St. John Bosco Academy

Journal 12/1/10

2010-12-01T06:26:00.000-08:00

Woke up early. Rick left at 6:00 a.m. to get to airport.

Really windy and rainy out. Dozens of stinkbugs driven in by weather. Yuck. Spent morning catching and flushing.

Everyone slept in except S. He spent time scanning, photoshopping Garfield comics into his deviantart page.

Made gingerbread and read two chapters of Little Apostles on Crutches.

B and S played upstairs.

J read Church history and took Ch. 4 chapter test.

Read The Erlkonig by Goethe to the S and B and then we listened to Shubert's and Loewe's interpretations of the poem. B asked to hear it again. They had fun huddling under a blanket during all this pretending to be frightened.

Watched next lecture in Discovering Music on Opera. Very long lecture. First time B watched with us. She was bored silly.

Took B to VT.

J played on computer then did a little math, then went outside. The temp has dropped from 60's to 42 degrees.

W practiced lots of music then went off to his music lesson.

J did some drawing. He and his friend at CLC are trying to challenge each other to draw more. Joe came over to play with S. They were making music in the basement and then sitting out on the screen porch writing a parody of a Pokemon show.

B played a lot on Webkinz. She designed several T-shirts. She was doing this on Thanksgiving as well with her cousin.

I made latkes and we said the Baruchas and lit the candles. After dinner the kids all played dreidel.

Took J to CLC

W came home from his music lesson and then later left to p/u J for me. While W was here though B and I got really into singing Chanukah oh Chanukah while W accompanied us on guitar.

Joe didn't go home until almost 9 o'clock!

Read next ch. of The Story of Rome about Lucretia to S and B. The put euphemistically described her as being 'insulted.'

Didn't want to read David Copperfield without R here. And R has been reading Westmark to B and S at night. So in lieu of other read alouds I read a story from Tales from a Korean Grandmother. I was falling asleep as I read.

J was stilling working on math when I went to bed.

B listened to a new story cd from the library (not sure which one) I think S was reading Dilbert comics.

Journal 11/30/10

2010-12-01T04:43:00.000-08:00

Forgot to mention S doing Sudokus at bedtime 11/29.

Tuesday - S and B went to Art class, J and I went to Latin. Magistra read Horatius at the Bridge. I've heard about that poem for ages but never actually heard it before.

Took J to Biology class. Can't remember what B and S did just then.. . .

W woke very late. He spent the day practicing music for hours and hours.

After J came home from Biology @ 2:30 he basically was on the computer playing games and reading web comics for most of the rest of the day.

S, B and I went to Target to various and sundry things. Then we hit the library. S brought along the Suduko book and instead of looking at books, worked on those. He's done 8 so far, he pointed out to me.

After the library we hit the grocery store to pick up necessary supplies for S's 4H cooking project. We also picked up dinner since I realized I wasn't going to be able to cook the dinner I had planned and get to 4H on time.

I don't know what B did at home while S and I were at 4H. S was only so-so into it. We were making a marinated veggie salad. Everybody brought veggies and oil and vinegar. Another lady in our group who is just wonderful at this kind of stuff. Had the kids mixing different amounts of oil and vinegar to test what the best ratio was for making a vinegrette. She had them close their eyes and then smell olive oil and canola oil to see if they could tell the difference. The kids all agreed olive oils smells good! They then compared different types of vinegar: malt, red wine, balsamic, apple cider, white vinegar. Some of kids really hated the vinegars. It took so long to clean up the mess we'd made that we didn't get home until after 9.

Rick read aloud to B and S (Westmark by Lloyd Alexander). J did read some more of Augustine's Confessions. Almost done!

W was a sweetie and hand washed a huge sink load of dishes (our dishwasher has been broken for a week).

B was still in gift making mode. She made something for S. R was up late doing work and said B was still awake at 1 a.m!!!!

Journal 11/29/10

2010-11-29T07:22:00.000-08:00

People slept in quite a bit. Recovering from Thanksgiving holidays!

S got up and went to watch Fred Newman videos on youtube. Perfecting his trumpet sounds!

B got up and immediately opened up two Advent calendars. The Latin words for today is Nox - night.

I started new read aloud Little Apostle on Crutches - only got a couple pages in.

J got up took a shower and did laundry and ate breakfast.

For morning reading time - Becky read the whole Mini page from the Wash Post. This was amazing as she just started independently reading last week! She even did the word search, an activity she's avoided up until now! J helped a bit with the word search.

S - read next chapter in Li Lun.

S - read next chapter in St. Patrick's Summer Catechism about Abraham and Isaac

B played on funbrain for a little bit.

J read Church history but he was reading it in bed and fell asleep!

S drew a little then practiced beatboxing and mouth sounds on the microphone downstairs.

I read B some of the ideas from the Unjournaling book. She liked the sentence that was the same forwards and backwards and copied that over on her own initiative and then showed it to S.

W came upstairs and practiced on the piano for quite some time.

I put on Christian Heritage Art Curriculum dvd to look at lesson on Medieval Illuminations. I had wanted to do that for a few weeks, ever since we saw that movie on the Book of Kells. But I suddenly remember to do it this morning. S came in and watched a bit. Then asked me to go to the modern art lesson. It was on Cezanne and seeing geometric shapes in landscapes.

B has been obsessing on the Toys R Us flyers from the Sunday newspaper. S and B spent a long time during lunch poring over them. They were playing their gurgle twins game. They pretend they are twins and speak to each other in their 'gurgle twin' voices. They were pretending that dollar symbols were really cents symbols and that they only had a 50 cent budget. Then they were comparing prices of toys this way and doing all kinds of addition and multiplication problems in their heads while playing. If you were going to look up 'unschooling math' in some guidebook somewhere, you'd have seen their picture there!!!!!

B and I started looking through the book How Math Works. I got this book off the shelf where it has been for a few years! We looked at various projects most of which we didn't really understand or we recognized from watching Zoom and Fetch with Ruff Ruffman, (we concluded these shows are very educational!) B got inspired to make a paper doll chain from the project on symmetry.

B and S went to play on their bikes.

J still working on Church History. I believe he's been very half-hearted about this all day!

W had call with Collegeplus @ 2:45.

I've been trying to do Latin homework but having a terrible time concentrating. What is wrong with me. It is not sticking at all!

B and S listened to songs on computer.

J and I studied Latin. J worked diligently on that. We can't remember if we are having a test! Ahg!

W, S, B and I decide to go to the Holiday stroll our little town has. We've never been before. J elects to stay home. They close off the little street that parallels the main street. All the shops are open late. They had a mini petting zoo which S and b liked: mostly mother and child, like mamma llama, baby llama, mamma cow, baby calf, mamma goat with two of the most darling baby goats ever. A donkey and two sheep, some rabbits and a hen with two baby chicks.

They also had a stage with a bunch of kids up on it singing pseudo 'holiday' songs. People had little grills fired up and you could go toast marshmellows over them. Lots of free coffee and popcorn. We went into the toy store (our very favorite toystore which we frequent anyway) and S bought a little gift for his friend and B bought a little gift for J. W disappeared long before this to go eat dinner. Santa came down the street on a fire engine. We didn't really complete the stroll, there may have been more to see but we got hungry and decided to look for a place to eat a real dinner. We cut through an alley and discovered a Cornish Pasty shop, brand new! I thought they were delicious but B didn't like hers. I got a cheese, potato and onion one.

B got really into wrapping her present for J and then making presents. She mad something for H (more paper dolls) and then something else for W (though I don't think I know what that was).

Came home and read some more David Copperfield out loud to everyone. J and I did more Latin. R read more Westmark to B and S.

Daily Journal 11/11

2010-11-11T08:48:00.000-08:00

Got up with headache. Nursed headache til it went away.

Still a good morning:

Read about St. Martin of Tours to B and S.

B and S did cursive

B did two addition problems and an expanded notation.

S did page in Ch. 26 review of imp. present, future to be translation.

B did lesson 22 in GWL - D.O. in Latin nauta or nautam.

S and B also looked at videos of foxes and their sounds on youtube (we've got foxes out back) and also some pampaloosa youtube videos.

J got himself up and finished up his math homework. Took a couple hours.

W practiced lots of piano and guitar.

W read Gilbert! magazine.

B read the text of a long game on One More Level called the The Red Button. It's a silly game where you keep clicking the red button while text pops up telling you not to click it. It gets sillier and sillier. B read A LOT of it with some help from me.

Took W to metro to go to piano lesson and J to Algebra tutor.

S did his math while I was gone!!!! I'm amazed!

B and S also got really into reading the Guiness Book of World records.

Sent them outside to play on this beautiful fall day.

S and W left after early dinner to go see Steve Reich in concert.

B played computers games on PBS kids.

J did his Biology homework.

Read B more Jo's Boys.

Daily Journal 11/10

2010-11-10T09:27:00.000-08:00

Got up too early. Whiled away morning doing a little bits of business type stuff and a lot of unnecessary stuff! Very tired!

S remixed theme song of comic his friend came up with.

B played with her dolls and stuff animals. There was a wedding and for some reason B was the one dressing up in a white veil with bouquet of flowers.

Both watched an episode of Phineas and Ferb.

W got up early and went to Mass. He also at some point in the morning came up with a plan for what he is going to do every day between now and audition day.

J took his church history test and read Confessions.

Lunch

On most Wednesdays, another teen comes over to study history and lit with Josh and me. She hadn't gotten much done though over the past week so we just reviewed the study questions in Ch 3 of The History of the Church. We also went through Einnarsson's Classical Language Art section of phrases other than prepositional, that is participial and infinitive phrases. We also planned what to do for the next few classes. The kids are going to write a short research paper based on suggestion in study guide.

B and S played outside a lot. Beautiful fall day.

Talked to H on phone. She got all her packages. It is her birthday today!

W went to music tutor.

B went to VT I ran to library to get out books to possibly entice S into reading more. Got two audios for B.

Brought back S's friend Joe. They've been riding bikes. I take friend home after dinner when taking J to CLC.

J is working on math.

B is having fun playing computer games.

After dinner took Joe home and J too his CLC.

W saw a mouse in his room!

Read next ch. of Story of the Romans about road building to S and B

R is reading Lloyd Alexander book to S.

Daily Journal 11/9/10

2010-11-09T17:56:00.000-08:00

Got up, got breakfast

Went to Latin with Josh

B and S went to art class - learned about drawing cubes!

Lunch at chick fil a.

Took J to Biology lab where he dissected a cow's eyeball!

B did two problems on adding with lists of double digit numbers.

S did long division with answer with mixed numbers

B and S went play at friends house. B and her friend ran around a lot outside and played with dolls. S and his friend sat outside on picnic table and made up and drew cartoons.

J read from new quote book.

W?????

J read more Church history

R came home for dinner early to pick up car from shop.

W finished listening to The Man Who Was Thursday on audio.

Had sloppy Joes for dinner.

Watched Jeopardy after dinner and then next unit in Discovering Music on Salons, Poetry and the Power of Song. Neat stuff.

Read the story of Tarquin and the Eagle to B and S.

J worked more on history.

W and R went to get car

B likes playing with etch a sketch on R's ipad.

Read more Jo's Boys to B.

Daily Journal 11/8/10

2010-11-08T09:27:00.000-08:00

Woke really early because of time change, did laundry, ran dishwasher, fed pets, surfed net, made coffee, worked on NaNoWriMo novel.

S woke at 7, played on computer (what tho????)

B woke, B and R had breakfast together (R had bagel and oj, B just some hot cocoa I made her.)

Cajoled S into taking shower.

R got W up to take car to shop.

B asked me to read Jo's Boys to her. Read a ch.

J woke up still had cold and his eyes are all red and goopy.

Took shower while B and S were working on cursive handwriting from their books.

J????

W came back and practiced guitar

Read Bible History about Joel and Micah to B and S

S read next ch. in St. Patrick's Catechism

Cajoled J into taking shower.

J did his laundry then read some Church history

Did some math with B Saxon 5/4 lesson 16

S did p. in Latin workbook reviewing preposition vocabulary and present, imp. and future tenses of esse.

S did mixed practice in Lesson 25 in 7/6. Slow going, she was getting hungry.

B and I did Lesson 22 in GSWL on direct objects. She got it!

W made himself a ham & cheese sub, J ate leftover pizza (his favorite!), S had tuna w/crackers, B had fried baloney. I ate leftover chicken and mashed potatoes. Mealtime is like herding cats!

B has been playing with paper airplanes since All Saints Party, making different ones and seeing which flew the best. She and S had a contest and declared winners.

B has been busy making nice little homes for a particular baby doll and just generally playing doll and making her clothes out of old dolls clothes or hand me downs or rags.

S found a cool website that has a complicated drum machine that he's been exploring.

J and I did more Latin homework. Still have one more paragraph to translate but this has been fun!

Cleaners are here. I love my cleaners!

B got herself ready for American Heritage Girls 2 hours early!

B found a pretty card for H and wrote Happy Birthday to her in it in cursive.

S was fooling around on the guitar

B and S started playing around on the computer. We all kind of run and hide when the cleaners get here

J is really into tvtropes website which he's been reading a lot lately.

W worked on his Life Purpose workbook for CollegePlus. He kind of finds it bogus so he's been dragging his feet on it.

W watched Talking Heads live in Rome video.

W had call with counselor from CollegePlus @ 2:45

Made chicken Parmesan, ran off to American Heritage Girls with B. J took out of oven for me.

AHG was so much fun, nature study, learning the oath and creed, singing, playing games.

J worked on math and read more church history

W read this new book of quotes granddad's friend gave him this weekend.

S chatted with his friend Jack.

W and S watched the Simpsons.

during dinner S and W gave us history of different videogames and different creators like Tim Schaeffer and Dave Grossman. This segued into S giving the other kids acting lessons he learned from his acting camp this summer.

J dismissed himself from the melee and went back to work on either math or history.

I read about the Horatii and Curiatii from The Story of the Romans to B and S

Read Jo's Boys to B.

J stayed up to 11:45 doing Biology.

American West Book List

2010-10-17T04:37:00.000-07:00

I love books and I love lists, so I like book lists! I like to forage through Amazon lists to get ideas for new reads. I love those memes where you have lists of books you've read. You get the idea. Right now I'm reading Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey. I've heard about Zane Grey for ages and ages and have never gotten around to reading anything by him until now. The book is good though the whole premise is based on the evil Mormons. What was it with Mormons? Were they really that bad? Another book I've read, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, also depicted Mormons as ruthless, greedy, twisted people. However, if you can get over this premise, Grey's writing is top notch. Very realistic, lean, builds tension right away.

This got me thinking about the many books this East Coast girl has enjoyed about America's West. And last night as I was falling asleep I started to make a list, starting from the books I read as a child:

1. Old Yeller by Fred Gipson - set in Texas, boy and his dog story. Classic.

2. By The Great Horn Spoon by Sid Fleischman - funny account of a boy's adventure during the California Gold Rush.

3. Lotta Crabtree; Gold Rush Girl by Marian T. Place - this book is one of the Childhood of Famous Americans books. I think this one is out of print now. I actually remember being sick and home from school in fourth grade and being completely entranced by this book. I recently found it at a used book store and bought it again for my kids! It's about a girl who took to the stage during the California Gold Rush.

4. The Red Pony by John Steinbeck - When I was little this book was in my bookcase in my bedroom. It was a hand-me-down so I think it was an edition printed in the 1940's. I loved the illustrations. I loved the story. I read it over and over again. This was set in the California mountains maybe in the 1920's or thereabouts?

5. Brighty of the Grand Canyon - Marguerite Henry - I went through a M. Henry phase where I read pretty much everything she wrote. I've never been to the Grand Canyon but this book sure made me feel like I had.

6. Mustang, Wild Spirit of the West by Marguerite Henry - another horse book. A great read!

7. The Great Brain series by John D. Fitzgerald - I know I read some of these as a child, because when I picked them up at the library to read aloud to my oldest kids when they were little, they rang a bell, though I didn't remember much. We read the whole series and enjoyed them immensely. These books are very affectionate towards Mormons!. A good antidote to some other books listed here!

8. The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder - I read and reread these books every year for years.

9. My Friend Flicka, Thunderhead and The Green Hills of Wyoming by Mary O'Hara - My Friend, Flicka has gotten short shrift at the movies. All these books really could be considered adult books. Thunderhead portrays with poignant detail a marriage going through a hard time. The Green Hills of Wyoming are about Ken moving into adulthood. They all paint a vivid picture of Wyoming and ranching. So well written. I reread these many times too.

10. Shane by Jack Schaefer - I also remember reading this book. I was in high school, it was a Sunday and I was lying on the living room couch, all curled up and completely absorbed in this book.

11. True Grit by Charles Portis - I think I might have read this book about the same time as Shane. Gripping! The whole snake pit was horrifying! The kind of book that haunts you for days afterward. They are making a new movie about this! Can they top John Wayne???

12. My Antonia by Willa Cather - about Bohemian settlers in Nebraska. Searingly beautiful and sad. I've read it several times again since that first encounter back in high school.

13. A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich - I just remember reading this at the insistence of a friend. I remember thinking it wasn't as good as The Little House books. That's all I can remember! Maybe I'll have to reread it.

14. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - this isn't really about how the West was won but since it was about a family's odyssey from Oklahoma to California, it felt very western to me.

15. Giants of the Earth by Ole Rolvaag - I read this on Christmas break during my 2nd year of college, if I am remembering correctly. Finished reading it and then immediately started it over again. I tried to read the sequel but found it too depressing. About Norwegian settlers in Minnesota. It was originally written in Norwegian by an immigrant. It was a best seller in Norway before it was translated into English and sold here in the U.S.

16. The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor - I don't know why this book isn't more popular (except for the prejudice against Mormons) but it is a rip-roaring tale of a boy and his father as they travel across America to get to the Gold Rush in California. It's got some hair-raising scenes. Rollicking would be a good adjective for this book!

17. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry - a classic. So well written, the characters are like real people. And they made an excellent mini-series out of it, but the book is still better.

18. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather - another searingly beautiful and moving novel (based on a true person). I love the sparse, evocative writing style. This one is set in New Mexico in the 1800s.

19. Papa Married a Mormon by John D. Fitzgerald - this is by the same author who wrote The Great Brain and it is very similar except it is written for adults (it is very clean, just he was aiming at a different audience!)and is about his own family. Very enjoyable. What is remarkable about it is how much affection he has for the Mormons even though he followed his father's faith and became Catholic.

20. Little Britches series by Ralph Moody - I didn't learn about this series until I had children. I've only read the first book. I've always intended to read more of these.

21. The Virginian by Owen Wister - I just read this classic this past summer. Such great, complex characters and a noble American sense of virtue made this thoroughly enjoyable.

One thing I notice as I list these books is the lack of stories told about or from the Native American points of view. I did go through a period when I was interested in Native Americans. My family went to see the Cherokee Indian Reservation in the Smoky Mountains one summer when I was young. We learned about the Trail of Tears and Andrew Jackson. I know I read Scott O'Dell books and various biographies about American Indians. I remember in particular reading a book about Chief Joseph which inspired me to recite his famous surrender speech in 8th grade when we were required to memorize and recite something in front of the class. I remember reading A Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter, though that isn't set in the West. Maybe I should try to read up some history and literature written from the Native American perspective to balance out my reading.

It's Been a Quiet Week Here. . . .

2010-10-12T04:11:00.000-07:00

at St. John Bosco Academy. I stole that opening line that from Garrison Keillor!

It was a very unschoolish week with lots of learning going on. Well, it was unschoolish for the youngest two. Josh kept plodding along through his high school subjects. Unfortunately, I left the little memory card in my laptop and not in my camera and so I don't have many pictures.

The weekend was busy: Saturday, Sean and Becky helped sell baked goods at the 4H booth at the town Fall Festival. The money went to two charities: one to rescue lost pets and the other to the children's wing of the local hospital. Josh went to an overnight retreat on Friday and came back Sat. evening.

Sunday was more 4H with our first Dog Obedience project meeting. Our Sheltie, Tillie, is rather reserved and she did not like the vulgar and overly excited hound/lab mixes two of the other kids had. She was totally freaked out. She is very sensitive. We'll have to gradually break her in. We also went to our parish's first Youth Mass of the year which was at 6 pm. Following the Mass they always have some kind of service project. Since October is Respect Life month it was an activity to raise money for a local crisis pregnancy center.

Monday, being Columbus Day, was kind of a pseudo-holiday though Rick went to work. I got lots of errands done. Josh had to work on Latin and Biology and he read more of Augustine's Confessions. Becky and I went on a hike with American Heritage Girls troop. Will had a phone call with his College Plus coach. Poor Sean went over to his friend's house but came home feeling really lousy.

Tuesday I was afraid I would have to cajole Becky and Sean to attend the art class but, miracle of miracles, they've decided to stick with it! However, Sean woke up with a chest cold so only Becky went. Josh went to Latin early to retake his test. Got 1oo%. Then he was off to a Biology field study on primitive plants. He enjoyed it greatly! Becky played in the muddy Potomac and saw a huge eel!

Wed - I got 2.5 hours sleep! Was I draaaggggiiiinnnngggg! Got Josh up @ 6 to get him to the PSAT by 7. Read aloud to Becky about St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Sean was still under the weather as was Will. Becky and I went to our homeschool group's 1st monthly meeting, something I am coordinating. We had a good first meeting. I'm excited about it. Took Becky to VT, then home again. Made spaghetti carbonara for dinner. Rick was home all day working, yippee, love it when he's home because he is so infrequently! Will had picked Josh up from PSAT. Josh thought he did okay. Will skipped his music lesson. Josh did a lesson in math and then went to his teen group at church. Becky was really into showing her dad everything about Webkinz which she's has been very into lately. She says she's learning a lot of math that way!

Thursday was our only formal studies day and what a good learning day! Surprisingly, Becky and Sean worked quite diligently without any complaint. They actually seemed to be enjoying themselves! Can it be???? Becky and I decided to try to do a lapbook for St. Elizabeth that she could show off at the All Saints Party. She and Sean worked in cursive, Latin and math. Becky read me some comics from Sunday's newspaper (still floating around the house due to my sloppy housekeeping). Sean wrote a letter to his friend, addressed it and mailed it off. I did an impromtu spelling lesson the kids actually enjoyed. Josh worked on history a lot. He didn't go to his math tutor as she has sick kiddos. W canceled his piano lesson but did lots of CLEP prep. It was rainy all day. I had been fishing around for a good movie set in the middle ages because we are kind of going down that rabbit trail with the St. Elizabeth book. Someone suggested The Secret of Kells so we watched that. Excellent movie! Wonderful animation and the story is interesting. I thought scenes went so fast, I felt I was missing things. I think we'll watch it again.

Friday - well Becky woke up with the sore throat/fatigue/congestion thing that seems to be moving through the house. Sean had an appointment with the eye doctor/vision therapist. He's been complaining so much of his eyes hurting. He had those dilation drops so even if he were recovered enough from his cold, he wasn't up to tennis lessons. Josh made it to both his Biology class and tennis which was good. It's a beautiful fall day but 3 out of the 4 children living here aren't feeling great enough to go out. What a shame. Then I discovered that my kitchen sink was leaking and dripping into the basement! So between sick kids and waiting for the plumber I doubt very much that I'll get to the opera with Rick tonight. We were supposed to see Salome. This happened once before though and they let us switch our tickets for another night. Ah well, we'll see.

To end on a lighter note! Here's a picture of Rick flying his birthday present to himself. He bought some new-fangled, computerized remote control hovercraft to play with.
See that thing in the middle of the picture? That's this weird noisy fan like thing that you can move around the room using a remote.

I don't get it, either.

Before & After Clutter - 1 hour challenge

2010-10-10T04:41:00.000-07:00

I've always loved those before and after pictures that people post on their blogs where they shoot a picture of a perfectly horrible closet or desk, clean it out, and then take another picture of the very satisfying result! A nice clean, organized desk/closet.

Clutter is my enemy. And it has nearly won the battle! I, like Pigpen with his cloud of dust, generate clutter where ever I go. I do it. The Mom. My children have taken after me. And my husband, well, unfortunately we are very similar in this respect. So I feel like I am always swimming upstream when it comes to clutter.

One of my favorite shows is Clean House.

Often on Saturday mornings I come down to a completely ruined kitchen/family room. And often on Saturday mornings I set the timer to one hour and I declutter and tidy as much as I can in those 60 minutes. It really only touches the surface but it does make the main living area look fairly nice for maybe half a day. It gets untidy at a very rapid pace. Yesterday morning, I thought, now I can put photos on my blog! I, too, can show those nifty before and after pictures!

So here goes. I give you the kitchen table.

Even worse is the kitchen island.
I also took a picture of our 'jacket chair' where all the jackets and other sundry stuff gets dumped (the red sweater is mine!).

So here are the after pictures. The kitchen island:

You can see that after an hour, I've cleaned lots of the surface but there is still a stack of mail and a little pile of odds and ends, mostly little toys. Ideally, there should only be the three glass canisters of flour and sugar. And then there is the box of pink tissues. . . But still it looks better than before! You can see more surface!

Here's my desk before:
And here it is after:

I have this long kitchen counter under my windows which is a terrible clutter trap. Here it is before:

After:Alas, the jacket chair became the stuffed animal chair, though it still looks a little neater than before.

I forgot to take an after picture for the kitchen table. Oh well.

I decluttered other areas too, like the corner by the stove and the top of the old fashioned ice box, but I am running out of time so I'll just finish with our mantle. Usually there is not line up of crosses on the mantle, but we put them up there for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and I kind of like them, so I'm not ready to put them away yet.

Week in Review 10/4/10-10/8/10

2010-10-07T07:54:00.000-07:00

Monday, Will and I participated in 40 Days for Life by praying for an hour in front of an abortion clinic. This is the 3rd time we've done this together.

Here's the academic stuff we accomplished this week:

History
Sean - Discovering music - unit 5 or 6? how the church and the Reformation effected development of music history. Very interesting.
Becky - I'm reading her Elizabeth and the Three Crowns - about St. Eliz of Hungary. We looked up Wartburg Castle and Thuringia. She's decided to be St. Elizabeth at our All Saints Party 11/1.
Josh -we are now meeting with another teen to study Church History together. Josh just completed 1/3 of Ch. 1

Math
Sean is up to Lesson 17 in Saxon 7/6
Becky - Lesson 11 in Saxon 5/4
Josh - Lesson 93 and test 23 in Saxon Algebra II

Latin
Becky just learned about plurals in the first declension
Sean started Lesson 24 in LfCa; more vocab and future tense of esse
Josh and I are learning the passive tense for 4th conjugation

Writing
Becky and Sean are both working on cursive; Becky finished Week 11 in WWE. She's complaining it isn't challenging enough. I think she's right! We might bump her up.
Sean did little creative writing this week, :(
Josh wrote a short essay in history; also little creative writing :(
However, Sean, Josh and Will all decided to participate in NaNoWriMo next month.
I also did some informal spelling with Sean and Becky this week.

Science
Nada for Becky and Sean - yikes, it is falling through the cracks again as it always does!!!!! Gotta get on the ball!
Josh did Bio. homework, attended both Biology classes and took a Biology test this week.

Literature/reading:
Josh is reading St. Augustine's Confessions - we did the study questions through book 3.
Sean is reading a Series of Unfortunate Events and he just started reading St. Patrick's Summer Catechism.
Becky is still working on her chapter book. I continue to read aloud Little Men with Sean occasionally listening in.

Art
Sean and Becky attended their art class and enjoyed it, but they still don't seem to be clicking with the teacher. So I don't know if I am going to continue paying for something that I have to cajole them into attending. This has become a point of dismay and frustration with my dearly beloved children!

Sean's is the top painting. You can see Becky's signature on hers.

Music
Sean's back to playing a lot of piano this week. He sort of had lost interest for a few months there. He's also taken to playing the ocarina. He played happy birthday to Rick on it, but it doesn't have quite the octave range he needed!
Will attended both his sight reading, etc class and his piano lesson. He's coming along wonderfully. Very hard working. He's been practicing a lovely Bach piece this week.

The kids put on a show for Rick (except Josh who was off doing math). His birthday was Tuesday. Unfortunately, the camera chose that time to run out of batteries so I don't have any pics! Here's Becky icing his cake.She insisted on putting 48 candles on the cake as well as the numerals. I thought it looked very Seussian!

Josh had lots of varying experiences with tests this week. He took a preliminary drivers ed test on line and passed. He got 74%. He was kind of tickled since he hasn't studied anything at all. On Tuesday he got back the test he took in Latin last week and got an F. He was pretty shocked. The teacher pulled a fast one on us! She said that from now on she is counting macrons. Before she'd say, try to remember where the macrons go, but only take of 1/10 or 1/4th of a point. Now you get a full point off! So the stakes are higher! Hopefully, he'll retake the test next week. Then Josh took a Biology test on Tuesday. The teacher graded it very quickly, except for the essay and said he'd gotten a 91 but he wouldn't know his final score til she'd read the essay. Well, he got his test back and he'd really gotten an 83%. Turns out she had miscalculated before and he didn't do very well on his essay. So that was a bit of a bummer. But he did do very well on his Algebra II test. The tutor didn't grade it but she said he got everything right except for one little aspect of something. She said he had done very well.

We don't do tests at all in the lower grades, except for the California Achievement Tests and it is always a long, hard learning curve when the kids get up into high school level and start having to deal with testing. Here's a photo of Josh's 10th grade school books.

Friday was unschooling. Will slept in (he'd had a nasty headache the night before), Josh went to Biology in the a.m., Sean read A Series of Unfortunate Events and Becky helped me bake stuff for the 4H Bake Sale this weekend. Then we had tennis in the afternoon.

With all the baking this week, it was a terrible time to start Weight Watchers. I do believe I will weigh more than I did last week. It will be humilitating to get on the scale! I just can't have baked goods sitting around my house if I'm going to lose weight! Absolutely no will power, whatsoever! Next week, no sweets in the house, at all!

The Mouse Named George

2010-09-30T08:41:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess and she lived in a beautiful castle. There were many gardens and greenhouses in the castle. There were many courts and they had gardens in them too.

Once when she was enjoying these gardens immensely, a dragonfly flew into her garden. The dragonfly said to her,

“Good day, Princess.”

“What a strange dragonfly you are, that can speak!”

“But Princess, but Princess!” said the dragonfly.

“What is it, dragonfly?” said the princess.

“A big terrible troll is coming this way! There were tales for ages and ages that a troll would come some day. And I’m afraid now it will come true. It has come true!” said the dragonfly.

And soon the princess heard the tromp, tromp of immense boots.

“There it is! There it is!” said the dragonfly.

And before the princess knew what was happening the roof of the greenhouse was being taken off and she was in a very ugly hand. With fear, she fainted and the next thing she knew she was lying in a damp cave.

Meanwhile, in the princess’ kingdom, the dragonfly had warned the king what had happened to his daughter. The king sent out his soldiers to put up posters promising anyone who could find his daughter riches beyond his wildest dreams.

Meanwhile, in a small hole by the side of the road, a small mouse had just woken up from a nap. He lazily crawled out of his hole and looked astonished at a poster that had definitely not been there the day before. It read:

Any man who can find the princess, my daughter, will be given money, a good place to sleep and great favors from me. Any man, any man at all, I don’t care what man, I don’t care if it is a witch, anyone at all who can bring back my daughter.

The mouse asked his best friend the dragonfly why there were posters everywhere saying the same thing. The dragonfly explained the whole thing, for it was the same dragonfly who had flown into the princesses greenhouse.

“Well, George,” said the dragonfly, for the mouse’s name was George.

“I can tell you the exact place of the troll’s cave, if you promise to give me half the money you win, if you win it.”

The mouse said it was a deal.

The dragonfly told him the place which was miles upon miles away. But all these miles he traveled were miles of smiles because he couldn’t help thinking of all the money he would win when he rescued the princess.

He finally got to an immense cave after days and days of traveling. He knocked on the door but there was no reply. He knocked as hard as he could but hardly any noise came from the knocking.

