Magnum Opus Academy

TOG-year 3-week 11

2009-11-19T20:43:00.000-08:00

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

2009-03-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-04T09:27:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-14T19:21:00.002-08:00

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

2009-02-14T19:21:00.001-08:00

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

History:

Annsley:

Seth:

Together:

Literature:

2nd Quarter Report

2009-02-14T19:20:00.001-08:00

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

2009-02-06T12:09:00.000-08:00

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.

Week 17

2009-02-06T10:47:00.000-08:00

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

Annsley:

Seth:

Together:

Dictation: We did quotes from John Calvin this week.

Literature:

Memory

2009-01-23T13:07:00.000-08:00

Every week the kids draw a poem out of our past memory work to polish and perform for me. I decided to use my new Flip Camera to record them. They were happy to both have chosen short poems this week! :-)

Week 16

2009-01-21T11:11:00.001-08:00

History:

Literature:

Fine Arts:

Dication: Martin Luther quotations.

We did not do any projects this week, but we did watch the movie Luther.

Week 15

2009-01-21T08:26:00.000-08:00

History: This week we went into the Reformation and Erasmus.

Literature:

Church History:

Fine Arts:

Dictation: We used quotes by Martin Luter for dictation this week

Notebook Pages: We did a mini-book on Ersasmus and looked up pictures of the Northern Renaissance.

Week 14

2009-01-07T11:46:00.001-08:00

Back to school after a wonderful vacation and snow-filled Christmas!! Oh, it is hard to get back into the grove, especially when you are a ten year old boy!!

History: This week we looked at the Aztec and Inca civilizations, focusing on the Spanish conquest and Cortes.

Annsley:

Seth:

Together:

Fine Art: We did Chapter 3 in the Art for Kids book. We also looked at more Renaissance paintings, specifically Venetian art.

Dictation: For dictation I pulled an excerpt from the World Book about the Aztec civilization.

Writing: We are going to be writing a research paper over the next few weeks. This week we chose our topics. Annsley and Seth will be doing the Aztecs.

Geography: This week we did a map of Central and South America during the time of the Aztec and Inca Empires.

Timeline: This week we added Pizarro and Cortes to the timeline.

Notebooking Pages:

Projects: This week we made a hydrometer from the Leonardo book.

Week 13

2008-12-15T09:49:00.000-08:00

History: This week the focus was on explorers and Michelangelo and Raphael. We watched the movie The Agony and Ecstasy about Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel.

Fine Arts:

Literature:

Geography:Our map traced the routes of several different explorers.

Notebook pages: We did a book on different explorers and we also added some Michelangelo's work to our notebook.

Dictation: We did Michelangelo quotes for dictation this week.

Week 12

2008-12-07T22:46:00.000-08:00

History: The focus this week is an introduction to the Renaissance, looking specifically at some of the early Renaissance artists.

Literature:

Fine Arts:

Church History:

Dictation: We are using quotes by Leonardo da Vinci for dictation.

Geography: Our map this week covered the early explorers.

Projects: We made our own tempera paint out of egg and dirt. Sorry about the photography. My camera was on a weird setting and I didn't know how to get it off. We also made invisible ink and write messages. We tried to make plastic, but it didn't work the way the directions said. All these projects are in the Leonardo Inventions you can Build Yourself book. It is a very fun book.

We made geometric shapes like Leonardo did when he illustrated the Geometry textbook.

Week 11

2008-12-07T21:01:00.000-08:00

I am excited to start on the Renaissance. I love the Renaissance artists and I'm looking forward to studying about them again. Annsley made me so happy the other day. She said, "I can't wait until we can go to Rome and see all the art and architecture there!" And, I can't wait to take her some day.

History: The focus this week is an introduction to the Renaissance, looking specifically at some of the early Renaissance artists.

Literature:

Fine Arts:

Dication: This week we used a portion of the World Book about the Renaissance.

Geography: Our map this week covered Renaissance Italy.

Timeline: Our timeline figures were

Fine Arts: We learned about single point and double point perspective. Here are some single point perspective drawings that we did.

Here is our perspectograph. Sorry about the blurry photograph!

Unit 1 Celebration

2008-11-24T20:35:00.000-08:00

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!

Week 10

2008-11-17T08:23:00.001-08:00

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.

Quarterly Review

2008-11-14T11:57:00.000-08:00

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.

Week 9

2008-11-10T16:24:00.000-08:00

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...

Week 8

2008-11-05T18:59:00.002-08:00

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!!!

2008-11-05T18:59:00.001-08:00

Hawaiian History Week!!!

It counts!!!!

Week 7

2008-10-20T08:25:00.000-07:00

This week we learned about the struggle between secular kings and emperors. We also learned about the Crusades. We also learned about Gothic Cathedrals. We took a tour of our local St. John's Cathedral. What a beautiful place!!

History:

Literature:

Church History:

Dictation: For dictation we did All Creatures of our God and King by St. Francis of Assisi

All creatures of our God and King,

Lift us your voice and with us sing,

Alleluia!

Thou burning sun with golden beam,

Thou silver moon with softer gleam,

O praise him, alleluia!

Let all things their Creator bless,

And worship him in humbleness,

O praise him, alleluia!

Praise, parise the Father, praise the Son,

And praise the Spirit, three in one,

O praise him, alleluia

Geography: The maps this week were the Crusades and the territory of the Empire of the Seljuk Terks.

Timeline Figures:

Frederick I, Phillip II, Richard the Lionheart, Peter the Hermit, St. Fransis of Assisi

Notebooking:

Projects:

Silly kids were doing Gregorian chants down the aisle. The nice thing is that the church was not really open to the public today, but they let us go in and have the place to ourselves. This was great for me because I can not stand in a cathedral and NOT sing!! :-)

Week 6

2008-10-15T10:27:00.000-07:00

This week we learned about the details of feudalism in the Middle Ages, Pope Gregory VII, and Emperor Henry IV.

History:

Literature:

Church History:

Dictation: We did a selection from Canturbury Tales.

