Looking back at 2011

I've never done a post like this before, but for some reason I just got inspired to recap my year and celebrate the wonderful things that happened this year.

January Grandson's birthday and he had a fun 7th birthday party. We had a family member make his cake. Lots of fun! (I wanted to put a picture of it but I can't find one! It was a Despicable Me cake.)

February brought some ice to the north Texas area and we were kind of at a standstill for about a week! That's what happens in Texas. We're not used to it. ;)
We also had a birthday at the end of February ds turned 13!!! Yes, a teenager. My last child at home is now a teen. :D

March ahhh Soccer season! We are pretty busy each week going to practice and having games on Saturdays. His team was #1!! We also had a lot of doctor appointments in March for some reason???

I attended a WE Conference at Prestonwood in Dallas and it was a wonderful weekend! That is such a HUGE church! Finally a pic!

April Soccer continues and I've been asked to teach a VBS training seminar and I was very nervous but excited! I did it! Whew. I still like teaching kids better than adults. ;)
My mom moved this month into assisted living, her choice not mine. But it will be alright.

May One of my favorite months!  The homeschool bookfair is in May and I had one of the best times yet with friends and all the speakers.  Love it! It's also DH's birthday.  We also did a simple unit study with other homeschoolers during April/March studying "Around the World in 80 Days".  It was a lot of fun!

June I think was the least eventful month for me, except for my birthday nothing really went on.  Just hot.  More doctor appointments.  We had a PIT Crew training day for the puppet team I direct at church.  It's always fun. Well, I almost forgot.  There was one event in June that was so much fun!  Our church helped another church in the area put on a "Backyard Bible Club".  We had such a blast with this guy...

July The best month this year!  Madeleine Noelle was born! Yay!  We won't get to see her until next month though. :(

We also had VBS this week at church. One of my favorite things on the planet!

One hazard of VBS, while Grammy is getting ready for her class...someone was running and ran smack into another running kid. :( It looks really bad, but was better by the end of the night.

August Going to Indiana!!! And DS's first plane trip! (Can't find those pics either! Ack!) But here he is holding his niece for the first time.

And in August my mom turns 76 years!

September Back home, more family doctor appointments, my brother has major surgery, my mom moves again (MUCH better place) we start fall soccer, DS is an 8th grader and DH and I have been married now 25 years!!!  Whew!

October the BIG and BUSY month for me.  We do an annual blacklight show at church with the PIT Crew at the end of October.  Here's a peek at one scene...

And if I wasn't busy enough, we agreed to do a second show for my grandson's school carnival 2 days before our show!  We had a lot of fun though!

November More birthdays, youngest DD is now 21 (no, I can't believe it!), Thanksgiving and FAMILY TIME! DD is in a show "Duck Hunter Shoots Angel" at college, DS and DIL and new baby come to visit.  It was the best!!!

December Was nice and quiet actually.  A friend had extra tickets to the Dallas Museums so we went and had a good time.  It was nice to do something different.

Grandson spent a week with us while school was out.  The kids put the Christmas decorations up for me since I had to work extra this month.  It was nice.  We had some family over on the 23rd had dinner, visited and played "Just Dance 3" So fun!  Then Christmas Eve candlelight service and Sunday morning service.  Nice and quiet.


I left out so much but I just can't fit all in. No wonder I'm tired! LOL
Thank you Lord for a blessed year!

Around the World in 80 Days

We did it!

We finished our reading and study of Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne.

This book was nothing like I thought it was going to be.  I mean, I knew it wasn't going to be anything like the Disney version, but still.  I actually thought it was going to be boring and dry and I couldn't have been more wrong! (Where do we get these ideas anyway?)  We couldn't wait to see what happened in the next chapter and it had us laughing many times.  I also was afraid it would be too "adult" but again  I was wrong.  It was a very appropriate book and actually led us into some really good character assessment discussions as well as discussion on drugs and alcohol.  These topics were brought to the surface in this book in a way that showed the consequences of this lifestyle. I remember some time ago another homeschool mom warned me that there was a lot of deceit in this book.  Maybe that's where I got the idea that it was inappropriate??  Anyway, yes there was deception, again part of that character assessment!  In no way were any of the "sins" of the parties glorified.  Instead ingenuity, resourcefulness, loyalty, compassion and "stick-to-it-tiveness" were displayed.  Overall we really enjoyed this book.

We followed up by watching this 1956 version of the movie.

Academy Award Winning Around the World in 80 Days

While of course it didn't follow the book exactly it was spectacular!

It even held my 13yo son's attention.  In this day of x-box and computers that's saying a lot.

At the end of the study the unit book asked, "Are you interested in reading other books by Jules Verne?"

