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.

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.

TOG Y1r U3 W27

Okay - we're on our last week of Unit Three. Hard to believe. This year has gone very fast - it's 3/4 done. There is a lot more I wish we could have done. We are going to have one Princess evaluated for ADD. I know without a doubt that she has it. We are to the point that something more needs to be done because her education, her sisters' educations and my sanity are starting to suffer. Please pray that this will be the start of some helpful steps. Here's our week:

Princess E
Growing With Grammar: Lesson 6.4 through 6.7
Math U See: Gamma - continue online drills for last week - time is getting better and accuracy is getting better
Handwriting, Geography, Vocab, Important People, History
Reading Assignments: Ancient Greece 40 Hands on Activities, What the Bible is All About, Usborne Internet Linked Ancient World, Alexander the Great, The Librarian Who Measured the Earth, Jewish Holidays All Year Round
Writing: Working on all final copies of newspaper articles and learning how to layout a newspaper.

Princess S
Growing With Grammar: Lesson 72 to 81
Math U See: Beta finish 28
Reading Assignments: Classical Kids, Ancient Greece, You Wouldn't Want to Be in Alexander's Army
The rest is the same as above.

Princess L
Some Starfall
We'll be getting some more books on CD. She really got hooked on the one we got last week, so thought I'd capitalize on that and get some more.

Princess M
Learning that hard way not to climb up on chairs and tables and stand.

We'll be getting ready for a trip to ND for my Grandmother's 90th birthday. We'll be starting out three week break next week. But it's only a break from our usual studies, not from school altogether as I will be adding our science back into the mix. We will be using Apologia Elementary's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day. I plan to have us all work together for about an hour and a half each day. Nothing like immersion to get us going.

TOG Y1r U3 W25

This will be another jam packed week. For a good reason though. I get to go to Scrap-N-Stamp! I'm looking forward to getting away and trying my hand at my first digital scrapbook - I've always just done the traditional albums. I get to go with my best high school friend, who I don't get to see enough of these days. So I'm pumped. But I have to leave right after co-op on Friday so we will finish our week on Thursday. Lots to do.

Princess E
Growing With Grammar: Chapter 5 Review through 6.3
Math : last week of multiplication drills - I will let her do some from the website this week and see how she does with that.
TOG: vocab, geography map, important people copywork, Student Activity Pages, cookie dough "scrolls" with Greek alphabet, prayer letter
Reading assignments: Ancient Greece 40 Hands on Activities (excerpts), Ancient Greek Art, The Librarian Who Measured the World, Usborne (excerpts)
Writing: going through each article previously written to add details where necessary and adding pictures to three articles - either from the internet or hand drawn

Princess S
Growing With Grammar: lessons 65-71 (She worked ahead last week - by accident not on purpose)
MathUSee: Lesson 28 (She also did the test ahead - by accident - but I won't make her go back as she got them all correct)
TOG and Writing: same as above
Reading Assignments: Classical Kids (excerpts), Life in a Greek Trading Port, Ancient Greece, Unwitting Wisdom

Princess L
This little one started on Starfall this week. She already knows all her letters - their names and sounds - but still enjoys the little movies they have. She read the first book their with a little bit of help. I'm mostly just going to let her play around for a few weeks and while we are on our break I'll try to come up with something more concrete using the site and the printouts available.
I am also debating starting on Math U See Primer with her. She loves to play with the blocks. Since the basis of Primer is not memorizing the math facts but just seeing how the numbers work, it might be just up her alley.

Princess M
The littlest princess is working on all four eyeteeth at once. It has left her a little cranky, a little feverish, and sometimes not wanting to eat. But she is a trooper.

TOG Y1r U3 W25

We're stuffing five days into four this week as Nanny is coming on Friday. So here's what's on the docket:

Princess E
Math - another week of multiplication drills. I think this will be the last. I think next week I'll have her log in to the Math-U-See site and do their online drill for about 20 minutes a day, and then plan to move back to Gamma when done with that.
Growing With Grammar - 5.9 - 5.12
Writing - continuing with newspaper writing. This will be our last week of writing articles. Next week we will be revising all of the articles, working on illustrations for some of them. We will put the finishing touches on it and get copies printed out so that we can bring them to ND for Great Grandma's 90th birthday.
TOG work - mapping, vocabulary, important people copy work, making a clay model of a human
Reading Assignments - Ancient Greece: 40 Hands On Activities (excerpts), Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedia of Ancient Worlds (excerpts), Ancient Greek Art, Pegasus
Handwriting and Prayer letters round out the week.

