Tolle Lege Christian Academy

Homeschooling Highlights - End of January

The last few weeks have zoomed by; and I am a bit behind on our updates, so I'll briefly recap the end of January.

The weather has been great and we have visited the zoo three times since I last wrote!  We've gone at different times of the day on each trip, and we've been able to see animals in action that we often don't see up and about when we go earlier in the day.  The lions were up and about on one trip and we got to see the black bear sipping water from his small pond and eating a small bird on the most recent trip.

We began a series of picture studies by the artist Johannes (Jan) Vermeer.  The first piece we studied this was The Milkmaid which I am able to picture below as it is in the public domain: 

We used the prints from the Ambleside Online related Yahoo Group, and then found the work online at a site where we could look at some parts of it more closely.  We also found the answer to "what is that box on the floor?" 

We've also studied The Geographer, pictured below.

DG completed two more units in Creation to Christ and continues to work diligently through her Math and English assignments. We were also fortunate to make another trip to the symphony and our local paint on plater place.  Fun times!

I will close with pictures of some of her recent work:

Science journal sketches:

The Parthenon:

Alexander the Great's Horse- Bucephalus

Poetry Painting-

 

Homeschooling Highlights: January 9-13

DG finished up Unit 19 in Creation to Christ this week.

Here are a few snapshots of her work....

History notebook page:

Draw and Write Through History, Greek soldier drawing:

Plant Life book page (Shepherd's Purse):

Poetry painting:

We ended our week with a trip to the symphony----and it was FANTASTIC!

Homeschooling Highlights: January 2-6

DG had another great week!  She is enjoying her studies very much, and I am thrilled to see her excitement over learning and completing her work!

This week she completed Unit 18 in Creation to Christ.  We are now officially over half way through the year's plans!

In history, she began reading about Ancient Greece.  Our new read aloud is Archimedes and the Door of Science.  I have read wonderful reviews of this book, and it is as good as I was hoping it would be so far!  She is reading from Streams of History: Ancient Greece independently and we are reading Old Greek Stories together.  (The last book mentioned is not scheduled in Creation to Christ.)

History narrations, timeline and map work for this unit:

In Science she finished reading Birds of the Air and completed an experiment to see how oil might affect the feathers of a duck.  (We used paper "feathers".)

She completed a beautiful sketch of a cardinal----one of my favorite birds.

 

She memorized a Robert Frost poem,

wrote a book review and completed the Unit 8 Cumulative Review in English.

She continues to work diligently through her math book! 

We both enjoyed returning to our Community Bible Study class this week.  She prepared for class over the break and into the early part of this week by completing three weeks of at home questions. 

We are working on including singing and poetry reading in our days more often as we embark upon the new year.  This week we sang "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty" several times and enjoyed various poems from Favorite Poems Old and New.

To wrap up our week, we spent part of this beautiful day at the zoo.  It was such a nice trip.  We were able to watch this fellow

make some nice mud puddles to play in.  Take a little water....

Mix it with some dirt....

Enjoy!

 

--And there you have a glimpse in to our homeschooling days for this week!  Thanks for stopping by!

Homeschooling Highlights: Starting Back Up

We have started back on our lessons.  DG is eager to start fifth grade, so that means finishing up fourth grade first.  ;-)   I think it's a sure sign of a good and long enough break when your child asks to start back a week sooner than planned.  It's such a blessing that we have the freedom to do just that!  We really enjoy our year round schedule that allows us to work and take breaks on our own/family timeline.   This time of year is sort of like our "summer" with the longest consecutive number of weeks we usually take off.  So without further ado, here's summary of the week:

This week in Creation to Christ, DG completed Unit 17.  

In history, she read about Cyrus and Darius, and reviewed the story of Esther.  (We read ahead to complete the book of Esther before the break.) She completed The Story of the Ancient World and will begin reading Streams of History:  Ancient Greece next week!  The Story of the Ancient World is the first history book of this size (over 250 pages) that she has read and completed narrations from completely independently.  We were both so excited when she finished the book!   Her timeline for the week is pictured below:

 

In Science, she continued reading Birds of the Air and enjoyed answering the unit questions.  This is one of her favorite parts of science!  She also enjoyed completing a new sketch in her book about birds.  Pictured below is her sketch from Unit 17 and her notebook/questions page (if you look closely you can see a "heart" science at the top right corner  :-)  )

 

 

In math DG has been studying angles as well as reviewing multiplication and division.  She completed her tenth quiz and is on lesson 72 in Teaching Textbooks 4.  

 

In English, DG completed Unit 7 of Bob Jones English 4 which covered reference skills, outlining and notetaking; and began Unit 8 which covers how to write a persuasive short essay in the form of a book review.

