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!

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.

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.

Light, But Productive

      This week was a light week for us. The weather has been so nice I haven't been able to bring myself back to the books completely.
     In our English/Grammar this week we worked on writing Narratives. They quickly made a draft/outline of some facts about one of the things we did while we were out camping. After collecting their facts they wrote their Narrative. They only wrote one. We have narrated in the past so I knew they could handle that lesson with not any problem.
     Three lessons were accomplished in our Saxon 8/7 math this week. If I could only get then to pick up on their speed math would be a breeze. They have been acing every lesson.
     We started reading the Little House books at the beginning of the year for our Library read aloud. We are currently reading On The Banks Of Plum Creek. Even my DS is enjoying these books. He loved Farmer Boy. I so can't wait until they get to The Long Winter. That was my favorite when I read the series.
     After finishing up Where the Red Fern Grows, we started reading Pilgrim's Process. We are working our way through it slowly, talking about the journey that is taking place. I want my children to really grasp what is happening to Pilgrim on his journey. I'm trying to point out the encounters to them to make sure that they are paying attention & capturing the meaning of the story. Here's the only pic that we took this week. They were reading & dad snapped the pic.

     A bit of Home EC. skills were put in to practice this week as my DS helped me cook Chili for supper one night and my DD helped me cook a Key-lime pie another. We are squeezing in cooking skills all along our homeschool journey. I told them I'm expecting to have some great cooks when they get older, he he he.

     Other than a coupon trip outing & a bit of house work I think that about sums up our week. If you'd like to read more about other's week hop on over to Kris's blog & check out their Weekly Wrap-Ups. Everyone have a wonderful week!

Camping Again!

Ok, I told you guys I just didn't have it out of my system yet. We are back camping, yea! We went to a homecoming at a church about 5 hours from our house so we just decided to camp our way back home. How fun is that!
We did not bring any books other than writing materials for stories and nature journals for naturing. Oh, and our favorite, audio books. I'm the teacher so I suppose that will be ok, he he he.
Sorry I haven't gotten around to any of your blogs lately. I am planning on doing that while we are out this week. Hope all of you are having a wonderful year.

Working With Integers & Writing Compositions

     Today will be just a very short Wrap up of our week. We did a lot, but I have been busy so I don't have many picts this week.
     In math this week, we have continued on with working with integers. We found a couple of wonderful games on Homeschool Math, Integer Football & Integers Jeopardy. We haven't gotten to multiplying & dividing integers until next week, but thanks to these games my children are already beginning to understand the rule for multiplying & dividing them. They have played these games quite a bit this week. Due to playing these games, our math hasn't been all book work this week. Who said math had to be a long drawn out subject? As long as the concepts are being taught and the children are having fun, I say, "Let's play the games, etc."
     As for our english this week, Sarah & Matthew have been working on their Composition they are having to write for their Literature book.

We are reading Where The Red Fern Grows and will be finishing it up next week. I didn't want them to have to write a complete composition all in one day so we are working on it a little bit along as we are doing our reading.
     We are just working on how to write a basic composition. They have to write me an introduction paragraph, three body paragraphs (Each telling about a different event in the book, Charlotte Mason's narration), & a concluding paragraph. After writing their composition they will proof read it & edit it for our grammar.

Here's a pic of them working on their composition.


     This about wraps up our week. If you would like to read how others wrapped up their week, drop on over to Wierd Unsocialized blog and see who all has linked up with Kris sharing their week with us.
Everyone have a wonderful weekend!

