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.

Yeah! We all lived through our first week of school. There were a few scrapes, bumps and bruises, but nothing permanent.

The boys had a great first day at their one-day-a-week program (the dog didn't go):




As for the school work - it went something like this:

BIBLE:
We finally have a plan that I hope will work. We will continue to memorize the verses that our hybrid program sends home, as well as study the Christian character trait they assign each month, but we're moving our daily devotion/study to dinner time. Dh has agreed to lead; he's doing a fabulous job (he's much funnier than I am). We're using a new book called Long Story Short, and it goes through the Old Testament in very short, manageable pieces, while showing how each weekly topic points to Jesus. I was skeptical of it's claim that it only takes 10 minutes a day, but it's true. All of us are loving it!

HISTORY:
The year I've dreaded has arrived: the boys are studying completely different time periods for history. It IS more work for me, as I predicted, but it's also proving to be easier in some respects, because the discussions are a little smoother one-on-one. I guess it's like many things, and much of the outcome will depend upon my attitude.

4th grade - Bearclaw is starting the "modern" time period, from 1850 to the present. This week we looked at the huge British Empire during Queen Victoria's reign and also discussed the increasing tension over slavery in the U.S.

I began reading Courage to Run as a family read-aloud, which is based on Harriet Tubman's early years. We also listened to the beginning of Oliver Twist on audio, read by Dick Cavet. Unfortunately, he read so fast, even I had trouble following it, so we never finished it. We'll try again in a few years.

Finally, we discussed the work of George Mueller in England on behalf of poor orphans. We listened to and audio recording about him from Your Story Hour, which the children enjoyed.

1st grade - This is Shortbread's first year of narrating for history. In the past, he has followed along with our history using coloring pages, maps, and projects, but now he has his own history narration book and he'll be doing the same things he saw his brother doing over the last few years.

LITERATURE:
Bearclaw is reading a biography of Abraham Lincoln. He made the classic "milk carton log cabin" by attaching pretzels to a sawed-off half-n-half container (no school cafeteria to provide the 8-ounce milk carton) with royal icing:



1st grade -
Shortbread's first literature book is The Real Story of Creation. I do most of the reading to him, and then he narrates to me and works on the literature assignments.

LANGUAGE ARTS:
4th grade - Bearclaw is feeling pretty comfortable with language arts this year, as his spelling, vocabulary, grammar and writing curricula haven't changed since last year. He's humming right along with much less dawdling. Halleluhia!

1st grade - Shortbread has not yet started spelling, but for handwriting and phonics, his class is using Saxon Phonics. The jury is still out, I guess, but the work seems rather dry to me. Conversely, I'm a big fan of the grammar curriculum, First Language Lessons. Bearclaw and I used this in first grade, and we both enjoyed most of the lessons.

MATH:
4th grade -
Yeah! Bearclaw has moved on to Primary Mathematics 3B, which is from Singapore Math. So far, so good. Of course, it 's mostly review now. He did manage to figure out one of their methods for mental calculation that I just couldn't get. You know, old dog and all.

1st grade -
Shortbread is zipping along in Primary Mathematics 1A. He is definitely a math guy.

SCIENCE:
With Bearclaw in 4th grade and Shortbread in 1st, I'm beginning to see this year as the last year I'll have "young" children. Because of this neurosis, I have decided to chuck formal, classical science and cling to what's left of their childhoods with nature study.

We're using the "Handbook of Nature Study" blog, by Barb, who is also the Harmony Arts gal, I found out. We purchase her "getting started" packet, with the first 10 lessons and some sketch
pages. I'll try to post pics of our adventures.

Here's our first nature "walk" with some local friends:




It evolved into a sand/dirt castle building session, but we did see a black rat snake slither down the opposite bank of this creek, and then two frogs jumped into the water from the area where the snake was. Later, another snake swam down the creek a little ways from us.

We fear slightly that the next trek might be a bit of a let down. At least for them.

That's it for this week one! Only 35 left...

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...

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.

I haven't posted in about three weeks, including wrap-ups. With dh home and looking for a job, my ability to pop onto the computer has been reduced, and I've fallen behind with enough other things that I just didn't manage it.

As it happens, I popped over to Carol's blog when I sat down here, and her post included a self-admonishing comment about neglecting her blog. It applies here, too. Except that her blog has us hanging on waiting for more Scriptural insights and applications, hints for good reads, and lots of witty commentary. Here, you might just be hanging on to see what we made out of a paper plate last week.

I'm not even sure I can successfully write a wrap-up for three weeks; it will require me to remember stuff or look at our pictures. Apparently, I didn't take any pictures, so I'll have to rely on my brain. Don't expect much.

Our BIBLE time has left much to be desired lately, and I think it comes from trying to do too much. Hence, I do nothing. I need to spend the vacation week that's coming up mulling this over.

HISTORY actually lends itself well to a 3-week summary right now, as we just finished two weeks on the American Revolution and one week on the U.S. Constitution. It was a great unit, and offers so many book options that I can't possibly list them all. Of course, we read Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride," and began listening to the audiobook, Johnny Tremain. In the "not-so-classic" category, I allowed the kids to spend time watching School House Rock and PBS's Liberty's Kids (Liberty's Kids is available for instant play through Netflix.) I learned the preamble from School House Rock, and I know I'm not the only one.

