This is the first Weekly Wrap Up that I have posted for this entire school year. Yes you read that right. I have been a total blogging slacker. 2012 was a crazy year for me, but our school year has been going very smoothly despite that. Just to give you a quick run down of what all of my kids are doing. Buster just finished unit 16 of Preparing Hearts For his Glory, Sweetpea is in unit 30 of Beyond Little Hearts For His Glory, and Buttercup is in unit 17 of Little Hands to Heaven. I will start with what Buster has accomplished this week and go from there.
Buster grade 4 Preparing Hearts For His Glory:
Preparing's history focus is an overview of world history including biblical history in chronological order. I can not even describe to you how much I love Preparing. It is just simply awesome, and Buster loves it as well. This is what he did broken down by subject:
History: Alexander the Great Conquers the World; he learned about Alexander, Socrates, King Phillip, and the first Punic war. His history project this week was to create a picture of Greek pottery. The readings came from A Child's History of the World. I let him watch an old movie about Alexander the Great on Netfilx as well. He also started reading Little Miriam of Galilee. Buster also has watched a few episodes of Drive Through History.
Bible: He is currently memorizing Psalms 98:1-6. In this guide the memory selection are longer passages that build on the week before so for several units they are memorizing the same passage adding 1-2 verses a week. He is also reading through The Young Christian's Introduction to the Bible.
Language Arts: He is using Beginning Wisely from Rod and Staff and just finished lesson 59 and is currently learning about Verbs. For spelling he just finished lesson 17 of R&S 3, and dictation passage 101 of level 2.
Literature: His book for DITHR right now is The Sign of the Beaver. He is also reading the D Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths.
Free Reading: By his choice he is reading Prince Caspian.
Poetry: This school year he is studying poems by Robert Louis Stevenson. As part of his curriculum he does a writing assignment once a week based on the poem selection. This week the poem was The Hayloft.
Math: He finished Primary Mathematics 4a, both the textbook, and workbook.
Science: The science he does with Preparing is independent. He is currently learning about stars and constellations. This week he read from Find the Constellations, started a star/constellation book in which he is drawing constellations, answered 5 questions about what he is learning, and did an experiment to find out why stars appear to twinkle. My husband is also reading to the kids from Apologia's Exploring creation Zoology 2. Also the kids have watched several animal documentaries on netflix.
Research: He has a once a week research assignment and this week with my help he researched Greek Pottery online.
Vocabulary: He has 5 words each week that come from our history readings. He finds them in a dictionary, copies the meaning onto an index card, draws an illustration of it on the back and then alphabetizes it in a card file.
Geography: He studied on a globe some of the locations and places from our history readings. We also talked about the equator and the northern and southern hemisphere.
Storytime: I finished reading A Triumph For Flavius with him and started reading Fountain of Life.
Timeline: Once a week he adds cards to his timeline. This week he added one for Socrates and one for Alexander the Great.
Sweetpea grade 1 Beyond Little Hearts For His Glory:
With Sweetpea her guide has 5 days per unit but we only do it 4 days a week so each week is not a full unit. This week she did Unit 29 day 3- Unit 30 day 1.
History: She learned about Pioneers traveling down the Ohio river on flat boats, Pioneer schools, and started to learn about pioneers traveling west by covered wagon. Her readings came from American Pioneers and Patriots.
Bible: Her verse was Deuteronomy 5:16 for unit 29 and unit 30 reviews one verse we have already done per day. Sweetpea loves the songs from Hide 'Em in Your Heart Vol. 2 that go along with her verses.
Language Arts: Every day she does Phonics Pathways, ETC she is in book 3, A Reason For Handwriting T, and words from Spelling list 1 found in the back of the Beyond guide.
Literature: Sweetpea read a book called Dolphins this week, and 1 chapter from The Beginner's Bible.
Poetry: Her poems were the Planting of the Apple-Tree and Written In March. I read this aloud to her each day and then she does copywork with part of the poem.