Mental Discipline: Capturing Details

    As a family, we are all working together trying to focus on training our mind. We are trying to train our mind to capture every tiny detail in a passage as we are reading it. It is amazing how we all can read the same passage, but have such a different interpretation of it.
    Our training began when my children were much younger. In the beginning of our school journey, as we would read a passage of topic, I would stop constantly in the middle of the reading and ask my children questions about things I would want to make sure they had comprehended. By asking those questions I was hoping to train their minds to learn how to sift the material for the nuggets it held. I wanted them to capture detail. For instance, instead of a man who was a soldier that fought in a war, I wanted them to know he was a soldier who lived in Virginia that fought in the Revolutionary war in 1783 who was under George Washington's command, etc.
    It did not take many times of me doing this that my children realized what I was wanting them to focus on and could soon answer most questions that I presented to them. At their young age they would give me short choppy answers. As they grew older their answers took more form. They now can tell a passage back to me as if they were telling a story. This past year and in the up coming months, they have worked on and will be working on putting their narrations on paper.
    The Art of Narration is much more than just telling a story. First, it teach's the child to develop a listening skill, which is needful their entire life. Secondly, the child is learning public speaking that will aide the child in communication skills, another trait needful for life. Thirdly, as the child develop's motor skills using pen and paper he or she can take the nuggets they collect from a passage and put them on paper. This will begin to teach the child the writing process, again, another communication tool needful for life.
    These are steps I've seen developing and growing in my own children's lives. They came about all because of us trying to train our mind to sift and collect. Narration has been a process in our lives similar to panning for gold. Our mind hear's the passage, we sift it, and only keep the gold nuggets (the valuable things).
When a gold minor is sifting for gold, he is careful to watch his pan, searching for nuggets that shine. In training a mind to sift nuggets from a passage, we need to take on this same carefulness, listening to see if we can find the things that shine (things that are important) in the passage we are hearing/reading.
    Over the years, the sift and collect process has been my means of testing of my children's knowledge. We've read many passages/books and my children can still tell me information that we read several years back. I would have to say that if a child's mind is trained to sift and collect information and then narrate it back in their own words, whether it be verbal or in writing, it will cause the child to retain the knowledge. It has been a proven factor in our family's life. I am a firm believer in proved and tried situations.
    I would personally recommend Narration be a part of any child's life due to the benefits it could add to their future communication skills. Narration is an art that has to be worked on. It doesn't just develop over night, but it is well worth the work. Take the time after read alouds with your family to point out the plot of the passage, the setting of that passage, discuss the characters and their characteristics, talk about what is happening in the passage, point out descriptive (adjectives) words the author used, sayings a person may have spoken in the passage, etc. All of these things will teach you and your child to sift and collect information when you are reading or listening to a passage.

My Son's Developing Into A Writer

                I had spoken in an earlier post about how my lesson plans had gotten changed last week. My daughter had awakened one morning and wanted to write a narration on The Three Little Pigs. After beginning this lesson my children decided they wanted to just write their own version of The Three Little Pigs. I had another English lesson planned for them from our Writing Strands book. I am trying to follow Charlotte Mason’s methods as much as possible so when my daughter decided she wanted to do this, I dropped my plans and moved in to the new lesson.

                They have finished the lesson now so I am going to post their versions on here to share with everyone. Tell us what you think. I am putting my son’s on here first and my daughter’s will come in a day or so.

Gather your children around and enjoy The Three Little Pigs by Matthew.

The Three Little Pigs

    Once upon a time, in the small town of Pigsburg, there live three little pigs and a sow. The little pigs thought they were old enough to move out of their mother’s home. Their mother, the sow, agreed that it was about time they got their own home so she kissed her sons goodbye. They started packing their things. As soon as they were done packing, they left on their journey.

    The oldest pig, Ramses, traveled east. He met a man with some straw. Ramses ask kindly, "Sir, would you be so kind as to loan me some straw?" The man replied, "Gladly child." So Ramses took the straw and built his house in a small meadow. The next morning he took a basket he had woven before and went out to pick blueberries. When he got there he started stuffing the basket, but mostly he stuffed his face. Eventually, the basket was full.

    As he strolled home, he felt like he was being watched. Suddenly, he heard a twig snap. He moaned, "Who, whose there?" Then he heard a snarl. He truly was scared out of his wits. He ran shouting, "Ah! Help, save me!" As he screamed, a large dark figure leaped from the bushes. It was the wolf. Ramses made it into the house of straw. The wolf shouted angrily, "Let me in or I’ll huff and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house down." So he huffed and he puff, and he blew Ramses’ house down. Ramses ran to the sow’s house. He told his mother, "I saw a Wo, wo, wolf!" "I know my son, but your brothers don’t know about the wolf yet." The wolf, standing outside of the window, overheard the conversation. He thought to himself, "Brothers, this is why I must leave to catch and eat two more little pigs. One of them may get away, but the other one will not escape me." So the wolf ran back to the woods with much excitement.