Writing: We wrote about the different roles in the feudal system

Notebooking Pages:

Project: We are painting a castle backdrop for our Medieval feast

Week 5

2008-10-06T10:11:00.000-07:00

The goals for this week are to learn about the Viking culture and to study the key men who lived during this time.

History:

Literature:

Church History:

Writing: We are doing the writing assignment in Writing Aids this week (level 6) and we are taling about the four different types of essays. The kids will choose which one they want to write about for this week (as suggested in WA)

Dictation: Our dictation included quotes from famous Vikings and other Barbarian leaders.

Notebooking Pages: We will do small books on Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky and make a book about Vikings. We will also include some pictures of Viking art.

Timeline: We included the figures from Homeschooling in the Woods timeline CD:

Alfred the Great, Rolf, Erik the Rd, Leif Erickson, and William the Conqueror

Geography: We will be doing maps of the Viking expansion and Scandinavia this week

Evaluation: This week will be the Upper Grammar fill in the blank test

Project: Viking longhouse boat

Week 4

2008-10-01T08:04:00.000-07:00

This week we are focusing on Charlemagne and the impact he had on the Middle Ages.

History:

Literature:

Church History:

Dictation:This week we are using exerpts from Beowulf for dictation.

Writing: We are writing a mini-report about Charlemagne

Timeline: We are adding Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, and Charlemagne to our timeline.

Notebook Pages:

Project: We are making Coat of Arms

Week 3

2008-09-22T10:24:00.000-07:00

This week in TOG we will be reviewing Islam and the impact that it had during the Middle Ages. History:

Literature:

Church History:

Dictation: We used selections from the story of King Arthur for this week.

Writing: This week our writing assignment was a report about Islam.

Timeline: This week we added Muhammad to our timeline.

Geography: This week our map focuses on the Islamic Empire

Notebook pages: This week we made a mini-book about Islam and we looked at the geometric art of the time.

Project: This week we did this tessellation project. I'll post pictures later.

Art: We checked out the Islamic art hereand took a virtual tour of the Taj Mahal here

Week 2

2008-09-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

Our goals this week were to cover the Byzantine Empire, focusing on Justinian, St. Patrick and the monasteries. We also learned about the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches.

History:

Literature:

Movie: This week we added this movie to our studies. It gave a good picture of the Irish monastaries and the legends around St. Patrick. And Danny concluded the movie (that was all about God) by saying, "And that, kids, is why we get drunk every St. Patrick's Day. They were surprised to learn that people celebrate the holiday of St. Patrick in a drunken stupor. :-)

Dictation: This week we are using portions of The Code of Justinian.

Writing: We are writing a descriptive essay about life in a monastary.

Notebook Pages:

Project: We made guilded books. You can download the mini-kit here. (HT:Karen)

(We haven't added the copywork to it yet.)

Evaluation: I was a little frustrated with the upper grammar evaluation this week because we did all the reading, but I didn't find the information that was asked on the Evaluation for Upper Grammar. So, we just did it together orally.

Week 1

2008-09-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

Well, here we go again! I'm actually feeling so relieved to get started. I wanted to start a couple weeks ago, but it worked out better for my work schedule to start this week. I especially couldn't wait to get back to Tapestry of Grace!

The goals of this wee are to review the fall of Rome, discuss the Barbarian invasions and review some of the early church history.

History: There are a couple other books, but I couldn't find pictures of them.

Literature:

Church History:

Dictation: This week for dictation we are using The Apostle's Creed because it goes along well with the church history.

Writing: This week the main focus is reviewing the writing process. We won't have an actual writing topic until next week. We will use the Why Study History supplement to do a graphic organizer.

Geography: The kids did the dialectic level maps this week.

Timeline: We will add the figures from Homeschooling in the Woods timeline CD

*Augustine

*Constantine

*Alaric

*Atilla

*Clovis

*Genseric

*Theodoric

*King Arthur

Evaluation: The kids took the Diagnostic test from the Dialectic level on the Evaluations CD

Notebooking Pages: I didn't have any notebooking pages for this week, giving us a little time to ease into our TOG studies.

Fine Arts/Projects: This week we will be making Celtic knots (I will add pictures when we finish them)

In the rest of our studies we completed the work on our year at a glance form. It was a full week and I feel like I am going to have to tighten a few things up to get through all I want to do each week. I kept feeling like we were "behind schedule" even though we did pretty well.

This afternoon we are going to the fair (I'll post pictures later) and that will be a part of our education for the week!

Apologia general science went very well. I wasn't sure how it would go, but I read it out loud and the kids seemed to really like it. They enjoyed the labs that we did. I forgot to take pictures, but I'll do that next time!

More memory song (how to)

2008-08-25T08:10:00.000-07:00

For those who asked how I added the song to my blog, I followed the directions here. I already had Movie-maker on my computer, so I didn't even have to download that program.

Memory Song Test

2008-08-14T22:38:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm trying something new on the blog. I put some of memorization recommendations in The Well Trained Mind to a tune. I feel the need to apologize for the cheesy lyrics and the poor sound quality. I'm trying to make due with some of the programs my computer already has on it.

Wars of the Middle Ages (tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic)
The Wars of the Middle Ages start with the Crusades
The Muslims and the Christians, the Holy land did raid
They battled for 200 years before they were all done
From 1095 to 1291.

The first ten ninety-six to ninety-nine
A Wild mob surrounded Palestine.
The second in 1187
They thought if they fought they would go to heaven.

In 1191 the Lionheart took the lead
He couldn’t win, but he had them sign a treaty
The 4th Crusade in 1202 to 1204
They looted Constantinople till there was no more!

The tried to send the children in 1212
The Children’s Crusade was not good for their health.
The fifth and 6th didn’t get much done.
And finally in 1291 Egypt won

The Hundred Years War fought with England and France.
They both wanted Kingdoms so they thought they’d take the chance.
The start in 1377 and all the years between
Don’t add up to 100, but 116.

