Ancient History and Literature (AHL): Week 1 Day 1

Well, Rabbit is a bit ambitious. We are enrolled in a homeschool co-op this fall for her Biology labs, so that is going to take about 2 hours out of our day once a week. Rabbit is starting the AHL part of her year now, trying to get about 30 days out of the way so she won't have to do AHL on those days.

The first day was pretty good. We went through the lesson plans and just worked through them together. It was shorter than 3 hours, so we filled in a lot of reading. Plus, she's been doing Logic this summer, too.

I did copy all the timeline pieces from the AHL packet onto Avery 8 x 11.5 label paper, and Rabbit has already started coloring some of them. I think it will look really nice doing it this way. It even has me thinking of making an accordion fold timeline for each of the boys to keep in their history notebook, and then copying the Creation to the Greeks timeline pieces onto the label paper so they can each have their own timeline. I would still put one on the wall using the pieces we colored and laminated from the first time through.

Oh, I forgot to mention, Rabbit is in All About Spelling Level 7. I am very excited about the content of it. It covers Latin and Greek roots (which we will also be covering in Creation to the Greeks this fall), and words that we have pulled in from Italian and Spanish. Plus, it has a system for the kids to keep adding words they need to work on as they go.

We didn't get to math, or Physical Science (we have the last module to finish), but I also started the boys on our summer-school light program. I think it may take the whole summer to figure how to juggle two programs, but that's fine. That is one of the reasons we do summer-school light.

ECC 2nd Edition: Done!

Well, I feel bad... I'm never good about keeping up the blog. We did finish, and I'd say it was a very successful year. And, we actually finished the curriculum on our last day of official school. That's the first time that happened!

Here are some random thoughts.

Rabbit did awesome on the final test. She knew every country we studied and a few extra. She also labeled oceans, some lakes, some rivers, and a few mountain ranges. The boys didn't do as well as she did. I would say they knew about half of the countries. That's pretty good, considering they only knew 3 or so countries at the beginning of the year.

Things I would do differently:

1. More crafts. I would definitely have done more. It was a tough year for me trying to figure out how to juggle Rabbit doing the 8th grade supplement and getting the boys done. But, I should have figured out how to work it out.
2. Read more book basket books as read alouds. Maybe just at bedtime or something, but I really think that would have enhanced it and made it more enjoyable for the boys.
3. Be more strict on starting at 8:30a.m. All too often it was 9:00 or later and made our days drag out.
4. Insist that Pooh do his math down here so I could make sure he was making progress. 
5. Have the boys do a country report, too, even as 4th graders. Maybe just a display board and a few sentences on each topic, but I should have had them do something.
6. Take more pictures of what we did.

I think Rabbit did a really good job on her country report on Andorra. She didn't make a display board, but she did a presentation of it at our homeschool group's last presentation day. 

I am a little sad. This is the last time we'll do Exploring Countries and Cultures. I actually sold my curriculum to a friend. Oh well, onward!

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.