His Treasure Seekers

The last time we went to the library, we maxed out my card.  It was a first for us, but now that the boys are both really getting into reading, I could see it was going to be a recurring problem.  The solution?  Get Ian his own library card!  Ever since I mentioned the idea, he’s been begging to go back, so this week he was quite proud of his newest acquisition.  (Elijah won’t be old enough for a few more months, but he’s looking forward to getting his as well.)

Next week my boys will be spending their mornings at music camp, so I wanted to finish on a strong note this week.  I was thankful that we not only covered everything I had hoped to, we even got most of it done in four days, so we were able to take most of Friday off to go swimming and play with cousins!

Bible

We’re on week 2 of Bible Road Trip: Year Three, which was basically an introduction to the New Testament.  Some of the research portion of the lesson had to do with the history of the period after the Old Testament ended.  In addition to the assigned reading, we all watched The Maccabees: The Story of Hanakkuh and Ian colored one of the pages that goes along with the movie for his Bible notebook.

Our family devotions in Old Story New had us talking about the birth of Jesus, so we went into the Christmas closet and dug out the Little People nativity set.  We also watched the last couple scenes of The Nativity Story on DVD.  It was kind of fun having a taste Christmas in August!

We’re still reading just a few verses in Proverbs each morning (finished chapter 15 this week) and working our way through Prudence and the Millers (Chapters 11-14).  In addition to the reading, we usually try to discuss some of the pages in Prudence and Your Health, a workbook designed to go along with it.  For chapter 14 there was a fun game that all three older children enjoyed playing with me.  Wise choices allowed them to move forward, while foolish ones sent them backwards, sometimes all the way to the beginning!  It was the first time Arianna has joined us in this kind of game, and she thought it was great fun being a part of it all.

Math

I’m not always very good at finding ways to have fun with math, but this week that wasn’t a problem.  As we worked through lessons 16-20 in the Mathematics Enhancement Programme (Year 2), we spent quite a bit of time with the “logic set,” (shape cards from MEP) which Ian always enjoys.  We play a game sort of like “Guess Who?”, where one of us picks a shape and the other asks yes or no questions until they figure out which one was picked.  I’ve been trying to teach Ian to think of questions that eliminate as many possibilities as he can in one turn:

• Is your shape black?
• Is it large?
• Does it have more than 3 sides?

He loves playing this game, and we always have to move on to something else before he is ready to stop.

The boys have also been begging Eric to play “The Allowance Game,” which is a fun way to sneak in some math practice.

Literature/Ambleside Online

In A Child’s Garden of Verses we read the poem “The Lamplighter.”  When I asked Ian if he knew what a lamplighter was, he surprised me with a very thorough answer.  I asked him how he knew so much about it, and he reminded me of a book I’d picked up from another homeschool family last year.  We found Peppe the Lamplighter on our shelf and added it to our reading for the week. It’s a charming story with beautiful illustrations (a Caldecott Honor-winning book) about an immigrant boy who takes delight in his work as a lamplighter, even though his father disapproves of the menial job at first.

In our Ambleside Online, Year 1 reading, we loved the story and message of “Cornelia’s Jewels” in Fifty Famous Stories.  Ian didn’t really get the point first, but I explained what it was about and then we reread the last part of the story.  He beamed when I pointed to the wall of pictures of our kids and told them, “Look at my jewels–I’m rich!”

History Cycle

This week we only covered one lesson from Mystery of History, Vol.1, and I realized that the only part I’m really using from MoH is the Table of Contents.  This volume spends so much time on biblical history, which I feel like we’ve already covered in depth.  I definitely want my children to know where biblical events fall in relation to other things we study in history, but I would rather save our precious school hours for things they’re not yet familiar with.

Ancient China (Shang Dynasty)

We read in Story of the World, Vol. 1 about how the ancient Chinese learned to harvest silk from silkworm cocoons and turn it into cloth.  We also read a bit from The Silk Route by John S. Major (just the map and the page on the history of silk in China).  It was a teaser for when we talk about the Silk Road in Year 2 of our history cycle.  Ian loved that the secret of how to make silk was kept for thousands of years.  For his history notebook he did a page from biblestoryprintables.com.

To help understand the process of making silk more, we watched this video from the Science Channel.  I like the style of it, but didn’t cover enough for my taste.

So then we watched “The Story of Silk,” which wasn’t as well narrated, but went through more of the process.

