ECC 2nd Edition: Week 9

I really feel like the first day in a new country/continent is really long. We ended up having to do Geography and Science after lunch. Part of it is the coloring of the John 3:16 page for the new country. I love that my kids want to make beautiful pictures, but I may have to make them wait until they are done with the rest of their school!

It is kind of a relief not to have Hero Tales for Bible time this week. I really need Pooh to work on spelling, and I want to make copywork pages that are related to his spelling. But, if he has a Hero Tales copywork and spelling copywork, that is too much for him.

ECC 2nd Edition: Week 8

Our final week in North America.

This week Bible time consisted of learning about the people of Greenland, reading about George Muller in Hero Tales, and continuing on in Matthew. Taking the Sermon on the Mount in small chunks has been good.

Geography was learning more about North American industry, and trying to pronounce a few French words. The kids definitely know their North American countries.

Science was learning about relationships between living things. My kids didn't really notice the animal reproduction pictures in Living World Encyclopedia, but some kids might. I kind of glossed over some of those things. We did do the celery experiment. I think it is the third time we've done it. I didn't do as good a job as before getting all the xylem out of the celery stalk. And we used blue water so the kids could see the water getting up to the leaves.

Rabbit finished up Anne of Green Gables early, so has started on Bruchko. I am having her write up a short summary on each chapter after she reads it. After doing the detailed analysis of Anne of Green Gables, I thought it was important to at least keep up a little writing on each chapter.

She is doing great with her Country Summary reports, though often having to do a little homework on the weekend to finish them. She is getting better at summarizing. She wants to interject her own opinions on some of the topics, though. For example, the Mexican tradition of putting stuff on the graves of dead relatives so they don't come back and haunt them. She really felt like this was an unusual superstition and shouldn't be done. I had to work with her to keep her country summary report to the facts. I told her when she did her Country Report later on, she could put in a little more opinion.

Rabbit is doing pretty well on her science. She even got an 84% on her first quarterly test! I was very proud of her, because that was a hard test. And, her Applications of Grammar tests are improving. She got an A on her last one.

The boys have finally got the hang of long division. I was concerned, but it is really sinking in on the steps to do. Tigger really enjoys Writing Strands, and writes his lessons himself. Pooh is doing okay with it, and we're starting to get the hang of me scribing with him dictating. English seems to be going well.

Oh yeah, I've been having Rabbit do The Easy Spanish with the boys each day. Her Spanish is really improving, and she tries to use it throughout the day. She even occasionally will get on Rosetta Stone and work on it for a few minutes. Not sure if it is helping the boys any. I'm also considering looking into Duolingo - a website some people on the facebook page have mentioned as a good way for the children to learn. 

I know some people say learning a foreign language can be difficult for dyslexics, but Rabbit is really doing well. Now, Pooh's dyslexia is a little worse than Rabbits, so we may have to do something else with him - like American Sign Language. 

Looking forward to South America now.

ECC 2nd Edition: Week 7

I feel like we've really hit a rhythm now with the curriculum. Days are going fairly smoothly. Doing Spelling first really has helped get our days going.

I did feel that it was a bit disjointed to be reading about the Garifuna people, who live in Central America as we started studying Canada, but that was okay. Hero Tales was back again this week. It was interesting to learn about the founders of the Salvation Army. And we are having some lively discussion on the book of Matthew.

The geography lessons seemed pretty short this week. If we're suppose to play the geography game, I wait until after science so we don't go too long on it. We've pretty much got the North American countries down. 

In science we learned about food chains, food webs, and scavengers and decomposers - a nice change over deserts. 

I did let the kids do the soap carvings. They enjoyed getting out their multi-tools and using those. We used Ivory soap. It is very soft. I made them carve/shave their soap bars into bowls so we could collect the shavings for use later. A note of warning: some dogs might think Ivory soap is tasty - at least ours did. Poor Tigger. He had made a baby seal, but the dog bit off the head. She's a white fluffy dog, so we decided she was a polar bear eating the baby seal, LOL! The dog doesn't seem sick or anything, so we're guessing that the Ivory soap didn't hurt her. Tigger later went back and carved a bear - and did a pretty good job, too!

ECC 2nd Edition: Week 6

We tried something new this week: spelling first. Things went so much better. I know people always say start with Bible, but starting with spelling really changed the pace of the day. It seemed like it helped the kids get in the mindset of school time, and it gets our longest rotation out of the way.

In Bible time, besides continuing in Matthew, we also learned about Haiti and the needs of the people there. Haiti has a special place in our heart as last year our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes went to Haiti. Someone on the Facebook ECC group suggested not only putting the flag sticker from the country we're studying for geography in our passports, but also the flags of the countries we study during Bible time from Window on the World. I think I'm going to start doing that. I also found a great article on World Magazine's website about some more current work in Haiti: Bearing fruit.

It seems like we're playing the geography game every other day now. It has been good for the kids to learn the North American countries. Pooh wins most of the time. This of course brings out the ultra-competitive nature of my boys!

Science has continued mostly on deserts. Properties of Ecosystems has gotten more interesting and we even done the demonstration/experiments.

In Math the boys started long division. That one is tricky. I suspect we'll be working on it for a while.

Both boys have finished their All About Spelling levels. We are now going through all the word cards. Any words misspelled will be put in the review section for the next level.

