Week 22

Slow and steady wins the race.

It's a marathon, not a sprint.

How many times have I said this to myself?  Or someone else?

It's true.



We're making progress.  Day to day I often wonder what on earth we're doing.  How can {unnamed son} not do {task we've done a gabillion times before}?  Am I failing them?

Then I look at the long road behind us.  And I realize we are making slow and steady progress.  It's not always in the neat, tidy, and linear fashion that I would prefer, but progress is there nonetheless.

All this to say that we kept the course this week.

Most surprising of all is the repeating of Luke:  "Mom, Till We Have Faces is really good.  You need to read it."  My oldest son is telling me I should read a C.S. Lewis book.  Wow.

I also discovered Luke & Ezekiel can translate Latin faster than I can.

And I really took a good look at the plans I made over the summer.  As I've mentioned, our fall was not good--we were seriously overbooked and didn't make the progress I'd hoped.  Because of this, I'm planning on going through June and taking July off.  It looks like our June schedule will be light if we keep on like we've been doing this semester.  That was a nice feeling for February--seeing a bit of light at the end of the tunnel.

Week 19 in Review

I was zapped this week with a cold bug.  It took much of my energy, so the boys were on their own more than is ideal.

Nicholas had his 2nd piano lesson, and he's loving it.  The other big news is that I'm stopping phonics with him.  I'd been debating, but when we were working on Writing with Ease he read "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" to me.  I figure if he can sound that out without issue, he's doing well and I can just address any issues that come up when they present themselves.  He'll continue with Master Reader, mostly because he likes it and it helps keep him out of trouble.  For the first time in 9 years, I won't be faced with doing a Phonics Pathways lesson.  It's bittersweet.

Jacob and Micah plugged along as best they could.  Jacob is loving learning about electricity, and Micah spent a lot of time reading and playing with Zoobs.

Luke & Ezekiel continued reading The Codes of Hammurabi and Moses.  They both really like this book.  The discussion from Omnibus today had them deciding cases according to the code of Hammurabi and according to Biblical law.  We're also discussing Biblical allusions, and they had to write two of their own.  We worked on writing a chronological paragraph as well.  Progress was made in other subjects as well.

We started cursive, and it's going better than expected.  So far everyone is forming their letters correctly, even the tricky lowercase cursive "f".

I'm looking forward to next week...hopefully I'll be healthy and well-rested!

Week 18 in Review

This is our first week back.  Re-entry is always painful, but all in all this week went really, really well.

I changed our schedule up over Christmas break.  Last semester, I had time with Luke & Ezekiel scheduled first thing, followed by Jacob, and then Micah and Nicholas in the afternoon.  This didn't work for a couple of reasons, most notably:  Micah & Nicholas wouldn't be very focused by the afternoon, especially if they'd spent the morning playing and Luke & Ezekiel wouldn't make progress if for some reason I wasn't available to teach them or if we had an interruption, which seems to happen mostly in the mornings.

This semester, I basically flipped the schedule.  I work with Micah first, and while I work with him Nicholas works on hands on logic puzzles (like Color Code or Q-Bitz, Master Reader, and Miquon).  Then I work with Nicholas while Micah reads, does his independent work, and finishes up anything from our teaching time.  After I finish with Nicholas, I move along to Jacob.  He's got enough independent work to keep him busy while I work with Micah & Nicholas, and then he's got work to finish from our teaching time in the afternoon.

I teach Luke & Ezekiel in the afternoon.  The big change, though, is that I teach the next day's lesson.  On Monday, I'm teaching the material for Tuesday, on Tuesday, I'm teaching the material for Wednesday, and so on.  This way they have a full day's work to do before we have our teaching time.  Our days are feeling shorter, it seems like the boys are working faster, and I feel more engaged and on top of things.  It's funny how a little switch can make such a large impact.  Of course, I've been at this long enough to know that in a couple of weeks something will change, and I'll have to adjust what we do, but for now I'm going to be happy.


