RTR: Week 1

We made it through the first week of school! So far we're liking My Father's World Rome to Reformation. The girl's are excited to be doing most of their school work together again. In the morning we do Bible first. Right now we are using a book called "How the Bible came to us." We're learning about the writers of the books of the Bible and how the books are divided up into different categories. One project we did this week from our book was to make this cute mini Bible library that shows those different categories. When we finished we were so excited to discover that it fit perfectly on our chalk board shelf!


Spelling, Math, and Science will start next week. I'm so excited about the new math curriculum that Boo is going to try out this year. I'll show it to you next week after we've given it a try.

For English Sis is using Rod and Staff again, book 5 called "Following the Plan" of the Building Christian English Series. Boo is using First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind. We split up for English everyday which is working out great, because it gives whichever girl I'm not working with, some quiet time for "Book Basket."

Book Basket time is a My Father's World idea. This is a basket of books (related to things we're learning or other education material) that I have chosen for the girls to look through and explore on their own during quiet time. Each child spends 15 mins a day on Book Basket. Right now we have some picture books on Rome and also our "World Kids" magazines, which we get a free subscription to with our curriculum. The kids are loving these magazines so far.
This is what our version of Book Basket looks like, just a big white basket full of reading material. At book basket time they take the basket with them to a quiet place and read whatever they want.


The first week of school usually starts off with a review of neat handwriting, so right now we are quickly going through the alphabet practicing our writing. Boo is doing manuscript, Sis is practicing neat cursive (she does have a tenancy to get sloppy with it esp as the school year goes on.) After this first couple weeks we will have more exciting writing assignments.

After our first day intro to Ancient Rome, we actually covered quite a bit of history this week. We learned about the Roman Republic, the Punic war, and Hannibal with his famous elephants that crossed the Alps.The girls made several maps and I think they're starting to get a good understanding of the areas around the Mediterranean that we are learning about. The first map we made was labeling all the seas and countries we will be learning. The second map showed the places involved int he Punic war and Hannibal's route. One of the books we are reading this year is "Augustus Caesars World." It is written in story form to make it interesting and covers the events of the life of Augustus Caesar beginning when he was a boy. He was the first Roman Emperor and was in power when Jesus walked the earth.

 Our History project at the end of this week was to make a Roman clay writing tablet like the children of Ancient Rome used for their studies. Baby Bear wanted in on the fun of this project too.

Baby Bear will be starting My Father's World K next week. This week we practiced her alphabet letters and sounds and each day read a story book together. We learned the "a-a-apple" song, practiced counting and did her number board each morning. This is a project Boo did in K too. It's place value cups. Each morning she placed a toothpick in the ones cup, we count all the sticks in the cup and hang up the number card above the cup. When we get 10 in our cup we bundle it and move it to the tens cup and place a "1" in the 10's place. we'll keep bundling all year until we get 10 bundles making 100, then we'll celebrate the 100th day of school!
She has also enjoyed playing "Teach Your Monster to Read" on the computer while her sisters do school work. This is a really fun free website with games that teach phonics. Kids get to design their own monster and then teach their monster how to read by learning letters and sounds. So cute and she's loving it!

Finally, We went on our first field trip this week. We went to see a Laura Ingalls Wilder exhibit at a local museum. We got in on the last day of the exhibit!We love Little House on the Prairie, it's kind of a dream of mine to visit Laura's real home in Desmet, SD and I'm hoping to be able to do that some time soon, for now this was a really neat alternative. We got to see a lot of the things that are talked about in the books, such as a lot of the farming equipment, a corn husk doll, actual knitting done by Ma, Pa's fiddle, Laura's rag doll and Nellie's china doll. There were real pictures of Laura, Almonzo and many other famous family members. It was a really fun experience.

First Day of School Sept 2017

Today was our first day back to school after an extra long summer. We started a bit later this year, because Daddy had surgery. I actually liked having a few extra weeks of summer and starting school with the public schools. I might make this our new normal. I really think this was the best first day of school that we've had.

Our morning started out with breakfast and then we dressed and headed out for our annual 1st day of school pictures. The night before I got the idea of making props for our photo shoot, (because I'm crazy like that) so I got out a cardboard box and some paints and made them a frame. The kids thought it was cute and fun.

After out little photo shoot we came back inside for Bible time. I'm glad that we have Dad home for the first couple months of school. I asked him the night before to prepare something for our first day since our Bible curriculum wasn't scheduled to start until day 2. He read to us about Paul's perseverance and how although he faced many trials he ran his race till the end. Then he encouraged the girls that when school work gets frustrating to remember what's more important, to always remember to keep their eyes on Jesus and stay focused on eternity rather than the frustrations and trials of this life. Then We had a time of prayer laying hands on each child and praying a blessing over them for the new school year. As we headed to the table for our lessons I felt a real sense of peace knowing we are following God's will for our family.

