TOG Year 1 Week 13

This week we began learning about Ancient Greece. Princess S has been waiting for this week so that she could read D'Aulaire's Greek Myths - again.

Princess M - Pre-TOGGLER
This week we began the letter D.  We read a bunch of dinosaur books.  This morning we played the Mugs game from IEW PAL.  I was amazed at how many of the letters she was able to say on her own.  She had fun playing with our Leap Frog Dominoes that she found in a drawer.  We tried matching the colors and shapes, and the colored dots, and she loved them both.  Guess we'll have to start playing some more games.

 Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
This week she finished up her MUS lesson on +9/9+.  I made up a drill sheet with those facts, and she has steadily gotten faster throughout the week. We also started Explode the Code Book 4.  But the highlight of her week was graduating from the Discovery cards to the library.  So this morning I gave her five books and told her to spend fifteen minutes reading through them herself.  Then I went into her room and we settled down on her bed and she read all five books to me.  She was very pleased with herself when she was done.  I snapped a photo of it.

 

Princess S - 5th Grade  UG
As I mentioned before, Princess S was excited to read Greek Myths again.  This week was a better week for this princess, losing her gerbil not withstanding.  After a horrible week prior to this one, she seemed to have a better attitude about everything.  She is finally beginning to understand long division.  I have no idea what happened to make it start to click - I'm just glad that it did.  She decided that she wants to participate in the piano festival this year, so she got her first song to begin working on this week. She has made a goal for herself to get five points so that she can earn a trophy.  I told her not to put undue pressure, just to work as hard as she can.

 Princess E - 7th Grade  D
This was also a better week for this princess in that she completed all her work.  She received the results of her piano exam and was thrilled to hear she had received highest honors.  She, too, is beginning to work on piano festival songs.  Unfortunately, she has also come down with a cold which she graciously decided to share with me.  So it has also been a week of coughing, sneezing and lots of Kleenex.

Tomorrow I am taking the big two princesses to see Rebecca St. James in concert.  I think it should be a lot of fun.  If I get any decent pictures, I'll be sure to post them.

TOG Year 1 Week 12

This week was a special one because my youngest student turned 4!  We celebrated on Sunday at Pizza Ranch.  Here is a picture with the present we gave her, which has provided hours of fun so far.

Princess M - Pre-TOGGLER
This week we finished up the letter C.  Since Nanny was in town, the big project was to make cookies.

We decided to make cookies shaped like the letters we had studied so far.

Unfortunately, we forgot how much snickerdoodles spread, so our cookies ended up very fat, and not looking at all like the letters they were shaped like.

But they still tasted awesome!

She made a pom pom caterpiller.

We counted and measured with our caterpillar.

We made a C caterpillar picture.

And finally, our C puppet was a black cat, just like our Oskar cat.

One thing that I have been mixing in with our Letter of the Week curriculum are the letter stories that go with IEW PAL that we are using with Princess L.  She LOVES these, and they are helping her to really retain the short sounds of the vowels, and the consonants we've done so far.  I work in a review of these letter stories at least once a week.  She gives me the nickname for the letter (which is the memory clue to help write the letter,) then it's name, and finally it's short sound.  Next week it's on to D for dinosaur!

Princess L - 1st Grade - LG
This was a busy week for Princess L.  She has, officially, one lesson left of IEW PAL reading.  She has been working through the discovery cards.  She is currently up to pack 20.  We will plan to finish them by the end of next week.  She also finished up lesson 8 in Math-U-See.  We moved on to lesson 9 - which is, incidentally, adding with nines.  I have always loved this lesson!  Every time they look at what they perceive to be big numbers and say to me, "I won't ever be able to get this."  But once they learn the secret to adding nine to any number, it turns out to be easy.  And they are so pleased with themselves.  It is always an ego boost.  That is what happened this week for Princess L with this lesson.  Since Calculadder goes in a different sequence than MUS, I ended up making my own drill sheet for this one.  She is also finishing up Explode the Code book 3, and we will begin book 4 next week.  I like this series because she has reached a point where she can read the directions and do everything almost completely by herself. 

Princess S - 5th Grade - UG
This week in TOG, we studied the ancient Americas.  The focus in year one is on the Mayans, Aztecs and Incas.  In year two there are other tribes that are studied.  These big three tend to be the more violent ones, so we tend to go a bit light on some the details for the more tender-hearted princess of the group. She began lesson 8 in Latin, finished lesson 8 in Caesar's English, and week 13 of Fix-It Grammar.  This next week has us beginning Ancient Greece, and this princess has been looking forward to D'Aulaire's Greek Myths.  She has read it several times.


