Weekly Report

I haven’t done “weekly” report since January!!

History – Our first week of doing SOTW3 together was GREAT! We really liked going learning about Captain Cook because 1. He explored locally. 2. We read about Australia and made another pavlova which was really good. 3. We got to read a lot of books. There we’re probably some other reasons but those are the most obvious. We’ll be finishing up on Captain Cook today and on Monday we’ll be doing the French Revolution, there are mixed feelings about this. We’re getting a bit tired of revolutions because we just spent two weeks on the American Revolution but we also know people who live in France and we’re asking them what they think about the revolution which will be interesting.

Science – Thoughts on science are whizzing through my brain faster than I can process them! Trivium Academy has been such a blessing because of their Science by Seasons plans which I’ve adapted for us and because there’s a lot of science planning going on there too. Right now we’re doing Green Hour (yes, we’re still doing them even though I haven’t been posting) and science projects for the upcoming science fair. By Monday I want everyone to have decided what they’re doing. We were doing chemistry and physics but they’ve been dropped except for informal reading which the kids do during free time.

Art and music appreciation – We’ve gotten back into them after a two month break. We studied Mozart and Rembrandt this week and will continue for a week or two. After that we’ll do Van Gogh and Beethoven, then Monet and Tchaikovsky (?) if we need to do some more I’ll think about that later. We’re really enjoying both our artist and musician, we do Rembrandt colouring pages while listening to Mozart. There was great disappointment over the fact that we couldn’t find any Mozart music in our violin/piano books.

Logic – We’ve stopped doing Fallacy Detective this year. I LOVE that book, love, love, LOVE it. But for now I feel that we would be more productive spending our time elsewhere. I have put our logic/critical thinking books and games in a prominent place so that if interested DC can take a look at them. When I’m not thinking about science I’m thinking logic. Next year Chelsea begins the “logic years” and I have every intention of her beginning a logic/critical thinking curriculum. David and Mariah will do Fallacy Detective and I know that Chelsea could too. She has a mathematical/logical brain and would be mentally ready for FD, but I’m not sure about emotionally. What really worries me is abortion, which seems to be a major topic FD. It would bring Chelsea to tears, it brings me to tears too but I’m not sure there is any way that she’d understand or want to understand. I’ve looked at other things, but FD still seems to be the best fit. I’m going to have to think and post about this.

I’m trying to organize all our books on Shelfari, now easy task when you have over 2,000! I haven’t done any in days, I think I’ll try for 25 a day and when I get more into it I’ll try for more. The hardest part is choosing where to start, I settled on first grade biology and I’m still there. :D I also have to buy our science books and there seem to be so few on biologists, ancient scientists and hibernation. I’m sure that as I buy and catalogue some more I’ll find even more topics that I can’t find books on. *Sigh*

Where are we going, part two

Alright, I must stop saying when I'm going to write stuff because I'm NEVER on time.





Now, for the second instalment it the renaissance and reformation of my homeschoool.





Science





My children's love for science has not died, instead it is continuing to blossom. I've looked at more science curricula and I can't find anything that I want. I really want to stick to the classical ed. cycles, biology, earth and space, chemistry, physics and include nature study, science projects for fairs and child led exploration. I'll start getting a plan but then I feel it won't work and that I'm failing my kids without a curriculum. I really like Jessica's (Trivium Academy) science by seasons plan I wish I weren't so stuck on the whole science cycle thing.


WOW!! I like the science by seasons plan. I feel like such and idiot, I've been trying to arrange my subjects into months and here I am saying that I'd like to do it by seasons. Seasons seems so much easier, I have more flexibility and time. I feel like I'm in control again. This is so GREAT!

:D :D :D



Spelling



Spelling is kind of like science, I was going happily along with Spelling Workout (SWO) and then I realize that it's just busy work. Some of the words my kids have been spelling just right for years and there are other words that never seem to come up in SWO but my kids are constantly spelling them wrong. I can't find a spelling curriculum I like so I'm going to try to be brave and make my own.

Through the week I'll look at dc's spelling when they write. When they spell a word wrong I will take note of it and then next week their spelling words will be word, I'm just worried that they'll only use words that they can spell. I asked about this on the WTM Boards and got some great responses, I'm in full planning mode for spelling.

Latin

I want Laura to start Latin next year and I'm debating which curriculum, Latin for Children or Latin's Not so Tough! I'm leaning towards LFC which is considerably more rigorous tha Latin's Not so Tough! I think she'll get bored with Level One, I could do Level Two but my main reason for LFC is that I really like the way it's laid out. The activity books, history readers and DVDs all make the lessons so fun that I can't imagine teaching Latin without them. Mariah and David are having success with Latin's Not so Tough! and Chelsea is having success with LFC, so I guess I should choose the one I like more.

Literature

I would like Mariah, David and Chelsea to do some more literature studies. I really like reading and discussing for the grammar years but now that they're older I think they need more. I like Lightning Literature but the hard thing is which level to do. I think both David and Chelsea could handle LL7, I have more of a problem with Mariah LL8 seems to boring, she's read all the books and their next courses are estimated for fall '08, but it's only an estimation. I don't want to be scrounging for something at last minute.

There's lots more to think about, plan and post about so be on the lookout for more!