We say, "Yes"!

The Homeschool Mother’s Journal ~2

My second Homeschool Mother's Journal  :)

In my life this week...
We had something on the calendar every day this week!  And this weekend we are moving my mom to a new place.  Busy, busy, busy! I'm reading a book right now called "The Fabulous Reinvention of Sunday School" I'm taking notes and feeling refreshed.  I love teaching kids!  


In our homeschool this week...
We had our first group session doing an Around the World in 80 Days unit study.  Met some new friends.  Played Whist!  We had a lot of fun.  I reinstated studied dictation in C's daily schedule.  Why did I stop doing that???


Places we're going and people we're seeing...
We went to a new dentist this week.  Trying a new dentist is very scary.  I mean, what if they just aren't good you know?  But my worries were unfounded.  It was great!  C had no cavities and got all the cleaning and treatments done and we were out in 30 minutes!!! Amen!


My favorite thing this week was...
The taco soup I made in the crock pot Wednesday.  And had again Thursday.  It's better the second time right?


What's working/not working for us...
Homeschool Tracker is working for us.  It's flexible enough for me to plan ahead, add something on the fly or reschedule if need be.


Homeschool questions/thoughts I have...
I found out that as we progress through Teaching Textbooks, the program changes.  I'm very bummed about this.  I really thought we would use this all the way through.  I'm not jumping the gun and abandoning it just yet, but am disappointed to hear this.  Anybody have any insight here?


A photo, video, link, or quote to share...

A picture that C made in paintbrush about a year or so ago??? Can you tell what he's obsessed with? ;)

Fractions

***This post was originally written back in November, just found it, not sure why I didn't post it before***

We aren't using Math-U-See (MUS) right now for math, we are using a free program found here.

BUT we are using the MUS blocks, namely the fraction overlays.
These things are ingenious.  My dd learned fractions with them and ds is flying through it right now because of these.
They make the fraction world tangible and are easier to work with than a pizza, although not as tasty. ;)

They make increasing and reducing fractions easier to grasp for example:

One-half or 1/2

\

is the same as:

two-fourths or 2/4

is the same as:

three- sixths or 3/6

is the same as:

fifty-one hundredths or 50/100

We could "see" that the larger the number, the smaller the pieces.  I think fractions can be confusing to kids because the larger numbers are actually smaller quantities (on the denominator), but with these fraction  overlays, you "see" it right away.  That's probably why they call the program Math-U-SEE. ;)

Playing around with the overlays:

What's been going on???

Wow, I haven't posted much at all.  I read a lot of blogs every day, but never seem to post on my own.  I'm going to try to make a habit of writing more often.

I am working part time now so our schedule is a bit different now.  I work 4 hours Tue and Wed, and 8 hours on Thursday.  Best part is I can take my son "C" with me. YAY!  I am the admin assistant for my pastor at church.  He's real relaxed about things so we do school when we are there.  I just can't devote a lot of one on one teaching time when we are there so C has to do independent work, but that is actually a good thing!

Our computer went out last week and we thought we needed to buy a new one.  Didn't really want to do that, but dh took it apart and put it back together. Nothing.  He took it apart again and tested the power box thingy and it showed that it was getting no power, so we ordered one on e-bay, it came, he put it in and it worked!  So happy about that!

I ordered Teaching Textbooks for C and it is working VERY well for us.  It's just what we needed with the change in schedule and teaching time.  I'm excited to stay with this program for the rest of his home school career.  I highly recommend it. Even though to *me* it's expensive. ;)  I was using a FREE program.

Another exciting thing recently, C turned 13!!! I realized I now have only teen/adult children.  How's that for making you feel old????

Soccer season just began and C is on a new team.  Well sort of... some of the same kids, new coach new uniforms.  I don't know what his team name is yet, but the colors will be black and silver.  He's ready!

Next weekend he will be gone to a youth retreat so I may have some quiet time since dh has to work that weekend too.  Oops, I didn't think about soccer, we don't have the schedules yet.  I wonder if he has a game????

Okay, that's it for now.

Plugging along

I haven't had much to blog about lately.  We are just plugging along in our school and family.  We finished our big black light show with our puppet team. Whew!  That takes a lot of my time in October.  I am about to start a part time job so I'm going through our schedule to rearrange things a bit.

DS is getting more independent but as usual, his school books (history, science, literature) are way beyond his reading level and I need to read them to him.  This is tiring for me, so I'm trying to find some alternatives and audio books.  They are so expensive!

