This week (or should I say last week?) marked our first week of homeschool community. So… here I am, simply trying to capture the memories before my sleep-deprived mind fails to recall a single thing.
Geography & Memory Work
Stephen’s been learning how to draw the U.S. free-hand. At the beginning of the week, he was drawing the western half of the country from memory. After drawing it in black without referencing a map, he went back to correct his work with a red marker while referencing a map.
It turns out he didn’t need to draw a whole lot of red corrections on that map. Today he started adding the southeastern states.
Because I get derailed quite often throughout our school day, David has taken to playing the “Geography Quiz Game” by himself.
I’m thrilled to see that one of my creations is actually useful in our own home! He really liked using our U.S. Geography States & Capitals File Folder Game to test his retention of the states we learned during our first week. The plan is to continue adding the cards to our practice deck as we add more states to our geography memory work each week.
The boys have also enjoyed the Star-Spangled State Book as they read about the states we’re memorizing.
And that sums up geography for us: locating, tracing, drawing, and reading about the states.
After a wonderful friend of ours made this memory work chart for us, David started to show some initiative in making sure he’s recited his memory work to me each day.
It’s funny what motivates a child. (Thank you, Katrina! You rock!)
Language Arts
I was shocked. It really did happen. Stephen actually said, “Let me start with my IEW paper.” This is the child who desperately did not like writing three years ago. He has finally burst forth as a butterfly (though he would probably not like this metaphor a whole lot). But… take heart, Moms of Boys Who Do Not Like Holding a Pencil! He’s really and truly enjoying all things language arts now as a sixth grader! This is cause for much rejoicing!
We’ve had much success with IEW’s Bible Heroes Writing Lessons! It turns out that David likes Key Word Outlines! He not only wrote his first Key Word Outlines this week, but he also used them as his presentation. Another plus: using this program gives us a simple, non-threatening way to hone in on English grammar. We’re currently focusing on adjectives as part of Bible Heroes; in so doing, he also practiced applying our present participle memory work.
Although we have never used a formal English grammar program, he knows and applies this English grammar effortlessly now as a third grader! Up to this point, we have only a) memorized some English grammar concepts, and b) enjoyed reading the silly Words are Categorical books by Brian McCleary. Tons of worksheets and/or workbooks are not necessary, after all.
Both Stephen and David are reviewing their spelling rules and lists from last year. Although Stephen is a check-the-box type of kid, David is not. He requires creativity. He makes little books with silly sentences using his spelling words, or he transforms his spelling words into Word World. It’s torture for him to not do his spelling work like this.
He also likes practicing words he’s missed by using Roll & Write pages from one of my favorite blogs, Relentlessly Fun Deceptively Educational.
As long as it’s a game, David is game!
Now, I realize that everything above focuses on the older two boys, but Levi has been:
- Learning to read with All About Reading Level 1
- Learning to write with Handwriting Without Tears and copywork
- Learning math with Saxon Math 1
But because I am so involved while working with him in those short, ten-minute bursts, I forget to take photos. [Seriously, our kindergartner can complete his his lessons in math, writing, reading, and memory work in about 30 minutes.] I did manage to get a photo of his completed copywork one day.
Copywork need not be complicated. Here we talked about how the first word of a sentence starts with a big letter and each sentence has an end mark.
We’ve managed to stay up-to-date with our reading plans… and then some. Two of our boys have no problem with reading in the car and end up taking a stack of books with them every time we go anywhere.
Although I’m hoping to eventually feature our favorite reading selections in a separate post, this week’s favorite picture books were:
- America the Beautiful,
- Animals Christopher Columbus Saw, and
- Tour America: A Journey through Poems and Art.
While on a day-trip to Chattanooga, we also enjoyed listening to an audio of The Lost Campers of the Sugar Creek Gang Series (a family favorite), and the Jim Weiss recording of Thomas Jefferson’s America.
Note: We focus more on reading than on things like crafts… or cooking.
In fact, I was reminded of this when I was chatting with a good friend of mine on Wednesday. She mentioned how she’s never even had Hamburger Helper in her pantry. I went to check mine.
I’m afraid I can’t say the same.
Would you believe this week I prepared a crock-pot meal for our family to eat at lunch on our homeschool co-op day? A real meal!?! But then we forgot to turn the crockpot on.
Gary drove to Subway and brought back sandwiches for all of us. (I try. I really do. This cooking thing is just really hard for me. It’s too bad we can’t eat printables or planners.)
Math
Math was pretty plain this week, but I did get to witness an ah-ha moment. David was using his addition mat to do multiplication.
He asked if I knew how he got the answer, so I used the distributive law to quickly calculate a fact that I should have already memorized. He looked at me a bit confused and said, “No. I didn’t do that. I just skip counted.”
So… then I took a moment to show him how I did it, and in so doing we reviewed the distributive law. He thought this was the coolest thing in the world, and he spent the next 15 minutes playing with numbers using the distributive property. {Here’s another example of how memorizing something can provide a foundation for all sorts of rabbit trails. Of all the things he could have done in that 15 minutes, he chose to play with numbers – all because he knew the distributive law.}
After reading this article about coaching math, I’ve started giving the boys math puzzles to solve. They love it, and I love that they are practicing algebra.
Other Memories and Randomness
Gary fixed the old Ford tractor, and we went on our first-ever family hayride.
It was Isaac’s first-ever in-general hayride. Later in the week, we invited some friends over for another hayride. (This tractor fixer-upper thing is a big deal. If you come visit us, you may have to go on a hayride.)
We found a few butterflies on the porch, an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and a Tawny Emperor.
At one time, I would have said that I saw a pretty yellow butterfly and a kind-of pretty brown-and-orange butterfly on the porch. But we have this really great butterfly field guide, and we love to look them up and call them by name. You can read more about how we first realized that such joy can be found in nature study.
On Saturday, we went to Chattanooga to meet extended family and visit the International Towing and Recovery Museum, the Lookout Mountain Incline Railway, the Battles for Chattanooga, and Point Park Battlefield. We’ll be posting more about that in the (hopefully) near future, but until then, here are some photos from our trip:
Yes, Tow Mater really exists. Yes, the incline railway is aimed straight down what appears to be a cliff. Yes, the view off Lookout Mountain is absolutely breathtaking.
Yes, our family loves Chattanooga.
Finally, Isaac…
There is such joy wrapped up in this little one. He is a treasure and is so loved by his brothers (and, of course, by his mom and dad).
It’s like I blinked, and he’s not a newborn anymore.
It all goes by so quickly, doesn’t it?