Joan of Arc of Arc, a very young girl
Led the people into battle
Many bloody battles were lost and found
And in the end, neither side had gained much ground.

The Wars of the Roses wasn’t like a flower
The Yorks and the Lancasters both wanted power
From 1455 to 1485
Until a Lancastor took a York for a wife

The final war that we will relate
Went from 1562 to 1598
The Catholics and the Protestants were fighting for the rule.
The French Wars of Religion just weren’t cool!

Yearly Planning for Next Year

2008-06-06T07:42:00.000-07:00

I understand that not everyone loves to plan and organize as much as I do, so you will have to bear with me in my extreme "geeky-ness!" I get great joy out of planning and I find our school runs so much more smoothly when I have a plan!

The first thing that I did was to look at next year's calendar and mark out the weeks we would be gone and figure out how I wanted to break up the 36 weeks. I chose 36 weeks because TOG has 36 lessons and even though we technically school year-round, I do try to have a difference between the normal year and our summer work.

The next thing that I have done is to break all my curriculum up into 36 weeks. This I have listed on the chart below. This is the first year that I have done this with all the subjects, and so I know that there will be weeks that we don't get through everything, but I really like to keep moving on our TOG studies so that we can get through the whole curriculum by the time we go on vacation in June. It has worked this year, and knowing that I can't stop has been a great motivator to keep me pushing forward. I have been pleased with how much we did get done. We'll see how it goes with everything pre-scheduled! Whatever we can't finish will be finished in our summer weeks.

The final thing that I am working on is making up my notebooks. Last year I had wonderful sucess with my history notebooks that I am going to make monthly notebooks with the kids daily work. I have been tearing up workbooks and copying pages that we will need, but I think it will be so nice to have everything in one place next year.

The final step is to make my checklist. I don't like working from a strict schedule (meaning from 9-9:30 we do math, etc.) I much prefer having a list where I can make sure we completed everything I wanted to get done that week. I use this page (which I "stole" and modified from Jessica. On this page I write down everything I need to remember to accomplish.

Week 35-TOG

2008-06-06T07:30:00.001-07:00

History: The focus of this week was the Coliseum and the gladiators as we approach the end of the Roman empire.

Church History: We read about the catacombs and the persecution of the early church.

Literature:

Dictation: We finished up I Corinthians 13

Writing: We wrote about the Gladiators

Notebooking Pages: We drew a picture of the Coliseum and found pictures of the early Roman catacombs. (pictures coming later)

Week 34-TOG

2008-05-30T11:24:00.001-07:00

This week the focus has been on Roman life at the end of the empire with an emphasis on the activities on the Colosseum. We are also talking about the early church.

History:

Literature:

Church History:

Dictation: We used the first half of 1 Corinthians 13 for our dictation this week.

Writing: This week we wrote about the gladiators and the activities at the Colosseum.

Memory: We are working on adding 1 Corinthians 13 to our memory list.

Notebooking: We colored a picture of the Colloseum, listed vocab words that have to do the early church, and found some pictures of the Roman catacombs. (pictures to come soon)

Week 33-TOG

2008-05-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

This has been a crazy week. I have had three extras to homeschool this week (my neices and nephew) since my sil is packing boxes to move. It has been great to have them with us! We have also had dress rehearsals every night for Annsley's Beauty and the Beast. This has made for a full (but fun) week!

History: The focus this week was finishing up the daily life during Roman times. We focused on the five good emperors.

Literature:

Bible: This week the focus was on the early church and the book of Acts. We also started the Church history book.

Dictation: This week our dictation was famous Roman sayings.

Memory: We worked on memorizing the first 15 Romans emperorsWriting: The kids wrote about the erruption of Mt Vesuvius and the city of Pompeii.

Notebooking pages: (coming soon)

Projects: We painted murals like they did in the Roman times to put on the walls. (We didn't paint them directly on the walls, much to the kids' chagrine!)

And, of course.....we took a Roman bath. (Men and women separate)

Week 32-TOG

2008-05-16T10:06:00.000-07:00

How is it that we are already to Week 32?!? It feels like I just started Tapestry of Grace, and now we are almost done with Year 1. This week the main focus was on the first five Roman emperors and daily life in the Roman Empire. We also looked at the death and resurrection of Jesus.

History:

Literature:

Dictation: We used the Be-attitudes as our dictation for this week

Memory: We added the Be-attitudes and the first five Roman emperors to the memory CD.

Writing: This week for our writing we wrote a paragraph about Nero and his terrible influence on Rome.

Evaluation: We did the Upper Grammar fill in the blank quiz to test some of the vocab we learned in this lesson.

Notebooking Pages: We did the lapbooks on the Resurrection and What the Cross Means to me.

Fine Arts:This week we are going to paint a mural (not really on the wall, I hope) in the Roman style.

Week 31-TOG

2008-05-09T14:22:00.001-07:00

History: This week the main thread of the history was the transformation from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire and some of the major people from this period.

Literature: Annsley is reading Outcast and Seth started Benjamin's Secret Journal.

Dictation: Dictation this week was famous Roman sayings, including Veni Vedi Vici from Julius Caesar.

Memory: This week we are memorizing a few lines from the Marc Antony speach in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. I was going to have them do more, but this was all I felt we could reasonably tackle this week:

Friends, Romans, countryment, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;

The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft interred with their bones,

So let it be with Caesar...The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answered it...

Writing: This week we wrote about Julius Caesae. We will continue to use the IEW, unit 4 type writing for the rest of the year.

Bible: The focus this week was on the parables of Jesus and we read Matthew 13-25, making a lapbook of some of the parables. The kids actually wrote the parables in their lapbooks in Spanish as their Spanish assisgnment this week.

Evaluation: The kids did the matching quiz on Roman leaders.

Notebooking pages:

Fine Arts:We made a celtic cross bookmark this week. (Pictures coming soon)

Week 30-TOG

2008-05-09T14:03:00.002-07:00

History: This week the main thread of the history was the people and events of the Punic Wars. We also focused a little on the lives and tactics of Roman soldiers.