Princess S
Math U See Beta - lesson 27
Growing With Grammar - lesson 55-64
Reading Assignments - Classical Kids (excerpts), Hour of the Olympics (she's been waiting all year for this to be assigned as she's read it about 8 times already), King Midas and the Golden Touch
TOG work, Handwriting and Prayer letters - same as above.

Princess L
She is enjoying her ballet class on Mondays. She has also been enjoying co-op every other Friday. It was suggested to me to use Starfall, and as soon as our internet on our desktop computer downstairs is back to functioning normaly, I'll be letting her use that. I'm also considering what to do for her next year.

TOG Y1r U3 W24

Last week was a looooooong week. My ADDish Princess took until Sunday evening to finish her schoolwork for the week. Here is what we have coming up this week.

Princess E
Growing With Grammar: 5.5 to 5.8
Math - continue with multiplication drills, time is picking up as is accuracy but we're working for finishing in 7 minutes or less with less than three mistakes
Handwriting - three pages
Writing - newspaper article
Map, SAPs, History Response pages, important people copywork, Quizlet vocab
Reading: Usbourne Ancient Worlds (excerpts), Ancient Greek War and Weapons (assuming it comes in via ILL), Pegasus, Ancient Greece 40 Hands on activities (excerpts)

Princess S
Growing With Grammar: Lesson Review 3 through lesson 54
Math U See Beta: Lesson 26
Handwriting, Writing, Map, SAPs, History Response pages, important people copywork, Quizlet vocab.
Reading: Unwitting Wisdom, Classical Kids (excerpts), Ancient Greece

I'm not sure where to go with Princess L. I'm working on researching a wide variety of phonics programs. Not sure what is going to work. Pray that the right program will become obvious to me.

Princess M is getting closer to transitioning to one nap a day from two. As long as she sleeps for two and a half hours, then it will work. Any less and she is just so cranky by the time Dad gets home at 7pm. Plus she is still waking at night thinking she needs to eat. I make her wait 8 hours from when she went to sleep, but that still puts me up at 4am most nights. Too early.

We have co-op on Friday. I'm teaching the preschool group again and we're looking at the first half of the alphabet. Should be fun.

TOG Y1r U3 W23

This will be a shortened week time wise, but not work wise. Dad has the day off for President's Day on Monday. If the princesses want time with him, then they will have to hit the books hard to finish their work first. I gave them their assignments and told them to work on Monday's work over the weekend, but as of right now, 4:00pm on Sunday afternoon, they have yet to do that. They do not learn from past mistakes very quickly. Also, we have been invited to see a play on Friday. We will see The Miracle Worker. We are going with our current Pastor's family and our former Pastor's family. Here's the assignments for the week:

Princess E
Bible: Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther
Geography: mapping the Persian Empire under King Darius
Growing with Grammar: 5.1 through 5.4
Math - continuing multiplication drill sheets and starting some flash cards
Writing - continuing with newspaper writing
Reading: What the Bible is All About (excerpts), Usborne Ancient Worlds (excerpts), Jewish Holidays all Year Round (Purim sections)

Princess S
Bible and Geography - same as above
Growing with Grammar: lessons 28-45 and Review sections
Math U See Beta: finish lesson 24, test 24 and start lesson 25
Reading: Old Testament Days (excerpts), Celebrate Jewish Holidays (Purim section)

Princess L
100 Easy Lessons - we're up to about lesson 12 but she is becoming very antagonistic about doing this. We will only do one or two lessons a week until decide where to go next. I plan to research some reading programs so that I can perhaps make some decisions before the MACHE conference in April. I do have the Math U See Primer book. I might just start this with her soon as she loves to "play with the blocks like sissies do." I am considering purchasing one of these in an effort to save money. I would have the bindings taken off the books and then slip the pages in. I could then re-use the pages with Princess M someday. I think I could do that with Primer, Alpha and perhaps Beta. After that I would have to decide. Math U See is changing their book layouts, which make them more convenient to be able to use a system like this, especially since their books will cost more money. The only question I have is for the later books, there isn't a lot of room to write and my oldest two princesses seem to write their numbers quite large.