Rabbit is really struggling again in math. I think it is because she forgets how to set things up. And sometimes she forgets to finish a problem. For example, the question will be to find the volume of a cylinder. She'll get the area of the circle on the end,  but then forget to multiply that by the height. Little things, but they add up to some big frustrations for her. I'm not sure what to do. She doesn't want to change programs. I have thought about giving her a break from math once we finish up 8/7. Maybe not start up Algebra 1 until January, and just do math facts and whatever math comes up in science. It would give her brain some time to process what she has learned and some rest, too. Just a thought that occurred after praying about it.

In Apologia Physical Science we had a total fail on one of the experiments this week. We couldn't get the test tubes to balance on the battery, and "London Bridge came falling down." Plus, when the text said the water would be toxic, that made Rabbit nervous. But, our water as a solvent experiment went well. 

The kids are still working on our piñata. They have two sides done, but I'm not sure they will ever finish!

ECC 2nd Edition: Week 5

For Bible this week we read about Cuba. I typed up the prayer list and posted it in our pocket chart. I can't quite make it large enough for me to see across the room, so it stands on our coffee table. We continued in Matthew. I need to remember to have the kids narrate and ask them what they think God is saying to them.

Geography was either more about North America, or about Mexico. I'm not making Rabbit do anything that seems to babyish - she has enough on her plate as it is. I didn't have her color the sombrero page from a Trip around the World, for example. We also started the Geography Game this week. Pooh doesn't think it is fair that you have to skip your turn if you already have a marker on the country. 

Science transitioned to talking about deserts. I remembered to put up our desert biomes poster. The Properties of Ecosystems worksheet for this was on the back of the desert map. That was one thing missing from the notes in the TM.

The boys learned multiple digit multiplication this week in math. They are doing pretty well with it. Pooh does his with the traditional carrying method, and Tigger uses the Math-U-See method. Tigger occasionally struggles with where to line up the numbers, though.

Both boys are very close to finishing their All About Spelling levels. We will go back through all the words, and any they miss will go into the review section as we start the next level. I have a feeling Pooh is really going to struggle.

Rabbit had a science test and an English test. She scored in the 80s on her science test but only a 70 on her English test. She didn't read some of the questions the right way.

We are making progress in Rabbit's math. I think we will finish Saxon 8/7 by Thanksgiving. That is our goal anyway.

We started working on our piñata for our art project. We are not doing the traditional paper mâché piñata. Since we buy cereal in bulk, we have good sized boxes that aren't too thick, and then we hot glued party hats on. Here is the picture of phase one:

We'll add a coat of white paper over this to hide the colors before putting on the tissue paper.

I can tell things are getting a bit better. The kids are doing better about sharing books. And they are working bit faster on some things. 

ECC 2nd Edition: Week 4

Doing worksheets with 3 kids has been very challenging, especially with two spelling-challenged kids. We were doing the comparison between the Deciduous forest and Coniferous forest page. I was writing on the whiteboard, but then I had to write for Pooh. So, I ended up calling out spellings for the other two. Sigh. Even doing the little crossword was a challenge trying to help the kids with spelling the words that go into the blanks. I did find that the vocabulary pages went better when I just left the book out and told them where to look stuff up. They actually took turns pretty well.

I think doing the U.S.A. these last two weeks has definitely had a different flavor since we did Explorers to 1850 and 1850 to Modern times the last two years. It seems really superficial as compared to the first time. (We didn't do Adventures the year before the first time, we had switched from Abeka.) I think part of that is how much U.S. history we have done the last two years.

Science felt easier this week. We even did the "Advanced" Properties of Ecosystems assignment on Day 4. But, because we did both Living World Encyclopedia and Properties of Ecosystems we didn't do a science page for Living World Encyclopedia. I like doing the draw-your-own notebooking pages for Living World Encyclopedia, though. I type up a sentence or two for the kids as they dictate it to me, print it out, and give it to them to draw the picture. Tigger likes to trace from the book. Pooh tries to sketch something. I've decided Rabbit doesn't have to do Living World Encyclopedia draw-your-own pages, she has enough work as it is. 

We finally started on working through Matthew. There hasn't been much to "discuss" at this point. We are enjoying Hero Tales, but I think Pooh doesn't really like copying the character quality - but it's good for him so I make him do it!  For the Window on the World prayer list I wrote them on pocket chart strips and put a small pocket chart up in our school room to refer to for prayer time. I may print something up each week, though.

Finished the first section of Kingdom Tales. I've loved it. Rabbit says it sometimes makes her feel bad. We sorted it out, though. Went ahead and started Cameron Townsend. I like to stay just a little ahead on the read alouds.

The boys were a little confused about two step word problems in Math this week. The first time they were presented they were one step of adding and then subtracting (or vice versa). The next set was multiplication and then adding, subtracting, or dividing. Pooh got confused because he thought they could only be adding and subtracting . He got upset and had to go to his room until he calmed down. But, now he's got it. The rest of the week went fine, and I'm excited that we're heading into 2-digit multiplication next.

I had heard good things about Timez Attack as a math drill program, so when Homeschool Buyers Co-op had a coupon this week, I went ahead and got it. Here's the thing: the kids actually want to try it AFTER school, too! So, I think that is really good.

