Week 11 & 12 Report

Week 11: December 8-14
Adjusting to working part-time at night, this week I had 30 hours at work (phew) with only 2 days off the entire week. We studied the Cherokee and Camille made a feathered headband in history.

I dropped a read aloud from our history time. The learning room became Camille's bedroom so we moved our two huge bookcases to where our dining table is, I moved my computer desk to the other side of the room and Camille and I disassembled the bunk bed she and Danny were using and transferred a twin bed to the learning room. She decided she wanted to keep posters up so we did.

We divided her toys from Danny's and bought under the bed storage for her to have a 'dresser' under the bed. Problems were starting to creep up from Danny and Camille sharing a bedroom. First, Camille needs a little privacy; second, Danny thinks Camille should always clean the room by herself. "Sissie will do it." We're still working on keeping our bedrooms clean and clothes picked up but it's better now that they are in separate rooms. I just wish the computer desk weren't encroaching on her personal space. She's happy though and I'm just so proud of her for being flexible about it albeit I feel guilty. Our lessons are being done mostly at the dining room table now.

Since I had Thursday, Dec. 11th off from work, I took Camille to see Santa at the mall and we played a bit of hooky from our lessons. I've realized there are times that you do the essentials and let the rest fall by the wayside to spend quality time, which is so much more important.

Sunday, Dec. 14th- I took both the kids to Bass Pro Shop to see Santa and of course, there was a discussion about Santa and his helpers with Camille. I didn't realize that Bass Pro Shop was taking pictures of their own and giving us a copy! How nice!

The kids had a Christmas Party at church on Sunday, where they saw another Santa, but this Santa gave presents! Camille received the Zoob Creator Set and Danny received a Bumblebee Transformer- both were so excited!


Week 12: December 15-19
This week I've had 3 days off back-to-back. Camille and I picked up the pottery projects we had done- a plate for Danny and a plate for her dad, which turned out great! I need to take a picture before we wrap them. Lessons went well, we did the essentials, I know Camille's retention is Latin is mediocre but I'm lacking the luster to do more than what we're doing. We played Exact Change this week for math with a sprinkling of exercises from Horizons math, this went well.

Wednesday, I got paid so Camille and I did Latin and reading before heading out for the day. We went to transfer my car from my dh's name to mine (yay!), to Target to buy roller skates for Christmas which sort of ruined the surprise for her but she was more than glad to 'pretend to be surprised' on Christmas morning. I wanted her to try on the skates so I didn't buy the wrong size, it worked out. I bought myself a new bathrobe which I've been looking for at a good price for a year now. I also splurged and got her lip gloss and glittery stick-ons for her nails. We had a pleasant day together before going to pick up Danny at preschool.

After picking up Danny, I went to Blockbuster to rent Mamma Mia! and Batman: The Dark Knight for myself since dh was going to a Jacksonville Jaguar game on Thursday and got Danny's shaggy hair cut. Since it was Wednesday, the kids had youth at church so I was able to enjoy a little quiet time at home without anyone so I watched Mamma Mia! while they were gone. It's a little cheesy but I loved it and the music stays with you.

Thursday- Camille and I did our last lessons before our break (for a week) and then made peanut butter cookies and chocolate covered pretzels and strawberries. We still need to make chocolate chip cookies and next week, we'll make sugar cookies with frosting for Santa. I cooked my first Boston Butt in the crockpot and we had tender, juicy bar-b-que sandwiches for dinner and watched The Polar Express. After Polar Express, I made the kids' homemade cocoa and we watched The Cat in the Hat and The Lorax on tv before they went to bed.

Today (Friday)- We are making our chocolate chip cookies, busting open a Piñata (from our history lesson this week on the Spanish War/Alamo) and going to see....The Tale of Desperaux! I miss our nature walks and today would be a perfect day for one since it's 80° in December (disgusting) but the kids' think it's pretty special that they will be among the first to see the new movie.

The craziness is about to start. My mom and I are holding our breath to see if the last-minute gifts I ordered online for her (she's scared someone will steal her identity if she orders online) will arrive before Christmas Eve. My parents are coming here Christmas Eve, we're going to Dh's dad's house Christmas Day and Camille will be going with her dad sometime in-between and after? Yep, craziness. I put off college until February because of all this! I have to relearn how to do fractions, decimals, and percentages before taking the College Placement Test so that I don't have to take a remedial math class.

I've had to really contemplate 4th grade and Kindergarten for next year, since I'm approaching the time I normally order next year's curricula. I've decided to have Danny tested at the end of June to see where he is developmentally and what would be best for him- homeschooling or K at public school. Camille will be tested this year as well, at the end of 3rd grade, possibly in May.