Literature: Annsley is continuing with In Search of a Homeland and Seth started Benjamin's Secret Journal.

Dictation: Dictation this week was The Lord's Prayer because we were talking about Jesus's ministry to the disciples. I realized that Seth had never memorized this and so it was also on our memory CD this week.

Writing: This week we wrote about Hannibal and his role in the Punic Wars. We will continue to use the IEW, unit 4 type writing for the rest of the year.

Bible: The focus this week was on the miracles of Jesus and we read Matthew 8-12, making a lapbook of some of the miracles.

Evaluation: The kids did the fill in the blanks quiz on the Punic Wars for the dialectic level this week.

Notebooking pages:

Fine Arts:We made an aqueduct this week.

Week 29 TOG

2008-04-23T12:03:00.000-07:00

History: The main topics of this week were the daily life in the early Roman republic. We also looked a bit at how the government was set up.

Literature: Continued from last week

Bible: This week the focus is on the beginning of Jesus's adult ministry and his baptism. There were Bible questions from the student pages.

Dictation: We used selections from the XII Roman law tablets, which were the foundation of the Roman law.

Writing: They each chose an area of daily life in the early Roman republic and wrote about that, using unit 4 IEW.

Notebooking pages:

Fine Arts: We wove baskets since the Romans wove baskets in their daily life.

Week 28-TOG

2008-04-23T11:04:00.000-07:00

History: We are starting on unit 4, the History of Redemption. This week we focused on the founding of Rome and the Etruscan people.

Literature:

Bible: We are reading through the gospels during this unit and the focus was on the familiar story of Christ's birth and childhood. They had Bible questions to answer from the student pages.

Dictation: We used Mary's prayer, the Magnificat, for our dictation this week.

Memory: We reviewed the books of the New Testament

Writing: The writing assignment was discussing the Etruscans and their influence on the Romans. I am going to continue to do IEW unit 4 writing for the rest of the year. I used an exerpt from the Usborne book.

Notebooking pages: The book about Jesus's childhood opens up and there are 3 little books in it for Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.

We made a little flip book of the flora and fauna of the Roman peninsula. This is a picture of one of the pages opened up.

We had a New Testament book word search for this lesson.

Fine Arts:This week we looked at pictures of some mosaics from the time of the Etruscans and made our own! It is a good thing I took a picture quickly, otherwise they might not have survived too long!

Unit 3 celebration

2008-04-23T11:01:00.001-07:00

Unit 3 celebration

2008-04-23T09:46:00.000-07:00

We started off the unit celebration with the kids showing the 3 battles from the Persian war that they staged and acted out. I need to figure out how to get our video onto my blog. We don't have a digital recorder.

Next the kids put on their Greek play, the story of Job. They were amazing, and I was so proud of them!! See the slideshow above.

Week 27-TOG

2008-04-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

This is the final week of our third unit. I really can not believe that we have made it this far already! It seems to be zipping by!! This next Tuesday night we will be having our third unit celebration where we will be performing our Greek play (the story of the life of Job). The masks will (hopefully) be painted and the lines totally memorized by then.

History: The focus of this weeks lesson was Alexander the Great and the Hellenism of the Ancient world. We also learned about the Macabean rebellion and the origin of Hanukkah.

Literature: The kids both finished their books from last week.

Writing: The kids both wrote about the Macabean rebellion and the beginning of Hanukkah.

Dication: The story of Alexander and Becephalus

Geography: The are that was conquered by Alexander the Great

Notebooking:

(Don't know what happened to the above scan!)

Projects: We will paint our masks and finish the play. Pictures to come later!

Week 26-TOG

2008-04-03T07:54:00.001-07:00

The theme of this week was to learn about some specifics of the Ancient greeks, including the theater and several well-known Greeks.

History-

Literature-

The kids both read books about famous Greeks and their inventions and contributions.

Dictation-This week in dication, we used some of Socrates sayings.

Writing-Our writing assignment is about Pythagorus this week. I guess it is the math geek in me coming out.

Geography-We are looking at a map of the Italian penninsula this week.

Notebook pages- We made a little book about the Greek alphabet and practiced writing in Greek. We also drew a greek comedy and tragedy mask.

Project-We made Greek masks. Hopefully the will work to wear for the unit celebration when we perform our Greek play.

Week 25-TOG

2008-04-03T07:07:00.000-07:00

History-The topic this month was the Peloponnesian War, with a focus on the art and architecture of Classical Greece.

Literature-We finished our books from last week. Annsley finished Victory on the Wall and Seth finished Pegasus. They both enjoyed these books.

Dication-We finished selections from the Athenian Code this week.

Writing-This week we continued with Unit IV in IEW and we wrote about the first Olympics.

Geography-

Notebook pages-

We looked at (and drew) a lot of Grecian pottery and art.

We also studied the architecture and the different types of columns the Greeks were know for.

Project- We continued to work on the video taping of the Battle of Salamis, Marathon, and Thermopylae. The kids also practiced their Job play for the unit celebration.

State Reports

2008-03-21T22:11:00.001-07:00

One of the things that I love about our co-op is that the kids get experiences that they don't get at home. In their writing class they were assigned a state, and they had to do a brochure and a float including all kinds of information about their state. One thing that made me happy was that they really took ownership in the project and worked on it at home and asked me to help them, rather than me nagging them to get it done. Some of the skills that I was thrilled to see them develop was making sure they had all the information that the teacher asked for (she had given them a list of things to include). They also set weekly goals with their teacher (who is amazing) and it was so cute to hear them talking about making sure they met their goal. These are all skills that I value and it is nice to have them reinforced by someone else. They finished both the brochure and the floats this week. They came out very cute. I'd like to post the brochure too if I can figure out how to do that. They were the first to finish in their class. In a couple weeks they will be presenting them to all the parents.

