Half-baked Homeschool

BIBLE:
We still focusing on forgiveness, and also reading from our Jesus Storybook Bible. In the evenings, we read Amon's Adventure, which ties in with Lent, Holy Week and Easter.

HISTORY
We've conitnue our study of the U.S. in the early 19th century with a look at our country's interactions with Native Americans in this period. This includes the study of Tecumseh and the tragic "Trail of Tears". Since we are in Georgia, the study of the Cherokee and their removal is all the more interesting for us. In a couple of weeks, we'll travel to the actual New Echota Historical Site for a field trip.

LITERATURE
Bearclaw is reading Seamon's Journal: On the Trail with Lewis and Clark for literature right now and enjoying it.

Shortbread studied the letter "J" this past week; we read Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? and If Jesus Came to My House. (Which you should try to find in the original 1956 version, if you can, because of the wonderful sweet and simple illustrations.)

LANGUAGE ARTS
Bearclaw's humanities class continues to work on their final essay of the year. It's his first multi-paragraph paper. He's writing a persuasive paper about "why reading is the best pastime". This week, we have to edit his rough draft, but we have two weeks to complete that, so we probably won't look at it for awhile.

I'm so very ready to move on from what the hybrid school is doing for kindergarten with Shortbread. They had us purchase Explode the Code, but we've hardly used it, so I think I'll start working on that with him this summer.

MATH
Primary Mathematics 3A is still focusing on reviewing addition and subtraction. Next week we pick up where we left off on the multiplication tables.

Shortbread is also working on addition and subtraction. At least I can handle both boys' math lessons for now.

SCIENCE
Since our chemistry lessons wrapped-up last week, we took a field-trip this week to a farm. We saw milking and egg collecting and got to pet some of the young animals.

Here are the boys this year (at 9 and 6 years-old) and below at the same farm three years ago (at 6 and 3). Why did I look at this!?

You all can go check out some more Weekly Wrap-Ups. I'm going to get my tissues.

BIBLE:
We started a new "Christian character trait" for April - Forgiveness. While focusing on Scripture related to forgiveness, we've also been reading The Jesus Storybook Bible. I've been struggling with offering something more structured for awhile, but for now, this will suffice. Bible is one area where something is always much better than nothing.

HISTORY
We've kicked-off our study of westward expansion in the U.S with a unit on Lewis and Clark. This is where my own history studies must have gone from poor to nonexistent. My misconceptions about Lewis and Clark are too embarrassing to mention here, but lets just say that the work "Louisiana" in "Louisiana purchase" led my images of their expedition astray. There are so many great options for reading and listening on this topic that we couldn't begin to cover them all.

Since the events took place during Thomas Jefferson's presidency, we read A Picture Book of Thomas Jefferson. How We Crossed the West was a fun summary of the Lewis and Clark journey with lots of interesting details and fun, cartoon-like illustrations. Although we haven't gotten to them yet, we plan to pick up Bold Journey and The Cabin Faced West for family read-alouds as we continue to look at the movement west.

During lunchtime, we've enjoyed listening to Jim Weiss's "Gone West" CD and "Sacagewea: Her Story" by Your Story Hour. I'd love to see the Ken Burns documentary, as well, but it might be a little slow for the kids. Maybe hubby and I will rent it ourselves...

LITERATURE
Bearclaw has a break from literature right now, but he is slowly reading his way through Stowaway, based on my "suggestion". He's also enjoying the second set of books from the Sugarcreek Gang series.

Shortbread studied the letter "Q" this past week, and I never really found a great picture book to go along with it. I think he was happy to just pick his own favorites!

LANGUAGE ARTS
Bearclaw's humanities class continues to work on their final essay of the year. It's his first multi-paragraph paper, and this week he had to finish his rough draft. Let's just say that "rough" fits for the process as well as the end result.

I've really fallen off with Shortbread's kindergarten work. We're just doing enough to get by and turn in what's due for his class. I'm bored and so is he, so I need to find something a little more challenging for summer.

MATH
Primary Mathematics 3A is still focusing on reviewing addition and subtraction, which has provided some much-needed practice for Bearclaw. I think some of his skills had gotten a little rusty, but he's humming along now.

Shortbread and I had a knock-down, drag-out, teary, screamy math lesson this week. It all started when I pulled out the unit cubes and used them to count out subtraction problems. He protested that that was what babies do and he would have none of it. So much for "hands on"; I guess he's been watching big brother focus on written math for awhile and associates that with more difficult math. We'll be going ahead to first grade math this summer.

