Happenings of a Homeschool...Week 3

Bible

This week our parable was the The Parable of the Yeast.  Kind of a short but sweet parable, but the kids are definitely getting better at understanding them and I have to remember that they too, like the people Jesus was preaching to, are not saved, so these types of things don't come easy to them.  Its amazing how the Holy Spirit can change not only your heart but also your mind!!!  So, this parable was pretty simple and the girls enjoyed talking about how yeast changes the entire loaf of bread and makes it bigger as does the Holy Spirit for the kingdom of God.  Here was our coloring page...nothing spectacular for sure, but it will definitely trigger their memory when they retell these for a grade at the end of the 9 week term!

Memory Work

Still working on Psalm 1 and the Shadow. They are chugging right along and are almost half way through to memorizing them both entirely!!

Latin

Chapter 3 this week was TOUGH!!!  I don't know if I am just not "Latin-y" or what, but even I didn't get it at all.  Because it was tough, we are going to repeat it next week and be a little more thorough.  Hopefully something will make more sense to us!!  Reason number 456 I love homeschooling...you don't understand it....just repeat it!!  Why take a test on something you don't get???

Math

This week Karsyn and I were introduced to MULTIPLICATION!!!  She is so excited because she now knows multiplication!!  With Right Start Math there is no memorizing, so you don't learn each individual family so to speak.  You master skip counting and then you can multiply anything because you just know that its something counted however many times.  AWESOME!!!

Kamryn and I are still working with massive fractions over here!!  We are adding and reducing and changing improper to proper and subtracting and all kinds of great things!!!  Whew, its some tough stuff, but its so fun!!!

Language Arts

This week in Storytelling the girls had to retell "The Teeny Tiny Lady". So much fun.  They were so creative in their "props".  Polly Pockets, Little Pet Shop pets, nothing was off limits! Great job gals!!

This week Karsyn had to work with the dictionary and alphabetize and look at pronunciation and syllables and write definitions.  All such good stuff.  I can see her with such a deeper understanding than if she were just memorizing rules and doing worksheets!!

Still loving Fix It Grammar although we had to re-write Weeks 1 and 2 this week because we didn't get it right.  We know what we are doing now, thanks to my friend Kayce who shined the light on the teacher's guide for me this week!!! SERIOUSLY????  What was I thinking???

World History

Still talking pyramids this week.  Those things are fascinating!!!  We are still reading from The Egyptology handbook and its so visual and cool!!  The girls each read a lesson on their own and then we talk about it and watch NatGeo videos to supplement and bring it home.  We learned this week that each stone on a pyramid weighed 2 tons and it took anywhere from 8-20 years for a pyramid to built!!!  WOW!!  If we had that kind of work ethic in America what we could accomplish!!!

American History

This week we learned about the different classes of people in the colonies.  Kamryn wanted to know why the rural colonists didn't just move to the towns where they could buy what they need and why the slaves didn't just leave the houses they were at.  GREAT DISCUSSIONS!!  And the Boston "Massacre" has just taken place and we got the very first taste of media propaganda in our country when the Red Coats killed 5 colonists, but the newspapers reported it as a "massacre" because the folks in Boston were ready to get the British soldiers out of the colonies and they knew it fire up everyone to march toward independence.  The girls are loving it!! SO AM I!!!  Here are our supplement books to go with our history studies:

Life as a Colonial Schoolteacher

Life as a Colonial Doctor

The 13 Colonies

American History Stories Vol 2

Colonial Women

Geography

This week week we finally began our states.  Starting with Deleware.  Next week we will do 2 to catch up.  The girls are responsible for coloring the state, memorizing the capital, and telling us something interesting they found out about it from a book we have in our book basket called The Quilt of the States.

Picture Study, Music Study, and Art

This week our new piece of art was The Oregon Trail.  Wow, not at all what I expected it to look like!! We enjoyed studying that piece for sure, since we all love the 80's computer game.  (is that just me?)  In Music we entered into the Classical Period where everyday people were first getting exposed to beautiful music.  We talked about Mozart and listened to some great pieces from the period!  Art was pushed to the side this week...for some reason we just couldn't make it happen :(

Science

We finished our healthy plant growth experiment and are now working on a deep understanding of photosynthesis and why leaves change color.  We are heading to TN in a few weeks, so I really want them to understand this so that when we see the massive changing colors there they will know why.  We did lots of reading this week and next week we will head out to see if we can back up some of what we have read.  Lots of experiments next week as well to show photosynthesis in action.  I will have lots of pictures!!  Here are the books we read this week...

Usbourne Book of Science Activities Vol. 2

The Nature and Science of Leaves

How Leaves Change

Nature Study

This week is SPIDERS!!!  This weekend we will go out in search of different kinds of webs and identify some spiders! CREEPY!!!

Next week is going to be so great, I cannot wait!!!  Hopefully I will have more pictures.  This week was rushed because we are heading out to participate in The Homeschool Movie Club's showing of Dolphin Tale today!!!  We are so excited to see this movie!!  In case you are going today, wear blue to show that you are a homeschooler!!! The club is trying to get the message to Hollywood that good, clean, quality movies will sell...and that there are lots of homeschoolers out there that have a very loud voice!!!