This year we began What My Father's World calls the "Family Cycle." The main concept is for children of different grade levels to learn as much together as a family as they can without having to be separated for school time and it helps Mom by not having to be teaching multiple grade level curriculum at once. So Sis and Boo will be doing Bible, Vocabulary, History, Science, and Art together this year. These are all subjects that are not necessarily grade leveled but can be taught at any age. The girls will separate everyday for Math, English and Reading working on their own levels. Baby Bear will sit in and tag along with anything she wants. She will also be doing her own Kindergarten curriculum. She so excited to finally have her own "big girl" school work.

We've  decided to start off each morning after bible time with a calendar time. This is for Boo and Baby Bear since Sis already knows all about calendars, but she is a great helper to her younger sisters. We use our big wall calendar to put up today's date and then each girl has her own personal calendar inside her binder to fill in the date.Sis is glad to have hers to record special dates coming up each month. We are also all helping Baby Bear to learn our months of the year song.

Sis and Boo will be using MFW: Rome to The Reformation this year. These are their "History Notebooks," where they will keep all of their work. Sis finished up last school year learning a little about Ancient Rome and this year begins with Rome, so some of it will be review for her but a lot of it new.
Today was pretty much an intro to the first 13 weeks of learning about Rome. We learned about Roman school and how it differed from school today. The girls had a picture of a Roman classroom to file in their notebook. We read the Legend of Romulus and Remus, a story of how Rome began that all young kids in Ancient Rome were taught.. Then the girls drew pictures and wrote about the legend in their notebooks. We also read a little about the founding of Rome in a couple of our new history books.



 Sis (left) wrote her narration on the back of her picture.

 

One new thing that we are doing this year is learning Latin roots. At first I was hesitant and asking "why?"Now I'm so glad we are doing this. I've never studied Latin myself and I didn't realize so many of the words in the English language derive from Greek and Latin. Today we learned the Latin word "UNUS" meaning "one." We had to think of English words that come from this Latin root. UNICORN! Boo shouted! I thought this was going to be hard for her, but she loved it. Uni-corn = one horn. Uni-cycle = one wheel.

After Roman School Baby Bear did her first day of K. Mostly practicing her ABC's and learning numbers (wish I had remembered to take a picture.) Then we went for a special lunch. Since we learned that much of Roman culture was influenced by the Greeks our curriculum suggested we try Greek Gyros for lunch. The girls had never tried one (even though it was a childhood fav of mine.) So we went and got gyros for lunch. I was afraid Boo wouldn't eat it when Dad told her the meat was lamb, but they both loved it. Baby Bear was not so brave, she ordered a cheeseburger and then insisted I take her picture with it.

 Also, before we came back home we took a trip to a new library that we've never been to. Each of the girls checked out a few books for their quiet reading time.

Our first day we didn't do any of our regular subjects like Spelling, Reading, Math or Science. It was mostly a fun introduction to our History theme and new books. We would look at our new English books on day 2 and I decided to hold off on math for a week. I like to start the school year out gently adding a few new subjects at a time until we're eventually back to a full schedule. I did sneak in a little math though, by teaching the kids Roman numerals when we got back from lunch. We made a poster with construction paper and craft sticks to display on the wall for the next few months while we're  learning about Rome.

Overall it was a perfect start to our school year. All the girls were good and excited about starting. There were no tears and they finished the day saying they loved it. Sis and Boo both told me they think this year is going to be "much more fun than last year" and they're so happy to finally be doing school together again.

Weeks 29-31

We're finally nearing the end...only 4 weeks to go! I want so badly to wrap up this year and begin prepping for next year. I'm also getting a little anxious for our vacation coming up in a few weeks.

We're taking the girls to Niagara Falls for a week for the first time. This is one thing that I've wanted to do for years, so we'll finally be able to scratch that one off of our list. I know I've talked about it before, but there are so many places that I want my girls to experience while they're kids.

One thing I've never shared on here are our vacation books. Every time we go on a family trip I make a hardcover Shutterfly photo book to record our memories and I try to write as much details of everything we did. I also take tons of pictures on our vacations and I try to take a special group picture specifically for the cover of our book. We started doing this when Boo was a baby. These books have ended up being one of my kids most favorite things. I keep them on a shelf in the dinning room where they have easy access. At least a couple times a month they pull them off the shelf and sit down together and read through them. Baby Bear even loves looking through the books of trips from before she was born and the things that Boo can't really remember she feels like she can because she's read it about it so many times. These memories are precious to me and I'm so glad I started this tradition. FYI: Shutterfly offers free photo books a couple times a year where you only pay shipping. We never pay full price for a book but wait for the free offers. They are so worth the time and money though. I've been thinking about blogging about our vacations on here too, maybe I will for our next one. We'll see...

