Week of Nov. 15-19

We began our week with the last day of our co-op classes. It has been very fun for the kids. They've enjoyed making new friends and seeing them each week. It will be quite a few weeks before we start back.

David had music practice and Hannah spent time at her friend Rebecca's house. The kids had a birthday party that same day, so school work was pushed a little bit into the weekend. Darin pointed out how lucky Hannah was to get to go hang out with a friend in the middle of a school day. I think she does realize how nice the flexibility is.

Hannah is really enjoying the Life of Fred books. She finished up LU 804 in math this week. I will have her finish 805, but she'll be doing the LOF books for the rest of this school year. She is continuing her study of plants in her science. It was really neat to watch her trying to classify trees on a drive home this week. The plants are more interesting to her than the microbiology. Her favorite topic all year has been genetics. In grammar, she has been learning about noun clauses and how to diagram those as well as complex sentences. She did not have a literature selection because I'm trying to get her back on track with the Sonlight Literature matching up with her history. She has been studying the establishment of the country and government. She will be moving to next to the expansion of the country.

David definitely wants to switch to Bob Jones math. He's loved the pages I've given him. I want him to finish all the 2nd grade materials I have here, which is two light units in CLE, about 4 chapters in Bob Jones, and a Singapore book. Once he has finished all that, he can start Bob Jones Math 3. In his language arts, he is learning about possessive nouns. He's also started working on the slants to begin learning cursive. This should be interesting. I think his printing needs more practice, but when he really tries, he can do fairly well. He has a lot of writing to do each day, so I don't emphasize handwriting on everything. In history, he began studying about the early Native Americans.


David really enjoyed science this week. He was learning all about worms. He got to dig for worms at a neighbors house. He doesn't like getting dirty, but my friend's son sure does!
Later in the week, the boys got to observe the worms we found. The worms didn't always do what we expected, but it was very interesting.

Weekly Report and Catch up for Oct 25th - Nov 12th

I've been super busy these last 3 weeks, but I'm going to try and do a quick catch up. We've had family in town, performances, church events, etc. School has been getting done in there, too, though. We've been attending co-op, but that ends tomorrow. It's fun, but I'll be glad to have one last thing to do each week. We don't start back until well after the new year.

Hannah has been using the Bob Jones history textbook for a few weeks now. She is learning quite a bit. It has some rather challenging activities to go along with the text and tests. She did quite a bit with the Constitution and has been moving on to the establishment of the government. I had Life of Fred Fractions here, so I let her do it just for fun. She LOVES it. I was going to order the last half of her CLE math, but I've decided she's going to finish what I have and spend the rest of the year of Life of Fred. I have the Decimals/Percents book. She should get through those quickly, but I'm going to have her do both of the Pre-Algebra books in the series, too.

Her outside vocabulary class ended last week. She had a test over 220 roots and only missed 6. She was very happy to have done that well. The teacher was very pleased with all the students' results. The class will start back in the spring and will focus on grammar, writing, and literature. He volunteers his time to do this, which is amazing to me.

She is doing well in her science and trudging along through the material that doesn't thrill her. She is still reading God's Will, God's Best for Your Life and seems to be enjoying it. She's not had a literature assignment the last couple of weeks because switching spines caused her to back up a little. She's been reading the Artemis Fowl series that she had never read, but that's on her own, not for school.
Our church had a harvest festival. Hannah dressed up as a nerd and her best friend came as an 80's girl. David went as a Clone Trooper but quickly lost the helmet.

David has had a good 3 weeks in school. He read more about Lewis and Clark and the legends of American folklore. He has also been studying the War of 1812. He is continuing to like the added math supplements, especially the BJU materials. I am strongly considering switching him to 3rd grade in it when he has completed all the 2nd grade materials we have here. Grammar has introduced pronouns and using words such as to, too, and two. He has started to show a little frustration when he can't understand or get something right first try. I'm trying to show him that some things take time to learn. In bible, he's been covering Old Testament stories such as Ruth, Gideon, Samson, and Samuel.

He is in a musical performing group, called Arete. The group performed for a retirement home and a senior group at a local church. The group has learned patriotic songs. The leader of the group volunteers her time and donated the costumes. It is such a blessing to have people who want to make a difference in the lives of children.
My parents were able to come visit and see his performances.
In science, it has been a fun time. He studied genetics, classification, and started invertebrates with the Cnidarians. Here is David and his friend working together the day we did classification. I had started with classifying shapes, then the creatures that RSO provided. The boys ended up creating creatures with the shapes, but that somehow turned into building a tower and pretending to be Godzilla attacking it.



I'm very sleepy, so that's all I can remember for now. It's been a great few weeks.