As far as what we accomplished:

Luke and Ezekiel:

• Finished The Ancient Near Eastern World and started on The Ancient Egyptian World
• Finished Chosen by God and started on The Codes of Hammurabi and Moses
• Discussed ad hominem circumstantial and tu quoque fallacies
• Learned about predicate nouns and the 3rd declension in Latin
• Started lesson 6 in Elementary Greek 2
• Took the chapter 2 test in Rod & Staff's English 7, and started chapter 3 (on nouns)
• Finished lesson 10 in spelling
• Learned about magnetism, nuclear force, and how atoms can be different
• Read through chapter 8 of Prince Caspian
• Began the annotating lesson in Windows to the World
• They both made progress in math

Jacob:

• Finally started his Spanish program
• Started lesson 7 in spelling
• Began The Creative Writer and worked a few more lessons in Sentence Composing for Elementary Students
• Finished chapter 1 in Rod & Staff's English 5
• Started reading Super Grammar
• Read through chapter 8 in Prince Caspian
• Started chapter 6 (masculine 2nd declension nouns) in Latin for Children A
• Learned about the Old Kingdom in Egypt (with Micah and Nicholas)
• Worked through a bit more of Soaring into Flight with Micah & Nicholas (he's teaching this)
• Read The Nature of Magnetism (Prentice Hall's Science Explorer Electricity and Magnetism)
• Made progress in math (fractions, place value, and Roman numerals, among other things)

Micah:

• Started week 8 in Writing With Ease 2
• Learned about "the lines that hang in the air", otherwise known as apostrophes, in Rod & Staff English 3
• Finished lesson 8 in spelling
• Read through chapter 8 in Prince Caspian
• Started reading Super Grammar
• Learned about the Old Kingdom in Egypt
• Worked through a bit more of Soaring into Flight
• Read through chapter 3 in Henry and Ribsy
• Completed chapters 5-8 in Life of Fred Butterflies
• Made progress in math (including learning about perfect squares)

Nicholas

• Finished week 5 in Writing with Ease 1
• Read Owl at Home
• Started Rod & Staff Spelling 2
• Nearly completed Plaid Phonics A
• Worked on Master Reader, logic puzzles, and Miquon
• Learned about the Old Kingdom in Egypt
• Worked through a bit more of Soaring into Flight
• Made progress in math

Over the weekend I'm going to figure out where to go with teaching Luke & Ezekiel writing; I need to firm up a plan and get it entered in Homeschool Tracker.  I'm kind of lost with my plans for Classical Writing Aesop and Homer for Older Beginners--they've gotten out of whack over the last semester.  Since fixing it will mean rewriting the plans, I might as well evaluate whether or not it's still suiting our needs or if I should switch them to something else.

I also need to get our New American Cursive worksheets printed and ready, and get Jacob's Snap Circuit science plans entered in.

All in all, I was pleased with how this week went.  Hopefully it's a harbinger of things to come.

Um...Weeks 8, 9, 10, & 11

Don't laugh.  How did I miss 4 weeks?  How is it that it's time to buy the turkey?  And most importantly, WHY IS MY FAVORITE RADIO STATION PLAYING CHRISTMAS SONGS??!?

So, it's been busy around here.  Not necessarily busy how I'd planned, but busy nonetheless.

Grandma & Grandpa Larson and Aunt Sherry came for a 6 day visit.  There was lots of football, basketball, baseball, and slacklining going on the the backyard with the boys and Aunt Sherry.  Ben (Sherry's son/the boys' cousin) and his wife Belu came for the weekend.  It was great to see them (and meet Belu!).  There were several games of Scattergories, and one 5 hours game of Monopoly (which Nicholas Trump most likely won).  And the boys loved staying up late, eating junk food, and watching the entire Lord of the Rings triology over 5 nights.

Then there was the election.  It was educational, but I don't want to talk about it.

Ezekiel got his cast off on the 9th and was released to do anything within reason.  "Within whose reason?," I asked.  "If it hurts he shouldn't do it," the doctor said. "Judo?"  Cleared.  "Gymnastics?"  Yep.  "Back Handsprings?"  Not a problem.  Then the doctor showed me the x-ray and there wasn't a blemish anywhere.

The last big thing that happened was Nick turned 7 yesterday.  He had friends over to play and eat cookies, and then we had a family celebration last night:  presents, pizza, cake, VeggieTales, and Mythbusters.  Among other things, he received a Fortamagjig Fun Fort and I think he's going to have a lot of fun with it.  It's a large piece of nylon with various velcro loops and fasteners on it, so you can hook it to almost anything to build a fort.

Grandma & Grandpa Burns will be here next week for Thanksgiving, so no school will get done.

