Week 10 Report & Pictures

Last week, our September break, didn't prove as restful or as productive as I had hoped! Still, onward!

Here is a page of MY schoolwork for the week! I started Latin Made Simple, making notes and doing the exercises. My goal is one handwritten page a day, which is is far less than a page of the book a day! This is my Martis dies (Tuesday) page.
We are studying flowers this week in God's Design Science Plants. Here is Momo's labelled diagram:

The kids made flowers from the pattern in GDS Plants. The sepals, leaves and petals are paper, the stem (and root) is a straw, the pistel and stamens are pipe cleaners, and the pollen is cornmeal. Behind the flowers are a bit of our Eygptian burial chamber, the My Book House series, and on the wall some elements of design from TOG that we worked on last quarter.

I found a Kumon workbook three pack at Costco with Numbers 1-30, Uppercase Letters, and Cutting. Zamakee already completed that last book and is working on Pasting, but I'll save Cutting for Beanie. This is from Numbers 1-30...I said each number in Latin and then Zamakee drew the connecting line. He does shout "Decem!" at the end every time.

Ginger & Momo started a once a month homeschool art class. Their first assignment was to make an oil pastel drawing showing "things that needed each other." Momo drew a mother bird & her babies and Ginger drew an elf & dragon (friendship).


***EDITED TO ADD*** A page from Tullius' Lively Latin! The dominus is Dr. Sloth and the servus is a pink meepit from his army...apparently, he's learning Latin Neopets-style!


For Tapestry of Grace we have been in the Indus Valley -- I hope to have some project pictures of that soon.

The winner of the week was writing! Instead of doing the TOG assignments, I had the kids re-write fables a la the progymnasmata. They are turning out SO cute. Of course, you probably have to be a Neopets fan to appreciate them fully, but I'll be posting them as they finish typing them up. We're going to re-write fables for three weeks, study/write poetry for three weeks and then all assigned writing (and grammar) will cease & desist for November while we participate in NaNoWriMo! See the left sidebar icon for a link!

Nice does matter

A couple weeks ago, Barb at Heart of Harmony gave me the Nice Matters Award.

I had thought I'd pass it on to Lisa at Koinonia Academy when I got the icon into my blog's sidebar. Alas, I still haven't discovered the secret to getting it there!

This morning I went to Trivium Academy to see what Jessica was up to...and saw that she had given it to Lisa! At first I thought "oh no!" and then I realized that "it's all good" and I'm going to give it to Lisa too! Because I want her to know that she is a blessing & encouragement to me.

Nice might be an overused word. It might be on some writers' banned word list. Still, nice does matter!

Thanks, Barb, for passing the award on to me!

And, Lisa, thanks for being nice! I pass this award on to you, too!

First Drawing in my Sketchbook

Here is the first drawing in the sketchbook I bought for myself last week! Are you wondering what it is?

It's a rabbit, drawn from the adorable bunny in the header of Mini Blessings!

Of course, now that I look at the original again, mine looks flattened & windblown.

But as my 7yo son says "It's still cute!"
And I still want one!

Welcome to the redecorated den!

The fabulous new header, 3 column format & overall new look you see here comes courtesy of the talents of Darcy at Life with My 3 Boybarians!

Isn't the snowshadow blue color lovely? Isn't the little wolf cub adorable?

Thank you all who left a comment before it was "officially" done -- just know that I didn't create this look, all the credit goes to Darcy!

Thank you, Darcy, it is beautiful!

PS I've been fiddling with the post & sidebar fonts...umm...blog designer I am not!!

Top 10: Nature Journal Excuses Edition

Recently, I was mistaken for a nature journal girl! Doesn't that have a nice ring to it? Someday maybe it will even be true!

Afterall, I own such books as by Clare Walker Leslie's Keeping a Nature Journal, Karen Andreola's Pocketful of Pinecones, and Robert Louv's Last Child in the Woods. I've even read them. And my own sister is the Land Steward at a nature center in Iowa! Obviously, between my books and family relations, I should have notebooks full...

But instead of an inspiring photo of a page in my nature journal, I give you my Top 10 reasons why I haven't done "Nature Study."

10. With photo stories like The Robin's Nest who needs to go outside anyway?
9. I don't live near any cool nature places, just hot-desert-scorpion types.
8. Paper taken outside gets crumply, windblown, dirty, bugs land on it, etc.
7. I never know what to draw, there are just too many choices.
6. I can't draw things from life anyway, especially moving things.
5. Many of those moving choices are bugs...
4. I never know what things are called...in English or Latin.
3. I don't enjoy trailing 5 children on a nature journal hike anymore than I enjoy taking them all to the library (now that could be a post in itself).
2. I don't have a sketchbook of my own.
1. It is too HOT to be outside.

Fortunately, reason #1 will be removed within 2 months or so. And surely by then I'll have bought a sketchbook and #2 will be gone also. Perhaps I'll be able to whittle away at the rest as well...

This is the year we learn Latin

Here are some of the Latin materials we own...the binder is Lively Latin, which is currently a pdf download. The Help Your Child with a Foreign Language is from the library. As a side note, the first chapter of this book reads like a how-to homeschool manual, giving all the reasons that parents can make good teachers for their own children.

THIS YEAR'S GRAND PLAN

1. Complete Lively Latin (in Lesson 4 & so far, so good)
2. Learn Numbers, Colors, Days, Months, Greetings, Commands, etc
3. Use Before You Know It Lite to review
4. Complete Minimus (start in January)

And specifically for the magistra (that would be me):

5. Begin Latin Made Simple
6. Create a compilation for #2 that could be shared with other homeschoolers

That is the current plan. Lingua Anglica will be saved for next year when we are studying the Middle Ages. Latin Primer (as well as Latina Christiana I & Latin for Children A, which I also own) will be resources for seeing just what is taught in beginning Latin programs.