Pooh has been having a hard time with spelling, so I got a  free Spelling Test app for my iPad. I put in the words from our current step in All About Spelling. Then every day after I drill the  yellow, red, and blue cards I let him use the spelling app to practice the words. Today, he got all the words correct, writing them on paper! Yay! Now, he still has to do sentences for this step, but he got the spelling words. I also got the Logic of English app for him to work on his phonograms. They have some different sounds/sayings for some of the phonograms, but he needs more practice than I can give him each day.

We did the Calder Mobile project for Art over the weekend. I think either tissue paper or scraps of cloth would give the "desired effect" better. Here's a picture: 

Rabbit had one experiment this week. It was pretty cool. Here is the video:

My advice, if I were to redo this experiment, is to run the hot water in the sink during those 5 minutes the bottle is sitting in the bowl. At least at our house, it takes a long time for the hot water to get to the kitchen sink.  I think that would have a more dramatic effect. Or, use a second bowl, already full of hot water.

(I must admit, I had a little fun putting that video together. I was amazed how easy that was in Windows Movie Maker. I combined 3 different shots into one video. I feel like I have super-powers now!)

We have a church picnic this Sunday, so I'm not going to do a barbeque or anything. I will make one of the recipes that we like from last time (New England Pumpkin Cake) to take to the picnic. Just trying to enjoy the process.

I must say, I am really looking forward to week 5. Hopefully we'll get into a good routine. We'll see how it goes!

ECC 2nd Edition: Week 3

Thought I would change over to a weekly format now that the first couple of weeks are under our belts. 

This week was weird - it started on a Friday, then a weekend, then only 3 days of school, and then a 4 day weekend (with a camping trip), and one more day the following week to finish. I will have to add a padding day to get Monday in the TM to be on Thursday, due to all our outside activities on Wednesday, but not a big deal.

I tried both ways of the schedule; some days doing Bible, geography, science and then the rest, especially if we got started late. If we started on time, we did spelling first, then the other language arts and math, with geography and science right before lunch. I need to be more disciplined about starting on time. Either way can work for our schedule, I just need consistency for my sanity. If I switch, then I have trouble making sure we do everything.

Science and geography seemed a little easier this week. There was a map to do, but it felt a little lighter. Tigger loved making a science page from Living World Encyclopedia, but I had to make him finish it after regular school hours.

Rabbit started her geography packet this week. So far we've known what it was talking about or only needed the Classroom Atlas to find the information. We are having a little trouble finding all the information we want for our country summary page, though. One of the things we are suppose to find is the top products, but that hasn't been easy. Even a Google search didn't bring us what we wanted. We'll hit the library in earnest next week on this.  I didn't get a chance to do any pages with the boys, but figured we have several weeks to work on it. I need to schedule their flag sticker book - maybe have them do 4 or 5 flags a day.

Most of all the other subjects are going okay for the boys. Handwriting is a challenge for Pooh. I made pages for the kids to copy the character qualities from Hero Tales, with cursive example, and Pooh translated it back to print! Giving him lines to trace seems very 1st or 2nd grade for a 4th grader. Not sure what I'm going to do. I may have to give him pages where the words are right above a blank line. That seems to work best for him.

Rabbit had 2 tests this week. She got a 90% on her Applications of Grammar test #2, and an 83% on her Apologia Physical Science test for Module 2. She is doing okay in everything but Math. We have tears nearly every day, which is hard on me. She gets worked up if she misses a problem, and then it starts carrying over to other problems. I'm still not sure 100% if we should stick with Saxon, but we'll keep going.

We did the ultimate nature walk on our camping trip: we went to the top of Mt. Evans (the highest paved road in North America). At over 14,000 feet, it is basically like arctic tundra at the top. We saw mountain goats this year. (We went last year, but the road all the way to the top wasn't open, but we saw big horn sheep last year.) 

The whole family at the top of Mt. Evans.

Just the kids at the top of Mt. Evans. There was this big stack of rocks they climbed up on.

This is the Geological Survey Marker at the top.

Especially glad to see some wildlife at the top - mountain goats!

Oh, I did have the kids work on a craft on one of our days off. The boys wanted to do the Coup Sticks, so I went to Michael's over the weekend and got dowels, feathers, and ribbon to use to make them.

Kids with their Coup Sticks craft.

Rabbit did have a science experiment this week from Apologia. The first time we did it, we didn't get the expected results. But the second time, we "got the desired effect" as rabbit put it. Here's the video where it didn't work:

But, what was cool about it, was that the can sucked up all the water in the bowl. I think it was because we didn't let the water come to a vigorous boil. The second time, well, just watch:

Week 3 completed! Now, onto week 4. Well, we're going to do a "fill in" day - P.E. classes and worship dance classes start tomorrow, so we'll just do Spelling, Math, Reading, AWANA, and piano practice - because that's about all we'll be able to fit in before we need to eat lunch and head to P.E. class. Then Thursday we will start week 4.

Oh, and I did decide to use a Homeschool Buyers Co-op discount for Timez Attack to do math drill. Pricey, we'll see if it was worth it.

ECC 2nd Edition: Week 2 Day 5

Well, it took most of the day, but we did the day!

We actually started by baking the cake first thing this morning. I knew it would need to cool and we wouldn't get to frost it until later.

Then we did Bible, the vocabulary words, and the Geography lesson. That took us until 9:45. We took a short break and then did Spelling and Math, and just had time to squeeze in reading before lunch. I am very proud of Pooh: he finally got his +1 math facts sheet in under 2 minutes! We all said a cheer for him after that.

