild life on video. She will definitely have her job cut out for her accomplishing that. My son is all boy, rambunctious.
Today we worked on our Shakespeare from E. Nesbith's book, Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare. We are on the story As You Like It. We aren't doing any thing special or deep when it comes to Shakespeare this year, just reading the story from her book, discussing it a bit, and then watching the animated video that goes with our story from Youtube. More or less, I am only trying to introduce them to Shakespeare. I'm not real sure what all they are receiving from what we are doing, but I feel like we are laying a great foundation for further indepth studies.
Are any of you working on Shakespeare with your children, Or have you done it in the past? I would love to know how you did it, are doing it, or planning to do it with your children. I was not a huge Literature fan when I was in school so I don't really feel confident teaching my children, but we are all learning together. It's amazing how much I enjoy all of my children's school work, things that I couldn't stand when I was in school. I guess the old saying, "The older you get, the wiser you get," is kicking in in my life. Oh my, does that mean I am getting old?
Well, suppose I'd better go for now. I have company coming over in about an hour so I'd better get ready for her. Bless all of you out in homeschool land. Happy homeschooling, Traci

Getting Our Curriculum Lined Out

                Well, I did it. I chose to add the study of the Romans into our schooling. Even though we already have a full agenda I still chose to add that in with our studies. So yes, we will also be studying the Romans along with our Netherlands, Holland, Hans Brinker, van Gogh, etc.

                As a matter of fact, we also added Parables of Nature on Fridays & Shakespeare on Wednesdays. Why did I do that? I’ll tell you why. I decided to listen to the voice of Charlotte Mason and give my children a rich curriculum. God has blessed them with great minds so we are going to exercise them. As Charlotte Mason would say, “Put plenty on their plates to make sure their appetite is quenched.” So that is why I filled our table full of yummy goodies for us to dig in to.

                Some of these yummy goodies will be our first taste test so we’ll see how we like them. So far, our week has been rich & filling. And, surprisingly we have finished our lesson plans every day that I had written down.

                I know my children are capable of doing the things that we have chosen. We will just have to take some of our subjects a bit slower than what I had planned. That’s okay. Time will only give them more time to digest the material.

                Slow & steady will be our motto for the remainder of this year. I will post more later and let you all know if my children’s appetites are being filled or stuffed. Hopefully, we haven’t chosen so much that they will be cramming. Until next time, all of you have a wonderful homeschooling, Traci