School Work

I haven't posted a weekly report in ages. Not that these are the most interesting posts but they are a good record of what we have been doing and since I was sitting here writing up a report for our last month of school to turn into our Charter School I figured why not put some of it here.

We will start with Science.
My hardest subject to actually get excited excited about. We have only done one chapter in our Anatomy Apologia text in the last month. We learned about blood. Next week we will get into the circulatory system hopefully but we have taken a long time learning about what is in our blood and what blood does for us. I have also been having Henry read a lot of the Magic School bus easy reader books. We have read about bones, blood, germs and a few others I can't remember. Some not even related to the body but just because they are fun and easy for him to read.
The kids start back into their science workshops this week so I won't feel quite so guilty about not doing formal science with them on a more regular basis.

History isn't too hard to fit into our schedule. We love reading books and my kids have really taken to Greek Myths. We listen to our chapters of Story of the World but mostly we read books about Greece or Mythology.  We are also on the last book in the Percy Jackson series.  There are a lot of things yet to cover about the Greeks that we haven't gotten to yet so I think we will be here for another few weeks.

Writing is going well with IEW. Sophie decided to switch to the Ancient History based Lessons rather than finish the All thing Fun and Fascinating.  We have even stepped away from the lesson and just practiced the technique with things from the books we are reading in History and even Science. She has done a number of really good notebooking pages about blood and the Olympics in which she uses the techniques and dress ups she has been taught so far in in the IEW lessons. I love that she is feeling more confident in her writing.

I think I am going to start Ian on the Student Writing Intensive soon. He has been doing Literature based Language arts the last few weeks and it has been going well but I think we need to move on.

Henry is still doing explode the code. He finished book 4 and is going to do 4 1/2  and just like I did with Ian, I am going to stop them there. Henry is really starting to read well and it is time to start working on more. I am going to have to think about what to do with him in a few weeks when he has finished this workbook.

Math is going smoothly. Sophie started back into Singapore 5B and is having not any trouble with decimals. Ian has gotten through all the multiplication chapters but still doesn't have all those math facts stuck in his head so we are going to go through Math Mammoth to cement them into his head. Henry finished his 1B workbook and before moving on we are reading through the Life of Fred Elementary books that our family got for Christmas. We have already finished Apples and have started Butterflies. I don't have all of the elementary series yet so we will only get to read through Dogs right now but my boys really enjoy these even if they are really simple math. But they now have the days of the week and the months of the year down. They can even spell them, thanks to Fred and me quizzing them on them almost everyday!

We have reviewed our Latin Lessons this week since we have taken some time off from doing any Latin lessons over the holidays.

We read books about Grandma Moses for Art. I can't say it was an in depth study but we read her biography and looked at a few other books that use her artwork. It has also been a good way to go over the months of the year and the seasons.

Our read aloud has been The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. We then discussed it at Co-op.

I really liked the book but I can tell the kids only got some of the greatness of the book. It is hard to get all the puns and use of idioms when you are young and haven't heard them as much. But the kids, even at co-op, seemed to understand the point of the book.

My favorite quote from this book.

"Whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer."

"Many places you would like to see are just off the map and many things you want to know are just out of sight or a little beyond your reach. But someday you'll reach them all, for what you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow. "

Other read alouds have been plentiful. I feel like I read and read and read to these kids. Molly loves the Fancy Nancy books and I noticed that the boys got very excited when they saw that I found a whole bunch of new ones at the library this week.  I have also picked up a number of books to read about Mr. Magee. These are some very funny, rhyming books that are just fun.

Sophie was very excited when I found the new American Girl of the Year book at the library.  She has already finished it.

That has been about it. There is all sort of other things we are doing but that is it for school.

Of course what I can't report to the school is the gospel study. They don't want anything to do with that. But we are reading the Book of Mormon again this year. We started reading the old testament at Christmas time because we had finished the Book of Mormon but our Stake President and Bishop challenged us to read the Book of Mormon since that is the course of study for Sunday School this year.  My kids decided they would have to come back to the Old Testament once we have read through the Book of Mormon again.

We are reviewing the 2 Psalms we have learned. My kids have psalm 23 down but 100 needs a lot more help. After a week or two of not repeating it they have forgotten a lot of it. We added in 1 Nephi 3:7 to the list as well as all 13 articles of faith which they all have down pretty well thanks to those Scripture Scout songs.  Ian has also been working on the things he needs to have memorized for his Bobcat badge. I signed them off so I think he should get that Bobcat at the next pack meeting.

As for our Hymn, Primary song for the month. We decided to learn Nephi's courage since we are reading those stories right now in the scriptures.

So that is a long list of the things we are studying. There is a lot going on and I know there are holes here and there in our studies but my kids love to learn so those things will eventually get filled in. 

For now we are doing pretty well.