His Treasure Seekers

 We are officially a third of the way through our school year!  I can’t believe how quickly the weeks are flying by, but it feels good knowing we’ve gotten in twelve solid weeks and we’re moving along at a good pace.

Preschool

I had grand plans to get back into some preschool activities this week.  We started off with a tea party where I read How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World, one of our favorite books from Five in a Row.  I figured it would be a great way to build upon our field trip to the apple farm last week.

But then we didn’t get any farther than reading the book.  Granted, Arianna spent one night at Grandma’s house, and then she had ballet one morning, and we had a park day with our friends.  Still, I’m frustrated by our schedule this year, which doesn’t give us any long mornings at home.  We’re squeezing in bits and pieces here and there, but I’m sad to not have more time to spend doing fun learning activities with my preschoolers.

Elementary

History

We’re taking a break from The Light and the Glory for Children because I wanted to spend a little more time dwelling on the Declaration of Independence before plunging ahead with the next chapter.  To learn more, we watched an episode of Animaniacs, “The Flame”;  Pups of Liberty: The Dog-claration of Independence on Izzit.org; and Learn Our History: The Declaration of Independence.

We also watched four episodes of Liberty’s Kids:

• #12 Common Sense
• #13 The First Fourth of July
• #14 New York, New York
• #15 The Turtle

We did go ahead and read Guns for General Washington by Seymour Reit, which tells the story of Henry Knox leading a group of men in transporting the cannons from Fort Ticonderoga hundreds of miles to help General Washington reclaim Boston.  We learned about that event last week, but I’m glad we read it, because it really helped the story come alive for the boys.

Biography

I decided to go back and spend a little more time on George Washington this week.  Because Ian learns so well through audio resources, I recently purchased a collection of old time radio and other audio dramatizations: The American History for the Ears Ultimate Collection.  From that collection we listened to an audiobook of the section on Washington from Four Great Americans by James Baldwin, as well as two episodes of the old radio show “Mr. President.”

The boys also read a cute story, George Washington and the General’s Dog by Frank Murphy.  They both really enjoyed this true story about Washington returning General Howe’s dog to the British leader after a battle.

      

Writing

We got all the way through Lesson 4 in All Things Fun and Fascinating, and I continue to be blown away by the boys’ progress.  This week they wrote their key word outlines completely independently, and then typed up their stories all by themselves.  (There was a little grumbling about that, with one boy thinking it would take him way too long to type himself, but I think he was surprised at how quickly he did it, and I don’t anticipate any such complaints in the future.)  The only place I needed to offer some guidance was in choosing a title and helping them find appropriate places to add in “dress-ups.”  This was Eli’s story:

Upcoming Reviews

We’re enjoying several products right now, so watch for these reviews in the next few weeks (may contain affiliate links):

• If You Were Me and Lived in…Colonial America (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 4)  and others in this series by Carole P. Roman
• MyFreezEasy subscription of freezer dinner recipes
• Elementary Spanish 2 (Grades 3-5) from Middlebury Interactive Languages
• The Familyman’s Christmas Treasury – Audio Collection

As we get further into this first year with Classical Conversations, I’m starting to feel like it’s not going to be a great fit for our family.  I think it’s a great program, especially if you like having someone else plan your year.  My problem is just that I still want to do my own thing, and doing CC on top of all that is proving to be a bit much, primarily because we lose most of Monday each week.  We already lose most of Fridays for the kids’ various music classes (choir, handchimes, composer study, and various others), so that leaves us just three days to try to squeeze in everything else I want to do.  (And I’m not even covering a science curriculum this year!)

This week was even crazier, as we had a field trip on Thursday.  Thankfully, the boys are both really good at working independently, and for the most part they are diligent about getting started and doing their best without too much prompting from me.  I had actually forgotten about our field trip when I wrote up their checklists for the week, yet they still managed to accomplish everything by Friday afternoon.

