What's Happening?

So, it's been a while.  Too long, actually.  I will look back on this school year and wonder what we did, and when.  I will not have many blog posts that document our days, and few pictures.  Can you say SLACKER???


Thanksgiving...

I'll briefly back up to Thanksgiving.  That's about as far back as I can remember!  :)  We spent several days visiting my grandma over Thanksgiving.  We had the best visit we've had in quite a while.  She turned 101 today and has had her ups and downs, especially with her mood.  So, seeing her in such a great mood and feeling relatively well was a delight, and certainly something for which I was thankful.


Christmas...

Christmas came and went too quickly.  Why wouldn't it be like any other year though, right?  I even did most of my shopping early online, and still found myself out shopping on Christmas Eve.  It was just small, last minute stuff that wouldn't have mattered if I had it or not.  I'm thinking I won't do that again.  It was quite maddening!  We were blessed to truly enjoy the Christmas season though.

The girls dropped a letter off to Santa (Emily snuck one in after she said she wasn't going to!).

We had a little fun while shopping...

We made Trix Treats (made just like Rice Krispie Treats, but with Trix cereal instead).

Holly Days...

We went to Holly Days at Heritage Village...

 

 

The girls each made a yarn doll ornament at the village that day...

Creation Museum...

Going to Christmas Town at the Creation Museum is something I plan to do every year.  The outdoor dramas are amazing!  Very well done.

Eating at the cafe was a treat, and not too expensive.

And the lights outside were just stunning.

We all enjoyed the petting zoo, and Katie even took a camel ride!

We plan on visiting the Creation Museum again in the new future.


Christmas Crafts...

In preparation for Christmas, the girls learned how to make parachute chord bracelets, and gave one to each of their cousins.

Jason and I made fire cones with melted cinnamon scented candles.  The bag is a grocery sack that we rolled inside out to make a "basket" and then we tied a ribbon around it.  This made a nice gift for my parents.  And Jason actually had fun dipping the pine cones!

Festival of Lights...

While my sister in-law was here, we went to the Festival of Lights at the zoo.  It was so cold that night, but we made the best of it and had a good time.

Our tree...

I loved our tree this year.

We bought it last year after we already had one set up.  It's used and I couldn't figure out why anyone wouldn't want it anymore....until...I discovered that most of the pre-strung lights no longer worked!  It took four hours for three people to get those lights off that tree!  Then, I strung new lights on it (yes, that's my job because I'm picky!) and realized that I put WAY TOO MANY on it.  It looked like Clark Griswald's house!  Well, maybe not quite that bright, but it was seriously bright!  We had to turn the tree lights off before we could use the microwave!  Yeah, those lights came off after Christmas.  I will format a new plan when Christmas rolls around again. :)


After Christmas...

We had some snow that the girls had fun playing in.

New Year's Eve...

We did something different on New Year's Eve.  We usually go to my brother's to ring in the new year.  But, we decided to do our own thing this year.  We went out to a nicer restaurant for dinner, which the kids loved, especially when we let them get the sundae bar for dessert!  Then, we went bowling.  Bowling!!!

There was only one other time our family went bowling, and we had to leave after just one game because Emily's allergies were so bad.  It had been a while since the bowling allies banned smoking inside, but I guess the smoke still lingered.  It was awful.  This experience was much better, and we all had a great time.  We were home to see the ball drop, and the girls said it was the best New Years ever!  Can't get much better than that. :)


School...

We started school back up on January 7, and have already had our ups and downs.  It's always hard to restart after a break.  After a few days, we reacquainted ourselves with a routine and settled in for the ride.  History and science have been going great!  I have been pleased with the books used in My Father's World.  Emily is doing better in Language Arts, and Katie's reading is slowly improving.  Our restart to math was a bit rough, but once we got through some rough waters, we began sailing more smoothly.

My Father's World recommends that students use Apologia General Science in 7th grade.  I finally started it last week, and just have one word to describe it: overwhelming.  I read that the first module is the toughest, so if we can get past that, we might do ok.  But for now, I put it away.  It just doesn't fit with us right now.  Maybe soon, maybe later.  Maybe never.  We'll see.  Time will tell.  For now, we are using the Apologia Botany book, which is something I can just give to Emily to read on her own, and Katie and I read it together.  We all do projects and experiments together.  This works for us. 

I'm highly impressed with Answers in Genesis, God's Design for Science curriculum.  We used The World of Animals book the first part of the year, and loved it.  We also used Properties of Ecosystems one year and loved it, too.  I wish I had used books in this series last year.  They are simply written, have nice pictures, some suggested experiments, and suggestions for further study.  Best of all, they are based on Creation. 

That's about all the rambling I can do in one night.  Hopefully, my blogging will slip back into a routine. :)

Happy New Year!

Priorities

Keeping up with blogging has not been a priority lately.  It's not that I don't enjoy it.  I do.  I've just been concentrating my efforts more on school itself rather than writing about it.  By the time the weeks come to a close, I'm too tired to think about writing.  And when I do think about it, time is too short.

Having said that, I miss it.  I miss reading other blogs, and I miss my readers.  And maybe, above all, I have a strong feeling that I will miss having a consistant chronicle of our Homeschool Days.  So, this weekend, I will try to write a post to review the last couple of months.  I also hope to read some posts from friends I've met in the blogging world over the years.

