Frieda Engel Wenger McElwain 3/20/1919 - 3/25/2012
3/25/12
A Life Well Lived
Today, a little before 5pm, my 93 year old Grandmother was ushered into the presence of her Savior and King. She entered peacefully, finally free of the pain she lived through grudge-free for the last several months of her life. She lived a hard life. Born in 1919, she lived through the depression, which shaped her in ways that would carry throughout her life. She lived most of her years on a farm, working long hard hours, and living harvest to harvest. She didn't know any different, and never aspired to more than the life God had blessed her with. Grandma was always frugal. (Some people today might call her cheap.) But I think she knew the secret to living life well. She used what God gave her to it's fullest. She celebrated every day He gave her to the best of her ability. She gave the credit to God for all that she accomplished. She was a woman of strong faith who loved the LORD and her family with her last breath. I have been blessed to call her Grandma. I know she is singing praises to Jesus now, and visiting old family and friends she's not seen in a long time. She is in her eternal home now, living in her perfected body, and enjoying all that God's grace has seen fit to bless her. While the time until I see her may be seem long, it will be but a heartbeat to her now. It's only goodbye for now, Grandma, until we meet again.
2/25/12
Princess M Update
We're moving right along with the alphabet. We got through the letter M this week. We've been looking forward to this letter, not only because it's the first letter of her name, but because M is for - M&M's!!! Yes - nothing is better than schooling with chocolate!
Counting M&M's
Pattern Matching
Color Sorting
Eating M&M's
M is for Mouse
M is for Mosaic - sort of
Counting M&M's
Pattern Matching
Color Sorting
Eating M&M's
M is for Mouse
M is for Mosaic - sort of
2/10/12
TOG Year 1 Week 21-22
Princess M - PreToggler
Short and sweet, these weeks were J for Jesus and K for Kite. She rediscovered legos, and built this masterpiece.
Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
This week she are finishing up Explode the Code Book 4. She will do the post test pages next week. Then she will start Primary Language Lessons. I'm planning to take it very slowly. We are almost done with "B is for Betsy" and will be starting "Betsy and Billy" on Tuesday. She is really loving that book. Thursday we hit a milestone. It is one that I find very bittersweet. I caught her reading a chapter book all by herself because she wanted to. Well, she wasn't by herself. She was reading to our cat.
This is bittersweet because while I love the idea of her reading on her own because she wants to, it has also meant that the temptation to read on her own because she wants to will bring about much turmoil. It will mean that she will see a book and forget what she is supposed to do and choose to read it instead. It will mean not hearing me call her when she is reading, and me having to figure out what corner of the house she is curled up in. (This was what I did, too, when I was young.) It will mean sneaking the book she wants to read inside the book that she is supposed to be reading and hoping I don't catch her. (This is a trick learned from her sisters.)
Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
Princess S spent the last two weeks trying to make up some missed assignments. She is finally caught up. I will be spending the next few weeks reading her history core assignment with her and helping her to take notes in order to answer the accountability questions with out TOG studies. She finished up lesson 25 in Delta. As part of our new schedule, she is going to get two weeks off from math when she finishes this book. But then both girls are going to be in the same book for a little while. In Latin, she is up to chapter 15. She will be going to chapter 17 and then will get a lengthy break from Latin. I will continue to have her play HeadventureLand and go through her flash cards once a week.
Princess E - 7th Grade - D
Princess E is working steadily through her fraction math drills book. I'm hoping that she will be back on track for Epsilon by March. I'm going to print out some extra workbook pages from the MUS site first though. She has taken the unit two Latin test and needs a little bit more work on the pronouns. So I made a few games for her to play with the printed out charts, and printed some extra practice worksheets and will have her retest to see if she has finally figured them out.
The next month or two is going to be up in the air. My grandmother is nearing the end of her almost 93 year journey. We will most likely be going to ND for her funeral very soon. I figure it will mean a one week break from our lessons, so instead of the spring break we had planned to take, I'm going to simply reschedule it for whichever week we end up needing to go to ND. Please pray that her journey home to her Savior would be as painless as possible, and that all of the plans and traveling that will need to happen would occur safely. It has been a relatively easy winter, and they are certainly due for one big snowstorm up there. I'm praying that it is not the week we will be going.
