Monday, November 24, 2008

Unit 1 Celebration

Here is the crew in their costumes in front of the castle that we made.











Kailyn started us off with a speech on The Fuedal system. She used our project as a prop. I've included some close-up pictures so you can see the great work they did.






























Here are the close-ups. God bless Playmobile!!

















































Seth went next and talked about medicine in the Middle Ages. He passed around spices that they used for healing in the Middle Ages.

















Claire went next and spoke about the story of Robin Hood.

















Annsley spoke about Joan of Arc.


















Cade talked about The Black Plague.


















But, the best part was sharing what they learned with the grandparents!














Monday, November 17, 2008

Week 10

History: Our main focus this week was setting the stage for the Reformation. We talked about Wycliff and John Huff. We also learned about Gutenburg.







Literature:








Church History:



Dictation: We did quotes from Wycliff and Huff
Notebooking Pages: I haven't had time to scan the notebook pages for this week, but we did little books on Gutenburg, Huff and Wycliff. The rest of the time was getting the speeches ready for the unit celebration.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Quarterly Review

We are on track with the schedule I put together at the beginning of the year in all subjects! Woohoo!! It has been a good year so far, and I'm very thankful!!

Math-The kids are loving Math-U-See Geometry. They think it is really easy compared to NEM!! (Which, it is!) There is a ton of difficult calculations and even tedious problems in NEM, but it is excellent review for them. I have felt comfortable with the pace I have chosen and with the curriculum. I wasn't sure about NEM, but the more I use it, the more I think the rigor is excellent preparation. There is very little rigor in Math-U-See.

Bible-We have reviewed the doctrine songs for God, Salvation and Angels. This has been going well.

Science-I am really liking Apologia's General Science. I was worried that it would be too advanced for Seth, but he is doing well and enjoying it. I had intended them to read it independently and do the work on their own, but we are all enjoying it much more when I read it out loud and we work together on it. They have done very well on the Module Tests. All in all, I have liked this more that I expected that I would.

Grammar- I always struggle with whether grammar is necessary for my kids. They seem to really get grammar intuitively, and sometimes it seems like a waste of time, but I just can't let go of the idea. So, we plug along in Rod & Staff 6 doing about 3 lessons per week. It is fine. Nobody loves it, but no one really hates it either.

Logic-We have been working through Critical Thinking book 1 together. We do all the exercise together and I don't even have them write them out, usually. We have enjoyed it. We are learning about different types of propaganda right now. I find that the kids have fun trying to identify faulty reasoning in real life. ("Mom, that is circular reasoning!")

Latin-Annsley really likes Latin Prep. She enjoys the tone of the book and it is solidifying the concepts that we learned from Latina Christiana. It is not Seth's favorite subject, but he is plugging away and doing fine with it.

Spanish-The kids are reading different books with Daddy in the evening. They either read the Bible in Spanish or they have a book from the library. Right now they are reading a book of Fairy Tales in Spanish. They enjoy that.

Writing- Of all the subjects this is the one that I feel that I didn't have a great grip on this quarter. We did writing, but I was not good about really following through with the entire writing process. Of course, they are taking a writing class at our co-op with an AMAZING writing teacher, and so I know they know it and they are working on their writing there as well as at home. We have been doing weekly dictation at home and they have been focusing on the skill of taking notes.

Memory-This quarter, in addition to our regular review that we keep up of our old material we have added The Glove and the Lion, Conscience and Remorse, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening, memory work for history has been the song that I wrote about the Wars of the Middle Ages, and the first part of the Sovereigns of England poem. In science I have added a song about Simple Machines and a Lever rap (from Science Jukebox).

Music-The kids have learned about jazz in their music class at TEC. Both have been progressing nicely with their piano. Annsley is really thriving in her piano and Grandma is teaching her to play the accordion as well. She loves singing in the Girls choir also. Seth also has a good ear for music. This week we went on a field trip to the symphony for district 4th graders. It was a delightful concert and the kids had a great time!

Reading-The kids have read a ton of books for free reading this quarter. You can see them here.

History-Technically, this unit has 10 weeks in TOG. So, we have one more week to go before our unit celebration. I will have a separate special post describing our unit celebration.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Week 9

This week we have been working on getting everything organized, finished and ready for our unit celebration. The topics for this week are the towns in the high middle ages. We also talked about The War of the Roses and Joan of Arc.
History:







Literature:







Church History:







Dictation:We used quotes from Joan of Arc for our dictation this week.

Writing: We wrote about town life in the Middle Ages.

Timeline: We added Pope Boniface VIII, Edward the Black Prince, The Great Schism, and Joan of Arc to our timeline.

Notebooking Pages:

Project: The kids had a great time doing their "Four Alls" project. They really got into it!!
The peasants who worked for all...














The Priests who prayed for all....














The knights who faught for all....


And the Kings who ruled all...

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Week 8

History:
This week we are learning about Marco Polo, Ghengis and Kublai Khan, and the Mongols.







Literature:






Church History:
We are reviewing Buddhism, Hunduism, Taoism, and the teachings of Confucious.








Dictation: The Rule of St. Benedict

Writing: We are writing about the life of Marco Polo

Geography: Maps of Mongol Empire and Japan

Notebooking Pages: We didn't quite finish these this week, but we had a short week coming back from vacation.





































Week off!!!

Hawaiian History Week!!!

It counts!!!!