I will add pictures of the piñata and pottery dishes later...

Week 10 Report

I'm giving myself a break this week by not posting photos, it has been a hard week here. Let's see, I started working on Tuesday from 4-10 pm, paid bills (stress) and went grocery shopping (more stress) Wednesday, worked Thursday 4-10pm, Friday, Camille and I went to a pottery shop to make Christmas gifts and Camille's piano recital was that night and today I'm working 4-10pm again.

I am enjoying working, it's nice to be among people who don't call you Mom every 3 seconds. It's nice to have a set amount of responsibilities that don't change and it's great to get paid for smiling. :)

Huge life changes are happening, I've also spent a lot of time on the phone with college admission officers and in my IN box are college placement practice test, financial aid forms and admission applications that I am currently procrastinating on but will finish by tomorrow. I need to finish them so that I can start college in January, if not I'll have to wait and only kick myself later if I do that.

Our Christmas tree is up and the outside of the house is decorated, I forgot that I did that this week too. Typing it all out, no wonder I'm feeling overwhelmed!!!

Okay...lessons this week. Given what has happened, I think we've done well but here's the brutal honesty.

Explorer's Bible Study- two lessons this week were done out of four.
Latin- Lesson completed for the week, vocabulary review should have been done more.
Math- Some type of math was done each day, I don't feel that I've done the best I can with this yet.

Primary Language Lessons- 3 lessons out of 4 were done (yay!)
Explode the Code 7- Lesson completed for the week
Poetry- Reviewed 2x, decided to skip Windy Nights and move on to Animal Crackers which we'll start Monday.

History- Read about the Erie Canal, completed interactive map, still need to finish other work tomorrow possibly.
Science- Lesson done, read Cell Wars and completed Cell Mobile. We were unable to do science vocabulary b/c our Children's Dictionary does not have macrophages and neutrophils.
Building Critical Thinking Skills- done but I didn't check

Afternoon Tea with Composer- nope.
Draw Squad- nope.
Needlepoint- nope.
Independent Reading time together- scratch the together (think, "go read your book") so it did get done.
Field Trip- Yes! We went to make pottery Christmas gifts for Danny and Camille's Dad.

Looking back on this week, I don't know how we accomplished all that we did. Camille's piano teacher questioned whether she was progressing enough so we did extra work in piano while I stressed about whether he's the right teacher for her and if he's not- can I find another??

I'm completely stressed over this college thing. I want to do it, I need to do it but goodness I just want to stick the bag back over my head and slink away...

First Quarter Report

Explorer's Bible Study- Discovery: Genesis
We have worked through lessons 1-9 which covers Genesis 1-7. I had my doubts whether Camille would be ready for a step up in work concerning Bible study but she has quelled those fears and I'm very proud of her. We struggled a bit trying to decide whether to write the answers out or to answer orally. Once we decided, Bible is now a time of snuggling and reading God's word followed by a discussion. The only exception is the map work.

Horizons Math 3
Horizons Math 3 has been dropped and I am contemplating whether to sell the teacher manuals for all three years we have, year 1-3. This was a bold move for me, I've suspected that Horizons wasn't really teaching Camille math but just leading her through the motions, she learned how to do math the Horizons way but there wasn't much understanding outside of the workbook pages. I decided to take a chance and look for a new program. We have Math on the Level right now at the end of the first quarter and I'll be deciding soon whether it is our new math program.

Times Tales by Memory Trigger Systems has been wonderful. We are using it while we are transitioning math programs.

Prima Latina
We love Prima Latina, we enjoy watching Mrs. Lowe and having a different approach for one of our subjects. Camille has always done well with memorization and since we've dropped a lot of memorization for more hands-on approaches, she excels with Prima Latina. I don't know if it's the most fun program out there but we make our own flashcards and play games with the vocabulary. Her work load for the week is:

Monday- watch DVD
Tuesday- make vocabulary flashcards (listen to CD)
Wednesday- review vocabulary, complete 1 page of exercises
Thursday- review vocabulary, complete 2nd page of exercises
Friday- none

Primary Language Lessons by Margot Davidson
I've seen Camille grow with this program at a steady rate since we started it last January. She has 26 pages of written work in her notebook, some pages have double lessons. She has written friendly letters, started descriptive writing, rewritten fables and completed plenty of copywork with grammar concepts woven in. We have expanded on the grammar concepts with Writing Aids and Grammar Tales. As we end first quarter we are on lesson 132.

