In my life this week…Last weekend was so busy that I did not get to publish the previous week's journal until today! Please check here to catch up on that post and some fun photos! Monday we had Week 2 of Classical Conversations Cycle 3 and it was another fairly smooth day. I am enjoying tutoring our Foundations class in the morning and I am learning with my children in our afternoon Essentials class! I also had a Worship Committee meeting at church that evening while friends took my son to and from his choir rehearsal. Tuesday we didn't have any plans and it was nice to have a whole day at home. Wednesday we began our Celebration Kids choir and had fun singing with the children again after a few months of a summer break. Thursday I drove B and her classmate to ballet and had a quiet sushi supper all by myself while they were in class (the guys stayed at home to have a movie night.) What a rare treat!
In our homeschool this week…
We are enjoying the memory work from Foundations. It is a nice "break" in our day from other things and we get to move around, sing, and play a short game sometimes. Essentials is challenging our English and writing skills! This week the charts about verbs was a daunting task, but I tried to break it down into manageable "bites" and at least got some copywork and oral review done with it. The writing assignments were a challenge, trying to identify and select action verbs to use in almost every line of the poem and then add in other adjectives and "-ly" words and have it all make sense. Then editing or re-copying the work... the children each had two poems to work on so we did not finish until Friday afternoon!
I fit in more history read-alouds this week because I already had several books about the Pilgrims landing in America, plus new history resources that I wanted to use. It felt like a lot, but maybe it won't be this way every week, because this was such a familiar story. I read from A Child's Story of America, The Light and the Glory For Children, and some short sections from The Last 500 Years. We also listened to Story of the World.
The children have been enjoying these easy readers that I bought to go with our history topics about Christopher Columbus and Pocahontas. It is wonderful to have them both able to read about history for themselves! My dyslexic son is finally reading these books independently after completing almost 5 levels of the Barton Reading and Spelling System!
Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share…
I printed CC maps to create our own geography map book and put the pages in page protectors. The children enjoy using dry erase markers to trace the shape of each state we are studying and it seems to be an effective method, so far.
Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…
We enjoyed going to the local high school homecoming football game Friday night. We live near the school and this game draws a huge crowd because it is our county football rivalry game. We know students on the team and in the band. We enjoyed watching a close game and our team lost by one missed extra point with only 20 seconds left. We also cheered for our friend who was a homeschool student through 8th grade and is now a senior at the high school and was also awarded homecoming queen!
My favorite thing this week was…
The adult choir that I direct at church had an opportunity to minister to a fellow choir member this week. One of our basses has been battling throat cancer for several months and we were able to get a good number of singers to go to his home and sing some of his favorite hymns! I brought my small keyboard and my friend played "Amazing Grace", "In the Garden", "The Old Rugged Cross", and "I'll Fly Away". I will not forget looking at all of the faces crowded into that little room and hearing his voice sing with us. We were truly blessed to share this experience with our friend!
Questions/thoughts I have ...
I am trying to help my son find ways to do the English grammar copywork in Essentials. He likes dry erase markers and he prefers them or typing over writing by hand. He is dysgraphic (handwriting learning disability), so he does not get a large quantity of copying done, but he can do small amounts. He covers more of the material that we are working on memorizing when we talk about it orally. Does anyone have other suggestions on how to memorize English grammar rules, parts of speech,definitions, etc.?
.I’m grateful for…
Our church is celebrating the "mortgage burning" of our church building today! The debt has been paid in less than ten years. We are thrilled and I pray that God will lead our church family in wisdom and discernment for what He wants us to do as we continue to walk forward in ministry.
I’m praying for…
My choir friend, Tom, and his wife Katy as they deal with his health issues. I pray for their strength and comfort.
A photo, video, link, or quote to share…
The children designed their own Lego Hero Factory creations and bought them with money they have earned. They were ecstatic to get their packages in the mail and put all of the pieces together to create their new warriors.
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| Working on building their own Lego Design By Me Hero Factory people |
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| A showcase of their old and new Hero Factory warriors |
Thanks for stopping by my blog, Teacups in the Garden! Memorizing grammar rules, etc became easier for my kids while using IEW. I think you said you are using that? Well one of the beauties of IEW is that learning "boring" stuff like parts of speech are built in to the application of writing which makes it meaningful. For instance the student needs an -ly dress up (adverb), too many subject openers are avoided (nouns and pronouns), www.asia clauses are memorized in a fun way with Andrew and then applied (which are really super difficult adverb clauses but don't tell the kids that!) Then when they are in high school break the news. Ask the students, "What are -ly words, really? What is www.asia?" My kids had been applying these dress ups for about 3 years, learning how to use them without being bogged down with what they were. Then it sort of leaked out that they were actually parts of speech and they had an "ah ha" moment. Then I took away the checklist and told them to have varied sentences and make valid points, using all those dress up skills they learned. Ah! So that's the point!
ReplyDeleteAnother way to learn some of these concepts is through mnemonic devices. (ie IP MAP DC...the first letter of each begins the word for the steps of mitosis. I still have that memorized since high school biology!)
Another way is by inventing cute memory devices. At church years ago, before I had kids, we had a guest speaker to our church, a former professional basketball player, Jerry Lucas, a Christian who was reknown for his memory tricks and he taught some to us. I'm trying to remember his name. But he had flash cards for the parts of speech. The pronoun had a picture of a nun playing pro golf...but I don't remember what the connection was to the function of a pronoun. But sometimes these kids with learning struggles learn well through these right brain concepts.
http://www.officialjerrylucas.com/about.php
Blessings,
Laurie