Princess E - 7th Grade - D
Princess E finished up module 6 in science, and lesson 12 in Latin.  In The Magic Lens, she is almost to the point where she will begin the first loop. She also prepared for her level three piano exam.  She said she felt pretty good about it, so we are anxiously awaiting her scores. 

In another month the girls will begin to work on their songs for Festival, which is in February.  My how time flies in the music world!  Hearing Princess L beginning on piano reminds me of how far Princess E has come in such a relatively short time.  Princess L seems to be doing the same thing that Princess E does - play by ear rather than reading the music.  It comes naturally to Princess E - a gift really.  Perhaps we will see Princess L with this gift as well.  Princess S, while she can do some things by ear, seems to follow my footsteps of reading the music well.  Praise be to God for their gifts and talents!

New Piano Diva

Today was Princess L's first day of piano lessons.  To say that she was excited is not enough.  She is so happy to finally be like her big sisters.

Plans for 2011/2012 - Princess L

Princess L will be in first grade already.  (Insert sad sounding yiddish fiddle music.)  Where has the time gone?

I have had a difficult time figuring out what to do with this little one next year.  Some things were no brainers:  continue Math-U-See Alpha for math, begin Tapestry of Grace LG level for our humanities rotation, and Awana Sparks for Bible memory work.  But I've been flummoxed (I just had to get that word in there) about what to do for Language Arts.  (I will continue to have her work on the Explode the Code workbooks as they are a good seat work activity that she can do on her own.  I can hand it to her to do while I am correcting her work, or if I am unavoidably needed during her schooling by one of her sisters.)  Because of the speech issues that she has been working through this year, she is a little bit behind where her sisters were in reading ability.   At the same time, I have learned through experience that just because you can read a book (or a list of words) to get a graded reading level, it doesn't mean that you can comprehend or remember what you've read.  This has been an ongoing problem with my eldest two princesses.  I have come to embrace Charlotte Mason's ideas of narration and dictation as a method for training kids toward the stage of dialectic thinking.  I didn't really do much with that with my eldest two princesses, and as a result, moving up to the dialectic level in our Tapestry studies has been a bigger challenge than it should be.

So what to do?  When I first heard that IEW was going to be coming out with curriculum for the K-2nd grade set, I was excited.  As an English major, I really like their method for training kids to write well.  What held me back at the homeschool convention is that I didn't know where she'd be by the end of the year.  I decided to spring for it because even if the reading lessons will be a bit easy for her - it will be a good review of the things that she has learned.  And most importantly, I can use it the following year with Princess M.  The writing lessons, however, are going to be right up our alley.  This will allow us to work in the narration and dictation that I missed with my older girls at this stage.  And it will set her up for a wonderful transition to be able to complete SWI-A in her third grade year. 

When she is done with PAL-Reading, I am going to have Princess L begin Primary Language Lessons.  I like the outlay of this version of the book.  You can print it however you want - color, B&W, one sided, two sided, etc.  And it can be done either orally or written down.  The original version of the book would require separate paper to complete any written portions.  When my elder girls tried this, they would either lose their place in the book or on the paper making the assignment take forever, or things would get skipped as they moved back and forth.  This version allows them to write their answer immediately below the question.

I've already posted our master schedule, but here is a closer look at what Princess L's personal schedule will look like:

Princess L Schedule

This is what we will start with, anyway.  It seems like the more the plans seem set in stone, the more things come up that require changes.  I believe that's called "Murphy's Law"?  You'll notice our schedule will be different on Mondays.  That's because a friend and I will be kid swapping and team teaching on those days.  I will take her 6th grader with E & S to do IEW's Ancient History Writing Lessons, and she will take L & M with her 2nd grader to do the Tapestry LG literature book and a hands-on craft or experiment.  I'm really excited about it, though I enjoy the hands-on stuff myself, I think it will be good for L to have the opportunity to learn from someone other than me.  One other thing on the schedule that is new for her is piano.  She will begin her lessons in October.  She is so excited and cannot wait to be like her big sisters.  I have scheduled her a 15 minute practice session for this year.  Those beginning lessons can get a little bit too much for me to listen to for half an hour.  And it's also too much time for them to fill.  Until her lessons actually begin, I will have her review Awana verses, as much of the first part of each book is a review of the previous year anyway.