Explode the Code, Book 7
We've ended the first quarter on Lesson 10, just where our spreadsheet said we would. Lesson 10 is a review lesson which is perfect to do when we start back up in two weeks. I'm not certain it is truly helping but I suppose Camille is building her vocabulary, phonetic awareness and her reading has improved greatly. Unsure about whether it is because of ETC or maturity and practice. We will finish and complete Book 8 for good measure just in case.

Poetry Memorization from The Harp & Laurel Wreath
This quarter Camille has memorized:

Bird Talk by Aileen Fisher (4 stanzas)
Merry Sunshine by Anonymous (4 stanzas)
Foreign Lands by Robert Louis Stevenson (5 stanzas)
Windy Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson (2 stanzas) *still working on

We are one week behind what I slated for each poem, Foreign Lands taking one more week than expected but I'm so proud of her. I raised the bar on the amount and she has risen to the challenge.

Tapestry of Grace Year 3 Redesign, Unit 1
We have studied the French Revolution through the War of 1812 and Simón Bolívar and learning about South America. Camille has been making president flashcards and has Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe so far. She made moccasins, a quill pen, and a collage of South American countries and flags which was supposed to be a South American map puzzle. We enjoyed learning about Lewis & Clark very much and completed an interactive paper map as well as other paper crafts to illustrate what we have learned.

Through Tapestry, we've also read many picture book fairy tales which we enjoyed with afternoon tea. We read Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, Bremen-Town Musicians, Rumpelstiltskin, and the original Grimm's Cinderella and charted the elements of a fairy tale if each tale had:

1. Special Words (Once upon a time, lived happily ever after, etc.)
2. Good character
3. Evil character
4. Royalty and/or Castle
5. Magic
6. Problem and Solution
7. If there were occurrences in 3's or 7's.

We've had a bout of colds and sore throats so we gave this up a few weeks but I'm satisfied with what we've done.

Building Critical Thinking Skills Level 1
We both enjoy this, at first Camille was doing it independently but she became stagnant in completing the work so I joined her and we're both having fun now. This week she completed 6 exercises in 30 minutes and wanted to continue.

Head to Toe Science by Jim Wiese and supplements
Not to sound like a broken record but we've had fun and learned a great deal using Head to Toe Science. We have oodles of completed projects from Easy to Make and Learn Projects: Human Body by Donald Silver and we have a completed My Body outline by Teacher Created Resources. We have one chapter to finish while during our break because there are 10 chapters and I didn't want to condense any of it. I think Camille was most impressed by the cow bone we obtained from the butcher. The experiments have been great and easy. Camille also built a double helix with our Zoob pieces, very cool.

Camille has had to write out her science vocabulary for the last three chapters and this will continue through the rest of our science studies. I am currently reading about teaching science through inquiry and keeping an inquiry-based science notebook. I feel this was an excellent start for our year.





Nature Study & Field Trips
-We've walked a local 3 mile trail 4x in the last 9 weeks and observed grasshoppers, spiders, birds, turtles, fiddler crabs, flowers and noticed the trees changing. One time Camille held a grasshopper in her hand!
- Skidaway Island State Park and identified animal tracks.
-On our milkweed plant at home, we've had milkweed bugs and monarch caterpillars.
- UGA Marine Extension Aquarium and walked the nature trail where we saw dolphins.
-Local park, we've observed and identified the various geese including Canadian, Greylag and Muscovy ducks as well as a Great Egret
-At the Savannah Ogeechee Canal the kids feed gopher tortoises, observed spiders, butterflies and mushrooms as well as learned to walk over water. We saw many different types of birds nests at the center.
-Discovered mantisflies in our backyard, observed spiders.
-Identified and observed neighborhood hawks, Canadian geese and a woodpecker.
- Identified and observed the many different butterflies that have visited our milkweed plant.
- Attended a Public Safety Day where we were able to explore many emergency vehicles and watch fire fighters use the Jaws of Life.
- Attended a Fall Festival, with petting zoo where Camille held and petted a snake and the kids learned about whelks.
- Went roller skating with a local homeschool group
- Visited a fire department and learned to escape a fire.

Drawing with Children replaced by Draw Squad
Draw Squad has been a hit! We both love it as I see Camille's drawings becoming better and better. She draws on her own so I didn't need to ask her to keep a drawing journal like Draw Squad suggests. While I love Drawing with Children, it just wasn't pick up and go which is what Draw Squad provides.



Handicrafts and Character Studies
I've pretty much dropped these, although I didn't intentionally drop needlepoint. It was a slip through the cracks, we ran out of time type thing. I'm assessing whether to make it a part of our day for the 2nd quarter, and when. Character studies have been dropped, we love the character booklets we have from Keepers of the Faith but after a few attempts they were forgotten.

