His Treasure Seekers

 Two down, one to go.  We are officially finished with our second term of this school year!  I feel like we’re not getting in a lot of school these days, but really when I look at it that’s because I’ve made the boys be so self-sufficient this year.  They do math, language arts, and Spanish all on their own on the computer, and I just make sure they’re getting through their checklists, help them with any assignments for their writing class, and read with them.  I’m trying to be okay with not having a lot of extras on a regular basis.

 

 

Science

 This week we started Our Universe, the only book we’ve yet to go through in God’s Design for Heaven and Earth.  Ian was really interested in space a few years ago, but I think he got burnt out when we attempted to go through Exploring Creation With Astronomy from Apologia in Kindergarten.  We haven’t touched on the subject since, and I’m hoping we can rekindle some of that interest this term, using this book just as a launching pad for exploring specific things that interest him.

I put on a DVD I bought that year but we had never watched called What You Aren’t Being Told About Astronomy Volume 1: Our Created Solar System.  It’s rather long (112 minutes), but Ian sat and watched the whole thing and didn’t want me to turn it off part way through.  (I thought it was a little dry and probably better for older kids, but Ian really learns well from things I think would be above the heads of most kids his age.)  I think it would be better used in smaller chunks, because it covers a lot of information.

Read Alouds

We continued reading Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter, just finishing it up this weekend.  I wasn’t sure how a book almost entirely about one little girl and the adults around her was going to go over, but it was a big hit all around.  Ian was constantly begging for more chapters, and Elijah and Arianna actually stayed and listened for most of it as well, which is unusual for them.

We also enjoyed stepping back in history with The Dragon and the Raven, the latest audio adventure from Heirloom Audio Productions.  Based on the G.A. Henty novel by the same name, it tells about the triumph of Alfred the Great over the Danes.  Ian learned about Alfred the Great in his Veritas Press history course a while back, so it was a fun chance to revisit his story.  (I’ll be posting a detailed review in a few weeks.)