I am a very small mouse, he said to himself. Not knowing what to do, he sat down in the mud despairingly. But then he saw a bit of vine hanging down from a tree. And then he saw some sticks lying about and a few pebbles. That gave him an idea. He nibbled off a bit of the vine, picked up a pebble and a stick and tied them together with the pebble in the center. He put it down and tested it. It worked remarkably and rocked back and forth for the pebble was very round.

He then balanced another larger pebble on one end of the stick. He positioned the catapult so that the pebble would shoot directly towards the door. Then he jumped on the other end of the stick. The pebble flew into the air and glanced off the door with a loud bump!

Now all I have to do is wait, said George to himself. And sure enough, very soon, he heard the tramping of big boots. A very, very ugly face popped out of the door.

The troll looked about and was about to close the door, not seeing anybody, when the mouse suddenly cried out as loud as he could:

“Excuse me, troll! Would you please let me in? I would like to challenge you to a battle.”

“Alright! Come in! We shall have the battle tomorrow.”

But please pause this story right now for I think I must tell you a little something about the troll. You see, when the troll popped his face out the door, it wasn’t just once face, it was many faces. For it was a many-faced troll. He had about a dozen faces. Each face wore a different expression. He never slept or at least he never closed all his faces’ eyes at the same time. You see, while he slept, his faces took turns opening their eyes and keeping watch.

The next day when they had their battle, all throughout the night, the mouse had been devising a plan. He had three sacks, each full of different things. The first sack was full of pepper. The second sack was full of salt and the third sack had a roasted chicken in it.

George came out onto the field carrying the first sack. The pepper made all the troll’s faces sneeze a great deal. Then he went back in, put the first sack down and took out the second sack.

He brought it out onto the field and the salt made all the troll’s faces cough a great deal. Then he went back in and put down sack number two and picked up sack number three.

He brought it out onto the field. The smell of the chicken made all of the troll’s mouths water a great deal. The troll couldn’t fight but just fell down with hunger. For his weakness was anything that made him sneeze and the hunger just made him collapse. He died right there on the battlefield.

Now the beautiful princess was saved from the cave. She came back with George and gave him a mouse-sized version of the castle and riches beyond his wildest dreams, as the posters had said. Of course, he gave half of his riches to the dragonfly, as was the deal.

And they all lived happily ever after.

The End

Weekly Report 9/26/10-9/10/1/10

2010-09-29T09:32:00.000-07:00

Because I can't walk and chew gum at the same time, we took off from academics on Monday and ran errands instead! Actually Josh and Will did their usual stuff, but Sean and Becky got the day off. I had promised my college-aged daughter a care package two weeks ago and had never gotten to the post office to mail it. Why is it that things other people seem to do effortlessly takes me soooo long??? We also went to Target to buy Halloween decorations. It turns out we are hosting our neighborhood Halloween party. Becky has big plans for decorating our front yard and I wanted to buy the stuff before it sold out. We also did more unsuccessful shopping for art supplies for Sean and Becky's art class. Strike number 2. I really should order this stuff on line, though the teacher said that was too expensive and assured me I'd be able to find the supplies at Michael's or Target. Lies! All lies!

We did buy a fun kit of paper bag Halloween puppets that Becky promptly made:

Monday was also a big day because Becky attended her first American Heritage Girls meeting.

They learned songs to sing when they visit nursing homes. Becky enjoyed herself immensely (as she would say!).

Tuesday - was chaotic! Josh and I did got to our Latin class, but Becky stayed home claiming she had an earache and Sean, who is not especially enamoured with the art class, stayed home too. Becky really did seem sick and I was all set to deal with a nasty ear infection, but she was greatly recovered by the next day and by the next evening seemed completely recovered. I am thinking she might have allergies and the rainy weather was doing funny things to her???? Does that make sense? My kids do tend to get these short lived (Thank God!) illnesses. Josh went to his Biology field trip, a river study. It stopped raining and the weather was beautiful for a few hours just in time for it!

I blogged about what I did Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday evening we had our first 4H meeting. Tuesday was a long day!

Wednesday - I actually did some lessons with Becky and Sean; the usual suspects: math, Latin and cursive. Will announced that he had finished reading (actually he's been listening on audio) the Penteteuch, so that completes his own self-styled study of the first 5 books of the Bible. He also finished reading The Phantom Tollbooth to Becky. I have the best 18 yo son in the world!

Becky wrote a story! She dictated it to me. Here it is. Wednesday is also our day for Vision Therapy in the afternoon and CLC (Catholic Teen group) in the evening for Josh. Also, I went and checked out our homeschool support groups new meeting place at a nearby church. Looks good! I finished reading Little Women to Becky and started on Little Men. We are having such fun with these books! Sean finally finished The Treasure Seekers and is now starting on A Series of Unfortunate Events. Josh has started reading the Dune series which I've never read but Rick loved back in high school. I wonder if it has anything objectionable in it. Rick never remembers that kind of stuff! Rick also started reading King's Solomon's Mine out loud to Sean.

Thursday - I had forgotten to have angel food cake for dessert on 9/29 in honor of Michaelmas or the Feast of the Archangels. So instead we had it for breakfast on 9/30.

Thursday we also read about St. Jerome from one of my favorite books. I've been reading this aloud to kids every year on his feast day for a while now. It's become a tradition.

Here's a final photo of Sean working on his Latin and Becky showing off an angel puppet she made while I was reading to her.

Today is Friday. If the weather clears enough, we'll have tennis this afternoon. Josh has his second Biology class this a.m. Hopefully I'll get some lessons in with Becky and Sean too.

Finally, Will has been practicing Eric Satie's Gnosseinne No. 1. (This video isn't Will playing it, I just found it on youtube) but this delicate, evocative melody has been floating around the house all week and seems to go well with the rainy weather and the dark clouds.

I saw Don Bosco!

2010-09-28T13:48:00.000-07:00

I went to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. (I know that is a mouthful!). It is one of my favorite places on earth. It is in Washington D.C. right next to the Catholic University of America. I believe it is the largest church in North America.

Today they had the relic of St. John Bosco displayed for veneration. St. John Bosco is an incorruptible. That means that, miraculously, his corpse didn't decay. Here's a link to info about him.

I wanted to take my kids with me. But Becky woke up with an earache and the day was already very complicated with driving Josh to and fro to classes. At one point Will was supposed to go pick up Josh from a science field study but if I took Sean with me then Becky would be left alone for a while and I just wasn't comfortable with that. So I decided that I really, really wanted to venerate St. Don Bosco, so I was going. So I left the kids behind. I was very sad about that. There were lots of kids there and it really made me wish my kids were there with me too. At least the two youngest ones! The church was filled with reverent silence and there were many people lined up on either side of the casket, praying. I got there when the line was relatively short. I got up to the casket took one look and started crying. I tried to take a picture but felt shy about it. So I just hurriedly snapped this one.

After that I went and sat down and tried to get myself together (fished in my purse for kleenex!) and tried to calm down and pray a bit. I prayed a very heartfelt prayer for St. John Bosco to intercede for me. I want so much to emulate him in his devotion, compassion, patience and joyful energy! I said the little prayer they gave us on entering the Basilica:

St. John Bosco, full of confidence I turn to you, asking you to intercede for me. Help me to lead a good and happy life. May I always be a help to others, avoid sin and die a happy death. Bring down the blessings of God on all those in my thoughts and prayers now, and obtain for me the special graces which I now ask. . . . I trust in God's love and mercy to grant what God knows is best for me. Don Bosco, who on earth had such a great devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and to Mary, Help of Christians, and who always had compassion for those who were suffering, obtain from Jesus and His Heavenly Mother the grace I now request and also a sincere acceptance to the Will of God. Amen. St. John Bosco, Father and Teacher of the young, pray for us. Recite the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory Be.

I walked around the beautiful church but still felt shy about taking pictures when so much praying was going on! I did take a shot of the little shrine to Mary Help of Christians

After that I went to the bookstore. I am sucker for bookstores! There was a Salesian priest in there wearing one of the very cool t-shirts I had seen the Basilica staff wearing. I asked him if they were for sale but he said he didn't know but that I could call the Salesian office and find out.

I didn't stay very long in the bookstore because I really felt I ought to be getting home to my sick child who'd I'd barely seen all day and also I wanted to avoid rush hour. So I ran back up to the sanctuary to bid St. John Bosco goodbye. The line had shortened again so I went up again to the casket. This time I took this photo:
It was a very moving experience. The incorruptibles just freak me out. In a good way!

Anyway, beloved John Bosco, thank you for your devotion to God and for being such a holy role model. Your heart was full of Christ's love for sinners. Pray for us!

My First Weekly Photo Journal

2010-09-23T12:30:00.000-07:00

Here's Sean working on his music. He's learning to play the guitar. This week he got a new keyboard that plugs directly into the computer. He loves to write music and mix tracks. He and his friend Jack are working together. Jack is designing a video game and Sean is writing all the music.

Here are the books Sean is working in right now. We only do the history and science once a week but the math, handwriting and Latin are pretty much 4 or 5 times a week. Religion (the red book) is done about 2 or 3 times a week.

I'm writing about Sean first because he's the one who is teaching me how to post photos to my blog!
Here's miz Becky-boo using beads to help her do her Saxon math.
Here are the books we've been using for Becky. The only book you probably can't make out is an old, 1896 edition of James Baldwin's 50 Famous Stories Retold. I am a sucker for antique books. The McGuffey Reader dates from 1919. Wild Animals I Have Known is from 1961. That isn't antique because I was one year old at the time!
Becky is a hands on kind of gal. She likes to bake cookies.
She likes to make up her own arts and crafts projects. This one has a Halloween theme as you can tell. She LOVES Halloween!

She also had a lot of fun playing with pattern blocks this week. (I have no idea why the font keeps switching back and forth!)

Here's a picture Becky drew while I was reading out loud to her.

Here is my cool and groovy 18 year old son, Will, also known as Eli. I believe he was playing Daytripper by the Beatles in this shot.

Here he is playing the piano.
Here he is again, sitting on our screen porch working on his College Plus stuff.

But I can't forget my 15 year old, Josh. He is a quiet introvert, and the middle boy, so he often inadvertently gets overlooked, but he is so good natured, he doesn't care! Anyway, he's a great kid. He so introverted though, he likes to hide behind his hat. I am not kidding or exaggerating either!
He always wears this hat.

Well, surprisingly he isn't wearing it in this photo. He's working on history here.

Here's a photo of his Algebra II test. For some reason it came out sideways. I am novice at all this tech stuff. Really, I have no idea what I am doing!

Anyway, my last photo with be of the credits Sean-o, the 11 yo did for a little DVD he put together. As you can see he needs to work on spelling and capitalization!

I took this picture off the TV. Ron Stevenson is beloved bear puppet that practically an imaginary friend to Becky and Sean, only he's a puppet they love to play with. He's kind of the sixth child in the family! Bill Merry really is supposed to be Murray. Robben is supposed to be Robin.

That's all, folks!

Week in Review 9/13-9/17

2010-09-17T08:09:00.000-07:00

I actually tried to keep a daily journal. It helps me see what's going on each week. I forget so much if I don't jot down everything soon after the fact.

We are still on our readjustment curve even though we are three weeks into being more formal with lessons. We've gradually been folding in more studies. Also, the boys keep modifying their schedules. They are finding that doing their 5 arts in the morning and leaving the academics their mother (c'est moi!) insists on their doing means they have to deal with trying to finish math and Latin while afternoon activities are going on or in the evening when they really aren't in the mood. I'm letting them come to the conclusion that perhaps it would be better to get the academic stuff over with in the morning and do the fun arts stuff in their free time or in the evening. And it's working! Slowly, and on their own, they are drawing that conclusion.

Becky:
We are going through math very slowly. We are just up to Lesson 5 in Saxon 5/4. Concentrating has been excruciating and much occasion for out and out defiance. But between being firm (you may do your math or you may sit on your bed) and cajoling (How about after we spend 10 minutes on this, we make cookies?) we've started to get into the groove. She's also doing her WWE and getting more into the groove with that as well. We worked in some cursive penmanship and a little bit of phonics. She read some comics this week from her Magnifikid magazine as well as some Peanuts comics at night. We read about Jonah and about the prophet Amos, learned about the feast of the Holy Cross. We also learned some acronyms like INRE and J.M.J. and AMDG and what they mean. We learned about subject nouns and verbs and some Latin words in Getting Started with Latin. We read another story about King Alfred the Great. She attended her first art class Tuesday morning which she loved. She went to vision therapy on Wed pm Today, Friday, tennis lessons start up. We also are still enjoying Little Women as a read aloud.

Sean
Has settled down a little quicker than Becky. He's on Lesson 9 of Saxon 7/6. We are doing our chapter review for Ch. 19,20.21,22 of LfCa. He's been working on his penmanship. He's still reading The Treasure Seekers. He's been doing lots of art and music with Will. He taught himself to play When the Saints Go Marching In on the penny whistle! He also had his first art class, but since he is such an opinionated curmudgeon he didn't enjoy it as much as Becky. We watched Unit 3 of Discovering Music. I don't know how much he's getting out of it, but Will and I are sure enjoying it! Today he still needs to do Vocabulary and Science before tennis class.

Josh
Josh did several lessons and a test in Alg II. Not sure exactly where he is in it. We had our Latin class on Tuesday. We'll need to start doing homework over the weekend. How did the week go by so quickly???? He spends a lot of time on Biology both in class and out. Today he's got his first Bio test. He was up until 1:30 a.m. studying for it because he waited too long to begin. He doesn't seem to be getting how time consuming this is so he doesn't allot enough time. Hopefully, this too is a learning curve and he'll get better at estimating such things. We started up history and literature. He read the first book of St. Augustine's Confessions and the first lesson of The History of the Church. He answered the workbook questions. He still needs to write an essay. This will also have to happen over this weekend. He had his 6 month post surgery check up and he's cleared to play tennis! Hurrah!

Daily Journal 9/16/10

2010-09-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

Boys went to Mass
Boys worked on writing for 30 minutes, still not sure exactly what they are doing when they say they are working on writing! Then Sean worked on animation, Josh on game design, Will on music
Becky - worked through mix practice of L 4 in Saxon(never got to it yesterday), read a little from her new Magnifikid mag (she read the comic to me and then we went through first section of Mass and read the OT reading and discussed it.)
Read story of King Alfred and the Beggar.
Did WWE - read passage from Charlotte's Web; she answered narration questions in complete sentences, then dictated to me the thing she remember the most, then she copied over that sentence.
Did Latin, reviewed vocab of nauta, sum, ego, argricola, et and also saying cogito ergo sum. Learned 'non'. Also reviewed what a subject noun is and what a verb is.
Took Will to metro to go to DC and his piano lesson - then picked him up 3 hours later.
Came home and took Josh to his 6 mo post surgery check up. Looks good! Cleared to play tennis tomorrow!
Josh and I read Book 1 of St. Augustine's Confessions.
Josh did first lesson in History of the Church
Sean - practiced some cursive, read ch 2 of his F&L book and also worked on memorizing those 10 Commandments some more.
Sean did 1/2 of Lesson 8 in Saxon 7/6.
Sean studied Latin vocabulary for a 4 ch. review, and I quizzed him orally.
Josh has LOTS of biology homework to do which he didn't start until 7:45 p.m. I think he'll be up working until 11 or so.
Read Becky a couple of chapters of Little Women. Beth is dying, Amy and Laurie have met up in Europe. Becky really didn't get a lot of it, so I had to keep stopping and explaining things to her. I am amazed that she is so into the book because a lot is going over her head.
Sean is supposed to read more Treasure Seekers before bed but it is 9:45 p.m. and I can hear him and Becky playing instead of reading!

Daily Journal 9/14/10

2010-09-14T18:52:00.000-07:00

another terrible sleeping night, for me and for Miss Becky boo.
got up, studied for Latin quiz, Josh got up early too, to study.
Made breakfast sandwiches, got everyone up.
Took Becky and Sean to their first art class. Sean has philosophical differences with the teacher on technique! I hope he wasn't difficult. I do wish he could learn the virtue of docility! Becky LOVED the class.
Josh and I got to the class late. Had to take the quiz in a rushed fashion. Neither of us did very well as a result. But it wasn't graded! I think the teacher was just using it to force us ot review and jog our memories.
After Latin class, took Josh to Biology. He studied for that quiz in the car on the way there.
Got home and worked on math with Sean and Becky.
Will had been working on his speed reading course which he is finding very interesting but basically thinks it is a crock!
Becky and Sean rode their bikes to the veg. stand and bought pears.
Picked up Josh from class. He'd won 4 little rubbery fake skeletons for something! He gave them to Becky and Sean who loved them.
Josh worked on math both before and after dinner.
After dinner, Becky and Sean both worked on Latin and penmanship.
Becky made us her version of apple cobbler.
Sean read a ch. in The Treasure Seekers
Watched next unit in Discovering Music - all about musical terms.
Read most of a chapter out of Little Women to Becky. Jo is in NY and fascinated with Professor Bhaer.

Daily Journal 9/13/10

2010-09-13T17:29:00.000-07:00

Everybody either stayed up way too late last night or couldn't sleep. As a result everybody except my poor husband who HAD to get up even though he was so tired, overslept.
Sean and Becky went bike riding for 1/2 hour before we tried to begin any academics.
Sean and Will worked on writing, drawing and acting.
Josh worked on Biology homework
Becky - read her the story of Jonah, she did a tiny bit of cursive, did her WWE
Had all kinds of distractions with pest control guys and cleaners in and out of the house.
In afternoon Josh and I did Latin homework
After dinner, Sean did a bit of math, Latin and cursive
Becky did L. 5 mixed practice, a little bit of Latin and cursive
Becky and Sean went on another bike ride over the the veggie stand; had fun.
Becky and Sean made chicken nuggets with the chicken I cooked for dinner.

Daily Journal 9/9/10

2010-09-09T08:37:00.000-07:00

Boys went to Mass
Did 5 arts - acting (S- worked on memorizing The Orange, J- The Jabberwocky, W- Ecclesiastes). music, writing.

Becky was in an ornery mood this a.m.

Read about St. Peter Claver; today is his feast day. She was okay with that, sometimes being interested, sometimes feigning boredom.

She did a tiny bit of cursive work while listening
She wanted me to read her about Lobo from Wild Animals I Have Known. She's really started to enjoy the book. Just goes to show you have to give some things time.
After much dawdling and resistance (including stopping to trim her bangs which suddenly prevented her from doing copy work!) she printed out a very short sentence from WWE. (Charlotte's Web).
She also wanted to do Map Skills except she didn't want to write herself. So we compromised. She had to spell to me the names of all the oceans and I did the writing. Then we learned the difference between what a sea, a bay and gulf. Not quite clearcut if you ask me.
She decided she does not want to read from McGuffey's 2nd reader but wants to try the 3rd. So we started on the 3rd reader, reading two stanzas of a long poem. At this rate it will take two weeks to get through the first lesson.
Did math with Sean - corrected his mistakes and did mental math and practice set for L. 5.
Took Josh to his math tutor
Came home, collapse and read King Solomon's Mines (which I stole from Sean) and napped.
Josh went to library with Sean and Becky, Will and I went and got haircuts.
Didn't get any math done with Becky or Latin and penmanship done with Sean.
Josh did Biology homework
Sean read more The Treasure Seekers.
Read more Little Women to Becky.
Becky got the audio of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle out of the library plus several Baby Mouse graphic novels. She sequestered herself up in her room to enjoy those.
Josh finished reading the second book in Discworld at some point during the day. He got a ton of a new graphic novel series (don't know the name) and was reading them like they were potato chips.
Will started doing his CLEP prep course with College Plus (listening to audio cds on study skills, etc? Sounds boring!). He finished reading the Book of Numbers (Bible). How was it, I asked. Numerical, he replied! He is now listening to the Lord of the Rings.

Daily Journal 9/8/10 - Nativity of the Blessed Virgin/Rosh Hashana

2010-09-08T08:55:00.000-07:00

Boys went to Mass
Did their 5 Arts in the a.m.

I worked with Becky:

Read more about Old Lobo in Wild Animals I have Known
Becky did a tiny bit of cursive practice
Read story about the Prophet Elisha or Eliseus as Bible History insists on calling him! Becky narrated well about Namaan, etc.
Becky and I practiced learning the hymn Holy God, We Praise Thy Name. Becky has such a good voice!
Did practice set for Lesson 3 in Saxon 5/4. Number Sequences
Did narration and copywork from WWE, Week 8. Caddy Woodlawn.
Reviewed a tiny bit of Latin and learned about what a subject of a sentence is.
Becky is all excited to sell T-shirts at the Blessed Virgin Mary's Birthday party which is always the opening event for our homeschool group. She's making a sign that says $5 per T-shirt and then drawing pictures of the t-shirts on the poster.
Went to BVM's Birthday and collected dues, etc. Had a good time. A sweet girl led us in a decade of the rosary and then the kids all sang happy birthday. Becky had great time selling those T-shirts!
Meanwhile, at home Sean finished his math lesson and then talked on line with his friend.
Josh did a lesson in Algebra II
Found out Hannah is getting severe flooding at Univ. of Dallas from Hermine.
Will went to his music lesson
VT appt for Becky @ 5:30.

After dinner:

Did 20 minutes of Latin with Sean - reviewed 1st and 2nd delcensions, parsed some sentences, talked about parts of speech.
Took Josh to CLC
Sean read more The Treasure Seekers
Becky read two paragraphs from McGuffey's. Then I read a ch. and 1/2 of Little Women to her.

Daily Journal 9/7/10

2010-09-07T11:56:00.000-07:00

I am going to continue to journal daily until I feel we've gotten into a good groove for the autumn.

Yesterday, Labor Day, we didn't do much formally.

I did have Sean read another chapter of The Treasure Seekers and he, Will and I all watched the next unit of Discovering Music together in the evening.

Informally Sean spent lots of time creating music with garage band.

Josh, starting at about 8:15 p.m. did his Biology homework. He was still working on it at around 10 p.m. when I went to bed. But he said he only had a little bit left to do.

Today - Tuesday, 9/7/10

Josh and I had our first Latin class of the year. We reviewed conjugations and declensions. My rusty old brain was barely keeping up! Lots of homework to do for next class.

I then took Josh to his Biology field trip. They did a pond study at Riverbend. Josh says he enjoyed it.

Will was stuck at home with Becky and Sean, neither of whom behaved very well, as far as I can see. Sean read the first chapter in his Faith and Life book and started to memorize the 10 Commandments. He very halfheartedly started his math but hadn't gotten far (and got the first problem wrong anyway)by the time I got home at nearly 1 p.m.

Becky did a page of phonics but resisted doing math. She did a little for me when I got home.

This Tuesday was weird. Next Tuesday both Sean and Becky will be in an art class in the a.m. while Josh and I are at Latin. Will's on his own. I told him he needs to work somewhere on Tuesdays.

In the evening:

Read Becky another chapter of Little Women

Did 20 minutes of Latin review with Sean

Sean read another chapter of The Treasure Seekers

Josh finished an Alg. II test

Melkite?

2010-09-05T05:37:00.001-07:00

Last night I went to Vespers at a very nearby Melkite church. I had been meaning to go to this church for years and years now. And last night I finally made it. I feel like I fell in love. I am now filled with longing to be in THAT church, that liturgy, that community. I'm trying to sort out my feelings:

The first time I ever heard about the Melkites, I was attending a retreat given by Father Emmanuel Charles McCarthy at a Pax Christi retreat. I could only stay for a day. He was a very powerful speaker. The thing that impressed me the most was his story about how his youngest daughter, Benedicta, named after Edith Stein or Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was miraculously saved by Tylenol poisoning by prayers to Edith Stein. This is the miracle that allowed St. Teresa Benedicta to be named a saint. I have a special tenderness for St. Edith Stein, since she was Jewish and converted to Catholicism by reading a book by St. Theresa of Avila. My husband is Jewish. I've struggled with atheism (as did Edith Stein) and my mother's favorite saint was St. Teresa of Avila. So all this resonated in my heart. Hannah even took the name St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross for her confirmation name. Since that retreat (and this retreat happened when Hannah was a baby, so probably about 18 years ago) I 've been wanting to visit a Melkite Church. Well, there is one about 5 minutes from my house. It only took me 18 years to get there!
I love the rich ritual, the ikons, the chanting, the ancient and profound reverence found in the church and its liturgy. So different from the dry, stripped down version of my parish church. Not that my parish doesn't try and isn't full of faithful people and a wonderful pastor, but it is not poetic, lyrical, moving, replete with so many symbols that raise one's spirit to God. I know I am not supposed to be entertained at Mass, that it depends on me and what I bring to the Mass, but in other liturgies the sheer beauty of the liturgy definitely helps one's soul long for union with God! Why do these other liturgies get to have this beauty, while I in my weakness must struggle against such spiritual dryness?
I have long been attracted to Orthodox Christianity but feel like I am being a traitor to the Roman Catholic faith. This is probably an unreasonable feeling. In the Melkite church both Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christian can partake of the Eucharist there.
I was very attracted to the Byzantine Catholic faith, however, they are all of a Slavic ethnicity. The liturgy was beautiful but the history and language are not my history and language. The Melkite however trace their origin to Antioch and to the first apostles. They are descended from the very first Christian tradition! They use both Greek and Arabic. The Arabic came later. But the Greek spoken by that first Christian community is the Koine Greek that the New Testament is written in. This makes me feel a connection even though Greek is not my native language. Also the Arabic is a Semitic language, similar to Hebrew.
I love that the Melkites really emphasize the Old Testament and the Prophets. These prophets are placed on the same plain with the saints of the New Testament. The connection to Judaism is much more palatable. The sound of the chants has a very Jewish sound. This speaks to me because of Rick's Judaism, our family celebrating Jewish holidays and also I love that that connection, that foundation of Judaism has been preserved for two thousand years in such a tangible way.

The problems I see in moving into the Melkite rite are many:

1. My family. Becky and Sean are not confirmed. Would they be able to receive the Eucharist there? I wonder if the priest confirms children coming from the Roman rite?
2. Do they follow the same liturgical year? I think so. But that would be really confusing if they didn't.
3. I think the Melkites are much stricter in fasting and other things like that. It would probably be good for us as a change. It is so easy to be lazy in the Roman rite.
4. Sunday school - this may not be a problem. But the Sunday school classes look much, much better than the one's offered at our parish which are of the most watered down variety. The kids really learn deeply about the faith. I've been looking at lesson plans and the expectations are much higher at Holy Transfiguration then at St. Mark. You expected to really read the Bible. Parents are held accountable. I was amazed at what was expected of a 4th grader to know and do.
5. Josh and CLC. We do love the Catholic Life Community at St. Mark and the Youth Group activites, like Workcamp. I don't know if we'd have to give those up though.
6. I'd feel like I was betraying our parish. I do have a sense of loyalty to it. I love that it works so hard to help the poor. I love Father Pat; for all his faults, he is a wonderful, godly man who tries his best.

While I sort through all this I thought I'd incorporate some Melkite lessons plans into our daily living. Here's a resource for that http://www.melkite.org/OES-celebrate.htm

The Boys Schedule

2010-09-03T11:39:00.000-07:00

This is the schedule we've come up with that incorporates the boys' goals. This is just a general guide.

8:45 a.m. be ready to leave for Mass
9:00 a.m. Mass
9:45 home again and breakfast
10:15-10:45 Acting (memorization, recitation)
10:45 - 11:15 Creative Writing
11:15 - 11:45 Music (mostly ear training and sight reading)
11:45 - 12:15 Drawing

Break for lunch (either an hour or 1/2 depending on how well things went in the a.m.)

After lunch - Sit down work (for Sean this means math and penmanship)
2:30 digital arts for 30 minutes and then focus on each boy's particular art form; Will - music, Josh - game design, Sean - animation

4:00 p.m. Free time - which needs to include physical exercise and hopefully playing outside

7:00 dinner
7:30 No screen! Boys work on schoolwork. For Sean this means Monday - history, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - Latin and Religion. Also 30 minutes of reading every night after dinner. Dad's read aloud, prayers.
10:00 p.m. Bedtime for Sean. 11:00 for Josh

Will and Josh are going to follow this as closely as they can, but they have other external factors that will change the schedule for them. Josh especially needs to focus on his classes and won't be able to spend mornings working on the 5 arts. I really predict he'll break away from this whole scheme just out of necessity.

Also Fridays will be different. Josh will be in his Biology class and it is a half day for us all. I want to cover Vocabulary, Grammar and Science on those mornings with Sean.

(I haven't forgotten about Becky, but since I am just working with her one on one, we get started together @ 10:15 a.m. and we are finished by lunchtime with time to spare!)

Weekly Report 8/30-9/3

2010-09-03T08:32:00.000-07:00

I've actually been keeping daily journals each day. That helps me get things clear in my mind about how we are proceeding. So this is just a summing up of what went on and what we need to work on for next week. Mostly it's about attitude!

Becky - on the whole she's been rather fidgety this week. However, she certainly loves Map Skills. She even got her book out to show her dad when he got home from work last night. I am enjoying the read alouds with, especially Little Women. It is fun to snuggle on the couch and do our studies that way. It is a great lesson in patience for me, to learn to humor and cajole her through the lessons she doesn't like as well. You'd think I'd have learned to be patient by now with all these years of homeschooling. I do think I am somewhat more patient but still have a ways to go! Mostly I bottle up my frustration and vent here.

Sean - even though Sean adores Will, he was giving him the same flack he gives me all the time whenever I try to force lessons on him. Even though this was all stuff that he and Will agreed to and which they love to do!!! Sean really is at the mercy of his moods. I hope he learns to temper them more. He's so extreme, he either obsesses over something or he can't simply can't focus on it. You can talk til you are blue in the face to him and he doesn't retain a bit! He really needs to try to make an effort to focus himself on things that aren't currently all-absorbing to him. He did some math this week and some cursive penmanship. Today I had him work in his vocabulary book and also listen to me read the first science unit on plants. He needs to work on neatness too. He makes math errors because he writes so sloppily. It is evidence of his lack of care. Again, I need to be patient with him, explain again and again why certain things are important for him to learn and why I insist on them. At the same time, I try to respect him and his unique free spiritedness. Balance is what is needed!

Josh -has been staying up too late each night and is having trouble curtailing his computer time. In fact last night he snuck back downstairs at midnight to get on the computer. Big no no!

What has been wonderful is the boys going to mass each morning. They didn't make it this morning because 1) Josh needed to study for his Bio quiz (he didn't allow enough time to get done last night) and 2) I think Will has also been staying up late and by the time this a.m. rolled around he just needed to sleep more! But also I love that they are doing so much on their own initiative. They are good boys.

Friday - this a.m.

Will slept in.
Josh got up and studied for his Bio quiz then I took him to class.
Sean worked in his vocabulary book, listened to a lesson in Science
Becky - read the first story from 50 Famous Stories Retold about King Alfred. Read next ch. of Little Women, she also listened in on science lesson.

Had a meeting with Will and Sean about our schedule for next week. We are trying to work out what works best for everybody's interests.

Daily Journal 9/2/10

2010-09-02T09:36:00.001-07:00

Boys went to Mass again this a.m. I am jealous. I want to go too. Have to get Becky on board with this!

Becky

was being quite the hypochondriac this a.m. so she curled up on the couch with a blanket and we did things there.
I read part of the story of Elijah and Elisha from Bible History. The story was long, the language antiquated, and Becky grumpy, so we kept it short.
Read a couple of paragraphs from Wild Animals I have Known. She is not taking to this book so we might stop after this first story (which is rather long). She narrated back.
I don't know why I am having Becky do all this narration. She narrated more Great Brain and Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane to me this a.m. Plus a chapter or two of Ellen Tebbits by Beverly Cleary.
Becky wanted to do Map Skills so we did a page that had you study a map and then answer T or F to statements on it.
We reviewed very briefly our Latin up until now and learned the word Agricola. She already knew it and proceeded to tell me a snippet from the Penderwicks where one of the girls is studying Latin but hadn't gotten any farther than agricola, agricolae.
Did a couple of problems in Saxon Lesson 2 orally and then did the mental math from Lesson 3.
Did day 3 of Week 8 WWE1.
Becky perked up a bit after an early lunch. She did some verbal puns with me she had seen on pbskids.org. For instance she wrote the word school on the top of a piece of paper and I had to figure out it meant 'high school.' She did several of those. They were fun and she was learning to spell the words.
Becky decided to draw. I had to tell her 3 things to draw and she would - she drew a tea kettle on a stove, a picnic under a tree, and a bedroom.