Composer Study & Biography
I'm hanging my head in shame. We listened to Vivaldi occasionally but not as much as I intended to. Preparing and eating lunch while listening to a composer is great if you can remember to put the CD in the stereo and press play! By the time I would remember, lunch would be over. I don't care how easy someone wants to say reading a book for 15 minutes daily is, if you don't REMEMBER to do it...it's the hardest thing in the world. We finally read I, Vivaldi and I am so grateful to have Opal Wheeler biographies to read for the rest of the year's composers.

Independent Reading
I've had Camille read various books that aligned with out studies, including books from Tapestry deemed independent reading as well as science titles such as What Happens to a Hamburger? The one book that has made the most impact on her reading is the one she's reading right now, The End of the Beginning by Avi. She is enjoying it and although she could read the entire book in 2 days, she's reading 3 chapters a day. She'll finish it tomorrow (11/14) and then we'll start tandem reading Swiss Family Robinson during our break. She's going to read the Classic Starts version while I read the Unabridged version and then we'll discuss it with a few helps from Teaching the Classics.

Piano
Camille is enjoying her new teacher and will perform The First Noel and The Angels Heard on High at a recital December 5th. Her new teacher is not using Alfred's Basic Piano course but she has grown in many ways following his methods.

I have failed in Mom's School. I just don't have enough of me to go around and I'm okay with that although I'm constantly wanting to study and learn something on my own. I have a long list of want to's. Currently I have to learn a new math program and plan out the second quarter.

Notes for possible changes: Afternoon tea can be with a composer once a week, read one chapter a week while listening to the composer.

Week 9 Report

Life: I've lightened up a little bit this week in our lessons due to personal circumstances and life stress, it has been decided that I need to get a part-time job and the only time I can work is at night so that I can continue to homeschool.

Our church asked me to take over the youth program on Wednesday nights and although I WANT to and know that I could make a strong impact on the ministry, I have to pass in lieu of working. God, family, church. Since I'm the curricula coordinator at the church, I can still be helpful but what is really needed is an energetic, enthusiastic, fresh approach to a youth program for at-risk kids. The current volunteers are a bit burnt out and the power struggles about what to do are disheartening. I feel awful that I cannot be the answer for them because I have the energy and enthusiasm, not to mention I'm fresh-blood- a new perspective that has nobody's interests at heart but the kids. I'll continue to do what I can, who knows- maybe the new job will allow me to be there on Wednesday nights.

Math Programs: Math-U-See was not a hit here, I like it but Camille did not. We watched 5 lessons, including one about money. Camille said she didn't understand why the teacher used blocks instead of magnetic money to teach with. I enjoyed Steve Demme's humor and rapport with the students, I liked the illustration of concepts with manipulatives but to use Math-U-See, I feel I would have to add supplements for word problems.

To be honest, I think both Camille and I are accustomed to the vast amount of concepts Horizons Math presented and spoiled by the color worksheets, everything else seems too simplistic. I know the simplicity is what makes Math-U-See a strong program, we're currently seeking help for our spiral math addiction. Lol.

Actually, we're not...Math on the Level arrived yesterday and we can be both mastery and spiral as we see fit! I'm very pleased with Math on the Level, the teacher's guides illustrate the concepts in multiple ways, in color (yes, I'm spoiled), and I couldn't find a single weakness of the program where I feel the need to supplement. I will share more about Math on the Level as I become better friends with it, it is a lot of information to assimilate but I'm confident once I have, I will develop a rhythm with it, just as I have with Tapestry of Grace.

Bible, Primary Language Lessons, Building Critical Thinking Skills Book 1, and Explode the Code Book 7 have gone well this week without a hitch.

Camille's handwriting is wonderful! We've been using a Scott-Foresman D'Nealian (book 3) handwriting book 1x a week, she's to do 2 pages which I haven't scheduled in or mentioned before but using the workbook has paid off greatly!

Math this week has been Times Tales, we've been working on Part I which was shown in the video Camille made. Camille didn't believe we were doing math at all until I presented the flashcards (which I didn't tear out, I just showed her the page like in the video) and she saw the numbers. We will continue with Times Tales through next week during our break.


History: Tapestry of Grace, Year 3 Redesigned- Week 9
Due to colds this week, we have not finished Once On This Island but we're okay with that because we really enjoy the book and are happy to continue it.

This week is our final week of South America and I embarrassed myself. In the South America book that we're using there are maps to label and little stickers to put on each country to show what each country's natural resources are. I thought, 'we can photocopy these countries and make our own South American puzzle map!' Are you laughing yet? Um, Venezuela is larger than Brazil, Uruguay is larger than Chile and of course I don't realize this faux pas until poor Camille has labeled each map and we started piecing them together on our 'South America poster', which was my grand idea but poorly thought out. We just put them in the approximate place they should be and added the colored flags. It still looks great but the end product is nothing like the end product I had envisioned when we started!

