Wednesday, March 7, 2012

School Days




We have been doing school around here, if any one is wondering!
HISTORY
We just finished up a couple of weeks on Vikings and we are deep into the Middle Ages now. I have decided to deviate from our curriculum for the next couple of weeks and use a few activity books on the Middle Ages that I've picked up here and there. I wanted to slow it down and spend more time on different projects from these books. The list of history reading over the next few weeks looked a little daunting for each day--I think we'll all be happier taking it a bit slower, although we may be doing history until July this year!!!! And I am cutting out all vocab and art lessons right now. Just too much! Oh, and we just aren't ready for the reproductive discussion in science right now, so we are doing a couple weeks on nutrition before transitioning to Space. I have one child very curious to "learn about babies", so I will have a private discussion with that one to quench the curiousity there. :)
We are plugging along with Spelling, Reading, English and Math for everyone.
MATH
My mother-in-law gave me a big stack of "the daily half-dozen" for 5th graders, and I feel like that is really helping Zeke get in some repetition on the basics--adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, fractions. I really like this addition and it is super quick for him to do, so not much complaining! I had to purchase a bunch of work books for Eli since he was doing all his school work for the entire day in about...20 minutes! I think some of the books I selected offer new challenges for him. They are mostly FlashKids workbooks and a Kumon workbook.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE
I am also trying to be more consistent with Zeke and Eli on Rosetta Stone Spanish. Abby has given up for now; she has some speech issues that make it very difficult for her to pronounce the spanish correctly enough for the program to accept it. She winds up in tears almost every time she tries it. I have not played around enough yet with her course to find one that fits for her.
EXTRAS
Our co-op is in full-swing right now. I am only helping out with one class right now, but have some good ideas for classes I'd like to teach for next year! We have 3 more weeks of a homeschool gym class and 2 more art classes for Abby and Eli. Abby gets to start gymnastics up again this week after recovering from her broken arm. She is excited! Zeke and Eli are also enjoying their Upward basketball seasons.

7 comments:

  1. I'm glad you're a little ahead of us in history. I will look ahead to see what we might alter as well. Some of the readings are long and difficult, especially for younger children. We are reading about the Vikings right now.

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  2. I just caught up on your blog. Sounds like you were pretty frustrated with some of the readings. Is it mainly the Trial and Triumph book? I just cut out things I don't like or don't think my kids can handle. Hope you find a good balance!

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  3. I forgot to comment on the manuscripts of the Psalm. Very nice! We haven't done ours yet. Hoping to tomorrow.

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  4. We've read some of the Trial and Triumph book. Most of the Caesar book was good but parts of it were rough for us. I learned to skim over or even skip parts of it and supplemented with simplified information I found on the internet. Once we got through that book, we've done pretty well with history readings.

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  5. Well, my sons did NOT like the project very much, but my daughter loved it. And I know you can't tell from the picture, but I had them do the 1 Corinthians verses that we're memorizing instead of the Psalm...

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  6. Thanks for commenting1 It is always fun to see others who are doing the same work as you are--to know you aren't the only one out there doing this stuff!

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  7. I appreciate comments, too. And I love to see what others are doing, especially those doing the same curriculum.

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