Week 18, CtG

In Bible time the past couple of weeks, we have been memorizing Psalm 23. When I saw this verse in our curriculum, I was so glad because Abby had been memorizing it as her personal Scripture this year. Every day that we add a verse to our handwriting, she is inspired to draw a picture of the verse. I loved this picture of the table being prepared for us before our enemies. I love Abby's beautiful heart!

Another source of inspiration for everyone this week was the end of Treasures of the Snow. Because the kids were so into the story, we finished it a week ahead even while starting it behind in the curriculum. The day we finished the story, everyone drew a picture of their most memorable point of the story. Very cute! That night at bedtime, Eli said, " I wonder what the Hittite Warrior will be like." The Hittite Warrior was suggested in the back of the curriculum for these weeks and I'm going to try to squeeze it in as a read-aloud. I see there is quite a bit of reading coming up, though, so we'll see how it goes! I think I'm reading it for as much my interest and benefit as theirs!



And here is a sample of what Micah does while we are doing all of our reading:

We had to skip all of our art lessons this week because we were supposed to go outside and draw a flower...not possible! I was going to buy some flowers so they could look at one and draw it, but kept forgetting and now the week is done.

Other than that, everything else was run of the mill. Zeke got to start up his Spanish lessons again today, which he was excited for.

Happy 2nd Birthday to our cousin across the country!

Psalm 23
A psalm of David.
1 The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

School Review

In our Creation to the Greeks curriculum, we are having a really great time this year reading through Genesis, although I do have to edit out quite a bit of material :) They know that when I have them shut their Bibles so they can't read along with me that it is something inappropriate for children to read! Today, we were discussing Jacob's twelve sons and filling out a sheet for their history notebooks on all the sons...Zeke noticed that along with the two wives of Jacob, two servants were also listed as moms! We did not focus our attention there, however! We have been learning a lot about Egyptian art over the last week, and this year, will turn our attention to Egyptian homes and home life. Aren't these pictures amazing, by Eli and Abby?! I have been tempted on many occasions to cut out the art portion of the curriculum, but I am glad that I have kept at it. However, we have been failing miserably with Vivaldi!!!


And this is Zeke's tomb painting.
In other subjects, Zeke is stellar at fractions! We've been focusing on mixed numbers for the last few lessons. He is, however, less than stellar at his English this year. The writing is actually going ok, but the grammar lessons are more of a challenge for him than they ever have been! I'm not exactly sure what is going on...we have decided to give him an extra English sheet as homework every night. He was not happy about this at first, but now that he sees that it is really not that much work, he has a good attitude about it. He also gets some math problems every night.

Abby is doing just fine in everything. She has been less than excited when we have a coloring sheet for our history notebooks, which I find very odd. She will sit and color many other things all day long...but balks at these sheets, for some reason. I could probably be pushing her a little more in math, she only does 2 sheets a day from the Beta Math U See book. I could add some drill work for her and that would probably be good.

Eli is flying through math; I still haven't found one thing to be challenging for him...sigh...a good problem to have, I know. He sits and reads SO MUCH when I am busy instructing the other kids. I'm trying to be better at fitting in our Five In A Row lessons. This week, my goal is to make an apple pie with him! He has been getting a little too much negative attention lately and needs some positive!

Micah is still loving any school work I have for him. He hates his naps, which he reminds me very loudly and says that the other kids "get to do so much more fun school and I get to do nothing". I don't agree :) I wish I would remember to pull out the play-doh more often for him, though. We did play with FLOAM one day, and he insisted that this hanging lantern was actually a birthday hat.

Awesome Field Trip!

We took a field trip to U of M's Museum of Archaeology last week, which my grandma has been asking me to do for about a year now! It was so perfect! It is not too huge and overwhelming, but they had a great collection of things from ancient Egypt and the Mesopotamia area...it was fun to see and read about things and actually know what some of the things mean!!!! I plan on going back when we are studying ancient Greece at the end of the year, and then next year for ancient Rome. They had a great little gift shop where I picked up a kit to make your own papyrus! And they have "Civilizations in a Box" that you can rent from the museum for $20 for 2 weeks. I got to see an example of one...it comes with lots of books, artifacts, videos...I might get one for Greece or Rome ( I do NOT need anything more for Egypt!).



Eli recognized the cartouche in this display and the kids were remembering what some of the hieroglyphs stood for...

Creation to the Greeks wk 4.5

Well, I stand to be corrected! I have been finding PLENTY of projects to do for Ancient Egypt. Not a surprise, I know. I have gotten some books from the library (based off of the book list in the back of the TM) that have some nice ideas for projects as well as the curriculum's Ancient Egypt book (I can usually find the same projects with simpler directions and steps in other sources). This past week, we worked on a model of the Nile River, which is finally dry and just waiting for some paint :) And we attempted to make a reed boat using directions from a library book. We also made a model of a succah, since I was not up for constructing an actual structure in our backyard (although we are having such beautiful Indian summer weather here, I kind of wish we had so we could be eating lunches outside under a succah structure!!!). The kids have REALLY enjoyed learning the books of the Old Testament and Micah is often wandering around the house singing the song '...Numbers, Dueteronomy..." We used the song off of Wee Sing Bible Songs.

