Week 4, Day 1 in CTG

I just wanted to report: We actually finished school by lunch today!!!! Our kitchen sink faucet is out of commission, so I couldn't do dishes this morning. We started at 8:15 and I finished reading our read aloud during lunch. Then, after lunch, the kids went outside and tried to make mud bricks and build pyramids, like they learned about in school. You gotta love it when the kids take their education into their own hands like that. It gives me hope that when dance class starts we'll be able to get done before Rabbit has to go.

Rosh Hashanah in CTG

Well, we went on vacation last week, so we really only did 4 days of Week 3. I wanted things to line up with the manual, so we did the Rosh Hashanah feast yesterday evening (Sunday), and caught up with the weekend readings, so Monday lines up with Monday.

For the feast we did grilled salmon (no fish heads), grilled corn on the cob, and a salad. I had talked with the kids what a traditional meal would have and why, but we didn't do it all. I got a loaf of Sheepherders bread from the grocery store to use as our "round loaf" and we just used grape juice for our wine. Rabbit made the crown and ladder. We followed the steps in the lesson plan. We chose pineapple (they were only $1 each) for our "new fruit." That's when we had a meltdown. Pooh doesn't like fruit, so he threw a fit when we told him he had to try a bite before he could have more bread (he LOVES bread).

Afterward, the kids acted out the Abraham sacrifices Isaac story, so that was cute. Anyway, it was a pretty neat little celebration, point us to Christ as our sacrificial ram. I'll put up pictures of our table when I can get them on the computer.

Week 3 in CTG

This week we learned about Noah and the Flood, Noah's Descendants, and the Tower of Babel in our Bible time, and began memorizing the books of the Old Testament. Rabbit has already memorized these for Sunday School (thanks for that!), AWANA and Keeper's, so it is just review for her. The boys are starting to learn them, but there has been some resistance. I love how there are key verses from each book to look up.

The Greek vocabulary words are going fine so far. I'm still helping her with sentences and looking up words in the dictionary. Neither dictionary we have is really good about showing the original Greek or Latin. Some words have it, some don't, so that has made it trickier.

We've been continuing on in Writing Strands and that goes pretty well. I ended up having her dictate to me, and then write on the white board, and she is copying it back into her notebook. We finished up our Handwriting Review this week. She is excited to start in the Handwriting without Tears workbook.

For math, we finished up Beta, lesson 29. I looked at what lesson 30 is, and decided we're done - it was just more multiplying large numbers. We're going to switch over to Singapore 3A and see how it goes. I think it may be more at her "level." I'm going to crack open my Delta teacher's manual and see how they teach division so I can work with Rabbit on her that when we hit it in 3A.

We keep going through the Intermediate Language Lesson book lessons. The picture study was a little different this week. Rabbit is really struggling with her imagination and these pictures. Maybe we just didn't do enough of this before.

I keep forgetting to do Spelling with Rabbit. We only got to it two days this week. We finished one lesson, but the other, I could tell she was struggling (step 12, All About Spelling Book 2). It was hard to guess whether it was attitude or food sensitivity kicking in, so I stopped the lesson.

History is still tied in with the Bible a lot right now. So, we've been doing the Bible and then History readings all together, since the History is covering what's in the Bible. Makes Bible time last a little longer, and means we don't have a separate History time. Rabbit is still working on her notebook pages. She has trouble copying her writing, though. Oh, and the cuneiform project - that was a bomb! I used "canned" sugar cookie dough from the grocery store, and the tablets expanded to much when they were baking, and the writing disappeared. Next time we'll use clay.

Science was interesting and fun this week. The burn-things-up-with-the-magnifying-glass experiment didn't work. I've done it lots as a kid, but the magnifying glasses we had wouldn't work, or it was too early in the day. The other experiments, with the winter green candies and the penny did work! It did take a while to find a glass that would work with the penny, but we did find it. The little guys really thought it was cool to make the penny appear.

Reading is still the Pathway Readers. The stories are just so good. Sometimes we work in the workbook, but most days, I do not.