Math: She is currently working in Primary Mathematics book 1b. She also likes doing activities with C-rods, base ten blocks, triangle number bond flash cards, and drawing pictures and number stories to go with them.
Science: Beyond uses God's Wonderful Works as a text reference for the experiments. We are just reading straight through it instead and then doing the experiments when they come up. This week for science she learned about the parts of an apple tree and made a drawing of one. She also joins Buster in listening to daddy read from Zoology 2. She watched several animal documentaries along with Buster from Netflix her favorite being one on Dolphins. She was really excited about that one because she had just read a book about them.
Geography: For Geography this week we talked about the Missouri and Mississippi River and studied them on a map.
Storytime: Right now I'm reading All of a Kind Family to her. I'm excited about this readaloud because it was a favorite of mine as a child.
Timeline: She added traveling down the Ohio river in flatboats to her timeline.
Buttercup PreK Little Hands to Heaven:
The last two weeks I have really kicked it into gear with her and have been making a conscious effort to get to her school work a little each day. She was sick this week so we were able to do 3 days of Little Hands. Buttercup has really started to get into doing school work and has been asking to do it. Even when she was sick she asked me to at least read to her. Her handwriting is really great for her age and she is memorizing her letter sounds really well. This week she was learning the letter N. I let her pick out 1 picture book each day for me to read to her. Most days she picked our complete works of Beatrix Potter. She loves her bunny book(that is what she calls it). She practiced writing Ns and a few words that start with N, and I made a giant N on the floor. Right now she is using R&S ABC series book C. We also are practicing number 1-10 writing and recognizing. Buster joins in with her as he desires.
As a group:
I try to get to our book Basket each day. This is a time where the kids learn together. For Book basket each day the kids are practicing Catechisms with a book called
Big Truths For Little Kids. I absolutely love this book. The kids are all engaged by it and they are doing amazing at memorizing the answers. Even Buttercup has most of them memorized. once a week we read a story that goes with the new chapters questions and answers, and the other days we learn and review. Once a week we do composer study. Right now we are studying Beethoven with a book called
Ludwig Beethoven and the Chiming Tower Bells. I love the books in this series. We also listen to the music of Beethoven. For our weekly Artist study we are currently studying Pierre Auguste Renoir, and the book we are reading is Pierre Auguste Renoir (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists.For whatever artist we are currently studying I have Dover art cards that I have displayed on a magnet board. I started reading the Burgess Bird Book For Children to the kids this week. I have had it on my Nook for awhile now. After we read the first chapter we looked up wrens online and in Buster's bird guide. We also do Spanish lessons during Book Basket time. The Spanish lessons are directed at Buster and Sweetpea. I just recently downloaded Getting Started With Spanish and we are using that now. I really like it so far and it is moving the kids from leaning just basic Spanish vocabulary and phrases to actually being able to converse and translate Spanish. After the first time we did it Buster said, " I like this Spanish it is real Spanish and not for little kid like the other things we have done."
Along with the Science my husband does with the kids he is also reading
David Livingston and
The Story For Children to them. We just have the book. The the three older kids are all doing swimming right now also. The weather has been pretty cold and dreary and we are all looking forward to being able to get out in nature again. we did have a sprinkling of snow last week but it didn't stick.
What I have been learning:
This year I'm joining
Ann Voskamp in memorizing Romans 1, 8, and 12. So far I have memorized Romans 1:1-4 and am working on the next two verses. To go along with that I found a podcast of a series of sermons from John MacArthur on the book of Romans. I listen to these using my Nook connected to our CD player in the kitchen. I also downloaded Towards a Philosophy of education by Charlotte Mason and started reading it. I'm also still reading through the book of Psalms. As always I have spent a bit too much time on The Well Trained Mind Forum and learned a few good things from the ladies there. I know this is a really long post but since it is my first of the year I wanted to give you a glimpse of everything we typically do in a week.When we get our tax refund I want to get some books for myself on the topics of Homeschool, Parenting, and Faith. If you have any suggestions for me I would love them.
To read what other people are doing visit
Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.