We are plugging along in our core subjects too. Here is Micah working on his letter "E" this week. Eli completed book 3 of the SSRW Raceway book this week. Zeke conquered two-digit multiplication rather quickly, although he still needs lots of drill work. He just needs to be quicker at his basic facts. Abby was introduced to regrouping in math and caught on quickly.



We continue to enjoy our experience at co-op. The most stressful part is trying to reach all 3 of my younger children in time to transition from first to second hour classes. But, thanks to the help of another mom, I think I can manage it easier now without finding Abby crying in the bathroom!


This week are studying mummies and pyramids, discussing the meaning of Sukkoth (we are a little off-schedule with the weeks in the curriculum...), beginning fractions (Zeke), cursive writing (Abby), getting our teeth cleaned, and celebrating birthdays this weekend!

Hope you all have a good week!

Weekly Wrap-Up

We had a pretty good week of school. In regards to my last post, I think I am just going to add a few extra Egypt projects of our own. I think I need to be fully immersed in a topic to feel like I did it justice! And I have been waiting to study this period of history for a couple years, so I have been so excited about it...I just need to do a few things of my own! Since we had 2 half days this week, we need to push most of our history assignments back a week anyway, so I will have plenty of room to add in a few projects. We'll see how it goes!

Zeke wrote a personal narrative, which you can read here. He also began two-digit multiplication, which he picked up very fast. It is nice to see him grasp things so quickly because he is building on a good foundation.

Abby also wrote her first paper, and starting regrouping in math. She had a day of intense character training as well :)

Eli continues to plow through his kindergarten math and the first grade English curriculum! I'm not slowing him down! He started counting by tens and adding tens this week. Onto something else next week!

Micah is still enjoying his preschool activities...seems to have a bit of trouble recognizing his letters when I point to them, and we only have A, B, C, and D on his board...I'm not sure if he really doesn't know them, or is trying to be funny...he truly is a clown...Anyway, this week he worked on writing D's, and we made donuts one day for a snack. Fun! Oh, and I did hear him utter "biblos" once when he was playing. This is one of our Greek words we learned in vocabulary a few weeks ago!

Here we are coloring our notebook sheets, dressing up in some Egyptian costumes (Although I can't convince anyone to be a pharoah or Egyptian queen for Halloween, darn!), learning about Upper and Lower Egypt, and how sound the structure of a pyramid is.

A New Year

I don't know what happened to me over the summer...it is obvious to me now more than ever, though, that I THRIVE on a schedule and am a complete mess without one! The start of school returned my nice, organized, and controlled life :) Hurray! Whew. Summer's done. Lots of fun, swimming, sun, friends and family. It was nice for 3 months, but I can't live like that all the time!

Anyways, we started school the day after labor day and it went pretty well. The biggest disappointment was that everything was WAY too easy for Eli and he was crushed when he found out that his new math book was very basic and he already knew how to do everything I had planned for him that entire MONTH. So, we went ahead the next day and skipped to chapter 10! And after this week, I see that we are going to finish his entire kindergarten book in about a month. Steve predicted that Eli would be at the same math level as Abby, and biting Zeke's heels in a couple of years. How do you challenge a kindergartener like this? He can read so well, but is still at kindergarten level for writing/fine motor skills...I'm just going to fly through as much math as I can this year, and maybe at the end of the year, he will be in the second grade book already! Zeke and Abby are doing well in everything. We've spent a lot of time drilling multiplication facts and refreshing our division skills with Zeke while forging ahead in his 4th grade math curriculum. I totally slacked off this summer with them, but he's back up to speed in just two weeks. We had a few tears this week as he tried to remember how to write a summary for his history notebook--having to write in complete sentences, and not start all 6 six sentences with "They" and end with "too". But again, the very next day he produced a summary leaps and bound better with no tears! No permanent damage, I think! Abby dove right into learning inequalities and rounding. She's doing great in her new English curriculum. Listening to her read has been a hoot! This girls' mind moves so fast, it is just so obvious when you listen to her read out loud! She skips so many small words, entire lines of text, changes words...yet, at the end, she can give you a spot-on summary!!!!! Micah is a true joy this year. He is loving any "school" that I do with him. We are doing a letter a week and he has fun trying to write his letters, coloring his letter sheets, cutting and gluing, and just sitting at his desk collecting paper upon paper. I am seeing many challenges to face this year, but great growth in all of their minds and maturity. We are looking forward to a great year!

We are joining a co-op this year, something I've never tried before...it starts next week, so I will let you know how it goes! I have mixed feelings, but hope it will be good for all of us.

I have visited some of your blogs after being absent all summer and am looking forward to keeping updated again. So many of your blogs are encouraging and interesting! Thanks for sharing!

Abby was inspired to draw the picture at the top of the entry after we had a real, authentic Jewish Sabbath Feast last Friday night. It was so much fun!

Here we are measuring the approximate length of Noah's Ark:

Our first day of school and our newly designed school room!