Our Medieval Studies and Castle

In January we studied about Medieval times in our Rome to the Reformation study. If you are new here and haven't read my post on our 2011-2012 Curriculum, we use My Father's World multi-age cycle.

The read-aloud book for this time period was The Door in the Wall. It is a Newberry Medal book that I highly reccommend. It is such a great book that my children begged me to read more each day. I tried to stay with one chapter a day, but sometimes I gave in and read two.

The castle kit Make This Model Medieval Castle was included in the deluxe package for Rome to the Reformation. We just followed the instructions (I did a lot of the cutting, because it's very important to have straight lines.) :) We (9, 8, 5, and 4 year olds) all worked together to build it. It was difficult for the little ones so they mainly just helped with some of the gluing.


Here is a picture of our castle (can't figure out why it is sideways):

Our Week in Review

What a last few weeks it has been!

Let me just say we've been busy around here. I don't remember having such a hard time getting all of our school work done before. Well, maybe it's because my children are getting older and there's more activities. Or maybe it's because I'm schooling 3 children now. Or maybe we just need to stay home more. Hmmmm....

I think the last one is the right answer. I was determined to do that this week, but then the unexpected grocery store trip and doctor visit creeped in and messed my plan up. Oh well, that's just life and the best I can do is just roll with it.

I'm trying to evaluate our school schedule. It just seems to be so much reading for History and Bible that we're getting off track. Well, I guess if those two subjects were all that we did it'd be fine. When you throw in Spelling, Grammar, Reading, Science, Math and all the other stuff we try to do it just doesn't fit.

So this week we took a detour just to catch up a little bit. I told them we were not doing anything but History, Bible and Science until we caught up- well at least for this week anyway. It worked well, except for the detours I mentioned above.

We finished up week 13 of History and Bible (My Father's World- Rome to the Reformation). We even completed 3 days of Week 14, too.
Science is another story since we're another week behind there.

I did want to mention one Science book that we're really enjoying.

Each week we're studying a different part of the body. You actually make a hands-on model of that body part. You make copies for each child (Grades 3-6, but I'm having my 2nd grader do it, too). Then, you follow the steps to make the model. There is a good bit of cutting involved and I have to read each step carefully to make sure we don't glue or cut the wrong part, but it has been such a great part of our study of the human body.

Our 2011-2012 Curriculum

I linked up to Heart of the Matter online to post our curriculum choices for this year. This is actually our third year to begin school in July. We began on July 5. It's too hot for the kids to play outside with 100 degree temps.

This is our 6th year of homeschooling. We have a 4th, 2nd, K and Pre-K.

We use My Father's World multi-age cycle. This year we are using Rome to the Reformation.

4th & 2nd together-
Bible/History- Victor Journey Through the Bible, Streams of Civilization: Volume 1, Trial and Triumph
-Readings from Luke, 1 John, Philippians and other books of the Bible, and memory verses from the New Testament
-How the Bible Came to Us
-Ancient World, Augustus Caesar's World, The Roman Empire, and Medieval World
-Map Work, History Notebook, timeline, and hands on projects
-Library books- used for enrichment (when we can find them). We don't have a very good library.

Science
-First Encycylopedia of the Human Body
- The Human Body for Every Kid
- The Body Book
- Exploring Creation with Astronomy
- Weekly nature walks and nature journals

Foreign Language
English from the Roots Up- Latin roots

Spanish- basic course for my younger three using printables off the web

Reading- I use the book lists from Sonlight and Ambleside online as a guide to what books my 4th and 2nd grader read.

Read-alouds-
(currently) The Bronze Bow,
The Burgess Animal Book for Children(all)


4th Grade:

Rod & Staff Grammar 4
Spelling Power
Singapore Math 4A-4B
Mavis Beacon typing
Writing Strands Level 3 (We will be trying this again this year. We only used it a few weeks last year. It didn't work well so I decided to wait a year.)
Reading- currently Heidi and Stuart Little


2nd Grade:

Abeka Spelling 2nd
Primary Language Lessons (and some Abeka 2 Language since I have a workbook)
Singapore Math 2A-2B
Handwriting- some Abeka plus copy work and dictation from Bible and reading
Reading-currently Charlotte's Web


K-
Handwriting- Veritas Press Kindergarten Workbook
Abeka Phonics K and 1
Math- various manipulatives and printouts for copying numbers
Abeka readers 1
various books for reading and read-alouds
various arts and crafts

Pre-K:

Playdough, coloring books, printouts from 1+1+1+1, waterpaints, pattern blocks, cutting and pasting, magnetic letters, read alouds, etc.

100 Days of School

We were a little late with this since it's been well past 100 days for us, but here goes anyway! I wanted to try doing this with my children (mainly my 4 year old). Each day she put a sticker on the chart to count to 100. All of my children looked forward to this every school day. Today we had our little celebration. We ate a 100 Grand candy bar. I'd never tried one before, but I might buy them again. It was delicious! We put together a 100 piece puzzle of a hundred dollar bill. We, also, counted 100 beans and shaped it into the number 100, made a paper chain of 100 strips of construction paper, exercised 100 times and several other things. It was fun and I think they enjoyed it. That makes all the difference. If they learned and it was fun then it was worth it!