Science

Lessons 14-15 in The World of Animals (from God’s Design for Life) had us learning about amphibians.  For his notebook, Ian did a “Life Cycle of a Frog” worksheet I found online (which was a little more age-appropriate than the one included on the curriculum CD-ROM).  We read About Amphibians by Cathryn Sill and watched Bill Nye the Science Guy: Amphibians (which contains a few evolutionary references we just discussed).  Ian really loves this show, and he’s always asking to do the experiments in the “Try This” segments.  They were really simple this time, so I was happy to be able to say yes for once.

The first experiment shows how amphibian skin works.  We filled a baby food jar with water and food coloring, then covered it with a paper towel held on by a rubber band.  We placed that jar in a larger jar filled with plain water.  Just as an amphibian’s porous skin lets water and oxygen pass in and out of its body, the dyed water was able to pass through the paper towel.

Extras

For Spanish, we started the next unit in Salsa with episode #113.  We spend two weeks on each episode, and there are six in each unit.  All of us were excited about learning some new Spanish words as we began the series on the Three Billy Goats Gruff.  I was excited to hear Ian trying to put together phrases in Spanish in a totally different context using what he had learned during our lesson time.

We finally managed to squeeze in some art!  Ian had a great time creating a torn paper collage to go along with our lesson in ARTistic Pursuits K-3 Vol. 2: Stories of Artists and Their Art.

Upcoming Reviews

We’re currently getting familiar with the following products.  Watch for reviews soon!

• King David (Get to Know series) by Nancy I. Sanders
• Preschoolers and Peace: Homeschooling older kids with success while loving the little ones at your feet (e-book) by Kendra Fletcher

We’ve fallen into a pretty good routine now that we’ve finished Week 5 of this school year.  Even when unexpected things come up, we’ve been able to get through most of what I want to finish in a week.  (And I’m learning what to let go, which is huge for me!)  Here’s a glimpse at the past week:

Bible

This week we officially began going through the New Testament. (Woohoo!) Each evening we’ll be going through chronological readings with the family in Old Story New, but Ian and I will also be using Bible Road Trip: Year Three as part of our schooling.  Up until now our time with BRT has only involved matching up weeks from Years One and Two with our family devotions and doing the research (and videos) that went along.  Now we’re adding a new component to our morning reading, since BRT will take us through the New Testament book by book.

I’m currently planning to use the Lower Grammar assignments with just Ian.  I’ve thought about doing the Preschool/Kindergarten level and including Elijah and Arianna, but we already have so many picture Bible storybooks, I didn’t really want to buy the one that goes along with BRT.  If the reading load is overwhelming for Ian, however, I may end up deciding to do that.

It would be nice to include everyone in our morning Bible time.  This week I started spending some time in worship with all the children before we started our school day, and it would be easy to add some Bible reading after that before letting the little ones go off to play.  I’d like to start encouraging them to stay with us for our devotional time (even if I don’t use the BRT Preschool materials).  This week we continued reading Prudence and the Millers (Chapters 7-10) and made it through Proverbs 15:1-20.

Since this was our first official week with BRT, Ian started his new Bible notebook.  If you’ve seen any of the Bible lessons I’ve posted over the last couple of years, you know we’ve done Bible notebook pages of some sort or another since he turned 3.  This year we’re stepping up to add a slightly more academic component rather than just fun crafts, but hopefully we’ll get some of those in it too.

This week Ian started writing the names of the books of the Bible on the Bible library bookshelf page I created a while back, as well as creating a page on the “Armor of God” to go along with one of our readings for Week 1 – “What is the Bible?”.  We did this craft a while back in our Armor of God unit using the picture of the boy given with the armor, but I thought this time it would be fun to use a picture of Ian himself and include text boxes with the passage we had read.  Of course, when the others saw his page, they wanted to do their own.

The boys were in their pajamas when I whipped the camera out, which at first Ian didn’t like, but it adds some fun color to their pages so we ended up just going with it.  After taking pictures of each kid, I opened them in Paint and selected around their bodies to delete the background (so I wouldn’t waste ink).  Then I pasted the images into a Word document so I could adjust what size they would be on the page.

Math

We got through lessons 11-15 of the Mathematics Enhancement Programme (Year 2).  So far Ian’s been very comfortable with it, not too challenged, and his confidence has really grown.  I’m impressed with how much he is able to do, especially considering how challenging parts of Year 1 were for him.  The only area I’m really keeping an eye on is how quick (or slow) he is with his math facts.  He’s made some improvement (and we’ve gotten in some extra practice with one of our reviews), but he could get through the practice book pages a lot faster if he knew them, and I could see him getting bogged down soon if MEP moves on and he’s still trying to count out sums for each part of the more complex problems.