Bearclaw has finished his LITERATURE novel, The Sign of the Beaver, last week. This was followed by both boys spending several days making their own bows and arrows. Unfortunately, I could not provide the "bear fat" requested by Bearclaw to treat the wood; they were forced to settle for Crisco. Anyone have a bear fat source?

Shortbread and I have been enjoying reading some or our favorite winter books before the warm weather gets here. He still loves A Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, and I have a wonderfully illustrated version of "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. We've also supplemented his phonics/handwriting by focusing on books that include words starting with B or R in the titles. The Runaway Bunny was the most perfect fit.

Third grade WRITING, as directed by our hybrid school, continues to impress me; Bearclaw can organize a 3-point paragraph with relative ease. The last assignment, though, was a descriptive paragraph; nine year-olds are really drawn to words like good and nice, so that one took a few, um, suggestions.

Both GRAMMAR programs that Bearclaw is using (the hybrid program we're in uses Shurley English AND Easy Grammar) are both focused on prepositions right now. He can even name/sing them all. I certainly can't. Of course, I don't really feel as if memorizing them is vital, but the grammar programs disagree. Shortbread has been singing the Shurley English jingles with us. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know all the prepositions yet, though, so he and I are in the same boat.

The boys' handwriting work is coming along. Shortbread is a lefty, but he is doing pretty well with avoiding the "left-handed hook" that his mama uses. Bearclaw's cursive is progressing, too, but his printing has been getting sloppier lately. I think he's rushing; maybe I'll post about this...

Bearclaw has just completed the last section in Singpore Math 2B. The unit covered geometry, which is apparently doesn't come naturally for him or me. Give us four triangles and ask us to make them into a variety of given shapes and watch us sit there. Next week we'll review the entire MATH book. I'm sort of dreading it, as I don't think I've been nearly diligent enough with math this year. Our hybrid school has pulled my focus entirely onto humanities, and I think it's showing.

On the other hand, Shortbread seems to be our natural math guy. We just switched to Singapore Math for him, and we've flown through the first four units. His biggest challenge is making his 2s and 3s go the right direction.

SCIENCE continues to be a favorite for everyone. We got together a couple of times with our friends to work on Real Science 4 Kids over these few weeks. The last chapter was on chemical reactions. It was messy, with lots of baking soda and vinegar, and the kids loved it.

We're plugging along in Spelling Workout C and Wordly Wise 3000/Book 3.

Other highlights included bonding with our new dog, Charlie and working on a new schedule (which I'll share at some point).

To check out some other, more regular wrap-ups, pop over to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

As images of quiet waiting drift through my head, frequently accompanied by flashes of silent snow falling, I realize (once again) that my image will not match my reality. The snow part should be my first clue - we're in Georgia. The boys apparently do not entertain thoughts of stillness, and neither do the coordinators of their various activities. So we will wait with somewhat noisy excitement instead.

Part of that excitement is fed by the presence of my husband's parents, who arrive every year on during the first week of December to spend Christmas with us. They live in upstate New York, so we only see them a couple of times a year - I don't blame the children for being excited about that. We just love having them here.

I finally broke down and bought a new advent wreath this year. In years past, I've thrown together a homemade version using a window wreath, a plate, and some candles. I am not crafty and the wreath was evidence. Mercifully, it caught on fire during last year's Christmas Eve party. I'll be using long-burning candles with the new one. The children love to eat by it's light each night while we read an advent book that I've seen on homeschool recommendation lists for years: Jotham's Journey.

The book offers a reading for each night of Advent, and then a Scripture reading and summary that tie the chapter into some greater spiritual truth. It's quite an exciting story and might even be too intense for some little ones, but the boys are loving it and begging for one more chapter each night. (But then we'd be off schedule, we explain...)

In between the visiting, Advent observing, decorating, baking, birthday partying, choir practicing, etc., we have had to make time for school. This may be a greater struggle for me than for the boys, but we're managing.

The past week's unit in Biblioplan covered Persia and the Ottoman Turks. Because we're studying the "early modern" period this year, which covers early American history, Biblioplan includes the study of important individuals in American history in the units focusing on the history of other countries. This week we talked about Daniel Boone, and Bearclaw is enjoying Daniel Boone, Boy Hunter.

He also completed the novel A Lion To Guard Us by Clyde Robert Bulla for his literature class. As a follow-up assignment, the student's were to make a time capsule representing one of the main characters in the book. Bearclaw chose Jemmy and turned in his project on Wednesday.

Speaking of reading, Shortbread read his first early-reader book!! He was so happy with himself, and I'm really looking forward to all of the wonderful books he's going to be able to enjoy reading soon.

In his kindergarten class, they focus mainly on language skills, and he's doing very well. If anything he's a little bored (or maybe I am), because some of the activities we're asked to do at home seem unessesary. Still, because he's picking up reading without any tears or arguments, I'm keeping an open mind about the effectiveness of some of the lessons.