We're almost finished with our first term.  Here's what we've done so far this year:

• Daily Bible reading and journaling
• Math (mostly fractions!)
• Spelling
• Poetry of Robert Frost.  DS memorized "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
• Artist Albrecht Durer. DS made a powerpoint for this
• Music of Beethoven.  We listened, read and watched documentaries
• Science - earth science, astronomy & space, a little chemistry 
• History - from the civil war to now (DS Loves, loves, loves this and would do this all day long!)  We got these DVD's for free from the History channel.  They are his fav.  He would watch them every day!
• Writing - we are using Writing Strands for a little creative writing practice.  He's working on a simple story right now.  We may type it up and post it sometime.
• Shakespeare - we read Hamlet earlier in the year
• Greek Myths - reading once a week
• Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry - DS is enjoying this book.  I'm happy to know that my 12 yo child cannot fathom why people treat one another different just because of their skin.
• The Hobbit - reading this for the 100th time.
• The Story of My Life by Helen Keller - always fascinating

That's about it I think.  It's been a successful year so far! 

Carving a pumpkin...

Well, as it turns out ds age 12 has never carved a pumpkin.  We quit "doing Halloween" a long time ago.  I guess it's been about 12 years!  Anyway, this year I decided to get him a pumpkin to carve.  He decided to do some sort of video game helmet and here is his result. Can you guess what it is?

The carving...

This is it illuminated.  Cool!

I think he did a good job!  He drew the pattern and then applied it to the pumpkin.  I helped him do some of the scraping and a little of the carving - just the larger areas, but mostly he did it himself.

Week 4

So, our fourth week of 7th grade was not quite as smooth as the others.  It was bound to happen.  Life interuptus came and wreaked havoc on us.

We will survive.

We will pick up where we left off and be thankful that I added in those extra days to keep us on track.

Week 3 7th grade

Three good weeks in a row!  It wasn't without it's bumps in the road, but all in all a good week.
We are sort of reviewing a time period in history - WWII - that we studied a little over a year ago, but I didn't want to skip it.  DS remembers A LOT of course he loves war, history, bad guys and guns. ;)

We are also getting a lot out of our science right now, ds also loves rockets, and outer space.

These topics might be the reason we are having such an easy time.  I can't wait to start over in our history next term and begin our study of the Ancients!  I know it will be interesting for him too!

This week we did:
Daily Bible reading
4 lessons in math (including all kinds of fractions! He caught on pretty quick thanks to the MUS fraction overlays. I am going to post about these soon. I know I said that last week.)
Spelling
Poetry of Robert Frost
Art Study
Composer Study
Nature Study
Timeline Book (I may show this someday soon too.)
Science, Natural History, Albert Einstein bio
History - Stock Market Crash, Depression, Hitler, Spain
Geography - North America
Writing - how to write a paragraph
Shakespeare - Finished Hamlet
Greek Myths
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
The Hobbit
Helen Keller, The Story of My Life

Impromtu Nature Study

On our porch today.

Praying Mantis
(Mantis religiosa) 
Yes, that's really the Latin name! I thought it was funny.

Black and Yellow Garden Spider
(Argiope aurantia)

Hamlet - Drawn Narration

"When Hamlet saw his end draw near, there being yet some venom left upon the sword, he suddenly turned upon his false uncle, and thrust the point of it into his heart, fulfilling the promise which he had made to his father's spirit..." Tales from Shakespeare

What can I say?  He's 12.  This is what impressed him the most out of the story. ;)

Another one down!

We completed our second week of 7th grade.  Don't worry, I won't report every single week (maybe).  But things are going so well I just can't help but share!

We focused a little this week on the Space Race since ds loves rocketry and things of that nature.  We are reading about it in science.  I realized there were a couple of our favorite movies that would go well with this unit and that ds was really too young when we watched them last to get much out of them.  So we watched them both today!

October Sky is one of my favorite movies of all time.  I always get a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye a couple of times in this movie.  We laugh a lot through it too.  If you have never seen it, SEE IT!

Apollo 13 is another one that gives an insight to what astronauts go through.









I can't believe we got so much done in our 4-day week!

We did daily:
Bible
Drills
Math
Spelling
Poetry
History (backed up a little and read more about WW1)
Science (Exploring Space)
Writing assignment (Eye-witness report)
Geography

We did weekly:
Art study
Music study
Nature study
Timeline notebook
Science biography
Natural History
Shakespeare (Hamlet)
Greek Myths
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
Story of My Life by Helen Keller

We had some fun in math today too.  I'll post about that later!

First Week of 7th Grade!

Whew!  We made it through our first week of seventh grade.  We did have a bumpy ride but all in all it went well and ds has grown so much academically and physically.  He's getting tall, his hair is dark and his voice is starting to change!  I don't know if I can take it.