Literature (Ambleside Online)

We caught up with our Ambleside Online, Year 1 reading this week, going back to A Child’s Garden of Verses for poetry and enjoying another story in James Herriot’s Treasury for Children.  I think that’s Ian’s favorite AO book so far, though he also really enjoys the Aesop’s fables.

History Cycle

This was the first week we’ve deviated from the schedule in Mystery of History, Vol.1, which spent an entire week (3 lessons) on Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Since we’ve covered Old Testament history in depth already, I don’t feel a need to linger on the biblical stories in MoH.  Rather, I combined those lessons into one day of reviewing the Patriarchs, and then we moved on to Hammurabi.

Patriarchs

Since Ian already knows the stories of the Patriarchs, I wanted to focus more on the “big picture” and how they fit into the grand scheme of history.  After connecting Abraham to what we’ve read about Sumeria, we talked about his faith and the covenant God made with him.  It’s pretty amazing how this one man who lived thousands of years ago has helped shape the world for all of history ever since.

We talked about Abraham’s family line and how important it is to understanding history.  We made a family tree for Ian’s history notebook (with pasted pictures from the Homeschool In the Woods’ History Through the Ages-Collection CD with approximate dates) and read Ballad of Matthews Begats, a cute book which takes the reader through the family line from Abraham to Jesus.  (The words are even put to music in a fun song on the CD included with the book.)  At Ian’s request, we also revisited some of our favorite books and videos from the last time we studied Joseph.

Hammurabi

I read Ian the chapter about Hammurabi in Story of the World, Vol. 1 by Susan Wise Bauer.  We talked about some of his laws and discussed what was fair about them (or not).  I printed the free notebook page on Hammurabi from biblestoryprintables.com to go in the plastic page protector with the Hammurabi figure from Famous Figures of Ancient Times for Ian’s history notebook.

Science

This week in the God’s Design for Life curriculum we learned about fish.  In addition to reading lessons 11-13 in The World of Animals, we watched Bill Nye the Science Guy: Fish, Ian made a collage for his notebook, and he read About Fish by Cathryn Sill.

We started to read The Life Cycle of a Salmon by Bobbie Kalman, but Ian wasn’t as into it as he has been with other books in this series.  I ended up just leaving it out, along with The Life Cycle of a Shark, and The Life Cycle of a Sea Horse, which he enjoyed going through on his own while the others were napping.

Extras

This was our last week in the Salsa unit based on Caperucita Roja (Little Red Riding Hood).  All three older kids have learned so much from this program.  Although I usually only do the lesson plans with Ian, Elijah has started showing a fascination with using another language, and Arianna often requests to watch a Salsa video.  It’s fun to see them all learning together.

Upcoming Reviews

We’re currently getting familiar with the following products.  Watch for reviews soon!

• Happy Kids Songs
• UberSmart Math Facts
• “Who Created Everything” audio drama (from Wizzy Gizmo)
• Preschoolers and Peace: Homeschooling older kids with success while loving the little ones at your feet (e-book) by Kendra Fletcher

“Week 4” of school consisted of a week’s worth of lessons stretched out over about 10 days due to a family birthday (school holidays in our house), a beach day with friends, and baseball camp for Ian.  I had planned on this, so we didn’t get behind at all and we just took our time enjoying our lessons.

Bible

We skipped our morning reading time most mornings due to the extra activities and an odd schedule, so we only made it through a couple chapters of Prudence and the Millers, and then finished Proverbs 14 for our devotional reading.

As far as Bible study, we wanted to take a week to cover Esther before heading into the New Testament.  I love the story of Esther, but I was afraid the entire book might be a bit much for the boys, so we read from Egermeier’s Bible Story Book, breaking it up over several days.  Ian and I did the “Researching the Word” from Bible Road Trip: Year One, and we all watched the second episode of Buck Denver Asks: What’s in the Bible? Vol. 7 – Exile and Return, which tells about Esther.

Math

So far Ian is continuing to enjoy Year 2 of the Mathematics Enhancement Programme.  I’m really impressed with how well MEP has worked for him.  There were times last year when I wondered if it was just too challenging, but the spiral approach is proving its value, and suddenly he’s understanding things and figuring out problems on his own that he was lost on a few months ago.