Bearclaw's language skills are improving, and he's mastered quite a number of grammar concepts. His spelling grade is excellent, but I'm working to get him to be more careful when doing his work, so that the progress he's made in spelling will be reflected in his writing. As for vocabulary - he's doing well, but the jury is still out on Wordly Wise for me.

With all of the focus we're putting on humanities, in order to complete the assignments from our hybrid school, I've neglected math somewhat. Bearclaw is actually moving along in his Sinapore workbook (he's working on fractions), but he's forgotten some of his mutiplication tables, so I need to do a better job with daily drills. I'm hardly working on math at all with Shortbread. It's not him; it's me - I think I'm tired of the curriculum and how it's structured. It may be time to move from Shiller to Singapore for him.

Our two-family science co-op hasn't met lately, becasue of all of the holiday activities, but we plan to finish up the physics book from Real Science 4 Kids soon, and then after Christmas it's chemsitry! (All four boys in the group have images of explosions, I just know it...)

As I've been typing this over several days, we've gotten quite few snow flurries. Maybe my images of Advent were'nt so far-fetched after all...

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.

Our weeks begin on Thurdsay instead of Monday, because that is when we begin working on a new assignment sheet from the kids' Wednesday hybrid program. Now I just have to remember what we did way back then.

The weather where we live has been lovely and pretty warm, and we drove up to some property we have in north Georgia for the fall festival there. (When I say property, I mean a small uncleared lot that may never see so much as a toothpick standing on it, but we'll see.) The "giant hay bale" was a highlight for the boys, until we they climbed down and all of the itching, coughing and sneezing started, that is.

Bearclaw completed a fall nature study assignment last week, which included sitting in the yard and sketching. I called him to work on this one afternoon while he was playing outside with Shortbread and a neighbor boy. Surprisingly, both Shortbread and the friend decided to abandon their play and sit down to sketch too. It was so sweet to see all three of them lined up, with paper and sketchpad in hand, gazing quietly out into the trees.

The sketching was followed by painting with watercolors. Here's Bearclaw's completed painting:

Our history studies this week focused on Charles I of England, and I teetered between amusement and horror when I saw the boys' narration drawings; they both drew what might catch the imagination of any boy listening to the story of Charles I - his beheading (complete with lots of red colored pencil)!

We also completed the book, Runaway's Revenge, which we picked up during our study of the slave trade a couple of weeks ago. The book is part of the "Trailblazers" series; each book in the series tells the story of a "hero of the faith" by placing a young person it the midst of the events of each hero's life. Runaway's Revenge is the story of John Newton.

Shortbread worked on the letter "L" over the week, and we read a few good "L" picture books, including:

Leaf Man

Angus Lost

The Very Lonely Firefly

The Little Rabbit

Blueberries for Sal (gotta get those "L's" in somewhere besides the beginning!)

We're on tap for yet another beautiful weekend...hope yours is lovely.

I've finally gotten all of my materials together for this post. When I look back over everything we did this year, I start to think we actually accomplished some things. Now I just have to avoid glimpsing at the elaborate plan I made before the school year began...

Finished or not, history has been loads of fun, and I especially enjoy the fact that it's a subject we can all do together. We're using a somewhat classical model in our homeschool, while still giving a nod to Charlotte Mason and other styles (how original). So far, the four-year history cycle is working for us, and this was our Medieval/Renaissance year.

We used Story of the World as our spine and supplemented with both independent reading for Bearclaw and read-alouds for all of us. Most of those came from Biblioplan, which is a multi-level history curriculum comprised mostly of book lists. It's a very useful resource, and it provides, in each unit, independent reading ideas for each age group and a family read-aloud selection.

Some of our favorite read-alouds this past year:

Saint Patrick: Pioneer Missionary to Ireland by McHugh
Beorn the Proud by Bulla
The Door in the Wall by Angel
Explorers Who Got Lost by Sansevere-Dreher

We also enjoyed the following recordings by Jim Weiss and Greathall Productions:

"King Arthur and His Knights"
"Arabian Nights"
"Shakespeare for Children"
"Galileo and the Stargazers"
"Masters of the Renaissance"

I find the Activity Guides for Story of the World to be fairly user-friendly, so we did the map work and, sometimes, the review questions for each chapter. Notice I didn't mention the activity projects. I don't have anything against activiy projects, but I always schedule them for Friday, and by Friday I'm in a different mood than I was in when I wrote the lesson plan. Thankfully, the children attneded a homeschool history/arts program on Wednesday afternoons, so they did a multitude of projects. And I did not.

Here are some of the projects/pieces of art they created this year:

We also started a timeline this year, using the figures from Homeschool in the Woods, which has been very helpful (especially for me):

Of course, what the kids remember most are the few big projects we managed to complete at home, including dressing up as Celtic warriors (or maybe something closer to how they were depicted in Bravheart) when we kicked-off in last August:

The one thing we're still working on is the Reformation. I don't think we'll do any stake burnings, but I'll post pics if I change my mind.