Where Are We?

I haven't posted a weekly report in ages. So perhaps I could call this a quarterly report.

History -

We are still working our way through Story of the World. We are still reading about Rome but took a little detour the last two weeks and revisited India with the Jakata Tales and then China with the Terracotta army and the Great Wall. We watched a few documentaries that I found on Netflix streaming about the Terracotta army. I am really enjoying have Netflix at my fingertips! The kids even requested to watch Big Bird in China. It seems every time we learn about China they want to rewatch this film. Thank goodness the library had it sitting there on the shelf this week. We are heading back into Rome next week.

To go along with history we always have a bunch of books we read through.

David MacCauley is always a favorite. We read through his book City recently. It was very interesting to see the engineering that went into those intricately designed cities. We also can't pass up the great You wouldn't want to be.... books. We read about Roman Soldiers, Gladiators and Pompeii.

We also read through Roman Diary which mostly reviewed things we already knew about Rome and Roman life but was interesting to see life through the eyes of a slave in ancient Rome.

We listened to The Bronze Bow. This one started off slow and took the kids a little while to get into but they soon started to really enjoy it and wanted to know what Daniel would do next. It really was ment for an older audience. Sophie liked it but I am sure she will like it even more in a few years. It is one we will revisit the next time we discuss Rome.

I know we have done a few workbook pages to go along with our studies but I can't say we have been very diligent about doing them. I really should have Sophie do more writing about what we study. I am just too lazy I guess.

Science -
I am done with the Human Body. We went through the Apologia Anatomy book and it is designed to take a full year to go through. I think that is a little long. I was ready to move on to something else long ago. But we flew through the last few chapters and are done...finally!  This past month we have taken a bit of a break from formal science and have been doing a sort of bird study. Ian's cub scout den has been working on different bird projects so I  had him read a few books and study a bit more about birds to make sure all the scout requirements were complete.  The others of course just taged along with this study.

Math -
Sophie finished her Singapore Math 5B workbook and before moving on is reading through Life of Fred Decimals and Percents. So far it seems easy but she has only just arrived at the first bridge.

Ian is working through Singapore 3B and doesn't seem to struggle too much. He mostly just gets distracted and puts his book away without finishing assignments so I have to really be on top of checking work or else he gets away with not completing his exercises.

Henry is plugging away at 2A. I picked up an extra practice book for him and when he completes a section in the regular book we have him work through the practice book's corresponding section.

All three kids are playing Times Attack almost every day to review their Times Tables.

Language Arts -

Henry has started IEW's PAL writing

I started him on the 2nd section which starts with copy work. It is very easy for him but it is going over some of the basics of sentences which I think is good for him. Ian often sits in on the little mini lesson. I really wish I had started both boys with this earlier.  It is going really well.

Ian and Sophie have been slowly going through IEW's Student Writing Intensive Level A. Ian is struggling with adding in all the dress ups so I don't make him add every one, every time. He just works on getting the new one along with one or two of the other ones. Sophie has no problem getting them all in.  This program is going really well and I really like that the kids watch the DVD lesson. I like letting someone else teach the concepts.

Piano - All three kids are doing great. They are learning how to take a song and change it to a different key. They have a few songs that are accompaniment so we all get to sing along. Playing so others can sing along is an important skill and I am happy they are being taught how to do this so early on. Henry took it upon himself to learn Book of Mormon Stories so now we all get to hear and sing along to it several times a day. It is a good thing Molly loves it so much. He always has a willing singing partner.

Latin -  We started Visual Latin a few weeks ago. This has been a good change for us. We have only done the first 3 lessons so we will see how this goes. So far all three kids are keeping up. I don't require Henry to do all the workbook pages but Ian and Sophie don't seem to struggle too much.

What have I forgotten? I am sure there is much much more we have been doing. We seem to be always busy and have a bunch of things going but this is about it as far a formal education. The rest just sort of happens.

Oh... we did finally finish Captain Blue Bear. We have moved onto something totally different. Bud, not Buddy couldn't be more different that that silly blue bear.  I for one am happy to have something new to listen to. I picked up a few books to go along with it. It will be fun to revisit Jazz again.  This book is the one I picked to discuss with our co-op next month.  (I am in charge of the co-op book club discussion) It a bit of a change from the other books we have read for this group. I hope they enjoy it.