Half-baked Homeschool

A new year, an new opportunity to stay on track with this blog. I've managed to stick with my flossing resolution for 6 days now, so maybe I'm ready to add something else.

I've been told that I might just want to start here, in January, and not get bogged down with playing catch up from the last 3 months. That's wise advice, I believe, but I just can't do it. As the girl who always knew the first 3 measures of every piano piece by heart due to a return there with each missed note, I must try to make it all connect with no gaps.

Still, I can't possibly do 18 Weekly Wrap-Ups today so I'll just cover the semester highlights. (I didn't even know we were on semesters.)

BIBLE
We've memorized plenty of Bible verses, and the monthly character traits have included orderliness, thankfulness and generosity. Long Story Short is still serving us well for evening devotions, but we took a break over Advent to use Ann VosKamp's Jesse Tree Advent Celebration.

HISTORY
Bearclaw has made it almost to WWI in history. We've left the 19th century behind and entered into what seems like a much less romantic period. I guess it's the proximity of the 20th century that makes it's horrors seem so much more horrible. It does give me reason to pause, though. I mean, we just loved waving our cardboard battle axes around when we studied the Celts, but I can't see us making faux mustard gas and snapping a few pics of a make-believe exposure. Not so fun.

Shortbread has finished what I refer to as the "really ancient" ancients and has just started looking at Greece. Below are some of his projects from the last couple of months.




LITERATURE
After the Abraham Lincoln biography, Bearclaw read two historical fiction books he enjoyed more: Turn Homeward, Hannalee and Sarah, Plain and Tall. Although he enjoys adventure books geared toward boys, he seems fine with these books based on fictional females (and who can blame him?- they're great reads!).

During the study of the Hannalee book, we were able to take a walking tour of the town in which Hannalee lived (and worked in a textile mill) at the beginning of the book. Although the book is a work of fiction, it is based on actual events that occurred in the mill town of Roswell, Georgia.

In Roswell, we were able to tour the area where the founders, owners, and well-to-do lived as well as the ruins of the old mill (where Hannalee would have worked) and mill housing.

This is the home of Roswell King, the city's founder and owner of the mill:


Though the mill itself was destroyed by Union forces (who then deported the workers, including women and children like our fictional Hannalee, to the north), the creek and a dam that fed it open for exploration:

After reading Sarah, Plain and Tall, Bearclaw made a diorama of the scene in which Sarah slides down a "hay dune". It didn't spark quite the enthusiasm from him that the field trip did, but it turned out to be a fun activity.




Together with mom, Shortbread read Anansi and the Magic Stick and made his own model of the stick. (He loves projects, so I just get the materials he needs, and he disappeears. I have almost no input into them, so I love to see his final product - it's always a surprise!)


Later in the semester, we read Temple Cat, which is quite a short picture book, but it's message is vitally imporant and well-expressed. It's definitely a favorite of mine now.


LANGUAGE ARTS

Bearclaw continues with Spelling Workout E, Wordly Wise, Shurley English and Easy Grammar.

The writing instruction at the humanities hybrid school he attends continues to focus on various types of writing, but they keep the length of each paper to one paragraph, which keeps Bearclaw from feeling overwhelmed. I really enjoy working with him on this as he struggles to best convey his ideas on paper.

Shortbread's reading has picked up, and he says he will no longer read any books without chapters, so that sent me scrambling to find more books for beginning readers that are longer than most of what we have in our home library. I have always wondered if Shortbread will be interested in reading the way Bearclaw is. I suppose it remains to be seen, but he's off to a great start!


MATH
This has been an emotional struggle for quite a while, and I was about ready to throw in the towel and sign Bearclaw up for an outside class or switch to a different curriculum.

Our combination of me fussing over his lack of focus and care in his math work and his frutration over mistakes and self-defeating attitude was exhausting both of us.

A change in approach has helped tremendously. I've really worked to convince him that he should not know how to do the lesson before we've gone over it, and I've allowed him to lean on me for those topics that he's struggling with. Scooting him off to "try it" was only upsetting him and getting us nowhere. At this point, he would even say, perhaps, that he is "good at math."

Shortbread and math get along wonderfully, so he's moved on to the "B" level for first grade.

SCIENCE
We've continued our nature walks, and although the boys don't journal as I'd like, we have enjoyed spending time with our friends and exploring some local park gems.



So that's it...our whole semester squished into one post. We started back to school this week, so I'll have material for more wrap-ups soon. Too soon, maybe.

Yea! Thanks to Ellen for helping me get that (it's called something) up there.

I have to pause before I write a wrap-up, because we really wrap up on Wednesday, when the kids lug all of their assignments to their humanities classes and then come home with a new set of assignments to begin on Thursday.

Shortbread worked on the letter "Ii" this week, which brings the number of vowels covered to three. It's so much easier to read and write words with three whole vowels to choose from. We also did some "pumpkin estimation" math; Shortbread's pumpkin weighed 17 lbs! Unfortunately, when he tried to lift it onto the scale, he dropped it on the floor and the stem snapped off. Fortunately, I just purchased my first hot glue gun. I love the thing, and one day dh is going to come home to find everything in the house hot-glued to something (or someone) else.

We wrapped up early on Friday and spent a gorgeous fall weekend north of us where we have hopes of building a home someday. For now, we camp or stay in a cabin that's available. With the chilly overnight temps, we were happy to have a cabin this time. Some friends came along and we had a blast hiking, campfiring, and enjoying the weather. I'd love to post some pics, but I left my memory thingy in the computer during the trip. It did me no good there.

Since the family who was with us just wrapped up a big unit on Christopher Columbus, and we studied the "Age of Discovery" a few months ago, we decided to make a side trip to see the replicas of the Nina and the Pinta docked nearby. Once again, photos would help, but since I cannot provide them, you can hop over to Kris's Weekly Wrap-up from Oct. 29th. She was there just a few days before us, apparently, and remembered her memory thingy.

When we returned home, we jumped into our readings about Louis XIV and France. I visited the Palace of Versailles when I was 16. I don't remember focusing on the fact that it's construction took 25 years and that 35,000 people died in the process. I was probably too busy checking my hair in the Hall of Mirrors.

Bearclaw was asked to make a mask for the "masquerade ball" they planned to have in his history class, and Shortbread (being the "crafty" one in the family) joined in. Based on what you can see of their expressions, masks seem like a good idea:


They didn't actually dance at their "ball", but they did have a French cheese tasting, to which Bearclaw brought fresh chevre (how do I make that little mark over the e?). I don't know how much the other students cared for it, but he loves it and ate several pieces on the ride home from class. He's his mama's boy!

I hope everyone's week was as much fun as ours (but with more pictures)! You can check everyone's Weekly Wrap-Ups out over at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.