Boys

For some reason it was Josh and Sean who worked on the Ferris Wheel scene from the 3rd Man today. Don't know what happened to the Gettysburg Address for Josh.
Josh worked on math all morning, completing lesson 83 and taking test 20 in Alg II.
Sean worked on making things for his friend's birthday using an online 'painting' program.
Will worked with Sean doing Saxon L. 3
Josh went to his math tutor 1:15 to 2:15.
Sean spent more time on garage band and then spent time somehow creating a 'trading card' as a gift for his friend on the laptop. Don't quite understand it but he kept asking me how to spell things.
Sean did some penmanship
Will and I talked to the Collegeplus coach and order books for the CLEP tests.
Becky watched a of tv in the afternoon
Josh goofed off until after dinner when he started on his Biology homework (which is proving to be quite challenging).
Read Becky Chapters 14 and 15 of Little Women.
Had Sean read 30 minutes of The Treasure Seekers

Daily Journal 9/1/10

2010-09-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

Boys got up and went to Mass
Began lessons @ 10:15. Will and Sean continued to work on the Ferris Wheel scene from The Third Man. They even went into the study and watched a clip. Josh has decided to memorize the Gettysburg Address. I gave him Michael Clay Thompson's Lincoln's Ten Great Sentences book and he pretended to read it while snoozing on the couch!
Then they worked on ear training and then drawing.

Becky:

We began her new cursive penmanship book. She did a matching game between capital manuscript letters and cursive letters. This took a long time because she kept wanting to chat and tell in great detail a game she and Sean had been playing on their bikes.
I decided to use the kitchen timer to keep us focusing a la CM.
Just as we were starting math, Hannah called. I hated to cut her off so Becky got an early break.
We did the mental math portion of Saxon 5/4 Less. 2, the practice set and then the first seven mixed practice problems before the timer went off.
Becky begged to do Map Skills. She loves it. She finished one page and then did another. Still practicing the scale concept. Map of Pennsylvania. We talked about the different cities. She knows of Phila. We talked about Pittsburgh where my Dad was from and other cities.
I read a passage from WWE, (Caddie Woodlawn - have to see if the library has it on audio) then Becky had to narrate back to me in complete sentences. Then she had to tell me the thing she remembered the most. She dictated it to me in a complete sentence and I wrote it out for her in cursive. Then she read it back to me. She enjoyed this.
We did a very brief review of the Latin lessons 1 thru 3 and then did Lesson 4. These are very, very brief lessons. Becky was not in the mood to cooperate.
Lastly, I read one long paragraph from Wild Animals I have Known and then made her narrate it back to me. She did pretty well. We were done before noon. If we hadn't had interruptions and if Becky hadn't been balking so, we'd have been done sooner!
She then joined the boys in their drawing practice though mostly to annoy them!

After lunch:

Josh made chocolate chip cookies! That's a first!
Sean did a math lesson and a little bit of cursive practice
Took Becky to VT
Sean and Becky have been having lots of fun today recording songs on garage band.
Josh worked on math
Will went to his first voice/sight reading/ear training lesson with his new teacher
Josh went to CLC
Becky insisted on telling me the whole story of The Great Brain in great detail. I rudely fell asleep on her. Terrible mother moment.
After dinner read Becky Ch. 13 in Little Women
Made Sean sit down and read The Treasure Seekers for 30 minutes.

Daily Journal 8/31/10

2010-08-31T09:47:00.000-07:00

Boys got up and went to 9 a.m. Mass.

I made bacon and eggs for breakfast. We started lessons @ 10:15

Boys worked on drawing, ear training and music.

I worked with Becky

I began reading aloud from Wild Animals I Have Known from Ernest Thompson Seton. She wasn't that enthralled. She was having trouble settling down.
She didn't want to do work in her phonics workbook, so instead we played Phonics bingo with blends and digraphs. We played for about 20 minutes. Becky was the caller and read the words aloud. She read well. She misread Think for the word thick but she caught most of her mistakes. After 20 minutes neither of us had bingo and we were starting to get bored. During this we listened the first cd of music that came with our Discovering Music program. Beautiful background music.
We took a little break because Becky really wanted to play Connect 4 with me but she couldn't find the game.
After break, Becky did copy work from WWE. It took forever! Very slow, easily distracted but very perfectionistic when writing. Lots of erasing.
I told her she didn't have to do Map Skills today but she wanted to. She did almost 3 pages just for fun. She didn't quite finish up the 3rd page. Part of the exercise was learning about scale. So she got out a ruler and was figuring out how many miles things were from each other. Since this involved measuring and simple multiplying I decided that would do for math today as well.
She was fidgeting again. She really has the attention span of a gnat right now! So I got her some goldfish crackers and a cup of chocolate milk. We had a discussion about toilets! She's been listening to the Great Brain on audio and apparently there was a discussion about outhouses and the first toilets brought to Utah. She was very interested in the history of toilets. We wikipedia'd it and did you know there were flush toilets in Orkney in 31 BC?????
I read her Ch. 1 of Faith and Life 4.
She read one paragraph from McGuffey's 2nd reader. We discussed the fact that the meal Tea can mean a formal tea or is really just another word for supper.

Will took Josh to his first Biology class @ 12:25.

In P.M. Sean worked on math. Will and Sean worked on digital arts. Josh came home from Biology and then worked on gaming stuff.
Becky, inspired by our measuring during map skills, took all her magnetix and lined them up so and then measured them with a measuring tape. 192 inches, she informed me!
Read Becky a chapter of Little Women while she swam around in the bathtub. Then she listened to more Great Brain.
Josh did math.
Sean went swimming with his friend.
Signed Becky up for a fieldtrip to the National Building Museum, City by Design. They have a homeschool day on 11/22.
Will, Sean, Becky and I watched the first unit in Discovering Music. Promises to be good!

Daily Journal 8/30/10

2010-08-30T09:38:00.000-07:00

This was supposed to be our first day of the Academic 2010-11 year. I awoke at 5:30 with a horrible migraine. It is now 12:39 and it is mostly gone but as usual I feel weak and spacey. I did manage to some lessons with Becky.

We looked over her new books.
I told her that at the end of this school year she would be reading chapter books and she'd be able to sit down and write a paragraph easily. She was impressed!
On her own initiative she wrote out words she knew how to spell in a brand new composition book. I think the newness of the book inspired her. She managed to write: the, to, too, two, at. Then she wrote out the word 'morning' because she knows how to spell that too. The whole time she was doing this she was chatting up a storm about everything! I had to constantly get her back on task to do the very simplest thing.
Then we did a page out of her new MCP Phonics C.
Then I showed her the Writing with Ease book from last year. We started up at Lesson 8 where we left off last spring. However, she balked at doing copywork, so we put it off until tomorrow. I told her a little about Caddie Woodlawn though, which is where the lesson is taken from.
I showed her the Kolbe Map Skills workbook and she was intrigued. So we did the first page which was a map of Washington DC and the monument and reflecting pool area. She knows that area! So that made it more interesting. I wrote out the fill in the blanks for her but she answered the questions. She then numbered the symbols in the chart and matched them to the different geographic points.
We did the first lesson in Saxon 5/4 orally. Not the problems just the mental math and intro to concept. She was losing focus at this point.
Took a 10 minute break then I read the next story from Bible History - Achab and Jezebel. What nasty people! Becky really was not engaged and didn't narrate well at all.
Started with first lesson of McGuffey's Reader. I read first little paragraph and then she read para. 2. She wouldn't let me help her but sounded through everything and then had to reread read it for comprehension. She read 'both' as 'doth' and struggled with other words like 'learned' pronounced it lean-red'

Sean

Will and he worked on memorizing and acting out the ferris wheel scene from The Third Man. We watched this movie over vacation and everybody was impressed by it.
Sean worked on typing out a script he is working on
Sean did the first lesson in Saxon 7/6
Sean went to his friend's house to play.

Josh

Josh finessed memorization of The Walrus and The Carpenter
Worked more on his 'idea bucket' for writing
Did Lesson 82 in Alg II (most of it)

There was a big break in the afternoon. Will kindly took Becky and Sean to their playdate and went grocery shopping for me.

In the evening all three boys worked on their drawing skills and digital arts and music. They were actually working up until 10 p.m.

Josh is reading Mockingjay. Sean was supposed to start a book. He chose The Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit. Don't know how much he actually read.

Weekly Report 8/23-27 - the unschool edition

2010-08-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

We aren't officially starting our fall studies until next week on 8/30. However, this week the three boys decided to take matters into their own hands. Really it was Will's idea.

Each morning they went to 9:00 a.m. Mass (except on Wednesday because something was wrong with the car - wound up taking into the shop the next day and getting it fixed.)

I decided to encourage them in this by providing them with nice breakfasts. I put out place mats and set the table nicely on our screen porch. We enjoyed the beautiful weather and dining outside each morning. Sean informed me that my breakfast skills were getting better! LOL!

After breakfast they worked on memorizing poems. Will worked on the soliloquy from Hamlet, Josh on The Walrus and the Carpenter (which he recited to me quite nicely Friday), Sean couldn't decide on a poem he wanted. He tried Poe's the Raven but decided it was too long, then he was going to memorize some of Lear's Limericks but none grabbed him. Then he decided to memorize The Owl and Pussycat but he soon realized he already had it memorized!

Next they worked on writing. I don't think any actual writing took place, though. Josh started a short story and Sean wrote a little poem but they gave up after the first day. However, they did have fun brainstorming and they came up with an 'idea bucket' which was making up a lot of creative writing prompts.

They also focused on music. Will on guitar and piano for many hours. Josh worked a bit on learning to play the Ocarina. Sean fooled around on the keyboard. Will did voice training with them. Becky joined in on that. Sean got a jaw harp on Wednesday and has been playing it ever since.

They've also been doing a lot of work out of Mark Kistler's Draw Squad. We've discovered Josh can really draw! Sean of course drew the most because he aspires to be an animator.

Josh really focused most of his attention on learning the more complex stuff off of Gamemaker. He really wants to learn game design and computer programming stuff. He designed a couple of video games, but I haven't seen them yet.

Josh went to his CLC meeting on Wed. night.

Becky was out of the loop on all this. She spent most of the week watching Phineas and Ferb shows. This is her last TV week. Next week we start a more austere schedule when it comes to tv viewing! We also started reading Little Women out loud. Love it! She's hung out with her brothers sometimes participating with them and sometimes just annoying them. She also did some impromptu science. She went through a rock collection we have and poured vinegar over each rock to see which would fizz (rocks will react to acid if they have carbonate in them.) She also made props for Sean's recitation of the Owl and the Pussycat out of cardboard. Very cute! She found a big cardboard box and decorated it and cut out windows for it. She danced and played dress up too. She picked flowers from around the pond. Today she helped me set up our nature table. She put on it her deer bone collection, her seashell collection, her pressed wildflowers (from a couple years ago) and the flowers she'd picked earlier in the week on the nature table. She also listened to The Horse and His Boy and Hoot on audio this week. She went to Vision Therapy.

Hannah got her wisdom teeth pulled on Tuesday morning. Was rather miserable Wednesday and Thursday and left this morning to return to the University of Dallas.

One thing the boys learned was that it is hard to get into a routine. We've been so used to staying up and sleeping in. The decision the get up every morning by 8:30 and go to a 9 a.m. mass took some effort. I was really proud of them for that. I was also quite impressed by how they worked hard on the things they were doing. Sean had the hardest time because he was trying to keep up with two teen boys and they kept forgetting he's only 11 and can't focus as intensely for as long as they can.

Will also did some job hunting. He went to the School of Rock, Music and Arts, Noodles and Co, Gamestop, Coldstone Creamery and Starbucks to ask for jobs. School of Rock said maybe he could sub. Music and Arts isn't hiring. Noodles and Co, Coldstone and Starbucks all said to apply online. Gamestop, though, gave him an application and said they might be looking for someone in October.

Next week I hope to fold in math, assigned reading (nobody seemed to be reading this week at all)and PE (except for Will, he's been going to the gym regularly).

Also, Josh will be starting his high school Biology class on Tuesday afternoon.

Becky's Old Fashioned Education

2010-08-24T12:47:00.000-07:00

We are reading Little Women which I am enjoying more than I ever did before. It makes me all nostalgic and cozy feeling. Becky likes anything old-fashioned and since she is growing up and will soon, perhaps, not revel so in the quaint and charming, I thought maybe we could focus on getting an Old Fashioned Education this year. I've been looking at all my old books and also at Ambleside. I think I'd love to try Nature Study again this year with her. I have a wonderful 1906 A Child's Nature Field Study book that has charming day by day entries that give little interesting tidbits of information about nature in each season of the year. It would be excellent to start on January First. Becky has said she wants to study animals this year. I'm looking for an old fashioned read aloud about them. Still need to hunt a bit. I noticed that Ambleside divides at least one of its years (can't remember which one) into Term 1 - mammals, Term 2 - birds, Term 3 - flowers. For birds I just found a great guide to Thornton Burgess's Bird Book. And I happen to have a 1923 edition of Burgess Book of Flowers for Children. So except for the mammals bit, I'm pretty prepared for that.

I also like Ambleside's way of studying folksongs and hymns. I'm going to put my own spin on it. I think we'll focus on Stephen Foster songs this year. I have a cd of his songs sung in a gorgeous way by Thomas Hampson, who has an incredible baritone voice. Sends shivers down one's spine! And for hymns, I'm thinking of these:

September - Holy God, We Praise Thy Name (Hymn of praise)
October - (the month of the Rosary) a Marian Hymn. I realize I only know about 3: Sing of Mary, Hail Holy Queen and Immaculate Mary, so one of those!
November - Now Thank We All Our God (Thanksgiving of course!)
December - On Jordan's Bank (Advent)
January - Adeste Fideles (for the Christmas season - learn it in Latin)
February - Look Down to Us, Saint Joseph -I thought we could learn this in preparation for our St. Joseph Day's Talent Show. Maybe Becky could sing it or perhaps we could lead a sing along.
March - O Sacred Head Surrounded (Passiontide)
April - Jesus Christ is Risen Today (Easter)
May - Another Marian hymn
June - Where Charity and Love Prevail (just cuz I like it!)

For reading, I think we could work our way through McGuffey's 2nd Reader, or at least start there. McGuffey is fairly advanced and moves quickly and Becky moves slowly! However, hopefully this is the year she'll take off in reading.

We will use Writing with Ease for copy work which is very CM in its approach and uses mostly classic children's literature as models.

For Religion - Ignatius Schuster's Bible History - which was published way back when. It was on its 32 reprint in 1959. Also I think we'll read Apostle on Crutches. That looks like it will fit the bill.

For math, I think we'll stick with Saxon. Becky wanted to work in the same type of book that her older brothers are, so Saxon 5/4 is a brand new edition.

For Latin, Getting Started in Latin will have to suffice.

For read alouds - I do really want to read The Aeneid for Boys and Girls by Church. I don't know if we are going into a Louisa May Alcott kick, but we've got plenty we could read aloud by her. We also still need to read Noel Streatfeild's Dancing Shoes (not quite as old-fashioned, set more in the 1930's or 1940's). We've just read The Secret Garden this summer so we might read more of Burnett, like The Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy. Also, I was hoping to read Hitty, Her First Hundred Years.

I am reinstituting a nature table to get our slightly more formal nature study off to a start this week.

I think it sounds like a really fun year! I am looking forward to lots of long walks, mother-daughter time cooking, baking, making things, singing together and reading together.

Homeschooling; A Family's Journey

2010-08-10T12:12:00.000-07:00

I got this book out of the library a couple days ago. I went searching for something inspirational, as summer draws to a close, that would help me get in the mood for switching gears into our fall routine. So I pulled a couple of books off the shelf and brought them home. One of them was this book which I don't believe I had ever heard of before. It is by Gregory and Martine Millman. They are homeschoolers who've been at it since the mid 90's. They are both writers and editors with Mr. Millman working as a financial journalist and who has also written several books in that field. They have six children. The oldest 3 are girls who as of the publication of this book, 2007, were all in colleges. They still had three younger sons homeschooing at home at the high school and elementary levels. They are Catholic! That was a nice surprise for me.

I found this book really intelligently written and insightful. The Millmans chronicle their journey into homeschooling and how their philosophy of homeschooling and, well, life(!), developed. They talk about all aspects of it, the richness of learning, how learning at home must needs be different from learning in an institutional setting. This is mixed in with very practical advice. I especially liked the whole section they had on their experience getting their children into college. I felt Mr. Millman's voice most strongly in the telling. He writes like a reporter, interviewing various people, citing resources, studies, polls. He draws on his knowledge of business in analyzing the phenomenon of homeschooling. This aspect of the book presented the subject matter in a fresh light which I found thought provoking.

There's a lot of wisdom in this book! I think it would speak to any style of homeschooler from unschoolers (which the Millmans seem to identify strongly with) to those who are more conventional in how they educate their children. And even though the Millmans are Catholic and that very evidently influences their choices, the book is not a Catholic Homeschooling book. I think it would appeal to homeschoolers of all stripes.

Anyway, thank you to the Millmans for writing this book! It was just the ticket I needed. I keep going back and rereading sections. There's food for thought here that can guide me in our learning lifestyle this year. May God continue to bless them!

What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

2010-08-08T04:06:00.000-07:00

Two points if you know what song that line is from!!!!!

I've been looking back over our summer, even though it isn't quite finished yet. Here's what's gone on so far:

Hannah came home from college. This always changes the dynamics around here somehow even though she spends lots of time in her room or out so that at times we forget she's home again!
Hannah gets a job for about 3 weeks at a pizza place. Boss turns out to be a sadistic megalomaniac. Hannah quits and then pieces together various nannying/housesitting jobs to earn money for her trip to Rome in the spring.
Josh, Sean and Becky go on an overnight campout with 4H. They have a good time until they are eaten alive by mosquitoes.
Becky who up to this point has loved, loved, loved her gymnastics class and who has begged to go to a week long camp there for homeschoolers, inexplicably refuses to go to the camp.
Becky freaks out taking CAT and I can't get her to work on it. I give up and don't make her. I'll think of something else, I say to myself.
Hannah paints her room and does a really good job. Maybe she could have a career as an interior decorator.
I realize I have let my driver's license expire. I can't find either my birth or marriage certificate. Spend way too much time waiting to receive documents and waiting at the DMV. Becomes a huge black cloud that hangs over me all summer.
I pay a lot of money to join a pool that we never wind up actually going to. Summer is not looking good.
Hannah's roommate from college comes to stay for a week. I hire both her and Hannah to clean/organize the house. They do an incredible job on the kitchen and the horrible mudroom/pantry. Life is good!
Will goes off to Workcamp - NC where he paints and repairs houses.
Will comes back from Workcamp and then a week later leaves for a 5 week stay in Boston at Berklee College of Music. I miss him terribly. He calls us every afternoon.
Becky begins a blissful three weeks at music camp. She loves it though she never does get a good sound out of her flute.
Meanwhile Josh is plugging through his 9th grade coursework, trying to finish it before 10th grade starts.
Becky has her birthday party. Hannah is a great help here and paints all the little girls nails for them. Becky refuses to write thank you notes. I keep thinking I'll get her in a better mood first but then get preoccupied with life.
Sean announces he no longer wants to be read aloud to. I decide I'll give him a break for the summer, but since he doesn't read enough on his own, he'll have to put up with it during the school year.
Becky and I continue to enjoy Noel Steatfeild books. We read Ballet Shoes.
Sean and Josh spend a week volunteering at our parish Vacation Bible School. Everyone praises Josh's work. Sean enjoys himself too.
Josh spends a weekend at Steubenville. Has a great time.
Florian, our Austrian Exchange Student arrives. Hannah wanted to me participate in the 4H program because she figures it would be cool to know someone in Europe when she goes over next spring. However, she is too busy/preoccupied to spend all that much time with him. Everybody is in throes of doing something else (like aforementioned activities). I wind up spending lots of time with him. He is a great guy, full of curiosity of about the US and intelligent observations. We have a very enjoyable 3 weeks, except for the fact that Becky is still acting crazed at times!
We go on field trips with Florian to Mount Vernon and the Bureau of Printing and Engraving.
Hannah goes off to California to visit some boy. She comes back all moody and distant. She openly acts as if she can't stand to be in the same room with us for more than 5 minutes (and that's a strain.). Sigh. If only my children were more sympathetic when suffering. Instead they are so prickly and difficult. Apparently, he broke her heart.
Sean participates in a Drama Camp at church where he is once again the only boy in his age level. He hates one of the skits they have to do which is based on a stupid pop song sung by a stupid pop singer. He tries to handle himself nobly but breaks down and cries a little too.
Florian leaves to continue his travels. It's weird to have a son for 3 weeks who then goes off and you'll probably never see him again. . . .
I miss Will.
Latin camp starts up. 13 kids, 9 of them boys. Everything goes well, but I am constantly planning as we go. Becky decides she's really in charge and can't understand why everybody won't let her boss them around. Week is exhausting! I am tired of Becky's constantly acting out. I've been reading parenting books all summer trying to figure her out.
Josh finishes his literature for 9th grade! Hurray!
Josh, Sean and Becky take lessons from Johnny for swimming. They love it. Josh finally likes being in the water! Life is looking up!
I finally renew my license. I also fill in paper work to be an AHG asst. leader. This has also been hanging over my head. Feel relief!
I forget to figure out what to do about Becky's lack of testing. Am now a week late getting in proof of progress for the county. Ugh. Another black cloud!

What's to come still:

Helen, the roommate, is back. She and Hannah are hired to clean/organize the study and basement.
Josh is working on finishing up his science requirements for the year. Hopefully today, he'll complete that. Then he'll only have history to finish up before vacation! Algebra II will continue into the fall. Then he'll cram all of Geometry into the remaining school year.
Sean has a stop motion camp to attend this coming week. He is very excited about it. I hope he doesn't get too disappointed about it. Seems like he always has such high aspirations that inevitably get dashed.
Must send in proof of progress and plans for next year to county this week. Must!
Must meet with M. Stender to discuss TORCH stuff for upcoming school year.
Must write those thank you notes!
Must get ready this week for vacation next week. OBX here we come. I can't wait. My sister Lisa and her family will be with us a few days. I haven't really talked to her in ages and ages. Can't wait to walk on the beach, have other adults take turns cooking, read lots of books, hang out with Will . . . .
William will be done with his program on Friday, it looks like! We've got to fly him home. Can't wait to see him!
Poor Hannah is getting her wisdom teeth pulled on 8/24. I'll need to nurse her for a couple of days. Also, recoup from vacation and get last minute things in order. Hannah leaves for school 8/27.
New school year starts up 8/30! Whew! It will be a relieve to have a set routine each week instead of bouncing around from one thing to another week after week! I'm looking forward to it!

Latin Camp

2010-08-03T12:28:00.000-07:00

I'm hosting a Latin camp this week for 13 kids ages 6.5 to 11. It's only for 3 hours a day but it seems to swallow whole days. I'm just going to note what I've done each day for future reference:

Day 1

Kids got nametags as they came in.

Sat in circle. Led them in sign of the cross and Ave Maria (in Latin) Practiced it a couple of times.

Played an ice breaker game - batted balloon around and each kid said his/her name, age and either what their favorite food was or their favorite animal. Balloon turned into volley ball game. Too rowdy.

Learned short poem by Sara Coleridge - Father is Pater. . .

Learned about what a verb is and what a noun is. Stood up and we chanted Amo, amas, amat to the tune of the Mexican Hat Dance (got this from Latin for Children). Kids loved it.

Played a game. I had written out 50 nouns in Latin on one side and English on the other on post it notes. The kids broke into two or three in a group and went around sticking sticky notes on different things around the house. They liked this.

Made lunch while the kids had indoor free time. Chicken nuggets and fries, apples and carrots.

Served lunch, kids ate. Before I let them go outside to play we recapped what we had learned in the morning.

Then the kids went out and played on slip and slide and sprinklers. Some kids put on a show in the basement.

Day 2
Name tags, kids got here early so played downstairs for a few minutes.

Gathered in circle. Practiced prayers again. Did another icebreaker because a new child who hadn't made it on Monday was here.

Kids enjoyed getting up and reciting the poem. Many offered to stand up and recite. Others didn't want to.

Stood up and sang Amo, amas, amat song.

Broke into three groups. Then they rotated through 3 stations. 1) Latin bingo game - for some reason this didn't work. Not enough bingo cards were alike) 2) Me reading Quot Anamalia out loud. 3) The sticky post game from day 1.

Free time while I made lunch.

Lunch and recap.

Free play outside with slip and slide and sprinklers.

Day 3

Boy did I over plan this day. You would think by Day 3 I'd have a better idea of what I can fit into our little teaching time, but I don't seem to have that instinct. Also, the mood of the children is slightly different from day to day and that can affect their attentiveness and attention spans.

Did the nametag and folder thing

Sat in circle - practiced sign of the cross. Showed the kids a youtube video of the words of the Ave Maria while monks chanted it beautifully.

Did ice breaker - favorite book.

Kids took turns reciting poem. Reviewed Amo song.

Taught the kids Sum - I am, etc. Did the sum, es, est chant with arms punching the air.

Did animal game - had kids stay in the basement (Josh keep them in order) while Becky, Sean and I hid stuffed animals/puppets all over the mainfloor. Each child was given the name of an animal in Latin and English. They were supposed to each look for their animal. Some kids are great lookers and others, not so much!

Free play while I made lunch - bacon and pancakes and oj.

Kids played outside with squirt guns, water soaker balls and in too big storage tubs full of water.

Day 4

No nametags today.

We did a review of everything learned so far. Went over everything to make sure the kids were really pronouncing each word correctly and that they really understood what everything meant.

Played history game - put out cards I have from a homemade timeline game that had to do with Ancient Rome and early Church history. Each child got to pick a card. Then I would talk about whatever picture was on the card - Julius Caesar, roman ship, etc, whatever it was and then we'd pass it around. Kids got hungry and bored about halfway through.

Free play while I made lunch - frozen pizzas.

After lunch more of the same squirt gun/water play. But it was very hot and most of the kids lingered over lunch just chatting or they chose to play indoors or read books.

Day 5

Kids did a 5 minute tidy up of the downstairs (we had mostly set it up night before)

We went over the order of the show verbally. Then we went down to the stage and practiced one time.

The kids played while I got busy with making mac and cheese, tuna salad, put out baby carrots.

Moms came at 12. Brought food - water melon, homemade raisin bread (yummy!), cookies, donuts, fruit salad. One dad was late because his poor wife is recovering from surgery. Put on the show. The kids processed from the bedroom to the stage. Becky was the announcer. First they sang the amo song, then chanted sum, es, est. Then they recited the poem. Then they sat down and each child picked out the animal they had found the day before and took turns saying the word for their animal. Then we all stood up and said the sign of the cross and the Ave Maria.

Had lunch and kids played.

All in all, things went well. There was a lot more I could have taught them if I'd had another hour. However, I don't think I have the stamina to do another hour at this point! So be it!

My Ideal Homeschooling Day

2010-07-31T03:23:00.000-07:00

This was inspired by a WTM thread where someone asked for everyone to put aside reality and daydream about how a perfect homeschool day would go. I've been thinking about this and sitting out here on my backyard porch, sipping tea, on a cool (yes, it is actually a little chilly out right now!) summer morning, I am inclined to be optimistic! So here's my ideal day for this coming school year. We are going to be a little more formal than last year, just because my high schooler needs to be and my rising 6th grader wants to be.

6:30 I'd wake up rested! I'd patter downstairs, feed the pets, make a cup of tea, check e-mail while slowly waking up. I'd probably put on a load of laundry and unload the dishwasher. Doing those last two things always makes me feel like I've got a jump start on household duties. I'd also like to prepare a bit for our morning studies.

7:30 If the weather is good I'd like to take a 20 to 30 minute walk, probably with the dog. Hopefully I'd remember to say at least part of a rosary or do some sort of prayer while I walked. If the weather is bad, I'll probably just sit in my living room and pray. Probably by this time others are stirring in the house. Then I'd like to take a quick shower in whatever bathroom happens to be free. I don't want to take a long shower because then I tend to start daydreaming and this really demotivates me. After I hop out of the shower, I'll dress quickly and get downstairs to put out a simple breakfast. My plans are: M, Th - eggs and some kind of breakfast meat, T and F - oatmeal/cereal and fruit, W - rolls, cheese and fruit.

8:30 Everyone needs to report to the kitchen by this time. I'd prefer everyone to have gotten up, showered (if they are a morning shower type person), maybe taken two minutes to tidy their rooms. But I'll be happy if folks show up in their pjs as long as they are on time. Over breakfast I will read aloud Bible stories or chapters from the 6th and 4th graders Faith and Life books. Also, if it happens to be a saint's feast day, we might read a short something about the saint of the day. The 10th grader can listen in if he wants!

9:00 Sweep all the dishes into the sink and get out materials for morning studies. This is basically the three R's plus Latin/Greek. There is a maps, graphs and charts workbook thrown in there for good measure courtesy of Kolbe. Kids can do work in any order they choose as long as I can bounced back and forth between them helping and giving the attention needed. High schooler goes off to the dining room and works on homework he needs to do for his various classes.

There are little breaks here and there through out the morning. Maybe there is a Mozart cd playing in the background. No one feels rushed or tense, but just comfortably working through lessons. Mid-morning snacks of fruit and crackers are available when needed. I get to drink another cup of caffeine or two! I remember to drink plenty of water too. I keep an eye on high schooler's progress.

My 18 yo son will be on a different schedule. He'll be studying for CLEP tests and working, so he will float in and out of this scenario, depending on what's going on with him each day.

Noonish - We stop for lunch. Hopefully we got the mornings lessons done. If not we might have to finish up a bit in the evening. This is the time to clean the kitchen from both breakfast and lunch and also make sure I know what is going on for dinner that night. Lunches are simple: sandwiches or leftovers.

After lunch - we'll do either history or science, depending on the day. These studies are more read aloud/project oriented. I'll also continue to check in on 10th grader to make sure he's up to speed.

Tuesdays will be a bit different. Tuesday morning the younger two will have art class while 10th grader and I are in Latin class. Friday mornings I'll be taking 10th grader to Biology class but that will only take about 15 minutes out of the morning.

Mid-afternoon - depending on the day, afternoon activities will include: American Heritage Girls, Little Flowers, Tennis, working on stuff for 4H, free time which includes computer/TV time, playing outside, running errands, appointments, etc.

Dinner - dinner prep, a quick blitz tidy up of major living areas, eating dinner, cleaning up from dinner, going to 4H meetings which tend to be T or TH evenings a couple times a month. 10th grader goes to his teen group meeting at church on Wednesday nights at 7:30.

After dinner - my new thing is to have no screen after dinner. Except maybe watching a half hour of Jeopardy. That gets the mind rolling and eager for knowledge! But other than that, after dinner should be for: putting laundry away, taking a walk or playing outside some more, playing a game, reading, finishing up studies that weren't completed during the day, showers/baths for the evening shower/bath people, read alouds and prayer. Maybe after the younger two are in bed, the teens can watch an episode of the Simpsons with their dad. But that's it. Twice now my pediatrician has told me not to let the kids do screen at least two hours before bedtime. They have so much trouble falling asleep and he says a major cause of this in kids is too much screen time right before bed. So I'm taking his advice to heart.

10:00 or 10:30 Hopefully I can settle into bed and read my book right about this time!

