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
Showing posts with label Writing Strands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing Strands. Show all posts
Monday, March 28, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
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 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
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Weekly Wrap Up
Our week finished out pretty well. Our schedule was changed up a bit, but we are ok with that. I just pushed our lesson plans to the side and we studied/fun stuff on Johnny Appleseed. We didn't finish our lesson in Simply Grammar & Writing Strands this week. I'm not worried about that though. We are just taking our time letting God lead us as fast as we should go. We'll pick back up on them this coming week. I can already see a difference in my son's writing skills since we started using Writing Strands. I think Writing Strands is going to be a hit for him. My daughter already writes stories so I think Writing Strands is going to just be a booster for her. I'm excited to see the result at the end of this year with my son's writing.
I think we will start the morning tomorrow off by baking a homemade apple pie to wrap up Johnny Appleseed. I can't think of a better way to wrap up one of our studies than with a taste test. It is also my husband's birthday so we can substitute the apple pie for a birthday cake. I know my husband will love that because he love's apple pie.
It's getting late soI had better go for now. Hope everyone has a blessed and happy home school week, Traci
I think we will start the morning tomorrow off by baking a homemade apple pie to wrap up Johnny Appleseed. I can't think of a better way to wrap up one of our studies than with a taste test. It is also my husband's birthday so we can substitute the apple pie for a birthday cake. I know my husband will love that because he love's apple pie.
It's getting late soI had better go for now. Hope everyone has a blessed and happy home school week, Traci
Monday, September 13, 2010
Making Memories
Well, we survived our wee getting back in to the groove of things. We didn't do all the subjects we try to cover n school, but we did make some accomplishments. We managed to get a few Math lessons in, along with a few chapters in our Literature selection, Narration (for one child), Copy Work (for the other child), & Writing Strands (one child) & Simply Grammar (the other child). That was enough for me to say we made progress.
I suppose we just haven't gotten school work completely on our mind. Today we started our school work and then soon turned in to a restaurant. My daughter jumped right on board with helping me make home made chicken noodle soup that soon turned our table in to a restaurant area for her dad and brother to sit at with glasses of water with appetizers while awaiting their food arrival. She pulled out my soup bowl set, the cloth napkins, etc. She also had the candles and the soft music. She had everything real nice and we had our family lunch. It was lovely. I told them that our little restaurant meal was great, even down to the best music in the background (gospel). We couldn't have had a better time out somewhere. My daughter did a fabulous job serving and all. She gets an "A" in Home EC. for the day.
Time for me to go, we are off to bowl for the night. We bowl some for part of our P.E. So got to get dressed to go. Hope you all have a BLESSED and HAPPY home schooling week. Traci
I suppose we just haven't gotten school work completely on our mind. Today we started our school work and then soon turned in to a restaurant. My daughter jumped right on board with helping me make home made chicken noodle soup that soon turned our table in to a restaurant area for her dad and brother to sit at with glasses of water with appetizers while awaiting their food arrival. She pulled out my soup bowl set, the cloth napkins, etc. She also had the candles and the soft music. She had everything real nice and we had our family lunch. It was lovely. I told them that our little restaurant meal was great, even down to the best music in the background (gospel). We couldn't have had a better time out somewhere. My daughter did a fabulous job serving and all. She gets an "A" in Home EC. for the day.
Time for me to go, we are off to bowl for the night. We bowl some for part of our P.E. So got to get dressed to go. Hope you all have a BLESSED and HAPPY home schooling week. Traci
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Weekly Wrap Up
Our week has been a great week. My children have been exceptionally good students for the beginning of our new school year, (We'll see if that lasts for the year). My son wanted to lag around once or twice, but he soon got with the program and things moved on along. If they work the rest of our year like they have worked this week I will be one happy Mamma.
