The Homeschooling Week in Review, 1/20-1/27/11

The HomeSchool Village has a weekly link-up so that those of us in the trenches of homeschooling can encourage each other. It's a chance for us to review the past week and recognize that many tiny, sometimes minuscule, steps add up to significant progress as we seek to educate our children at home. 

We are still homeschooling the four youngest, ages 10-13, of our seven children. During the past week, these are some of the things we have studied:


Prayer, Praise, Psalms, Proverbs:
We start each school day by listing the things that are on our hearts to pray about. We keep these things in a prayer journal. After prayer, we sing along with a couple of songs from our collection of praise music. Next, we read 5 chapters of Psalms and 1 of Proverbs out loud in unison. We follow a reading pattern that takes us through the entire books of Psalms and Proverbs each month. For example, today we read Psalms 27, 57, 87, 117, 147 (taking today's date for the first one, then adding 30 for each of the next four) and Proverbs 27. 

Gratitude List:
Following the wonderful suggestion of Ann Voskamp to list things we are thankful for, the kids and I each try to consciously give thanks. So this week, we added to our growing lists. It changes how we look at things. Counting our blessings blesses us!

Logic:
We studied Manipulative Propaganda in The Fallacy Detective, learning how to detect if someone is just sharing ideas or trying to manipulate us through our emotions. 

Spelling:
Words using different short e sounds were studied this week. The kids wrote each of the 24 words three times each day, and since these were fairly easy for them, they all passed their practice test we took on Thursday. 

Grammar:
We are going through a review phase after completing the Basic Level of Winston Grammar. The kids copy down a sentence in their grammar notebooks that I write for them on our big dry erase board and then label the parts of speech. We just do one sentence a day.


Composition:
We are using the IEW program for writing. This week we made key word outlines from two sources about Louis Braille, then combined them into a fused outline. Next, they brainstormed individually to come up with their "dress-ups" (quality adjectives, strong verbs, alliteration, adverbs, vocabulary words, etc.) Today, we worked together to write the rough draft.

Handwriting:
We use the Italics program and they completed one page in their workbook each day.


Dictation:
Once a week, three of the four write a passage from dictation. One of the kids is just not able to do this yet. So this week, each of the other three passed their dictation. If they miss more than four things in the passage, they have to retake it. The passages we use are from the books I read aloud to them.


Math Facts:
This week, we drilled our subtraction tables with Memory Songs. 


Math:
We use Saxon for math and each of the four is using a different level. Elizabeth is in the 8/7 book, Rebekah 7/6, Joshua 6/5, and Ben 5/4. They each work in their book for an hour per day. Sometimes that means 30 problems, sometimes it means 8. It all depends on how hard those problems are for them. They can only miss a small percentage, or they redo those problems the next day. This week, we had several re-do's, some of them multiple times. But that way, I know they know how to work those problems before moving on.


Science:
We are using the Apologia curriculum for the first time this year and are really enjoying it. This week we finished our chapter on Venus and began the chapter on Earth. One of the projects we finished up was on radar. They also reviewed Venus by writing facts they had learned on one of the cut and paste pages in their notebooks. 


Memory Time:
We drill in several different areas, many of them with music. This week we practiced the song on Birds from Lyrical Life Science, Western Europe from Geography Songs, and questions 13, 14, and 15 from Catechism Songs.  The kids each have a notebook of poetry from IEW's poetry curriculum and they practice the poem they are memorizing each day. When they know it well enough, they say it for me. This week, Elizabeth is the only one who completed a new poem.  They also memorize chapters from the Bible. This week, they are working on different parts of the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5, 6, 7. Each one works on the part that is next for them. They have a folder they use and it also serves as a record of when they completed each section of a chapter. This week, Joshua and Elizabeth passed new sections. 

Drawing:
We use this wonderful little book called Drawing Textbook. This week, we did several lessons using the principles we are learning. 


Greek and Latin Roots:
We are slowly working through English from the Roots Up. So far, they have learned the first 60 roots. Right now, we are alternating review days and test days. So this week they took several tests over the first 60 roots. Yesterday was the first day everyone has passed. Yipee! But we will continue to review and test these words until they are very fluent before adding the next 10.

History:
We use Mystery of History, and we just finished our chapters on Ancient Egypt and started studying the Minoans. Ben served as our practice body to wrap as a mummy. We also constructed a 1/2000 scale model of the Great Pyramid at Giza.

Vocabulary:
We have a notebook of words we study and it is divided into sections for each day of the week. The kids read over the words and definitions for each day.


Storytime:
This is our favorite time of day!! I read out loud while the kids draw or work on puzzles or make crafts. This week we finished The Shadow Hawk, a book of historical fiction that goes along with the time period we are studying in History. I read from two books each day to kind of change things up. The second book we are reading this week is also historical fiction. Tirzah is set during the Exodus from Egypt and follows the Israelites on their journey into the desert. After finishing Shadow Hawk, we started Pharaoh by one of our favorite authors, Eloise Jarvis McGraw. Our readings are not always limited to historical fiction, but when studying Ancient Egypt there are just so many wonderful choices that we couldn't pass many of them up.


Reading:
The kids spend 90 minutes in independent reading each day. This time is divided between The Book of Knowledge, a biography, and an assigned book. They love to snuggle up with a cat or dog and their books for the rest of the afternoon. 


In addition to school work this week, the boys went to Scouts and spent several hours helping a widower up the street get his house ready for sale. The girls are enjoying their aquariums and are learning to care for all the different fish. They are also voracious readers and spend much of their extra time on their new Kindles. The girls provide babysitting for one of our small group Bible studies. There was not a trip to the hunting lease this weekend and so it was wonderful to have everyone home all week.


Hope you each had a wonderful week in your homeschools. And if this week wasn't great, there's always next week, right?? Sometimes we have to just keep putting one foot in front of the other!