Fun American History

2010-07-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

Well, I've taken a long hiatus from this blog, but I am in planning mode again and this is a good place to put my thoughts and plans.

Right now I'm organizing Sean's 6th grade history plans. I want to cover some American history in a fun way. I'm relying on some books from Royal Fireworks Press. We read one of these books as a read aloud a while ago and it was one of the few history books that got Sean really engaged. He thinks he hates history. I am out to prove him wrong this year! I am also going to use some Learning Through History magazines which are quite nice and I think will appeal to him. I think he'd rather read short articles then long historical fiction or even listen to a long textbook as a spine. I'm also going to assign a few books for him to read. We'll also do some movies, a game, and read alouds. I'm hoping also to maybe get a couple of field trips in and maybe some activities that are historically related.

Since Sean does not enjoy reading the books I've selected on are the easy side. I figure if I want him to read for knowledge I shouldn't make the reading a struggle for him. He will be a book club this coming year with 6th through 8th graders and I think those books will be challenging enough for him.

Books for Independent Reading:

The Trail of Tears by Joseph Bruchac (1838)- Step Into Reading-Step 5

Adventures of the Pioneer Show People by Edith McCall (begins in 1812 - Annie Oakley)

If You Traveled West in a Covered Wagon (part of the Scholastic series)

Learning Through History Magazine, Tribes of the American Plains issue

Striking It Rich by Stephen Krensky - (1849) Ready to Read Level 3

Gold Rush Adventures by Edith McCall

Lotta Crabtree, Gold Rush Girl by Marian T. Place (Childhood of Famous Americans series) I remember reading this book as a child! I found a used copy.

Learning Through History Magazine - The Atlantic Slave Trade

Willy Finds Victory; A Blessed Francis Seelos Story by Joan Stromberg

Learning Through History Magazine - The American Civil War

Civil War for Kids - A History with 21 Activities

A Story of Father Damien by Brother Ernest, CSC

Learning Through History - Industrial Revolution

The Orphans Find a Home - A St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Story

Read Alouds:

(This include a couple of Roman history books too in prep for our trip to Rome in the spring)

The Aeneid for Boys and Girls by Church (dh started this in the spring but the kids objected. So I plan to read during 'school' hours.

I Rode with Hannibal by Hans ?????

Hitty, Her First Hundred Years

Across Five Aprils

Moccasin Trail

Movies:

Showboat

The Jazz Singer

Annie Get Your Gun

Gettysburg

The Red Badge of Courage

Gone with the Wind

Field trips

Gold Vein VA?

Gettysburg PA

Civil War Reenactment somewhere?

Music

Stephen Foster/Civil War Songs

Other

Study timeline posted on wall in re Civil War
Any activities Sean would be interested in doing

This probably isn't complete. But at least I've got it written down now!

Journaling the Day 5/12/10

2010-05-14T04:50:00.000-07:00

Got up around 7, fed pets, did ½ hr on internet, cleaned kitchen and family room (1 hr)

8 yo woke up – first thing told me all about St. Barbara – the whole story narrated to me very nicely. I think she must have been listening to Once Upon a Saint last night before she fell asleep.

11 yo woke up – came down and wanted to tell me all about Stephen Pastis (sp?) the creator of Pearls Before Swine. Before bed last night he was reading the author’s introduction to a collection of his comics. My 11 yo loves Stephen Pastis!

@ 9 I made turkey bacon and scrambled eggs. Asked 11 yo to rouse 15 yo who got up, showered and came down to eat. Read last chapter of King of the Golden City by Mother Mary Loyola. Wow, what a great book. We talked about it a lot and decided it was the kind of book we should reread every year.

8 yo started watching a new Arthur on the Apple computer. Don’t know what others were doing. I decided to take quick shower.

Came downstairs from shower; 8 and 11 yo were working on making their own videogame on 11 yo’s dsi. Something they had started yesterday. It is very cute, they took lots of photos and made up different characters and voices to go with characters and different powers etc.. So not wanting to disturb them while they were playing happily I asked 15 yo if he wanted to get started. We have a checklist on our kitchen wall of stuff he ought to do each day. We decided to watch the next science lecture from the Teaching Co on Earth Science. It was fascinating about interglacial periods and climate change. Got into discussion about global warming with 15 yo.

11 and 8 yo came downstairs wondering what they were doing for lessons. I got out books that they worked in yesterday for seatwork which they do while me and their older brothers are in Latin class. I checked 8 yo phonics page and math page. Both done well! She said she just wanted to work on her timzit for math today, so that’s what she did. S did a page of his CHC spelling book. He usually does a page or two during the Latin class but he didn’t feel like it, so we decide to do it now. He wanted me to help him. He has trouble with fill in the blanks and that’s what this was. So we did that which involved learning what latitude and longitude was. So geography lesson was bonus! Then S did his Writing with Ease. I read a passage from Pippi Longstocking out loud then he had to orally narrate it back via guiding questions to help him remember the main points. Then I ask him questions to help him get an idea of how to summarize the passage. Then he writes out his summary. 8 yo listens better than 11 yo so she’s often jumping in with the answers which annoys 11 yo immensely. To forestall this we made 8 yo promise not to jump in but instead I’d read her her own passage. So I got out her WWE. She had been doing writing from it same as her older brother, but she started to balk so we are on hiatus. However, I said we could just do the oral portions which she happily agreed to.
It is now after 11 a.m. My 15 yo was supposed to be reading the Aeneid during al l this time. However, instead he was on the internet at the Escapist site and also looking at youtube series Let’s Play. Then he went upstairs to his room and didn’t Aeneid! Instead he read the same Pearls before Swine comic book. Having a slow motivation day, I guess!

My 17 yo is still asleep down in his basement room. I go down and ask him if he needs to get up for any reason. He says NO!

Conversation with 8 yo and 11 yo turns to caterpillars that have built chrysalises in our little butterfly garden that we have sitting on our family room coffee table. That reminds me that I got one of those eyewitness dvds from the library. We watch it. The kids love it and ask if we can go to the library and get more. I remember I got another on volcanoes. They watch that one too. Then they decide to go outside and bike/roller blade. 11 yo is into biking right now. They play outside for a good 45 minutes. I spend the time weeding our garden.

17 yo wakes up finally and take 11 yo and 8 yo out to lunch and then to Vision Therapy. Unfortunately he is running very and late and misses the VT appt. So it gets moved to 5 o’clock.

15 yo sits down and gives himself an Saxon Algebra II test. He can not remember certain algorithm. For some reason while trying to remember he lays down on two chairs in the dining room, groaning. After doing this a few minutes, he straightens up and begins to work. Hey, you couldn’t do that in a classroom!

11 yo and 17 go out together. They like to drive around and listen to the same music!

8 yo does a tiny bit of reading for me from a reading comp book I got at B&N. I’m trying to prime her for the CAT test coming up.

8 yo watches several episodes of Avatar, her latest obsession.

I dictate passage about mental prayer from Intro to Devout Life to 15 yo.

I got a new book on teaching beginning Latin, Getting Started in Latin by William Linney. Excellent, gentle intro. 8 yo and I do first 3 lessons. Super cinchy.

17 yo reads limericks out loud from an Edward Lear book I left out on the table. Today is Lear’s birthday!

While I take 8 yo to VT, 17 yo sits with 11 yo while he rewatches his new Latin lesson in Latin for Children.

15 yo reads Naruto (sp?) on line.

15 yo reads some more of Aeneid while I’m gone. When I get back, he and I go through study guide questions while I’m making dinner.

Before dinner, 8 yo plays outside in the rain on her scooter. She comes in all happy and volunteers to set the table! Wow, that was a first!

Dinner is meatball subs and baby carrots. I go to put away laundry. 8 yo is still in her helping mood so she helps me.

8 yo watches a new Fetch with Ruff, Ruffman show. The kids in the show have to build a bridge. Then they had border collies herding sheep. This is interesting because we just saw the 4H’ers last night run their agility dogs through their obstacle course. We are all excited to teach our Sheltie agility next year.

17 and 15 yo go to their Catholic Life Community meeting run by the Youth Apostles. There they hang out with other teen boys, study the scripture for next Sunday’s mass, learn about the faith from the lay Youth Apostle leaders and then socialize and talk.

11 and 8 yo watched Jeopardy together. Then I get out Saxon 6/5 out and we do lesson 53 and learn about double digit divisors in long division. 11 yo does 3 practice problems. I check his work from yesterday too. 11 yo has found a book we have; a dictionary of Adventure Heroes from every imaginable source: folklore, mythology, comic books, literature, radio. Movies, stage, etc. He looks up different heroes such as Ivanhoe. He thinks the book is really cool!

8 yo has been watching Arthur again while we are doing this. After Arthur I read next chapter in The Yellow House Mystery (Boxcar Children) to 8 yo while 11 yo reads next chapter in Island of the Blue Dolphins. 11 yo tells me about the chapter. He says it reminds him of when the main character in Hatchet realizes that no one is going to rescue him soon and he has to figure out how to survive. Then I read another chapter in Movie Shoes by Noel Streatfield to both kids. It was very long. But I got a kick out of it. The kids are being homeschooled in the story!

After that 8 yo brushes my hair while 11 yo practices his piano pieces for his jury next week and also practices sight reading. Then we say prayers. 8 yo wants to pray for all the people suffering from Volcanos (thinking about the eyewitness dvd we’d watched in a.m.) We also get into a meandering discussion that swings from lightly touching on the birds and the bees (8 yo can’t figure out why kids look like their dad if they come out of their mom’s womb. I tell her it is just like with animals, sperm must fertilize an egg. She’s seen lots of nature movies!). 8 yo seems satisfied with that, she hasn’t connect the physical part. 11 yo has embarrassed grin on his face as he has made the connection! Later 11 yo talks about how he might become a priest. He’s been saying this for a week or two. Several weeks ago there was a missionary priest at mass that made quite an impression on 11 yo. So now he daydreams about being a missionary priest. But then realizes he can’t be a dad if he’s a priest. So we talk about how it is really up to the Holy Spirit and we don’t have to worry about it but just be open to what unfolds in our lives. 8 yo talks about how she sometimes thinks she wants to be a nun. I tell her that I dreamed of being a nun when I was 10 and then I also thought about it right before I met daddy. She shrieks with laughter! You mean you thought you were going to be a nun right before you met your true love???? She says. She says that she really wants to be a saint and that we should say morning rosaries like we used to. I say great! Let’s try to do that again!

Teens come home. 17 yo starts playing a real ragtime piece he’s writing on the piano. 15 yo immediately disappears into the study to get on the computer. He brings back my kindle that he borrowed. He’s been reading H. P. Lovecraft stories he downloaded on it.

Rick comes home from work. It is now almost 10 o’clock at night and I am tired! It is rough living in a family of night owls when you are the only one who is ‘normal.’

Rick is reading the sequel to Detectives in Togas to the younger ones, Mystery of the Roman Ransom. They are loving it so far. After he’s finished a chapter, I shoo the kids off to bed.

17 yo runs to the store to pick up cat food among other things. It is wonderful having a teen who can drive!

Rick and I finish watching The Blind Side, a movie we started the day before yesterday. Good movie!

I go to bed, 17 yo, 15 yo and Rick stay up til about midnight. Don’t know what they did!

More Ponderings and Planning

2010-04-27T04:44:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm planning again. Not that my plans usually come to fruition the way I think they will, but it is the way I think things through. Things are up in the air a bit because I and some other ladies are trying to come up with a co-op for next year. It is a spin off from the Socratic Group/Art club we've been doing this year. I think it will happen is some way, shape or form. I just don't know exactly what subjects will be covered. I'm pretty sure that the Art club will also expand to include a book club. We may also add in other things like Geography, Science and poetry/Shakespeare. So I'm going to have to hold off and completely planning things because I really want the co-op to work. Part of me is doubtful though because so often in the pass things have not worked out.

Sean wants to go to school. He's bored. And he is influenced by his very smart friend who goes to school. And I think he feels a need to be more structured as well, even though he resists it a lot. So I'm thinking of relying somewhat on Kolbe next year for his 6th grade. I want to prepare him to go to school if he is inclined that way as he gets older and nearer to high school. So the Kolbe stuff would be:

Religion - I liked their Religion plans that I used with J in 8th grade. We didn't get half of it done and we did lots of it orally, but it was very edifying and satisfying to sit down about once a week and go over the readings and the questions informally. It was nice to have the syllabus and lesson plans to guide us in that. So I think that might be a good thing for S.

Math - we are already doing Saxon 6/5. I think we'll continue as much as possible in that, really gunning on it through mid-June and then lightly over the summer. And we'll start up fresh with 7/6 in the fall. There is so much review and repetition, I do not foresee a problem.

Reading/Literature - S and I have started up a book club between ourselves. Right now we are reading Island of the Blue Dolphin together. I hope to do this a couple more times this summer. Then the co-op book club can take over. That'll have him reading, I hope!

Writing - I think I might skip to WWE4 for S. WWE2 is a bit easy for him and it is time to step up the challenge in 6th grade. WWE4 is supposed to be 4th or 5th graders but SWB is very advanced in my view, so I think WWE4 will be excellent for 6th.

Spelling - I might use Kolbe's lesson plans for Vocab and Spelling. J really enjoyed the Sadlier Oxford book. I think S might too.

Grammar - Grammar gets covered in part by WWE. Also since we are doing Latin and Greek, he'll get grammar through that.

Latin - Latin for Children B (might be finishing up A at the beginning of the year)

Greek - Song School Greek - this is easy and fun but definitely teaches one Greek!

Science - if we wind up not doing any science in the co-op then I am very tempted to use Kolbe's Cambridge Life Science. I think in order for S to feel busier and more on par with his peers adding in formal science might be a good idea.

Geography - again if we don't do Geography in the co-op then maybe I'll used Kolbe's plans for Geography for S. I think he might enjoy doing the workbook they have.

History - History will be done with B. I'm thinking of doing BFbooks Western Expansion unit instead of Time Travelers which hasn't gotten off the ground at all. I can combine this with OM's 4th grade which covers the same time period. Also we are going to continue studying the Romans. Since we are going to Rome next May, I also want to study Italian history a bit. So I'd like to touch on the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Becky -

B is a different story! She is completely unwilling to do anything anymore! However, I really need to keep her busy because she gets out of control. I'm thinking she might love getting a box from OM with all her own books in it. The 4th grade OM program overlaps really nicely with my plans for S.

Religion - might just continue reading Bible History out loud at breakfast, occasional saint books and also get her a subscription to Magnifikids.

Math - OM math looks perfect!

Reading/literature - Book club for B, also I'd like to keep up working on phonics/VT. OM has me reading classic lit aloud to her, though many we've already read. I'll have her practice reading aloud to me once a week, if she'll let me.

Spelling/grammar/writing - all from OM

Latin - I'm just not sure what to do about this. B's been listening in on Latin with S, enough to get some familiarity but not enough to really know things. I could just have her listen in some more or I could try to have her study it herself. However, I don't know she'd enjoy going back over the LfC stuff or not. If not what else? If I did Song School Latin,would that be confusing while also doing Song School Greek?

Greek - maybe I should just let B listen in on Latin but really focus on Greek via Song School Greek.

Geography - co-op and/or OM which has lots of Geography in it.

History - RA about Rome/Italy. OM overlaps a lot with the BFbooks Western Expansion unit, so we could pick and choose between them. Lots of hands on projects for B to enjoy.

Science - co-op or OM science overlaps with Kolbe's Life Science for 6th, so again we could bounce back and forth between those resources and come up with a nice study of animals.

Art - Art club but also OM has lots of art in it.

Music - I think both kids will be on hiatus from music lessons next year, but OM has recorder duets. I can see both kids getting into that.

So that's what I'm thinking right now.

Next year it looks like J will be away at classes a lot. So I'm going to have to coordinate that into our daily lives. Plus, hopefully we'll be very involved in 4H.

CM blog

2010-04-25T08:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.charlottemasonhelp.com/2009/07/books-and-schedules.html

Weekly Report 4/17-4/23

2010-04-20T03:27:00.000-07:00

Weekend

J got back from his CLC retreat. They had election of officers. J was in the running for vice-president but didn't make it. Then they put his name in for secretary but he withdrew because he said he'd be terrible at keeping records of meetings. He says he hopes he gets to be an officer next year. He joked: So I found out what having a social life is like! You hang out with a bunch of kids your own aging goofing around and talking. I liked it! Maybe now he'll come out of the shell he's been in these last two years!
We finally made it to confession. I feel so badly that I never got the kids there during Lent. Bad mommy! But it was very rewarding to go anyway. Better late than never!
W had his piano lesson. He finally contacted someone about attending the homeschool prom; only a month late, but they need boys at it so they let him in!
S and his friend hiked the 3 miles from friend's house to our house and thought it was the greatest thing ever. That's the first time they've done that without someone older with them..
B went ice skating with her new friend and had an absolute blast.

Monday

Monday morning we all went to an open house that a Christian homeschool support service about 30 minutes from here was having. It meets in a huge Baptist church. They have various classes for 7th -12th grade all day long on Mondays and Wednesdays. They don't make you sign a statement of faith which is great. J sat in on a debate/speech class and now he really wants to take it along with Geometry. We met the Geometry teacher who seemed very nice and teacherly (if that's a word!). Afterward we went back to the library in our town and then ate lunch and took a walk around the historic spots/park in our little town.
J did math lesson and then lots of Latin homework. He stayed up late trying to finish it.
S practiced piano and then W took him to his lesson
B wanted me to read several library books to her and then she spent a long time coloring in her Doodle a Day calendar which she had misplaced for a couple month, so she had lots of catching up to do.
I taught RE in the evening. I can't wait until that's over. Just one more class!
B got the latest Penderwicks audio book from the library and is listening to that. S got a Calvin and Hobbes book out that had a very lengthy intro by Bill Watterson. He like to read about cartoonists and how they come up with their ideas.

Tuesday

Went on a great field trip in a.m. to the Kennedy Center to see the NSO. It was an educational program connecting history with music. The ushers were really disorganized though and made us late because they couldn't figure out where to sit us. We missed Bach's Toccata and fugue in G minor. But we did get to hear bits of Hayden's Surprise Symphony and Military Symphony. Hayden lived about the same time as George Washington. Then we got to hear Tchaikovsky's ending of 1812 Overture which was fantastic. All the school children just ate it up. Then we heard bits of Rite of Spring by Stravinsky and Leonard Bernstein's Times Square from On the Town. We also got to hear a couple of snippets of other pieces and they ended with a focus on percussion and on a contemporary composer Jennifer Higdon. And finally they played Sousa's Stars and Stripes and got a little girl out of the audience to be guest conductor. The conductor, Emil de Cou is so very personable and warm. It was lots of fun.
W took himself and J to Latin class and then W drove J to his math tutor as well.
S did first 1/2 of lesson 45 in Saxon 6/5 on quadrilaterals
B did the 9x table with Math It - S and I explained 9x mysterious powers.
B was caller in a game of phonics bingo - long vowel words. She's getting this reading thing!
S and I read the first ch of Island of the Blue Dolphin. I told him we were going to start our own personal book club and begin with that book.

Wednesday

Dentist appts in the a.m. No cavities. Now the kids don't believe me when I tell them they need to brush their teeth, cuz they haven't been doing it very much and we haven't made it to the dentist in two years and ,uh, no one had any cavities. Apparently they've been gifted with really good teeth, though poor B is going to need braces.
J and I watched the next lecture in How the Earth Works on glaciers. I slept through most of it, unfortunately.
J read Aeneid
J also worked on essay for 30 minutes
S and I read the next ch. of Island of the Blue Dolphins
S did L 46 in Saxon
S translated next little story in the LfCa history reader.

Thursday

Did a little bit of schooly work. Read Augustus Caesar's World to S. Read King of the Golden City to B and S. Read story about Mother Cabrini to S and B
J watched next history lecture on Sparta
J read lots of Book 5 in Aeneid
Went to Little Flowers and taught little class on St. Mother Cabrini
S played with Jack
W went to see Adrian Ballou in concert and met him! Got to chat with him. Was so happy about it!
J and I went to 4H and J had class on shooting sports

Read Alouds:

B is listening to the Penderwicks on audio
R is still reading Detectives in Togas
I've started reading Old Town in the Green Groves by Cynthia Rylant; This is Rylant's retelling of the missing years of Laura Ingalls Wilder's life, between the time they lived on Plum Creek and moved to Silver Lake.
King of the Golden City
Augustus Caesar's World
I've been reading Movie Shoes by Noel Streatfeild to B and S.

Weekly Report 4/10 - 4/17/10

2010-04-14T05:25:00.000-07:00

Weekend:

S had a great weekend. His friend spent the night, then when R came home from skeet shooting with J Sat a.m., he took everybody out to putt putt golf. Weather was gorgeous.
J did his 4H shooting sports on Sat - turns out the kick of the shotgun is a bit too much for his recovering back. I think he was disappointed. R now loves skeet shooting!
Sun - R took B and S out on the boat with him. Unfortunately, the dr said J can't go on the boat. When R goes on plane the bouncing is too violent for his back. J and I hung out at home. He helped me with some housework. We went to 5:30 p.m. Mass and then picked W up from airport.
W had great weekend with H and now really, really can't wait to go away to college! Or at least away this summer.

Monday

W slept, I guess recovering from his weekend.
J did lots of math and Latin and read Aeneid
B woke up with sore throat and feeling cranky and under the weather, so I've not pushed her to do schooly work.
S did Greek and WWE. We never got to math! S went to piano lesson (W took him)
I spent a lot of time preparing for my RE class. Only two more classes. I can't wait til its over!
R stopped reading Aeneid to the kids. Said they weren't engaged. I think he gave up too soon. But I'll read it to them when we finish Augustus Caesar's World. Instead he started reading them Detectives in Togas which they are enjoying.

Tuesday

I turned 50 today! I'm old!
R got me a grandfather clock. So handsome and Victorian looking. I love it. I've already decided it will be B's when I pass on someday. Since she's the youngest and will live with it the longest of all the kids, God willing. The couple who delivered the clock loves clocks and they gave a very nice lesson to B and S on how the clock, chimes and pendulum all work. Science for the day?????
I didn't go to Latin class (again) because R wanted me to be there when the clock was delivered.
J and W went to Latin class. We've started the Passive voice! Eek! For some reason the passive voice has always scared the patooties out of me!
S did some Latin, a division facts sheet and some dictation.
B still had sore throat so I gave her books to look at. She especially enjoyed looking through the Reader's Digest book on North American Mammals, Reptiles and Amphibians. She was especially interested in the bats! I dug up a Where's Jesus book (like Where's Waldo) and she spent a lot of time with that as well.
Took J to his math tutor. She only gave him one lesson for homework because they had gone through the previous 4 very thoroughly and apparently they are hitting tough stuff right now.
R got Chinese carry out so I wouldn't have to cook dinner. And a white choc. b-day cake from the bakery.
H called from UD to wish me happy birthday.
We went to our first 4H business meeting, just J and S and I. B stayed home w/R cuz of her throat. Went to get into the van and I had a flat tire! Had to take R's car. Mtg was interesting to me. S and J didn't understand it because we got there a few minutes late. It is run by the kids using Roberts Rules of Order. New experience for them.
S gave B his Mutts comic book collection and was helping her read the comics to herself. She was very pleased by both his gift and the reading. I'm seeing more and more efforts on her part to read. VT is kicking in! Hurrah!
J and R watched the next part of Free to Choose

Wednesday

Spent most of morning taking care of flat tire. Got AAA to change it (R couldn't get the lugnuts off!) and then took it into the shop to get patched.
Did start on the Latin for Children A Latin Reader which S loved! We did the first three little chapters. S loves translating. He said it was like figuring out a puzzle. Also read next Ch. of August Caesar's World which had to do with Cleopatra and Julius Caesar.
R got S and B a little hand held video recorder with which they are delighted! They are getting 'nature footage' they inform me of the geese on the pond out back and of one of our cats drinking from the stream. Also S made a puppet out of an apple and did various takes on that.
S did a divisions fact sheet.
B seemed still under the weather early in the day but by night was fine. I think she's over her sore throat.
J - took dictation from Intro to Devout Life, watched next science lecture on weather, read Aeneid for an hour and then discussed study guide questions with me.
I don't know what W did!!!! Except he took S to VT for me.
S spent a lot of time outdoors riding his scooter and shooting baskets.

Thursday

S did a little Latin in his workbook, some fraction problems involving inches and centimeters and a short division problem, his written narration for WWE
B did a page of phonics and some beginning multiplication problems in her MCP workbook
J read Aeneid and orally answered study guide questions, watched next history lecture on Greek Dark Ages and Archaic period
Wrote essay for 30 minutes on whether Dido was right in calling Aeneas all those nasty things! LOL. J sided with Aeneas!
Read chapter of King of the Golden City to B and S
J did his online logic

Friday

Met with Socratic Discussion group. We've decided to expand into a Catholic Culture Club Co-op! (CCCC) for next year. The plan is to meet on Friday mornings as we do now but instead doing the Socratic Discussion we are going to have on alternate Fridays both a Book Club and an Art Club. On the other Fridays we may have a Geography/World Culture Club and poetry studies. I'm all excited about it. Also we talked about meeting over the summer for the Latin camp and also to watch Teaching the Classics. The Book club will be based on the Socratic questions from Teaching the Classics. The Art Club will be continuing the Christian Heritage Art Program we are using now. Not sure about the Geography/culture program but I want to use a Child's Geography.
J discussed The Seven Books of Mencius with his group.
The Elementary group finished their coats of arms; learned about the term 'value' when applied to colors.
W got up went to his music comp class.
J stayed home while B and S had their first spring tennis class with the homeschool group. W didn't take the class but he sat outside with us while he worked on his laptop.
J has a retreat with his CLC group overnight tonight. W isn't going because he can't miss his piano lesson tomorrow morning.

Two Weeks in Review! Holy Week & Easter Week!

2010-04-10T04:56:00.000-07:00

I think I'll do this by child:

H - away at UD, getting over a nasty cold. Got an A on a paper she wrote. Had to get an extension on another paper due to being sick. Has decided she wants to double major in Political Philosophy and English. Has definitely decided not to do the Rome semester next fall, but will go in the spring term. So that means we as a family will not do our tour of Italy and Greece until next May. That makes me very happy! I'd much rather do it in May! She called me a few days ago and we talked for 2 hours which was wonderful. She didn't come home for Easter because it was such a short break and her friend was coming into the church on Easter and she really wanted to be there for that. She's feels a real kinship with her as her friend was raised Jewish. They celebrated Passover together too.

W - between the cancellations during Holy Week when the school system was taking its spring break and Easter week when Catholic institutes were taking their breaks, W didn't have a whole lot going on. He slept a lot, listened to lots of music, practiced lots of music, is currently listening to G. K. Chesterton's Thomas Aquinas on audio which he is enjoying, did some writing for his Writeguide mentor, hung out a lot with friends went to the gym a couple of times to work out. Usually he doesn't have much of a social life, but on Holy Thursday he went with the Youth Group on their 7 church crawl (after The Mass of the Lord's Supper on Thursday evening, they go to 7 different churches in the area to pray before the Blessed Sacrament, before midnight when the Bl. Sacrament is removed from all the Churches until Easter Vigil.) Then he went to the Easter Vigil all by himself and wound up hanging out with a bunch of folks at the all night diner afterward. Then his friend had Easter break this week so he's been hanging out with him more than usual. On Friday morning he boarded a flight to Dallas to go visit H for the weekend. I hope he's having a great time. He's missed her so much.

J - we didn't do much on Monday or Tuesday. We were recovering from both Passover and Easter. J tried to get up enough focus for Alg but didn't get much done. We didn't have our usual Latin class on Tuesday which was a nice break, I must admit! Tuesday, J tried to do more Alg but again failed. Did go to his Alg tutor in the afternoon which got him a little more focused. Wed and Thursday were full school days for him. He did Science, Latin, Math, History, Lit and writing both days. Friday he had Socratic discussion (Plato?). He and R started watching Free to Choose, program PBS did on Milton Freedman. J is very interested in economics. We've been talking about colleges and planning for them. He and W went to their regular CLC meeting on Wed night. H went to his 6 week drs. follow up appt for his back surgery. The dr said he could walk, swim or ride his bike as long as he didn't fall off! So I've made him do some walking. We went to a local park on Easter and did some walking. He enjoyed it but got winded easily. I made him take the dog for a walk this week(something he did quite regularly before the surgery) and he only lasted about 15 minutes. So we'll have to keep working on this and slowly get him moving again. He was skinny as a string bean to begin with and he lost weight since the surgery and doesn't seem to have put it back on. He's still reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He's spending way too much time in front of the computer which I have started to actively curtail. He's going skeet shooting today with R and the 4H group. That's good. The biggest thing though for J was that he turned 15 on Easter Sunday! His favorite gift was a two volume set of The Far Side which both he and W have been burying themselves in. I get regaled by the ones they find the funniest.

S -has been hanging out with his friend Joseph a lot this week as Joseph goes to our parish school and they have the week off. We went hiking at a park along the Potomac river when the temp was 90 degrees out! S was bored a lot this week. We had several good discussions about unschooling. S said he wanted to continue doing Saxon Math and Writing with Ease because he didn't think he could learn math and writing with unschooling. He said his ideal day would be that we get up and have breakfast by 10 o'clock then we spend an hour working on math and writing and Latin (might be a little unrealistic there!) and then we have some kind of project or something scheduled to do each day. I think that sounds like a good plan! We started a new read aloud of S's choosing: Augustus Caesar's World by Genevieve Foster. We are still reading The King of the Golden City which generates a lot of good discussion. R has started reading The Aeneid for Boys and Girls to S and B. R finds it interesting because he never read the Aeneid in school. S learned short division this week. R built S and B a beautiful puppet theater during Holy Week. They've been enjoying this very much! Friday we did our Art club. We finally designed our coats of arms (didn't happen when I had planned it before) and learned about St. Louis and the crusades. He enjoyed the project. His friend Joseph came over on Friday afternoon and has spent the night. They had lots of fun playing on the newly repaired wii and also playing pool and watching movies.

B - loves the chicks we got on Holy Thursday. She and J are into helping me clean their container and feed them. S seems to largely ignore him. Guess he won't grow up to be a farmer! Anyway, I forgot to mention the peeps earlier. We had a lovely drive out to a farm in the country to pick them up. R finished reading The Doll's House to B. She found the ending quite sad. B began to learn her times tables this week. She decided she didn't like Writing with Ease but wants to practice her cursive, so she's been doing that. She also enjoyed hiking at the park. We've been outside a lot this week because of the beautiful weather. She voluntarily read me some poems from a little books of poems she enjoys. She and S went to VT this Wed too. Forgot to mention that. There is a lot of overlap in what B and S do! B also enjoyed the art club project. She got to visit a new friend she had made at the last game day. She had a wonderful time and is quite happy with her new friend.

The other big thing we did the Wed of Holy Week was to visit the Baltimore Aquarium with my sister and her two youngest boys. We had a great time. They loved the Dolphin Show and then we saw a couple of exhibits. The habor was beautiful.

I'm sure there is lots of stuff I've forgotten. They were two very full weeks!

Weekly Report 3/22-3/26

2010-03-26T05:16:00.000-07:00

Every time I write the dates for the weekly report I really think about how they should include the weekends because learning does not only happen on weekdays! I wonder why I am so rigid and somehow feel it is improper to include all the dates of the week? Boy, am I silly with my nonsensical internal struggles!

Last weekend I read a great book on Unschooling, called Homeschooling our Children, Unschooling Ourselves by Alison McKee. I highly recommend it. So I was really in an unschoolish mode this week. We did nothing mommy directed on Monday. I didn't even bother to keep a record each day, which is what I usually do because my memory is too poor and I don't seem to be organized enough to recall what we've done any other way. So this week, what occurred? Let me think!

