I have been really having a hard time getting into the school work groove, but I think as the sun emerges from it’s slumber, so am I. Today, I thought I would start to catch up with T. on his Old Testament Stories and plan for his Native American Indian Stories to begin. I wrote up a letter he will soon receive from Grandmother, announcing her visit, and Read to him the story of Abraham sacraficing his son and The beginning story of Moses. After trying several times to encourage discussion in hopes we could get a writing assignment out of these two, all I got was from it all was an experiment regarding the basket Moses was placed in. The basket was coated with Tar, so as not to sink and soak through. So, I figured if we made paper boats to simulate the basket and make another one and paint acrylic paint over it all to simulate the tar, we could see what happens. I have no idea what properties of science this might cover but I couldn’t draw anything out of him. Oh well.
I am in the process of trying to develop a little self-discipline on my part by waking early and preparing for the day ahead of time. I am also trying to incorperate more into our work that speaks to T. rather than at him. If that makes any sense. 😛 For B. I am trying to fill in gaps. Especially, with mathematics we seem to get stuck every year due to his resistance to memorizing his multiplication table. Due to this I can’t move him forward in his math study, becuase even though the concept is easy for him, the results still come out incorrect. So, I am doing some major track work with large multiples and division for a while, until I feel he is more competent. It took us over an hour to get through four problems of multi-digit multiplication. That was frustrating and long, but we accomplished a great foundation.
When our paint dries and we fill up the sink with water, I will show you our results of the boat experiment. I hope something interesting comes of it. Anyone know how to turn this one into eduspeak? LOL
This week we have gone over Noahs Ark and Tower of Babel in my lessons for T. in the Old Testament Main lesson. After telling the story of Noahs Ark, we discussed the importance of animals for our existence. Then I brought out our watercoloring supplies, to paint the scene of the Flood. After painting our pictures we then tackled very challenging word finds. We had to help each other to find all the words, there were not easy!
Today, I quickly read him the story of “The Tower of Babel”. Last week, I began creating bricks of oven bake clay i prep for this. I caught him whilst he was playing with dungeons and dragons figures, so I encouraged him to create his own Tower of Babel. He did a great job! He even incorperated the story within his play after building the tower. He had several of his characters not being able to understand each other. It was rather amusing to watch.
Myself and B. continued on our journey into the Middle Ages today. I had him read about Soldiers in the book, “Lords, Ladies, Peasants, and Knights: Class in the Middle Ages”, by Don Nardo. After he read the chapter designated for soldiers, I had him outline the main points and created a Main Lesson Page with a drawing of a Knight and Footman. From that point, we listened to Chapters 3 and 4 of Volume Two, Story of the World, by Susan Bauer. We reviewed the story of Beowulf and I played several hours worth of Beowulf in audio form found on Librivox.com. He then began preparing for St. Martins Lantern Walk by creating a tissue paper Lantern. Later in the day, I read him a few m ore chapters from “The Travels of Benjamin of Tudela” by cant remember. Then showed him some great examples of Letter Illuniation I found online and even a great Powerpoint presentation about it. http://www.aaronkirker.com/type2208c/documents/Illuminated%20Letters.pdf He came back to me with several examples of his own and expressed interest learning Celtic Knot drawing. So, I sped through the online resources and found a wonderful guide for him to read and practice with. http://mysite.verizon.net/mihaloew/celtic/ck_tutorial_07.pdf He immediately began drawing and has some great knots already completed.
T. and me began reviewing the Old Testament Stories of Cain and Able, then we proceeded with Cains Ancestory to include Jubal, Tubal and Jebal. We breifly went over Adam’s ancestory so he would understand the importance of Noahs’ role in our next story. Afterward, we played a great game I picked up on Discount the night before called “Word Monkeys”. T. really enjoyed trying to create spellings of words from his cards so much so he didn’t want me to have a turn. On his own he created 10 words and even checked some spellings in the dictionary. He spent most of the afternoon reading Volume 2, Story of the World Activity Book by Susan Bauer, since it was out. He also played with a string game I made for adding. I took a peice of wood from some packing and created an addition wrap. It worked! He went through the math problems having fun doing it! I am going to make more and will need white out. Apparently, you must pay close attention to how it wraps, otherwise it can skip wraps. Opps. He found himself repeating wraps and getting a little frustrated but still enjoying the process.
So far I have gathered the following resources for this years curricullum for third and seventh grade. I am awaiting a few more sources to arrive via mail. I am also still searching for many biographies and historical fictions for B. to read for the Middle Ages theme that carries through this year. I will also be using The Story of the World vol. 1 and vol. 2 for both boys to enhance the already begotten resources for eaches historical time period theme. I still have to purchase Vol. 2. These are heafty expenses. T.s’ thematic units are related to Jewish history/Old Testament mythology and latter, Native American mythology. I am ordering main lesson books through Paper Scissors and Stone. I ordered the astronomy main lesson books and a caligraphy pen from Mercurius USA. I will be trying to find a musical outlet for T. He has been playing with the Piano for a while on his own, now, so I might see if he would like lessons. Don’t know if that will turn him off from it, though. B. is ever progressing with his guitar like crazy. He is sounding really nice and coming up with some new sounds. T. also needs a physical activity, but not sure what to persue. I personally would appreciate a workout for myself somewhere squeezed in all this “for the kids” stuff. I will be trying to plan out my year with B. this week. His is more of a challenge for me. I would really have preferred to have purchased an entire curricullum for Live Education for seventh grade to help organize it all, but I can’t afford such complete programs. I will also be trying to keep track of credit hours this year for him. Not sure how to go about this, but I am working on figuring that out.
Live Education: Weights, Time, and Measurement, Keepers of Life and Earth, Handwriting Without Tears; Cursive, Little Garden; Journey Through Third Grade, Donna Simmons; Old Testament Unit.
Live Education: Astronomy, Live Education: Beowulf, Making Math Meaningful by Jamie York, Roy Wilkenson Teaching History; Middle Ages, Donna Simmons; Middle Ages Unit, Chemistry for Class 7.
It is going to hopefully be a busy year. I am trying to use Homeschool Tracker to help keep me organized. This software is free online. I used it for a short time last year, but my computer crashed and I lost all the data I had strored. Hopefully, that won’t happen again.
This week we are going to Hanger Theater for our last show of the season. Les Miserables. It should be great! We are going to try to make a day of it and spend the rest of the day hanging out in Ithaca. I hope the weather will be nice.