TOG Y1r U3 W22

Princess E and Princess S played in a piano festival this past Saturday. They have to play two memorized songs for a judge, and are given points from 1 to 5, 5 being the best. When they earn 15 points, they win a trophy. Princess E has participated in two of these before and went into this with 10 points accumulated. She did wonderful and scored another 5, so she will receive her trophy at the spring piano recital. Princess S was extremely nervous for her first time in the festival. She stopped after two measures, looked over at me and said, "I forgot." I told her to take a deep breath and to start over. Then she was fine and got through both of the other songs just fine. She scored a 5. We are so proud of them. We told them it is not about the score, but about doing their best and learning to perform through the nervousness.

Princess E
Bible - selections from Isaiah, 2 Kings, Jeremiah and Daniel
Growing with Grammar - 4.13 through Chapter 4 review
Math - drill sheets for multiplication
Reading - selections from What the Bible is all About for Young Explorers
Handwriting - pg 2-4

Princess S
Bible and Handwriting - same
Math U See - Beta lesson 24
Growing with Grammar - lesson 28 - lesson 37

Princess L
Continuing with 100 Easy Lessons

We are finished with Donna Young handwriting. We did all the sheets online currently. So we are going to start A Celebration of Christian Character Cursive from Light Home Publications. You can get this from CurrClick.

TOG Y1r U3 W21

This week we add the final item to fill up our second quarter schedule. Princess L is taking a 13 week ballet course called "The Princess Adventure." The teacher is a wonderful Christian woman - Miss Karen - who teaches the girls how to worship the LORD through dance. We decided to give her this class as a birthday present. We also gave her pink ballet shoes which she is so excited about. The class will be every Monday for 13 weeks. It will be hardest on Princess M, who is still taking a morning nap most days, but will no longer on Mondays.

Princess E
Bible - Amos and Jonah
Growing With Grammar - Lesson 4.9 to 4.12
Math drill sheets - 5 minute drill with multiplication facts
Writing - newspaper articles
Reading - What the Bible is all about (Excerpts), Life in Ancient Mesopotamia (excerpts)
mapping, handwriting, vocabulary, SAPs

Princess S
Bible - Amos and Jonah
Growing With Grammar - Lessons 21-30 (she has worked ahead a little and already has the first two of these done)
Math U See - Beta Lesson 23E and F and test
Writing - newspaper articles
mapping, handwriting, vocabulary SAPs

Princess L
This little one has me stumped. She is really struggling with 100 Easy Lessons. The thing is that she knows all her letter sounds. Point to a letter, she can tell you the name and the sound. But, she is having a hard time saying the sounds in combinations and in repeating after me. 100 Easy Lessons has the child repeating words said very slowly, then repeated fast. They also repeat rhyming patterns. She has a very hard time saying certain sounds. And the odd thing is, she sound like she has a New York accent. A friend of mine said that her very auditory son has the same issue, right down to the accent. He is not a strong reader as a result. She suggested the Explore the Code series. I will look into it. She also mentioned another program, though it is for older kids so may not be appropriate yet. I pulled out the first book in the Bob Books series for her, but quickly put it away as one of the sounds she has problems with is switching the t and d sounds. Those are the first ending sounds in the first few books, so I'm just going to forget them for now.

On Saturday, Princess E and Princess S have to play two piano songs for the MMTA piano festival. This is Princess E's third year, and if she earns a 5 out of 5 she can earn a trophy. This has been her goal. I told her that they are going to be a lot tougher on her this year. This is Princess S's first festival. The songs that she has had memorized for weeks are starting to slip through her memory. She could not play one of them at all for Grandma this weekend. Please pray that she won't be nervous and that she will remember both of her songs, as she cannot use music for the festival songs - the judges have it at their table.

TOG Y1r U3 W20

This week should be an interesting one as we add in the second of our new adventures this semester. Our church is starting a new homeschool co-op which will meet every other Friday. We've met once already, and this Friday will be our second meeting. But, we are also meeting on Monday at an ice rink for a skating field trip. This will mean that the Princesses need to work a little harder to get their work done in time.

We will all be reading 1 Kings 12-22 and 2 Kings 1-10 for our Bible.