Lots and lots and lots of discussion about politics generated by the passing of the health care reform bill.
Further discussion, planning, trigonometry and building of the dollhouse. Design changes are being made to the original plan which generates much thought. I think not one but two trips were taken to Once Upon a Time, our favorite toy/dollhouse store.
Lots of playing with puppets.
Lots of playing outdoors when the weather was nice during the week.
Still lots of jumping rope. B and I played basketball some.
Lots of discussions about good and bad animation and stop motion techniques. S seems fascinated with all the mechanical aspects of this. We watched Fantastic Mr. Fox which is a really funny, well done movie and S was able to analyze in great detail about the quality of the production.
R started reading The Doll's House by Rumer Godden to B. S is without a read aloud right now from R. I'm still reading Theater Shoes by Noel Streatfield. It leads to discussion about WWII, since it is set there. Lots of references to 'coupons' and rationing.
W decided S was old enough to watch Invader Zim, so he's been doing a lot of that.
S didn't go to piano lesson on Monday. He came to me and begged me not to make him go. He was ashamed he had not done any practicing and he was supposed to know his pieces perfectly. W overheard this and made a deal with S: if you practice your pieces every day and learn all your major and minor scales, he would buy S some comic book he's been longing for. Deal made and S has been playing piano beautifully and working hard on his music theory. Sometimes big brothers are so great!
I finally read about the Louisiana Purchase to B and S. But I didn't get our other regularly schedule readings in.
B has been working through Math It. She's got her addition facts down and now she's on the Double It section.
S learned about adding and subtracting mixed numbers.
They did some WWE and cursive practice. And a little bit of spelling/phonics
J finished The Fellowship of the Ring and is now reading The Two Towers.
J went to his second 4H shooting class. He loves it. His new love, firearms. Oh dear.
W is off in his own world. He is busy though, practicing and writing music. On his own he found out about a full scholarship to Berklee's 5 week program which he's going to attend. You have to send in an MP3 recording. He listened to the winners last year and he's decided he has a chance. So he's been practicing and recording that. He got the bass line recorded.
W and J went to their CLC meeting on Wed.
We went to Latin class Tuesday. The 3rd declension is a monster! Lots of homework to do over the weekend and on Monday. W borrowed a Teaching Co. lecture series from the Latin teacher (who is also very into music; she sings in a Latin choir). W's been watching that.
B and S went to VT
S had his (late) 11 yo check up with the dr and had to get 3 shots. He was very brave.
I led our Little Flowers group that B is in. We did the Stations of the Cross and then painted crosses. S got to play with Jack during this time.
This week J finished reading Book 1 and started Book 2 of the Aeneid. He did some dictation. We watched the next lecture in How the Earth Works on the water cycle. He also watched the next lecture in Foundations of Western Civ on the Hebrews. Great lecture. I made J take notes while watching. We also watched more Teaching the Classics about the Socractic method. J also finally made it back to the math tutor. The tutor decided just to focus on bad habits that J had gotten into that cause him to make errors, even though he gets the concepts right away. She didn't give him any homework. The poor guy has to move around a lot still because of his back. It's only been 4 weeks since the surgery. But he sits for a while and then he gets uncomfortable so he stands and then he wants to lie down for a while. . . the tutor was so distressed at his discomfort! He just can't ever seem to find a comfortable position.
Today (Friday) W went to his music comp. class. We have Socratic Discussion for J, and B and S have art club - we are going to learn about Medieval Heraldry, St. Louis of France, and we're going to make our own coat of arms. We also have the homeschool groups' last game day at the library this afternoon and the kids said they wanted to go to it. J and I want to play Made for Trade.
R and I are going to see Porgy and Bess tonight at the Kennedy Center. I am so excited!

The Owl Box

2010-03-25T06:42:00.001-07:00

http://www.ustream.tv/theowlbox

Weekly Report 3/13-3/19

2010-03-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

Unschoolish

The weekend was rather mathy! First of all R started building a dollhouse for B. B is totally enthralled by this and is building her own dollhouse from wood scraps right alongside him. They spent much of the weekend together in the garage working away. He had her learning how to use the protractor in measuring and I overheard her talking very knowingly about degrees of angles.

R also had J do some trig problems to help with designing the dollhouse.
Sunday was 3/14 - Pi day! We ate pie and S and B learned what 3.14159 is. They made posters (on their own; I didn't ask them to).
On Sat. morning W announced he'd finished composing his piece for piano and violin. I was blown away by it! His piano teacher is playing the piano part and W called a girl we know who plays violin and she's going to play the violin. I think W is recording it to show to teachers at Berklee this summer.
Monday - B and S played with puppets, did more jumproping (a sudden passion of S's) and watched Between the Lions.
B is suddenly playing with an old Lego set (a girlie set with ponies)
B's been relistening to C.S. Lewis' The Horse and His Boy
J is still reading The Fellowship of the Ring
B played on Starfall a lot
S is obsessed with jump roping
B made stamps out of cardboard, rubber bands and glue. She glues the rubberband in shapes on the cardboard. Then she colors with marker to make the print.
Beautiful weather, kids played outside lots and lots
S made a sock puppet.
W went to meet his piano teacher and a professional violinist the teacher knows (White House Orchestra and National Symphony!!!!!) to record W's piece for piano and violin. So cool!
J went to CLC
S is very into learning about stop motion animations. He's been going to this website www.stopmotioncentral.com to learn about it. He's also been playing with clay a lot.
B got into a cleaning mood and cleaned up the screen porch!
W and S worked on music theory
J went to first 4H event - learning gun safety and how to shoot a shotgun
Read B and S Theater Shoes
W went to concert with his piano teacher
B collected some deer bones she found in the woods: a jawbone with teeth, two ribs, something that looks like a shoulder blade? and another bone that looks like a leg bone?
Friday (projected) - B and S and I are finishing the Egyptian Mummy Cases we started last Friday. If we still have time, we'll make seder plates (coloring on paper plates) and I'll read about Passover.
This afternoon we have our homeschool Talent Show. None of my kids are in it this year. I guess J's surgery just knocked that idea right out of our lives. B regrets this. She recited a poem last year and S did also and played a piano piece. W is MC'ing. He did it last year and he's such a natural comedian, everybody loved him and asked him to do it again!
Tonight we are going to our church's Stations of the Cross for kids/pizza night. B loves it. S is getting a tad too old for it, I think.

Schoolish

Sunday, J and I sat down and I told him all we'd learned about the 3rd declension in Latin class. Then we managed to do a little bit of homework.
Monday - B and S did WWE
B practiced math facts with Math It; S did some work on fractions and some review problems in Saxon L. 39
B and S and I studied some new Greek words in our workbook
J watched the netflixed movie of Oedipus Rex
J and I watched lecture on History of Plate Motions - the Atlantic is widening, the Pacific will close up. Africa is rapidly moving north and closing up the Mediterranean sea. Australia is going to smash into China at some point!
J and I worked on Latin homework
W went to guitar lessons, S went to piano
Tuesday - Latin class - J was so uncomfortable and didn't pay attention at all. He didn't go to his math tutor
B and S did cursive, spelling/phonics and math
J, S and I watched more of Teaching the Classics
J and I watched lecture two on West. Civ - History Starts with Sumer
B went to gymnastics
Wednesday - B did her WWE very well and then balked at learning to tell time in math.
S did his copy work from WWE then read from M. Burns book I Hate Mathematics. Did a bit of work in his Latin workbook; practiced piano
J did his logic lesson
J reviewed answers he got wrong on his last Alg. test he took 3 weeks ago.
Read aloud to S and B about Alexander the Great from Before America
J and I watched lecture on Egyptians
B and S did WWE
B worked on telling time for a few minutes
S worked in his Latin workbook reviewing vocabulary
J took some dictation from me (from Intro to the Devout Life)
J and I watched next science lecture on the continent of North America
J and I read Aeneid - more of Book 1
Did a tiny bit of math with S about angles and protractors
Read about Louisiana Purchase from Time Traveler's
Friday - W went to his Music Composition class
J needs to study for science quiz and then go to his Intro to Chem class this afternoon. He'll miss the Talent Show.
At some point this evening (after Talent Show and before Stations - we need to sit down and do some Latin. Tons of homework to do!

Weekly Report 3/8 - 3/12

2010-03-08T13:32:00.000-08:00

Monday:

Read next Chapter of King of the Golden City to B and S. S gets the allegory; B is puzzled often by it.
WWE copywork and narration
Greek Decoder - studied vowel diphthongs some more
Math - B did two subtraction word problems in MCP and S worked on lesson 35 in Saxon which coincidentally was also about subtraction word problems
Both B and S drew pictures, played with puppets and played outside quite a bit (weather was lovely!); they also took S's camera and were trying to make a movie but got frustrated when it ran out of batteries and they couldn't find the recharger!
J and I took the last NLE practice exam
J took his NLE this a.m. The teacher came over. Then he played on the computer some and then he crashed and took a long nap; woke up completely out of it.
W is on spring break. Played lots of music
H got up and went to lunch with a friend; then proceeded to summer job hunt.
Took S to piano lessons and wrote thank you notes while I waited. Then I took a walk. Spring is in the air!
J was completely knocked out when I got home. He slept from about 3 to 6 when I woke him up because I was afraid he wouldn't sleep tonight.
S is being tormented by a very loose tooth.
B and S put on a 'circus' in the front yard doing a mime act.
W and I went to take the NLE but I drove to the wrong library! So we wound up arriving a half hour late. But we still finished before the end. I think I got 100%. Of course this is the intro level so it is pretty darn easy.
R read Mysterious Benedict Society and I read a bit of Theater Shoes

Tuesday

J stayed home from Latin class. It was a great class though.
B and S did some penmanship, and math, neither got to their phonics/spelling though. They drew a lot of pictures and then played outside during the class. The weather was gorgeous!
After lunch worked with B on her phonics and S on his spelling.
J was really out of it today.
W and I talked to the rep from College Plus about the possibility of having him take clep tests and clep into some college credits instead of going to the Comm. Coll. which he really hates. Looks like it might be a real option!
S was all out of sorts so I let him watch a movie (Mr Magorium's Magic Emporium), even though he's been trying to give up screen for Lent (except for animating.)
S and B played outside some more.
B went to gymnastics
H slept in, trying to get over her cold, went to lunch with another friend. Dinner was nice R came home for dinner on a weeknight! And all seven of us sat around the table.
Read more Mysterious Benedict Society and Theater Shoes

Wednesday

B and S played much of the morning planning and playing with puppets and making videos
We did WWE, S did very well on his dictation.
We watched Lesson 19 in LfC to review since we hadn't done it in two weeks
Did very short Saxon lesson on drawing fractions with S. B worked on her Math It
Went to VT; B and S both read aloud to me in the waiting room while the other was seeing the therapist
We went to Michael's and got clay and sewing supplies and lots of odds and endsy things. In the discount aisle the kids found two little puppets which they immediately fell in love with. One boy and one girl puppet.
J started reading Oedipus Rex this a.m. I netflixed the movie version of it.
J took himself to bed to read Fellowship of the Ring
W has been practicing lots of music and working on Writeguide
H is still fighting the nasty cough she's got. Slept late, got up, cleaned kitchen, went grocery shopping with me, then went out with friend to drink coffee and do her reading for college.
Watched next lecture on Sumatran Earthquake with J
Read about Ancient Greek culture from Before America to B and S
R read Mysterious Benedict Society
Read next ch. in Theater Shoes.

Thursday

B and S played with puppets again almost all morning. Didn't start formal stuff until 11:00
S did WWE, next lesson in Saxon on fractions, mixed numbers and number lines. He was having fun.
I read the synopsis of the first lesson in our Time Travelers early 19th c. Am. Hist unit. B was booorrrreeed. Next time I'll read it myself and retell it making it more interesting. Reading it straight from the cd wasn't great. It was interesting learning about the Barbary Pirates. I knew very little about that. I sang them the Marine Hymn.
B, tho' was in a bad mood and balking at doing any work. Then she announced she had a headache to the point where she didn't want to to Little Flowers this p.m. This is unheard of! She loves LF! So that told me she really wasn't being difficult, she truly didn't feel up to snuff.
J did his logic lesson
J finished reading Oedipus Tyrannus
J and I watched the first lecture in Foundations of Western Civ.
J, S and I watched more Teaching the Classics - literary style
S did more of Ch. 19 in LfC - we reviewed present, imperfect, future, 1st & 2nd declensions and vocabulary
B and S watched Prince of Egypt - Passover's coming!
Read Mysterious Benedict Society
Read Theater Shoes
S finished up the short Roald Dahl book he was reading (Giraffes, Pelicans and . . . can't quite remember the title!).

Friday (projected!)

S needs to do his music theory lesson
Socratic discussion for J
Art club for S and B - we'll be learning about Joseph in Egypt and then beginning to make mummy cases
If J is up for it, he'll go to the Intro to Science class this afternoon
W has no class today - spring break
H went off very early this a.m. for a job interview. She's trying to get work as a camp counselor for the county's summer camps.

Reassessing Josh's 9th Grade

2010-03-05T04:26:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to figure out why 9th grade for J has gone so poorly this year. This is my 3rd time doing 9th grade; you'd think it would be old hat, but no, not. at. all.

With H, since she was my oldest and first homeschooling high schooler, I think I was just so overly focused on it, so anxious to get it right and to prove to myself we could do this thing, that I had lots of energy and drive. And W being the easy-going guy he is, just went along with everything H did, practically, until he discovered music and then he took off on his own. I've had to do very little directly to get him through high school. Very little planning, I mean.

With J, who truly is more academic than the older two, in that he loves to read and enjoys math more than they ever did. And he enjoys learning Latin. But he's been going through this adolescent slump where all his interests have narrowed and eating and sleeping are paramount as well as spending lots of time alone. So all the former enthusiasm that he had for learning before has gotten swallowed up. I am expecting it to resurface at some point, but it has been a major drag on this year's progress. Combine that with my tendency to unschoolish ideas, it is really hard to stand over him with a whip and force him to finish stuff. I can't bear to seem him unhappy in his learning so I don't push.

So here's the assessment:

Religion - CLC is a good thing, both Religion and socialization - so that's a positive there!

Math - he's been going so slowly through Alg II, but now we have a tutor and we know we'll be going most of the summer to try to finish up the book.

Science - we've been pretty steadily watching our Teaching Co. lectures and he did sign up for the Intro the Science class which because of his operation he missed at least two of the six meetings. Fortunately the snow canceled at least one meeting so he's not so very far behind as he could be. I think if he reads a couple of science based books, I'll say he's got enough credit for 1 year. So he might be able to wrap that up in June sometime.

Literature - well, my huge schemes for doing an intensive Greek/Roman year have vanished in the dust! However, he has read: The Book of Job, The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Iliad, The Odyssey and now we are about to start the Aeneid. I'd also like to read a couple of Greek plays and watch them on netflix dvds. And I'd like him to read a retelling of Caesar's Gallic Wars by Olivia Coolidge. He is motivated to read the Aeneid (he's read the children's retelling before) because for some reason he really, really wants to read Dante's Inferno (videogame that just came out inspired this perhaps?) and he knows he'll get a lot more out of it if he reads the Aeneid first. So say it takes us March, April and into May to read the Aeneid (at the rate we've been going it will take this long!), we can squeeze in a couple of plays somehow as well. He can read the Coolidge book in June. This can be a Dante summer for him! H will be home, maybe they can watch the Teaching Co. videos on Dante together (with me of course!).

History - this has really fallen by the wayside. How did I let this happen??? I'd like to pick up where we left off on the SWB's History of the Ancient World and finish reading this. Also, instead of doing Trisms which J really dragged about, maybe we'll just sit down and watch Foundations of Western Civilization.

Writing - J hates to write. There is no getting around it. He used to like it somewhat. He enjoyed things like Freewrites and one year he wanted to do the November National Writing Month, and he did start his novel but that petered out before Nov ended. So now my approach is this: he likes doing dictation because it gives him handwriting practice, spelling, grammar, etc. It gets him warmed up so to speak. But he hates these formatted programs like Learn to Write the Novel Way or Writeshop. He dreads them. So I was thinking that what we'd do is continue with the video school approach in hopes this will inspire him. Last night we started watching Teaching the Classics. I think we should work through that program and then continue on perhaps with the Teaching Co. lectures on Sentences. That will probably continue through the summer. Perhaps next year, he'll be ready to focus on his writing skills.

So summer school looks like this:

CLC continues through the summer
Math tutoring continues through the summer
History - read HAW and watch videos
Writing - watch videos on writing
Literature - read Dante and watch videos

Hopefully we wind all this stuff up by mid-August before our beach trip. He'll have a couple of weeks off before we start up studies again.

NB: I can't believe I forgot Latin and Logic!

J will have a credit for Latin
J started taking the online logic course from LPH and it continues through the summer. That'll be .5 credit.

Weekly Recap 3/1/10 - 3/5/10

2010-03-01T11:47:00.000-08:00

Last week had some academic stuff in it but I can't remember it because it is a blur! Wednesday J had his back surgery. We were at the hospital 15 minutes early @ 7:45 and wound up waiting until almost 12:00! The surgery got pushed back because our dr who seems to be THE pediatric orthopedist had to do emergency surgery on a little boy who fell out of a 6 or 7 story window! He lived, incredibly, because he landed on a big snow pile! But he broke his femur and that's what made us wait for hours in the waiting room at the hospital. J finished reading The Screwtape Letters and then napped while we waited. I won't go into the gory details of the surgery and the arduous days at the hospital. J is now home asleep on a bed we've put up in our family room. On J's last day in the hospital he read the book The Hunger Games. I read it too. Really good book!

Monday

Read aloud from The King of the Golden City
Read aloud from Frontier Bishop
Btw, finally finished Five Little Peppers Sunday evening.
J and B have been watching lots of movies/tv - The Incredible Journey, PW Herman's Big Adventure and lots of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
S went early to piano lessons. W is doing a make up lesson there just before S's. S took his saint book on St. Hubert, the Archer Saint (not the the exact title!) to read while he waited.
B has been watching Wordgirl on the computer and playing games affiliated with the show.
B found her old mp3 player and listened to songs her older sister put on it when she was six. Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Would You Like to Swing on a Star? and lots of Christian Rock songs.
S and B watched the director's commentary on the Series of Unfortunate Events and laughed hysterically the whole time. Lemony Snickett must be very funny!
W and I did a practice NLE
J slept most of the day!
I read the first chapter of Amos Fortune to S who was asking for a read aloud for the evening from me.

Tuesday

Finished up Latin homework this a.m. with W but only W went to Latin class
J had a rough night
While I was taking a shower B and S started watching the Lemony Snickett movie w/ commentary to J. This was good because the incoming storm triggered a weird migraine so I spent most of the morning fighting pain and nausea!
B and S announced they wanted a total unschooling day and that I was not allowed to read to them! What?? I was in a weakened condition and consented.
B (and S) bickered and fought and screamed horribly making me threaten B with no gymnastics this p.m. unless she straightened up. She, of course, misbehaved again so no class for her!
Suddenly right before what would have been time for gymnastics, B made me a lovely card saying I love you mom. She cut out strips of different colored construction paper to make a rainbow in the card.
B and S then began to make puppets. S took went to this site and got instructions to make a duck shadow puppet out of cardstock, those little joint pins (what do you call them) that I happened to have from some project long ago and bamboo skewers. Then they tied string to a stuffed dog to make a marionette and B took a couple of skewers and stuck them through the paw of another stuffed dog to make a rod puppet.
J gave himself a little sponge bath, brushed his teeth and changed into clean clothes. He went outside for about one minute but it was cold. He has definitely lost weight. I hope he gets his appetite back soon!
W practiced music all afternoon and then worked on Writeguide
B and S taped up a sheet in the basement and then with a flashlight made hand shadows and put on a really clever show!
B made a plate with spaghetti and meatballs out of construction paper!
J and I watched the next Earth Science lecture on Mt. St. Helens.
S keeps going to this site to look at their puppets.
B and S drew pictures of W
J watched Murder by Death again (he watched it last night as well.) He thinks that movie is hysterical!
B and S finally allowed me to read to them but it was a completely different book than we've been reading: Theater Shoes by Noel Streatfield. Both pronounced the first ch to promise good things.
S listened to Jim Weiss cd on Abraham Lincoln. B is listening to The House Beyond the Trees. J is going to try to sleep in his own bed upstairs tonight. Hopefully he'll sleep better.

Wednesday

Totally lax day. In a.m. J, S and B watched Peanuts episodes while I ran errands.
W practiced lots of music
S and W went to VT
B and I went on a little date to Chick Fil A - had a nice time
J started reading sequel to The Hunger Games
B read some from the Chick Fil A booklet on horse she got and then proceeded to play for quite awhile on Starfall
S went over to friend's house
W went to CLC
R read B and S Mysterious Benedict Society 3 and I read them next ch. of Theatre Shoes

Thursday

Still in complete unschooling mode. I think in my head I'll say this is spring break! Maybe start afresh next week when H is home. I'm thinking of using her as a motivational factor for S and B.
B and S are still in the lots of drawing and playing with puppets mode
J finished reading sequel (what is it's name?)
B and S joined me (somewhat) while I actually pulled out an exercise dvd and did the exercise. Yeah for me!
B and talked about starting a vegetable garden. Last year R built me this nice square foot garden raised bed but we came to a standstill about how to keep deer away and then we never planted the garden. But this year I'm already planning. So I ordered deer repellant and organic seeds: carrots, melons. tomatoes, peas, broccoli, sweet bell peppers, cucumbers.
We are getting 4 baby chicks to raise on 4/5! That'll be fun (I hope!)
S and I went out for a date to Panera for lunch
W and I went to CC to figure out how to get into his account and drop his music theory class before it is too late. Got it all straightened out.
W is designing a new look for his electric guitar. He went to Home depot and bought spray paint. He took apart the guitar and is using paint tape to make some kind of design on it. He's hard at work at it!
B and S went out to play for a while; chilly day but the sky was blue.
B and S begged me to take them to our really quaint and cool local toystore where we looked at all the great puppets and dollhouses. R says he's going to build a dollhouse for B.
J slept all afternoon.
J, S and I watched the first part of Teaching the Classics dvd (up through elements of plot and theme.)
R read Mysterious Benedict Society
I read Theater Shoes

Friday

nothing academic is planned for tomorrow either!
J has his follow up drs. appt in the a.m.
Another lady who co-leads the homeschool support group we are in is coming over for a meeting
My friend is bringing me food!
H is coming home for spring break. Home a whole week!

Summer Plans

2010-02-20T05:54:00.000-08:00

I know it is crazy to plan for summer in February or so it seems. But I really need to! How things seem to be shaping up:

H - will be home from college and working to save money for her Rome semester. She's applied to work for the census. We'll see if she gets it. If not she'll be job hunting or maybe working back at Starbucks. She'll be in and out probably going on weekend visits here and there.

W - will be gone the last weekend in June to NC with the parish workcampers. Then he 'll be home for a week and then off to Boston for 5 weeks to music school. He'll come home and the very next day leave with us to go to the Outer Banks for a week. As soon as he gets home his classes at NOVA start up! He'll be uberbusy this summer!

J - is the opposite of W. We've got nothing planned for him. He'll still be recuperating from his operation. I think he'll still be working on completing 9th grade. He's been so slow getting through Algebra II that he'll still need to work on that. We'll probably still be working on some literature stuff. I feel like just doing video school with him. I've got Teaching the Classics and a Teach. Co. course on Writing Good Sentences. It studies literature and different author's sentence structure. It is a rather unusual way to approach both grammar and writing. I only saw the first two lectures but it is intriguing to me. So maybe we'll do that. Maybe we'll also watching the History of Western Civ with Prof. Noble. Also, we'll all be trying to read a lot.

S - also have very little planned for him. He doesn't want to do music camp at all. I think we'll also be doing math through the summer. I'm thinking of getting him some Critical Thinking software that helps with his visual stuff. And we'll be reading a lot. He wants to do a Latin camp this summer so I'm brainstorming about how to put one together. Also LPH has an on line art class over the summer which looks fun. Plus, he'll still be doing his on line music theory course with them through August.

B - 3 week music camp (gotta decide which three weeks and sign her up), Latin camp and a week at the beach. Also the on line art class. I think she'll be busy and happy! She never gets bored anyway!

I must sign up to join the pool. I never did last year. Shame on me. S loves to swim, J and B not so much, but both have talked of being frustrated with their lack of swimming skills. The dr said swimming would be very good for J's back. So I think I'll join the pool and put out money for private lessons for them all.

So that's what's going on in my head now. We'll see how things turn out.

American History Post Revolution - Pre Civil War

2010-02-15T16:35:00.001-08:00

It looks like for our Modern History Stream will be slowly going through American history. I was hoping to move to world geography but the kids want American History. I'm thinking of getting the Sonlight 4 Core which is Civil War to current times, pretty much. Until we get to that we are going to use the Time Travelers Early 19th Century unit. It looks great with lots of crafts and notebooking pages. I am sorting through the books we own to see what to read aloud. Here's what I'm thinking:

Amos Fortune, Free Man - this isn't exactly post revolutionary except by a bit. I think the main character died in 1801, but it looks so interesting. Looks like it would make a great read aloud.
A Gathering of Days - A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-32; This in diary form and I think that style doesn't lend itself to read alouds - might be assigned to S.
Need a book about Lewis and Clark - though we have read picture books about them.
The Story of Geronimo by Jim Kjelgaard - this is an old Signature Books edition published in 1958. Geronimo was born in 1829, died 1909.
Need a book about the Alamo
The Story of Stephen Foster by Esther M. Douty - another old Signature Book. I loved this books as a kid! Foster was born in 1826 - died 1864. I have a wonderful collections of Stephen Foster songs sung by Thomas Hampson who has the most glorious voice! We can use this to focus on American folk music.
Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie; The Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell, 1847 - this is one of the Dear America series. I don't know how good it actually is. Might be another book I assign to S. Though I do want to read a book about the Oregon trail aloud to B.
Black Potatoes; The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845 - 1850 by Susan Campbell Bartoletti - this looks like a fascinating book! We could focus on some Irish songs along with this.
Gold Rush Bishop - This is an old Catholic Treasury Book, pub. 1962 - it's about Bishop Pat Monague, an Irish Priest who comes over and winds up ministering to the miners in the Gold Rush and then moving on to establish churches in the West.
If You Lived with the Sioux Indians by Ann McGovern

I like the idea of using Sonlight because of all the assigned readers. S is really troubled by the fact that he finds it difficult to finish books. He asked me what ADD was. He says he thinks he has it because it is so hard for him to finish a book on his own. My response was:

1. You HAVE finished books on your own so you can do it. I plan to list out as many of these as possible so he'll get some confidence.

2. He's almost completing vision therapy and he's got his glasses so I really think that will help him.

3. I need to have a dedicated time during the DAY and not at night for him to read. His eyes still struggle with muscle fatigue and reading something that requires a little more effort than comic books is hard. He needs to do it when he's awake and not tired.

4. I think he needs to get over the hump of giving up on books that might be a bit more challenging. I think he needs structure to do that and so that's why Sonlight is so appealing. I was looking at SL 5 Core which is the Eastern Hemisphere but I think that will wait until 7th or 8th grade.

5. I'm actually going to start assigning books now - during Lent I was going to ask him to read a biography of a saint (maybe two). After that I am thinking of assigning Detectives in Togas for him to read. I think he'll like the mystery involved in that book and it's sequel (if he chooses.) He can then read A Gathering of Days and Across the Wide and Open Prairie. These are both girls' journals. I wonder if he'll object to that. Might have to find something in between that is more boyish!

Weekly Report 2/15/10-2/1910

2010-02-15T13:36:00.000-08:00

Monday - President's Day

Made kids name at least 5 presidents they could think of right off the top of their heads. B said George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Obama and George Bush. S said GW, AL, Obama, both Bushes and Teddy Roosevelt. J said GW, AL, James Madison, Polk, Taft.
Told kids I was going to start reading them a new book for Lent instead of Bible History. Gave them a choice of The Key to the Golden City or The Little Apostle on Crutches. They decided on the first and then wanted to start today even though it isn't Lent yet. So we are putting our Bible History on the backburner for a while.
B and S both did very well at their WWE copy work/dictation
Learned about Greek vowel diphthongs. Listened to silly song at the CAP site that helps you remember them. (to the tune of Do You Know the Muffin Man). Did you know diphthong comes from the Greek meaning two voices????
Did lesson in Saxon on angles with S.
J successfully avoided doing anything academic most of the morning. But I finally forced him to sit down and work on that Han Dynasty questionnaire.
W ran to the store and got trashbags for me. Then he's been working on his music/writing all day downstairs.
B set up a restaurant in her room. Very cute.
Took S to his piano lesson. He was mad at the teacher because she wouldn't help him read the music but made him do it all.

Tuesday

J had a bad headache all night and didn't fall asleep until 4:30 a.m. So I didn't make him go to Latin class
W and I crammed studied Latin because we'd completely neglected it to for two weeks.
I got a B on my quiz. So did W!
B did her phonics and cursive, and drew pictures but she didn't get to her math or VT homework
S did some reading in his Faith and Freedom reader but I don't think he did math, spelling or cursive. The young dd of the teacher was there at the Latin class (she's usually at an art class somewhere) and so they were very busy chatting and playing with her.
Took J to Algebra tutor
Took J to dr's appt. His surgery is next Wed. It is starting to hit home!
W took B to gymnastics; S went to his friend's house to play

Ash Wednesday

Read from Before America about Sparta and Athens and their differences. Learned about the difference between 'totalitarianism' and 'democracy' B and S thought this very interesting stuff!
Read next chapter of The King of the Golden City
J worked on Algebra in a.m.
Made S do the work he didn't do yesterday during Latin class - finished L. 32 in Saxon, did spelling page in speller, finished reading story in Faith and Freedom reader, which he didn't read closely so I made him go back and reread it!
B worked on an addition fact sheet and did a workbook page in her phonics book.
Both of them spent most of morning planning and videotaping a movie
J and I finished Book XVII of the Odyssey
Dictated passage from St. Francis de Sales Intro to Devout Life (about what devotion really is ) to J
J was supposed to look through How to Write the Novel Way and think about how he wants to approach it.
Took B and S to VT
Forgot to do any Latin with S!
Took S and B to Mass
Made crown of thorns for B's lenten sacrifice (out of dough and toothpicks)
R read more Mysterious Benedict Society to B and S
I read a few pages in Five Little Peppers but it had gotten very late and I could barely keep my eyes open!
J and W went to CLC early to help prepare for 8th retreat (the CLC'ers help lead). Then they went to 7:30 Mass
J's surgery is looming before us.
As usual I don't really know what W did today. He did lots of music and he says he's doing his writeguide. I know he's stepping up his Bible reading for Lent.

Thursday

B and S both did their WWE
B did about 10 addition facts problems and then I showed how to borrow 'across zeros' in the problem: 508 - 99. First you try your next door neighbor but they don't have the one you need so you have to go to the next house, etc. She got it and was able to articulate it back to me.
S and I watched Ch. 19 in Latin for Children. He immediately got the bo, bis, bit, bimus, bitis, bunt. He started asking questions about perfect tenses. I was chatting about how there are Latin camps and he said he wanted to go to one. He also reiterated his desire to learn Italian. Maybe Rosetta Stone Italian?????
S and W did music theory lesson
B played dress up a lot this a.m. She was being different characters in a videogame S was writing in his head!
J did next Algebra lesson and his on line logic lesson.
B read some of the next story in her reader to me. She didn't quite finish it all. Her eyes got tired.
S has been reading Bone; he's determined to read all 9 volumes of it. He also started reading a saint biography of St. Hubert.
S had the part of his VT re-evaluation today.
Took W to get his driver's license today at courthouse. Saw my father's portrait! He was head judge there in the 70's.
Read next ch. of Frontier Bishop to B and S while we waited for dinner to cook.
Read scripture readings for next Sunday's Mass aloud to B and S.