I'm excited about all this -- I'm a student, too!

Oh, I must give credit to My Two Blessings for reminding me about Before You Know It!

Mathmagical Monday: Make 10!

First a funny from my 10 yo, Momo--

Math-U-See Zeta, Lesson 7:
Casey had a piece of string one meter long. Because she was very bored, she cut it into 1,000 pieces. If the pieces were of equal length, how long was each piece?

Momo's answer? Very small and then she had to vacuum.

Pyramid or Make Ten
This is a simple (despite the length it took me to explain) and fun math card game that we've been playing for years. It helps children learn to "make 10" which is a useful skill when adding.

Using a regular card deck, take out the face cards and jokers.

Lay out a pyramid shape with the cards face down. One card at the top, two on the next row, slightly overlapping the first on the bottom corners. Repeat this until you have five cards face down at the bottom of your pyramid. Finally, lay a sixth row, face up.

Can you make any tens? If your child is just learning their addition math facts, it is helpful to have a little chart with 1+9, 2+8, etc on it for reference. Oh, 10s count as ten too. Remove any 10s and any pairs that make ten. Put them aside in a discard pile.

Now turn over any face down cards that have both lower corners empty (no cards on the row below covering them). Can you make any tens? If yes, set those cards aside in the discard pile. Check the next face up card in your hand. Also, turn over any card that has been uncovered in your pyramid.

Once you can't make anymore tens, turn over another set of three from your draw pile. Once you've gone through your draw pile, you can do it again, turning over three cards each time. At the very end we go through it one card at a time.

The game ends when you can no longer make ten. You actually "win" if you no cards left in the pyramid.

We would've played this today, in Latin, but I can't find a deck of regular cards! Yesterday we played Uno (Unus!) and Phase 10 -- in Latin, of course. It naturally led to talking about color words...but that is a post for another day!

Sir Douglas Mawson, Antarctic Explorer

A while back we learned about Antarctica as part of our "Expeditions" study with Konos. I read the book After the Last Dog Died : the true-life, hair-raising adventure of Douglas Mawson and his 1911-1914 Antarctic Expedition by Carmen Bredeson.

I was so moved by the courage of Mawson and his men, that I decided to do my own report at our Konos co-op. Normally, the kids did presentations of something they'd learned and then the moms led group activities. But I just had to share what I'd learned!

So, I drew this sketch and packed a shoebox with the sledge rations allotted to each man. My voice got a little thick while reading my report to the kids. And when I got the part about the soles of his feet peeling off, I had tears running down my face. I get choked up looking even looking at his portrait.

Why post this now (and it is even already on my defunct Stonewall Academy blog)? Well, I just saw the picture in one of Ginger's sketchbooks. My two bird pictures are in another of her sketchooks. I've got to get my own!

Week 8/9 Report

D~O~N~E! The day is done, the week is done, the month is done and the 1st quarter of the school year is done! Ah, and tomorrow is a new day.

I had a hard time remembering what exactly we did this week. Monday seems looooong ago. Actually, this week we tried something different with our schedule. I set a time for the two subjects that all the kids do together: Latin (8am) and Science (9am). This eliminated *some* of the "I finished all my independent work. Can we do ... NOW?"

The biggest success of the week (that would be besides finishing it) would be counting in Latin. We started on Monday and it didn't go Optime. But instead of saying "Bah! Forget that!" as I am so oft to do when one or more children whine/don't get it on day one or two, I persevered. Yes, I am proud to say we counted in Latin every day this week! And finally today, we actually had fun. I guess it is true that we typically enjoy what we can do well. Even Beanie got to join in today. We did a sort of ring-around-the-rosie while counting "Unus-duo-tres" while going one way then switched to the other with the next 3 digits, then back and on "decem" we all fell down.

As for staying on schedule, Ginger finished the entire four book "Key to Fractions" series today. She did well and it wasn't too painful. I have already purchased "Key to Decimals" and she'll start that after the break.

As for not staying on schedule, I'm not done w/ the read aloud Tirzah from TOG. This historical fiction book begins in Ancient Egypt during the plagues, the Israelites cross the Red Sea and are in the desert. We just read the chapter with the golden calf idol. I'm very sorry to say that it is not inspirational reading. The author, while sticking well to the Bible story line, seriously lacks the ability to "show, don't tell." I am not in the least bit inspired and will be glad when the book is over.

Ginger, Momo & Tullius each made several slides in Keynote (Apple's version of PowerPoint) on a different one of the Jewish Holy Days. They turned out really nice. I have to get them off a different computer to post though.

Any other highlights to the week? Besides it being over, I mean? Well, I drew another bird picture. A Gambel's quail. It was fatter & cuter in the book, but at least it is done!

I'm all about being done, apparently. Now, off to see what everyone else accomplished this week!

PS I'm still thinking about a new blog for next quarter. After all, Pheasant Ridge Christian Academy did... :)

WHY I want to start over!

Thanks for the feedback! I really appreciate it!

It's not the name...I love the name/address.

Its not the look of the blog...I have a *very* talented friend who has offered to help make it look more "me." And no, I'm not telling you who, lest you beg her to help you before she has a chance to help me. :)

It's the posts...I just want to delete them all and start again! Not that I said anything terrible. I just want to start over!

I could just start a new blog...I really could, except I like the address for this one.

So...if you come to visit me one of these days and there is nothing here...just pretend it is a new blog and you're excited that I finally started one!!

Now back to visiting other blogs...