Thanks to Grand D for gift certificates to a local paint on plaster shop, DG spent an afternoon thoroughly enjoying painting these new treasures:

 

It was a very nice week!

 

And even though this post is already long and full of pictures, I want to close with a series of pictures from an assignment from Unit 16 since I never did post on that unit.  The assignment was the first from the Draw and Write Through History:  Greece and Rome book.  DG enjoyed the assignment very much, and it was a lot of fun to watch (and photograph) the stages of her drawing.

 

 

 

 

 

Homeschooling Highlights-Early November

DG has been working hard and has completed Unit 14 and half of Unit 15 in Creation to Christ.  We are hoping to finish Unit 15 and all of Unit 16 next week, then we'll take a week off for our Thanksgiving celebrations.  After that, we hope to finish Unit 17 the last week of November.....and then if all goes as planned, we'll be taking off from December 5th until after Christmas (except for math and seasonal fun)!  We'll be celebrating DG's 10th birthday, focusing on Advent and Christmas, and spending time with friends and family in December.  It is sort of like a month of "summer" for us since we school year round.  As you can imagine, we are eagerly looking forward to Thanksgiving and the weeks beyond.

But without further ado, here are some snapshots of some of DG's work:

Notebook pages from Unit 14

The art project was to simulate a "mosaic" that included a picture of a chariot.  It was such a small piece of paper, that DG didn't like the thought of having a horse half off/half on the page, so she just left him off!  :-)   Here is DG's drawing before it was cut apart and reassembled:

Her poetry painting from the unit.....This unit's poem was my favorite Frost poem----my regular blog is named from part of it, in fact.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I----
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference!

In Science, DG completely finished reading and studying from the Land Animals Zoology book and she's now moving on to Birds of the Air. She really enjoyed reading Land Animals (except for the snake pictures which were promptly covered up by sticky notes) and she is so excited about the bird book. 

 

She'll be keeping a booklet in which to sketch and do copywork as she reads through Birds of the Air, similar to the Animal Tracks book I've posted from in the past.  She had fun drawing the first two birds in the book:

She finished up the first logic book of the year, and is looking forward to beginning work in the second in the series.

 

In math DG has continued working on multiplication and is also beginning division.  In English, she is working on reference skills.  She is continuing to read The Wonderful Winter as her assigned independent reading; and in her free time reading, she is on a third book in the Redwall series.  She loves it! 

We finished reading God King:  A Story in the Days of King Hezekiah as our read together literature book, and even though she said she didn't like it that much off and on while we were reading it, at the end she said she liked it.  I thought it was a very good book all the way through.  (Though I did edit out a particularly violent scene.  The CTC guide gave warning of the content, which was good so I could scan ahead.)

I'll close with a couple of images of a prayer box project that DG made from folding paper (origami).  I love the symbols she put beside the A-C-T-S reminder in the lid of the box (a heart, an open mouth, a smiling mouth and a hand).  Her little creative addition.  :-)

Thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll update again in a week or so. 

Homeschooling Highlights-The Rest of October

Time has been flying!  Though it has been awhile since the last update, we have been busy. 
Here are some pictures from all that DG has been doing these last few weeks:

History/Geography Project--Dough map of Ancient Israel/Judah and surrounding areas:

Science/Copywork--

Nature Program with a local park naturalist--Bat fossil and skeleton:

 

Field Trips--We've been to the symphony, a professional ballet and a muscial theater production this month in addition to the nature program mentioned above.

First  Dance Company Performance of the Year-

Our annual trip to the pumpkin patch:

Costume Party--DG baked brownies to take to the annual costume party at her dance studio.  She also helped other company members to decorate, host and clean up after the party. 

Delightful, busy days!

We are hoping to get through a few more units in Creation to Christ before starting our holiday schedule for Advent and Christmas.  I can't believe it's already November!

Homeschooling Highlights - October 3-7

We had a very nice week!

DG completed Unit 11 in Creation to Christ.  We are hoping to finish half of the guide before December so we can take that month off (from HOD) and we are on track to be able to do that!

Her history notebook page:

And her poetry painting for this unit:

We completed Jashub's Journal.  Below is one of DG's pages from the study.

She was glad to be finished with this study.  She thought it would have been great to read a study that applied situations to our modern life.  When I explained to her that a mother/daughter team wrote Jashub's Journal, and encouraged her that she might be able to write like that one day---------she excitedly decided to begin story in a similar manner and make it modern------that very day.  She asked me if I could help her find Bible verses that applied to the situations she would write (of course, my sweet girl!), but so far she has written two short scenarios and has found Scripture without my help (her Bible has some topical references).  A rough draft sample of what she is working on.....