Short and sweet, these weeks were J for Jesus and K for Kite. She rediscovered legos, and built this masterpiece.
Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
This week she are finishing up Explode the Code Book 4. She will do the post test pages next week. Then she will start Primary Language Lessons. I'm planning to take it very slowly. We are almost done with "B is for Betsy" and will be starting "Betsy and Billy" on Tuesday. She is really loving that book. Thursday we hit a milestone. It is one that I find very bittersweet. I caught her reading a chapter book all by herself because she wanted to. Well, she wasn't by herself. She was reading to our cat.
This is bittersweet because while I love the idea of her reading on her own because she wants to, it has also meant that the temptation to read on her own because she wants to will bring about much turmoil. It will mean that she will see a book and forget what she is supposed to do and choose to read it instead. It will mean not hearing me call her when she is reading, and me having to figure out what corner of the house she is curled up in. (This was what I did, too, when I was young.) It will mean sneaking the book she wants to read inside the book that she is supposed to be reading and hoping I don't catch her. (This is a trick learned from her sisters.)
Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
Princess S spent the last two weeks trying to make up some missed assignments. She is finally caught up. I will be spending the next few weeks reading her history core assignment with her and helping her to take notes in order to answer the accountability questions with out TOG studies. She finished up lesson 25 in Delta. As part of our new schedule, she is going to get two weeks off from math when she finishes this book. But then both girls are going to be in the same book for a little while. In Latin, she is up to chapter 15. She will be going to chapter 17 and then will get a lengthy break from Latin. I will continue to have her play HeadventureLand and go through her flash cards once a week.
Princess E - 7th Grade - D
Princess E is working steadily through her fraction math drills book. I'm hoping that she will be back on track for Epsilon by March. I'm going to print out some extra workbook pages from the MUS site first though. She has taken the unit two Latin test and needs a little bit more work on the pronouns. So I made a few games for her to play with the printed out charts, and printed some extra practice worksheets and will have her retest to see if she has finally figured them out.
The next month or two is going to be up in the air. My grandmother is nearing the end of her almost 93 year journey. We will most likely be going to ND for her funeral very soon. I figure it will mean a one week break from our lessons, so instead of the spring break we had planned to take, I'm going to simply reschedule it for whichever week we end up needing to go to ND. Please pray that her journey home to her Savior would be as painless as possible, and that all of the plans and traveling that will need to happen would occur safely. It has been a relatively easy winter, and they are certainly due for one big snowstorm up there. I'm praying that it is not the week we will be going.
1/27/12
TOG Year 1 Week 19-20
Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
We're still doing lots of reading. We're reading one lesson from Christian Liberty Press's Nature Reader each day. Then she is reading either a chapter in a chapter book, or two library picture books each day. Today we started my very most favorite series from my childhood - the Carolyn Haywood Betsy series. We began "B is for Betsy." I always enjoy reading these as some of their first chapter books. She is halfway through lesson ten in Explode the Code book four. We will be finishing this book soon, and I will be deciding what to do next. I have a few options, but since I don't have the money in my budget for book 5, we won't be including that one for now. In math, she is finishing up the +8/8+ facts. I've been having her do the online drill at the Math-U-See site and incorporating all of the facts she has learned so far. When she gets them all correct, she has done so with her fastest time being 100 seconds. It's a little bit longer than their suggested time. However, there is always some hunt and peck time with an online drill, so I'd really like to see her at around 80 seconds.
Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
The first two weeks of doing the D level history reading have gone okay I guess. However, she is several days behind at this point. I'm not sure what is going on with her, but I have made a big decision that should affect the older two princesses - hopefully for the better. More on that in a minute. History these two weeks has been dealing with the route to a divided kingdom. We saw how the people demanded a king and got Saul, and then everything that Samuel warned them about came to fruition through David and Solomon. After these two kings, the line of kings followed the LORD less and less, until the kingdoms became divided into two separate kingdoms. In math, Princess S has made it to lesson 24. She is beginning week 22 in her Tom Sawyer Fix-It book, and week 13 in her Caesar's English vocabulary. She has begun lesson 13 in Latin, and will be taking a break once she hits lesson 17. I had planned for her to do about half of the book this year. She will continue to play the games at HeadventureLand once a week until she starts up on the second half.