One of the activities in the MEP lesson plan called for matching several addition facts with their sums.  I was reminded of a game I had from when I was a teacher, and we pulled it out and enjoyed getting some extra facts practice in using “Matching Caps” from Learning Horizons.  It not only made that activity easy to do, it led a a full game of matching up facts.  Elijah eagerly joined us, and I have a feeling we’ll be getting it out on a regular basis.

It would be really easy to create a similar game using cards, and I think I might do that with specific fact families that Ian has trouble with since this game only goes up to sums of 10.

Literature (Ambleside Online)

I decided to deviate from our scheduled poetry book once again in order to complement our science study this week.  We enjoy reading more than one poem each day, so I know we’ll get through A Child’s Garden of Verses even with extra poetry books.  I just think it’s fun to include poems that tie in with other things we’re studying.

So this week we read from Feathers: Poems About Birds by Eileen Spinelli.  I wasn’t sure how Ian would respond to it, but he loved it!  He wanted to play the same game we did with Prayers from the Ark and The Creatures’ Choir a few weeks ago, where I read the poem first and he tried to guess what it was about.  This book was a little harder to that with unless you are a bird expert, but there were several that he was able to guess correctly, and he really enjoyed the book.

For our AO Year 1 readings we got to read our first story in James Herriot’s Treasury for Children, “Moses the Kitten”. I wasn’t sure how well this book was going to go over.  I bought the audiobook a while back and have tried to listen to it in the car on several occasions, but the boys always lost interest really quickly.

This week, however, I pulled out the book and snuggled on the couch close to Ian so he could see the illustrations.  He loved this story about a tiny kitten found near a pond on a farm in England.  When we got to the part where the farmer’s wife has named him Moses, I paused to see if he would react when I read,

“Moses?”

“Aye, you found him among the rushes didn’t you?”

It took a second, but then his eyes lit up and I heard a little chuckle.  He liked that connection.  When we had finished, he begged me to read another story from the book, but for now I want to stick to the schedule and keep him hungry for more.

History Cycle

I think pretty soon we’re going to veer away from using Mystery of History, Vol.1 as our framework, but for now it’s still helping provide just enough structure.  This week we covered Stonehenge, Early Egypt and the Minoan Civilization.

Stonehenge

When I told Ian we would be talking about Stonehenge this week, he instantly knew what I was talking about.  Grandma just returned from England and we got to see pictures of her there, and Ian told me that in one of the Lego movies he’s watched they talked about “LEGOhenge,” so he knew all about it.

Well, maybe not ALL about it.  We both learned a bit more by reading parts of two books I borrowed from the library: Stonehenge (Torque: The Unexplained) by Sean McDaniel (a great introduction to the subject, though I skipped the part about the alien theory) and Stonehenge by Cynthia Kennedy Henzel (which I preferred, even though it had more information than we could cover in just one day).  Then we watched this 3-minute clip from TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting that shows the Duggar family visiting Stonehenge.

Early Egypt (Old Kingdom)

Ian had been eagerly looking forward to this lesson so he could make the Khufu (Cheops) figure from Famous Figures of Ancient Times by Cathy Diez-Lucky.  We read bits and pieces from several books about Ancient Egypt to learn a little more about Khufu’s Great Pyramid.  Ian is familiar with the name because he has listened to Jonathan Park: The Whispering Sphinx multiple times.  It was helpful for him to see both a map of Egypt indicating where major historical sites are and a timeline showing the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms.

We’ve spent a lot of time learning about Ancient Egypt and pyramids in the last couple years so I didn’t really linger on this lesson.  We read The Egyptian Cinderella, and Ian liked the connection with Aesop mentioned in the “Author’s Note” at the end of the book.  He also enjoyed reading through Ms Frizzle’s Adventures: Ancient Egypt with Daddy.

The Minoan Civilization

We read about the Minoans in Mystery of History, Vol 1 and Story of the World, Vol. 1 (Chapter 18) by Susan Wise Bauer.  Ian really enjoyed hearing about the bull-leaping, and when he started reading about Theseus and the Minotaur, he got excited and said he already knew the story.  It turns out he had read it on Starfall in a collection of Greek myths.  I love when we get to build context for things that are already familiar to him.

Science

This week in The World of Animals (part of the God’s Design for Life curriculum) we read the lessons on birds.  Ian made a bird collage and did the curriculum worksheet on the bird’s digestive system for his notebook.