MMTA Convention

Princess E was blessed to be able to play at the MMTA Convention this past week.  She participated in a program called Music Bridges.  The purpose of the program is as follows: "Music Bridges offers teachers the freedom and flexibility to design a program to fit each individual student, at any age, and at any level of ability.  In addition to repertoire performance, a student's program may include an original composition, dance, drama or visual art."  Therefore, Princess E played a piece of music  which her teacher chose called "A Little Flower" by Cornelius Gurlitt.  Based on the song, she composed a poem, also called "A Little Flower."  She played "Lost Toy" by Christopher Norton.  She also composed two of her own songs, "Angry Clouds" and "Clear."  She sang on "Clear" while she played.  She received a perfect score when she did the program back in April.  The organizers decided to have a class on the Music Bridges program at the convention.  The judge was asked to choose two students who could best represent the idea of the program who could perform their program again.  Princess E was one of those chosen. 

We had to be up there by 7:45am.  Princess E was the first to perform, and ended up doing her whole program twice through.  She also was asked a lot of questions about her songs, and how she went about writing and composing.  One funny point was when she was asked about the overarching theme in all of her pieces.  She replied, "Well, I'd tell you  if I knew what it was."  So the judge asked the audience and one man volunteered that it was about becoming comfortable with who you were and what your talents were.  I thought that was pretty good.  The practice judge brought out the fact that she thought that all of the pieces greatly reflected Princess E's faith.  That was quite the compliment!   Here are two pictures from the event.

Music Bridges

Princess E has been working hard for her Music Bridges exam which took place this past Saturday.  We are still awaiting her scores, but she feels good about them.  DH took her there as I was up at our MACHE convention.  But I was praying and getting jittery for her as her assigned time approached.  For this exam, Princess E memorized the song A Little Flower by Gurlitt.  She then wrote a poem based on her emotions from the song.  She also wrote two songs of her own, Angry Clouds and Clear.  She sang on Clear while playing.  DH snapped this photo of her as she was dressed up and ready to go.  (She is hoping to record these songs, as well as about 12 others that she has written in the last several months.  When she does I'll post links.)

 

As I look at this photo, I'm wanting to break out in Yiddish songs.  I realize that she is growing up faster than I am wanting her too.  Where does the time go?

Piano Festival

Last Saturday, Princess E performed in her fifth MFMC piano festival.  She performed two songs - Pagoda Bells by Rejino was the required song and her chosen song was Scherzo by Haydn.  For the fifth year in a row she received a Superior score.  This is the top score (five points) that one can receive.  She earned a trophy after 15 points, and is looking to earn the next trophy.  Princess M did not prepare for the festival this year, but is working to take her first piano exam in May.  She has the songs almost memorized and is working on rhythmics and dynamics.  She also is still working hard on the theory that is required for her level.  Princess E has learned about another program called Bridges which will allow her to perform some required songs in addition to some of the songs she has written herself.  She has to have a written score, however, and is trying to get her music put into Noteflight so that she can print it out nicely.  It is a little difficult to do on a netbook because the screen is so small.  I'm happy about her dedication to it, however she has used some of her school time to do it.  Now she is quite behind for this week.

Piano Festival

Princesses E and S have been practicing hard for the annual MMTA piano festival that they participate in. This morning was the time to get it all over with. As alike as the princesses are at times, it is funny in how different their reactions to stress are. Princess E, like her father, gets very straight faced, no-emotional response and very few words. Princess S, on the other hand, gets visibly "freaked out" for lack of better terminology. She will pace back and forth, wring her hands, jump up and down, put her head in her hands, and loudly proclaim to everyone in earshot - "I can't do this." Which of course she can and does, but try telling her that in the moment. It is becoming more and more difficult to do this festival because the standard Princess E has set - achieving three perfect "5's" in a row to win a trophy - is the standard that Princess S has set for herself. I used to set that same standard for myself as a kid - perfection - and y'all know what happens when you set that standard. You win some - but when you lose some (and you WILL lose some) it is that much more devastating. I'm wondering if it isn't time to find a different type of piano performance opportunity for one of them so that there isn't the added pressure of competing with her sister. Both girls did well and played well. One of them was "almost" perfect - one of them made some small errors that would have been less noticeable had she not stopped to correct them. But we were very proud that they conquered their fears and persevered. Way to go, Princesses!