It is such a blessing to watch her learn and grow!

DG completed an Atelier art lesson on "shape" in which torn paper was used to form the shape of penguins and their surroundings.  I think her little penguins are so cute-----one jumping in the air, one sliding into the water and one riding the waves!

DG finished the first three books in Kingdom Keeper's series this week! She reminds me of someone I know who used to read like that when she was younger.....

We also spent a couple of hours at the zoo this week.  The weather is slowly getting to where we can enjoy being out for long periods of time.  We are looking forward to going back again soon and staying longer.   DG had fun taking lots of pictures!  (So did I.)

 

Homeschooling Highlights - September 19-30

A glance at what DG has been up to in recent days.....

 

Completing Unit 10 of Creation to Christ

I thought I'd type out her narrations from her notebook page this week since there is a discussion going on about written narration on one of my favorite CM forums, and I know the picture is sometimes hard to read.  Though one assignment each week is to copy from her reading, she sometimes elects to do narration instead, which is okay with me!

She is reading The Story of the Ancient World independently and then completing short writing selections over portions she reads.

The Philistines were fighting the Israelites.  David's brothers joined in.  David often went down to bring food.  One day he went and saw a giant come out of the Philistine army and challenge any Israelite man to a single combat.  But all the Israelites shuddered in fear.  David said, "Let me go fight this man!"  So he went with just a sling and a stone.  He swung his first shot and knocked him down.

******

Saul was searching for David in vain for awhile, when he finally stopped at a cave and fell asleep.  Little did he know, David was in the cave also, only a few feet away.  So David cut off a piece of Saul's robe and kept it.  When Saul arose, he went outside.  Suddenly, David appeared at the doorway holding the piece of Saul's robe.  Saul was stunned by David's generosity, and stopped pursuing him for awhile.

 

Crocheting- She finished three coasters and a scarf.

Sewing- She completed the pet blanket, and it is being enjoyed by her little dog already!

 

Painting- We went to a paint on plaster store the other day and she completed this project:

 

Dance- Four days of dance this week!  The first company performance for the year is coming up soon and the dancers are working really hard.  DG is excited!

Homeschooling Highlights-September 12-16

Another great week has come to an end!  DG took so much enjoyment in getting up and started on her work independently this week, and in deciding how she would use her free time later in the day.  We had a bit more free time than usual, and it was very nice to be at a slower pace than our normal for a few days.

DG has become "hooked" on latch hook!  We spent part of one afternoon listening to Vivaldi's Four Seasons and crafting-----she on her latch hook project, and me on my first soon to be finished crocheted baby blanket.

DG also started a Sew Teach Me sewing project-----a pet blanket.  She measured out her seam allowance with a sewing gauge, marked off her seams, and sewed two fabrics together for the first round.  She will sew another round and add fringe soon, so we'll post the finished project next week.  In the meantime, here she is sewing away!

 

We completed a delightful nature study of our milkweed plants and all the creatures that are enjoying them, and enjoyed being able to work outside one day as well.  (We are both looking forward to more days like that!)  Here are a couple of other pictures DG took while we were outside:

And a picture taken from the inside as she watched birds at our feeders-----until this furry little guy came along:

 

DG and her Daddy have enjoyed playing No Stress Chess over the years-----and she is so excited that they have begun playing regular chess together too!

And to wrap up for the week, I'll close with some snapshots of some of her written work.

History timeline, copywork and narration:

 

From Jashub's Journal:

 

Some multiplication:

Logic:

Grammar:

 

From the animal tracks book she adds to periodically in science:

Science questions:

 

 

 

 

Milkweed Nature Study

Inspired by the Outdoor Hour Challenge September newsletter and the beautiful milkweed growing in our yard, we conducted our first nature study of the new school year a few days ago.    Our milkweed is getting a lot of action right now!

DG using her new camera to record information

Some type of insect we have yet to identify.  I'm wondering if it is some sort of bee.  We are going to try to study the differences between bees and other insects that mimic bees.

Taking flight

What looks to be a carpenter bee----I'm hoping the nest is far from the house!  (Photo by DG)

And although this little guy (some type of green bee) was enjoying coreopsis instead of milkweed, he was nearby so we wanted to share this picture too:

You can see the pollen he's loading up!

Milkweed bug  (Photo by DG)

We broke off a small section of the milkweed so we could see the "milk", but it was so small that none of our pictures turned out well.

Pictures taken the day before:

The first monarch spotted this year

DG's notebook page  (Thank you, Barb!)