I think Rabbit is liking The Easy Spanish. I'm still helping out a lot. I like that it is gentle.

Rabbit is enjoying both Art and Music. I think the Art will help her, even though she is a little on the young side.

I'm loving The Tanglewoods' Secret. I read ahead to myself to see where the story went and balled my eyes out. My kids just rolled their eyes. How I wish there were many more stories like this one.

The boys finished learning all their vowels this week. They're still having trouble hearing the vowel sound in the middle of words, but we'll keep working on it. Pooh is going to really struggle with writing, being a lefty. He really doesn't have the fine motor control. I'll keep doing things on the slates and stuff with him to help. Tigger has incredible fine motor control for a 5 year old boy, but has trouble "touching the lines." Oh well. The Primer math book is perfect for the boys.

School is going well. I'm totally pleased.

Week 2 in CTG

Bible: We continued work on our memory verse, then read about The Fall, Cain and Abel, and Noah. The fun part is this is lining up exactly with what the children are learning in Sunday School and what our pastors are preaching about in church. I love it when God works things out like this.

History: We're studying the same topics as in Bible for History. We looked at the Jewish calendar to compare how it lines up with our solar calendar. Rabbit made some notebooking pages. One day, I wrote her narration and she drew the picture. The other days, she copied what I wrote down for her. We also added Noah to our timeline. One day, we went out and measured the length of the ark. It would just about go from one end of our street to the other. Maybe short by 50 feet.

Here's a picture, no zoom applied, of the length of the ark (the little white circle is where our starting point):

Then I zoomed in so you could really see the flag:

Our street is slightly curved, so it is a little misleading. We stayed on the sidewalk to measure, so we curved as we walked. My guess is the ark would have filled our street, end to end, and sat on top of the houses.

Science: I really don't like it when science experiments don't work. First we tried making the glowing hand on the T.V. We have an old CRT style TV in the basement (that is plugged in). (I'm pretty sure this probably wouldn't work on an LCD TV). It's pretty dark down there, but there is one window on the north side of the house that lets in some light. So, we tried this, and barely saw the glowing hand for 1/2 a second. I'm guessing it wasn't dark enough.

The second experiment was difficult because, as far away as we could get from the TV, the remote still worked. However, we tried blocking the remote with our hand, and that worked. One thing we noticed, when we got close to the TV (about 1.5 feet), our hand had to be totally over the end of the remote. If we were more than 1/2 a centemeter away from the bulb on the remote, the TV would turn on. So, that was kind of wierd.

Math: Rabbit moved on to Lesson 29 in Beta. It's a pretty easy lesson. She even did one of the pages all by herself this week.

English: I just love how Intermediate Language Lessons works. Rabbit has managed the lessons pretty well. We've still done most of them orally.

Writing: We finished up Exercise 1 by having Rabbit do the same thing with a different starter sentence. She dictated to me and I wrote on the white board, pointing out punctuation and capitalization. We read through Exercise 2, Day 1 and discussed it a little bit. I found my notes from mfwrocks, so I think we'll discuss a few more things this next week based on those notes.

Vocabulary: Learning the Greek roots has been easy so far - but it is only 2 words. I've been trying to guide Rabbit in how to write good sentences with the words. Looking some of the derivatives up in the dictionary has been very good practice.

Art/Music: Rabbit has enjoyed God and the History of Art this week, as it was all drawing lessons. We learned some about Vivaldi for music. He was a busy man, that is for sure.

Reading: The 4th grade level Pathway reader has been a hit. We read a story a day. If it is short, we'll work some of the workbook. If it is long, then we skip the workbook. I don't think the workbook is really necessary, but it does give good practice on vocabulary words and usage.

Foreign Language: We starting using The Easy Spanish this week. The way it is designed is for 5 days a week, but I'm only using it 3. On Monday we listen to the story and vocabulary, and do one of the activities or worksheets suggested in the manual. On Wednesday (this may have to shift to Tuesday once Dance class starts), we listen to the story and vocabulary, and do a "Yo Soy!" activity. Then on Thursday, we listen to the story and vocabulary one more time, and then she narrates back to me what the story was about. Very relaxed, very Charlotte Mason. The characters in the stories are Christians and home schooled. We like it so far.

