So far this week...

We've had a rough time getting back into the swing of things after the holidays. In fact the word swing indicates more motion than we've been doing! Nonetheless here's what we've done so far this week:
DS 3rd
Math- 2 drill sheets, 2 pages in Math U See
Phonics - 5 pages in Explode the Code workbook
Spelling - 10 words from ETC
Grammar - watching School House Rock Videos FUN!
Bible - reading and discussing Ephesians 6:10-20 (armor); and Psalm 100 (praise)
Copywork/cursive practice -Labeled the armor of God, copied a passage from "The Making of a Knight"
Read Aloud - Ivanhoe Chapter 1
Unit Reading - "The Making of a Knight" by Patrick O'Brien and "The Knight at Dawn" by Mary Pope Osborne (our first encounter with the Magic Treehouse series and DS is already asking if can we get the first book and the next and the next?)
For today's unit lesson we took some virtual tours of cathedrals online here, here, here and here.
We downloaded several photos of our favorite cathedrals and their parts and I'm going to send them into Wal-Mart photo lab and have them printed out to add to our notebooks. It saves a lot of ink and is much better quality than my printer can print.
We also made "stained glass windows" with crayons and wax paper.
DS has begun a "Big Book of Everything Middle Ages". I got the idea for this particular style from here (scroll down to notebook pages).
We usually just add to our 3-ring binder history notebook, or occasionally we make a lapbook, but I really liked this bound version. If we stick with CCS I plan to make one like this for each unit. I like the cross between notebooking and lapbooking AND we have been running out of room for binders!!!!
We are using the Christian Cottage Unit Study Middle Ages portion of In the Beginning God. I really like it because it helps keep me on track. It actually makes me feel accountable to keep up with the lessons and activities, yet it is flexible enough that we don't have to do too much if we don't want.
The main thing that attracted me to them was God's word seems the foundation of the program AND the fact that no particular books are needed. How FREEING!!! I have recently committed to homeschooling on a smaller budget and this is actually helping me do just that. I am really loving it! I hope at the end of January I'm still singing the same tune.
Now as far as highschool this week with DD-
Same as above plus +
Math - Geometry 2 pgs
Grammar - 2 pg
Vocabulary - Latin derivative "murus"
Piano practice
Science - Biology
Writing - Comparison on armor of the middle ages and the roman armor Paul refers to in Ephesians.
Okay, so not as bad as I thought and we still have 3 days to go this week!