Wordless Wednesday

Week of Oct. 18th - 22nd and the week of Fall Break

Darin had a week of Fall break with his school the week of the 11th, so we took off, too. His parents flew in town, and we picked them up at the airport. We really enjoyed their stay. It's hard not having any family here, so we are thankful when we do get to spend time with any of them. They love to eat at the Blue Willow Inn in Social Circle, GA, so we took the long drive there and had a fabulous southern meal.
They enjoyed playing the Wii with the kids and relaxing with us. We went to see Toy Story 3 at a nearby dollar theater. It was a fun week, and we were sad to take them back to the airport to return home.

This week (the 18th) we've had school as usual. We had our usual outside classes, co-op, Hannah's vocabulary class, and David's musical group. The group is getting ready for two performances next week. It was a great week.

I had Hannah switch from the Hakim series to the Bob Jones 8th grade textbook this week. I already had it here. I felt that she was reading a lot, but not retaining much of what she was reading. She finished the chapter on the American Revolution this week. After her test, I asked if she thinks she will learn more from the textbook and extra materials it provides. She said that she really thinks she will.

In math she's been working with multiplying monomials, probability, and constructing angles. In grammar she's been learning about infinitive phrases and how to diagram these as well as reviewing pronoun-antecedent agreement and use of commas. She has started microbiology in her science, which is not a favorite topic, so she'll have to buckle down and make herself learn it. In Bible, she is continuing the devotion book from the Navigators and started a book, God's Will God's Best for Your Life. For literature she read A Gathering of Days.

David finished up the American Revolution and establishing the Constitution and has moved on to studying Lewis and Clark. He read How We Crossed the West and A Picture Book of Sacagawea, as well as A Picture Book of Davy Crocket. In science he studied the nervous system and did a lab with our neighbor. In Bible he learned about Gideon. He started one of Bob Jones' Booklinks, The Treasure of Pelican Cove. He has been doing the Book Adventure website and has really enjoyed reading books then taking quizzes on them. He's loving the Magic Treehouse books right now.

He has started to get a little bored with his CLE math. I think it is because it has a lot of review. I love certain aspects of the program, so I'm not ready to give it up yet. I had the 2nd grade level of Singapore math here, so I'm supplementing with it and crossing off a lot of the review problems. I also still have the second half of Bob Jones' math that I switched from, so I'm going to use some of it as well. I will switch if I think one of the programs will be the best for him. I would probably lean towards BJU because I will more than likely use it in high school.

Week of Oct. 4th - 8th

We had a really good week. We took last week off to do some fall cleaning, although we still had co-op and classes on Wednesday, so I didn't get as much cleaning as I would have liked. We started off with co-op on Monday. David made a pirate treasure box in his history class and a board showing the life cycle of the frog in his animal class. They both enjoy co-op a lot, which makes my work as director all worthwhile.


One night David enjoyed the corn so much that he grabbed the pan and finished off the leftovers.

On Tuesday, we started doing school work, then my sister called me wanting us to join her at a fun site near us. It's a farm with lots to do, including a "tiny town" of buildings for kids to play in. Don't you love the flexibility of homeschooling?!!!


My nephew loved this big stuffed dog at the little fire house.

David took up preaching in the little church.

The kids had fun being with my sister's friends' kids.

It was small, but Hannah made it into the balcony of the little theater.

We did do school work the rest of the week, but we aren't quite finished. We aren't doing school next week because it's Darin's fall break. We can finish up then. Hannah has been reading some of the Anti-Federalist papers, as well as the sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." In science she has been learning about evolution and some creation ideas, such as the gap theory. She's doing a lot of work in math with radicals. Grammar has been covering active/passive voice, intransitive and transitive verbs, and such. She seems to be enjoying the devotional book she is doing with Bible, too.

David has been finishing up studying about the American Revolution. He is learning more about working with 4 digit numbers, multiplication, and measurement. Grammar is introducing adjectives as well as having him write a lot more sentences of his own creation. He is doing a really good job with it. He studied the respiratory and digestive systems this past week in science. I forgot to take pictures, but he got together with our neighbor and made a giant model of the respiratory system at work. It was drawings on the nose, lungs, heart, and legs. They used a vacuum tube to exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide and learn the path it all takes in our bodies. For digestion, they ate muffins, and then we measured out (with yarn) the full length of the digestive system. It stretched about 21 feet when it was completed. They made predictions of the length, then we compared with the actual. We discussed how long it would take the muffin to leave each part of the system.

They both have a little more school work to do in all their subjects, but we've got a week to get it done.

Wordless Wednesday

Golden Anniversary

This past weekend was my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. My sisters and I hosted a reception to celebrate the occasion. We had a great turn out. The decorations were great, the food was good, but the most fun was seeing my parents get to interact and mingle with close friends and relatives. It was a very special occasion that was worth all the planning that went into it. Here are pictures of our family.