TOG-year 3-week 11

Well, as you can see, I did not blog one bit about our TOG Y3U1. Mostly because we just didn't seem to do any extras and we did not do any fun projects. The projects seemed limited to posterboards and none really tickled our fancy, other than the presidential lapbook found here.



But, I'd like to get back into blogging about what we are doing here.

Week 23

This week we were focusing on the origins of New York and New Jersey. We also discussed Samuel
History:
Annsley:

Seth:

Together: I finally made the executive decision to ditch Colonial Living. I do not like the way it is written. Although the kids didn't complain about it, I found it rather dull. I have not found very many TOG books that I don't really enjoy, but this was one of them. :-)

Literature:

Bible:

Notebook pages: We added to our colonies book.

Project: We made Indian pudding with corn meal and molasses. We also played games that they would have played in the pre-colonial times. It was surprising how fun the games were and how much kids can do when they don't have toys! We played blind man's bluff, a game with marbles, a game where they take markers and put markings on them and throw them up in the air and count points. It was a fun project.

Week 22

OK, so I skipped posting for a couple of weeks. :-) We were doing our thing, I just didn't quite get around to blogging it.
History:
Annsley:

Seth:

Together:

Literature:

Bible:

Notebook pages: We added to our colonies book.

Project: This week I gave the kids the assignment to design an Indian village and to act out the Jamestown settlement with Playmobile figures. They spent HOURS on this. It was very fun. There are 10 little mini-segments, but I'll spare you and just put the first segment.

OK, I decided to do the second segment too, so you could actually see the village!

Unit Celebration

For unit 2, the focus was on the Renaissance and the Reformation. The two oldest girls memorized portions of Shakespeare and the younger kids wrote speeches.

They performed their speeches in their Elizabethan masks because we were studying the time period.













Seth did his speech on Leonardo da Vinci

Annsley memorized the "to be or not to be" speech.

Week 19

This week we focused on the House of Tudor and Stuart.

History:

Annsley:

Seth:

Together:

Literature:

2nd Quarter Report

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 Holy Spirit, Bible, and Christ. This has been going well.

Science- 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 finished the 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-I finally bit the bullet this month and decided that I really needed to learn Latin along with the kids if I was going to be able to help them. The funny thing is that I LOVE it!! We all do it together, and I'm having a great time with it. I really like the Latin Prep program.

Spanish-The kids are reading different books with Daddy in the evening. They have started doing a couple of new things. They have started watching some Destinos videos. They have also been translating passages from the children's Bibles into Spanish and typing them up.

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. This is the area that is getting my top priority for research for next year.

Memory-This quarter, in addition to our regular review that we keep up of our old material we have added Project, The Night Before Christmas, Young Lady, A Psalm of Life, and O Captain. In science I have added a song about DNA (from Science Jukebox).

Music-The kids have learned about salsa music in their music class at TEC. They actually had to pair up and dance, which was very embarassing to my 4th grade boy!! 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.

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

History-We finished up with unit 2 about the Renaissance and Restoration. There are few things I am looking to adjust with our history studies. I don't feel like I am doing a great job with the discussion portion and I would like to figure out a way to make that more of a priority, at least for next year as Annsley moves into jr. high.

Week 18

OK, I have just been lame about posting any of our creative stuff lately. I just have not taken the time to scan and upload or get the pictures I have taken onto the blog. Oh well. Our unit celebration is next week and I'll get some pictures of that and then start afresh with Unit 3!

This week our focus was The Counter-revolution along with William of Orange and the Huguenots.

History: This week we studied about Henry VIII, and John Calvin and the Reformation.

Annsley:

Seth:

Together:

Literature:

Project:We designed Elizabethan masks, which we will make next week and wear them at the Unit Celebration.