In my life this week...
It was good to be back to a fairly normal schedule this week and we finished early on Friday so that I could take the kids to my mother-in-law. We all traveled this weekend! The children went to stay at my in-laws with two of their cousins and had a ball! They were staying there while I went with my husband to Indianapolis for a business-related event and we got to stay at a really elegant hotel and go to two nice dinners with the group. I also got to meet up with some friends that I had not seen in probably three years and go shopping! That was a fun afternoon!
In our homeschool this week...
We were traveling through Week 28 of Creation to the Greeks from My Father's World this week. We reviewed the book of Jonah and then began discussing the Assyrians. Now we are reading out of 2 Kings and we will be working for the last few weeks of school on memorizing a passage from Isaiah 40 for our Bible memory work. B is also memorizing the poem "My Shadow" by Robert Louis Stevenson from her English book, Primary Language Lessons by Emma Serls and she is having fun creating actions to go with the words. (This also helps her to remember it!) We are getting to some exciting parts of The Children's Homer and are nearing the end of the book, with only a few chapters to go! We talked about rest during science lessons and how God created rest for all of us and how our bodies and minds need it! B also finished reading Thea Stilton and the Mountain of Fire and J completed a Barton reader and began reading another one called Otis Wilson, P.I. We continued to progress through spelling, math, and other lessons, too.
Places we're going and people we're seeing...
On Thursday, we joined other local homeschool families for a group tour of our local Recycling Center. We are fortunate to live in a town where our Department of Public Works picks up recycled goods on the same day that our trash is picked up each week. During our tour we got to see where the recyclable materials are sorted and compacted into "bails". We saw bails of aluminum cans, milk jugs, and cardboard. We also saw where they store the salt for our icy roads in the winter and all of the trucks and equipment that go out each day on those pick ups. It was impressive to see the piles of glass bottle, paper, and other materials that our community is recycling!
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| A dumpster in action |
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| The conveyor belt and the sorting bins |
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| Bails of aluminum cans and plastic |
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| J thought he looked really "cool" in this protective eyewear! |
My favorite thing this week was...
We are completey THRILLED that our Butler University Bulldogs , will play for the National Championship of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament on Monday!!! My husband and I met while we were both attending Butler and it has just been SO fun for our little school to go to the final game - for the second year in a row! Last year we actually got tickets and went to the Championship game in downtown Indianapolis! It was really fun! We will be watching the game with friends tomorrow evening!Yes, this is one of my sisters, my husband and me in a photo from last year's game! We are all Butler graduates, along with my brother-in-law, who took the photo!
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| 2010 Butler vs. Duke NCAA Championship Game |
We are not getting all of our art or science lessons done right now. It seems like our basics - math, and all of the reading/spelling, English, and language arts - are taking a lot of time! But I am trying to anticipate that for this week and give myself a break if we don't get to every single thing on the list. If we are really getting those basics down, then that is what is important!
Homeschool questions/thoughts I have...
Have any of you used Winston Grammar or Linking Blocks Hands-on English? They both look like good options for teaching English grammar in a multi-sensory way. I am still thinking about the Classical Conversations Essentials classes that teach grammar and I am wondering if I need to use a more hands-on approach first with one of these programs.
A photo, video, link, or quote to share...
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I love My Father's World. I have used it in the past. It sounds like you had a great week, and are learning a lot with the Creation to Greeks Year.
ReplyDeleteThe Linking Blocks grammar program looks very interesting. I've never heard of it before. If you decide to do it, you should consider writing a review of it here on your blog.
I have heard of Winston, but I've never used it. I have actually not ever thought of Language Arts in a multi-sensory way before. We used All About Spelling this year, and that is multi-sensory. We liked it, but it was not very challenging, and my daughter dis-liked the letter tiles. She's more of a workbook type learner. Spelling Power would be a good way to incorporate multi-sensory spelling learning into your homeschool. I think MFW recommends it? You need the box of activities to get all the hands-on stuff for it.
Found your blog via The Homeschool Chick and stopping by to say hi!
Oh, wow, I had forgotten that sometimes women go away with husbands without kids in tow, and they can even sometimes meet girlsfriends for a lunch and shopping date. Oh, yes, it's all coming back to me now! ;) What a great break for you, and I'm sure your kids were blessed by their time with grandparents.
ReplyDeleteYour trip to the recycling center looks great! And I hear you on the art and science thing ... we haven't done art for about 12 weeks now! 8^| OOPS!
Always enjoy your updates, Rachel! :)
Hi Rachel! I saw the link to your blog on a post of yours on the MFW board and came over to say "hi" as I am also a former school teacher (English) now homeschooling and using CTG (We're on week 30.) with my oldest 3 children (2 of whom have learning disabilities similar to J's.)
ReplyDeleteI'm using Winston Grammar with my 7th and 5th graders this year and have really liked how they "diagram" sentences using the parts of speech cards. (My 3rd grader isn't ready for this level of grammar yet, but I will probably use Winston with him when the time comes. His learning disabilities are the most severe, so we just take everything one step at a time!) :)
I'll definitely stay in touch via your blog!
Carina <><
We are currently using Tapestry of Grace, but, when my oldest reaches 9th grade (in 1 year, yikes!) we will split him off to do independent study with MFW.
ReplyDeleteI love your blog's color scheme and pictures!
I'm now following you as well :-)