Math& Language: We have spent a lot of our school days lately focused on math and language because we are still a bit behind schedule in those subjects and will probably have to do a little into the summer after we've finished all of our other curriculum.

Sis is trucking her way through MathUSee Epsilon/fractions. She is working on adding and subtracting mixed numbers right now. We've also been flying through her Rod and Staff English book. A lot of it is review for her so we've been moving pretty quickly. In addition to reviewing parts of speech and diagramming though she's been doing some writing. I like that this curriculum combines both. She's been studying how to take notes for a report, how to write a topic sentence, and form the body of a proper paragraph. We also studied how to write a book report. Sis' assignment was to read a book, write a report and present it to the family. Her book of choice was "Andrea Carter and the San Francisco Smugglers." These are Christian mystery books in a series called the Circle C Adventures. Sis loves mysteries and horses so she loves these stories. She presented her book report one night after dinner and did a great job.

 
Boo is finishing up MathUSee Alpha and is working on Language Lessons for Today. These past couple weeks she's worked on letter writing, addressing an envelope, picture narrations, and we're just now beginning verbs.

Bible: Boo only has a couple names left in her "names of Jesus," study for this year. We finished up learning about Jesus being the "Good Shepard," and we began a unit on "The Resurrection and the Life." This was time appropriate since Easter just passed! Our names of Jesus wall is getting pretty full now!

Sis is studying the book of John right now in her Bible studies. Most of her lessons consist of reading on her own, copying verses into her notebook, and memorizing scriptures. Next year I am excited that we will be doing our school bible time together as a family again, since the girl's will finally be in the My Father's World Family Cycle.

Read-aloud: Our read aloud time has been our favorite time of the day the past few months. We have been slowly reading through "The Ark, The Reed, and The Fire Cloud," together as a family, even Baby bear sits and listens. This is a thick book, but we finally finished! I am so glad that I finally get to share these books with my girls and that we chose to read this one now. This first book is all about the animals journey to the ark and what it could have been like for them on board the ark. There's so many things you never though of before like "how did arctic animals live on the ark outside of their natural cold habitat? How did the animals know to go to the ark? What was their journey across the globe like?" This book forces you to use your imagination, yet keeps the biblical account accurate. Back to vacations...We are planning a trip to Ken Ham's Ark Encounter this fall, so this was perfect timing! Now more than ever my kids are interested in the real Noah's ark and what it was like. I know they will be thinking of this story as we walk though the replica and it will become all the more real for them. 

My kids were already begging to begin book two "The Dreamer, the Schemer, & the Robe." So we started it a couple days after finishing the first. In this second book our beloved animal friends journey to the days of Joseph and walk along side him as he is sold into slavery in Egypt. The book is packed full of Egyptian history and makes the story of Joseph come alive. I wish we were all studying Egypt right now, because this would be perfect. Sis did just finish Egypt earlier this year though, so it will still be good for her. It will be a long time before we cover it together in the Cycle, so we can't wait that long...

 
  History: In addition to learning 5 new States Boo learned about the Transcontinental Railroad. We finished our last story in American Pioneers and Patriots which taught us how the railroad was built. Our timeline is growing and we will be taking it down and putting it into a book as we finish up the school year. 

We also learned about Mount Rushmore in week 31. It took 14 years to make using dynamite and chiseling by hand! It is unbelievable to me that people could actually create a monument that size on a mountain and it actually really looks like the presidents! That's some amazing talent. I imagine it is just unbelievable to see in person...This is something I've always wanted to do that is high on our "things to see" list.

Sis and I started reading a new book for for history called "The Accidental Voyage." This book is about an old man and two children who travel learning about old Christian Hymns. The old man tells the children stories of the lives of the Hymn writers. We're not too sure about this one yet. It's a pretty thick book with long chapters and not as exciting as some of the other books we've read. I have a feeling it's going to take us a long time to get through it.

Here are some of Sis's history journal pages from the past few weeks.