After lunch we started frosting the cake. Frosting cakes has never been my forte and no one ever taught me how. I learned you should freeze your cake before frosting, and then expect to do a thin crumb layer.

After that, I did Math with rabbit. It was an investigation, so it didn't take too long. And I looked over her Progeny Press guide answers.

A trip to the libraries to pick up book basket books and a run to the grocery store to get more frosting to finish the cake concluded the afternoon. Oh, but we needed to finish the cake, so we did and made dinner at the same time. (Of course dinner got messed up, but what do you expect when you're multitasking?) I outlined the countries and let the kids fill them in. I found blue frosting at the grocery store and made the green frosting with white frosting and green food coloring. I had some cake decorating tips, so I cut a small corner off a ziploc bag and put the tip in and then put frosting in the bag. It actually worked pretty well.

Our World cake up close.

The kids and their World cake.

ECC 2nd Edition: Week 2 Day 4

Well, the day started out well enough. We actually started on time! We did Bible, then Spelling, Writing, Reading, Math. I was able to keep us pretty much on track. After math we did Geography and Science. I didn't do the Geography activity. If our church and grocery store were just around the corner, that would be one thing. But, they are too far away to try to draw a map with symbols that would be big enough to drive a toy car on. Maybe I'll try it another day, but today was not that day.

Sigh. I lost it today. I just got tired of being interrupted in the middle of reading a science page. I'm trying to process the information too, and to be interrupted just throws me for a loop. I guess my kids forget they need to use manners at home as well as out and about. Well, to make up for it we did the project. We didn't use grass. Our yard has enough trouble as it is without digging up a section of grass (we have HOA rules and city code stuff to worry about). So, we had an ivy plant that was sitting in water that has lots of roots, so we put that in our jar. Our jar is very large - it is one of those plastic containers of Animal Crackers you can get at Sam's Club. Here is a picture:

By this afternoon there was already lots of condensation and huge drops all over the plant. We took off the lid and the kids could see all the drops on the lid, even though it never got wet in the planting process. I may need to take the lid off the jar for a couple of hours to allow for some evaporation and a little less moisture. We'll see if our ivy grows any.

After lunch I did math with Rabbit. That actually went really well, I had my husband talk to her about irrational numbers last Friday, and she read through the chapter again. She did really well with the problem set, too.

I went over her writing and her Progeny Press guide. She's still having a little trouble identifying prepositional phrases. I know that will come with time, though. Then Rabbit read through her science. We'll tackle that experiment some other day. 

Well, that was our day. Always a chance to start over on another day.

ECC 2nd Edition: Week 2, Day 2 & 3

Feeling like we're just keeping our heads above water. It's okay, but I am exhausted and glad it is Friday.

The good...

Well, we did a full week of doing Bible, Geography and Science first. Things still seem to take too long. So, I talked to the kids about it, and we're going to rearrange our days next week. I really need to figure out a good system for us.

Rabbit has kept up with her English and Writing, though she still needs a lot of guidance. I keep telling myself, even college students have professors that lecture them.

We did the art project! Yay for us. Actually, I had folded the paper and outlined a person, so all they had to do was cut and color. I let them use paints or whatever they wanted to color them. Pooh just used orange paint and kind of made outlines. Tigger painted each ones' body and used markers to draw their faces. Rabbit used crayons and wrote what country she was trying to represent on each one. I hung them up on the wall around our John 3:16 poster:

The bad...

We didn't get Apologia Physical Science done yesterday or today. There is an experiment, and it is a 1/2 hour experiment on top of the reading. I'm thinking we will try tomorrow - a Saturday may help us.

We hit irrational numbers in Saxon 8/7 today. Those are hard. I'm going to ask the hubby to try to explain them to Rabbit since he has done more math than I have (I only went to Calculus II and Matrix Algebra, he's done Differential Equations and such). We didn't even do any practice problems or the problem set. I don't think she understood and I didn't want to do any problems until I'm sure she understands. That's going to be a challenge. If my husband can't explain it to her, we'll try pulling out the DIVE CD and watch it.

We missed a day on handwriting this week. Will probably have the boys do a page tomorrow so everything will line up.

The ugly...

Attitude. Attitude. Attitude. Pooh screams, yells, and cries when he can't remember. Most days spelling has at least one screaming fit, and often doing his math drill, too. Rabbit has cried almost every day in math. Sigh. I didn't want to learn patience this way. I want them to know I'll help. I don't want them to get upset. I'm not sure how to make that happen.

ECC 2nd Edition: Week 2 Day 1

Okay, so we're on a roll! Another day completed. Well, almost. The boys didn't do their handwriting or book basket. I may have to do a "catch-up" day.

So, I really want to like doing Bible, Geography, and Science first, but it is hard to get done in the specified times, at least right now it is. I know it is hard to pull the kids back together later, especially Rabbit as she might be working on something. But, doing Geography and Science right before lunch might motivate the kids to listen and stay on task instead of veering off onto tangents.

We did manage to get Spelling, English, reading, and Math done, but not until 12:20. And Rabbit got her independent work done, even scoring an 85% on her first English test in Applications of Grammar (go Rabbit!). Pooh decided to try to do math on his own. He worked for about 45 minutes, and did get several problems done, maybe 2/3rds, and then he came and asked me to help him stay on task. I was very proud of him for doing that.