Princess E
Math Drills - it's very obvious to me that this Princess has been simply fast counting in her head. She has done well grade wise, but doesn't really know her facts. So, we're going to camp out here a while. I've given her some suggestions to help her move faster on this, but she doesn't usually like to follow my suggestions.
Growing With Grammar - 4.5 to 4.8
Writing - we'll be working on learning the format of a newspaper article, the 5 Ws, and using a graphic organizer I found here. We'll write an article, not for our unit newspaper but for practice, on our favorite animal.
Activities - This princess will research leprosy, and must use several examples in the Bible in a short oral report.

Princess S
Math U See Beta - This Princess surprised me by doing excellent on borrowing. She seems to understand it pretty well. So after doing the Unit 3 review test we will go on to lesson 23.
Growing With Grammar - lessons 11-20 (Remember we are reviewing first grade stuff here so don't think I'm a slave driver. These are very easy for her, but I've discovered she benefits from frequent review in this subject.)
Activities - This princess will research ravens, and must use examples from the Bible in a short oral report.
Writing is the same as above.

Princess L
We started the 100 Easy Lessons book and went through lesson 5 last week. Really, she already knows all the letter sounds, so this is more to get her used to the idea of saying things slow to sound them out, but then repeating them quickly so as to actually hear the word. After lesson 8 I will probably take out the set of Bob Books I have and see if she can handle book one. This was the first book each of the other princesses read and they took such pride in reading it to their younger sibling and for Dad.

Princess M
This little gal is growing like a weed. She said two new words this week - uh oh and nigh night (night night). She climbs everything - no lie - so I'm thankful we no longer have a bunkbed in the house. I can see that the two nap thing will have to be transitioned out soon as our schedule is filling up, but my hope is that her afternoon naps will be longer as a trade out. Princess L is looking forward to not being required to sleep during her nap time (although she only does maybe twice a week anymore any way) when she turns 4. We will then switch to calling it room time, and I will probably try to get a small timer for her to see when she can actually come out (so that she stops knocking on her door every three minutes to ask if it's time yet!)

Blessings.

TOG Y1r U3 W19

Princess E (UG)
Bible - 1 Kings 1-11 and 1 Chronicles 28-29, Proverbs 3
Math - MUS Gamma Test 16 - then we will spend the next several weeks doing a five minute drill sheet with the multiplication facts until she can pick up speed and accuracy.
Growing With Grammar - 4.1 to 4.4
Reading - What the Bible is All About (excerpts)
Writing - this quarter both princesses will be learning about newspapers and summary writing. They will together be writing various articles on Ancient Greece for a newspaper which they will put together. We will have copies made and give them out to relatives.
And as with all TOG units we will do vocabulary on Quizlet, copywork of our Important People for the week, Student Activity Pages (SAPs), a history response page, a map for geography, and a worksheet I found on the Hebrew Kings.

Princess S (LG)
Math - MUS Beta Lesson 22 - this is introducing borrowing. I am expecting, as with her sister, that we may camp out on this lesson for a few weeks. But, she may surprise me.
Growing With Grammar - Princess S finished her last book and we will be starting this series. We will do several pages a day as we are doing the 1st and 2nd grade book. This should be all review, but these concepts don't seem to resonate with this princess. This week she will do lessons 1-10.
Everything else - pretty much the same as above.

Princess L (PreK)
We will be starting the 100 Easy Lessons book. I anticipate we won't do this every day, but more like three days a week.

Princess M
She is discovering books. Not so much the sitting still to read, but is beginning to enjoy climbing up in my lap, turning all the pages in 15 seconds, then climbing down to get another book. It's a start. She is also still taking two naps a day, but I can see that will be ending soon. Our schedule will start picking up and we will have activities on Monday, Wednesday and every other Friday mornings. This will make it hard to get the morning nap in - which usually means they start to not take it. It also means her afternoon naps will happen sooner and she won't sleep as late, which makes it harder to prepare dinner or do work with her older sisters. We'll do the best we can with the time we've got!

Blessings.

P.S. - DH taught Princess L a joke that she is finally able to say. Here it is:

Princess L: Knock, Knock.
Other person: Who's there?
Princess L: Impatient cow.
Other person: Impatient cow ...
Princess L: MOOOOOO!

She does this with perfect timing and gets a laugh every time. The thing is that I don't think she gets the joke herself, but knows that everyone else does and thinks it's funny - so she tells it.