Memorial Day...

In a time when it seems that the real reason behind Memorial Day is lost to BBQ’s and 3 Day weekends, my children will always know the real reason behind this holiday.

We will always Remember.

Days that make you say, "This is what it's all about..."

We all have those days. Those days when lessons don't start till 10:00 and none of the kids can focus. When you have tell tell your son 10 times to sit down and please finish his spelling, or you don't understand why he isn't getting his multiplication facts down no matter how hard you try. Those days, when some of us are required to do mandatory testing and even though, you know in your heart that you aren't following "their" course of study or scope and sequence, that what your doing is much better for your child, the test results come back less than stellar and you feel terrible because you just know you are failing your children. Those days that make us question, even for a brief moment, "Why am I doing this again?"

But then we have those other days. The days when your daughter spends 3 hours on the computer setting up a blog for her photography. Choosing the layout, applying the html code, watermarking the hundred or so pictures in her portfolio to use...The days when your son is actually enjoying the classical music channel and making comments about the snippets of facts they play with the music and when he is pleading to finish reading the last 8 chapters of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe because "...the battle is coming and the book is just sooo good." Those days when grammar just doesn't seem like such a big deal and the world won't come crashing down because all of the little boxes didn't get checked off. Those days when you say "This is why I do it."

Today has been one of those days and it's been great.

5th Grade Plans

So this is what 5th grade is starting to look like. I'm really getting excited for next year, but I have to remember to finish this year first! We also do a lot of hands on stuff that I didn't list like the Lift the Lid On...kits and the Running Press Treasure Chests, in addition to lots of hands on science kits. We love the hands on.

Language Arts-R&S 5, SWO F, Vocabu-Lit F, WWE 3,IEW SWI A w/ Medieval Writing Lessons, and Daily Grams, and Latina Christiana I

Literature- Teaching the Classics and reading list with study guides from Teacher Created Materials, Portals to Literature, Garlic Press, Veritas Press, and Novel Units. I know some people don’t see the need to use these, but ds really gets more from his reading when we do the different activities in the guides. Also, poetry memorization either using the Harp and Laurel Wreath or the IEW Poetry program.

Math-Singapore Standards ed. finish 4B and continue with 5A/B and Mad Minutes

History- History Odyssey Middle Ages Level 2 w/ projects from the SOTW 2 AAG

Science- Continues to be the bane of my homeschooling existence…
BF History of Science and Runkle’s Geography used as an earth science text and world geography. This of course is subject to change.

Spanish-The Learnable’s Level 1

Logic-Continue with the Logic Liftoff series

Art-Meet the Masters Track A

Continue with Lego class, guitar, and Monart and try to find something for P.E.

How We Study...The States

States Study

There’s been talk in recent homeschool circles about States Studies resources, so I thought I’d share what we are doing. Now by States, I mean United States, all 50 of them (what we are doing for our California History is for another post).

Our family belongs to a postcard exchange that was put together by a mom at The Well-Trained Mind Forums. We send out and receive postcards from all over the United States and Canada. So far we’ve received postcards from North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Maryland, Delaware, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Missouri, New Hampshire, Hawaii, and Canada.

When we receive a postcard, we read it, look it up in our Scholastic Atlas Of The United States, map it on our United States Sticker Picture Map, and color it in our United States Coloring Book. It’s been a really great, gentle, interactive introduction to the states. In the coming months I will also be adding Trail Guide to U.S. Geography with Notebooking pages and Eat Your Way Through the USA for more geography and mapping skills, which I am finding we could use some more of. We also thoroughly enjoy watching The History Channels The States, and try to catch it on the boob tube when we can.

So there you go! How we study the United States of America!

Weekly Report-Sort of...

Okay so it's more like a monthly report this time. I guess the problem is that we don't really have a set, set schedule because of my darling dearest's work schedule. We school all week really-a little every day, so it's like the weeks just kind of meld together. So before you know it 3 weeks have gone by and I haven't updated the blog. So one of my renewed focuses for this year is to be more consistant Wish me luck. This report is for Xan only. I'll keep it real: I don't really want to talk about the freshman right now. That's not to say she didn't do anything since I've last reported, I just don't want to go there. I do love her very much though. Maybe next month.

Math-
Singapore Math 3B Unit 1 Length
Mad Minutes-Daily multiplication and division drills
Flash cards

Language Arts-
Word Study:
Spelling Workout Lessons 11, 12,13, &14
Diphthongs ou, ow ,oi, and oy
Prefixes un, in, dis, trans, en, im, and mis
Synonyms
Alphabetical Order
Antonyms
Missing Words
Definitions
Word Parts
Proofreading
Tests: L. 11 19/20; L 12 19/20; L.13 18/20;L. 14 19/20

Vocabu-Lit Book D:
Lessons 2, 3,4,5, & 6
10 New words per lesson
Writing Definitions
Using Context Clues
Synonyms
Find Word Relationships
Word Search
Word Decoding
Word Graphics -Parts of Speech
Word Graphics-Word Map
Word Graphics-Syllables
Word Graphics- Word Types
Word Spiral
Multiple Meanings
Test 1: 17/20
Writing:
Intro to Poetry
Paragraph Writing
Sentence Fluency
Sentence Combining
Copywork
Narration
Penmenship-Cursive
Grammar:
Easy Grammar Daily Grams:
Capitalization
Punctuation
Parts of Speech
Sentence Combining
Rod & Staff :
Sentence Types
Correct Punctuation for Sentence Types
Nouns:
What is a noun
Common nouns and Proper Nouns
Compound Nouns and Noun Phrases
Singular and Plural Nouns
2- Quizzes 5/5 on all
Chapter 2 Test: 31.5/38
Games:
You’ve Been Sentenced
Reading:
Read The Family Under the Bridge
Discussed characters and change
What makes a hero
Online Book Adventure Quiz 10/10
Read The Golden Goblet and Comprehension Questions
Non-fiction magazines-read, discussed, and completed included activities
Ranger Rick
Zoo Books
Lego Brick Master

Field Trips:
Weekly visits to the library and bookstore

Social Studies-
World History:
Continued Study of Ancient Egypt using History Odyssey Level 2 Ancients
Map work of Ancient Egypt
National Geographic Movies:
Engineering an Empire Ancient Egypt
Egypt Eternal: Quest for Lost Tombs
Listened to Jim Weiss’ Egyptian Treasures CD
Egypt History Pockets:
Intro to Egypt
Daily Life
United States:
Presidents Study Biography pages
Post Card Exchange-Mapping and Notebooking the states we’ve received this Month: Missouri, Georgia and Ohio.

Science-
Continued Human Body Study covering the skeletal & muscular system
Watched Human Body in Action Movie: Skeletal and Muscular System
Colored the skeletal system
Types of Bones, discussed difference between adult and baby bones
Experiments:
Examined a cross section of a Buffalo Bone
Turkey Leg Bone in Vinegar: calcium and bone strength
Vocabulary

Lego Class-
Cranes
Washing Machines
Art-
Drawing Assignment: “The Need for Speed”
Began weekly Monart Classes 1.5 hrs per week
Drawing Walruses: Line and shading
Learning about the Arctic
Modeling Clay- Created a winter scene using winter colors and sculpting tools

P.E.- Discussed the importance of healthy eating and exercise habits
Daily Stretching
Bi-weekly aerobics
Gardening
Basketball