I read the next chapter in Kingdom Tales today. It made me choke up, but we really liked the story, and I think the kids got the point.

In Math we learned about the Pythagorean Theorem today. I thought it was neat how they explained it. I either don't remember that, or it was never explained that way to me. We will probably finish the practice set tomorrow.

Then we did science. We had an experiment. Since Rabbit is so afraid of fire, I did the experiment and let her record it and write down the observations for it. I thought it was pretty cool. Here are the videos that go along with Experiment 2.3:

Normally I would have made her do the experiment, but she is so afraid of fire, that I thought this was best. Oh, I highly recommend using the largest jar you can find for this experiment - I think it is safer. The bottle we mixed the yeast and hydrogen peroxide in was just a .7L water bottle.

ECC 2nd Edition: Day 5

Well, this day did not really go as planned, but it's fine. I was hoping we would get in a "practice day" for our light days. We need to be done by 11:00 with most things so we can eat lunch and get to P.E. class by 12:00. Did not happen today.

We did Bible first, which didn't take too long. But, with vocabulary and an activity this day, that took way longer. I helped the boys map their room. Rabbit mapped a bathroom. I didn't have any paper large enough to do 1" = 1' map scale, so we used graph paper and had one square on the graph paper equal 1 foot. (Oh the irony! Rabbit did scales and scale factors in Math yesterday and today!)

Next we did spelling, which still takes longer than I like. Then math with the boys. Not sure all that Rabbit was working on.

I went ahead and did the next chapter in Kingdom Tales during lunch. Afterward, I did handwriting with the boys. (I'll be glad when that is done!) Then today I decided they could read to themselves for 10 minutes rather than read with me, so I could work with Rabbit.

Rabbit was struggling with the questions in the Progeny Press guide, so we did some of them together. Then we did Math - finishing day 125 (lesson 97 in the book). After that, we did a Physical Science lesson, even though it is the light day, and normally we wouldn't do one. I want to get ahead as much as possible. We didn't finish until 3:45, because of an experiment.

Not bad, but really looking forward to truly light days.

ECC 2nd Edition: Day 4

Woo-hoo! We are on a roll - another whole day completed. Not without its challenges, but completed.

Rabbit would like us to do Spelling after Bible. Pooh wants Geography and Science. Tigger doesn't care. Sigh. So, I thought we'd try the "all together" subjects - Bible, Geography, and Science - first, and then the rest. Today was a good day to try because there was no English. (My thought is to get the together stuff done first, so I don't have to pull students back together. But, since I'm always working with at least one of them, it isn't that hard to get the other two, so this could go either way.)

Bible was good - reading God Speaks Numanggang again. We talked a little about how Papau New Guinea was pretty small compared to the U.S. but had so many languages! I'm sure the native Indian tribes also each have languages, but I don't think we have 800! Rabbit was glad we read the book again. Tigger and Pooh kind of checked out a little. That's okay. 

For Geography, we read our pages and then labeled the map as the T.M. directed. That wasn't too bad. I helped Pooh quite a bit as he can't write that small. Tigger just needed a little help for a couple of things. Rabbit just needed to capitalize and fix a spelling. Good thing she did it in pencil. 

Science took a little longer, but partly because we went over the vocabulary from the previous lesson (I made a page in Word). Then we went over today's lesson's vocabulary. Again, I had a vocabulary page printed out. (Another mom on the MFW Message Board did the first 7 weeks and shared it with me. Thanks Andrea!) That made it a little easier as we went through the lessons. We didn't do the worm niche. We've done that three times now in different forms. The kids know what will happen. 

A quick snack break, and then we tackled Spelling (all), Writing Strands (with the boys), Reading (boys), and Math (boys). Rabbit did The Easy Spanish with the boys during Writing Strands time. I shortened that time to 10 minute (instead of 15) because we were already behind. During Math I sat with Pooh again just to keep him on task. Rabbit worked on various things, including her Module 1 test from Apologia Physical Science. She got an 87% on her first test. I told her that wasn't bad for the first test of the year.

I decided to read the first chapter of Kingdom Tales today at lunch. I previewed it yesterday (as recommended in the T.M), and I didn't think it was that intense. Maybe it is because my kids are older (the boys are 9, Rabbit is 13), but they enjoyed it. I did warn the kids before I read it that there may be some scary or sad things, but it was just pretend story. After we read it and answered the questions, Pooh said, "Oh! I get it! The 'Enchanter' is suppose to be Satan." Yep!

After lunch the boys did handwriting and book basket. I went over the letter formation and guided Pooh. Then Rabbit and I did Math. This was lesson 98 (Day 125 in the Lesson Plans). You know, it would have helped my daughter to split this lesson over 2 or 3 lessons. (There were tears.) But, we managed the explanation and the practice set. We were pretty close to an hour at that point, so we'll do the problem set tomorrow. Then I went over her Progeny Press guide answers with her and her Essentials in Writing lesson. 

Pooh had a bad day today. He whined, fussed, or cried over almost every single subject or lesson today. It seemed to be worse when I was helping, but he needed my help then. 

We got done by 2:45 with everything, so that's not a bad day for us.

ECC 2nd Edition: Day 3 Completed!

Well, almost completed - we forgot to do the backyard habitat stuff from POE. Oh well. We're done. Today went like this. . . . 