On the official school front:

• Luke can now work linear equations with two variables with confidence.
• Jacob, Micah, and Nicholas finished The Pilgrim Story online class.  They really enjoyed it.
• Nicholas has been reading the books I give him in one sitting, instead of over a few days (as I planned it).  They're books like Balto, so not long chapter books, but it's fun to watch him enjoy books and ask for the next one when he's finished.
• Nicholas declared "the x math" (mulitplication) the "funnest math" (thanks, Miquon!).
• Luke & Ezekiel are reading Chosen by God, and they're enjoying it.
• Luke, Ezekiel, Jacob, and Micah have finished The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and will start Prince Caspian after our break next week.
• All are progressing, though slower than I'd like thanks to life interruptions, with spelling & English grammar.  Luke, Ezekiel, and Jacob are moving along with Latin, and Luke & Ezekiel are continuing to make progress in Greek.
• Writing and lit discussions aren't getting as much attention as I'd planned.  I need to figure this part out.

I'm still having trouble finding a balance to schooling 5.  I'm leaning toward pulling Luke & Ezekiel out of their enrichment program at Christmas so we have that day at home for academics.  Objectively, as their teacher, it's the right thing to do.  But then the Mom part kicks in and I doubt the decision (they enjoy it and have a couple of friends there).

I can't believe Christmas is just around the corner!  I'm going to take the advice of my wise friends and plan in time for cookie baking and other fun holiday traditions.  We'll do as much school as we can through December, but I'm ready to shelve some subjects some days so we can make memories some days.  Time is passing too quickly; I don't want the boys to remember the holidays as the time of the year that Mom was crazier than normal--I want to enjoy them and have some fun.  We'll see how I do...

Weeks 6 & 7 in Review

Oy!  These were a rough 2 weeks.  Week 6, we were fighting colds & sinus infections. I don't remember who wasn't feeling well, but I was on an antibiotic and was just kind of fuzzy headed.  Week 7, we had a follow up with Jacob's neurologist because his headaches have been worse (requires almost 4 hours of driving roundtrip), I had an eye appointment that took up 3 hours (they'd had an emergency in the morning, so there was a longer wait time), Ezekiel fractured his hand (required the trip to the pediatrician to be sent to x-ray, and then a trip on a different day to the ortho for casting), and finally I had a follow up with my rheumatologist.  I counted the days they weren't at their enrichment program as half days, so we got about 5 days of school work in over the two weeks.  But this is life, right?

I will not let perfection get in the way of the good.

We got bits of math and Greek and reading and grammar and Latin and spelling and phonics and history done (I almost typed science, but I'm 95% sure no one actually did any science, unless you count studying the x-ray of Zeke broken hand).  We did spend one afternoon finishing our read-aloud book, Escape Across the Wide Sea.  I haven't had as much time to read aloud as I did last year, and I miss it and the boys miss it.  I miss the shared stories, but we're so busy that is is hard to justify it.  I listened to a lecture by Andrew Pudewa, though, and was reminded of the importance. Craig will be home in the evenings more now that he's out of class, so we'll restart family read-alouds in the evening (we've all missed it), and I'm going to try and read-aloud during the day on Thursday and Friday.  I figure that's better than not at all.

I will not let perfection get in the way of the good.

As I sit here surrounded by piles of incomplete assignment sheets and stacks of papers to check, I'm reminded that my boys learned lessons that weren't in textbooks.  I'm also reminded of a great benefit of having them home together.  Zeke's hand was fractured when he and Luke were play fighting on the couch.  Luke kicked, they heard a pop, there was a lot of pain.  Luke felt awful.  Zeke's biggest concern was that when people heard how it happened, they would think Luke did it on purpose when they were just playing.  His mind wasn't on revenge, as many people we encountered speculated, it was on the fact he didn't want his brother to be mischaracterized. Sure, they fight and argue (this is bound to happen when you're together as much as we are), but they love each other and are very close.  All five of them.  When we started this adventure 9 years ago (10 if you count preschool), it was for academic reasons.  That is still a very high priority, but now that they are almost7 up to just13, their relationships as brothers and our relationship as a family is at least as high a priority as academics.  It's such a blessing to watch these relationships grow and develop.  

So, I will not let perfection get in the way of the good.

Green & Gold cast in honor of the Packers

Week 5 in Review

We got a lot accomplished on Monday, even though Luke slept late because he wasn't feeling well and even though I ended up at the doctor for a sinus infection.

Tuesday was kind of a bust.  I had a nagging headache and sore throat all day, Jacob spent the morning in bed not feeling well and Micah slept late.  I did some Kinderbach lessons with Nicholas, and sent them outside to clean up the yard so I could mow it for (hopefully) the last time this season.