Friday

W went to his music comp. class
Had Socratic discussion/art co-op. I have no idea what J discussed in his group. B, S and the other kids made Native American 'blankets'. It was a neat little project. B cut out rectangles of brown paper bag. Each child crumpled and then straighten the paper 30 times which makes it much softer and leather looking. Then we stenciled SW Indian designs onto the 'blankets' and colored them.
One of the moms stayed with her kids while W and I went to give blood for J's surgery. So B and S apparently put on lots of puppet shows for them while I was gone!
I took J to his science class before going to the Blood donor place.
W had an educational experience there as he had never given blood before.
Got back home so late and tired. The kids talked me into taking them to IHOP for dinner.
Alas the traffic was bad and the service slow and we missed going to the Stations of the Cross at our parish. But B had me light a candle and we went around and read each of the stations that we have hanging up in our basement and then we said a Hail Mary together. This was her idea!

Projected:

J has lots of stuff to do this week. He's got to do 2 lessons of Alg, read lots of the Odyssey (I really want to finish it before his surgery!) and study Latin. This is good. He should be kept busy so he doesn't have time to get nervous. Next week we'll only do as much formal schooling as I can muster on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday is the surgery and I have a feeling life will be chaotic for a week or two after that! So I'll consider anything we get done a blessing. I'm already convinced that we are going to do some formal studies through most of the summer.

Plans for Lent

2010-02-10T10:15:00.000-08:00

Abstaining from meat on Fridays
Prayer
Alms-giving
Making a Lenten sacrifice
Fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday

Prayer - We were thinking of doing the following:

Mondays - saying a family rosary, either in the a.m. before breakfast or at noon.
Tuesdays - this is a tight day - maybe try to say the Divine Mercy but we can't do it at 3 because B goes to gymnastics then, so I think we'll try to say it before dinner on Tuesday nights.
Wednesday - noon Mass at a nearby church which has noon Masses during Advent and Lent
Thursday - read the readings for Sunday's Mass - J (and W if he wants) can explain to us what they learned from their CLC Bible Study the night before.
Friday - Stations of the Cross at our parish every Friday night at 7:30 p.m.

Almsgiving - For some reason our parish doesn't participate in Operation Rice Bowl. It is a tithing parish and is very strong in the peace and justice aspects of living the faith. So I wonder why we don't participate in this particular charitable activity. However, on the WTM board someone mentioned Food for the Poor's Operation Starfish We love Food for the Poor so I'd be happy to participate in a program they have. I don't know if I can get my act together enough though to start it up. It looks like something maybe our homeschool group can do together.

Lenten Sacrifice:

I am making Friday a screen free day for me and reducing myself to 30 minutes of screen each day for the rest of the week. That seems a really light sacrifice but with J's surgery going on I'm not sure if I can commit to more than that right now, realistically.
S wants to give up computer and also give up playing games on his DSI. He's planning to limit himself to only animated on his DSI. Which makes sense. I mean an artist doesn't plan to give up making art for Lent!
B wants to make a crown of thorns with clay and toothpicks. Each time she makes a sacrifice or does a good deed she gets to take a 'thorn' out of the crown.
J says he's going to try to pray more. Frankly he'll be having and recovering from major surgery on his back, so that might be hard enough. Maybe he can offer up his anxiety, pain and discomfort!
W, not sure what he's got planned.

Reading:

I also am going to ask W, J and S to do regular spiritual reading during the course of Lent.
I am going to commit myself to finishing Jesus of Nazareth and Reading The Old Testament. I won't read any other books until I am finished with them.

Weekly Report 2/8/10 - 2/12/10

2010-02-08T09:49:00.000-08:00

Weekend

Had a big blizzard. Lost power twice; first for 10 hours and then for 18. Got rather chilly! We read aloud a lot. R read last part of Percy Jackson series. I thought he was farther along than he actually was. He has read all but the last chapter. I also read a lot of Five Little Peppers. We played Pictionary Jr and Charades; played in the snow. We did a lot of sleeping as well! J did one lesson in Algebra. J and I also watched Earth Science lecture (after we'd gotten our power back!) about Intraplate volcanoes. Yellowstone is set to blow soon and will decimate North America! I told R and he was so funny. He said: "But I bought a house in North America! Why didn't someone tell me about this!" Hopefully it won't happen for a few thousand years. . . . .Monday

Read aloud Bible History - The Division of the Kingdom into Judah and Israel.
WWE for B and S
B did 5 subtraction problems with borrowing
I asked S if he wanted to do Life of Fred but he chose to do Saxon w/ me! We did Investigation 3 on fractions and percents.
Latin - more vocabulary review. How do I keep this from being so tedious????
Greek - did some fun decoding.
B and S are very into playing pick up sticks today
J did 1 test and one lesson in Algebra.
W got up early and worked away at music.
R stayed home and worked some from home but then he and W intrepidly went out into the snow to get propane, get the snow blower fixed and get some provisions. Supposedly we are getting 5+ inches of snow starting tomorrow to add to the 24 we've already got!
Everything is canceled for today. So no piano for S, no guitar for W and no teaching RE for me. Hurray!
J, W and I did Latin homework; translating 32 sentences and then doing a practice NLE. Still need to study for quiz.
B and S played a lot animating and drawing; S's friend came over and they all played together.
W did not go to his 7:30 mass and Bible study for the second Monday in a row. He's bummed.

Tuesday

Had major migraine in a.m. We didn't make it to Latin or Algebra because I didn't want W driving around on snowy roads. Didn't feel better until almost 2. Kids hung out, played, watched tv, etc.
B did a page in her phonics, and 5 subtraction problems with borrowing. She got them all correct! She didn't do her cursive practice in her workbook because she wrote a very nice thank you note to our neighbor in cursive.
S read a story in his Faith and Freedom reader (about a blizzard); he did a little bit of work in Life of Fred but found it frustrating because they expected him to know how to multiply big numbers (multi-digit) I guess in Saxon we haven't gotten past multiplying a big number by a single digit number. So I sat down and showed him using a problem from LoF: 24 x 3600. He's grumpy tho, say he didn't get enough sleep last night
S also did some cursive practice in his workbook (quote: ask and you shall receive, etc) and he did a page in his CHC speller on 'ai', 'ay', 'oi', 'oy' words.
Read lots of Five Little Peppers to B.
J did lesson in Algebra. Glad R was home because J was having trouble focusing and R sat down and worked the lesson with him. Apparently it was trigonometry.
W got up early and did lots of music practice. He wrote a piece for his audition piece. He called it the Severe Scoliosis Boogie!
Finished Herodotus and The Road to History.
Started reading Frontier Bishop
R signed W up for the 5 week summer school at Berklee. I don't even want to think about W being gone for 5 weeks. What will I do with out him. I'll miss him like crazy. Funny, sweet, helpful. Yikes, I'm already sad.
R started reading the 3rd Mysterious Benedict Society book aloud to B and S
J and I read Book XV in Odyssey.
Read more 5 Little Peppers to B

Wednesday

Huge blizzard today! 8 inches on our front doorstep by 11 a.m! Wind is blowing violently! We'll probably lose power again.
Read from old Catholic textbook called Before America about Ancient Greece. Looked at maps, talked about the Aegean Civilization.
B and S did cursive practice
J, S, B and I said a scriptural rosary at noon. We hadn't made it to Mass on Sun and I was feeling like we needed to get some dedicated prayer time in. B did really well reading scripture passages.
J worked on Trisms on Han Dynasty for a bit but then the computer suddenly died. That is the main computer so J decided this meant he didn't have to do school anymore. He retired to the basement to play some game for the next several hours.
B brought up two puzzles of the US to play with. One was a floor puzzle and one was an old wooden one with about 4 states missing. But we put them together and then she'd ask me about the different states and I'd tell her about them. S listened in when he was around.

The blizzard was distracting everyone. R went out and tried out his new snowblower. B went out on our screenporch and began sweeping the snow (!!!!) that had blown in. S went out and played for hours in the snow!
W went out and shoveled the front porch and walkway as well as the back patio.
B, W, R and I watched Anne of Green Gables. The dvd played the whole miniseries as a movie so we wound up watching the whole thing off and on all afternoon/evening.
R grilled hamburgers and hot dogs in the snow. I got pictures.
J and I read half of Book XVI of Odyssey
R read next ch of The Mysterious Benedict Society
I read B next ch. of Five Little Peppers

Thursday

Read next ch. of Frontier Bishop. French Revolution is about to begin!
S and B both did copywork from WWE
B did one subtraction problem with borrowing from two columns.
S did Lesson 31 in Saxon - parallel lines, perpendicular lines plus review
S and B played happily for a long time putting on a puppet show
J worked on Han Dynasty questionnaire for History
J wanted me to give him dictation, so I found a quote from St. Francis de Sales and dictated it to him.
J finally wrote his rough draft descriptive paragraph about Tillie
J and I watched next lecture in Earth Science - Earthquakes and Volcanoes and how they effect humanity!
R took S and B to VT
W slept late, putzed around and then went to store for me.
Had a very nice Latin session with S. We reviewed vocabulary (he's getting better) then he proudly chanted conjugations and declensions. We did some sentence diagramming. He really wants to learn Italian.
B and S have been typing up notes to me and then translating them into French for me to read. They can't believe I can read a little bit of French. They are easy to impress! My we are getting so multilingual!
H called from Dallas a couple of times. She didn't get an A on a paper she wrote even tho she worked really hard on it. She went to her professor and apparently she had misinterpreted the topic of the paper. The prof said she had written an A paper but on the wrong topic! So she's got to go back and rewrite it. She's determined to get an A. She is really into Dante's Comedy right now. She's been fighting a cold for a while though and it has tired her out.
J and I finished Book XVI in Odyssey. Answered study questions.

Friday

Had major insomnia. Sigh...... so we really unschooled today.
Read next chapter of Frontier Bishop to S and B while they painted our bluebird houses (finally; been meaning to do this for 2 weeks!)
B and S listened some cds they haven't listened to in years while they drew pictures and played with puppets.
J bought some new computer game he downloaded and has been playing.
I decided to attack the boys room. It is again a sordid mess. We dug out all the junk under the beds and I brought down stuff that had accumulated up there. We decided to rearrange the room so that the beds are not right next to each other. J comes up to bed much later than S and always wakes him up by turning on the light to read. So we decided we'd make 1/2 the room J's and 1/2 the S's. Also, it could really use repainting. Though maybe that won't happen until the summer. Anyway, I'm hoping to go up there and work in short increments and maybe have the furniture moved around by the time J has to go to the hospital. We need to give away all those old Legos/Bionicles that haven't been played with in a couple years at least. Tho J refuses to give up his Bionicle books!
J started reading The Screwtape Letters.
W's Comm Coll was back on again today only starting at 10 a.m. So he went to his music comp class.
W helped S with his music theory lesson
I'm hoping I'll get more done over the weekend.

Teaching Catechism to the Unfaithful

2010-02-03T02:41:00.000-08:00

Off and on for the last 15 years I have been a catechist for the parishes I've attended. I guess I'm on my 6th year of teaching catechism. I've taught 1st grade, 4th grade (twice), 7th grade (twice) and 8th grade. And then a couple of years in there I was a substitute.

There are so many things wrong with the model of catechesis my parish uses. They are much better at the Youth ministry thing. They also have a wonderful apostolate with the Youth Apostles who take over with the teens who have been confirmed. Official RE only goes up to 8th grade and confirmation. The YA program, entitled Catholic Life Communities is absolutely phenomenal. It is led by trained leaders who mentor the young men and women. They meet almost every single week of the year (no summer breaks!), they regularly go on retreats and also do fun social things. The meetings consist of reading the scripture for the next Sunday Mass, discussing it in small groups and then learning about the catechism and how to live a truly Christian life in this culture. However, this is entirely voluntarily and of the 70+ kids who were confirmed in Josh's class only about 8 joined.

Anyway, the actual RE model is awful. They take a few solidly Catholic volunteers and then because they never have enough of those folks, they take other volunteers who really don't know their faith very well OR have no clue how to teach like a teacher in a classroom, they have the kids come in and sit in desks, bored to death, and they use materials that are confusing, watered downed and basically trying so hard to relate to the kids they only earn the kids' scorn (which makes me respect the kids!). They is virtually no quality control. There is very little connection between the parents and the volunteer teacher. The children are often not really practicing Catholics and know appallingly little of their faith. They barely go to Mass on Sundays. They never pray as a family. They have no clue about anything in the Bible. It is truly depressing.

So this year I'm teaching 7th grade girls. I keep explaining things to them, like Eucharist comes from the Greek word for thanksgiving. Or the virtue of prudence is something like practical wisdom in action. They'd never heard of the word prudence before. Or that theology comes from the Greek root words for God and Word or Study. Then I was talking about Geography. We were reading from Paul's epistle to the Corinthians. Where is Corinth, I asked? They didn't have a clue. I asked them where the city of Damascus was. They didn't know. So jokingly I said if you really know your Catholic faith, it makes you smarter!

The more I thought about this the more something occurred to me. What if we taught RE as a supplement to the rest of the child's learning? Right now it is so disconnected from everything else in their lives. What if it wound up helping them on the SOL's or the SATs? Wouldn't parents take it much more seriously? I think this could be a real hook for the whole family. You could take different aspects of the faith and break it down so that it might complement the student's learning in various grades. Here's just a very brief outline of what I came up with:

Grade 1: Issue each child a Children's Bible and have them practice reading at home. They can become familiar with Bible stories this way, the parent can renew their memory of various Bible stories and then the parents/children can come in and participate in various activities, skits, etc.

Grade 2: This grade might be the best one done at our parish because it is the big Sacrament year with First Confession and First Holy Communion. I think they could expand what they've already got going.

Grade 3: Focus on Art History using a program like Christian Heritage Curriculum.

Grade 4: Focus on saints in American history. I mean both North and South. St Peter Claver, St Isaac Jogues, St. Kateri Teckawitha, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Blessed Father Juniper Serra, St. John Neumann, St. Katherine Drexel, etc.

Grade 5: Begin focusing on word roots; teach them a little Latin. (program: English from the Roots Up plus Lingua Angelica). Have someone from music ministry teach this.

Grade 6: Reading analysis otherwise known as Bible study. Use the new Kids Great Adventure.

Grade 7: Study the saints before America. (In preparation for choosing a saint's name for confirmation.)

Grade 8: Finish up Confirmation prep. Our parish usually has Confirmation in the Spring.

During the course of the year I think every grade should have:

1) A couple of family workshops (maybe Sept and April)
2) A retreat (Dec)
3) A speaker of interest to both parents and children (Oct)
4) A fieldtrip (Nov)
5) A service project (during Lent)
6) A performer, play or a movie night for the whole family (Jan)
7) A special Mass for all the RE kids (Feb?) Have confession beforehand. Most of these kids haven't gone to confession since their first one in second grade.
8) A big May crowning for the RE kids, in, of course, May

So if you have one big event each month that parents are expected to attend then I think they should make the classes bigger so they don't have to stretch for so many volunteers but REQUIRE that parents volunteer to be aids in the classes. They can pick times when they can be available. That way the parents get catechized too.

Okay so that's a very rough draft of my idea. Needs lots more thought I know, but I think it could work! Something's got to be better than what we are doing now.

Weekly Report 2/1/10 - 2/6/10

2010-02-02T17:19:00.000-08:00

MondayJ did a lesson of Alg on Sunday and then another one Monday

J did his NLE practice exam and studied for Latin quiz
B and S - read Bible History - Solomon's sad end
B and S - WWE
S did a lesson in Saxon
B did another addition problem with carrying
B is quitting violin. She hasn't had more than 1 lesson since before Christmas. She was already fading in her interest and that gap really made her stubbornly refuse to go. I was going to force the issue but frankly Mondays are so rushed and it would be really nice to not have to rush around all Monday afternoon and evening.
S went to piano lessons
W has been very industrious but I haven't really been keeping tabs on him at all.
B picked The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew out as her new chapter book
R is reading the last book in the Percy Jackson series, The Last Olympian.

Tuesday

Got up and studied some more for Latin quiz
During Latin class B and S did penmanship, spelling/phonics and math. Or at least S did math, B didn't. B is going through a, how to put this politely, obnoxious I don't want to do it and you can't make me phase. Sigh.
I got a 99 on the last quiz but on the one today I got a 91. For some reason I stuck macrons all over where they didn't belong. J got B's on both quizzes and W flunked both. He says he studies but I think he really thinks about studying and then doesn't actually end up doing enough to get him through. I think he has to learn the hard way. I reminded both him and J about GPA's and how colleges will look at them.
Took J to Algebra tutor. He had a good session.
I got a new book from Amazon. I bought all these books by Miroslav Sasek. The one that arrived today was This is London. I read it aloud to B and S.
J and I watched next lecture in How the Earth Works about continent collisions. Very, very interesting.
B and S did a lot of line rider today which they haven't played in a long time.
Discussed what we want to do for Lent.
Finally finished reading Book XIV in the Odyssey w/ J
J has been reading The Life of Pi this week.

Wednesday

slept horribly last night. Did I drink too much caffeine???? Today was painful and slow as molasses.
Read next chapter in Cure of Ars
Read next chapter in Herodotus
S did a bit of math (very simple multiplying by 10s and 100s)
B and I went over end of ch test.
J did a writing exercise for Writeshop (describe an animal. He described Tillie)
J did a lesson in Alg II
I collapsed and didn't get any more academic stuff done
B and S went to VT
S and I watched most of a frontline report on how the internet is changing students possibly for the worst: computer/game addiction and becoming so distractible. We decided memorization, exercise and sitting down to read something for an hour each day with no distractions. Then he went downstairs to play a videogame and I got on the computer LOL! We are gonna have to work at this!!!
Took B and S to Starbucks where we sat and brainstormed about getting the kids to eat better at each meal. I told them no more snacking between meals (except fruit or veggies). Instead they should eat the meals I plan and put before them to keep them nice and healthy!
W shovel the whole driveway. Took him 2 hours. And he didn't sleep much last night either. I don't know if W did anything academic.
J is still reading Life of Pi.
Wouldn't you know it? B is now taking out her violin and trying to play it and begging me once again for lessons. What is a mother to do with a child like this??????? Other than tear my hair out!

Thursday

News of big snow on the way here tomorrow, so instead of starting off with our studies I hit the grocery store
Finished reading Cure of Ars to B and S
Read next ch. of History of Medicine. S thinks it is fascinating. B hates it. Way too gruesome for her (dissecting corpses and such); she was writhing while I was reading it. Poor thing! LOL! So I guess I'll just make this a S and I thing and find something else for B.
Showed B how to borrow when subtracting
S did some vocab review in Latin. The one complaint I have about this book is that you learn tons of Latin vocab but you don't ever use it very often. So it just becomes lots of rote memorization. Some of that is fine but I think they are doing overkill. I do love their presentation of the material and the way they teach the grammar.
S and I did Saxon Lesson 30 talking about percents and fractions. I worked through every single problem with him since we hadn't done any review for a couple days.
J did his logic lesson on line
J did a tiny, tiny bit of Writeshop.
J carefully numbered his Alg copybook in preparation to do the next lesson, then took the dog for a walk. Came home and crawled into bed with his book. Since everything has been cancelled for tomorrow, I'm not worried. I'll just make him do the stuff tomorrow!

Friday

With all the talk of a huge snowstorm I just don't seem focused on academics much.
S did his music theory class on line.
S and B did a little bit of WWE
I finished reading aloud the ch on Herodotus' travels to Egypt
J did a lesson in Alg.
W went to his Music Comp class and got home before the snow got bad
I splurged and bought books this week. I got Life of Fred books for S. He dug right into the Fractions book with great gusto.
B did another borrowing subtraction problem on the white borrow. I made a big deal of the one's column having to go next door to it's neighbor the Tens and borrow from them. It made her laugh and the lightbulb went off! She got it!
I made everybody spend 30 minutes reading. Don't know if W actually did. J read History of the Ancient World. S read a book about the Percy Jackson series by the same author. B read to me from the McGuffey Reader. She read very well.
S did a little VT
B doesn't want to listen in on the History of Medicine. So I asked her to tell me what she wanted to learn about. I expected her reply to be flowers or pulleys (she loves to make stuff. She made an elevator for her stuffed animals using a pulley idea!). But no she said Reptiles! So I got out a book on Reptiles and it was just as gruesome as the Medicine book but for some reason, it didn't gross her out!
R is home because of the snow. He finished his work early and is now reading the very last chapters of the whole Percy Jackson series to the B and S.
We got the rest of our Miroslav Sasek books! I think we'll attempt to read them over the course of our snowy weekend.
I'd still like to get some Greek done.
I asked the kids, since we are done with the Cure of Ars if they wanted to start up a Geography study. I have A Child's Geography of the World. But S loved the Cure of Ars book so much, he wants another saint biography. I went searching and found Frontier Bishop by Riley Hughes. He's not a saint but a significant figure in American Catholic history. I went to Mount St. Mary's College and one of our dorm building is named for Father Brute. I thought it would be cool to read this book. Maybe we can take a fieldtrip up there if the snow ever clears! Anyway, he lived a little bit earlier than St. Jean Vianney but more or less at the same time. So we'd get some reinforcement about the French Revolution, Napoleon, only this time the priest doesn't stay in France but comes to America. So it will tie into a lot of things and then we can actually go see the places that Father Brute lived. They, of course, mention Baltimore a lot. We are going over there to the Aquarium with their cousins at the end of March. Maybe we can pop in and see the Cathedral as well.

52 in 52

2010-01-31T14:51:00.000-08:00

Okay it has been 5 week since the beginning of the year. The books I've read in January:

1. The House that Cleans Itself by Mindy Starns Clark
2. The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux: The Story of a Soul
3. The Story of the Other Wiseman by Henry Van Dyke
4. Beyond the Heather Hills by Melissa Wiley
5. Hold Onto Your Kids By Gordon Neufeld
6. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

I'm also more than halfway through Villette by Charlotte Bronte.

I think I'm going to reread Say Goodbye to Whining, Complaining and Bad Attitudes in You and Your Kids by Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller. Hold on to Your Kids was a good secular book for attachment/peaceful parenting but I remember really liking this book because it came from a Christian point of view and had some real practical steps for developing good relationship with your children and disciplining them in the way that discipline originally meants, as mentors or teachers.

For Lent I've decided I'm going to make myself finish Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict. I started this book, what, 2 years ago????? I love it! But I pick it up, read a few lines, go WOW! and then leave it alone for months. I need some discipline (ha!) to get it finished. Also I want to finish reading Introduction to the Old Testament by Lawrence Boadt.

Weekly Report 1/25 - 1/31

2010-01-25T07:48:00.000-08:00

Monday

S threw up in the night. Is he sick or was it just a surfeit of potato chips? Stay tuned. . .

S's friend Joe who goes to school wound up coming over early in the morning and was supposed to be picked up at noon. Their power was out, both parents work and for some reason he didn't have school (he goes to school). However, no one showed up to get him until 2:30 p.m. Threw quite a bit of a monkey wrench into my plans!

I did manage to read to B and S Bible History - Solomon's Temple.

We also read an old Troll book about Ancient China. We are going to see the Terra Cotta Warriors at National Geographic on Wednesday (if we don't all come down with a stomach bug!). This got the kids into playing with their new dragon puppet, finding out when the Chinese New Year is (Feb 14 year of the tiger) and finding out what everybody's Chinese Zodiac sign is.

Later in the morning B took all the silly putty she's been playing with (each child got some in their Christmas stocking but she stole it all from them!) and made The Great Wall of China! And then she went over to the globe and copied over the word Mongolia on an index card, then placed the card on one side of the wall! Spontaneous hands on unit study!

J worked on National Latin Exam practice.

J did lesson 3 in Logic class

J worked on Chin Dynasty questionnaire in Trisms

B and S did WWE

S did did the first part of vocab review in Latin - 10 words

Instead of doing math formally S, B and friend played with the math dice. It was too hard to settle down to MCP and Saxon with friend roaming the house!

W did some writeguide (very little I think)

Tuesday

Latin class for W, J and I, W has a very bad attitude anymore when it comes to Latin. Senioritis?

B and S did penmanship, math (S - factoring; B carrying in addition with bigger numbers), S did a page of spelling, B did a page from her phonics workbook.

W took B and S to Vision Therapy. We found out last Friday that S needs glasses. I must get the prescription filled very soon! But when? He is so happy he'll be getting glasses. He is hoping he can read for longer periods of time. Right now he gets frustrated that his eyes tired so quickly.

I took J to math tutor. He really likes her. She is a nice lady.

W took B to gymnastics

J and I watched next lecture in Science: Subduction Zones.

I p/u B from gymnastics. She loves gym. sooo much.

I read next ch. of The Cure of Ars to B and S.

J and I read Book XIII in The Odyssey and answered study guide questions.

Wednesday

Read B some Pinocchio - we are enjoying this very bizarre book!

Read a ch in Herodotus about his travels to Babylon

Read Growing Up in Ancient China

B and I did about 5 minutes of estimating in her MCP math

S finished Lesson 25 in Saxon

J did a little bit of Writeshop - not much

Went downtown to the see the Terra Cotta Warriors. It was really crowded. B got claustophobic after about 10 minutes. But it was cool to see the statues, the coins, the crossbow, the statues of horses and carts, the armor. R met us there and bought a dvd about The First Emperor. He joked about how he'd seen the movie the Last Emperor and now he was going to watch about the First Emperor and then he'd know everything about Chinese history!!!

We ate a late lunch with R before he went back to his office. Then we peeked in at St. Matthew's Cathedral (we were parked in their parking garage!) and walked around the glorious church. They are doing construction on the main altar but the mosaics and statues and everything are very beautiful. B lit a candle and we prayed for H at college.

When we got home, B and S got the charcoal pencils out and started drawing.
Went and got S's eye glasses order. 7 to 10 days until we get them.
S had been asking for a jumble puzzle book so I picked one up at the drugstore plus another book of all kinds of puzzles (suduko, crosswords, word searches, etc) He loves them and started doing them at bedtime.

Thursday

Read first ch of The History of Medicine by Tiner - Imhotep, Hippocrates and Galen.
Did long division with S - it totally, totally clicked! He thought it was fun! I had him use the mnemonic device Does McDonald's Serve Burgers (I got it from someone on WTM!).
B did one addition problem on the whiteboard. She did it very quickly. It involved lots of carrying. I think she's getting this addition thing down now.
WWE with both B and S. Every time I get this program out I appreciate its sheer genius in doing so much so easily and efficiently.
Reviewed more Latin nouns with S
Read Greek words in Greek workbook: agape, etc. Kids were losing focus at this point.
Took B to Little Flowers where they wrote a letter to nursing home folks and learned about St. Jane de Chantal. It's her b-day today. Happy birthday St. Jane!
S and Jack got to play together
J - did most of Alg test but just wasn't focusing too well this morning.
J - did a little bit of his writeshop, just a little.
J - watched the DVD on the Qin dynasty. I saw half of it - very interesting!
W was incredibly organized today. He slept late but he spent 4 hours on music stuff (1/2 hr on soloing; 1/2 on sight reading; 1/2 on piano; 1/2 on singing 1/2 on ear training; 1/2 on guitar pieces for his teacher). He also did his Writeguide and even some of his Latin homework!!! Wow, I was very impressed.
W helped S with his on-line music theory lesson.
S practiced piano.
I read a lot of Pinocchio to B
Read next chapter about St. Jean Vianney in Cure of Ars. The ch was about St. Philomena who he attributed all his cures to.

Friday

W got up and went to 6:15 Mass, then to his music composition class
J, S, B and I went to our Socratic Discussion/art class. I don't even know what J's group talked about. S, B and I, with the other kids finished making Southwestern Indian designed with stencils. I read about Blessed Father Junipero Serra to the kids while they colored. Very pleasant time.
J started his new Intro to Chem. class from 1 to 3.

Projected for weekend:

J needs to finish his Algebra test and do another lesson
Also I'd like to finish reading Book XIV of the Odyssey, maybe tonight.
We need to finish our bluebird box project - need to build one more, paint them all and put on predator guards.

Weekly Report 1/18/10 - 1/23/10

2010-01-18T17:46:00.000-08:00

Monday, MLK day

Watched 3 of my friends' kids on MLK day. Played the youtube of last part of MLK's last speech for S and friend. They were not that interested but I wanted S to hear MLK voice.
S and friend played with S's animating program
B and her friends made up a pretty ballet dance and played with dolls. (B attended her cousins Nutcracker production and now is enamoured with ballet).
Took B to violin lesson but teacher wasn't there! But all was not lost, I sang B all the songs/lullabyes we used to sing when she was younger.
J did a short exercise in his Writeshop and then had nice daddy time driving to the farm (about an hr away) to pick up our beef order.
Rick took S with him to home depot to get materials for building bluebird boxes.
B watched The Robinsons and then Mulan
She also played a lot of plants vs. zombies with Rick
J and I studied for Latin test tomorrow (some in afternoon and some in evening)
W went to his band practice
W studied for Latin
W went to meet his friend for mass and Bible study but there was no mass and no Bible study. MLK day strikes again!
B read a story in her reader to Rick
R is reading Battle of the Labyrinth
S played a lot of piano today. Right now he is sounding out an Eric Satie piece.

Tuesday

Went to Latin class - took two quizzes. W and J did not do well. I got a 94% on one, the other one wasn't graded.
B and S did penmanship. S did a little Latin and math. B did reading workbook but didn't do her math.
Took J to his first tutoring session. Liked the tutor a lot. Seems enthusiastic and relieved. While waiting at the tutor's B and I went over the math she didn't do. Then she got to play on the wii with the tutor's son.
I got my Latin homework done while waiting.
I made J and S go for a 30 minutes walk to get some exercise.
B went to gymnastics
Read next chapter in Cure of Ars in and Herodotus
J started the China unit in Trisms but didn't get far. I need to give more direction in that area.
J and I read book X in Odyssey and answered study guide questions.

Wednesday

Read Bible History - Solomon's wisdom
Did WWE - S took perfect dictation! B was supposed to narrate a passage from Pinocchio but got upset that she hadn't read the book and the passage was giving away the story. So we ditched that and I read her the first two chapters of the real book of Pinocchio. She announced that it would be her new chapter book.
Worked with B on addition patterns that would help her add faster. She only partially paid attention.
S read first chapter in his Alex Rider book
S and I went over vocabulary and little bit of grammar in his LfC workbook
S finished lesson 24 in Saxon.
J baked cookies!
J tried to do China unit but just can't get started!
J worked on Writeshop exercise.
Went for a 40 minute walk with J, B and S
J, B, S and I went through the 50 States Fandex reviewing state capitals, just cuz it happened to be out and I picked it up while we were eating lunch.
J and I watched the next Earth Works lecture on Transform Faults. Lots of stuff about the San Andreas Fault and CA earthquakes.

Thursday

W got up and went to 9:15 Mass
I Read ch. 3 and 4 in Herodotus
Did WWE with B and S - S had to summarized passage; B did copy work
S did Music Theory lesson with W
S read next ch. in Alex Rider book
I played adding game with B with dice
Played multiplication game with S using dice
J finished Alg lesson from yesterday and started on next lesson
J did 2nd lesson in Logic
J did a little exercise from Writeshop - he just had to describe a simple object. It took him forever to settle on what he wanted to describe. Either he couldn't find the words to describe something accurately enough like his hat or the dining room clock, or it was something that he realized the exercise didn't allow, like a banana. Finally he settle on a red candle sitting on the coffee table. Then he literally used 5 words and that was it!
J and I read Book XI in the Odyssey
J and I went to the drs and his scoliosis has gotten very bad quickly. So the dr recommended surgery. We are looking at Feb. 24th right now. That will put a big hole in things for a while!
W went to his music theory II class. He hates it and wants to drop it. He says he'll learn lots of music theory in his composition class and at piano lessons.
I'm assuming W is working on his Writeguide course; better check up on that.

Friday

J went with the youth group down to the March for Life
W has 4 hour Music Composition class
S has VT re-evaluation today at 2:00
Did a little bit of Greek, learned about smooth and rough breathing marks and how to say the 'h' sound. This got S going because he knows the author in the Percy Jackson series got this wrong! He was spelling the h sound with an 'ata' which really forms the long A sound.
Read the next chapter in the Cure of Ars.
Read Pinocchio to B. S spent the night at friends house.