I found our copy of A Picture Book of Simón Bolívar by David Adler so we were able to read that this week. There was a part in the book I had issue with...

"In March 1812 an earthquake in Caracas killed some ten thousand rebels while the Spanish forces were mostly unharmed. Many people saw this as a sign that God was fighting on the side of the Spanish king. Bolívar didn't. "If nature is against us," he said, "we shall fight it and force it to our will."

I understand that Bolívar was fighting for the good of the country but to imply that he would fight nature (or God) and force it to his will...well that didn't sit well with me. Unsure of how to address it, I left it alone and kept fighting. On one hand, Bolívar was brave and determined for a good cause but on the other hand, was he really saying that he was willing to go against God? I'm not sure myself which is why I left it alone.


Life Science: Head to Toe Science by Jim Wiese
This week we discussed DNA and the reproduction system, I'm very happy with the treatment of this subject in this book. We did our experiments and then read Gregor Mendel, The Friar Who Grew Peas which is an excellent living book.

We visited a few friends' blogs to compare their traits and whether they look like their father or mother. What a blessing it is to have friends who have many children...it really helped illustrate the differences multiple children can have in their traits with the same parents.

I find that a little hilarious, thank you for having 5-6 kids so that we can see your family as a science experiment on genetics and heredity since we don't have as many!


Music: We also finished up our informal study of Antonio Vivaldi, although we have nothing to show for it but heads full of his compositions and the reading of I, Vivaldi.

Tomorrow we will be going to a fire department with the homeschool group that I'm not a part of yet, the kids will be able to tour the firehouse and experience the smokehouse-which will teach them to find their way out of a fire safely. We're all excited although I'm a bit disappointed to not have a nature study two weeks in a row.

Next I will post a First Quarter recap of all we've learned and changed in this first quarter. It'll be a sort of progress report.

Week 8 Report

It's a little early but we've pretty much wrapped up our studies for the week. Tomorrow we're going to a skating get-together with the local homeschool group which I've decided to join. In order for Camille to participate in American Heritage Girls, we have to be members of the homeschool group, I can't say I agree with that but it'll be nice to participate in a few group field trips as we choose as well.

Explorer's, Prima Latina Primary Language Lessons, Explode the Code have all gone well this week, nothing really to report.

Poetry
Camille has finished memorizing Foreign Lands by Robert Louis Stevenson (see yesterday's post for her recitation), next up is Windy Nights. Tomorrow we will review all the poems she has memorized and start Windy Nights on Monday. I'm challenging her to memorize Windy Nights in a week since November 17-28th is our two week break.

Math
We dropped Horizons this week, I'm ordering Math on the Level to replace it. In the meantime, we're having fun playing games, doing drill with the triangle flashcards we made from Donna Young's website and Monday we'll start Times Tales. We have fun coloring them, for durability- I laminated them as well. Camille is breezing through her addition facts now.

If Math on the Level does not work out for us, I'll return it and get Math-U-See and Singapore. Either way, my eyes have been opened to the need of living math and playing more games. Possibly even a math software game...eek! Did I just say that??

Tapestry of Grace Year 3, Week 8
We continued our studies of South America and reading Once On This Island. We had a lot of fun labeling this map of South America. We played Where in the World? geography game but focused only on South America's countries and capitals. Camille can now tell you where Suriname is or Uruguay. We are watching Part II of Wild South America.


I'm taking the kids to a pottery place tomorrow to make their own replicas of South American (or Peruvian) pottery. We'll see how that goes, lol. I am looking for a new world geography game, Where in the World? had to be adapted for us today.

Draw Squad

Life Science using Head to Toe Science by Jim Wiese
This week we've been all about bones and it's been a blast! Camille had her first week of science vocabulary and she did so well!

We went to the butcher's and retrieved a cow bone, did you know they sell them as dog bones? For $1.48 we had a large bone to observe. It smelled though, I had to thaw it out and wooo-eeee stinky. Not the best thing to do right after lunch.


Camille also did three other things on bones this week. Two are projects from Easy to Make and Learn Projects: Human Body by Donald Silver and Patricia Wynne.




And to finish the report her illustration of the inside of a bone:

Week 7 Report

It has been a busy week! Dh had surgery on Tuesday which added extra stress to the week and I didn't think this week would end. A lot of books came from the library that I've wanted to look at and I've received a few books through the mail, I have reviews I want to post so that will be coming up soon. I will also be posting more about our 5th-8th grade science plans as I have had a chance to see the resources.