The headache and sore throat continued, and Wednesday wasn't great.  Oh, who am I kidding?!  Thursday wasn't great, either, and we ended up doing most of our work on Friday and Saturday.

We did accomplish some things, though, so here they are:

Luke & Ezekiel (8th & 7th):

• Finished Lesson 2 in Elementary Greek 2, and started Lesson 3
• Did Exercises 15-18 in Henle Latin
• Read 4 chapters in The Ancient Near Eastern World and completed the study sheets.  The lessons were on Hammurabi and Mesopotamia.
• Rewrote The Stag and His Reflection, and began the process of rewriting a fable of their choice.  I'm not even sure what they chose.
• Took the Lesson 6 test in Rod & Staff's Spelling 6.
• Reviewed the chapter 1 of Rod & Staff's English 7 and took a test.  
• Finished reading Gilgamesh.  We still need to discuss it.
• Watched session 1 of Teaching the Classics.
• Completed Lessons 7 and 8, Lab 4, and Quiz 2 in The Rainbow science.
• Luke finished Chapters 4-5 in Painless Algebra, and Ezekiel took a test and finished Lesson 41 in Saxon 8/7.

Jacob (5th):

• Finished Chapter 2 and started Chapter 3 in Latin for Children A.
• Read Chapters 7 and 8 in Shadow Hawk, and chapters 10-13 in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
• Sort of started Classical Writing Aesop B.  
• Completed Lessons 6 and 7 in Rod & Staff's English 5.
• Spent time on the Math Blaster app, did fact practice sheets for multiplication and division, and worked on flashcards.
• Completed Chapters 4-6 in Life of Fred Farming.
• Worked on Math Mammoth's Introduction to Fractions and Place Value 3.
• Completed Lessons 9 and 10 in Rod and Staff's Arithmetic 5.
• Finished Lesson 3 in Rod & Staff's Spelling 5 and took the test.

Micah (3rd):

• Did 3 Callirobics lessons.
• Finished week 6 in Writing with Ease 2.
• Completed Lessons 9-12 in Rod & Staff's English 3.  He's doing really well with the diagramming (he had to diagram sentences with an understood you this week), and doesn't really complain about writing when he's diagramming.
• Read The Whipping Boy and chapters 10-13 in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  We did the comprehension questions from Veritas Press' Narnia Comprehension Guide orally with Jacob.
• Finished Lesson 3 and took the test in Rod & Staff's Spelling 3 and begane Lesson 4.
• Spent time on the Math Blaster app and with flashcards.
• Finished Kumon's Dollars and Cents workbook and happily threw it away.
• Completed Chapters 4-7 in Life of Fred Apples.
• Completed lessons 56 and 57 in Saxon 3 Math.

Nicholas (1st):

• Completed week 4 in Kinderbach.
• Did 3 Callirobics lessons.
• Completed Week 3 in Writing with Ease 1 and started Week 4.
• Read The Cat in the Hat.
• Read out of Phonics Pathways and Reading Pyramid.
• Finished Explode the Code 3 and threw it away.
• Finished Kumon' Easy Telling Time and threw it away.
• Did some Miquon Orange pages and spent time on the Math Blaster App and with flashcards.
• Completed Lessons 10-11 in Saxon 2.
• Began Primary Arts of Language Reading and Primary Arts of Language Writing.

Jacob, Micah, and Nicholas:

• Completed 3 more lesson in Dayspring's The Pilgrims Story.
• Completed lessons 16-18 in Veritas Press' Self-Paced Old Testament and Ancient Egypt online course.
• Completed the "Descendents of Noah" map from Map Trek.

There was also Judo, gymnastics, piano, and their enrichment program during the week.

My stack of papers to check is about 3 feet high.

Week 4 in Review

I've decided to try and blog what we accomplish each week.  We get to the end of the week, and I tend to focus on what we didn't do, instead of seeing what we did do.  I'll list it out this week since it's my first week, but hopefully it'll morph into something a bit more interesting over time as I find a groove.

