Oh dear, I was just remembering my New Year's Resolutions. It shouldn't be too difficult to dig that post up since there are probably only a handful of posts this year! I've failed miserably in the regularly blogging department!! I have photos on my camera with my kids still in shorts. Ack!

Just a quick check-in while I have a few minutes. Things are going well here. Michael started Grad School a month or two ago, and it's going well. Someone came up to me a few weeks ago and said, "I've finally figured out how you do everything. You just don't sleep, right?" I laughed and said, "Something like that!" It might not be totally true for me, but it's pretty darn close for my husband.

Anyhow, we've upped the healthy eating in this house, as per one of my New Year's Resolutions, and in our constant efforts to live the healthiest lives we can with Michael's Chron's disease. We are more or less following the eating guidelines in The Maker's Diet. Fascinating read! I highly recommend it. The author, Jordan Rubin, almost died from a severe case of Chron's disease, but saved his own life by following this traditional diet. I read it many years ago but recently read it as a refresher.

The craft front is going slowly, but I'm enjoying the few crafts I've made. I'm working on crocheting up a storm for Christmas, and I am happy to say I've mastered the art of crocheting while reading aloud to the children! I'm pretty happy with this accomplishment! It gives me the ability to stay on top of our homeschool read alouds and still get my craftiness in! Yay for multi-tasking!

And finally, the little cherubs are fantastic. Our sweet baby John-Paul is ten months old, and took his very first steps this week! Sigh. Marianna is flying through school work, and a couple weeks away from the next grade level in some subjects. She is an amazing reader. During our afternoon quiet time, she often reads books to the other kiddos. I love it. They love it. Charlotte is wonderful. She's doing a great job with her preschool work, and is sprouting up like a weed! She is happy to announce her hair is finally growing. And finally, David is great. He's finishing up his second season of soccer, and has gotten better and better with each game and practice he goes to. He is in our backyard daily practicing! He *loves* soccer, like his daddy!

School is great. This week, we'll begin Heidi, work on our peguin math facts and worksheets, read about Frederic Chopin and Mary Cassatt, work on Christmas crafts, read some Thanksgiving books, write up reports and draw pictures of Little House in the Big Woods, continue some work on ancient history, sprout some beans for science, and lots of fun stuff like that.

I'm off to cook dinner, just wanted to put up a quick update! Hopefully, I'll get around to posting some pictures soon. Hope you're all enjoying this lovely fall season.

So that's it in a nutshell.

It's that time again!!



What is this, you may ask? A very simple, very easy to make, no-sew baby toy.



I decided to combine the idea of NO SEW FLEECE BLANKETS  with the BABY TAG BLANKET, and this is what I came up with for our church fair. I took two piece of coordinating fleece and cut matching squares. I then cut the edges in strips, like you would for a no-sew blanket. I cut four square corners (easier to tie that way). Then, I knotted the strips, stuffed with polyfill, and stuffed a piece of cellophane under the top layer of fleece. That way it makes it nice and crinkly, and babies love it!

My mother-in-law made a little yellow one just like it, and embroidered a lion's face on the front, so the tied fringes look like a lion's mane. So cute!

So, I've gotten a lot of questions about our curriculum. So here it is! The first part is what I submitted to the school department. The second is what a typical day looks like.

Our curriculum is based on Tanglewood Homeschool Curriculum, with some modifications.

HISTORY- The Ancient World

Spine text: Our Young Folks' Josephus

Modern Rhymes...Egypt

Modern Rhymes...Greece

Modern Rhymes...Rome

Book of the Centuries

Pompeii... Buried Alive!

The Twelve Labors of Hercules

The Trojan Horse            

Aladdin & Other Favorite Stories

Aesop's Fables

Pharaohs and Pyramids

Tut's Mummy Lost and Found

The Great Wall of China

Adventures of the Greek Heroes

The Token Gift

Gilgamesh the King

Science in Ancient Rome

   

                                 

LITERATURE

Here are some of the books we will be reading out loud.   