To explore the subject a little more, we read About Birds by Cathryn Sill (paying specific attention to the different kinds of beaks the birds have) and Life Cycle of a Bird by Bobbie Kalman.

We also watched two episodes of Bill Nye the Science Guy: Birds and Flight.  Ian picked up a book of science experiments called Air, Wind, and Flight that another homeschool family was giving away, and he enjoyed trying several of the experiments, saying, “This would go really well with our science study, Mom!”  I guess he thought I’d need convincing to let him go at it on his own.  He didn’t necessarily do them all correctly, but he had fun, it was a good learning experience, and he was really proud to show his work to Daddy that night.

Extras

In Spanish we moved on to the next Salsa video, #112, which is the last story in this set on Red Ridinghood.  We used Arianna’s dollhouse figures to practice family members and various commands, like “Salta con la abuela” (“Jump with the grandmother”) and “Anda con el niño” (“Walk with the boy”). Ian always thinks these are fun.

Summer is slipping away quickly!  We’re no longer the only ones doing school, and we’re looking forward to some fun outings once the public school kids go back and crowds thin out a bit.

Upcoming Reviews

We’re currently getting familiar with the following products.  Watch for reviews soon!

• Happy Kids Songs
• UberSmart Math Facts
• “Who Created Everything” audio drama (from Wizzy Gizmo)

Our school year is in full swing, and so far everything’s running smoothly.  We’ve even managed to get in a few extras like art and Spanish now that we’ve settled into a regular routine with our basic subjects.

Bible

We finished Wisdom and the Millers and read the first three chapters of Prudence and the Millers, along with Proverbs 14:11-29.  This book talks about making healthy choices and what the Bible says about caring for our bodies, so part of me is wishing I’d saved it for when we study the human body in science next term, but I think if we keep only reading a chapter a day we’ll still be in it then.  Ian’s been begging to get out our new microscope, so we used the lesson on being sick as a good excuse to pull it out and look at a slide of bacteria (and a bunch of other things!)

This was our last week of Long Story Short by Marty Machowski!  We read the story of Nehemiah (and did the corresponding research in Bible Road Trip).  We started this journey almost 2 years ago, and it feels so good to finish the whole book!  There are 78 weeks of lessons, but we took time off for things like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and when we moved.  This book has really blessed our family.  Eric and I are actually using parts of it for the 5th grade Sunday School class we’re teaching this year because it’s taught our family so much.

Math

Ian started Year 2 of the Mathematics Enhancement Programme.  Right now it’s review so the lessons are pretty easy for him.  I’m trying to get back in the habit of doing the full lesson plan with him and not just the practice book pages.   (During our VBS week we kept doing those but dropped all the other parts of the lessons.)  He actually enjoys those parts the best, and I’m finding it easier to include them now that I printed out all the lesson plans rather than just reading them on my Kindle.

As I’ve researched MEP a little more I’ve found that although schools in the UK use Year 1 as the equivalent of Kindergarten like we did (with 5-6 year olds), the Hungarian schools (where it was originally developed) use Reception that year and hold off on Year 1 until the students are 6-7 years old.  Currently Ian’s doing well with where I’ve placed him, but now that I know I’ve got him on the really advanced end of the spectrum I won’t hesitate to slow down and give him time to catch up if it looks like things are getting too challenging.

Literature (Ambleside Online)

We’re back to reading from A Child’s Garden of Verses each morning.  In the readings from AO Year 1, “Beauty and the Beast” in The Blue Fairy Book was a highlight of our week.  It had been years since I read the original story, and so much of it had been replaced in my memory by the Disney version (which I also love).  This was a story that really captured Ian’s attention.  At one point I paused to take care of Nicholas, and he begged me to continue, afraid I was putting it down for the day.  I kept reading a little more when I was able, but it was a really long story and we ended up splitting it over two days.

Part of our Ambleside Online lessons is narration, which means the child repeating what they heard back in their own words.  It’s an important part of the learning process and helps the child really process the information that’s being read.  Narration is new for Ian, and some days he does better than others.  I’m reading through a blog series from Simply Charlotte Mason hoping to find some ways to encourage him.

In Lightning Literature (review coming next week) our story was Caps for Sale (one of our favorites!)  The grammar lessons moved on from capital letters to ending punctuation.  Since we’re finishing up this review, we also went back to Spelling You See, picking up where we ended last year with Week 16 of Level B (Jack and Jill), which fits a little better with our style.