We also took a trip to the zoo for Sis birthday. We saw some neat animals, but  we had one of the coolest experiences we've ever had at a zoo. A female lion came walking from a far off cliff and came right up to the glass where we were standing. We were the only people in the room at the time so we had her all to ourselves. This was the closest any of us have ever been to a real lion and she was looking us right in the eye! If the glass had not been separating us we could have easily reached out and touched her face. Then she stayed there with us for a long time before walking away. It was dark in the room and hard for me to get a good picture, but here is a picture (not zoomed at all, we were actually standing this close to her!)  Below is a 2nd picture with the girls so that you can get a better idea of how close she was...a lot of the animals were really close actually.
 



 Then something crazy happened, another lion came up to the window and started roaring at us! It was so loud they said it could be heard from much farther away. She was showing her teeth and roaring over and over! She was mad! I've never seen a lion roar like that (well unless the Lion King counts.) It was so cool! I wish I had gotten a video of it.
 It was a little windy but we had a great day and by going while school is in we had a lot of the zoo to ourselves. Here are some more pics of our day...

 

Week 26-28

History: Sis is ending the school year with a study of Rome. She's got about 6 weeks of that left and then we will be finishing up this school year!

We started reading a really good book together this week called "Traveling the Way." Again, this is another book that I never would have chosen on my own and that doesn't look very interesting, but is actually a great story! It's about a gentile slave boy who lives during the time of the apostles and runs away from his harsh master. On his journey he's faced with a question of religions...pagan, Jew, or Christian. Who was right?  I love books like this that are not only entertaining and exciting for kids, but have some real meat. Unlike a lot of the "fluff" books out there for kids that are just non-sense. Those books can be fun and it's great to get kids excited about reading period. However, I'd rather have my kids reading something that's not only exciting but teaches them something too or helps them grow spiritually rather than reading Captain Underpants all day...ya know? Charlotte Mason calls these real living books...books with depth. Thank you Heart of Dakota for all of your awesome book choices!

Sis only had one Draw and Write through History project over the 3 weeks and she drew a Roman soldier with a horse an chariot.

 One of her projects was to make a paper doll of a Roman soldier. She had to learn each piece of clothing that they wore and make the entire outfit.

Boo has been learning about Abraham Lincoln in U.S. history. We read national Geographic Kids Abraham Lincoln and we looked at the pictures of Abe and the Lincoln Memorial on the penny and $5 bill. 
We also read a book together called "Who Was Abraham Lincoln? We learned a lot of facts about Abe's life. We also learned a little about the Civil war.

A project we did was to read "Abe Lincoln's Hat." We learned how Abe always kept all of his important papers in his tall hat so that he would not forget about them. Then Boo had to write about what she would keep in in her hat if she had a hat like Abe. We made a cute craft out of construction paper and crayons. The flap on the hat opens to show show what she would keep inside.


We also added a few states to our map...we're getting pretty close to the end now!

***I feel a little bad that most of the pictures this post are of Boo, but there was not really too much to take pictures of Sis' work.

 Science: We took a little break from our regular science and we spent a week on magnets. The Fun with Magnets kit was included with Boo's My Father's World curriculum. All of the girls wanted to participate though, so we just did this instead of Science In The Beginning. The kit comes with cards that have activities and info on them we've done 3 cards front and back so far. One of our projects was to make a compass using a bar magnet. We also tested different kinds of magnets to see where the strongest point of pull was. Boo discovered that the ends are the strongest.

Reading: Boo has been reading Arnold Lobel books for her reading time. She is doing really well in reading now. His books are my most favorite books for early readers. Boo read all of the Frog and Toad books and then we moved to the Mouse and Owl books. I love that these stories are not only easy for her to read, but they are just plain fun to read. She begs for reading time because she can't wait to see what funny thing she will read about next.

Sis doesn't have a formal "reading time" anymore but there's not a day that goes by that she doesn't have her nose in a book, so she gets plenty of reading practice. Her biggest problem is life is that she never has enough books to read though. I'm constantly looking for books for her. This past week I found a winner that made her cry, not because the story was sad....because it ended with a cliff hanger and she doesn't have book 2! HAHA! She loved this book.  It's the first of a 15 book series by Jerry B. Jenkins called "Red Rock Mysteries."  It's fast paced adventure and mystery (her favorite kind) so she finished one in 2 days. Apparently all of these books leave you hanging, so you have to buy the next one. That's kind of annoying to me, but I think I at least found her some new books that are clean and exciting. These are "tween" books I would say for 11-14ish so some are intense and some subject matter is for older kids.

We haven't done much art lately. We have been so busy lately that we've skipped a lot of our paintings. The girl's did dye Easter eggs one day though. That counts as art right?

 

Week 24-25 & Maple Syrup Day

The past two weeks have moved quickly. It seems like we've done a lot. We also fit in another field trip for this school year. We haven't taken many, this was our 3rd one for the year. I just wish it had been a little warmer. I want to tell you all about our trip, so I will try to be brief with our school work.
 