Saturday

Did our big bluebird box building workshop. Kids came over in the afternoon to participate but wound up mostly playing outside.

Today, Sunday

Mass
J needs to do a lesson in Alg.
I'd like to read a book of the Odyssey with him if we can.
W is having band practice today I think.
W and J have youth group this evening.

Weekly Report 1/11/10

2010-01-11T11:15:00.000-08:00

Monday 1/11

Read Bible History - David and the Psalms
Did WWE - S did a great job on his summary!
S finished practice problems in L. 22
B did 10 more addition problems with regrouping. Did a magic square
Watched L. 17 dvd lesson in Latin - reviewed new vocabulary
Both S and B were barely paying attention - painfully drawn out to get this little bit done!
S played lots of piano
B set up a school for her stuffed animals and dolls and was more interested in teaching them than being taught by me!
J took Test 8 in Saxon
I studied for Latin test
B and S decided to have a Veggie Tales dvd marathon
J took his first Logic lesson on line
B's violin lesson was canceled - teacher's kids are sick.

Tuesday 1/12/10

Studied for Latin test
Latin class - no Latin test! Instead quiz on verb forms. Only got a B! W and J completely unprepared. Didn't do well. Started studying for NLE
B and S did penmanship, math (S - fractions; B-addition with 3 columns), spelling
After lunch - J did Trisms worksheet 1 on Mayans
J and I watched Science lecture on Plate Tectonics
J and I read Book VII in Odyssey, answered study questions
W played his banjo a lot and took B to gymnastics
S animated on his dsi and then took a walk
H has been lounging about. She made dean's list!

Wednesday 1/13/10

had bad migraine all night. Didn't go away until afternoon!
everybody slept in!
Did oral narrations from WWE with B and S
Got everyone to an 11 o'clock appt (we were late) to have portrait of kids taken for very late Christmas gift for Rick
Ate lunch out
Took B and S to VT
Started reading Herodotus by Jeanne Bendick to B and S
W and J went to CLC

Thursday 1/14/10

B and S - Bible History - David and Absalom
B and S did WWE copywork - I am really loving WWE so far!
B practiced adding doubles and then figuring out how to add their 'neighbors' She does not like to focus on arithmetic!
S did more work on fractions and review of word problems. L 23 in Saxon
S reviewed -are present conjugations, sum conjugation and Imperfect conjugations. Also we reviewed declensions. Went over L. 17 vocab. B listened in.
S did his first music theory class from LPH. Will helped him. S discovered the chat room which delighted him!
S and B - we also got the next clue in our Greek Code Cracker, reviewing more Greek blends.
J - did worksheet on music history for Mayans and also the vocab quiz.
J and I read Book VIII of Odyssey and answered study guide questions
J is finally starting Writeshop. Did 1st lesson making sentences more vivid through concrete wording; using Thesaurus.
W took it easy. Attend his first Music Theory II class at CC in evening.
Rick went over J's Alg II test.
J and I went to meeting at church about fundraising and prep for the teen workcamp this summer. W couldn't attend because of his class.

Friday 1/15/10

W went to Music Composition, 4 hour class
J had Socratic Discussion - Newton's Laws of Motion!
B and S and other kids did a lesson on Southwestern Indian designs; made template of geometric shapes and practiced making designs.
J did some dictation and next lesson in Writeshop
J and I read Book IX in the Odyssey; did study guide questions.
Found an Algebra tutor for J! He starts next Tues. afternoon

52 in 52

2010-01-10T12:14:00.000-08:00

I hadn't thought about blogging this but then I saw MommyFaithe was so I decided to follow suit.

This is a challenge to read 52 books in 52 weeks. The idea is to read a book a week, however that is too unrealistic for me. Some books, like The Odyssey, are just not readable in a week given all the other stuff I have to do in a week! I think if you really tried to do the book a week thing with an otherwise busy life you'd either have to give up sleeping or just read very short, light books. I don't want to sacrifice the quality of my reading so my plan is to try to finish a book a week. I usually have several books going on at one. Usually three or four I'm reading with the kids and usually a couple of books I'm reading on my own.

So far in 2010:

1. The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux (this was an audio book I listened to in the car).
2. The Story of the Other Wise Man by Henry Van Dyke (this is either a very long short story or a very short novella. Absolutely beautiful and faith-filled.

Update! I forgot a book!

3. Archimedes and the Door to Science by Jeanne Bendick (I don't know if this counts as it is both a children's book and a re-read. However, I have such a bad memory re-reading books really isn't all that different from reading them the first time! And it had been several years since I had read it.

Weekly Report 12/4/10-12/9/10

2010-01-05T13:19:00.000-08:00

Monday 12/4/10 -

Oh my. Still recovering from big family Epiphany party. We spent last Thursday, Friday and Saturday decluttering, cleaning and preparing for it. Sunday we had the party and it was wonderful. Monday morning woke so exhausted I could barely see straight. Got very little academic stuff done. Finished Latin homework, got S and B to music lessons. Went to RE at church and listened to great talk on vocations. W went to 7:30 p.m. Mass and his little Bible study with his friend. J mostly cleaned his room and read the 3rd book in the Eragon series (besides doing his Latin homework). Felt like I was running in deep sand all day long.

Tuesday 12/5/10 -

Got the kids up at 9:15 a.m. That was early for us! Everyone has been staying up incredibly late. I am determined that we start sleeping/waking at more reasonable hours!
Latin class for J, W and me. Trying to get the brain in gear again!
B and S, during Latin class did their penmanship, spelling and math (only S never got to the math part, sigh).
After lunch, B and S practiced music. S and W went to B&N to spend S's gift card he got for Christmas. He got the next book in the graphic novel series, Bone (he got the first book for Christmas)
B went to gymnastics.
J did lesson 32 in Saxon and then worked on finishing up first questionnaire in his Trisms program on the Maya.
W is starting his Writeguide Eng. Comp. class.
J and I read Book III of the Odyssey
Read the next chapter of The Story of the Other Wise Man to B and S.
Rick is reading Book number ??? in the Percy Jackson series to B and S out loud.

1/6/10

Busy day! Finished Story of the Other Wise Man just in time for Epiphany
B and S did a little WWE
B went to an ice skating party where she had a blast (W took her for me)
S did a lot of Latin review and then we orally reviewed times tables.
J struggled with Alg lesson; Rick worked with him when he got home
J did his Trisms paper on Slash and Burn agriculture
J and I watched lecture on Earthquakes
J and I started Book IV of Odyssey but I fell asleep!!! He read further than I did but then it was dinner time.
J and W went to CLC
S finished second Bone book.

1/7/10

J worked on the map portion of the Mayan study.
J and I finished reading Book IV of Odyssey.
J read next 3 chapters in HAW; I plan to do that tonight
S and B both did WWE and watched Ch. 17 dvd lesson in LfC. S worked on division in Saxon, B on regrouping two columns of addtion problems.
Read next ch. in Archimedes and also next ch. in Cure of Ars
B's math lesson used the Pony Express as an example and she didn't know what that was! So I read her a book about Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express.
S is doing lots of animating and playing with puppets. B played pbskids games and played with puppets as well
W slept in and then ran to the store for milk and bread!
H is back from her visit to Philly and is busy getting airline tickets to go back to UD and also getting her passport in order to go to Rome hopefully next fall.
W has been doing his Writeguide course every day.

Friday 1/8/10

It snowed so Socractic Discussion group got cancelled. B went out and shoveled the driveway!!! W and H slept in until 1 p.m.! S played lots of piano and did lots of animating on his new dsi. J went outside for a while and then stayed up in his room reading????? what I'm not sure!
Finished reading Archimedes out loud to B and S.
Read next ch. in Cure of Ars. We are all really enjoying that book!
Learned about Greek consonant blends in Code Cracker (which we haven't worked on in at least 6 weeks!).
Watched Lion, Witch and Wardrobe
H took B ice skating.
J and I read Book V in Odyssey
W and S spent much of the day discussing either the finer points of animation or music.

Weekly Report 12/13-12/25

2009-12-17T04:33:00.000-08:00

We've not done any formal school this week. We are really on break. But learning continues anyway, because life is learning of course!

Saturday afternoon we had our family Chanukah celebration over at aunt and uncle's house. They have a new electric piano which caught everyone's attention. W played his Bach piece on the harpsichord mode. Sounded so cool! I love a good harpsichord!
Sat. night S had his little birthday celebration with his two best friends. It was lovely. I made tacos (one of S's favorites), everybody sat down to a rousing game of dreidel (math! They were putting in fractions of almonds!), then we had cake and watched Akeelah and the Bee (spelling!). The movie was quite good except for some reason they felt they need to put in about 5 bad words. Ugh. I don't know why movies do that! It would have been absolutely fine without it. But it really fired up S and B in their quests to become spellers! And they loved all the references to Latin and Greek roots. The boys had a great time. S was happy!
S informed me that he is becoming a better speller. He said he'd figured out the different between the i-consonant-e words and the -igh words. He said he'd noticed most igh words end in a -t as well.
S had his piano jury on Monday afternoon. He did quite well.
W had his final in Music Theory I at the CC. He thinks he did well.
W had his piano jury on Tuesday afternoon. Since Rick and I attended his recital last weekend and he was playing the same two songs, we didn't go. The jury was at 6:30 and Rick was still at work and I had to retrieve S and B from gymnastics and get some kind of dinner going. W and I did go out and buy him some suitable clothes for a more formal occasion. He got a nice sports coat, shirt, tie and pants. He looked handsome. He just needs a haircut.
J has only done 1/2 a chapter of Alg II this week.
J still hasn't gone longer than 2 hours in his brace at night. I'm beginning to panic. Don't quite know what to do about that.
J also had his passing Mass for the Catholic Life Community on Wed. He is now a 'candidate' and he got a new cross to wear on a chain around his neck.
Mostly we've been cleaning the house. J has been wonderful helping with that. But I don't see how I'll have everything ready by Sunday. So far 52 people coming!
W, J and I finished up part 1 of the Archeology lecture series. I've got to return it to the library.
S is reading! He finished the Louis Sachar book and is now reading It's Like This, Cat. I remember loving that book when I was young.
J read the sequel to Abarat.
B continues to work on reading Calvin and Hobbes
Rick finished reading Samantha books to B, then went on to a Nellie book (apparently a friend of Samantha) and now they are starting into the Josephina books.
S and B have taken to playing Connect 4 a lot.
B continues to make all kinds of things out of posterboard and cardboard, though I have put a significant damper on it since I'm trying to keep the house clean. She made her own pin the tail on the donkey game, her own pinata (stuffed with popcorn she made) a big drawing of a grandfather clock. She made a wonderful puppet using a wooden bbq skewer as a stick to move the puppy's ear with.
W and J have been reading Game Enforcer magazines and Gilbert!
Lots of video game playing and more Wordgirl, Fetch, Phineas and Ferb and Bizkids.
I've been reading Down to the Bonny Glen to B some more but we are going pretty slowly through that book.
I read more Archimedes but it is into the math section of it and we really don't understand what is going on and the kids are losing interest. I probably should do something to inspire them but I'm too distracted by coming events.
Read more Freedom Train. I started crying at one of the chapters and the kids were amazed! I couldn't speak I found the story so touching. I'd really like to finish that read aloud this week.
H comes home on Friday! Yippee! She has her last final Thursday and flies home the next day. I hope she can help me with the Christmas party. I truly miss her help. She was the one that did all the decorating for me!
Update - Friday we did very little! Got our Christmas tree and picked up H from the airport. Huge snowstorm canceled our big family Christmas party for Sunday. Last night we sat and watched It's a Wonderful Life. I cried some more. B learned what a Savings and Loan is. S spent a long time drawing a series of cartoons to give W for a Christmas present.
Last night after kissing S good night he informed me that he knew how to spell 'should'. That kid is so into spelling. I never imagined you could unschool spelling like this!

Ideas for writing

2009-12-13T05:39:00.000-08:00

As we have not done much formal writing this academic year so far, I've been brainstorming about how to incorporate more of it into our studies after Christmas. First of all what we have done:

Becky and Sean have been practicing cursive several times a week.

B and S have also been working fairly steadily in workbook for phonic/spelling

S has taken to sending e-mails to his friends and even composing an occasional e-mail to Homestarrunner hoping against hope it will be published! He also wrote a 3 page stand up comedian act! He frequently writes out little cartoon balloons for his cartoons, so in this unschoolish way he's been writing.

B writes all the time! She is always adding captions to her drawings, writing little notes, writing on the whiteboard here or on the wall by her bed.

J has done very little writing so far in his high school career. He's the one I feel really badly about. He truly needs help in this area and I just haven't focused on it at all. Bad mommy!!!! So I need to remedy it. The most writing he's done is answering study guide questions in a our lit studies and writing out Latin/English translations in our Latin class.

W has written papers and such in the past so I know he can write at a high school level, but he's done the same amount as J so far this year. However, he is going to be doing Learn to Write the Novel Way with Writeguide for his last semester in high school. Probably the biggest difficulty there will be getting him to be consistent in sending daily e-mails, but other than that it is kind of out of my hands!

So for the Spring 2010 semester I've been thinking that we'll focus on writing doing the following:

1. Writing with Ease. I've got Writing with Ease 1 for B; WWE 2 for S and I've got the original text with the basic outline for its approach that I could use with J. I'd have to plan that one out though. Will I do that? Not sure. I do like the idea of doing copywork and dictation with J. I think that would be very helpful for him. Or I could purchase the next levels of WWE, I'm pretty such they have 3 and even 4 out now. I'll have to check.

2. Once a week, probably on whatever morning it seems most doable, we'll have a different writing exercise. I was thinking one week we could use Imitation in Writing but what I'd do is have the kids read one of the stories and then rewrite in their own words. The next week I was thinking of doing a picture study. I thought of this because the most successful Socratic Discussion meeting we had was having the kids look at a famous painting and then write a story about what they imagine happening in it. The third week we could do a Free Write and the 4th week the kids could write a review on a book, tv show, computer game, etc whatever.

3. Josh is going to write a paper on the historical references in the Hittite Warrior. I think I'll schedule that for January. Josh will have to write another paper in May.

Addendum - since I don't have a real copywork dictation plan for J I thought maybe we could just focus on a particular author or theme for each month. For ex, G.K. Chesterton quotes for January, Lincoln and Washington for February. St. Francis de Sales for March, Psalms for April, J can pick for May.

Divine Comedy Resources

2009-12-13T05:30:00.000-08:00

I really want to study the Divine Comedy with Josh. I'd forgotten about it before when I was planning his 10th year. I think it fits in best when we study Church History so I'm going to have to tweak things a bit. It might be best to stretch it out slowly over the course of the year. Anyway, I've gotten some good ideas from the WTM board so I'm going to compile them here:

http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/

Teaching Co. lectures on Divine Comedy

Longfellow's Translation (with spooky illustrations)

Peter Leithart's book on the subject (gotta go look this up)

I was looking things up on Amazon and it looks like Naxos has a good audio reading.

Kolbe has a set of guides for each section inferno, purgatorio, paridiso

I already own Dorothy L. Sayers translations

Weekly Report 11/7 - 11/11/09

2009-12-08T10:07:00.000-08:00

We are definitely winding down schoolish stuff to get holiday stuff done

Unschoolish:

B is trying to read Calvin and Hobbes cartoons at night. She was struggling with a word that had the ea vowel combination. I explained how ea can be long e, short or long A. Then the next day she got a kids meal at Chick fil a and it was about spelling bees and one of the words misspelled was treachery so we actually reviewed that spelling rule the next day. Then the next day she read the world 'clean' by herself. She has been trying to read Go Dog Go every night as well until she can read it perfectly, she informed me!
Since B and S are interested in spelling I really should remember to netflix Akeelah and the Spelling Bee. I've heard such good things about that movie.
S read There's a Boy in the Girl's bathroom by Louis Sachar - this is the first chapter book that doesn't have a picture on every other page, as S puts it. He is very proud of himself!
J read two books, Hittite Warrior and Abarat
B wanted to learned more capitals of states. For some reason I don't understand she knew the capitals of ND and SD but didn't know our own state capital. So we got a printout off the internet and looked through all the capitals. We also talked about capitals of countries. S and B knew London and Paris and Rome. We also learned the capitals of Mexico and Canada. Then S wanted to know what the smallest country in the world was. Vatican City of course. We looked up a map of it on the web and then read all about the other small countries.
Read in Down in the Bonny Glen about how they made dye from graith which is urine. Eek.
B has been listening to the Prince and Pauper by Jim Weiss
S discovered some new program on the Mac where you can draw pictures, type up captions and then record yourself reading the caption. S and B have been having a blast with that.
Hardly did any math at all. B and I did a fun magic math trick we got from clickschooling. We showed it to J and he figured out the trick. B is rehearsing to show Daddy. B has been asking me questions about multiples of 12, I think because she noticed that cookies and baked goods and eggs are sold by the dozen.
Read some of the early Latin readers to B and S. And we learned the first verse and refrain for Veni, Veni Emanuel
B and S watched lots of Wordgirl and Fetch as well the Phineas and Ferb Christmas special which is the funniest and most clever Christmas special I have seen in ages!
J got his scoliosis brace and is learning how to sleep in it! This is a major lesson in life!!!!! He is Mr grouchy-pants as a result. I'm steering clear of him as much as possible!
J and W went to CLC
W finished up his impromptu study of the Book of Wisdom with his friend on Monday night
W has been working out at the gym every night. I admire and envy his drive!!!!

Schoolish:

Not much to report here. Did our Latin homework. W and J went to Latin class. I stayed home because the van was on fritz and we couldn't all fit into W's car.
Read some more Freedom Train and Archimedes to B and S.
Went to music lessons on Monday
B went to gymnastics on Tuesday
Started the unit study on Exploring the Mass then went to Mass on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
J did a lesson in Alg II and then took a test; haven't graded either yet! I've not been forcing him to work because he's sleep deprived due to the scoliosis brace
Finished the Iliad! Yoohoo!
Watched two more lectures in Archeology - so interesting!
Socratic Discussion on Friday - I told the other moms I just don't like doing Socratic discussion with the 3rd through 5th graders. For one thing I think it is developmentally inappropriate. I think kids begin to question soon enough as they grow older. It is a natural process and I feel like this Socratic discussion is forcing them to give up some of their innocence by leaving open ended questions deliberately that really in essence have to do with understanding right and wrong. Also, the Touchstone program is set up for a classroom and we never have enough material to quite fill our hour. And finally I actually find the program rather shallow. So instead, next year I am going to do art with the elementary group based on the Christian Heritage Art Program I got from CHC three yeasrs ago and have never found an opportunity to use!

Tonight is the first night of Chanukah! We've got latkes and chocolate gelt. The kids decided that we'll play for almonds when we play dreidel tonight. I just bought a big bag of roasted almonds. They wanted Reeses pieces but I nixed that idea! Tomorrow afternoon is the extended family Chanukah and then Sat night S is having two friends spend the night for an early birthday celebration. He's order tacos for dinner and butter pound cake for his birthday cake. And he does want to watch Akeelah and the Bee as the traditional stay-up-late-and-watch a -movie activity for his sleepover.

Weekly Report 11/30/09 - 12/4/09

2009-12-01T10:20:00.000-08:00

Unschoolish

S started reading The Toothpaste Millionaire out loud to B. So cute! After he reads a chapter he has her narrate back to him! Hysterical! And he's the one who is always so reluctant!
S has also been composing up a storm, writing lots of new music on the piano. He also picked out the Peanuts theme. He really upped his practice because he has jury next week. That always motivates him.
S has also been drawing a lot, creating new characters for his comic strip.
S stayed up late last night writing 3 pages (!!!!! from the kid who hates handwriting) of a stand up comedian routine he thought up. I kept telling him to go to sleep but he was afraid that he'd forget it.
B loved making a big evergreen tree out of poster board for our Jesse Tree
B is also the reminder for lighting the advent wreath at night. She loves it.
I started listening to Story of a Soul on audio in the car. B is absolutely enthralled with it. S and J have been listening in too.
W started working out at a new gym he joined.
W also started an informal Bible study with a friend. He and friend went to Mass Mon evening and then discussed the book of Wisdom
J read A View from Saturday by Konisburg. Unfortunately he read it in one night (starting it about 9 in the evening and finishing it about 3 a.m. This has turned him into Mr. Grumpy-bear!
S uncovered a Christmas present from LAST year that he had never opened! It was hiding in his closet! Anyway, it is a very cool magnetix marble run. He and B set it up in the living room and played with it for hours.
Went on a field trip to local park on Wed. morning. We are volunteering to help the park reorganize their bluebird trail and rebuild some of the bluebird boxes that have fallen into disrepair.
Since B has been so afraid at night and since R is out of town I let her sleep with me. This makes her so happy. We both sat up in bed last night reading. I'm reading an excellent book on The Old Testament. She was reading Hop on Pop. She sounded out the word 'around'. I think VT is really helping her. She is conquering this reading stuff!
S and B have been having fun recording all sorts of things on W's Garage Band demo. S has also been creating music on some game on a website entitled, Sheep Beats.
W took B and S to see Fantastic Mr. Fox on Thurs.
We had our last cartooning class on Wed. The teacher brought in cells from when she used to work at Disney! She recommended a class she knew of for S who is so interested in animation. I'll have to look into it.

Schoolish stuff:

Read alouds: Still working through Freedom Train, Archimedes to both S and B and Down to the Bonny Glen to B. Rick is out of town on business this week, so no read alouds from Daddy. So sad. . . .
did Latin homework and studied for quiz. I got a 100% I don't know what J and W got, they didn't get their quizzes back yet.
J did lessons 29, 30 in Saxon Alg II. It is hard to do Algebra without Rick here as he is the main teacher.
I am determined to finish the Iliad this week. We have stretched this out soooo long! And I want W to get a credit for Greek Lit and I don't want much overlap into next semester. He'll be swamped with music lessons, Comm. Coll. courses, Latin and Writing. So far we've read up to the first half of book 16.
B has been working on 'regrouping' or as I was taught it 'carrying' She really didn't get the concept and I realize she didn't truly understand place value. It is such an abstract concept! But she is starting to get into the rhythm of how to add big numbers just by following the formula. S had been reviewing his times tables and doing simple division.
Enrolled W in writeguide program for next semester so he can finally get his Eng. Comp and Grammar credit and 'graduate' high school!

Friday:

today we've got Socratic Discussion Group this a.m. (they are coming here and I've got to do a quick vacuum before they arrive!)
J and I hope to go to Mass at noon since we didn't make it earlier in the week.
Hopefully W, J and I will get through two more books of the Iliad today! I'm determined to finish it by Sunday evening
Rick gets back this evening! Can't wait!

Weekend:

W has a big two hour piano lesson scheduled with his teacher on Sat. He's got his jury next Tuesday.

Advent School

2009-11-24T15:09:00.000-08:00

I like to mix things up for Advent. Stuff I'm hoping to do:

Jesse Tree with Biblical reading first thing every morning
Advent Calendar - we have a beautiful one that is made of wood with 24 little drawers. Each day you open a drawer and take out a little piece for a nativity creche, by Christmas Eve your creche is complete!
We'll light our Advent wreath every night.
We'll take a break from our cursive practice and instead pull out Mark Kitsler's (sp?) Draw Squad. The kids have been doing lots of cartooning and drawing lately anyway but it will be fun to do the exercises in the book.
Instead of our regularly scheduled Bible History and Faith and Life, we'll do the Jesse tree readings and also CHC's Exploring the Mass unit which came with S's 5th grade plans.
We are reading Freedom Train about Harriet Tubman. I hope to really move through that book quickly so we can get to the book on St. John Vianney.
Instead of our regularly scheduled Latin we'll memorize Veni, Veni Emmanuel in Latin and I'll also read the I Am Reading Latin Books from Bolchazy-Carducci (www.bolchazy.com)
Lots of math literature (and we'll continue with our Archimedes book) and games if we feel like it!
We'll keep up our lit readings at night.
It looks like the only noon Mass that we can go to all together during the week is on Thursdays, so that's what we'll do!
Getting ready for and celebrating Chanukah. When is that anyway? Better look it up!
Lots of cleaning to get ready for our big family Christmas party on Dec. 20th.
That means we'll decorate the house on Dec. 19th!
Lots of baking, Christmas cards and making/buying Christmas gifts!

Josh's 10th grade

2009-11-22T06:13:00.001-08:00

I don't know why I am planning so much for next year when this year doesn't seem to be going all that smoothly! But that is my form of escapism. Planning is fun, actually implementing the plans is not!

Josh and I were talking the other day and that sort of fueled my thoughts. He wants to try to finish up Algebra II this year (he'll probably have to work through most of the summer). And then do the new Saxon Geometry next year. Even though some of the geometry is covered in the Algebra I and II books, he doesn't want to move onto Advanced Math just yet.

Also next year we already know he'll be taking our regularly scheduled Tuesday morning Latin class and he'll also be taking an intensive twice a week with Lab, Biology course. If he elects to he can also study for the AP exam. They have a study group that meets at 8:30 Friday mornings before the 10 o'clock class.

So we already know Biology, Latin and Geometry. I want to do Church history with him and that will also include Literature. Once again, writing is the thing that gets left out. But I think I'm going with my plan of having him write a short answer essay 3 times a week. He'll probably also do tennis again. He's not particularly interested in art or music at present. Maybe something will come up.

Well, that was easy. It kind of planned itself!

Weekly Report 11/16-11/20

2009-11-19T13:14:00.000-08:00

This week has been a slumpy week.

First off, no one was sleeping well for some reason. Actually I know why. W in some crazy lapse of judgment let B and S watch some old Twilight Zones with him. B has been completely freaked out ever since. Every night she cries that she doesn't want to go to bed. S puts on a strong front that he is not scared, however, he doesn't seem to shut his eyes until midnight. B keeps waking up in the night and crawling into bed with me and Rick. B kicks terribly in her sleep. Once she wakes me up, I am unable to go back to sleep. So I've been going to bed at midnight, waking up at 4 a.m. and trying to get by on that. This means that every time I try to sit down to read aloud or watch a video I drift right off to sleep. Both J and W being teenagers think staying up late is great, except the next morning they don't want to get up! I've also been fighting headaches all week.

With everyone being sleep deprived, we've been a family of grumpies. B had a total meltdown at our Socratic Discussion and we had to leave early. She has a terrible temper and once she gets wound up it seems like she can't not regain control over herself until she has screamed it all out. I was so angry at her. I know I didn't handle it great being so very tired. Sigh. All week I felt like I was trudging through sand to get anything done. Everything seems to take me 4 times longer than it ought to.

Secondly, we had two doctors appoints for J who has been diagnosed with scoliosis. One on Tuesday afternoon and one on Friday (to fit his brace). In addition to that Thursday morning was spent signing W up for community college classes for next semester. And W and J are going away on a retreat this weekend and both decided they needed new jeans so they took themselves off shopping.

Unschoolish: Kids started watching a new PBS show about business/economics called Bizkids. They learned all about currency. B and S played a lot on the computer: like making animations on sketchstar, listening to a lot of music, playing on Noggin (making videos). S read a lot of the Game Informer magazine (not sure I approve). S also exchanged e-mails with two friends. They watched a lot of Fetch, Wordgirl and Phineas and Ferb. S tried out a lot of new game websites, freeonlinegames, onemore level. B went to Ninjakiwi (she likes the puzzle games). B made up a lot of science experiments inspired by our reading of Archimedes and doing a couple of little demonstrations on density and buoyancy. J was, as usual, on the computer a lot. He developed an interest in sharks though and did a lot of reading about them. He and Rick stayed up late one night (sigh!) watching a program on sharks and whales or something. He announced he wants to be a marine biologist. This from the kid who hates swimming! We'll see about that! He also started rereading the Bunnicula series of all things! I have no idea what W has been doing except going to Music Theory class and some Latin/Latin class at the beginning of the week.

Schoolish: B and S did cursive M-Th. Did a bit of Greek on Monday. Math - B learned about greater than and lesser than, putting larger numbers in sequence, figuring out sequences and problem-solving. S did lessons 16 and 17 in Saxon (mostly multiplication). J did up to L 27 in Alg II and took test 5 (but I haven't gotten around to grading it yet). We did a bit of Vision Therapy homework. Did Latin homework on Monday and then Latin class on Tuesday a.m. We need to study for Latin quiz next T. S read some in his Seton reader. B did some work in her reading workbook and read a lesson from the McGuffey reader. Neither B or S did very much music practice this week. We didn't do any high school history. We did get to the next book in the Iliad and I made the boys organize their notebooks (they had papers scattered all over the house!). S did a bit of Latin - some grammar and some vocabulary review.

For read alouds - we started a new book Freedom Train about Harriet Tubman. I'm going to try and sandwich that in before we get to the book on St. Jean-Baptiste Vianney.

I am ready for a Thanksgiving break. I figure Monday and Tuesday of next week will be regular days. Wednesday a.m. I'm going to try to play catch up with the teens in re lit and history. Then Wed. afternoon break officially begins. H is coming home for the first time in 2.5 months! She'll be in Wed. night!

Suggestions for History Reading

2009-11-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

For some reason I'm in planning mode right now for future readings. Here's what I'm thinking of for the rest of this academic year with S and B:

After Archimedes, we'll read the new book on Herodutus by Bendick
Since we've done so much reading in the Greeks: Tanglewood Tales, Black Ships Before Troy, The Wanderings of Odysseus, Percy Jackson books, currently Archimedes, next Herodotus, I feel the need to move on to the Romans
Aeneid for Boys and Girls
Famous Men of Rome
Detectives in Togas
Roman Ransom

By next fall I think we'll be up to Middle Ages. Here's what I'm thinking:

The Early Christians by Hunt (transitional book plus the kids will learn about the early Church)
Brendan the Navigator by Jean Fritz
Fingal's Quest by ???? I've heard of this book so much but have never read it.
Beorn the Proud - loved this book the first time around!
The Hidden Treasure of Glaston - I read this to myself a couple years ago - wonderful book!
Francis and Clare; Saints of Assisi by Homan
Cathedral by McCauley
Castle by McCaulay
The Trumpeter of Krakow - one of my all time favorite books!

For J who'll be 15 and in 10th grade:

Confessions of St. Augustine
Augustine Came to Kent - about the other St. Augustine!
Ballad of the White Horse - by GKC - I've never read this but really want to! - poem
William the Conquerer - Hilaire Belloc - haven't read this either
Murder in the Cathedral - T.S. Eliot - play
St. Francis of Assisi by GKC
St. Thomas Aquinas by GKC
Henry V - Shakespeare - play
Joan of Arc by Mark Twain

Spine for J - Didache Church History text or maybe the Catholic Textbook Projects latest book on Church History.

Supplements - Popes and Papacy Teach. Co lectures; watch movies Becket, movie on St. Francis, Henry V with Branaugh, old Joan of Arc movie. Watch Teach Co. lectures on Natural Law if we never get to it this year.

S & B: For our Modern Studies next year, I'm thinking of getting the Beautiful Feet Western Expansion unit study. I don't know how much we'll do of the actual unit study. We can pick and choose and read all the wonderful books.

Cool Philosophy Site

2009-11-14T05:55:00.001-08:00

http://www.philosophyclass.net/

Weekly Report 11/7/09-11/13/09

2009-11-13T09:30:00.000-08:00

Unschoolish: S and B - Lots of cartooning and drawing; playing with sculpey; playing with pipe cleaners (Mom went to Michaels!); S and B designed games for a 'fair' in B's room. They had the cutest ideas for different games - one was they took an old science fair 3 sided poster board, cut out strips to make a jail cell window with bars and then offered to take pictures of you behind the bars!!! (They got that idea from our trip to Salem, MA); ball tosses, knocking stacks of plastic cups down. They made a fun house mirror by taping smaller mirrors and magnifying glasses to B's full length mirror. Lots of gymnastics and music playing/practice; S played games on One More Level having to do with music and geography; S and B wrote e-mails to friends/family. Watched lots of Wordgirl and Fetch. J read the book The Wormword Files; watched c-span with Rick during Health Care debate; played lots of computer game The Way which involves puzzles. He kept drawing examples of the puzzles and trying to explain them to S and Rick. W - lots of music practice, he was under the weather with a sore throat most of the week. W and J went to CLC Wed night and then got up to go to the 6:15 a.m Mass on Friday.