I started my daughter this week in the Simply Grammar & my son in Writing Strands 3. Both seemed to have enjoyed their lesson. Next week we will switch the books around and they will work out of the opposite book from what they were working with this week. This will give them both an opportunity to learn grammar and increase their writing skills. I'm not real sure if this is more Grammar & Composition than what Charlotte Mason would have her students to do in one year, but I feel like my children are ready for this. So we will just take our time working through the books and if it becomes too much of a load then we'll change our game plan.
I suppose I should blog about the highlight (or what my son would probably say was the highlight) of our week was. Our poet this term is Carl Sandburg. We are reading a biography on him,reading some of his poems, and Memmorizing one of them for recitation,along with analyzing that particular poem. When I say analyze, I mean we read it very carefully and then each of us give our interpretation of it. Then we look to see if there are any words that we aren't quite sure of the meaning. If so, we turn our papers over and write the word on the back of our poem. On another day we come back to those words and look them up in the dictionary. We then read the poem again and discuss it since we've found out more insight on it. By this time we all are beginning to have a better understanding of what the poet was trying to portray. We are starting to recognize how he/she might have been feeling, noticing their surroundings, etc. I feel like that gives them a general idea of what the poem is about.
Anyway, enough about how we do our poetry study, let me get back to my son's highlight of the week. If he doesn't learn anythingg about the poet, the poem, any definitions, etc. I'm sure he can tell me how to call pigs to the feed trough. In our biography it told how Carl Sandburg kept calling his cousins pigs to the feed trough just because he thought it was funny. He thought it was funny because he didn't have any food when he was calling them. It just told how the pigs kept coming and running, their tongues hanging out from exhaustion, but because he thought it was a funny sight he just kept on and on. I suppose my son could picture this in his mind because every time he would try to read again he would start chuckling all over again. I'm sure he learned how to call pigs this week. I can make a notation, he has learned something else.
Oh my, I'm rambling on and on, you are home school Mammas. You have more to do than staying here reading my novel. So I'll go for now. More musings later. Have a happy home school week!
I started my daughter this week in the Simply Grammar & my son in Writing Strands 3. Both seemed to have enjoyed their lesson. Next week we will switch the books around and they will work out of the opposite book from what they were working with this week. This will give them both an opportunity to learn grammar and increase their writing skills. I'm not real sure if this is more Grammar & Composition than what Charlotte Mason would have her students to do in one year, but I feel like my children are ready for this. So we will just take our time working through the books and if it becomes too much of a load then we'll change our game plan.
I suppose I should blog about the highlight (or what my son would probably say was the highlight) of our week was. Our poet this term is Carl Sandburg. We are reading a biography on him,reading some of his poems, and Memmorizing one of them for recitation,along with analyzing that particular poem. When I say analyze, I mean we read it very carefully and then each of us give our interpretation of it. Then we look to see if there are any words that we aren't quite sure of the meaning. If so, we turn our papers over and write the word on the back of our poem. On another day we come back to those words and look them up in the dictionary. We then read the poem again and discuss it since we've found out more insight on it. By this time we all are beginning to have a better understanding of what the poet was trying to portray. We are starting to recognize how he/she might have been feeling, noticing their surroundings, etc. I feel like that gives them a general idea of what the poem is about.
Anyway, enough about how we do our poetry study, let me get back to my son's highlight of the week. If he doesn't learn anythingg about the poet, the poem, any definitions, etc. I'm sure he can tell me how to call pigs to the feed trough. In our biography it told how Carl Sandburg kept calling his cousins pigs to the feed trough just because he thought it was funny. He thought it was funny because he didn't have any food when he was calling them. It just told how the pigs kept coming and running, their tongues hanging out from exhaustion, but because he thought it was a funny sight he just kept on and on. I suppose my son could picture this in his mind because every time he would try to read again he would start chuckling all over again. I'm sure he learned how to call pigs this week. I can make a notation, he has learned something else.
Oh my, I'm rambling on and on, you are home school Mammas. You have more to do than staying here reading my novel. So I'll go for now. More musings later. Have a happy home school week!
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