 

    Buck and Little Joe had walked for quite some time in the woods. After a while Little Joe got tired and said, "Hey Buck, do you want to stop here and hit the sacks?" "No!" replied Buck. So Buck ran alone now. Little Joe happened to see a logging truck pass by. Fortunately, the truck turned the curve to fast and most of the wood fell off of the truck. So Little Joe collected the wood and built him a house.
    Then, he made supper. As he was eating he heard a voice say, "Oh may you let me in for a meal? I haven’t eaten in days." Not knowing what beast was behind it, he cracked the door open. The wolf tried to pounce in the door, but little Joe was too quick. He slammed the door in the wolf’s face. Instead of the wolf making it in, he was knocked out from the impact of his head hitting the door. By the time the wolf regained consciousness, little Joe was half way across the field. The wolf furiously chased after the pig. He lost the pig over a hill. The pig ran all the way to his mother’s house. As soon as he got there he told the sow about the wolf and how fast he had to run to escape the wolf’s incredibly large jaws.



      Although Ramses and Little Joe ran from the wolf, there is one pig that hasn’t been scared by the wolf. That pig was Buck. Buck had traveled to far from home to run to The Sow’s house. He had seen a man while he was traveling. The man had a wagon full of bricks. Buck said, "Dear sir, would you please give me that wagon of bricks to build a house, for I am ever so tired?" The sweating man replied, "Well, you can have it. I’ve pulled it so long. I’ve actually tried to sink the wagon in the river because it was such a heavy load. But the townsmen pulled it out with an ox. They pulled it out and told me I may need it later. But I don’t need these old bricks. So you can have them."

    So Buck built his house of bricks. Buck knew that the wolf could not blow down his house. As he was washing the dishes, he heard a snarl. It did not bother him for he knew his house was too strong for the wolf to blow down. The wolf blew and blew but the house wouldn’t budge. So the wolf said, "I’ll crawl down your chimney and eat you." The pig was very afraid. He put a pot of boiling water at the bottom of the chimney. The wolf fell in the pot and jumped all the way back up the chimney. The wolf said, "You are too smart for me so I will leave you alone." And the pigs all lived happily ever after.

The End

Weekly Rap Up

Our week was thrown off coarse a bit, but we still accomplished much. Let's see, my daughter reinforced her home management skills by rearranging her bedroom and cleaning it, washed, dried, and put away her clothes,and served us breakfast two mornings. One morning she cooked us some delicious strawberry cheesecake muffins and another morning she cooked and served us with tasty blueberry muffins. (Wonderful job Sarah Grace) My son also rearranged his room and cleaned it and washed, dried, and put away his clothes. (Washing their clothes is not part of their normal chores, but I do require them to do this every now and then to be sure that they could do it if in a place that they would have to.) We did two math lessons, two Simply Grammar lessons, a Proof Reading and Editing lesson,read from The Bronze Bow and The Greatest Story Ever Told, began a nature essay using our cameras to capture the nature photos that will be in the essay, did four geography lessons, worked on two Physics lessons, and for our grand finale we read, narrated, and rewrote our own version of The Three Little Pigs.
I feel like we had a productive week. I plan to put my children's Three Little Pigs stories on my blog one day next week, Lord's willing. Other than a park day with our local home school group, I think that was our week.
It's late and I have church in the morning so I'll post more later. Until next time, Happy homeschooling.

Feeding the Appetite of my Child or Lesson Plans

Does anyone else have the same problem I do, lesson plans getting changed from day to day? It does not matter how much time I dedicate to sitting down and writing out my lesson plans, they always get changed, regularly.
Beings we are under a Homeschool Covering we have to have our school year finished up in May. I have several things I am wanting to finish up by then. My daughter must have other plans for us. Last night she pulled one of our volumes of our Junior Classics books off of the bookshelf in my bedroom and began reading the Three Little Pigs. Today she wakes up and decides she wants us to read the tale, draw pictures of the characters, write out character discriptions, and write an essay/narration on it. What do I do? We are working on her plans as I am typing, but I am trying to decide how will I fit everything I am wanting to accomplish by the end of this year in if I let my children's appetites be fed and do the things they are wanting to do. I don't want to discourage them from exploring in their own ideas. Help! Anyone else faced with this?
I suppose I should drop back over at See Jamie's Blog. and reread the post on how we don't always get to accomplish our goals We are schooling and they are learning so we'll just keep sailing along. The curriculum books I am using can not drive us.
Can you tell I am trying to convince myself that it doesn't matter if we don't get everything done?? I am the type that I like to make my plans and watch them vanish away as we do them each day. When I don't see my lesson plans moving, I question our schooling.
Not only are we working on an English/Literature lesson of the Three Little Pigs now, but we also like Tatiana's spring essay project over at World Star Academy.so we have decided to do that also. My plans, my plans, my plans are falling further and further behind. There's just too much freedom in homeschooling. Thank God for that freedom though that we can teach them according to His & our plans & not someone forcing certain curriculums on us. As David said in the Bible, "Sometimes we just have to encourage ourselves." (paraphrased) I am feeling better about this change already. Until next time, everyone have a happy homeschooling