We did Bible first, which today was reading from God Speaks Numanggang. I liked the story. It was a good explanation of Bible translation missions. Amazing facts and figures to encourage us to help Bible translation in some way.

Then we did Geography. That didn't take very long. We talked about how to look things up using the index in the Intermediate Atlas, and Tigger said, "This is just like Battleship." Yep! He's got it.

After that was Spelling, English, Writing, and Math with the boys. We kept on task today, even with a quick snack break (and I mean quick!). We did the first lesson in the Writing Strands 3 book. They don't have much "old writing" to go back and fix, so we're going to skip that part.

The boys finished yesterday's math lesson and did today's math lesson. So glad they caught back up. I did have to sit with Rabbit and keep him on task, solving the problems. But it worked. The boy had a little free time while I worked with Rabbit on her English assignment from Applications of Grammar. Today was adverbs. She was starting to get it. Those lessons are NOT easy. It is frustrating, a little, to have to learn all those words and their definitions and identifying them, when we just want to use them. I know it will help in the long run, but even I have a hard time with those lessons and have to have the answer key right there as we work through them.

Then we did lunch and our nature walk. We have a park nearby that has a stream with bridges over it. So, we went to the closest bridge and watched the ducks. I told the kids that they should appreciate the walk, because I doubted we would be able to do too many nature walks this year. I snapped a few pictures:

The flowers in someone's front yard on our way to the stream.

The ducks enjoying the higher water level due to recent rains.

The other side of the bridge. We saw lots of dragonflies, too.

They all did a sketch. Rabbit sketched the stream, and then added some children playing nearby. Tigger sketched a duck and identified the parts on his drawing. Pooh pulled up one of the reeds and sketched it - which basically meant two lines coming to a point, LOL!

When we got back, I did Math with Rabbit. We finished lesson 97 in the Saxon 8/7 math book (not sure what day that is in the lesson plans). Then she studied for her Physical Science test coming up. Then I looked over her Progeny Press guide answers. She's doing a pretty good job with those. 

Not a bad day. It feels good to have completed the whole thing. 

ECC 2nd Edition: Day 2 Continued

Today has gone pretty well. We started with a school-huddle-time. I went over what the plans were for today. And then we talked about schedule options. Some of the kids want to do Bible, Geography, and Science first. Others are willing to do Bible, then the 3 R's, and then Geography and Science. I'm still fleshing out schedules some. My plan tomorrow is to do a full day of ECC and the 3 R's. We'll see how that goes. 

We also talked about Bible verse dictation. My problem is I have 3 kids, 2 of whom are dyslexic. Reading through the verse and finding the words that each of them needs to work on before doing the dictation would take a lot of time. Or, if I made sheets that had blanks for the words I know they know how to spell, and then have the rest of the words traceable, that would take a lot of time, too, for me. So, I have decided (gasp! I'm not going to do it exactly as written!) that we will have 2 days of copywork. The kids get dictation in All About Spelling, so I'm not worried about missing dictation. I will expect perfect copywork (neat handwriting, and no spelling or punctuation mistakes), but it will be something they can do on their own and won't take me way longer than it should. 

I have, in the past, made sheets for Pooh with blanks for the words he does know, and then he traced over the words he did know for the verse dictation, but that is just too much work. Copywork is fine. And, if he knows it has to be neat and no mistakes, it will force him to really look at what he is copying and hopefully improve some things naturally that way.

As for our day... We did spelling (with the other two doing math drill and AWANA), English (with Rabbit doing Spanish with the other boy), Reading (and typing), and then math. While the boys did math after I had gone over it with them, I worked with Rabbit on her English lesson. You know, I don't like it when words can be used more than one way (what is it with those adjective pronouns? Really!). When the hour of math time was up, Pooh came crying because he hadn't gotten that far on working the problems. So, I sat with him and made him really focus on his problems so he at least got as far as Tigger. I used to have to do that with Rabbit - sit right next to her and say (and often write as she answered), "Okay, what is 1 plus 4? Good. Now, 7 plus 5? So, where do I write the 2 and where do I write the 1?" I think I'm going to have to do that with Pooh to keep him focused. It would be impossible to eliminate all distractions. I think eventually he will improve, just like Rabbit.

I'm having Pooh also do a math drill worksheet for part of math drill. Right now he is working on just +1 math facts. I went to the Math-U-See website and printed out a +1 sheet with 25 problems, and I also gave him a cheat-sheet with the +1 facts on it. I told him his goal is to get it done in 2 minutes or less using the cheat-sheet as little as possible. The first time he did it it was 2:27. The second time 2:16. Once he gets down to two minutes, I'll do a +2 worksheet. Then, after he gets that down to 2 minutes, I'll do a +1 and +2 worksheet. I know Calculadders does something similar, but we tried those before and that didn't go well. I didn't give him a cheat-sheet back then, so I may try those again, with cheat-sheets. 

Rabbit had the Module 1 study guide to work through in Apologia Physical Science. I guided her through the math problems. I think I'm going to let her study one more day before she takes the first test. Then we did math (Saxon 8/7 Lesson 97). She got upset with it, but the thing was she was getting the point. This happens all the time. She does the math and gets the answer in her head, but she doesn't get why she got the right answer. Sigh. We worked through it and got it done. (We couldn't go outside and measure shadows because it wasn't sunny. She was actually glad it wasn't sunny for once :) .)