And our field trip was SO worth it.  We’ve been to Riley’s Apple Farm before, but this was the first time we’ve attended one of their “homeschool days.”  The kids got to learn about life on a homestead in the late 1800’s by participating in the many chores and activities a child living then would have done.  They helped build a log cabin, sawed wood, beat rugs, pounded coffee, did laundry, hauled water, made rope, pressed cider, wrote fancy letters with a feather pen, and so much more.

What We Did This Week

Bible

Now that Elijah’s got his Veritas Press Self-Paced History Course he’s not quite as eager to get through his VP Bible Course, but he’s still plunging ahead beyond my expectations.  This week he completed more than twice the lessons I had scheduled, finishing up the 10 Commandments, completing the entire unit on “Aaron and the Golden Calf,” as well as “Moses Gets New Tablets” and starting in “The Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant.”  At this rate, he should finish Genesis – Joshua by Thanksgiving.

History

This week we read Chapter 13: The Birth of a Nation in The Light and the Glory for Children, covering the Continental Congress’ appointment of George Washington as the leader of the Army, the failed Canadian campaign, the retaking of Boston, and the vote for Independence.

We also watched four episodes of Liberty’s Kids:

• #8 “The Continental Congress”
• #9 “Bunker Hill”
• #10 “Postmaster General Franklin”
• #11 “Washington Takes Command”

Literature

I read The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz aloud to all the kids.  It was a sweet story about a girl whose family has left Gettysburg to live in the “Western Country.”  I had never read before and chose it for this week because in flipping through it I had seen that George Washington was in it briefly.  However, it is actually set after the Revolution, so I wish I’d saved it for later, because we have lots of other books set during the War that I want to try to read.  (For instance, Guns for General Washington by Seymour Reit is about Henry Knox transporting the cannons from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston to help retake the city.  It would have been perfect for this week, but now I’m trying to figure out whether to try to squeeze it in or just save it for our next time through the history cycle.)

Biography

Since we only had two full days at home, this was a good week to watch a Torchlighters DVD.  We watched The William Tyndale Story and the accompanying documentary, which helped all of us appreciate our easy access to a Bible in English.

Writing

The boys finished up Lesson 3 in All Things Fun and Fascinating, writing their own version of the old fable “Belling the Cat.”  It is so rewarding to see how much easier it is for them to write this year after all their hard work last year in their IEW class.  This week they only needed to focus on adding “strong verbs,” but both of them automatically threw in other “dress-ups.”

I’m SO glad I decided to use this book this year, and I’m thinking we’ll be sticking with IEW materials for several years to come.  I wish I had known about them back when I was teaching in a classroom.

Upcoming Reviews

We’re enjoying several products right now, so watch for these reviews in the next few weeks (may contain affiliate links):

• The Cat of Bubastes from Heirloom Audio Productions
• If You Were Me and Lived in…Colonial America (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 4)  and others in this series by Carole P. Roman
• Elementary Spanish 2 (Grades 3-5) from Middlebury Interactive Languages
• The Familyman’s Christmas Treasury – Audio Collection

My passions were given free reign this week as we continued our study of American history, moving on to the story of Paul Revere and the battles at Lexington and Concord.  Although we did do all the rest of our normal subjects, history pretty much ruled our week.  We even got Daddy interested through all our discussions.  Leigh Bortins talks about how homeschooling redeems the education of two generations, and we are definitely experiencing that in our family.  Eric and I both learned alongside the boys this week as we dove into the American Revolution.

History: The Start of the American Revolution

I am really glad we are using The Light and the Glory for Children (and its sequel) as our “spine” this year.  It is helping set a good pace for us as we move through the events of early American history.  Without it, we might be tempted to speed through the entire Liberty’s Kids series, but because we are going chapter by chapter in the book, we have time to really explore each event, looking at various books and videos to help the children become familiar with the important people and details.

   This week in The Light and the Glory we read “Chapter 12: War!”  It covered several important subjects:

Paul Revere: We’ve talked about Paul Revere before, when we were going through Five in a Row, but that was three years ago, so we pulled out some of our favorite resources from that study, as well as adding a few new ones this time around.

