Our Homeschool Week

We completed our 7th week of school this week and I have to say it was one of the most productive weeks we have ever had.  We took the week off last week since we were half way through our semester to clean house and so that I could can our tomatoes and other vegetables before it froze.

Maybe the break was just what we needed to give us the energy to accomplish what we did this week.  We have made a curriculum switch this year.  Because I am having a baby in March I felt like I needed something that spelled it all out for me and the kids a little more this year.  I decided to give Sonlight a try because they are very literature rich and seem to mesh well with the Charlotte Mason approach to education.  We have been very happy with the move so far.

I. Mac and G. Diddy are working together doing Core 1+2 which is a one year condensed introduction to world history.  It has been fun working together with the boys and we have been learning a lot together.  Here is some of what we learned about this week.

History: We read about the Mycenaeans, the Trojan War, and about the Canaanites and Philistines.  The boys loved the story of the Trojan horse.  The book talked about how no one is certain whether the story is fact or fiction.  I. Mac was so interested to know that he said he couldn't wait to get to Heaven so he could ask Heavenly Father if it really happened or not. . .

Geography: Our focus this week was on Southern Europe.  I. Mac particularly is getting really good at locating different countries on the map.  We studied specifically about Albania, Bulgaria, and Greece.  It is sad to realize how little I know.  The nice thing is that through homeschooling I am gradually filling in the gaps in my own education.  I didn't know that Albania and Bulgaria were communist countries from the 40's until the 90's.  It is always interesting to note that when a country becomes communist, one of the first things they do is outlaw religion.  It also baffles me that there are so many countries who have tried the communist/socialist "experiment" throughout history and in every case it has ended in complete failure.  The majority of the citizens are reduced to abject poverty and a few elite live in luxury.  Why is America so anxious to give away our freedoms and try this same failed system again?  It's chilling to think about.

Literature:  We read a couple of Aesop's Fables this week.  Our favorite was probably "The Travelers and The Purse".  We also read two poems by Robert Louis Stevenson.  He is one of our favorite poets.  We finished reading Ginger Pye this week.  This was deffinately a favorite.  The boys fell in love with Jerry and Rachel and Uncle Bennie and were anxious for the safe return of Ginger.  It was one of those books that we were sad to see end.

Independent Reading:  G. Diddy and I. Mac have both been working on lessons in The Writing Road to Reading, using Teaching Reading at Home as a guide for their spelling and reading instruction.  For those of you who don't know, I. Mac is dyslexic and has struggled so much with learning to read.  It has been hard for him, but we just switched to WRtR this year and he seems to be improving in leaps and bounds.  They finished List H this week.  I. Mac began reading The Matchlock Gun for his "Free Reading"  and G. Diddy is reading The Big Balloon Race.  The fact that I. Mac is reading a book like this is proof that his reading is improving dramatically.  I think he is really feeling good about his progress too.

H. Man is doing Core 6 this year.  It is the first year of a two year study of world history.  It has been nice, because so far he and his brothers have been studying the same time period.  Here is some of what he accomplished this week.

History: He study about Ancient Greece, their alphabet, the olympics, their Gods, and about life in Athens vs. Sparta.  Athens and Sparta interested him most.  He decided he definitely would not have wanted to live in Sparta and started a new game of Civilization where he was the city of Athens.  He is also reading an Historical Fiction called Theras and His Town, about an Athenian boy who is taken to Sparta after his father is lost at war and has to adjust to life as a Spartan.

Current Events:   I have started having him read a news magazine with the intent of having him do a weekly report on something of local, national, or international significance.  The problem was that too much of it wasn't making sense to him because there were so many terms he didn't recognize.  We are a politically active family and have many discussions about government and politics, and H. Man is a very bright boy, so I assumed he just knew the things we knew.  But we finally picked an article to read and discuss together, and I had to explain things like ACLU, NRA, McCain-Feingold, Labor Unions, etc.  Even if no reports are written and all we do is read and discuss an article each week, I can tell this will be a very fruitful endeavor.

Literature:  H. Man and I are reading together a couple of pages of poetry each day from Favorite Poems Old and New.  We are also reading God King, which is about a young Egyptian Pharaoh who has to escape from Egypt because there are people in his government trying to kill him.  This is during the Kushite Dynasty when the Assyrians are at the hight of their power and are taking over all of the surrounding countries.  It has been a fascinating read.  This is one aspect that I really like about Sonlight. Even though H. Man could easily be reading these books on his own, they schedule Read-Alouds so we have the chance to read and discuss things together.

Math:  He did four lessons in Saxon 7/6.  He does these mostly independently with the D.I.V.E. cd's.

Latin: We are two weeks behind in Latin, so we completed lesson 5 this week.

Writing: He did two assignments in Writing Strands this week.  Writing has always been the one subject  H. Man has resisted, but he successfully completed a creative paragraph this week, and although their was some frustration to begin with, I think he felt a sense of accomplishment once he was finished.

Together as a family, we continue to do our "School Opener"  which consists of reading from the Book of Mormon (we read what is being studied in the LDS seminary for the year), memory work (we are following this memorization program this year and are loving it), and a family read aloud, which right now is The Secret Garden.  Our family read alouds, continue to be one of my favorite aspects of homeschooling.  I think it is the boys' too, because they are constantly trying to make "deals" with me, such as they won't do any schoolwork unless I read another chapter, and other creative attempts to lengthen our time spent reading together.  We also finally got out together on a Nature Walk.  Although I realized yesterday that we forgot to do science this week, it felt good to get as much accomplished as we did.  Now if only all weeks could run as smoothly as this one. . .