Explorer's Bible Study Genesis: This week we read in Genesis 6 and completed the work orally. Camille is getting better and better at finding the answers in the text and I'm feeling validated about not having her write the answers to the questions anymore.

Horizons Math 3: Going well, she completed through lesson 35 this week, right on track. We have had some comprehension problems lately, maybe I was just impatient. I explain step-by-step and she went, huh? and I struggled to find a different way to present the information. So I repeat the step-by-step instructions, sometimes I think she's looking for me to provide the answers for her so she doesn't have to do the work. Like I said, this was a stressful week- we'll start fresh next week.

I do wonder in the back of my mind if there is a better program for us than Horizons, although when I looked at other programs nothing else clicks. Math-U-See tempts me a lot because of others' reviews and the success Camille is having with Prima Latina DVDs. She really enjoys having Mrs. Lowe as a co-teacher. My nagging feeling is that Horizons is moving too quickly, that she may need more time on one concept. My instincts are usually dead-on but my fear in this one is that I've bought Horizons sets 1, 2, and now 3 and if it isn't working out for Camille- I'll have to start buying a new math program. Writing it out, it seems silly but I'm also very convicted not to switch programs unless there's a problem and I'm not convinced there's an actual problem yet.

Prima Latina: This week we learned about nouns. Confession: the prayers are not going well for us- I think the problem is that there's too much new words in the prayer to memorize and pronounce. From lessons 1-4 it was The Sanctus and in lesson 6 it's The Doxology which we know very well in English but the Latin? Glori Patri is about the only thing that is manageable. Lol.

Otherwise Camille is doing very well in Latin, she's memorized her vocabulary and doing well with the practical Latin. We've dropped French completely, I decided to wait until after Latin studies are done to pursue another language. This was a weight taken off my shoulders, now I have to decide what to do with all our French books, especially the elementary level ones.

Primary Language Lessons: Camille is blossoming and enjoying the writing assignments in PLL, this week she wrote a story about a robin coming back in the spring to build a nest and two letters between friends regarding dog-sitting. She struggles with putting her thoughts in order before she writes, she wants to write and then organize her thoughts, she has not made the connection of being able to orally narrate a story and write it the same on paper-as she writes, she changes it. I've made no changes to what she wrote.

A Robin's Story
A robin is going to go and get some food and also make a nest of twigs for it and pine straw. The robin is going to lay some eggs in seven weeks. After the eggs are hached the robin is going to get some food.

I was not sure what to do, to correct her to leave it alone and allow her to grow in this area as she practices. I decided this week to leave it alone. She was supposed to write the story from the robin's point of view and PLL even gave her a prompt to use but she chose not to use it. This is hard! Do you force a child to follow directions or allow them to be creative and go with the flow? We'll be using Writing Tales 1 next, we're Lesson 121 of 164 of PLL.

Explode the Code 7: Completed Lesson 7 this week

Camille's Poetry Notebook

Poetry: Foreign Lands by Robert Louis Stevenson is almost completely memorized! Camille needs to work on the last stanza and she will be done. A homeschooling friend's son is memorizing it alongside Camille although he already has it done. The kids are going to video themselves and share them with each other. Camille is thrilled to be doing this with J! We will move on to Windy Nights after reviewing ALL of our previously memorized poems.

Tapestry of Grace, Redesigned Year 3: This week has been a doozy. I found my enthusiasm again, South America is a refreshing change from U.S. History! We are still reading Once On This Island, which we are enjoying very much. Camille did wonderful map work this week on Ecuador, Venezuela and Columbia, colored their flags and we watched Wild South America from Netflix, we loved it. We did not get to Adoniram Judson, Camille is still reading Johnny Appleseed by Will Moses. We'll read Adoniram Judson next week and finish Johnny Appleseed before reading Ox-Cart Man.

from Easy Make & Learn Projects: Human Body by Donald Silver and Patricia Wynne

Life Science: Head to Toe Science
We learned about the muscular system this week and Camille wrote some vocabulary words and enjoyed it. Guess who now has weekly science vocabulary to accomplish? I went ahead and made vocabulary worksheets for her so that she doesn't have to write the word and the definition, as we study each day she'll write the definition of the vocabulary we covered. In reality it isn't much in a day but in one week she'll be defining up to 20 words. We'll see how it goes. My public school trained brain thinks she should be doing this while my CM side isn't quite comfortable with it yet. Here's her muscle project from this week.