• book: Paul Revere’s Ride (there’s an audio recording of this poem from Homeschool Radio Shows)
• audio: “Listen My Children” from Homeschool Radio Shows.
• audio: Adventures in Odyssey #197 “The Midnight Ride” (This was interesting because it discussed some errors in Longfellow’s poem as well as giving more information about Paul Revere.)
• video: Liberty’s Kids episode 5 “Midnight Ride”
• video: “The Flame Returns,” part of Animaniacs Season 3, Episode 25 (streaming on Netflix right now, though they call it Vol. 2, Episode 12)

Lexington and Concord: The battle at Lexington lasted only about 15 minutes before the British moved on to Concord, but it is important because it marks the beginning of years of fighting between the Americans and the British.  We found several good resources for learning about it, and the boys really memorized a lot of details that kept popping up in each one.

• book: Sam the Minuteman (We also used the literature guide from Progeny Press, which led to some great discussions, as well as a helpful vocabulary lesson that was reinforced in several other resources we used this week.)

   

• George the Drummer Boy by Nathaniel Benchley tells about the battle from a boy on the British side

• video: Liberty’s Kids episode #6 “The Shot Heard Round the World”
• video: Schoolhouse Rock “The Shot Heard Round the World” (and we watched “No More Kings“)
• video: April Morning (This is full-length movie starring Tommy Lee Jones about a father and son at Lexington.  It’s not rated, but my husband and I watched it with the older boys and we were okay with it.  It is about battle, but there’s no gore and as about little violence as one could have given the subject.)

Ethan Allen and the “Green Mountain Boys” at Fort Ticonderoga:

• video: Liberty’s Kids episode #7 “Green Mountain Boys”

Ian and I also watched The American Revolution, which covered all these subjects.  (I found it this streaming on Amazon Prime and it’s aimed at children, so I figured we’d give it a try.  Ian, always ready to watch anything, joined me in previewing it, but I found it a little too slow to show to the other kids and after we got interrupted I didn’t bother going back to finish the whole thing.  The best thing about it was reinforcing things we had already learned about.

Chapter 12 in The Light and the Glory also mentioned the battle of Bunker Hill, but we’re saving that until next week when it’s covered in Liberty’s Kids to talk more about it.

Biography

The last sentence of Chapter 12 in The Light and the Glory introduced the man who would step up to lead the new Continental Army: George Washington.  I decided to make him the focus of our biography studies this week so the boys would be more familiar with him as we move on.  We read George Washington: America’s Patriot from YWAM Publishing’s “Heroes for Young Readers” series, as well as George Washington by Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire

 

Veritas Press

Elijah has been begging me for months to sign him up for a  Veritas Press Self-Paced History Course, and while he loves his VP self-paced Bible course, it just hasn’t satisfied him.  This week I heard the VP was having a Back to School Sale (use code BACKTOHOMESCHOOL for $100 off until 9/26!) on their Self-Paced courses, so I decided to go ahead and get him started on “Explorers to 1815.”  In the first three days he completed 7 lessons, and the first words out of his mouth when we woke up Saturday morning were, “Can I do a history lesson?”

These courses really are amazing.  The only thing I would change is that I wish I could purchase them on CD-ROM so we could pass them down from one child to the next.  I’m not requiring him to do any of the lessons at this point.  It’s just a chance for him (and Ian to some extent, as he enjoys watching) to review things we’ve already learned about, and hopefully eventually he’ll catch up to where we are in our family history study.  I’ve made a note of when 6 months is up to make sure he’ll have enough time to complete the course before our subscription runs out, but I’m hoping he’ll just go through it at his own pace without me ever needing to schedule it.

Upcoming Reviews

We’re enjoying several products right now, so watch for these reviews in the next few weeks (may contain affiliate links):

• KidsEmail.org
• The Pray-ers / Book 1 Troubles by Mark S. Mirza
• The Cat of Bubastes from Heirloom Audio Productions
• If You Were Me and Lived in…Colonial America (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 4)  and others in this series by Carole P. Roman
• Elementary Spanish 2 (Grades 3-5) from Middlebury Interactive Languages