Week 2

This week we're finally starting to get back into the swing of things and back to a routine. We still have not started any math, Sis' spelling, or Boo's Language for the year. I'm slowly adding new subjects one at a time. I'm a little concerned because without those subjects, we're already having full school days. A typical school day for us begins around 10 am and ends around 3pm including lunch and breaks. I might have to do some adjusting in order to fit it all in, since math will prob take a good part of our mornings.

History: Sis and I started reading a good book together this week to go along with her history studies. It's called the Golden Bull. It's a story about two young kids in ancient Mesopotamia and the Biblical city of Ur. So far it's been really exciting and keeps us wanting to read more. One thing I have to say is that every school year we get all of these read-alouds. I usually take one look at the cover and think..ugh that looks long and boring, but we always end up loving these stories. They are always filled with history (real living books, no fluff) yet they are thrilling stories that keep our interest. I love that Heart of Dakota always picks excellent books for me to read to Sis that I would have never chosen for her on my own.

Here is some of Sis's written work this week in her history journal. Her journal includes copy work, a narration of text that she read, a timeline, bible verses, and this week she did a family tree of the 10 generations after Noah.























Boo learned about Christopher Columbus in US History this week. she made a picture of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria with construction paper. We read all about Columbus and added his picture to our timeline. Boo did some copy-work and colored a picture of a ship. We're working on neat handwriting and grammar (like capital letters and punctuation.)

 

 Boo and I also started her read aloud history books. We are reading stories from American Pioneers and Patriots.

Science: We are learning about light for the first day of Creation in our Science In the Beginning book. All 4 of us are doing science together this year. This week we learned that white light is actually made up of all the colors of the rainbow. When we see a rainbow in the sky we are actually seeing the colors of the white light from the sun being separated. For our experiment we looked at a flame from a candle through a CD, which has the ability to separate the colors. The reflection of the flame showed up in all the colors of the rainbow. It was actually really cool looking. Boo also learned the order of the colors of the rainbow.

Bible: Sis is studying the book of Genesis right now and learning memory verses. Boo began making her "Names of Jesus" poster. Each week we will be learning a different named used for Jesus in the Bible and adding it to our poster. This week we started by learning what the name Jesus means "The Lord Saves," and that the angel told Joseph that they were to name the baby Jesus.

Art/ Poetry: Our Robert Frost poem this week was called "The Pasture." The girl's painted a pasture spring with twigs sticking up.

Other than that Boo only missed one word on her first spelling test ever!! I'm so proud of her. Also, I didn't take a lot of pictures of Baby Bear but she had fun painting with us, watching the science experiment this week, and she learned the letter "B."

Week 1

Last year I posted separately for Sis and Boo's school week. I think that it will be harder with three in school to make a separate post for each, so I've decided instead to make one post highlighting all three girl's week. So that means that some of my posts (like this one) might be a little longer.

So far I'm happy with the curriculum that we chose (HOD: Creation to Christ 5th and MFW: Adventures in US History 2nd.) The only complaint I have is trying to fit it all in. Sis's work load is very heavy, so I'm thinking about eliminating some parts of her curriculum so that we can fit it all in.

History: Sis' history started back at creation this year. Her first reaction was, "seriously does every school year start at creation?" I was sort of starting to feel this way too, but I assured her that this is the last year until high school that she will study creation. This year begins a chronological study of history that will end with modern times at the end of 8th grade. The history book we are reading is The Story of the Ancient World. This book is more in depth than what we've used in the past yet easy for her to understand. Sis also has a set of history CD's that she is enjoying listening to called "What in the World."

 



 Sis will continue to have a weekly History project like she did last year. The main difference between this year and last is that Sis will be doing a lot of the reading and listening to CD lessons on her own rather than having them read to her. The other new thing is a colorful History Notebook that she has to record everything she learned for the week. That part she loves! There is designated space in the notebook for the projects, written narrations, and even drawings when they're assigned.

Sis' first History project of the year was to make a flap book of the ten generations from Adam to Noah. Under each flap she wrote the names of those born in that generation. Her flap-book was then glued into her notebook.

We also have a daily read-aloud time, where I will read to her. After the reading she has an assignment to either give an oral or written narration of what she heard, or make a picture to go with the story, etc. This week we read Dinosaurs of Eden together. This book is from the Creation Museum and gives a biblical account of dinosaurs and how to answer difficult questions about them.


Boo is learning US History this year. I have to admit it is hard teaching two totally different subject matters this year. This week Boo labeled a couple maps.She learned about her city, state, country, the continents and oceans. Her first history lesson about Leif Erickson and the Vikings. Boo and Baby Bear made viking masks and pretended to sail to the new land.

Bible: Boo is learning about the names of Jesus this year for Bible and memorizing verses.This week was just an intro to names in general and how they have meanings. My most favorite thing this week was a letter that I had to write to Boo telling her why I chose her name and what it means to me...yeah I cried.

Sis is studying Genesis and using a book called "Genesis Finding Our Roots." Ok I just can't get into this book. It's too technical and hard in my opinion. I think this might be one of the things I ditch and do our own devotional instead.  