Annsley got the state of Florida and included things about the beach, the floral gardens, Disney World. They also had to have the state motto, bird, flag, map, and a few other things.

Seth got the state of Wisconsin. Some of the things he wrote about were football (of course), cheese, and all the lakes. We included these things on the float.

Week 24 TOG update

2008-03-21T21:45:00.000-07:00

This week we studied about the Persian Wars and reviewed some information about the ancient Greeks.

History:

Literature:

Seth read this book. He read the whole thing this week even though it was supposed to take two weeks.

Annsley is on week 2 of this book and really enjoying it.

Geography: We looked at the map of Greece and the Persian Empire. We labled the places where some of the major battles in the Persian War happened.

Writing: Confession time. This week, due to a variety of reasons, I could not seem to get around to the writing assignment. I needed to teach the how to write the outline for the new unit, and I just never could find the time. I think that tomorrow (working on a Saturday) I will show them how to take notes for the Unit IV (Writing from one source) unit. Then, next week we'll go through the whole process.

Dictation: This week we used a selection from the Athenian oath as our dictation.

Notebooking pages: This week we drew pictures of the Greek ships and weapons. We also made a little booklet about life in Ancient Greece. I can not seem to get my pictures off my camera right now, so I'll have to post pictures later.

This is Seth's ship and weapons.

This is Annsley's ship and weapons.

Fine Arts: This week we began our Greek play on the story of Job that the kids will perform at the unit celebration. Annsley will be playing the role of God and Seth has the distinguished role of the devil! (Hmmmmm, type casting?!?)

(Can you tell it was St Patrick's Day this day? We took our history books to McDonalds and had a Shamrock shake.)

Week 23-TOG

2008-03-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

The focus for this week is the Persian Empire and the time where the Israelites were allowed to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. We also spent time on Esther and studied a little about the Feast of Purim

History Reading:

Most of the reading this week was Bible reading. The kids read Esther and Nehemiah in Spanish with Daddy. This has been such a great addition to the history studies and really pulls Danny in to what we are learning about.

We read the chapter in SOTW that talks about Persia and King Cyrus. We also read a little bit from the Usborne book

Literature: Annsley started Victory on the Wall

Writing: This week we did another Unit 3-writing a narrative story on the story of Esther. Seth struggles with this because he really has a hard time choosing the details to include. The choices seems to paralyze him a bit. He can add all the dress-ups, etc, but the Unit 2 were much easier for him. I may be choosing stories that are too big, and perhaps I need to narrow down the story a little bit for him.

Dictation: For dictation this week we did a poem I found about the Feast of Purim

Geography:We mapped the Persian empire this week.

Fine Arts: Next Monday we will have a feast of Purim celebration for the project for the week.

Week 22-TOG update

2008-03-07T12:25:00.001-08:00

History: The themes this week had to do with the neo-Babylonian civilization. We spent a lot of time talking about the captivity of Judah. We read the book of Daniel and parts of II Kings. We also read about the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. The kids even read the book of Daniel in Spanish with Dad.

Writing: We began Unit 3 writing in IEW. This is a unit of Summarizing Narrative Stories. We worked on our favorite story from the book of Daniel. We also added the final two sentence openers. (Very short sentence and clausal opener).

Dictation: This week our dictation was selected Babylonian proverbs.

Fine Arts: This week we drew the famous Gate of Ishtar. We also made a little book of Daniel and the Lion's Den.

Geography: We mapped the Babylonian Empire.

Project from week 21:

We looked at the Assyrian Relief carvings, and decided that people might be too difficult for us to tackle. So, we carved simpler images. It gave us all a new appreciation for what carvers have to do out of stone. Ours was just a bar of soap!

Week 21-TOG

2008-02-26T20:24:00.000-08:00

History: The main theme of this week is getting an introduction to the Assyrian Empire and talk about how the Northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrians. The history reading is mostly Bible reading again. We also focused on the familiar story of Jonah. The kids even read the book of Jonah in Spanish with Dad.

2 Kings 11-17

Usborne Encyclopedia of the Ancient World

Life in Ancient Mesopotamia

What the Bible is All About for Young Explorers

The Story of the World-volume 1 (chapter 16)

Dictation: Our dictation selection is Proverbs 15:1-3

Writing: We finished up our IEW unit 2 this week with writing from an outline about the Assyrian Empire. We added two new sentence starters (-ly and -ing openers)

Timeline: Again this week we did some more extensive timeline work comparing the kings and prophets of Israel and Judah during this time period.

Fine Arts: We carved an Assyrian relief out of a bar of soap. We also made a pop-up book of Jonah being swallowed by a big fish.

Week 20-update

2008-02-18T13:29:00.000-08:00

History: The focus of this week was understanding The split of the Davidic Kingdom. We also focused on the prophets Elisha & Elijah.

The reading was almost all Bible this week. The kids read a big chunk of 1 Kings and 2 Kings this week. We also covered an overview of Obadiah and Joel.

Literature: Annsley finished up Adara (actually she finished it last week, but that was her assignment for this week.) The rest was Bible reading

Writing: We are working on writing from an outline and the kids wrote summaries about the split of the Davidic kingdom. We added two sentences openers (subject and prepostitional openers).

Dictation: Our dictation was selections from Proverbs.

Timeline: We made a fairly detailed timeline of the prophets and kings of Israel and Judah during this time.

Fine Arts: We made an altar of rocks. We talked about how alters help us to remember what God has done for us. We painted the rocks with things we are thankful for. We also made a book with an illustration of what God did verses what Baal did when they were put up against each other.

This week on our memory CD (daily):
Trees by Joyce Kilmer
Skip Counting 13's song
Phillipians 2
Athropod song (from Science Jukebox)

Review Work (Said only once):
Latin Table Blessing
The Pater Noster
The Height of the Ridiculous by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Kings and Queens of England song
The Presidents Song
Gettysburg Address
The Duke of Plaza-Toro by WS Gilbert
Preamble to the Constitution
Numbers 14:2
Numbers 25: 5,17
Duet 30:19
God and the Soldier (Author Unknown)
Declaration of Indenpendence
Joshua 1:9
Joshua 10:12-13
Judges 6:1
Genesis 1:26-28
Judges 21:25
Ruth 1:16
I Samuel 3:19-20

Spanish update: The kids have started reading books in Spanish. They think this is a fun change. Annsley is reading Ramona the Pest and Seth is reading Henry Huggins.

