January Update

Here's a look at what we've been doing!

Eating BIG breakfasts!




Losing Teeth!
Working hard at our piano lessons.

Starting art classes

Attending tea parties (well, just one...) with American Girl Dolls

Healing one injury, only to add another one....

Lots of science...

Having the time of our (10 year old) life at our first middle school retreat!

And other random things...

Roman Feast

Welcome (back) to Rome...

We held our Roman Feast tonight and had a very fun time. Technically, it was supposed to be at the end of last week, but it worked out just fine fitting it in today. It was great to show daddy all that we have been learning about Rome, the Romans verses we memorized, piano songs the kids have been practicing

Here we are in our Togas...

Hailing Caesar

Welcome to the Triclinium...
Lounging in the Triclinium...


And entertaining...
Another view of the Triclinium :)
Abby sips some wine (aka sparking grape juice)
Dessert Platter...

Extra Roman Notebooking project....

No, I did not allow bones to be thrown on our living room floor, but we decorated the floor to be in the spirit :)

If you are curious, here was our menu, and I was able to get everything together in 45 minutes after school, before feast time began, at 4. I made the hard-boiled eggs in the morning and threw the chicken in the oven at 2, salad was already made the day before too.

First Course:

Salad

Hard-Boiled eggs

Grapes

Artichokes and Hearts of Palm, assorted Olives

Main Course:

Whole Roasted chicken

Green Beans

Crescent Rolls (just comfort food for the kids)

Dessert:

Fig Newtons

Fruit tray (grapes, strawberries, kiwi, mango, pineapple, pomegranate)

From Founding to the Fall ... of Rome

Since I did not do much blogging at the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year, I thought I would lump a whole lot of review of Rome to the Reformation all together! I know I always appreciate seeing the work other homeschooling families are doing--knowing that I'm not alone, that there ARE others out there doing the same thing I am, especially with the same curriculum! It is so re-assuring for me; I hope these pictures and homeschooling posts are helpful to others as well!

NOTEBOOKS:

Sometimes, I completely forget about the notebook component of My Father's World curricula! Luckily, they provide some sheets for us to include in our notebooks, but I often find myself wishing after the fact that I had had the kids draw a picture of a certain topic for their notebooks, or feeling like we need to write an extra summary of a topic for it to really sink in...This year, I'm trying to remember their notebooks more often and grab the random times an idea for a notebook page flits through my mind. These are a few samples from our notebooks. They include history pages, map work, Bible time pages...the sample pages are produced by either a 5th grader, 3rd grader, or 1st grader...

ART: sample lesson pages from God and the History of Art

SCIENCE:

My 3rd and 1st grader are going through the Body Book and the Human Body for Every Kid while my 5th grader is doing the Apologia Human Anatomy textbook and notebook (he had done the Body Book in a co-op class last year)

These are our digestive models we designed this week:

And of course, we all have the totally random things we through in, like this trip to see the Animal Guy, where we got to see and touch a 3-banded armadillo, a 300+ lb python, a fruit bat, a chinchilla, a baby female king vulture, scorpions, and a kinkachu :)

And of course, we are plugging along with English and Math for everyone! I'm thinking about a big change for next year: seperate curriculum for everyone! I've never done this, but I feel like my youngest really needs his own thing and I need it all laid out for me so I can just pick up the TM and go....I already know that my 4th and 2nd grader will be doing Adventures in my Father's World while I continue on the 5 year cycle with my 6th grader, maybe overlapping a little for my 4th grader....looking forward to planning for that already!