Schoolish: M-Th: S and B did cursive, math, and reading every day. S too math test and only got one wrong. S did Latin and spelling too. Read alouds - Finished Carry On, Mr Bowditch; great book! Cont with Archimedes and the Door of Science - learned about Simple Machines, parts of a lever, etc. Bible History - Saul and David. W, J and I went to Latin class on Tuesday. J did L. 22 in Alg and took a test which he got an 82.5 on. He needs to do another lesson today. He's moving at a snail's pace. He is totally wrapped up in The Way. Watched 2 Archeology lectures with W and J. J and I watched lecture on minerals in Earth Science. W and J also listened to the Iliad Book 9 and wrote out answers to study guide questions. W and J read through ch. 24 of History of the Ancient World. Socratic discussion on Friday a.m. Hopefully today (Fri p.m.) we'll read another book of The Iliad and J will do another Alg lesson.

Noteworthy stuff: J had drs appt Tues afternoon for mri for his spine. Need to go back to orthopedic doc next Tues to find out what to do for scoliosis. S and I had a date Thursday night. We ate at Silver Diner and then went to see his piano teacher give a concert. She played Pictures at An Exhibition by Mussorgsky. It was incredible! S was totally blown away! And most noteworthy of all! H turned 19 on Tuesday. Her first birthday away from home. She spent it writing a paper and studying for a test and then breaking up with her boyfriend. Birthdays just aren't the same when you are at college!

Weekly Report 11/1/09-11/6/09

2009-11-06T04:48:00.000-08:00

School-y stuff:

Read alouds: Read more Bible History (story of Samuel), Carry On, Mr Bowditch and Archimedes and the Door To Science. I love how Mr. Bowditch and Archimedes are overlapping when it comes to mentioning navigation and astronomy! Learned about the Achimedean screw.
Did catechism on Monday
B and S did cursive every day
S did a week's worth of spelling in his spelling workbook
B did read a story from her reader and a page in her workbook. A couple times during the week she copied over some words she'd been reading onto the whiteboard
S did Lessons 11, 12, 13, and 14 in Saxon 6/5
B learned rounding to 10's, hundreds, reading large numbers, place value
J did lessons 17-21 in Saxon Algebra II. He took a test on Monday. Scored 75%. Argh! Rick says there was one question he just didn't understand but that the rest was just carelessness in arithmetic and trying to do too much figuring in his head. So the new rule is that if he scores less than 85%, he has to retake the test. I think J knows his dad will just go over the test with him so he doesn't need to work hard for accuracy. Daddy is too nice!
J and I watched two lectures on Earth Science - how the planet was formed and the rock cycle. Earth science is cool!
J, W and I watched first lecture on Classical Archaeology. This also seems very cool, combining history and science.
J, W and I read/listened to Book 7 of the Iliad
W went to Music Theory class
Latin - S did Latin 3x times this week. B sat in when we watched the dvd lesson for ch. 16.
Latin again - did Latin homework and went to class on Tuesday. W and J studied to make up test and took it on Thursday afternoon. I have no idea how they did.
Did a crossword puzzle in our Greek workbooks
Violin and piano lessons. S practiced every day, B not so much!
S read in his Seton reader using his flippers (VT exercise)

Unschool-y stuff:

W and S continue to have a music appreciation study together. They've been into Steve Reich this week big time. They've been trying to jam on the piano together.
We watched a lot of Bill Nye clips on youtube this week - science!
We watched The Wizard of Oz and the first Willie Wonka movie with Gene Wilder this week.
S played a neat geography game at One More Level
J was been really into the game The Way this week. He and Rick had to figure out a big computer glitch.
W and S helped pack kits and write cards for the troops at a youth service project at church
J and W went to their CLC meeting on Wed night - Bible study, discussion, etc
B and S love their cartooning class. S worked really hard drawing a cartoon mouse. His perfectionism works against him mightily! B is constantly drawing.
B is also constantly writing. She writes on the whiteboards, on paper, making posters, etc. Both she and S are constantly asking me how to spell stuff.
B and S played at drawing school. B set up a classroom in her room with 4 stuffed animals. It is the cutest thing ever! I should take a photo!
B and S loved gymnastics and have been practicing lots this week in the front yard.
B and S also got into being mimes this week using the leftover face paint from Halloween. They made up all kinds of acts! Very cute.
Rick is reading The BFG to both B and S, HP to S and Samantha to B
S finished reading the latest Wimpy Kid book. Now he's into F- minus cartoon.
J seems to just be reading stuff he finds lying around. Not into any particular book this week. He did read a couple of chapters of History
S and B went to Music Theory dot com a couple times this week to each themselves MT.
B starting getting back into Starfall site again.
I've started reading S Grimm's Fairy Tales at his request. I've been reading Little House in the Highlands to B which makes me want to travel to Scotland so badly!

Projected:

Today - Friday - Socratic discussion group this a.m.
J has appointment with spine doctor at 1 p.m.
Afternoon: cleaning the house would be good; also reading another book in the Iliad
Getting everyone out to do some exercise.
Over the weekend - J needs to do another lesson in Algebra II; W, J and I need to do some Latin homework.

Learning Log 11/3/09

2009-11-03T16:41:00.000-08:00

Monday:

A good day! B did cursive, math (rounding to 100's), read the story of The Little Red Hen, copied over some words from the story on the whiteboard, listened to the story of Samuel from Bible History, I read her the next chapter from F&L, violin lesson
S did cursive, math (story problems), read Wimpy Kid book, Bible History, F&L, Latin vocab and grammar, piano practice and lesson
Rick is reading them The BFG by Roald Dahl.
J took Algebra test which Rick corrected.
J and I watched next lecture in Earth Science about how planet was formed. I need to watch it again. It was pretty technical and I didn't quite get it all.
W went to Music Theory in a.m.
W practiced music with band member in afternoon
Evening J, W and I did Latin homework

Tuesday

Got up and finished Latin homework
Went to Latin class
B did cursive, reading workbook, math, coloring
S did cursive, reading in Seton reader, did math lesson on lines, page of spelling book
Took kids to vote with me
J did next lesson in Algebra
Discussed History reading with J and W
B and S went to gymnastics which they loved
Watched first lecture on Classical Archeology with W and J
B and S watched Bill Nye videos on youtube
W went to Soundry for open mike night
B and S played at Music Theory.com
R is reading so many read alouds: BFG, Sea of Monsters, Samantha (American Girls), Prisoner of Azkaban.

Random Thoughts in a Desperate Attempt to Feel on Top of Things!

2009-11-01T04:25:00.000-08:00

Why do I like this bullet function so much? Is it because my brain is so scattered I can't write in actual paragraph anymore?
I have signed J up with Clonlara and have yet to do anything with them. I haven't even talked to our advisor even though I've gotten two e-mails from them asking me to.
After two weeks of flu J is right back to living in a hole where the only thing he wants to interact with is his computer. This is the whole reason I signed up with Clonlara, to get some structure into his life. Hey, there! There's a whole life going on out here that you might want to participate in! LOL. So this week J and I really need to sit down and go through the Clonlara manual (which we've only done partially) and then communicate with his adviser.
J really needs to keep track of his time. I don't think he has a clue that he spends hours in front youtube and very little time doing other things. Keeping track of his time will make him aware of that. So I'm going to ask him to do that little exercise; jotting down what he's done all day.
I need to get W registered for the CC next semester. I can not figure out how to do it online to save my life. I think also maybe you can't if you are a high schooler still. I think we need to go in and talk to a counselor. But last semester we waited too long and the class he wanted filled up. So this week I really want to take care of that. Maybe we'll do this tomorrow.
I'm hoping that we can finish reading the Iliad and Odyssey by the next semester. Then I think I'll give W a credit for Greek Lit. He'll be so busy with CC courses that I don't think we'll be able to do the whole year of Ancient Lit that I had planned. It is very hard to get all three of us together for long enough blocks of time to move forward at the pace we need to. So I am letting W go. J and I can hunker down and get some learnin' done and I won't have to worry about W. He's got so many outside things going on that it really interferes with scheduling something we can do together.
I'm thinking of having an audio-visual hour after dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays. These are the nights when we don't have to be out. We have so many Teaching Co. courses, documentaries etc that I'd like to watch, but again it is too hard to schedule it in on the fly. I think we need to have set times!
Just now I realized that we missed a meeting on Thursday night to sign up for High School Workcamp. Grrr.
I'm assessing what's working for the younger children. Read alouds have been going well. S is really into the new Archimedes book. I'm planning to read about St. John Vianney after Carry On, Mr. Bowditch (Modern Studies). I'd like to read the new Jean Bendick on Herodotus next for Ancient Studies. Bible History continues to chug along. B wants to participate in the Science Fair which is in February (27th I think?). Both children are doing very well when it comes to reading and learning cursive. I think I need to be a little more consistent with math and Latin (which ironically is supposed to be the core of our planned stuff but somehow gets shoved aside frequently!). Doing the Greek once or twice a week seems to be working fine. I'm in no rush with Greek!
After Christmas I think we'll switch to Writing With Ease. I'm looking forward to that.
Okay, it is the Feast of All Saints! I need to get costumes ready for our party. We aren't going to Mass until 6:00 p.m. tonight. It is the youth group Mass (1st Sunday of the month).

Weekly Report 10/26-10/30

2009-10-29T08:16:00.000-07:00

Since this has been a slow recuperation week from the flu I decided to just do a weekly report a la WTM.
Read alouds: Read about Ruth in Bible History, decided to can Ancient Tales from Egypt for now. We'd gotten half way through and they just weren't holding our interest anymore. We can always come back to them in time. Instead we started reading Archimedes, And the Door of Science by Jeane Bendick. This covers both Ancient history and science as well. We ditched our science read aloud when we got to roundworms which grossed everyone out! Read a lot of Carry On, Mr. Bowditch this week. This also touches on science and math as well as American history. We are almost done with that book.
Didn't do much math this week at all. Everybody's heads are still too congested to think clearly enough to do math! S did work on his 100 subtraction facts sheet on Thursday. B did mental math on W and a fun rounding exercise in her workbook on Thursday. J did only two lessons in Algebra. L. 17 and 18.
Languages: W and I took Latin test on Tuesday. J was still sick. He's been studying for it to take next week. On Thursday did some Latin for Children with S. Also worked in Greek workbooks a little with B and S.
B and S have been doing a lot of writing/spelling on their own, writing little notes or cartoon captions or sending e-mails. They did cursive practice every day.
J and W both read 4 chapters in history.
W took his Music Theory midterm. Thinks he did well.
Made it to music lessons on Monday, kids practiced music every day.
Made it to drawing class, both S and B (especially B!) have been drawing up a storm all week.
Socratic Discussion Group on Friday
Read Book VI of the Iliad with teens.

Sick week

2009-10-22T12:53:00.000-07:00

Well, it feels like a lost week due to illness. S was the first to go down, then B, then J and finally W. B and W are pretty mild though, nothing more than an annoying cold that saps the energy. J got it the worst with the highest fevers.

In spite of this we've read a lot of our regular stuff (at least to the younger two): Bible History, Carry On, Mr Bowditch, Little House by Boston Bay, The BFG, Sea of Monsters and Rebecca (American Girls). S listened to the whole of Bud Not Buddy on audio. Now B's listening to it.

Today W and S decided they were going to start their own music appreciation study. They've been listening to Erik Satie and Philip Glass and S has been picking out melodies on the piano.

B found an old Montessori movable alphabet and she's been spelling out messages to me and others. J is spending most of the day watching Animal Planet.

I had a bad migraine this morning but it got better fast. It is funny how the more violent migraines are shorter than the slightly milder variety. What I don't like is looking in the mirror and seeing one eye so much more dilated than the other. Creepy.

It has been hard feeding folks because even though they are hungry nothing tastes good and they wind up taking a bite and then pushing the rest away.

Okay now it's Friday. Poor J still had a high fever last night. Socractic Discussion has been cancelled and I don't think we'll get to tennis either. Bummer. W thinks he's well enough to go on his CLC retreat this weekend.

So today, I hope to clean the house a bit, that is declutter and sweep floors, wipe down gritty table surfaces which are everywhere! Also, I need to get more laundry done. I need to buy Anthony a confirmation gift and make sure I have nice clothes to wear tomorrow morning, since I'll have to get up at the crack of dawn to make it to Winchester in time for his Confirmation. I also hope to read aloud a lot today. And I hope B and S get outside to play a bit today as well.

Sick day 11/19/09

2009-10-19T08:40:00.000-07:00

Sean's friend has Swine Flu and Sean was running a fever all night
Sean had no fever when he got up at 9 a.m. but has developed a cough
W went to Music Theory
B had been looking at the Powers of Ten flip book. She started drawing on our sliding glass doors with her window markers different sizes of the world. She went from small to very large and then she drew close ups of a house, shed, bike etc. Very cute.
B did cursive and some rounding to nearest ten in her workbook. I think it clicked for her.
Read next Bible History story to B and S about Gideon and Samson. Both kids started telling me the Veggie Tale version. Love those Veggie Tales!
Read next chapter in F&L to B (Ch. 7)
J is doing Lesson 15 in Saxon Alg II
B read a page from the McGuffey reader
Watched the movie Babe and then The Princess Bride
W came home and had bought S Bud, Not Buddy on audio.
S's fever came back 100.2
J and I studied for Latin test; W said he did too but he didn't study with us.
Taught RE, I think the girls liked the candy rosary.
Got home and J was really studying hard for his Latin test. I've studied some but not enough because I know I can't take it due to S's illness.
Will stayed up very late to study
S was feverish in the night.

Weekend journal 10/17-18/09

2009-10-18T04:39:00.000-07:00

Saturday - slow, lazy morning
Took B and S to great little toy store we have in town, independently owned, lots of cool toys. Went to buy gift cert for neighbor whose b-day party is today.
S and B loved the puppets, S loved the knights and horses and loved the Ancient warriors as well. B loved the doll houses. They were ecstatic! Lots of idea for Christmas!
Rick took them to the party which was a laser tag one a good half hour drive away.
Went shopping for my candy rosary supplies. Still working on actually putting something together.
W, J and read Most of Book 5 of Iliad
Watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers - fun movie
B did lots of gymnastics
Rick went over Algebra test with J - he got an 82.5%. Better than before. Again he gets the concepts just doesn't want to take the time to read the question thoroughly and check his math. He needs to show his work to be more accurate.
I read a little of Boston Bay to B
R read but I don't know which Rebecca and HP or Sea of Monsters?
J and I studied a bit for Latin test on Monday
W said he studied but I don't think he did much
Sunday - breakfast and Mass with S and B
W and J went to Youth Rally all day 11 to 9 p.m.
Sean came down with fever in the evening.

Cool educational blog

2009-10-17T12:08:00.001-07:00

http://beauty-in-education.blogspot.com/

Journal 10/16/09

2009-10-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

W and J went to 6:15 a.m. Mass
I went to 8:00 Mass - saw old college friend's mother there!
Did lots of dejunking, vacuuming and tidying in prep for Socratic Discussion Group arrival
While doing this W gave B another voice lesson
Socratic Discussion group - The camel and the jackal story. teen group discussed essay from Francis Bacon
B and S played with Miguel afterward, putting on a play downstairs.
J retired to computer; W to videogame
Tennis canceled because of cold, rainy weather.
After lunch, tried to read The Book of Thoth from Tales of Egypt aloud to S and B but got too sleepy
Read some Jesus of Nazareth and took a nap
W is playing music
We've been trying to download Seven Brides for Seven Brothers from itunes but it is taking an excruciatingly long time.
B asked me to look up colors for 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize ribbons. She's making ribbons now out of colored index cards. Apparently for an art contest.
S got very bored; so he called his friend and I'm taking him over now.
B put on an art contest with me and W as contestants. We were ordered to draw a cat. W's won because it was so silly. She had stand on chairs like at the Olympics wearing our ribbons that she made.
J was very busy playing Brutal Legend all afternoon.
B choreographed a little floor exercise (inspired by watching Nadia Comenichi (sp) on youtube this a.m. She drew it out in stick figures and taped it up by her mat. Then she showed me. She did a walkdown bridge, then a cartwheel then some jumps and then she landed in the splits and jumped up again.
We went to dinner at Olive Garden. Picked up S and his friend on the way. Met Rick there. I ate lots of salad and had a glass of wine.

Journal 10/15/09

2009-10-15T08:20:00.000-07:00

Slow, sleepy, rainy morning
S and B did cursive; S's was a Latin sentence. S did a tiny bit of spelling too.
S read more of The Search for Delicious
B practiced violin, then we got into watching Sarah Chang, Hilary Hahn and Natalie MacMaster on youtube
J read Earth Science - said it wasn't anything he didn't know already. It's a middle school text so I guess he needs something a bit older to hold his interest.
W read history - said SWB was a great writer.
Met with J and W and finished Book 4 of Iliad
Discussed HAW; Sargon, Gutian invasion, Abram and Sarai, 1st environmental disaster.
B and S watched more Fetch.
Dreary afternoon; made hot cocoa; watched/prayed the divine mercy
W went to teach guitar to his student
S did next lesson in Saxon
B played at pbskids and got really into the Cailloiu game where you decorate your own dollhouse
S wrote a long e-mail to his friend Joseph. Asked help on spelling words.
B wrote me a note again; so sweet.
B and S watched Tom Thumb again
J played new video game with blood/bad language turned off
B is playing with Hannah's old dollhouse now; she hasn't done that in a couple of years!
S is back to writing another e-mail to his friend.
Steam cleaned the living room rug. Thumbelina is outta here. We were keeping her out of the house but then started to let her back in again and she's up to her old trick. Sorry, sweetie but you are officially an outdoor cat now!
W got into teaching voice to B who we've discovered has a rather operatic voice. We listened to a little Fredricka von Strade on youtube.
W taught S how to improvise jazz style to Dear Prudence. W on guitar, S on piano. B was sitting in plucking her little 1/2 violin.
Then W started giving more voice lessons to B and S got his nose out of joint about it so I sent him upstairs to take the shower he was supposed to take this a.m.
J and I watched the next lecture in How the Earth Works. It was all about the Big Bang. Absolutely fascinating. Did you know we are 13.7 billion years old? Our atoms are at any rate.
W is teaching B how to sing Amazing Grace. So sweet!
Read next chapter in Little House by Boston Bay to B
J played lots of Brutal Legend today
S is playing Tetras
Rick read Rebecca to B
Rick read Harry Potter 3 to S
H and I talked by fbchat. She's having trouble writing a paper due tomorrow on justice and whether ares and aphrodite got it when they were caught in adultery. She's despairing. I hope she gets inspiration.
Need to go prepare for the Socratic discussion tomorrow. Also I got Gilbert today! Gotta curl up and read.

Journal 10/14/09

2009-10-14T08:13:00.000-07:00

W got up and went to Music theory class early. He said he had work he wanted to do there. He also brought history to read after the class.
J took Test 3 of Saxon Algebra II
B and S did cursive
S looked up two words in the dictionary from his spelling list: shirk and perch
S read next story in reader using his flippers (VT) and he worked on memorizing his poem.
B did circles for VT and arrows chart
S practice piano
Read Carry On, Mr Bowditch and talked about latitude and longitude. Looked at globe and saw distance from Salem to Bourbon (Reunion) and located Cape of Good Hope.
B read from McGuffey 1st reader. Also practiced reading cursive from that book.
B found a little hangman electronic game we got from somewhere and she played on that for quite a while, spelling animal names, like bear and loon.
Rewatched Ch. 5 for Latin vocabulary and then quizzed on words
B and S played Shut the Box for math today (about 15 minutes)
J and I watched next lecture in How the Earth Works, an intro to Plate Tectonics. Did you know that the Atlas Mtns are the counterpart to the Appalachian Mtns? They were once two sides of a rift between the North American plate and the African plate.
J read Popular Science mag that just arrived yesterday.
B and S made animations on Pivot.
S has been grumpy today and bickering if not coming to blows with J!
J is tired because he stayed up until the wee hours of the morning reading Lord of the Flies. His opinion: Best. book. ever.
W came home; he's read up to ch. 16 of HAW. Two chapters to go and then we can talk history.
Went to VT
While B and S were there I went to St. Mark and turned in forms for Youth Rally
Sent my RE students an e-mail.
Read aloud some of book 4 of Iliad. I started falling asleep while reading and misread Chieron as Chesterton, I snapped out of it when I heard W and J laughing loudly!!!!! So we gave up then.
Took S and B to cartooning class. They love it. The teacher is so nice. This nice elderly retired woman who has been cartooning all her life and loves children. S was being very perfectionistic though and getting all tense towards the end and B was catching his negativity!
J spent a good deal on the computer; he likes to get on these games message boards to learn about new games, etc.
B and S are watching Fetch which is such a great show. Learning about sound and music right now and figuring out how to stop a runaway train.
B wrote me a nice note. She's really started writing a lot on her own lately. I love her spelling. I'll actually be sad when she can spell everything correctly because it means she's growing up.
B and S both con't drawing a lot after the cartooning class. I'm finding scraps of paper with drawings on them all over the house.
Rick read Rebecca to B; Harry Potter to S
W and J went to CLC and stopped to get a late dinner on the way home.
S is working his way steadily through the Search for Delicious. He's so proud that he's actually sticking with a chapter book with very few illustrations. He's really enjoying the book. It has captivated his imagination.

Journal 10/13/09

2009-10-13T18:27:00.000-07:00

Got up and studied for Latin quiz
J and W got up and studied too.
Went to Latin class - took quiz I got 99% (forgot macrons on quis), J got 93%, W got 85%. I am sure because he was sleep deprived! Latin was hard though. I am having trouble with relative pronouns and I really need to review conjugations of all 4 conjugations. I really need them memorized. I get all confused.
B did 1 page of reading workbook (compound words); 1 page of cursive and 12 problems in rounding to nearest ten. She played out in the yard on the trampoline a lot.
S did 1oo subtraction facts, 1 short cursive practice, 1 page of grammar (commas and appositives) and 1 page of spelling (words that rhyme with 'her' er, ur, ir, or, ear) He played outside some too.
Lunch at Chick fil a
At home W played with his new video game. J got on computer too.
B practiced violin pretty thoroughly. S practiced piano some.
Went to Meadows Farms and bought Halloween decorations for front yard. B has been longing for them. Got a spooky ghost for the tree, a scarecrow, a sign with a jack-o-lantern that says trick or treat and some little ghosts and pumpkins to stick alongside the driveway.
Went to gymnastics. B and S loved it!
Went for a 45 minutes walk w/ L. Very pleasant! Good conversation, weather was great.
J did Lesson 14 in Alg II while I was gone.
W has been playing his new game for hours!
Made dinner, chicken, rice, baby carrots and cucumber slices.
Read three stories from Bible History to S and B. Moses died and Joshua fought the battle of Jericho.
Talked to H earlier. She's still sick and has mid-terms. Poor thing. She has to give a talk in her Understanding the Bible class on Passover. She started telling me all this stuff I never, ever knew about Christ drinking the 4th cup on the cross and how they gave the wine to him on a hyssop branch, etc. Wow, I never got that connection before!!!!
B and I did some drawing. Over her picture of a house she wrote 'hwos' Made me think if Winnie ther Pooh.
R is reading Sea of Monsters to B and S.
J and I are up to chapter 18 in History of the Ancient World. W isn't! Grrr.

Columbus Day 2009

2009-10-13T05:24:00.000-07:00

Today was nice, Rick stayed home and we didn't have any music lessons to drive to and I didn't have to teach RE. It was relaxing!
In the very early a.m. B and S watched a cute little movie called Tom Thumb. It must have been made around the same time as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Darling! B and S loved the songs and the dancing.
B and S then spent the better part of the day sewing up holes in various stuffed animals and then designing and making their own stuffed monkey. They got some felt and B loves playing with needle and thread. This occupied them for hours.
Later I took S and B to mail a big package to Hannah and then we went with S's friend Joseph to a pumpkin patch to buy pumpkins and mums to decorate the front of the house.
S and B took out their gymnastics mat and showed Joseph all their tricks and choreographed moves.
Rick repaired not one but two toilets! J went with him to home depot and they got the parts. J helped a lot early on but then he got injured (deep scratch in hand) and so retired to the computer to heal!
W slept late, cleaned the basement up on my request and played lots and lots of music.
The cleaners came today. I cleaned through B's room and organized everything. I meant to do the boys' room and my own, but ran out of time and energy. I did do a decluttering of the hall bathroom upstairs.
Did several loads of laundry
Ran to Whole Foods and bought lots of stuff to ship to Hannah plus her sweaters. It's gotten cold there in TX.
Read next chapter in Little House by Boston Bay
Rick read Rebecca to B
Rick read Prisoner of A. to S
S is still reading and enjoying The Search for Delicious
J is still reading Lord of the Flies - he's not going through that so quickly
W stayed up late to go buy some game that went on sale at midnight. I made him promise to go to bed and wait until after Latin on Tues before playing it.
Uh oh, found W at 2:45 a.m. still playing. I think I'm taking that nice laptop his father gave him away for a week. I can't tolerate this staying up all night and not being able to function during the day routine. Why are teens like this??????

A Look at Joshua's Week

2009-10-11T04:55:00.000-07:00

This is inspired by a thread at the WTM board where one poster shared her 9th grader's schedule. She has her son working from 6 a.m. to 6 in the evening with one hour for chores and hygiene and one hour for lunch and walk. Wow! I thought homeschooling was supposed to be more effiecient than public schooling! I just couldn't imagine following that schedule at all, even for myself, let alone my hormonal and growing 14 yo son. But to each his own! However, it did make me wonder exactly how J's week flows. Because I do feel we are on the slow side of accomplishing things, only because he doesn't want to have to work all summer to earn credits for this high school year. So I thought I'd take a look at what he tends to do each day of the week and how it could be tweaked to make it a little more efficient without interfering with his free time.

Weekends:
Usually on Sunday, but not always, Rick has been working with J on Algebra. I usually check through the homework and any test and mark wrong answers. Since I don't know much math myself I use the solutions manual, Rick goes through and figures out where J might be stumbling and then teaches him those aspects. Sometimes but not always, J will then do a lesson or at least a partial lesson. Also on weekends, sometimes, we do a little Latin to get a jump start on our homework. We should be more consistent about this though. So that is one way I'd like to tweak things.

Monday:
Usually an Algebra II lesson
Reading in History
Lunch
Free time
Latin homework (about 2 hrs)
More free time/dinner
A bit more Latin at around 9:30 or so for maybe 1/2 hour to 45 minutes.

Tuesday:
Finish up Latin homework (45 min to 1 hr)
Attend Latin class from 10:30 to 12
Lunch
Short free time
Algebra II
History reading (in the evening)

Wednesday:
Algebra II (in a.m.)
Earth Science (usually right after lunch)
Literature - from 4 to 5 - I have to squeeze it in between VT and Drawing class for S and B
Catholic Life - Scripture study and discussion - 7:30 to 9:15

Thursday:
Algebra II
Earth Science
Literature - big focus on this
History discussion

Friday:
Mass
Socratic Discussion
Lunch
Tennis

One thing I see here is not enough hours devoted to science. J is in theory also reading in Earth Science but he hasn't really so he should probably pursue that.

Other than that, I like that he has so much free time. He does tend to spend it in front of a screen but he does learn some things from that so it isn't totally wasted time. He also takes walks frequently, often with the dog, and he does a lot of independent reading (though that has decreased in intensity since the school year started.). He also mows the lawn, does laundry, cleans the kitchen and helps tidy the house very cooperatively. And on weekends he participates with the church youth group activities. We are also going to be working on projects with the Pilgrims of the Holy Family if I ever get that off the ground, so I think it is basically a pretty good life!

Journal 10/9/09

2009-10-09T14:37:00.000-07:00

W and J got up and went to teen mass at 6:15
I got to the 8 o'clock mass
We had a good time at our Socratic discussion meeting
Went to tennis; beautiful weather today; warm
Vegged out at home; had a come and get it yourself kind of dinner
Rick read some more of the Rebecca books to B
J read Lord of the Flies
S is reading The Search for Delicious. He seems to be really enjoying it. It is a slightly harder chapter book for him.
W tried find some friends to go out with. He is a restless 17 yo who wants to be out on Friday and Sat. nights. He went out by himself to this new coffeehouse nearby but then came home early. He was really tired from not going to bed early all week and then getting up for such an early Mass. He fell asleep before we said night prayers! We had to wake him to join us.

Journal 10/8/09

2009-10-08T18:39:00.000-07:00

Read next story in Tales of Ancient Egypt about Teta the Magician
S and B did cursive practice and worked a bit in their Greek workbooks
Did some mental math with B
S read from his reader about Stephen Foster using his flippers from VT
He also read The Search for Delicious which he started last night.
B started memorizing The Swing by R.L.Stevenson
Watched Ch. 15 lesson with Sean in Latin
Never got to Math with S
S practiced piano, but B never got to her violin practice
J did next lesson in Algebra
W slept in; I forced him up around 10 a.m. At some point before 1:00 he read some history.
W drove to his lesson where he taught guitar to M.S.
Took B to her Little Flowers club where they learned about St. Margaret Clitherow (sp?) and made sunflowers and bookmarks with the Act of Faith on it.
S played with Jack
J and I checked out the new library in Fairfax City. Josh got out Lord of the Flies and is reading it.
I got some audio books out for B and S
Came home and everyone vegged. I got hooked on the computer and never made dinner.
B took a bath and started listening to The Five Peppers and How They Grew on audio.
Rick came home at 7:00 which is a bit on the early side for him. But he was disappointed because he'd wanted to get home before dark to do some work on the yard. the sun is setting earlier and earlier. When is the time change?
Got carry out for dinner.
Read Book III of the Iliad with W and J
Rick read Sea of Monsters to B and S
I read next chapter in Little House by Boston Bay.
S is listening to The Great Brain on audio.

Hell burns

2009-10-08T03:54:00.000-07:00

Cool blog by groovy sister! http://hellburns.blogspot.com/

Journal 10/7/09

2009-10-07T13:55:00.000-07:00

W went to Music Theory
Read Carry On, Mr. Bowditch out loud to B and S. He finally went to sea!
J read HAW to ch. 18
B - cursive, math (making change - she wasn't getting it), reading workbook (that she hadn't done yesterday). She's really getting fast at reading. Much less painful sounding out of everything and totally loosing the train of the sentence.
S - cursive, spelling, memorized poem for about 2 minutes, did first investigation in Saxon 6/5 on word problems.
Did a little bit of Latin vocab and review of 2nd conjugation with S
S practiced piano
J did next Algebra lesson
S and B spent lots of the day doing gymnastics out on the front lawn. They brought up their mat from the basement. The weather is glorious but windy.
W came home and wandered around aimlessly. He wants friends and to be doing something. I told him he could read HAW but I don't think he ever did.
J and I watched Lecture 4 of How the Earth Works - totally mind blowing!
Went to VT
Made dinner while B and S played gymnastics outside more.
J played on the computer
W???????
Rick stayed home because he was feeling under the weather all last night but he's been working in his room and has never yet emerged today.
Made dinner
Took B and S to first drawing class (that we thought was canceled!) - class was great. Turned out to be a cartooning class which is exactly what S wanted!
Hannah called! She's got midterms next week!
W and J went to CLC
Helped B practice violin a tiny bit. She's plucking out Mary Had a Little Lamb
Read next chapter in Little House by Boston Bay to B
Rick read Prince of A (HP) to S
Rick read A Sea of Monsters to B and S
I liked that today S and B were so into gymnastics and played so much outside. S was sooo resistant to gymnastics class for the first two classes and now he is back to his old self of loving it.