History Cycle

We continued using the lesson subjects from Mystery of History, Vol.1 as a framework for our history studies.  This week it seemed like we did a lot, but Ian and I both enjoyed it.  I didn’t like history class when I was in school, but I’ve always liked reading books about history on my own, so I’m hoping this will be one of Ian’s favorite subjects.  I love bringing the stories alive for him.

The Sumerians

I summarized the information about the Sumerians in Mystery of History, Vol.1 and then read about Sargon the Great in The Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer.  Ian made a moveable figure of Sargon from Famous Figures of Ancient Times by Cathy Diez-Lucky.  He really liked that project, so I let him make the one for Narmer, the pharoah who united Upper and Lower Egypt as well.  (We read about him over our summer break.)

Ian played with those figures throughout the day.  As he showed them to Elijah I asked him to tell about each man, helping him to remember some of the key things we had read.  He couldn’t wait to show Daddy and tell him about these men as soon as he got home.  He’s already asking when he can put more of them together, so it will be fun getting to find lessons on the rest of the people in the book.  I had him add them to his history notebook by slipping them into plastic page protectors.

The Tower of Babel

This was a familiar story to Ian, so we didn’t spend a lot of time on it.  We read the biblical account of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9 and then talked about languages.  Ian enjoyed listening to Spanish children’s songs while he worked on his notebook pages.

“I can’t understand what they’re saying!” he kept telling me.

“That’s the point!” I reminded him.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

The ancient story of Gilgamesh is included in both Mystery of History and The Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer.  Rather than reading it from either of those books, however, I chose to use the picture book trilogy by Ludmila Zeman.

On Monday we started with Gilgamesh the King.  (I wrongly assumed we would have to stretch out the series over the whole week, so I wanted to get a jump on it.)  Ian listened intently and enjoyed the rich illustrations.  We talked about how old legends often have bits of truth in them, but then people also make up details of their own (like about Gilgamesh being half-god).  On Tuesday we read The Revenge of Ishtar, and Ian liked it so much we went ahead and just read The Last Quest of Gilgamesh that day as well.  I’m glad I found these books.  Ian really remembered the stories well and I think they made a much bigger impression than he would have gotten just reading from the MoH text or Story of the World.

Science

So far I am really pleased with my decision to use the God’s Design for Life curriculum from Answers in Genesis for science this year.  Right now we’re just reading the “Beginners” section of each lesson in the textbook, though I look through the section for older kids and point out anything I think would interest Ian.  Although these lessons alone are probably sufficient for a 1st grade level, they’re simple enough that I’m using them as a framework for selecting related books to explore with Ian a little deeper.

This was our last week talking about mammals.  We watched Bill Nye the Science Guy: Mammals, which even Elijah (not usually a fan) really enjoyed.  He caught onto a lot of the “mammal” talk going on this week and was definitely starting to classify things in his head.  Several times throughout the week he’d check with me, “So an elephant is a mammal?”  “So Shamu is a mammal?”  It’s rare for him to show interest in any of our lessons besides math, so I was more than happy to draw him into discussions.

Here’s what Ian and I read to expand on the lessons in the book:

Aquatic Mammals

Ian read If a Dolphin Were a Fish by Loren Wlodarski to me, and then I read him Baby Whales Drink Milk by Barbara Juster Esbensen.  We watched Bill Nye the Science Guy: Marine Mammals (there were several evolutionary references we discussed).  Ian also got out A Whale of a Tale: All About Porpoises, Dolphins, and Whales by Bonnie Worth from The Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library series.

Marsupials

After reading the lesson in The World of Animals, we read About Marsupials by Cathryn Sill.  I usually think of this series as being for younger children, but even I learned a few things from this particular book.  Ian also really enjoyed The Life Cycle of a Koala by Bobbie Kalman.  This is the series we’re starting to use more often because the books have a lot more information.  So far, Ian’s found them fascinating.

For his notebook, Ian finished up his page from last week with a section about whales and then wanted to devote a whole page to marsupials.  We searched for pictures online and printed them out so he could make a collage.

Now that we’ve finished three weeks of notebooking through our history and science studies, Ian is really enjoying seeing the book he’s creating.  He pulled them out several times this week to flip through the books from beginning to end, reviewing the pages he’s made and remembering what they were about.  I think this is going to be a powerful learning tool for him as well as a wonderful record of what we study.

Electives

We finally managed to spend some time in ARTistic Pursuits K-3 Vol. 2: Stories of Artists and Their Art. (We got through the first third last year when we review it, and I’d really like to complete the book.)  Ian’s portrait of Nicholas didn’t turn out quite the way he hoped, but he had fun painting it and learned a valuable lesson.  (Don’t make the background “skin colored” or you won’t be able to see your subject very well!)