Rabbit had her Pre-pointe class and another Ballet 3 class tonight. It makes our Thursday's hectic with small group and dropping her off and picking her up. But, she is enjoying the dance classes, so we'll let her continue that. Everything I've read about going on pointe in ballet says the dancer should be in at least 3 hours of classes a week, so I'm good with her classes. Plus, we add Worship Dance in September. It's all good.

ECC 2nd Edition: Day 2

So, I promised the kids we would just do Bible, Geography, and Science, and then whatever else we could fit in our 4 hours for the day, and we'd try my new schedule out on Friday. (Tomorrow we'll get spelling, English, Math, Math Drill, AWANA, Spanish, Typing, Reading, etc.)

We started with Bible, which was a reading about the Garden of Eden in POE. That was good, and I had the kids narrate. Actually, I asked them if they had learned anything new and what it was they learned. That went well, and didn't take very long.

Next we did geography. I read the pages from the Maps and Globes book. Then, we had an old blow-up globe from National Geographic Kids that had a hole in it. So, instead of drawing on oranges, we tried laying that flat. Even after cutting it up, we couldn't. We decided that if we had completely cut each section, we could have laid them flat, but it would be a hard map to follow. Here's a picture of our cut-up globe:

Science was pretty light today, reading out of Living World Encyclopedia. Then I had the kids each make a science page. That turned into a bit of a challenge having three kids share one book. But, it was fine.

After science we did our John 3:16 picture. I have a huge stack of old National Geographic magazines that we got our pictures from. It took quite a bit of time to cut out pictures and glue them, but we got a really nice result:

 I hung it on the wall over our world map as a reminder that everyone in the world needs Jesus.

By this time, it was 10:00, so I let the kids take a snack break. Rabbit went off to do her work, while Tigger and Pooh finished off math from yesterday and did their handwriting. (I'm not making Rabbit do handwriting review, as her handwriting is good.) I also let them read to themselves to finish off the day.

I do feel like today was MUCH lighter, and we really could have done a full school day, but I had already promised the kids yesterday that we would only do part of a day. We still did 4 hours, as our state requires, and Rabbit usually gets in 5 or 6 hours, by the time we do Math and Science (which we will hit this afternoon).

Oh, and I feel VERY blessed. I am getting to purchase Saxon Algebra 1 (3rd edition), Saxon Algebra 2 (2nd edition), and Jacobs Geometry (2nd edition) from a homeschool mom that has graduated all her kids. I feel like as long as they aren't 1st edition, they'll be fine and the price is so good! I'll order the MFW lesson plans for Algebra 1, since the editions are the same. I'll need to find out if the lesson plans MFW has will work for Algebra 2 2nd Edition and Jacob's Geometry 2nd Edition (they show 3rd edition on the web site), or if it would be possible to get old lesson plans from them.  I'm excited about this because it will save me some real money long term. $55 for all 3! The Saxon sets include everything but the videos, which I'm okay with because we didn't like the DIVE CDs. Rabbit prefers me to be her teacher in Math. I don't know for sure what the Jacob's Geometry has, so I may still need to find a teacher's guide and test bank.

[Editing to add: I found out that the Algebra 2 2nd edition has the same content as the Algebra 2 3rd edition. Woo-hoo! I did find out that there were some significant changes between Jacobs Geometry 2nd edition and 3rd edition, so I'm still deciding on what to do about that one.]

ECC 2nd Edition: Day 1 Continued

Okay, hmmm, I think the schedule is going to be hard to figure out. I think the main thing is going to be starting earlier. Here goes...

We started with spelling - All About Spelling. I spend 15 minutes per kid. But, it takes my kids about 5 minutes to transition from their independent activity to spelling. So I really need to budget closer to 55 minutes for spelling. And that's okay, now that I know that. So while one was working on spelling with me, the other two were doing Math Drill and studying AWANA verses.

Next was English with the boys. So, I worked with Tigger first while Pooh did The Easy Spanish with Rabbit. My thought is he needs to understand what some Spanish words mean in English before he will be successful with Rosetta Stone. When we switched, Tigger wanted to do The Easy Spanish with Rabbit instead of Rosetta Stone because Pooh had, so I let him. Tigger does pretty well with Rosetta Stone, it just isn't his favorite. My other option is to get out my old Power Glide and let them try to do that independently. Not sure on that yet. I had originally scheduled 15 minutes each, but think I can scale that back to 10 minutes each.

After that was time for the boys to read to me. So, while one read to me the other did Typing Instructor on the computer. Pooh was a little rusty and skipping words, but I think he'll be back into it soon.

Next the boys did Math. It was a review lesson from the textbook, so no new teaching from me. I got them started, and then worked with Rabbit on her English assignment. That one was even a challenge for me. I certainly had a hard time figuring out which pronouns were being used as possessive adjectives vs. regular pronouns. I think it would have been helpful to gradually build and give a better explanation of a possessive adjective. 

While the boys continued their math work, Rabbit and I did her Physical Science experiment 1.3. After about 30 minutes of discussion Rabbit finally got the point of what "concentration" meant - it helped her to think of it as percents. We did film the experiment. That's always fun. :) The experiment had two stages. The first was to dissolve a Tums tablet in 3 different amounts of vinegar. That's this video:

Then the next part was to dissolve a Tums tablet in 3 different concentrations of vinegar. That is this video:

After reading the text in the textbook, I got the feeling we should have waited until the Tums tablets dissolved completely, but that seemed like it would have taken a really long time.