Princess E - 7th Grade - D
Princess E is finding a groove with her math review and is doing very well in Latin now that I have backed her up and given her a new schedule for each lesson. I also made up some forms that I am having her fill out for each new word that forces her to write each possible ending - in both Latin and English - so that she can remember the endings better. She is completing about a lesson every three days or so, so she is all the way up to lesson ten again. She is taking a break from Magic Lens as she is up to the loop lessons. We will be focusing on her vocabulary, Word Within the Word, until she reaches lesson twenty.
The big decision that I have made is that we are switching to a year round school schedule. The two older princesses are just struggling to stay afloat. They are very stressed out because they "think" they have so much more school work than everyone else. Really, they have the same amount that all the other kids have - they just are not able to focus on their work and become discouraged when they don't see any "me" time in sight. But, we aren't homeschooling just to do "school at home" - so we are going to do what is necessary for all of our sanities. I have been working on a staggered schedule for all of our subjects. This will mean that they have fewer assignments on any given day, hopefully allowing them to focus more on each subject rather than rushing to get everything done. It will still require diligence to get their work done, but it will hopefully allow those who need more sleep to get it and those who need more "me" time to get that as well. We will still be taking eight weeks of vacation from school; but they will be staggered throughout the year, rather than coming all together in the summer. This new schedule will begin on February 6.
We're still doing lots of reading. We're reading one lesson from Christian Liberty Press's Nature Reader each day. Then she is reading either a chapter in a chapter book, or two library picture books each day. Today we started my very most favorite series from my childhood - the Carolyn Haywood Betsy series. We began "B is for Betsy." I always enjoy reading these as some of their first chapter books. She is halfway through lesson ten in Explode the Code book four. We will be finishing this book soon, and I will be deciding what to do next. I have a few options, but since I don't have the money in my budget for book 5, we won't be including that one for now. In math, she is finishing up the +8/8+ facts. I've been having her do the online drill at the Math-U-See site and incorporating all of the facts she has learned so far. When she gets them all correct, she has done so with her fastest time being 100 seconds. It's a little bit longer than their suggested time. However, there is always some hunt and peck time with an online drill, so I'd really like to see her at around 80 seconds.
Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
The first two weeks of doing the D level history reading have gone okay I guess. However, she is several days behind at this point. I'm not sure what is going on with her, but I have made a big decision that should affect the older two princesses - hopefully for the better. More on that in a minute. History these two weeks has been dealing with the route to a divided kingdom. We saw how the people demanded a king and got Saul, and then everything that Samuel warned them about came to fruition through David and Solomon. After these two kings, the line of kings followed the LORD less and less, until the kingdoms became divided into two separate kingdoms. In math, Princess S has made it to lesson 24. She is beginning week 22 in her Tom Sawyer Fix-It book, and week 13 in her Caesar's English vocabulary. She has begun lesson 13 in Latin, and will be taking a break once she hits lesson 17. I had planned for her to do about half of the book this year. She will continue to play the games at HeadventureLand once a week until she starts up on the second half.
Princess E - 7th Grade - D
Princess E is finding a groove with her math review and is doing very well in Latin now that I have backed her up and given her a new schedule for each lesson. I also made up some forms that I am having her fill out for each new word that forces her to write each possible ending - in both Latin and English - so that she can remember the endings better. She is completing about a lesson every three days or so, so she is all the way up to lesson ten again. She is taking a break from Magic Lens as she is up to the loop lessons. We will be focusing on her vocabulary, Word Within the Word, until she reaches lesson twenty.
