Did I take a nap - or did the summer just fly by? We've had a very different beginning three weeks than I had anticipated when planning for them at the beginning of the summer. We doubled up some days to have some days off due to a funeral. Princess L got sick and stayed that way for a week. Nanny came for an unexpected visit. And a few tasks that I overlooked this summer meant pushing back some work an extra day or two. But I guess we all need to learn to roll with the punches, right?
Last year I reported on the girls work oldest to youngest. So it's only fair to do youngest to oldest this year.
Princess M - Pre-TOGGLER
This princess is enjoying being a preschooler. I'm trying not to have any notions of what I think she should be able to do based on what her older sisters were able to do, and simply go with what she presents. As such, I've been surprised about a few things and looking at changing a few things. Our first three weeks we went through the letters 'a' and 'e'. We did many of the activities listed in
Letter of the Week, as well as some other activities I had on hand. While I tried to follow the outline of the plans included with LOTW, we ended up mixing things up based on what she had interest in. Here are a few pictures:
A is for alligator.
A is for apple tree.
Letter E pin poking.
E is for elephant.
Elephant counting with peanut butter chips. (This was one of her favorite activities. I wonder why?)
Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
Princess L got a bit behind because of her illness, which we think was Fifth Disease due to the rash. I had hoped to get further in our review than we did.
IEW-PAL: Writing - After beginning book one, I decided it was way too easy for her. She does struggle with a couple of letters, but that is normal. (I'll save what I printed for Princess M for next year.) Book Two is essentially all copywork. I haven't decided yet if I will use the PAL book or use the copywork sheets I have that match what we are doing in TOG. I'm leaning toward the latter. Reading - This one has been more of a struggle to figure out where to put her. She played every single one of the folder games already except the math one, which I didn't put together. They were all very easy for her. Yet, she still has some issues with the sounds that the vowels make. She can always remember the long sound, and often the short sound; but when it makes more than two she struggles with that. So I've decided to begin All About Spelling with her now to cement in the sounds. We will do the first student workbook (because she enjoys the cut and paste and coloring,) but we will be doing two or three lessons a day. We are also going through the Phonetic Farm in the order it is presented. We learned most of the rules presented already, but I really like the way they represent it visually. So far we've finished through lesson eight - though really that was all done in the last couple of days.
Math: We are taking a bit of a break from MUS Alpha at the moment. I had begun the Calculadder drills with her last year. She seems to have completely forgotten how to do them. So every day we are reviewing the math facts she learned last year (+0, +1, +2 and the reverse) as flashcards every day. Then she is doing a level two Calculadder drill sheet (which is all +1s) each day. As soon as she passes to level four, we will begin where we left off with MUS. I will refrain from moving her to the next lesson until she can pass the corresponding Calculadder level.
TOG Yr 1 Wk 1: Due to her illness, we didn't do much with this. We read The Nile River and part of Geography A to Z. I had copywork for her, but due to her illness, she didn't do it.
I don't have pictures of her doing school work, but I do have photos from phy ed/recess time where she is trying to learn how to roller blade. She is great at walking in them, but can't figure out how to get them to roll. The broom was for balance, but it also helped sweep off the driveway.
Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
Since I didn't list out the first two weeks assignments before, I'll just mention them in here. For my eldest two princesses, I am trying something new. Since I use HST+, I have all of my lesson plans in the computer. I printed out a list of all the assignments for each individual subject for the entire quarter. They are deciding how much work to assign themselves each week. I have some bare minimums (there must be at least two assignments done for each subject except for math - which has five assignments a week) and they decide how much extra to do. I explained that they have two options if they finish the work in any subject before quarter's end. They can either ask me to print the next quarter's work and start in on it, or they can take a break from that subject for the rest of the quarter. This is a total experiment - we'll see how they do.
Latin For Children Primer A (LFC-A): Lessons 1-2 The first two weeks of school she was saying how much she loved Latin. That changed this last week, mostly because she didn't understand "conjugating" and didn't want to take the time to ask me. However, after a quick lesson from me, she understands it and is back to liking it again.
Globalmania Geography: This princess has discovered how much she loves to play Seterra. We are spending five weeks learning the countries in Asia. I haven't decided if I want them to learn the capital cities yet or not. I'm thinking that we will be repeating this program with them in another year or so and will wait on the Capital Cities until then.
Language Arts:
Fix-It Tom Sawyer: First three weeks are done. We figured out a rhythm that works. She does the sentences on her own each day and we go through them at our half hour meeting. Then on the fifth day, she types up the corrections on the computer and turns them in. I had thought about having her write them but she has a hard time with handwriting, so we're leaving that skill for her copywork alone.