Egyptian Meal

We are studying Creation to the Greeks with My Father's World. http://www.mfwbooks.com/

We are enjoying our study through Genesis. Today we finished up the story of Joseph and have been studying Egyptian culture and life. We had a meal of fish, cheese, pita bread, nuts, fruit and vegetables dipped in plain yogurt.

I borrowed these platters from my mom. I thought it looked nice served on them. :) I'm not usually too concerned about how things look when we're about to eat it, but I tried to make a nice presentation. Plus, lately I am all about some paper plates, which, by the way, we ate our Egyptian meal on, hee, hee. Kind of funny after being served on a silver platter. Oh well!

My eight year old daughter said this was the best meal she ever ate. Not sure if that's a compliment or not considering she eats almost anything.

By the way, the story of Joseph is one of my favorite stories in the Bible. I get teary eyed every time I read Genesis 50:20.

Make Your Own Play Dough

Our play dough stash was in need of some help so instead of pulling out some cash, I decided to try my hand at making it myself. The kiddos were very excited and I let them each pick which color to make. I have these moments every now and then where I try to do fun stuff without getting stressed out about messes. I am trying my best to make these moments more common. Yes, play dough is a mess to make-especially when you let the kids do most of it themselves, but it was worth it. My 8 year old girl and 6 year old boy had fun stirring it and putting in the food color. They had flour everywhere (translation- fun for them!) We made 4 colors. My two year old had to make lella (translation: yellow) since it's her new favorite color. Her 4 year old sister wanted to make red, but it turned out pink (she really loved the color anyway). The older two made blue and green. The mess turned into lots of fun for everyone- even me. I sat and made some shapes with them, too. We got out the cookie cutters and enjoyed ourselves.

Update on our Summer

We've been fairly busy all summer here. We have enjoyed some veggies from our garden. I pulled a muscle in my back so I didn't get to do much of the picking, but was able to help out shelling, putting up, etc. We took a two month break from school work and started back two weeks ago. We like to start early so that we can take breaks when necessary. I'm thinking of doing year-round schooling so that we could take off a few weeks here and there. Not sure yet- just in my mind. Our Home School Curriculum: We are doing My Father's World Creation to the Greeks. This is our 3rd year with MFW. We really enjoy it. We're using Singapore math for the 2nd year. For reading, I'm using living books that we already have, some from the library and ordered a few more. It's going well so far. It's been challenging to keep my 2 1/2 and 4 year old occupied while I'm trying to work with the other 2, but I've tried to make a "schedule" of activities, reading, lessons for them. That's just so that I can be ready with things and not have to come up with something at the last minute. What's interesting is that for the past two days they've just played and didn't even ask to "do" anything. I try to read to them early in the day so that doesn't get put off. I feel that is very important for their development. Plus, my older children like to read to the younger ones, also. I've tried so hard to be extra organized this year. It requires a little more planning for me, but it's well worth the extra time. Each day I make a list of all the assignments they are required to complete and then after they complete them they check it off. They seem to like to know what they're expected to do each day. It works for me!

Busy, Busy!!

It's been busy, busy around here over the last few months. We're in the process of moving and that is very chaotic for our family of six. Hopefully we'll be settled in in the next few weeks and things will slow down a little. I am always on the lookout for ways to occupy/educate/keep busy my little ones. Yesterday while trying to teach math, I saw some Uno cards laying on the table. My 3 year old was wanting something to do so I said here sort these by color. I separated them into four piles- one for each color- blue, yellow, red and green. I only gave her a few at a time and it was a hit! She really enjoyed it. It works for me! Even my almost 2 year old wanted some to "sort". Yes, we'll be doing this again soon.

Update

Boy, we sure are busy around here. Last week, my oldest two participated in a theatre camp with our home school group. They had so much fun and enjoyed learning about plays. It was fun to watch them in their presentation on Friday night. It did make for a busy week! This mama was exhausted by the end of the week!

Despite all the fun, I'm glad for a "normal" week around here. Our 3rd week of school is already halfway over. We're playing a little catch up from last week since we didn't get everything done. We're studying cultures and countries this year and the curriculum suggested we make a cake and decorate it like a map or globe. We gave it a go and I was gonna let the kids do all the decorating, but apparently I didn't let it cool long enough before removing it from the pan. It split into. I was afraid it would fall all apart if I let them decorate it so I put a light layer of blue icing on first and then let them help me smooth it out. Then I used an icing pen (that I had leftover from some decorating last year) and tried to outline the continents. I didn't have enough of the icing pen to fill in the continents, but they were happy and that's all that matters. They enjoyed looking at it, but really all they wanted to do was eat it anyway! Of course, as their teacher, I made sure they could tell me the name of each continent and ocean before they could eat it :)

Week One - Review

We have completed week one of our homeschool lessons! The children were so ready to get busy. They always are at the beginning. I tried to take it slow to get them back into a routine, but they just wanted to do more. So of course we did! I had a lot of anticipation going into this year of schooling. I knew having two little ones underfoot was going to be quite the challenge. My youngest took her morning nap last year while we were working. I knew that this year would be quite different. I tried to plan things for my 3 year old to do: cutting, coloring, puzzles, sorting, lacing beads, playdough, etc. What I didn't think about was my 19 month old wanting to do everything big sis did. She ate the playdough and macaroni noodles for sorting (not enough to get worked up about, but...) These weren't cooked by the way! Needless to say, I've got to do a little more figuring and planning. I think the key is organization and patience!