Read Aloud: We started The Tanglewoods' Secret this week, reading a chapter a day. So far we're enjoying it. The chapters are very short, making it for a quick read.

A couple of days this week we started late. But, I really worked hard to start by 8:30 the rest of the days. I think if we could start by 8:00 am we would actually be done with everything but math by 12:00. It is a goal I am hoping to hit.

Celebrating Sabbath in CTG

Part of our curriculum is to celebrate several Old Testament Feasts. The first one we did was the Sabbath celebration.

In the morning, I read a little bit to the children from the Celebrating Biblical Feast books about the Sabbath. I explained that it would not be a regular school day, that we would have a celebration instead. (Of course, at this point, Tigger asked if they would be getting presents.) Then Rabbit and I got busy. I started with making challah - special bread for the celebration. I didn't follow the recipe in the book. Since I grind my own whole wheat grain, I just followed my recipe and braided the loaves instead of baking them in a pan. Here's what it looked like:

Then we cleaned the house. Dad came home early, and read through the pertinent pages so he would be well prepared for the meal.

Rabbit had made the challah covering earlier in the week. We followed mfwrocks' idea of just photocopying the picture from the book a placing it over the bread:

(I don't think the picture does it justice.)

We had gone camping a few weeks ago, and one of our fellow campers gave us 3 fish from their fising expeditions - 2 trout and a salmon, we think. So, we grilled the fish (I don't bake fish in the house, because I don't want the house smelling like fish), made mashed potatoes, and had a salad. We used grape juice instead of real wine. My kids aren't into soup, so I didn't follow the recipe or meal suggestions from the book. Besides, I figured it was the symbolism of the bread, wine, and candles that were important, not the exact food. Here is the table all set for the meal (except for the fish):

We didn't wait until sundown to have our meal - it would have been 9:00pm, and that is way past the kids' bedtime! We went through the steps as outlined in the teacher's manual and book. I lit the candles. Dad did all his steps. The children really loved having their Daddy lay his hands on them and pray a blessing over them. You should have seen the smiles.

We did not finish the Sabbath celebration on Saturday. We ended up going to a local amusement park for the day, and by the time we got home, exhaustion was settling in. I figure we can choose another Saturday evening to finish.

Anyway, it was a neat experience, and I'm looking forward to doing some more feasts.

Week 1 in CTG

Well, Week 1 went really good. We had school Monday through Thursday. I didn't count Friday, even though we were learning about another culture.

Bible time has been interesting. I read the passage(s) suggested, and then the kids narrate. Sometimes I read a paragraph and then pick one of the kids to narrate. Tigger and Pooh don't always quite get it yet. Rabbit usually does fine. After we're done with that, I ask, "What does this passage teach us about God." Sometimes their answers are cute. I've been writing them down in our special Bible notebook. I keep my NIV Study Bible handy to check the notes for anything interesting.

History was just going through Dinosaurs of Eden. The boys really like looking at the pictures. It is kind of neat because the children are going through the "Seven C's" curriculum from Answers in Genesis in Sunday School this summer, and the information they are learning there has applied to both Bible time and "History."

While some may find the Science book, Genesis for Kids, corny, we've been enjoying it. Thursday we had an experiment to show how we all have a blind spot. The kids thought that was especially cool. I was really glad our first experiment worked. I had tried it over the weekend before to make sure.

At this point in the day, Rabbit usually breaks off to do her "homework" as she calls it. Mostly this is a handwriting page, her notebook page, math drill, and sometimes English from the Roots Up work. On Thursday, she actually did her Writing Strands work by herself. I was so proud of her. She needed a little help with the last sentence, but she did most of the work herself, and didn't complain.