Most of our books & schedule comes from Ambleside Online Year 6 (the years aren't necessarily grades)

Here's what we are doing right now:

• He's reading the Bible (NLT) on his own and writing  (Yes WRITING!) something (short and sweet) in a small notebook.
• We do some reading drills, math drills and Digit Span cards.  (He's moved up a digit this year!)
• Math - so far so good.  It was taking waaaayyy tooooo long, so I cut the lessons in half.  No problems now.
• All About Spelling - ds has dyslexia (in fact he hasn't been tested but if he were to be, this would be at least one of the diagnoses) We have started at the beginning and it's going very quickly, we will probably do 2 or 3 levels this year.
• Poetry - Robert Frost, and writing some simple poems of our own.  (Yes WRITING!) 
• Music Appreciation - Beethoven
• Art Appreciation - Albrecht Durer.  DS is making a PowerPoint about Albrecht Durer and his works.  (This covers art and PowerPoint in one lesson)
• Nature Study - trees
• Timeline - we add things into our timeline notebook every week.  
• Science - Finishing up "Observing God's World" by A Beka. We chose this text because it's interesting and short!  Only 2 days a week needed to get through it. It's also inexpensive used.;) We will continue with "Order and Reality" in a few weeks.We don't do all the tests, quizzes, worksheets etc.  We narrate and sometimes make lapbooks or notebook pages, or drawings.  DS is reading an Albert Einstein Biography a friend got for me.  It's a "reader" type book, not really a "living" book but he's able to read it on his own. Also reading School of the Woods.
• History - SOTW 4 and The Story of My Life: Helen Keller
• Geography - Trail Guide to World Geography
• Writing/Grammar - Writing Strands (Yes WRITING!) 
• Literature - Shakespeare Tales - Hamlet, Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, The Hobbit, D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths

Wow, is that everything?

Here's how it looks in a week.

Day 1
Bible reading & Journal
Drills
Math lesson
Spelling lesson
Poem
Artist Study
Science - Observing God's Creation
History -SOTW
Trail Guide
Writing Strands
Shakespeare

Day 2

Bible reading & Journal

Drills

Math lesson

Spelling lesson

Poem

Composer Study

Science - Observing God's Creation

History -SOTW

Trail Guide

Writing Strands

Greek Myths

Day 3

Bible reading & Journal

Drills

Math lesson

Spelling lesson

Poem

Nature Study

Science - School of the Woods

History -SOTW

Trail Guide

Writing Strands

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Day 4

Bible reading & Journal
Drills
Math lesson
Spelling lesson
Writing Poetry
Timeline
Science - Biography: Albert Einstein
History -SOTW
Trail Guide
Writing Strands
The Hobbit
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

We are going to try this 4-day schedule this year.  We need a day to shop and do errands. We also take my Mom shopping and to the doctor, things like that.  Every week we have somewhere to go, so I thought why not just make a day for that?  It might mean we move a little slower through the math, but that's really the only thing.  And that may not be a bad thing for us.  I have also scheduled one week off every 6-weeks to catch up or work on other things besides academics. I'm already looking forward to the break! :-D

I hope to post in one month and say how it is going for us.  We've had such a rough time with school these past few years for various reasons, this one looks to be the best yet!

Composer Study Term 1 2010-11

Beethoven!

Listening selections:
    Piano Sonata 8 (Pathetique) Opus 13
    Piano Sonata 14 (Moonlight) Op 27
    Symphony No. 3 (Erocia-meaning 'heroic') Opus 55
    String Quartets opus 59, no.1-3 (Razumovsky Quartets)
    Piano Concerto 5 (Emporer) Op 73
    Symphony No. 9 (the one with Ode to Joy at the end) Opus 125

We have some of these on CD's but for those we don't:

http://www.dsokids.com/listen/ComposerDetail.aspx?composerID=13

www.pandora.com

http://www.classicalconnect.com/#/browse/composer/Ludwig_van_Beethoven

Art Study Term 1 2010-11

We will be studying the art of Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) Italian Renaissance

Picture 1
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1498, woodcut.


Picture 2
Self-Portrait in a Fur Coat, 1500, lime panel, Pinakothek, Munich


Picture 3
A Young Hare, 1502. Watercolour and gouache on paper. Vienna, Austria


Picture 4
Altarpiece of the Rose Garlands, or here, 1506, oil on panel, Národní Galerie, Prague


Picture 5
Praying Hands, 1508, brush and ink, Vienna


Picture 6
The Knight, Death, and The Devil, 1513-14, engraving


Information:

http://www.albrecht-durer.org/

http://www.squidoo.com/durer

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/durer/