History: In history Sis has been learning about the Roman Empire.One of the books that we are read is "City" this book explains how Roman cities were planned and built. We learned about the different building structures as well as roads and aqueducts. It was pretty interesting and I loved that it had a lot of illustrations so that we could see what it was talking about.

 Sis only drew one picture in her notebook over the past two weeks, but I think it's my favorite one this year. She drew one of Hannibal's war elephants, when he took 40 elephants over the mountains to Rome. I won't show you all the other note booking pages with her writing and timeline.

Boo learned about Samuel Morse and the invention of the telegraph in US history. We already learned a little about Morse code in science this year, so some of it was review. Boo had fun writing secret messages though with the codes. The second week she learned about the California Gold Rush. Here's some of her copy work from both weeks.

 
For a history project Sis made a card game, called "Go trade." Similar to "Go Fish." The cards had different items that were traded to Rome from other countries. For example a card would say "Oil and Wine from India." and the goal was to find all of the matches. Here is a pic of us getting ready to play our card game. Baby Bear just decided to photo bomb us.

Science: In science we continued our unit on water. We used our veggie steamer to observe boiling water evaporating and turning back into condensation as it hit a cool lid. We placed some ice on the lid to help the gas cool quicker forming larger drops more quickly. Then we watched them fall back into the pot. This was just sort of a review of how rain happens. One new thing we discussed though was that clouds actually have the ability to move so that water that evaporates over the ocean doesn't necessarily rain back down over the ocean. God designed an awesome way to water the whole earth with the lakes and oceans.

Bible: All of Boos Bible lessons this week focused on Jesus being the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. She made a crown with her memory verse on it.

Art: We decided to go back and do a painting that we skipped earlier in the year. This one was of a field with a spider web! The spider web is white and you can't see it great in the pic.

Maple Syrup Day!

Finally here is a little bit about the field trip we got to go on. We took a little road trip an hour from home to Chippewa Nature Center where they were having their annual Maple Syrup Day event. We got to not only learn all about how maple syrup is made, but got to explore the nature center, participate in crafts and games and spend some time with some of our family that live around there. In the visitor center the girls got to see all kinds of animals, Indian tools and a canoe, observe birds feeding, touch different animal skins and all sorts of cool things.
Baby Bear liked this stuffed turkey on the right.
 Here is a picture of Boo and Baby Bear feeling all the different animal furs. This was a good activity to go along with Boos adventures in US history since she's been learning all about pioneers who hunted and wore animal skins. There was also quite a bit of Indian things for her to see.


 After exploring the nature center and observing the birds and ducks on the river. We went to do some crafts. There was also a pancake breakfast for those who wanted to sample the homemade maple syrup. The girl's uncle decided to give them a try. He said it was the best he's ever had. The girls then made Maple leaf name tag necklaces and then they made little baskets that look like maple trees. We also played a couple games like a beanbag toss and a hopping game. I tried to get a good picture of them with their crafts, but Baby Bear was freaked out by the stuffed bear in the case behind htem, even after I assured her it was dead.

 
After we left the visitor center we took a wagon ride out to where they make the maple syrup. It was a little chilly and very muddy. I had been hoping for a nicer day, but it wasn't too bad. I forgot to get a picture of our wagon ride. Our first stop was the sugar house where the syrup is made. Outside they had some syrup boiling in a large pot over a fire. The man explained to us that is how they use to have to make the syrup in the old days. Now they have much more efficient machines.

Then we went inside and sat through a demonstration where they explained how they make the syrup now. We were shocked to learn that they have to get 40 gallons of sap out of the trees to fill up the machine, but most of the sap is water. The machine uses evaporation to get all of the water out of the sap and when it's all out only 1 gallon of pure maple syrup is left! Wow! It takes a lot of tree sap to fill all of those bottles. I loved that we were learning about evaporation since that's what we are also learning at home in science! I couldn't get many good pics of the demonstration.

  
Next the girls got to go outside and learn how to tap a tree and how they connect the buckets to the trees to catch the sap. We opted out of the guided tour through the woods to look at trees because it was just too cold and muddy.

After that we went to an old school house where we sat and watched a puppet show about Maple syrup and trees and we got to finally warm up next to a heater!

After the school house we went to another old log cabin house that looked just like something out of Little House on the Prairie. Inside the girls did another craft of planting beans seeds that they got to bring home to grow. Our last stop was to my brother in-laws parent's home. They raise pigs and just had a few litters born, so we went out behind their home to meet one of the baby pigs. The girl's were so excited and in love. Now they almost cry every time I feed them ham.haha.