TOG Year 4 Week 1

This year, we are starting our year off a little differently.  We are starting our year rather light in that we are not beginning all our subjects at the same time.  We will be adding in the other subjects so that by the fourth week of school we have all our normal classes integrated into our schedule.  We loosely follow the schedule of a local charter school where some of the elder princesses' friends attend.  This fact, and the fact that I use interlibrary loan A LOT, means being a few week ahead of other homeschoolers in the area helps assure that I will get the books I need when I need them.  But, there are still some commitments and activities that get scheduled becasue most kids are still on summer break.  Therefore, having a bit lighter of a load will help us be able to do those activities.

Our Tapestry of Grace studies have us doing year four, which is the study of the Twentieth Century.  This is significant because DH and I, the Grandparents, and the two Great-Grandmothers have a change to tell our own stories to the princesses.  We've lived through or experienced many of the events we will study.  These events and people have had a large influence on our lives in different ways.  I'd really like to figure out a way to record some conversations with the Great-Grandmothers.  They are late 80s and early 90s (how's that for not giving away their ages) and - let's fact it - they may not be around when we repeat this year plan five years from now.  But it is also significant because I truly believe that we are living in a time that will be remembered as the second American Revolution.  We MUST pray hard for our country as the LORD has allowed the consequences of our corporate sin of rejecting Him and His precepts to take root.  But God always sent a prophet to warn His people before allowing them to be destroyed, captured or enslaved.  There are many prophets sounding the alarm right now, and we need to answer the call, put on our battle armor, and hit our knees.  (I'm stepping off my soapbox now.)

Here's the books we're doing for our first week:

Princess E - 6th Grade - Dialectic

McCall Crabbs Standard Test Lessons in Reading (from now on referred to as McCrab): First three tests of Book A - we will begin with three tests a week, but may move to four a week.

Latin For Children Primer A: By her choice, she will be going through this from the beginning as a review to cement in the things she learned last year.  She will take two days per lesson for the first 14 lessons, as these are pretty much a complete review - a few new nouns or verbs in forms she already knows.  Then we will move to three days per lesson for the next twenty lessons.  Again, most of these are review with a few new words.  But there is a second conjugation taught in lesson 15 that she didn't learn before.  So there are a few new concepts that will be challenging.  If she is able to keep up this pace, she will begin Primer B by our second semester.

TOG Yr4 W1:  Timeline (a new activity for her - she'll be keeping track of important events, people and inventions on colored notecards); President Notebook (this contains important facts to remember about each president and first lady as well as famous quotes for copywork); Student Activity Pages (SAPs); Accountability and Thinking Questions (AQ/TQ); Reading (disclaimer - most of these are long books and she will read portions of the book each week) - The Gift of Music, The Call of the Wild, With Daring Faith, Bully for you Teddy Roosevelt, The Complete Idiot's Guide to the 20th Century (she was a bit put off by this title); Read Alouds - The Story of the World Volume 4, Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade Against Child Labor

Princess S - 4th Grade - Upper Grammar
McCrabb: First three tests
Growing With Grammar 4 (GWG4): Chapter 1.1 to 1.3
TOG Yr 4 W1: Quizlet vocab; Important People Copywork; SAPs; Read Alounds - same as above; Reading (again - portions each week) - An Age of Extremes, We'll Race You Henry, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Trial and Triumph

Princess L - K - Lower Grammar
Winter Promise Advanced K: Review letters a, f, b, m, e, k, t and r; study the -ad family and -am family; practice handwriting letters (because we only learned the short sounds last year, she will have to learn the other two sounds for a and e)

TOG Yr 4 W1: Read Alouds - same as above; Reading - First Flight, the Story of the Wright Brothers, We'll Race You Henry, The Story of Little Babaji

Princess M - PreTOGGer
I've been working on printing, cutting and laminating various activities from the Letter of the Week Curriculum.  Each of the other princesses will have a 30 minute time block each morning where they will have the choice to either do some of these activities with Princess M or read to her.  My hope is that little by little I will have enough of these put together to be able to do this with her in its entirety starting next year.

Besides the above activities, we will begin our school each morning with a short Bible study and prayer time.  The girls each have a notebook which they use to illustrate the Bible passage.  Next week we will be adding in our IEW/MCT activities.  We did a little bit of MCT this week, but I don't have the video we made ready to post yet, so I'll show it next week.