Just what I Needed

Grammar is a like a four letter word in our house.  It's just not Emily's favorite subject.  To her, it is borning and useless. 

Just when I thought she wasn't allowing herself to learn anything "grammer," Emily brought me a story she wrote on her own, in her free time.  It's excellent!  It had very few errors and she used very good penmenship, which is unusual for her.  I'm very proud of her and I praise God for blessing me with renewed hope!

Week 6: New York, Nine Pins, Tobacco, and Birds

I'll sum this week up quickly.  In history, we read about the Dutch people who settled New Amsterdam, which became New York when the English took over and named it after the Duke of York.  We also learned about the success that tobacco plantations brought to Virginia and that's when slaves were first used in North America. We found a few good, short videos on You Tube about tobacco and cotton plantations, and slavery.

We set up a game of Nine Pins, a popular game in Colonial times, and played a few rounds.

We made a bird feeder:

Katie couldn't resist hanging around the tree!

We will spend part of Monday back peddling in science to make sure all pages are in the science notebooks.  I just noticed we missed a couple things.  I haven't been feeling well, so it was hard to accomplish everything!  Well, let's be honest.  It's hard to accomplish it all on any given week!

On Saturday, we went to a Pumpkin Festival and the girls got to paint their own canvas.  Saturday Art Class!!!  They did a great job!

Linked with Weekly Wrap-Up

Week 5: Colonies and Witchcraft

During Week 5 (Sept. 24-28), we learned about the Massachusetts Bay and Rhode Island Colonies and a little about the Salem Witchcraft Trials. I vaguely remember learning these things in school, so the information was interesting to me and I read it all. I didn't feel it was necessary to cover every detail with the kids though. One thing I found particularly interesting is the speculation that the girls who first began practicing witchcraft may have eaten contaminated grain causing them to hallucinate. Whether that's true or not, many ended up confessing much later on that their stories were simply made up. Nevertheless, it's terribly sad that many innocent people died as a result of the false accusations against them for practicing witchcraft. I'm still extremely satisfied with our history books. Sometimes, we don't read all of the content from Building a City on a Hill together. I read it myself for background info and then pick out parts to share if I choose to not read the whole thing. There is a LOT of info in these books!

We watched the Animated Hero Classics video about William Bradford, which I highly recommend. We also borrowed the movie, Squanto (a Disney film) from the library and watched it.

Some reviews warned that the movie didn't portray exactly what really happened.  Others said it was pretty close.  After watching it, I'd say it was pretty close but there were parts that were questionable.  Prior to watching the movie, I explained to the kids that this movie is not unlike any other Disney movie that sprouted from a book.  Content may not always match up and many details are often lost.  Having done that, we all enjoyed the movie and I would recommend it.

Because books could not be given to each student in the 1600's, they used hornbooks.  Pages from the New England Primer were often torn out and glued to a paddle to be used by students.  The girls each made a Hornbook that taught the alphabet and the Lord's Prayer.

Now, as much as I appreciate old books, the New England Primer would be difficult to use in our day due differences in spelling and letter usage (sometimes an 'f' was used instead of 's').  I downloaded a copy of the New England Primer from Google Books for free, just to see what it looked like.

Science is usually a highlight.  Learning about animals has always been fun for my kids, so they usually don't mind the science readings and pages that go along with them.  The Complete Book of Animals is still a big hit with Katie.

Emily's Apologia General Science material just recently arrived so we haven't begun using it yet.  I still need to get materials off the supply list.

Katie's Elephant

 

Katie also has a small notebook that she's been writing things in on her own. Don't you love it? These must be the things she finds most interesting. The fact that she does this warms my heart and puts a smile on my face!

 

Heritage Village

September 23, 2012

The Heritage Village inside a local park had a Harvest Festival the weekend of Sept. 22-23.  We decided to go on Sunday and it turned out to be a beautiful day for it.  We had so much fun touring through the village and participating in some of the activities.  All of the buildings in this village are authentic buildings that were brought in from other locations to preserve them and allow visitors to tour through them.

Inside the tepee, we got to see and touch many different kinds of animal horns, antlers, shells, hide and fur, including skunk!

Outside the tepee, we learned how to start a primitive fire...

 

 

 

Making homemade applesauce...

 

 

 

Painting pumpkins...

 

 

 

The Print Shop...

 

 

 

The General Store...

 

.Can you imagine taking a bath in that tub?

 

 

The doctor's office...

 

 

This is the waiting room at the doctor's office...

 

 

This schoolhouse was recently brought in.  It isn't ready for tours yet...

 

The Church...

 

Village Home...

 

The kitchen was in another building...

 

 

This was a wooden gymnast toy that kids got to play with while touring through the village...

 

 

Coin hunt in the hay...

 

 

I don't know who this girl is, but she was good at twirling that hoop with the stick!

 

Weaving... Love the hands-on activities!

 

 

Train Station...

 

Indian Dance...

 

 

 

The village is in need of volunteers and we would love to help out.  I may get more information about it to see if it's doable.  They are having a Halloween Haunt and a Christmas Walk, both of which we want to go to.  Then, in the spring, they have a Civil War weekend that will probably fall right around the time we will be learning about the Civil War.  The village and museum also has various activities and displays throughout the year.  Since there is so much to offer, we got a family pass so we can come and go as we please!