A Change in the Weather

Brr, I don't know what has happened to all of that beautiful weather I was enjoying last week. Today, it is cold and cloudy. You know I am from the south when I say it is cold at 58 degrees outside. The wind is blowing so it feels colder than that.
Not much schooling is going on around our house today. I have been a bit under the weather & just haven't felt like bringing the books out. Maybe my children will take it upon themselves and do some school work later on today. I do have my children typing their Writing Strands story they did last week for Creative Writing on their blogs today. I am trying to encourage my children to keep their blogs updated. I want to use them as another means of writing. The old saying, "Practice makes perfect," That is what I am aiming for with my children's writings.
My children are using Writing Strands as a prompter for story ideas. I know we can use our other studies to narrate back from, but my son needs a little nudging in his writing so we use Writing Strands to motivate his mind. He just has to have a boost. I've seen much improvement in his writing so I am looking for the day that the writer is going to come out. I'm waiting, I know it will come in due time. I'll just keep spoon feeding him wholesome books to eat from and it will digest eventually.
For the most part we follow the Charlotte Mason style of education, but sometimes we have to tweak her methods a bit to fit our needs. Again, that is the beauty of homeschooling. As our child's teacher, we can determine the speed of our child's learning. If we see there is a problem in an area we can spend more time there. When our child is gobbling up the material we place before him or her we can zoom on to new information.
Happy homeschooling everyone. Until next time, Traci

Giving My Daughter Deserved Praise

Today has been a beautiful day. The weather has been great, our schooling has moved quickly, and we've eaten our dinner and the kitchen is already cleaned for the night. We may learn to balance this homeschool/home life routine out after all.
Beings all other needful things have already been accomplished this day I thought I'd blog a minute about my daughter.
I have seen so many improvements in her education this year. She has always been an excellent reader and always kept a pencil or pen in her hand, but when it came to History, Geography, and Science that was a different story.
We are working out of a Geography work book this semester called World Geography Grade 6 by Brighter Child. It is a pretty basic book that has the children labeling, coloring, answering a few questions, and some cutting and glueing, but it has really helped my daughter. She now can break her continents and oceans up in to hemispheres. I know that doesn't sound like a great accomplishment, but coming from my daughter she deserves a round of applause. I'm looking forward to evaluating her at the end of the year, just to see how much more she has learned.
Like I have said many times on here already, learning to write was going to be our main focal point this year. We have pushed that tremendously.
Again, I have seen accomplishment in my daughter. In the past she did keep a pen or pencil in her hand, but it was just for drawing or very unorganized writing. Yesterday, my children had to write a paper giving instructions to a substitute teacher that would fill in for them while they were out of pocket. My daughter pretended she was a guide dog instructor so she wrote her paper giving her substitute instructions on how they were to train and feed the dogs while she was out. She opened her paper with a strong topic sentence and give instructions for the training of two dogs. Both sets of instructions were put in to a different paragraph and then she closed her instructions out very clearly with a a closing paragraph. Her paper was great! I feel confident by the end of the year she will be a fluent writer.
I am so proud of my baby. She is turning in to a fine young lady. She helps me cook quite often and is starting to help with the laundry with out having to be asked. She's growing up.
Until next time, everyone have a happy homeschooling, and enjoy your babies. They grow up too fast. Traci

Highlights of the Week

                I just thought I’d drop in a post with a few highlights of our week just to show a little of my children’s work. Not anything tremendous, just a peek at some of the things that we are doing.
               The first peek will be at my children’s nature pages they did yesterday with our Parables From  Nature story.

                This first picture is the one my DD did. She has artistic ability, when she sets her mind to do so. She’s not always in that mood. In this picture I can tell she didn’t give her full potential. We all have days like that though so I don’t suppose I can say anything.

                                                                              

                The next picture is my DS’s picture. He has art ability, but has to be pressed for it to come out. Sometimes, if we have time, I will press him just so I can obtain an improved piece of work for his notebook.