Latin: This was supposed to be a review week (Latina Christiana 2-review of lessons 10-15), but we didn't actually get around to taking the test, so we're going to spend another week on this lesson.

Pictures of the Notebook

2008-02-15T13:13:00.000-08:00

1. Reading chart from TOG. I didn't scan anything that is copyrited so I don't show that page here.

2. Student page printed from The Loom.

3. History/Bible questions from the student pages that I copied onto a word document so that the kids could have room to write their answers. This has been so nice, because I can't tell you how many different notebooks my kids wrote their answers in before and I never could find them to look them over.

4. Notebooking pages. I pulled these together myself from various sources. I am using some of the material from the TOG lapbooks. I am also using the beautiful free notebooking pages that Debra in MO posted on the Yahoo Loose Threads group. I selected dictation selections from Julie's Ancient Copywork book available at Lulu.com and a few other sources. Here are the three pages we did this week. The first two pages have books that can opened. The third is the diagram of the temple.

5. Maps from Mapaids

6. Writing-I included a page for them to do a prewrite for whatever IEW unit we are working on. This week we are reviewing key word outlines and dress-ups.

Next I included blank paper for them to write a rough draft (and a IEW checklist)

I included a blank piece of paper where we will tape the final typed paper.

7. I have another blank page to put pictures of whatever project we do this week.

8. I put the quiz from the Evaluations CD as the final page.

The kids did so great with it this week. It kept me focused, organized and on track!! I know they will love the finished product.

Week 19-TOG

2008-02-14T21:27:00.000-08:00

I was inspired (thanks karenciavo!!) to put together a workbook for our TOG material so we would have everything all together. So, I decided I needed something like that as we ented unit 3. Here are the things I included in our notebook.

the TOG reading chart

student page copied from the Loom disk

I copied the history/bible questions onto another page with room for them to answer the questions.

Map from Mapaids

Notebooking pages (I put my own together pulling from various sources-I'll post these sometime)

Writing assignment using IEW units (I decided to go back and pull a few things from IEW)

A blank page to put pictures of projects

Quiz from the Evaluations CD

After tomorrow, we'll be done with the week and I'll try to scan and show you the pages of the notebook we completed. I like how it came out.

History:
This week our reading focused on King Solomon. We looked at 1 Kings and Proverbs. It was great to see the kids digging into the Proverbs trying to find some good ones that applied to their lives. I was impressed with what they came up with.

Literature:

Annsley read Adara this week, which she has read before, but really enjoys. Seth's literature was chapters from Proverbs.

Writing: The kids are working on IEW-unit 2 (writing from an outline) and they are writing a paragraph about Solomon. They are making sure to add the dress-ups to their work.

Lapbook: The kids are drawing a model of Solomon's temple. They are also adding a vocabulary section and a section on Proverbs that apply to their lives.

Dication: They are doing exerpts from the poem Solomon and the Ants about the visit from the Queen of Sheba.

Project: On Monday we will be working on a model of the temple and putting on a play about the Queen of Sheba.

Don't miss reading about our great unit 2 celebration below.

Unit 2 Celebration

2008-02-14T21:03:00.000-08:00

Wow!!! I can not believe we are halfway through the year already. I feel like there are parts of unit 2 that I just did not do justice to, but I guess we'll pick it up the next time around, right? Tonight we had a wonderful unit celebration and the theme was International night. Each of the kids chose one of the civilizations that we studied this past nine weeks, and gave a speach, showed a project that we made, and brought some food from their country.

Seth started off the evening giving a speech about the Ancient Americas. He made tortillas and declined to wear a costume, claiming that they only wore loin clothes. He wasn't about to wear one of those for the sake of a history project. He showed the beadwork project.

Claire went next and talked about Ancient China. She brought potstickers and showed how we made our own paper.

Kailyn talked about the Minoan and Mycenian civilizations, and showed the frescoes that we made and painted. She served bread in olive oil and grapes.

Cade talked the history of the Israelites after Moses until the time of David. He served mannah (Saltines with honey on them).

Annsley gave her speech on the Hittite civilization and made a loaf of homemade bread. She showed her pendant necklace that she made like the Hittites wore.

The kids did a great job with their speeches and I was very proud of their work!!

Week 19 Memory Work

2008-02-13T09:34:00.000-08:00

This week on our memory CD (daily):

Trees by Joyce Kilmer
Skip Counting 13's song
Phillipians 2
Athropod song (from Science Jukebox)

Review Work (Said only once):
My Shadow by Robert Lewis Stevens
There Was an Old Person Whose Habits by Edward Lear
Jonathan Bing by Beatrice Curtis Brown
Whole Duty of Children by Robert Louis Stevenson
After the Party by William Wise
Singing Time by Roberts Louis Steveson
The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson
The Yak by Hilare Belloc
The Ingenious Little Old Man by John Bennett
Godfrey Gordan Gustavus Gore by William brighty Rands
My Gift by Christina Rosetti
The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson
Persevere
Sanctus
The Doxology (Latin)
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

Week 17-18

2008-02-09T11:31:00.000-08:00

We have been doing the TOG minimum these last two weeks. We are doing all the reading and answering questions, but we just haven't seemed to delve into it like other weeks. We finished the Unit 2 lapbook and we are getting ready for our Unit 2 Celebration on Thursday night. Seth is doing a speech on the Ancient Aztecs and Annsley is doing her speech on the Hittite civilization. Seth will be serving tortillas and showing our beading project. Annsley will be making bread and completing a Hittite craft of some sort. I'm hoping to borrow a digital video camera so I can put their speech on my blog.