Back to our homeschool

I've gone back and forth on when to begin school around here. Couldn't seem to figure out the best time to start, but we all seem ready so I guess we're gonna plunge in on Monday. A lot of people think we're nuts, but we like to start early so we'll have time to take some extra breaks throughout the year. Plus, in a few weeks we're planning to head to the beach for vacation. We're so looking forward to it! I've been on a mad dash to get everything ready for our start on Monday. I've been reading curriculum, making schedules, straightening supplies, making lists, collecting books from the library, and much more so hopefully we'll be mostly ready when Mon. morning rolls around. :) I've been rearranging around here all summer trying to figure out the best way to use the two rooms I have for schooling, sewing, crafts, scrapbooking, computer, and playtime. They are at the front of the house separated by the front entrance. One is actually the dining room that we use for a playroom. Now I've decided to put the school table in there. I put it in the corner so that there's still room to play. We'll see how that goes. It is still in the works. I moved my sewing machine into the other room that I used to have the school table in. (Confused yet?) It's so nice to have a place to sew without having to drag everything out. I've actually used it a lot this summer. I wanted to do more, but there's still time in the evenings when the children are in bed. Our children are excited about school. Our 3 year old asked me tonight if we were starting school tonight. So cute! I've been telling her that she's gonna be learning more things and she's so excited! She has a pair of scissors, crayons, little workbooks (that I picked up from the dollar *store), stickers, etc. Hopefully, the excitement will continue...:)

Blueberry Pickin'

It's blueberry picking time down south! We love blueberries at our house- well, most of us anyway!

A few weeks ago the kids and I went with our homeschool group to pick blueberries. We set off with the bottled water, sunscreen and hats- all ready to conquer the heat. On the way there it started raining. I was disappointed because I really wanted some blueberries. It didn't last long, but there was a bonus to our little shower and sprinkles- it cooled the temperature down and therefore we didn't burn up while out picking- yah!

We had a great time! My 7 year old picked as many as I did. I finally had to tell them to stop because I couldn't get more than a bucket. We enjoyed eating blueberries for a few days and will enjoy them later as I put up a few bags in the freezer.

Kayla and one of her friends found this bird's nest in one of the bushes. She was so excited to find this since we studied about birds this year.

Psalm 1 progress

"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord." The children and I are learning Psalm 1 this summer. This is the part that we're working on now. I'm glad I already knew some of it since I have a harder time with memorizing than my children. Next week we should be able to move on to the end of verse 2 and complete verse 3. I've been thinking a lot about "but his delight is in the law of the Lord. " Do I find my delight in the law of the Lord? Lord, please help my delight to be in the law of the Lord!

Nature Journals

Well, I've finally taken the time to get a new post on here :) We've been so busy and it seems I just can't get much done. I am not one that enjoys too much busyness, but I think it will slow down soon or at least I hope. I have wanted to begin a nature journal with the kids and decided that summer would be the perfect time to do so. I think it is very beneficial for all children and adults, too, to spend lots of time outdoors. Many people don't do this much anymore due to busyness. It's so refreshing to take a walk outside especially on a nice pleasant day like today. This morning I decided to pull out the kid's swimming pool that had been stashed in the corner of the back porch (yes, I never put it up last year). Anyway, as I pulled it up a toad hopped out from under it. I have seen small toads on the porch before, but never one that large. I called the kids over to observe. I thought this would be a great way to begin our "nature journal". I had them observe him for a few minutes. They were supposed to watch silently, but my children have a hard time doing that :) We decided to try to move him to some water. I convinced my son to scoop him in a shovel and try to move him. But as soon as he tried the toad hopped away. They were so disappointed :( They had fun anyway! I asked them to describe to me what they heard and saw and then my oldest (7) wrote a few sentences about it and drew a picture. My 5 year old wrote a few words and drew a picture. My 3 year old (who has to do everything the big kids do) drew a picture of the toads stripes and circles for his eyes. I think the journals were a big hit because this afternoon they wanted to find more things to add to their journals. That is always a great thing!

The Story of the Three Servants

This morning during our Bible study time, the children and I were studying the story of the three servants from Matthew 25:14-30. I was trying to explain to them that God has given us all gifts/talents and they belong to Him. I was thinking about the meaning of these passages and was reminded that I need to be faithful to Him in all things. It is amazing to me how much God teaches me through teaching these dear children of mine. Thank you, Lord, for the reminder to be faithful to You in all things. I pray that I will be found faithful to You! "But be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." James 1:22