Grammar Town: I have only the teacher's manual for this book. I keep looking for a used student book. She has been reading this on her own and then each week I go through the book and ask her questions (the Socratic method from TOG applied to MCT) about various sentences. She is finished through page 77. Click
here to see a fun writing activity she did this week.
Practice Town: These are normally not started until after Grammar Town is over, but since the first few sentences are mostly review we started now. They do one every other day at the beginning of our meeting time. Sentences 1-7 are completed.
McCall-Crabbs Book B: They alternate this book with Practice Town during our meeting time. They are done with the first eight exercises.
Caesar's English One: She completed lesson one and has begun lesson two.
Science - God's Marvelous Works: She completed the first three lessons. This first unit is on insects. She did one experiment floating a greased pin on a piece of tissue in a cup of water.
MUS Delta: She completed lessons 10 and 11 and is almost done with lesson 12. I have the feeling that around the end of the year, she may very well catch up to her sister.
TOG Yr1 Wk1: This week we began our study of the ancient world. As we have studied this before, this week was very much a review for them of the things they remembered from three years ago. Some things we are doing the same with this princess. She is still using Quizlet, but instead of having her go over vocabulary words, I have entered the Important People for each week. i am requiring both princesses to do a Key Word Outline for their History Core readings. Then they have to use those to narrate back to me what they learned. Also, we are only going to be doing some of the geography assignments - the one I deem most important - as we are doing Globalmania with the purpose of learning what countries are where around the whole globe. So this week they reviewed the continents and oceans. Reading: Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedia of the Ancient World (UAW) - excerpts, Maia of Thebes
Princess E - 7th Grade - D
Any dreams I had of this princess suddenly buckling down and hitting the books happily were gone after only one week. We have ongoing issues with her that just never seem to end.
Latin For Children Primer B (LFC-B): Lessons 1, 2 and 3 - However, I discovered that she was not doing her corrections as assigned. I will be giving her a closed book test next week so she must get those done this weekend.
Globalmania Geography: As much as Princess S loves Seterra, Princess E dislikes Seterra. They are very competitive and I think she's gotten frustrated that Princess S is doing better than she is at learning the Asian countries.
Language Arts:
Fix-It The Frog Prince: We are using the same method as we are with Princess S. However, for the first half of the year I told her we will not be identifying the IEW dress ups as I don't feel she's done it long enough to adequately identify them. I hope by the third quarter she will have used it enough that we can add that in. I think identifying them will help her to use them better in her own writing.
The Magic Lens: I knew there would be a learning curve with this book. She hasn't yet established a good rhythm with this book. We are using the book just before the most current re-write, so the whole first part of the book is mostly reading and discussing, which we've not had time to do a good job with yet. She has read the sections on nouns and pronouns.
Practice Town: For my own sanity, I am having both princesses do this level of the practice books. Sentences 1-7 are completed.
McCall-Crabbs Book B: Done through exercise eight.
The Word Within the Word 1 (WWW1): She finished the first word list. She had a difficult time with the analogies, so we are going to have to spend more time on them in the next list.
Apologia General Science: While she had a good start, this has not gone well the last two weeks. She was under the impression that she was doing fine. She completed the study guide and told me she was prepared for the test. But she failed the test. I knew that it was going to be a rocky start, but I didn't anticipate it being this rocky. We will keep plugging away at it. The problem comes with her absolute refusal to ask for help when she doesn't understand something. She thinks reading something is enough - but she is learning that it is more than checking off that you've read the pages.
MUS Epsilon: She completed lessons 10 and 11. I'm not thoroughly convinced that she understands division of fractions. She has a hard time remembering the order of things, and has a heck of a time reducing them. Not sure why, except that fractions always bugged me. But I wasn't able to stop where I was until I got it. I can do that - and may very well stop her after lesson 12 and just give her practice pages off the MUS website until she can remember the steps every time.
TOG Yr1 Wk1: Again, this was a review week. She will be doing her discussions via an online class at the Lampstand Learning Center. She had an open house and an online meeting with her class. She is nervous and excited about this class. I think she is going to see very quickly that her method of doing things, and her lack of zeal for excellence (how's that for trying to sound positive) will have her lagging behind in this class. Reading: Early Times: The Story of Ancient Egypt - excerpts, Science in Ancient Egypt - excerpts, The Golden Goblet.
Also, we all listened to the Introduction and Chapter Two of The Story of the World on audiobook.