Week 16-TOG

2008-01-27T14:14:00.000-08:00

History

There was a lot of Bible reading in History this week. Both read Ruth, Judges, and part of Joshua. The focus of this week was the nations that surrounded Israel and interacted with them in the Bible. This was a good review for me because honestly I don't know my Hittites from my Ammonites. I know God had some pretty strict judgement for them, but I don't remember which ones go with which story.
Geography
The focus was the tribes of Israel and their neighbors.

We did not do any hand-on projects this week.

Week 15 update-TOG

2008-01-18T10:07:00.000-08:00

For some reason I'm having a hard time since Christmas break feeling like we are on top of things. Here it is Friday and we still have so much history/writing that we haven't done yet. I need to spend some time figuring out what I need to do to feel like I'm back on top of things. So, this week, I am going to list the things that *will be* completed over the weekend rather than the things that are all done!

History: This week we are focusing on the time where the Israelits were at last allowed to enter the Promised Land! The history reading and Bible reading are the same, and the kids read from the book of Joshua and Judges. We also read some pages in What the Bible is All About for Young Explorers.

Writing: This week we are writing compare and contrast essays on Moses and Joshua. (This is one of the things that hasn't happened yet this week.)

Fine Arts: I have not yet decided which project we will do on Monday.

Geography: We looked at the maps of Israel during the time of the Judges.

Since I never mention the other subjects we are doing, I'll give a little update on where we are in those subjects.

Grammar: We are using Rod & Staff 5, and the kids are almost done with this book. Grammar seems to come fairly easy for them, and they actually enjoy diagramming sentences.

Latin: We are about halfway done with Latina Christiana 2. The kids do pretty well with this and we are progressing with this. I don't know where we'll go next year after this.

Spanish: The kids do Spanish with Daddy every night. They are reading and translating the book of Luke right now.

Math: Annsley is doing Math-U-See Algebra and is about 2/3 of the way through. She alternates this with ALEKS online. Seth is almost done with Math-U-See Pre-Algebra and is starting Singapore 6B.

Memory Work: We are continuing with our weekly Memory CD.

Science: We are studying the lesson on bats in Apologia Science (Flying Creatures). We are making a lapbook to go along with this.

Piano: The kids take lessons from Grandma and are practicing daily.

Week 14 update

2008-01-07T12:50:00.000-08:00

It is good to be back in the swing of things. We did a little school here and there over the last 3 weeks, but we took a total break from history, science, grammar, memory work, and Latin (besides some flashcard work). So, this is our first week back in full. We are finishing up the unit on the early Greeks.

History:

Literature:

Writing: This week we are starting a state notebook for our writing assignments. The kids will have to do some internet research for this project.

Fine Arts: We switched our project day from Wednesday to Monday, so we have not yet done the project for this week. I'll post pictures of the Greeks frescoes that we will make after Monday.

Electricity

2007-12-17T15:12:00.000-08:00

In the kids' co-op science class they have been learning all about circuits and electricity. They got to do cool things like make a flashlight and wire a box house. We are taking three weeks off from history and science, but we are using the time to catch up on little things we haven't finished. So, I thought I'd post some pictures of the kids' houses that they wired. They can turn on lights in each of the rooms. They had a great time wiring, and then decorating their houses. I'll let you guess which one is the girls' house and which one is the boys'.

Week 13

2007-12-13T18:38:00.000-08:00

This has been an abnormal week for us because I had parent conferences at work and was at work all day Monday. Plus, we have the Sanchez kids staying with us for most of this week. So, we really just began our history today. We spent some time wrapping up the Ancient Americas to which I didn't feel that we had done justice.. After this week we will be taking three weeks off from history and science. We'll will still do regular (although not daily) math, Spanish, and Latin. We'll use the time to finish up a couple of projects from history and/or science that we have not yet had time to finish. So, week 14 will not be until the first week of January. Perhaps I'll use this time to updat what the kids are doing in their other subjects.

History:

Literature:

Seth's Compare/Contrast Essay from week 11

2007-12-03T08:45:00.000-08:00

There are many differences and similarities between the Indus Valley and China during the Ancient times. Both of them were farmers, and they both lived next to a river. One of the main differences is their religions. The Indus Valley region believed in Hinduism, whereas China believed in Taoism and Confucianism. The next thing is government. The Indus Valley believed in the caste system, and China had an emperor. Last, was their writing. The Indus Valley used cuneiform, which was made up of lines and triangles. China used caligraphy which were small pictures that originally looked like the word. All in all there are more differences than similarities.

This is Seth's first attempt at a compare/contrast essay. I would say it is OK for a first draft, but the transitions are a bit stiff and artificial. I think we'll spend some time working on this before we make a final draft.

Week 12- TOG

2007-12-03T08:32:00.000-08:00

This week we will be learning about Ancient America. This week we did not have a writing assignment because the kids had quite a bit of work to do in their writing class at our co-op.

History:

Literature:

World View:

I had found this beading loom at a garage sale a few years ago and I remembered how much I had enjoyed making a beaded headband when I was in campfire girls. So, I picked it up, knowing it would come in handy one of these days.

But, I also knew that, while Annsley could handle this detail work, the other kids could not. So, I came up with the genious (if I don't say so myself) of using our cardboard weaving looms and big pony beads to do bead work.

The kids enjoyed the project so much that they decided to do this for their Christmas ornament for the year. Here is a sneak preview of one in progress. It will be a beaded tree.

Here are the projects that Seth finished.

Week 11 TOG report

2007-11-26T13:52:00.000-08:00

This week we are taking a whirlwind tour of Ancient China.

History: This week the kids are both reading the same book.

Literature: The kids are both reading this for literature this week.

World View:

Writing: This week Annsley is working on her outlining skills. She is taking five sections of the history book and making an outline from them. Seth is working on writing a compare/contrast essay and he will write an essay on the similarities and differences between Ancient China and the Ancient Indus Valley civilization.