That all took until about 12:30. So we had lunch and then I did Math with Rabbit. We didn't get too far in the lesson, but she got her answers right on the problems we did do.

I think tomorrow we'll just do the Bible, Geography, and Science from ECC, and then Math and the handwriting practice. See how long that takes. Then the next day do the other things. Just kind of ease into it, you know? I may switch and do Bible, Spelling, English, Reading and Math first, and then the Geography and Science. We did that last year (substituting History for Geography), so I'm game for trying it. Just means I have to rework the schedule.

(Oh, and as I learn about this blog thing, I will probably try to make the videos just a tad smaller for streaming. Learn something new every day, ya know?)

ECC 2nd Edition: Day 1

Whew! Things are taking a lot longer with 3 doing them.

First, it didn't help that we didn't start on time. Will work on remedying that. So, we start with Bible, which was to read from Window on the World. Well, the kids (with their new Bibles) wanted to look up and read all the passages referenced in the introduction. And then my kids are picky about word choices ("Why did they say 'might' in that sentence? Jesus saves everyone who believes."). So that took longer. But, on a good note, they have memorized John 3:16 for AWANA so that's a no-brainer.

Then we did all the Geography activities. Reading from Maps and Globes was fine. But, then filling out the Passport Application - my-oh-my! I had to explain about filling out forms in print instead of cursive. Then, with two dyslexics, I had to spell everything and remind them of birthdays and such. And of course, writing the address on the front of the envelope takes more time. Yes, it is very tempting to do it all myself, but I know it is better for the kids if I let them do it. So I did, and so it took WAY longer than the 20 minutes allotted for Geography.

Next we worked on Science. Reading from Properties of Ecosystems (to be referred to as POE from now on) was fine. Though we had to go over and over all the new vocabulary words. I was tempted to make a vocabulary sheet before we started with all the new words from today. It was a lot to remember. I think I might do that for them as a reference. Then we did the Ecozones activity. Can I just say out loud that there needs to be an answer key for this one? Reading the descriptions of the ecozones in the book was slightly confusing. And then, because the print is rather fine on that green background for these old eyes, I misread some of the boundaries of the ecozones. It's fine. It's just general information for the kids to know, but it would help this type-A person to know whether or not we got the maps right. I definitely would skip this for a 3rd grader and below.

Tigger thought coloring the areas on the map was fun. Oh, and having the placemat maps from Explorers to 1850 or 1850 to Modern Times was handy for the kids to copy ocean names and such onto their maps. Our wall map is in a different area from the table where they were working, so I grabbed those and they used them to copy from. I think those would be a good addition to ECC.

I sent Rabbit off to do her school work while Tigger and Pooh did cursive practice and math. Poor Pooh. He really struggled. I showed him how to do the letters on the whiteboard, and then on his paper. I had him do only 4 copies. We still had some tears. I made sheets in StartWrite software, and they have the arrows to show how to form the letters. I also have them do words with the letters we've covered (or just letter combinations) to work on connections - especially letters like b that have a "tow-truck" (to use Handwriting Without Tears terminology). 

Take a week off of math and my boys almost forget how to add and subtract. Sigh. I ended up having to write the problems on my whiteboard and then have them tell me what step to do next. But, we got it done eventually. 

After lunch I worked with Rabbit on her math. She finished Test 18 in Saxon 8/7 today. We'll keep on working 8/7 until we finish it and then start either Algebra 1/2 or Algebra 1. I'm thinking Algebra 1, which will give her more time before 9th grade starts.

So, tomorrow we will do what we didn't get to today: English, Reading, Spelling, Math and Wee Sing. I'll see how that goes before we add any of the ECC stuff. It may be that doing those things first will work better for us than doing Bible, Geography, and Science first. I also need to check the work Rabbit completed today.

Tonight I will go by the  library to pick up our one book that has come in.

I almost forgot to take first day of school pictures:

The boy on the left in the back is Tigger. The boy on the right in the red shirt is Pooh. The girl is Rabbit. And those nicknames fit their personalities. The dog is Chloe - and yes that is her real name. We call her Klo for short.

Starting Early

Rabbit has decided to start some of her school for this fall this week. She is doing her Apologia Physical Science, writing, and her Progeny Press guide for Anne of Green Gables. Today we did the first science experiment. Thought I would post pictures and issues we ran into for others. (The boys also joined in to watch - anything using wires and a battery has interest to them!) 

So, first we had to set it up. The hard part was getting the wires to stay on the terminals of the 9-volt batter. We tried electrical tape, but it was too slippery. So then we went with masking tape and that worked better. There is one piece of tape over each wire and terminal, plus another piece of tape over both.

We definitely got bubbles going off our wires when we got them in the water once we used the masking tape. If you don't get bubbles, your wires are not taped to the terminals very well.

And here you can see how the copper started to turn that blue-green color copper usually does. It was kind of weird that it only happened to one of the wires. Not sure why.

We're using the Knowledge Box Central lapbook journal lab reports with the introduction and procedure all filled in. All we have to fill in are the observations, diagrams, and summaries. We also created a page with these pictures to go with her lab report.