Extras:
Afternoon Tea & Fairy Tale: skipped, Camille was reading Johnny Appleseed so I let this slip this week.
Draw Squad: very cool, we love it.
Needlepoint: We ran out of white yarn from the little kit, very frustrating.
Composer biography: I, Vivaldi came in this week so we'll read it next week.
Piano Lessons: Camille has started working on Christmas songs.
Field Trip: none this week due to Halloween



Independent Reading: Camille is reading The End of the Beginning by Avi and loving it.

I know it seems like we've done a lot even with the stress of dh's surgery -he had bone spurs removed and a few of his cervical vertebrate fused together and Halloween this week with it's extra activities like carving a pumpkin, I just have a hard time letting go of stuff that we could have done.


Too many times this week, I felt rushed to finish and I really dislike that feeling.

Nature Study
Oh, before I forget- for nature study this week, we observed Red-Tailed Hawks from our backyard, a few different types of butterflies (thanks to the blooming milkweed plant) and I've been keeping an eye on the mantisflies.

Danny, 20 minutes after finishing Trick or Treating. Yes, the lollipop is stuck to his forehead. Lol.

Week 6 Report

Wow, six weeks already! The picture is from Camille's first lesson in Draw Squad which is a refreshing change from the guilt I was feeling from not implementing Drawing with Children. She loves it and has been drawing every day on her own.

Explorer's Bible Study: It is official, we're doing this orally. We enjoy it better and we can focus on drawing context clues from the text than writing the answers. We're on Lesson 7 starting next Monday.

Horizons Math: Camille just completed her 2nd test of the year, so we're on Lesson 20. I need to start her with Times Tales.

Prima Latina: This week was a review week, we'll start with nouns next week.

Primary Language Lessons: We're on Lesson 116.

Explode the Code: Lesson 7 of Book 7- one week per lesson is the rate we're working at, 2 pages a day for 4 days a week.

Poetry: Camille is still working on Foreign Lands by Robert Louis Stevenson, she has the first two stanzas memorized and is working on the third. There are five stanzas total.

Tapestry of Grace, Week 6, Year 3 Redesigned: This week we read about the War of 1812, The Star Spangled Banner and we are enjoying our read aloud very much which is Once on this Island. We forgot to make James Madison a president card so we'll do that next week. Starting next week, we're studying South America for next three weeks.

Life Science: This week we studied the circulatory system and listened to our heartbeats with a stethoscope. We made a chart to make sense of blood types A, AB, B and O and who can donate blood for each other. We did not get into the details about positive and negative blood types.

Afternoon Tea- we skipped this week.
Draw Squad- went very well
Needlepoint- we skipped this week
Composer biography- skipped this week, I, Vivaldi just came in so we'll read half of it next week.

Piano lessons are going well, Camille's teacher is back from a 3 week vacation in Italy. We did not officially go on a field trip this week, the kids went to a radio station with dh while he recorded a 30 second advertisement and today (Saturday) we went to a Public Safety Day and then to a Fall Festival held at local horticulture center. Pictures will come in another post.

The American Heritage Girls group in our area is meeting Nov. 4th, so I hope to find out more and get a feel for the group then. I'm currently acquiring more information about other opportunities for the kids, tapping our local resources.

Week 5 Report

This one is jam-packed with pictures because I'm including our field trip from yesterday (Friday).

Explorer's Bible Study
Studied Genesis 4 this week. Other than the map work, we're going to do this orally. Camille has a lot of writing in her day and I'd rather discuss this anyways. It is going well, although we have had a hiccup about understanding the scripture. Camille had a hard time understanding Genesis 4:11-16 on her own. I've struggled with that, whether she should do it alone, I don't want her to. I feel like it is my job to do this with her. How I'll do both Danny and her will be whole other problem next year.

Horizons Math 3
It's time to get the coin out! I wonder if it's normal for other 3rd graders to be adding up money by writing out 25 + 10 + 10+ 5+ 5+ = 55? Camille has dawdled this week in math, even with the Nobility Record! On the days that she did, we weren't able to do something else and I gave her an extra chore to do in the afternoon.

Prima Latina
We are on the Review Lesson I for Lessons 1-5. I am very happy with how this is going although Camille is having a problem with the prayer. I am so glad I bought the DVDs, I feel like I'm learning alongside Camille instead of teaching her.

Primary Language Lessons
We are doing Primary Language Lessons every day because we will be starting Writing Tales 1 this year. We're up to Lesson 110 now and there are 164 lessons in PLL. We have 54 lessons to go which will take us 13 weeks at 4 lessons a week and that is if we don't skip any. We're not rushing, one lesson a day is fine- rushing would be 2 lessons a day plus Camille would revolt.

Explode the Code 7: Finished Lesson 5 this week.