Here are the kids trying to pick up a candy-corn with chopsticks. (Yes, I'm trying to get rid of the Halloween candy! :-)) You can also see a glimpse of the lapbook we did today. We learned the Chinese numbers and made a number book where we wrote different things from China. I kind of modified the idea from the Enchanted Learning Chinese Number book.

Next we made paper. I think this is a fascinating process and I'm amazed at how well it works. I found a paper-making kit at a garage sale 5 years ago and we did this same project the last time we did Ancient History. First you make the "slurry", a pulpy, watery mixture of cotton, torn paper (and other things). Next you use the little screen to strain the water out. Turn it onto a towel and let it dry.

Unit 1 Celebration Night

2007-11-20T21:09:00.001-08:00

We started the evening with our Seder dinner. This was a wonderful way to culminate the unit on Jewish holidays. It really brought it to life. The kids made Seder plates.

After the Seder both sets of Grandparents came over to hear oral reports and to look at all the things the kids have learned this unit. I was very proud of the kids, especially the ones (Seth) who feel uncomfortable in front of others.

Annsley gave her speach about daily life in Mesopotamia.

Cade gave his speech about how mummies were prepared (thus the Egyptian costume)

Claire gave her speech about pyramids.

Seth gave his speech about the different parts of the tabernacle. He is looking down because he is using the model we made as a visual aid.

Kailyn gave her speech on the different Jewish holidays.

Here is a picture of the kids showing their work. They have all their projects from the unit and their lapbooks. They are explaining it to the grandparents.

About out Memory CD

2007-11-17T16:01:00.000-08:00

I received a few questions about our Memory CD, so I thought I would post my response here.

Most of the things we are working on for memory work are from CDs from other programs. So, I have them all ripped onto my computer and each week or two, I change the playlist and burn it on my re-writable CD.

Once they have mastered a poem (or song) I take it off the CD and put it into our review notebook. Our review notebook is broken down into 31 sections (one for each day) and I divide the learned stuff evenly over the days. Then, after we do our CD we review the 2-3 things that are on that day's review list. (On Friday we do the review for Saturday and Sunday also.) I will also add poems or songs back onto the CD if the kids are forgetting something and need more review.

I put in the CD first thing after Bible time and the kids work on memorizing the things on it. They like it because they can color, jump on the mini-trampoline, or something else while they are doing it as long as I can hear them saying the memory work. They feel like they are "putting off school" so they always want me to add things to their CD. And, they don't know that I am thrilled that we are getting to memory work. It has made all the difference in the world for us actually getting around to it!!

There are some things that are not on CD's (like some of the Bible passages we are learning) and so I plug my mic into my computer and use a basic program to record my voice and save it on the computer. The free program I use is on my computer. It is under "programs" then "accessories" then "entertainment" then "sound recorder." I stumbled on this by accident one time, so check to see if you have this option. It only records for 60 seconds, but it has been fine for me so far.

I hope this helps, please let me know if you have any other questions.

What's on our Memory CD right now?

2007-11-16T09:47:00.001-08:00

Romans 12
The Spider and the Fly (poem from Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization)
President Song (from Broadway Kids sing America)
Ten Commandments song (from Classical Conversations CD)
Jonathon Bing (poem from Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization)
Charge of the Light Brigade (poem from Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization)
Adestel Fidelis (from Lingua Angelica)
Skip counting-cubes (from Classical Conversations CD)

Week 10 report

2007-11-12T12:39:00.000-08:00

This week we start Unit 2 of TOG. The focus will be on a variety of Ancient Cultures. This week focuses specifically on the Indus River Valley.

History:

Literature:

Bible/Worldview:

We are still finishing up some last minute work for our Seder dinner this weekend, but we did take some time to make cookie dough maps of Ancient India, complete with chocolate chip Himmalaya Mountains!

Apologia Zoo 1-lesson 5

2007-11-12T12:32:00.000-08:00

This week we learned about different kinds of nests. In fact, the kids wanted to build their own.

Week 9 report.

2007-11-11T20:20:00.000-08:00

We finished up the 3 week mini-unit on Jewish holidays. The kids finished the books they were reading from the last two weeks. They also finished the punch out model of the tabernacle. They each wrote an essay about the different parts of the tabernacle. They finished their unit 1 lapbooks and are proud of their work. We will be having our Seder this Friday night. After the Seder we'll have a museum/presentation of our work to the Grandparents.

Tapestry of Grace-week 8

2007-10-29T07:44:00.001-07:00

This week, we will be continuing the study of Hebrew holidays. We will also be continuing our work on the tabernacle. The reading assignments come from the same books as last week, so there won't be any new reading to add. Nothing new and exciting to add.

Tapestry of Grace-week 7

2007-10-26T14:25:00.000-07:00

I had good intentions (really, I did) of blogging every week with TOG as a record of our work, but the road to you-know-where is paved with good intentions. We are loving Tapestry of Grace! This week one of the main focus points was on the Tabernacle.

History/Bible Literature Reading:

The book of Exodus

Annsley is really enjoying reading Wonders and Miracles. It is a beautiful book about Jewish holidays. We got it from the library, but it is one I think I would like to own. Seth, on the other hand, is not enjoying Tirzah that much. He was not happy from the start when he saw a girl on the front cover. It is only week one of three on this book.

Writing:

This week in writing the kids completed the reports on Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. We also wrote a paragraph on the outer courtyard of the Tabernacle. I'll post those when we get them typed up.

Fine Arts:

We finished the weaving projects from last week, using the colors that were used in the tapestries of the tabernacle. The kids made a tent and slept in that as if they were camped around the tabernacle. They decided to be from the tribe of Judah because they were close to the front and in the line of Christ.

Seth's weaving

Annsley's weaving

Tonight we went to a Shabbat service at our local Jewish synnagogue. It was very interesting and the Torah reading went along just perfectly with what we have been studying.

Salt Maps of the Nile River

2007-09-25T18:22:00.000-07:00

Tapestry of Grace-Week 1

Silly, silly children!!