Sunday, August 21, 2011

As we go....




Well, I only got around to taking two pictures since starting this.

Josiah is still liking his school books. He is doing some "before" explode the code books, and a number book, and we go over his speech, but his favorite thing is the mazes (prehandwriting). He started out not staying in the lines too well. But now, he has better control of his pencil. Of all the kids, he has been by far the latest to "blossom" in this area. He is getting pretty good at writing his name though.

Lydia is coming right along with reading and math. It's hard to say what she likes best. For her "alone with Mom" work, she does reading, math, handwriting, explode the code (a phonics book), and a thinking skills book. I let her stack the books each day in the order that she wants to do them, and the order is always different each day.

This week, Nora and Lydia did several science experiment/activities (I should have gotten a picture of it--hopefully I will get better at that). Our Bible verse for the week was John 3:16. We talked about the spread of the good news. They learned that Christianity spread quickly across the Roman Empire because they had the first system of roads that made travel easier. So we made a "Roman Road" with graham crackers and they made their little people (they actually used little pet shop animals---but for us, they were people) go up and down the road telling of Jesus. We also talked about St Augustine---how he was a great teacher, but had not always been good. One night, he and his buddies went out looking for trouble and stole pears off of a neighbor's tree, but it turned out the pears were bitter when he was expecting them to be sweet. So our science lesson was on the sense of taste. I sat out small piles (without them seeing what was what) of sugar and salt and also hot chocolate mix and unsweetened cocoa. They weren't sure which was which, so they saw how what you expect to taste makes a big difference in what you actually taste!! It was fun.

Savannah, Emma, and Noah are doing well also. But I will save stuff to write for them next time.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

2011-2012 School Year


We school year round (with plenty of breaks, of course!!); but Mom wanted a "Back to School" photo for her company newsletter, so I thought I'd post it here too! Crazy bunch o' youngins!!

Don't Get Too Excited!

Ok. I'm starting a blog......again. Don't get too excited. We all know how the last one turned out. I can't even find that one, so I'm just starting fresh. This will mostly be dedicated to our "home school" life, but of course that spills over to everything else. So it won't be all academic, but that's the main purpose. So....here goes nothing!