Science: I'm so excited about science this year!!! I found a family curriculum that we can all do together! It's called "Science in the Beginning." Each girl has a notebook and there are end of the lesson reviews for older and younger students...perfect! Every lesson has a fun experiment, which they love, a discussion about the experiment and then an age appropriate review assignment. Wait it gets better. The entire school year goes through the 6 days of creation learning science about each of the days! The first 15 lessons are about Day 1 of creation: God created light. This week we learned that light reflects off objects to our eyes allowing us to see. We went into a dark bedroom and used a flashlight and mirror to reflect light.


Language and Spelling: Sis is using a new Christian Language program this year called "Building with Diligence 4," by Rod and Staff. The books are numbered one number below grade level, so you do book 4 in 5th, 5 in 6th etc. A lot of this year is review of things she's already learned in 4th grade, plus they add a few new things. So far it seems easy to use and I think I like it.
Sis is also beginning a formal writing program this year called "Writing Strands" where she will be learning how to properly write stories, paragraphs and put her thoughts on paper. 

For spelling Sis is starting Spelling Power. This is supposedly the last spelling book that I will ever have to buy for her because it's for ages 8 to adult! The difference between this program and others is that the student only study's words that they have missed or can't spell. This is good for Sis because she is a great speller. She normally does not miss more than one word on a 25 word spelling test. This was instead of wasting time with a weekly list of words she already knows how to spell. She will only have a short list of words she struggles with or can't spell.

Boo is also starting spelling for the first time this year. She is using Spelling by Sound and Structure and will have a 12 word weekly spelling list. This week we started out slowly and only practiced 6 of her words. I made her a bulletin board to hang her words up for practice plus she will do daily workbook practice with a test on Fridays.


Poetry & Art: We all love this part of this years curriculum. Sis has weekly poetry/ art projects. We were so excited about this that we decided to make this a family project even though it is for Sis' assigned work. All year we are reading the poetry of Robert Frost. We read a weekly poem and then we do a watercolor painting that goes with the poem. Sis has to write a few lines of the poem to add to her finished painting. Sis loves art so this is her favorite thing this year. I bought her a palette, professional watercolor paints in tubes and nice brushes. She is using an art easel for her work space (this helps her feel like a real artist.) The rest of us do our work beside her at the table. I'm going to display their paintings in our dining room (our school room this year) for a week and then switch them out when they complete a new one. Our first poem was called  A Late Walk and our painting is of a tree that just lost it's last leaf.

...and week one is in the books!

First Day of School 2016

It's that time of year again! Actually it's a couple weeks earlier than we normally start school, but we wanted to get a good chunk of school in before our fall family vacation. We had a pretty successful first day and we were all excited to get back to the books. This year is definitely going to be different with Baby Bear starting school. I will have all three to teach instead of two and they are all learning different things and using different curriculum.

I like to take our first day pretty slow and add some fun first day activities. I try to gradually work our way into a full school day routine. This year we began our morning with breakfast and showers and took our time getting started. Then we all sat down in the living room for a time of prayer. I've found that our school day usually goes a lot smoother, attitudes are better, and it's just an overall better day when we start it out by spending some time with the Lord. I hope this year to be able to keep up with morning family devotions even if it's just a short time of prayer. We thanked God for our school and asked for His blessing to help us learn, do our best work, keep our attitudes right, and to help us draw nearer to Him as a family.

After our prayer time we headed outside for our annual back to school treasure hunt. This is a tradition that the girls look forward to every year. Some years I hide new school supplies around the yard. This year we bought all of our supplies together, so instead I bought them each a coloring book that they can work on while I'm working with one of the other kids and some candy for a special treat. I hid them around the yard and let them search for them, then we took our annual back to school pictures.

Then we headed back inside so that I could introduce the girl's to their new books and curriculum.

This year Sis will be continuing with Heart of Dakota for 5th grade. She will be doing Hearts For Him Through Time: Creation to Christ. The first part of Sis' day will be independent work while I work with her sisters. She will be reading a history lesson and answering questions in a notebook. Then she has a history CD that she will listen to. She will also have a daily "Quiet Bible Time," where she will read a certain bible passage, spend a few mins praying about what she read, and learning a memory verse to music on a CD. Eventually she will have math worksheets and English assignments that she can probably do on her own too.



Boo will be using My Father's World: Adventures in US History for 2nd grade. This year focuses on learning about our country and learning about names. She will learn all the names of the states, about famous people and events in American history and for her bible verses she will be learning all the names of Jesus. Today we started learning the Pledge of Allegiance with a CD, practiced some reading, and worked on getting our timeline ready, which she will continue from last year.

Baby Bear will be starting to learning her alphabet. Letter recognition and sounds, counting, and joining us for art projects and science experiments. Today we sang the ABC song and learned the letter A. We hung the little poster we made on the wall. This girl was so excited to finally be a big girl doing real school with her sisters. She listened really well.

Each of the girls got a binder to keep their completed school work in this year. I let them each decorate a cover page for their own folder. We spelled their names out with stickers and then they used stickers and crayons to personalize their binders.

After we finished our work. We had a movie day and ate our candy. We watched an oldie "Honey I Shrunk the Kids." (on our Clear Player of course, which removes any language and inappropriate material. I'm very careful about filtering what our kids watch.) We will be visiting Hollywood studios next month and I wanted them to know the movie before we play at the Honey I shrunk the Kids playground. There are actually a lot of Disney movies that my kids have never seen, so we are trying to fit in as many as possible before our trip. Overall it was a good start to our school year. This year might be harder on me, but I'm praying that we're going to learn how to make it work and hopefully have one of our best school years yet!