SCIENCE
We wrapped up our Real Science 4 Kids Chemistry book this week by making bread. Our experiment involved a comparison of dough allowed to rise in a warm place and dough put in the refrigerator to rise. Although there was a marked difference between the two loaves, both were deemed edible and then fully consumed.


That's all for this week, and I'm so late publishing, I missed the Weekly Wrap-Up link. Oh well...

Our eleventh wedding anniversary seemed sort of anticlimactic until my hubby showed me this:



So...Happy Anniversary honey!! 11 IS even better than 10.

It's been awhile, so I can't fit my gifts into a neat list of ten (He gives more gifts that I'm comfortable with).

So thankful for...

81. An evening alone with Shortbread

82. Shortbread's desire to pick a specific dandelion outside the car door, even with scores of others around - his response to that observation: "But that one's so pretty!"

83. A day of tears, frustration and anger ends with grace, laughter and pillow-fighting

84. Bradley turning around to wave to me during his humanities class while I'm grading papers

85. Finding Shortbread's baptism DVD and seeing that toothless grin and kicky legs

86. Before breakfast calm as Bearclaw reads on the sofa and Shortbread works on some new creation at the table

87. The grace to help the child who is unable to quiet his heart and body find peace again

88. The grace of forgiveness for all the times (years) I met the older child's rage with more rage

89. A weekend warm enough for snow cones

90. Neighborhood playmates

91. New schooling options for struggling friends

92. A shortcut for hubby's new, long commute

93. A zoo day for boys who adore animals with grandparents who adore them

94. Lunch with a friend who understands and seeks understanding

To count along or celebrate others' blessings, go to A Holy Experience.

I've jumped from week 23 to 26 in my wrap-ups, mostly due to working on a very long wrap-up of our "mega feild trip" during week 24. It's still not done, so I'll have to table it for now and move on.

In the meantime, the weeks roll by and we're trudging along. Spring break is upon us, and no one needs it as much as I.

BIBLE
I havent' written a thing about our Bible time in months. It's not that we're totally neglecting it, it's just that it's very scattered and lacks direction. I've been praying for guidance on this, and would welcome the prayers of others.

HISTORY
Our need for a break was illustrated when, despite JUST finishing our chapter on Napoleon, Bearclaw had no idea when, where, or what the Battle of Waterloo was when it came up in another book. Perhaps I rushed us through this chapter just a bit too much.

LITERATURE
Bearclaw finished up his project on Paul Revere (In Their Own Words). He had the option to recite the first to stanzas of "Midnight Ride" while in costume, which I thought would we be a wonderful choice. He, on the other hand, wanted to build a model of Paul Revere's house. Why must this non-crafty, non-project loving mom's kids ALWAYS choose to build something? We actually used a paper model from an history website, but it was so plain I suggested the Bearclaw jazz things up a bit. He said, "What about adding the roads around the house?", so we found an 18th century map of Boston (I love Google Images) and marked the location of Paul Revere's house and the Old North Church, for good measure (ok, so that part was my idea).

It turned out to be a pretty cool project:



Shortbread studied the letter "K", so we read Katy No-Pocket . Going by letters has really allowed us to get through a lot of the books that I really wanted to fit in this year. Our family reading tends to be dictated by the reading level and studies of the eldest, so I thought these wonderful picture books might be something Shortbread would never be able to appreciate. So glad I included them in his curriculum!

LANGUAGE ARTS
Bearclaw's humanities class is working on their final essay of the year. It's his first multi-paragraph paper, and thankfully, the teacher is taking it slowly. He is writing a persuasive paper on "why reading is the best pastime." This week he organized his brainstorming ideas into a web outline.

Only a few more weeks of letter studies for Shortbread. I think we're both ready to move on to some meatier phonics.

MATH
Primary Mathematics 3A is still in review mode, so no math trauma about it yet. Bearclaw is reviewing subtraction now. We are still struggling with some mistakes that come more from lack of focus than lack of understanding. I need to be more consistent about implementing some possible techniques to address that.

Soon Shortbread will finish his kindergarten math book and be ready for Primary Mathematics 1A. I'm trying to decide if we should go ahead and move on now (we'll do some sort of math this summer no matter what) or if we should wait and start 1A when we start first grade. Of course, then I have to come up with something for him to do this summer...

SCIENCE
I think I've frequently been neglecting science in my wrap-ups. How did that happen? I'm a former science teacher. Well, maybe it just goes to show that I'm not all that concerned about science for 3rd grade and kindergarten. Still, I love our curriculum, and working through the experiments with another homeschool family has been really enjoyable. This week, we talked about polymers and made "goop" out of glue and borax.


Visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to catch up on more Wrap-ups.