The kids really missed our Spanish lessons, so they were glad to go back to the Salsa videos, picking up with #111, which is the fifth in the series of six episodes written around the story of Little Red Riding Hood.  I kept using the Salsa materials from the Wyoming Department of Education with Ian, though I’m starting to be really stretched in my Spanish abilities.  Even though everything is scripted for the teacher, it’s just not rolling off my tongue very well.  I’m determined to push through though, because I think it’s really important for my kids to know Spanish in Southern California.  I’ve definitely seen Ian’s comprehension growing (as well as my own), and I hope I can at least help build a foundation for him to learn the language on his own as he gets older.

Upcoming Reviews

We’re currently getting familiar with the following products.  Watch for reviews soon!

• Lightening Literature 1st Grade (from Hewitt Homeschooling)
• Happy Kids Songs
• Mathletics (from 3P Learning)
• UberSmart Math Facts
• “Who Created Everything” audio drama (from Wizzy Gizmo)

As we finish up our second week of school, I am more excited than ever about this year.  I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy the first year of our history cycle as much as some of the others, but that was actually one of my favorite parts of this week.  We had a lot of fun exploring different books related to our history and science subjects, as well as watching a couple videos (always Ian’s favorite part).

Bible

During our morning Bible time we continued reading Wisdom and the Millers. We read chapters 21-24 and would have finished the book except we skipped one day when we went on a field trip.  Ian would love to read multiple chapters each day, but I like to keep him wanting more.  After our chapter we always read a few verses in Proverbs.  This week we read Proverbs 13:12-14:10.

We’re on Week 77 in Long Story Short by Marty Machowski, which continues the story of Ezra, so we didn’t move ahead in Bible Road Trip Year One (which only spent one week on Ezra).

Math

Ian finished up Year 1 of the Mathematics Enhancement Programme.  We took a break partway through his Kindergarten year when it got a bit frustrating, so I wanted to be sure we finished that before diving into Year 2 for 1st grade.  (The years are a bit confusing because the program is from the UK and doesn’t follow the US grading system.  I’ve heard of people using Year 1 for 1st, but initially I had read that it was for Kindergarten so we started it then.  If it gets to be too challenging I may stretch the material for Year 2 beyond 1st grade.)

We also did some work on learning to add 2-digit numbers using a really fun supplement called “Superhero Addition” created by a friend of mine.  Ian loved it and did really well!  It turns out he knows his addition facts much better than he lets on.  I was so surprised by how fast he flew through the pages we did–without a single mistake!  Evidently superheroes are highly motivating.  He was eager to do extra math pages all week.  (Thanks, Katie!)

Literature (Ambleside Online)

For poetry I took a break from A Child’s Garden of Verses to read poems to go along with our history lesson.  Prayers from the Ark and The Creatures’ Choir by Carmen Bernos De Gasztold, translated by Rumer Godden contains poems written from the perspective of various animals.  We made a fun game of it where I would read the poem and then the boys would guess which animal it was about.  They really enjoyed it and we read at least six or seven each day.

I’m so thankful for Ambleside Online’s weekly schedules.  They take a rather daunting booklist and break it down into really manageable chunks, spreading some books out over many months, which I think will really help Ian remember them better in the long run.  We read everything scheduled for week two and finished “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” in Andrew Lang’s Red Fairy Book on the additional free reading list.

In addition to readings for AO Year 1, the literature program we’re reviewing had us spending the week with The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.  It was perfect timing, because the Skirball Cultural Center, which we decided to visit for a history field trip, happened to have a special exhibit on this book!

The kids loved seeing the familiar pictures and learning more about the author.  I wish we’d had time to stay longer.

History Cycle

I’m generally following the lesson topics for Mystery of History, Vol. 1, though I’m not necessarily using that curriculum as designed.  (Do I ever?)  Week 2 covers:

• Noah and the Flood
• Ice Age
• Dinosaurs

That’s a lot to pack into one week, especially since we could spend a lot of time on each one!  I prefer to use living books to teach topics whenever possible, only resorting to the textbook (which I paraphrase) when I can’t find an appropriate book.  Here’s what we read this week:

Noah and the Flood

We have lots of books on this topic (see below), but I focused on Noah’s Ark by Jerry Pinkney.  It’s very well written with beautiful watercolor illustrations.  My favorite page is an underwater scene where sea creatures are swimming through the ruins of buildings now submerged by the flood:

“The water rose over cities and towns. Whales swam down ruined streets.  Schools of fish darted through empty windows.”