                 Sometimes my DS has a lackadaisical attitude towards things. If he’s not enthused with the work I’ve placed before him he’ll tend to be a bit dreamy over his work. I will have to call his mind back to school because he has done let it roam to another world. My son has high potential in many areas, but only allows the light to shine on them when he desires.

                The last highlight for this week is my DD’s writing assignment for the week. She put forth more effort towards this assignment than she normally does. Her rough draft sounded a bit on a low level, (not rich sounding like the books we read were her words), so she took it upon herself to take out the thesaurus & advance the vocabulary she had chosen the first time.

                 I hope she recognized the smile that her final draft brought to my face when she read it to me. It was unbeknown to me that she had used the thesaurus to rewrite her rough draft. I was overjoyed with the new piece of work she presented to me.

                Writing is our main focal point this year so only you other homeschool moms/dads can imagine the excitement I felt, knowing she was trying to put forth such great efforts to make an accomplishment. I was delighted in her work.

                I am delighted in my child, but I know the greatest delight comes in my heavenly Father. Without him none of these accomplishments would have been made. He gets the glory for it all. Praise to his name!
Traci

Productive Week

   Our week has been hectic, but productive. We have used a variety of curriculum this week to make accomplishments in several areas. Before this year is up I want to see my children writing without having to be pushed along. Therefore, we are currently using four different books to make this happen. We rotate the books to add spice in our English/Creative Writing. The books we are using are: Simply Grammar, Writing Strands, Spectrum Writing Grade 6, and Proof Reading and Editing Grade 7. This variety is teaching them to focus on diferent aspects as they are doing their narrations. Their writing has come along tremendously since August. I'm proud of them.
    
We have also been easing in to book reports, learning about plot, setting, characters, etc. I had gotten a book called Tall Tales that has some really neat, but basic, exercises using things like The Three Little Pigs, Goldie Locks, and some other short stories showing you how to detect the plot, setting... It has proven to be helpful as I used some of the sheets out of it for them to play around with on the book Pygmalion that we read for Literature last 9 weeks. They disected the book very well. So well, I would say they digested that book. We also watched and did a comparison of the two movies, Pygmalion and My Fair Lady, which was like a musical to Pygmalion. (Had I known how much profanity was in My Fair Lady, we would not have watched it.)     When we started back last week with our schooling, we added some variety to our math. We have used A Beka for years, but I decided I wanted more hands on so we added Math in the Community 4th grade by Frank Schaffer. I like this book and my children are enjoying the few lessons we have done out of it. The book is laid out to where you can jump around in the book to pick and choose what you want to cover. I had been wanting to teach my children Area & Perimeter so we just eased over to that section and have started learning the basics to it. Next week we are going to be using dad's measuring tape to find the Area & Perimeter of our living room, bath room, garage, etc. There are so many hands on activities in this book. It's really going to make math more practical for my children. I will be checking in to the higher levels to Frank Schaffer's math books. The lessons are also short, Charlotte Mason style.
     We had other subjects we worked on this week, but this post is growing by the word so I'll put another post in later on some of them. Hope you all are having a blessed homeschooling, Traci

We Interrupt Our Schooling

My nephew started attending a private school last year. He was in the 10th grade. Before he came to school on the first day he was informed he had to do a book report to turn in the first day of school. We thought it was some type of entrance exam because of it being his first year attending the school. We find out that they give their students a book report every year a few weeks before school starts. Due to that, our schooling was interrupted.




My nephew came over this morning and we have been reading the book "The Crucible" by Arthor Miller. It is a play written about the Salem Witch Trials. My children and I haven't covered this part of history very much so we decided to read and discuss the play with him. We have talked about the Salem Witch Trials just a bit, but not anything like this play goes in to detail with it. The play its self was pretty good. I just didn't like the occasional curse word here and there. It was a little meaty for my 9 and 10 year old, but not anything they didn't comprehend so I think we'll be ok. We are going to write a narration/book report on it also. I guess our school work wasn't exactly interrupted, just a change of lesson plans. I think it stirred up the researcher in my DC because they act like they want to research further in to the Salem Witch Trials now. Charlotte Mason said we should let our children's interest lead us into a world of study so I guess as long as we are grasping new information we'll just keep traveling on through the atmosphere of education.



We have swimming tomorrow with another home school family so we'll get back to our normal lesson plans on Monday. Until the next post, bless you all, Traci