Luke (8th) and Ezekiel (7th):

• Finished the last two lectures in How to Become a SuperStar Student from The Teaching Company.  This series was very worthwhile (wait for a sale if you buy it, though), and I think we'll watch it again over the summer.  The boys were at least exposed to ideas on how to organize their time, take notes, and study, among other things.  They enjoyed the series.  There is a 3rd CD with 6 lectures on it for parents, but I haven't watched it yet.
• Finished up the introduction in Art of Argument.  Studying logical fallacies during election season makes it almost too easy to find examples every day.
• Completed about half of chapter 2 in Elementary Greek 2.  I'm pretty hands off with this, but it looks like this chapter is a review of verbs from level 1.
• In Henle, we studied the 2nd declension masculine and neuter, and they took a quiz from the Mother of Divine Grace Henle syllabus.  We did more diagramming, which I think is a lot of fun.  They also spent a day on Lingua Latina Chapter 1, and completed a worksheet about the chapter.  This book and the worksheets are written completely in Latin, so they really have to think and apply what they're learning.  There wasn't too much grumbling, so I'll call it a success.
• Completed chapters 7 and 8  in The Ancient Near Eastern World.  This week they studied the story of Gilgamesh and Sargon (the king of Akkad).  We're using the study guides along with these books, so they completed the corresponding study sheets for these chapters.
• Read tablets VIII-IX in Gilgamesh, and we used the discussion questions from Omnibus I and discussed friendship, and compared the friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu to the friendship of David and Jonathon from the Bible.  We're through Chapter 9 in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  We still need to discuss this, though.
• Finished chapter 6 in Rod & Staff's Spelling 6.
• Did lessons 6 and 7 in Rod & Staff's English 7 and read section 33 in Harvey's Elementary Grammar.
• Analyzed and began the Classical Writing steps (Theon's 6 components & six-sentence shuffle) for The Stag and His Reflection.
• Took Quiz 1 for The Rainbow science, and completed lessons 5 and 6, along with lab 3.  They studied curved motion, orbital motion, and wave motion.  They got a bit wet during the lab, which involved filling a cup on a string with water and spinning it in circles to see what happened.  
• Luke completed 3 chapters in Painless Algebra, and Ezekiel completed lessons 39 & 40 in Saxon 8/7.

Jacob (5th):

• Began chapter 2 in Latin for Children A
• Completed worksheets 4 & 5 from Rod & Staff's English 5.
• For math, he completed 4 pages of division practice and 2 pages of multiplication practice. He also completed chapters 2 and 3 in Life of Fred Farming.  We began Introduction to Fractions and Place Value 3 by Math Mammoth, and completed the first several pages in each of these books.  
• Took the chapter 2 test in Rod & Staff's Spelling 5, and did lesson 3.A.
• Read chapters 8 and 9 in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and chapters 4 and 5 in Shadow Hawk.

Micah (3rd):

• Completed 3 Callirobics lessons.
• Finished week 5 in Writing with Ease 2 and began week 6.  Since we're just doing it orally right now, it's going a lot more smoothly than it did last year.
• Did lessons 5, 6, 7 & 8 in Rod & Staff's English 3.  He diagrammed his first sentences this week!
• Read chapters 8 and 9 in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and read chapters 10-16 in More Stories from Grandma's Attic.
• Finished the Kumon Telling Time workbook (and boy, did he rejoice!), and completed pages 57-68 in his Kumon Dollars and Cents workbook.  He also finished chapters 2 and 3 in Life of Fred Apples.  He took an assessment in Saxon Math 3 and completed lessons 55.
• In Rod & Staff's Spelling 3, he finished lesson 2 and took his test, and completed parts A and B for lesson 3.

Nicholas (1st):

• Worked through another week of Kinderbach music lessons.
• Completed 3 Callirobics lessons.
• Finished week 2 and did days 1 & 2 for week 3 in Writing with Ease 1.  
• Read to me daily from Phonics Pathways and Reading Pyramids.  Completed 4 pages a day in Explode the Code 3.  Read Little Bear and Put Me in the Zoo.
• Completed pages 53-60 in his Kumon Easy Telling Time workbook.  He also completed several pages from Miquon Orange.  In Saxon Math 2, we did lessons 7-9 and he took an assessment.

Jacob, Micah, and Nicholas:

• Completed 4 more lessons in Dayspring's The Pilgrims Story.  They learned about the Church of England and how the Pilgrims left England.  They also learned about the Principal of Liberty of Conscience and took a quiz.
• Completed Lessons 11-14 in the Veritas Press Self Paced Online Old Testament and Ancient Egypt course.  They're learning about Cain and Abel.

They all practiced piano regularly, attended their enrichment program, and had a gymnastics class.  We weren't able to go to Judo this week.