The big decision that I have made is that we are switching to a year round school schedule. The two older princesses are just struggling to stay afloat. They are very stressed out because they "think" they have so much more school work than everyone else. Really, they have the same amount that all the other kids have - they just are not able to focus on their work and become discouraged when they don't see any "me" time in sight. But, we aren't homeschooling just to do "school at home" - so we are going to do what is necessary for all of our sanities. I have been working on a staggered schedule for all of our subjects. This will mean that they have fewer assignments on any given day, hopefully allowing them to focus more on each subject rather than rushing to get everything done. It will still require diligence to get their work done, but it will hopefully allow those who need more sleep to get it and those who need more "me" time to get that as well. We will still be taking eight weeks of vacation from school; but they will be staggered throughout the year, rather than coming all together in the summer. This new schedule will begin on February 6.
Princess M School Update
Princess M is continuing to learn letters and numbers in preschool. We are speeding up a little and trying to do a letter a week from here on out. There are a couple of reasons for this. Most importantly, she is really getting good at recognizing all of the letters and saying their sounds - even the letters we haven't officially done yet. I attribute this to her Leap Frog videos and the games she has played on the iPad. Each week we feed Mugs (a character game from IEW's PAL curriculum) all of the letters. She has to tell me the name of the letter and it's sound. She can say probably twenty of them the first time through. The rest she needs either the name or sound prompt to get the other side of the equation. Also, I'd really like to get through all of the letters by the end of May.
This week we finished up letter H for hippo. We did not make puppets for G or H. The little two princesses have decimated my paper bag supply making their own puppets over the last few weeks. Here are some pictures of the last couple of weeks.
F is for fish
Fish puppet (yes it has two eyes - she just couldn't do only one)
Counting gumballs
G is for goat
H is for house
This week we finished up letter H for hippo. We did not make puppets for G or H. The little two princesses have decimated my paper bag supply making their own puppets over the last few weeks. Here are some pictures of the last couple of weeks.
F is for fish
Fish puppet (yes it has two eyes - she just couldn't do only one)
Counting gumballs
G is for goat
H is for house
1/23/12
Princess M Funnies
Last night, Princess M was having a bit of a problem eating her dinner. She kept telling me she was full. She remained at the table after everyone else was done. I left to go finish folding the laundry I had started to fold before dinner. Princess E, knowing that I had purchased some rainbow sherbet at Aldi's, reminded Princess M that she needed to finish her dinner in order to get dessert. Princess M said, "But my tummy is all filled up." So, Princess E retorted, "But what if there is ice cream for dessert?" And Princess M replied, "Well, my tummy will get all empty for ice cream." Yeah - I bet it will!
1/14/12
TOG Year 1 Week 17-18
Christmas break was way to short! I think that coming back after Christmas break is much more difficult than coming back after summer break. Usually, they get bored over the summer and having something to do, and a normal schedule, is a welcomed idea when we start back up. However, two weeks off at Christmas is only enough to make everyone - me included - want just a little bit more time off. In the past, I might have accommodated more time off. But since Princess E is doing an online TOG class, we need to stick with that schedule.
Princess M - Pre-TOGGLER
We finished up F for fish, and we have started G for gumball. This little one, unlike the others, was antsy to get back to school. She spent much of her Christmas break dancing in her new ballerina clothes - her first that are new rather than very used. I am still trying to decide what to use with her for next year. I have IEW's PAL - but I've also been very intrigued with All About Reading. However, I'm not sure whether I'd need to start her with Pre-Reading or with Level 1. I'm hoping that they will be at our homeschool convention in April so I can get a comparative look at them. I know it's still a ways away, but April is really just around the corner.
Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
We have been doing lots of reading. Sometimes, it's more fun to read to someone other than Mom. So she spent some of her break reading to Nanny. We have started the Hopscotch Hill Series. These are great beginning chapter books that are written by one of the American Girl stories authors. Both Princess E & S enjoyed these books, so we are giving Princess L a chance. She really wants to be able to read the book that goes along with her Kirsten American Girl doll. But she just isn't ready for that yet. The other book we started is Animal Antics, a compilation of chapters from the Little House series that deals with animal encounters. This book is a bit more challenging, but because it doesn't have pictures on every page, it forces her to rely only on the words and not on the pictures. We also started back up on the next MUS chapter. So she is learning the +8 and 8+ facts. They are a bit more challenging than the nines were. I sometimes feel like we're dragging in math, but I made the mistake of allowing Princess E to go too fast in her math. I think she really doesn't know them well to this day, but there is no way she is going to go backwards that far. It just means that she has to take more time with each problem and lesson.
Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
We are beginning the move to D work. I have decided that from week 19 on, I am going to shift her to the D history books. But, I am going to make it a slow progression as to what I expect of her. The first couple of weeks I will just have her read the D books and continue doing KWOs on them like she has been doing. The next couple of weeks, I will sit with her while she reads and help her go through the accountability questions. I'm hoping that by the last unit, she will have the idea down and we will be able to add the thinking questions. Then for the last few weeks - probably weeks 32-36, I hope to have a discussion time with her. I may also have her listen in on a few of her sister's online classes. In math, Princess S is up to lesson 23. This has been a bit more difficult lesson as it is double digit long division. I know she can do it - she just needs to be able to keep her concentration. That is always the challenge with my SPD/ADD girl. I do think that she will be catching up to Princess E sometime next year. Also, in Latin she is up to chapter 12. In science, she is just not doing very well at all. I think she is bored. She loves to read about scientific topics, but she doesn't like being told what to read. So I am going to have her join Princess E in my newly designed science endeavor.
Princess E - 7th Grade - D
After spending much time before break, and during break, contemplating what to do with Princess E, I think I've come up with a plan. For math, we put a small halt on MUS, and I purchased a math fractions drill book through Currclick. She is going to complete ten questions each day until she learns to slow down and look carefully before turning in assignments. She will not be allowed to go back to MUS until she is scoring a 9 or 10 each day. She is going to be required to continue on in math through the summer until she has reached Zeta lesson 10. In Latin, I purchased the official test packet from Classical Academic Press. I told her she would take the unit tests until she was not able to achieve an 85% or higher. Well, she passed the first, and that was all. So we moved back to lesson 6. I told her she would have to continue through the summer until she completed the book. I changed up the order of her assignments and created my own practice worksheets that will force her to think through each word and all it's possible spellings and translations. I told her she would not move on from each lesson until each test is passed with an 85% or higher. In science, I am combining several different programs and one method. I am going to use this method with both Princess E & S, This task card approach will hopefully help them learn how to research the information they need to learn about a topic. They will be going through the Life Science task cards. I also purchased Lyrical Life Science because they both seem to learn really well with music. I cross referenced the LLS lessons with the Task Cards to match them up. I also wanted to add in some lab opportunities as 7th grade science is big using labs. So I found this completely free life science program and once again cross referenced it with the Task Cards. So in a nutshell, they will be taking a task card and will have to research the topic on each card on their own. For every card that there is a corresponding LLS song or Mr Q lab, they will be doing those as well. I purchased several books to keep in a basket so that they have most of the books that can help them to research the topics. To show what they have learned, the task cards have a few different output options. Of course, the expectations of quality output will be higher for Princess E than for Princess S. I am praying that the opportunity to discover information on their own, rather than being told "this is what you must read and what you must do" will click with my two extremely strong-willed princesses. If they enjoy it and take off with it, and if I see that they are really learning with this method, then I am thinking through how I can combine that method with our TOG studies. I do believe it is quite possible, although it might not be possible for me to pull it all together by the fall. It might be something that I look at implementing with the R level of TOG and hold off with it until we do Year 3 starting in the 2013/2014 school year. Anyway, that is what has kept me busy over our Christmas break.
Princess M - Pre-TOGGLER
We finished up F for fish, and we have started G for gumball. This little one, unlike the others, was antsy to get back to school. She spent much of her Christmas break dancing in her new ballerina clothes - her first that are new rather than very used. I am still trying to decide what to use with her for next year. I have IEW's PAL - but I've also been very intrigued with All About Reading. However, I'm not sure whether I'd need to start her with Pre-Reading or with Level 1. I'm hoping that they will be at our homeschool convention in April so I can get a comparative look at them. I know it's still a ways away, but April is really just around the corner.
Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
We have been doing lots of reading. Sometimes, it's more fun to read to someone other than Mom. So she spent some of her break reading to Nanny. We have started the Hopscotch Hill Series. These are great beginning chapter books that are written by one of the American Girl stories authors. Both Princess E & S enjoyed these books, so we are giving Princess L a chance. She really wants to be able to read the book that goes along with her Kirsten American Girl doll. But she just isn't ready for that yet. The other book we started is Animal Antics, a compilation of chapters from the Little House series that deals with animal encounters. This book is a bit more challenging, but because it doesn't have pictures on every page, it forces her to rely only on the words and not on the pictures. We also started back up on the next MUS chapter. So she is learning the +8 and 8+ facts. They are a bit more challenging than the nines were. I sometimes feel like we're dragging in math, but I made the mistake of allowing Princess E to go too fast in her math. I think she really doesn't know them well to this day, but there is no way she is going to go backwards that far. It just means that she has to take more time with each problem and lesson.
Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
We are beginning the move to D work. I have decided that from week 19 on, I am going to shift her to the D history books. But, I am going to make it a slow progression as to what I expect of her. The first couple of weeks I will just have her read the D books and continue doing KWOs on them like she has been doing. The next couple of weeks, I will sit with her while she reads and help her go through the accountability questions. I'm hoping that by the last unit, she will have the idea down and we will be able to add the thinking questions. Then for the last few weeks - probably weeks 32-36, I hope to have a discussion time with her. I may also have her listen in on a few of her sister's online classes. In math, Princess S is up to lesson 23. This has been a bit more difficult lesson as it is double digit long division. I know she can do it - she just needs to be able to keep her concentration. That is always the challenge with my SPD/ADD girl. I do think that she will be catching up to Princess E sometime next year. Also, in Latin she is up to chapter 12. In science, she is just not doing very well at all. I think she is bored. She loves to read about scientific topics, but she doesn't like being told what to read. So I am going to have her join Princess E in my newly designed science endeavor.
Princess E - 7th Grade - D
After spending much time before break, and during break, contemplating what to do with Princess E, I think I've come up with a plan. For math, we put a small halt on MUS, and I purchased a math fractions drill book through Currclick. She is going to complete ten questions each day until she learns to slow down and look carefully before turning in assignments. She will not be allowed to go back to MUS until she is scoring a 9 or 10 each day. She is going to be required to continue on in math through the summer until she has reached Zeta lesson 10. In Latin, I purchased the official test packet from Classical Academic Press. I told her she would take the unit tests until she was not able to achieve an 85% or higher. Well, she passed the first, and that was all. So we moved back to lesson 6. I told her she would have to continue through the summer until she completed the book. I changed up the order of her assignments and created my own practice worksheets that will force her to think through each word and all it's possible spellings and translations. I told her she would not move on from each lesson until each test is passed with an 85% or higher. In science, I am combining several different programs and one method. I am going to use this method with both Princess E & S, This task card approach will hopefully help them learn how to research the information they need to learn about a topic. They will be going through the Life Science task cards. I also purchased Lyrical Life Science because they both seem to learn really well with music. I cross referenced the LLS lessons with the Task Cards to match them up. I also wanted to add in some lab opportunities as 7th grade science is big using labs. So I found this completely free life science program and once again cross referenced it with the Task Cards. So in a nutshell, they will be taking a task card and will have to research the topic on each card on their own. For every card that there is a corresponding LLS song or Mr Q lab, they will be doing those as well. I purchased several books to keep in a basket so that they have most of the books that can help them to research the topics. To show what they have learned, the task cards have a few different output options. Of course, the expectations of quality output will be higher for Princess E than for Princess S. I am praying that the opportunity to discover information on their own, rather than being told "this is what you must read and what you must do" will click with my two extremely strong-willed princesses. If they enjoy it and take off with it, and if I see that they are really learning with this method, then I am thinking through how I can combine that method with our TOG studies. I do believe it is quite possible, although it might not be possible for me to pull it all together by the fall. It might be something that I look at implementing with the R level of TOG and hold off with it until we do Year 3 starting in the 2013/2014 school year. Anyway, that is what has kept me busy over our Christmas break.
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