Poetry: We reviewed all our previous memorized poems from last year and now Camille is working on Foreign Lands by Robert Louis Stevenson. We worked on illustrating it together and Camille has copied the first two stanzas. We have company now in our poetry memorization, a friend's son is memorizing the same poems as Camille and we'll videotape the kids reciting them. He already has the first stanza memorized. Camille is thrilled because she feels like she's memorizing with someone else and it's a contest. We'll see how our little experiment goes.

Tapestry of Grace, Year 3 Week 5
This week we read and learned more about Thomas Jefferson and the Supreme Court. Camille read Marshall the Courthouse Mouse on her own and she would have read A Picture Book about Thomas Jefferson but I misplaced it and I was unable to find it. It's here somewhere... She also made her own moccasins this week which was a HUGE hit. A picture of them is here. Here's her notebook page for the branches of government. I typed and printed out the text and had her piece it together, matching up the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches.

Life Science: We studied the respiratory system this week. We didn't have any additional reading but here's a project Camille did. It shows how the diaphragm expands to help us breathe since our lungs do not have any muscles.







Afternoon Tea with Fairy Tales
Camille loves Earl Grey tea and I'm enjoying Vanilla Chai, we didn't use our tea set this week, opting to just have our own mugs of our different teas. We did read two fairy tales this week from our Brothers Grimm collection, The Three Spinners and Cinderella. Camille requested Cinderella thinking it would be like the Disney version, but found out quickly it was not. We are still filling out our chart for elements in a fairy tale as we read.

Drawing With Children is being replaced with Draw Squad because we were not getting it done. I have too many involved subjects and I need this to be easy and enjoyable for both of us. We will start Draw Squad next week.

Needlepoint: Camille worked on her project this week and I think she'll finish it next week and I'll provide a picture. She will be giving it as a gift to her Sunday School teacher. It is a picture of a Bible with the words Holy Bible on it.

Composer Biography: I am condensing our Vivaldi biography and I have I, Vivaldi by Janice Shefelman on its way so we can read it before the quarter is over. I think we'll work on a timeline of Vivaldi's life and compositions. I'm grateful we have Opal Wheeler biographies to read for the rest of the composers this year. I have seriously considered dropping this from our week and just relying on Tapestry to provide the reading assignments. I'm still considering this.

Independent Reading: Camille is reading The Golden Goose by Dick King-Smith. I've been reading curriculum books. I'll say why in another post coming soon.

Other: Piano is going well, Camille's teacher returns from his 3 week vacation in Italy (so jealous) this coming week. Danny loves his Montessori preschool now and even protested Friday when I said he wasn't going because we were going on a field trip. We have quit soccer for Danny, he's just too tired and uninterested- I'm sure it would have been fine if he wasn't going to preschool but he has a full day there and the soccer was too much.

I am currently trying to figure out which organization would be best for Camille: Girl Scouts, American Heritage Girls or Roots and Shoots. I hope to have answer by the next Weekly Report. I've decided against putting the kids in organized sports at this time. Camille wants to make friends above and beyond any interest in playing a sport and it's hard to make friends when there is little social interaction.

Now for our field trip. There are so many pictures but I couldn't leave any out! It was so beautiful and we saw and experienced many things.

We went to the Savannah Ogeechee Canal and walked the trails there. Here is a picture of the many birds' nest inside the nature center there.

Outside in the butterfly garden

The one of the left is a Cloudless Sulphur butterfly, the one on the right is a Harris' Checkerspot and we also saw Zebra butterflies but weren't able to take a picture.
















I don't know if the picture on the right is the same butterfly that I somehow took a picture of it flying and landing in the same frame or not. Still an amazing photo even if it is two butterflies.

I love these flowers, so beautiful!

Now for our spider encounters of the day. Here's a Crablike Spiny Orb Weaver's web, I couldn't take a picture of the spider.

This is a Golden-Silk spider, it's web when seen in the sunlight looks golden. I finally took good spider pictures! I'm so thrilled. We have seen many of these but they will be gone come the first frost.

This is a Mabel Orchard Spider. I'm sorry the picture didn't come out but it had an irridescent orange color which caught our eye as we were walking.

Here is one I haven't identified yet. It was red, black and brown with white spots. Maybe a Argiope? I didn't have much luck with photographing it. It was different from the other spiders we've seen though.


Now for general pictures of our walk. The trail bordered the canal so there were areas that were flooded and we had to carefully try not to walk in the water which was about 30 inches deep.

Camille wanted me to take a picture of this River Birch



















And now for observing and feeding the Gopher Tortoises, the kids had so much fun! The lady on site was very kind to use and made our day by talking to me and allowing the kids to feed the tortoises.