                 

The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

Bambi

The Boxcar Children

Heidi

The Cricket in Times Square

The Five Chinese Brothers          

The Raggedy Ann Stories

The Littles

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

The Velveteen Rabbit

Follow My Leader

Mr. Popper's Penguins

Five Children & It

Sarah, Plain and Tall

Skylark

Caleb's Story

The Sign of the Beaver

 

 SCIENCE & NATURE

   

I Wonder Why I Blink and other questions

I Wonder Why Trees have Leaves and other questions

Bones

 

 LANGUAGE ARTS

In addition to reading a wide variety of early readers and primers, we will be using the following materials:   

Merrill/Spectrum Phonics Skilltext B

Language Practice 1

Spectrum Speller1

 Additional reading program: “Really Reading! Learning to Read the Tanglewood Way”

 

MATHEMATICS

MCP Mathematics A 

We've been using this for a while, and I'm not thrilled. I'm thinking of switching to Singapore math, but I haven't decided yet.

ART & MUSIC

We will be studying six composers and six artists total. We will study one artist and one composer during each six-week module. The composers we will be studying are Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Stravinsky, Strauss and Tchaikovsky.

The artists we will be studying are John James Audubon, Claude Monet, Mary Cassatt, Christian Riese Lassen, Maxfield Parrish, P. Buckley Moss

We will be studying music basics with a variety of materials, games, and resources.

We will also be completing a wide variety of art projects incorporating watercoloring, drawing, beading, handwork, textiles, etc.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So what does a typical week look like?

I have the Tanglewood corebook that maps out the week ahead. I loooove the Tanglewood corebook! This week, we eased into a full schedule again, and within a few weeks we'll be back at full swing.

Here is a typical day:

Grammar and Phonics:

phonics pages 140-141, Really Reading lesson 3 "long a"

Reading:

narration

early readers

Literature:

continue Trumpet of the Swan.

narration

History:

Josephus chapter 10

narration

geography: look at the globe and find Egypt

complete a "Book of the Century" page

Math:

subtraction flashcards

pages 60-62

Science: 

Begin "Keeper of the Animals" lesson one

Complete activity

(We aim for a weekly nature walk.)

Spelling:

lesson 10

Weekly subjects and checklists: (these are the subjects we do weekly, not necessarily daily)

checklist:

anthem and pledge

nature walk

unstructured play: outdoors, indoors

Art: watercoloring, read Katie Meets the Impressionists and a few books on Monet.

Music: musical instrument game; lesson 1 "what is a beat"; listen to Mozart. Begin Mozart's biography.

Habit of the week: practice responding to greetings politely.

Theology for the week: read about St. Kateri Tekawith; lesson 10, "Heaven."

Geography: Do the puzzle map of the USA. (I'm probably going to add a first grade maps and charts book to this.)

Health and Safety: discuss nutrition and review reading basic food labels.

Poem of the Week: "Little Land" by R.L. Stevenson (read daily and memorize).

Copywork of the week: practice writing first and last names neatly.

extracurricular activities: (this is what we really did this week, but will vary based on weather and the like) swimming, playground, bowling, soccer, library, computer games, playing "Memory" and "Go Fish."

Anyhow, it might sound like a lot. But it really isn't piles and piles of work. We try to incorporate our lessons and plans all day, throughout the day, with whatever we're doing. We listen to audiobooks and classical music in the car. We usually begin the day with some seatwork, maybe an hour or two at most. This is when we'll do our math, phonics, and read alouds. Then throughout the day, I'll read various lessons, we'll work on our crafts, we'll get outside for some activities, we'll play our games. So it's spread throughout the day. We might read our poems at lunch, and review our habit of the week at breakfast. We have a daily quiet time in the afternoon where we rest and often listen to audiobooks, or I read our literature. It's really very enjoyable, and very flexible. This curriculum is, hands down, my absolute favorite! But it's not set in stone. I add and subtract as I see fit, and wiggle things around until I'm happy. I'm really looking forward to the year ahead!