So, I've been working with the boys while Rabbit does her homework. We start with Phonics, and that works pretty well. Then we do handwriting. I have to work with one at a time when we do handwriting. I've been throwing in activities from Handwriting Without Tears, like pencil grip activities, using the wooden pieces to build the capital letters, and writing on the slates. Then we have Phonics Review time, which is usually some kind of game. We finished all the pages from the first lesson in Math-U-See's Primer this week. One day I let the boys do the "I" pages from the Cuisinare Rods Alphabet Book. They loved this. Pooh said, "This is fun, but tricky." Just up his alley. They've asked every day since we did that activity to do it again.

Once the boys have finished, they are free to play. Sometimes they draw or color, sometimes they go outside, and other days they play in the basement. Rabbit and I are then free to continue working on school. Monday through Wednesday we have English, so we work on that. Wednesday and Thursday were Writing Strands. She's been reading to me from the Pathway Reader for 4th grade. She has only done the workbook pages once. We are continuing on through All About Spelling Level 2. We're half way through step 8.

Math and Art has fallen in the afternoon. Rabbit has had some issues with the Math. Not that she can't do it, but it is a lot of writing when you have 3 or 4 digit numbers times 2 and 3 digit numbers. Sometimes Art is just art history, and other times there are actual lessons. I think she has been enjoying it.

I'm so pleased with how the first week of school has gone.

Week 1, Day in CTG

We did it! Hooray! We made it through the first day of school, teaching 3 kids. Here are Pooh, Rabbit, and Tigger:

I started off doing Bible, History, and Science together. I think it might have been a little over the boys' heads, but it was good. I bought a notebook just for writing down "What does this passage tell us about God?" Today's answers: "God is all powerful. God has always been here." In History we read from Dinosaurs in Eden. The pictures of the dinosaurs were a big hit. It didn't take too long to read it. Then, we read the introduction in our science book. The kids loved the silly puns and fun discussion. They were ready for it to be done, though.

Rabbit worked on her handwriting page, addition math windows, history notebook page, and book basket while I taught the boys. We did lesson 1 in Abeka's K program. Then we did the first lesson in Math-U-See's Primer. Next we did some exercises from Handwriting Without Tears. One of the exercises was a trick to show the kids how to hold their pencil properly. It was funny watching Pooh do that the rest of the day, every time he picked up a writing utensil. Tigger already has a good pencil grip. I think the boys were a little disappointed that their time was over (we spend an hour together), but they had no problem running off to play.

Next, Rabbit and I worked on her Singapore Math. This was a number pattern lesson, and she was really struggling with it. Finally, she got to the last problem, which was a big puzzle to fill in. (It looked like a crossword, but there were patterns of numbers with blanks, and she had to fill in the blanks.) I didn't think she could do it. She was getting frustrated, so she took her book and ran off to her room. About 20 minutes later, I went in and checked on her, and she had figured out all but 4 blanks on the puzzle! I was amazed. I helped her think through how to fill in the last 4.

Then we did the first lesson in Intermediate Language Lessons. I let her do it orally. Then we read from her Pathway Reader and she filled in the workbook pages for it. She didn't answer any of the questions that required a long answer. I was fine with that. She just did the fill-in-the-blank types. I'm letting her use a pen for some of her writing, and she really likes that.

After lunch, they had recess, and then I did the "Lesson on Frustration" from God and the History of Art. None of kids could make any marks on their papers with their pencils in their mouths.

Rabbit trying:

Pooh trying:

Tigger trying:

So, then they tried with their "non-writing hand" and that was hated as well. After that, they just colored their copy of the butterfly.

The boys had their quiet time, and Rabbit needed about 15 minutes more of school to get in our requred 4 hours. So, we did spelling. Things took a turn for the worse on attitude about then. We got through the lesson, but she lost computer priviledges for the day. In talking to my husband about that, he suggested we go back to the attitude chip cups we did last year. Last year we had paper clips, this year I have the pretty decorative marbles from Michael's Craft Store that are flat on one side. I made a cup for each child and will begin implementing immediately. I need to come up with a chart of consequences. Last year if she lost 5 chips, she lost computer time. I also made it so she could earn chips back by doing extra chores. I need to come up with consequences for losing more than 5 chips. I need to find un-fun stuff.

I feel pretty good about our first day, in spite of the attitude issues. We got it all done, and I didn't end up in tears!