We repeated many of the things we did last time we covered Noah, since the younger ones didn’t remember much.  We read several of the books below (and had them all out for the children to look through on their own) and watched Greatest Adventures of the Bible: Noah’s Ark. We also talked about how people groups around the world had flood legends that seem to point back to the story of Noah.  We read a page in Dinosaurs by Design by Duane Gish that shared some of these different legends, which Ian really enjoyed.

The highlight of our week was definitely visiting the Noah’s Ark Exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center.  Ian has been asking to go back ever since we first went two years ago.  We noticed many new things and used up every minute of our two-hour time slot.  The boys are already talking about “next time,” but since it’s well over an hour away, we may have to wait all four years until our history cycle comes around again.  Then at least Nicholas will be old enough to remember it too!

Here’s our collection of Noah/Flood Books (some of these are basic preschool level books I read with Arianna and Elijah):

• The Story of Noah and the Ark illustrated by Gennady Spirin (KJV text)
• Inside Noah’s Ark by Charles Reasoner
• The Real Story of the Flood by Paul L. Maier (has a couple paragraphs at the end that reflect an unbiblical “day-age” view when talking about dinosaurs, but I just crossed those out and wrote a brief note in the margin for my kids in case they read it on their own.  I really like the rest of the book.
• Noah’s Wife: The Story of Naamah by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso
• Naamah, Noah’s Wife by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso (a condensed board book of the above title, better for Arianna)
• Naamah and the Ark at Night by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
• Noah’s Crew Came 2 by 2 by Mindy MacDonald

The Ice Age

I read the page on the Ice Age from Dinosaurs by Design by Duane Gish.  It was just an introduction to the topic, but that’s all I wanted this time around.  I ordered Life in the Great Ice Age by Michael J. Oard, but since it hasn’t arrived yet, I think we’ll probably just save it for the next time through the history cycle.

Dinosaurs

There are so many possibilities when it comes to studying dinosaurs.  I considered extending our time on this subject into next week, but Ian isn’t especially fascinated by them so I think once he’s had time to create a page for his history notebook we’ll just move on.

I tried to keep it simple this week so that dinosaurs didn’t overwhelm the rest of our schoolwork.  We read through What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs? by John D. Morris and Ken Ham.  Then we watched The Creation Adventure Team: A Jurassic Ark Mystery and Buddy Davis Adventures: I Dig Dinosaurs! (I like the second one much better, but Ian really likes them both.)

Science

In The World of Animals (part of the God’s Design for Life curriculum from Answers in Genesis), we went deeper into our study of mammals.  Ian made a collage of mammal pictures for his notebook:

We read in the textbook about spiny anteaters (echidnas) and the platypus, mammals that are unusual because they lay eggs.  Ian was interested in that, so we read a little more in a book we have that also happens to be called World of Animals (by Martin Walters) We also watched an episode of Wild Kratts called “Platypus Cafe“.

Later in the week we read in the textbook about primates.  There was a special section about the intelligence of primates, which reminded Ian of Koko, whom we read about in Koko’s Story by Francine Patterson.  In Ian’s notebook he wanted to record that Curious George is not a monkey because he has no tail (which would make him an ape).

After reading About Mammals by Cathryn Sill, Ian also wanted to read About Rodents, so even though they weren’t covered in our textbook, we spent a little time talking about rodents.  He really enjoyed learning about them because we see lots of squirrels in the park near our house, and he was processing what we read with what he’s observed there.  The Life Cycle of a Beaver by Bobbie Kalman was full of great information.  (We’ll be finishing it up this weekend, and then I’m planning to let the kids watch Wild Kratts “Build it Beaver.”

We still have quite a bit of time left on mammals, so I’m sure Ian will have no trouble finishing up that last notebook page.

As you can see, it was a busy week!  I really enjoyed exploring these subjects with Ian and was reminded once more how glad I am that we get to homeschool!

Upcoming Reviews

We’re currently getting familiar with the following products.  Watch for reviews soon!

• Accountable Kids
• Lightening Literature 1st Grade (from Hewitt Homeschooling)
• Happy Kids Songs
• Mathletics (from 3P Learning)
• UberSmart Math Facts
• “Who Created Everything” audio drama (from Wizzy Gizmo)