Tolle Lege Christian Academy

Homeschooling Highlights--In the Home Stretch

DG finished her Teaching Textbooks 4 (math) today!  After today we have 10 more days of "fourth grade" and then we are having a two week mother-daughter camp that we are both looking forward to.  ("Camp" at home.....I'm busy planning fun things for us to do together!)  Our sweet girl is already looking forward to starting 5th grade----and we've scheduled that first day for June 1st!  It will be here before we know it!

Looking ahead to June and July, DG will actually be quite busy with a discipleship camp at church, her dance recital near the end of June,  a summer dance intensive/camp that she will participate in, and dance camp for younger girls that she will be helping out with again this year.  But we will start our new studies and continue on with some that will carry over from our current year (like Florida history).

Here are a few pictures from recent days---we visited family and went to a marine lab/aquarium and we also took a trip to our local art museum where we got to see some of my favorite type of art---impressionism!  The museum has a beautiful garden area (and pictures were not allowed in the impressionism exhibit) so the flower pictures are from the museum trip.

And a few shots of some of her recent work (she REALLY enjoyed designing her own notebook page for the first chapter from Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day!)  She is also really enjoying reading about the Timucua Indians.

Beautiful art projects that DG completed recently---the frog is so cute!  I had fun making one too.

Colorful Light Ray Cross art project from Housing a Forest

Woven Eye Frog  art project from That Artist Woman

Homeschooling Highlights-February and March

Well, this post is more like a highlights of the highlights post since it spans two months....Time has been flying and we've been busy!

DG completed about five units in Creation to Christ since the last update.....and we have pretty much decided to stop with Creation to Christ there----just short of the sections of Jesus's life and ministry. Since we have been involved in an indepth study of Luke this year, we have been studying His life and ministry all throughout the year.

We are going to finish our year up with a study of our state's history and also begin a science study of Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day.   Some of this may carry over into "next year" but that's okay!

DG has eight more math lessons and two math quizzes until she is finished with Teaching Textbooks 4 and then we'll be ready to start Teaching Textbooks 5!

She read seventeen books in her free reading time in February and March----and has been eagerly awaiting the release of Kingdom Keepers V (which has been ordered, shhhh....it's a surprise though)!

This is the time of year we like to spend outside more often and inevitably go on more field trips, so it seems.  We recently we to the local science and history museum together and also on a tour of our local newspaper and a federal reserve bank with a small group.  Each of these trips was excellent!  I think we enjoyed the newspaper tour and the museum the most. 

Here are a few pictures from the museum:

We watched this little guy swim around and eat for awhile.

 

We played with this neat magnet/liquid combination exhibit (along with lots of other physical science stations).

 

DG had fun doing a new to us scavenger hunt through one of the museum's rooms.

 

We've also been doing more art projects (thanks to Art Projects for Kids , Deep Space Sparkle and That Artist Woman):

Warm/Cool Color Hands

Line Drawing/Patterns

Textured Watercolor

Back to School Project

She has really enjoyed the projects!

That's it for now.....hope to be back before too many more weeks go by with another update.

 

 

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: 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.

 

 

 

 

 

Weekly Review- August14-26

I never quite finished my post from last week, so I'm posting what we've been up to for the past two weeks today.  DG completed Unit 6 in Creation to Christ over the two weeks as we had several outside activities in which she also participated. 

In history, she is reading about Ancient Egypt in The Story of the Ancient World.  We had a few readers on Egypt that she enjoyed reading.  Even though they are easier readers, she (we) learned a lot from looking at the beautiful photographs and diagrams.  The Nile River has excellent photographs of the region.  She also read Egyptians and Tut's Mummy Lost and Found.

DG continues to enjoy Boy of the Pyramids and she is also continuing to read Little Miriam of Galilee.

In geography, DG worked on adding to the map of Turkey she began earlier in the year.  We want to try the Turkish Delight recipe in A Child's Geography (Vol. 2), but need to get a few supplies and ingredients first.

In Land Animals of the Sixth Day, she has been reading about primates.  The science experiment for the week was to see if/why depth perception is important, and DG had a good time seeing how close she could come to estimating distance of various objects.

Last week DG went to her sewing class where she finished up her first project----a bandana shirt.  She has her homework project (a second one) pinned and ready to sew.  She mastered the chain stitch using finger crochet, and is working on mastering the chain stitch on the crochet hook.  She has it down, and will continue to practice so her tension is more uniform.   She is excited at the thought of being able to make gifts for others!

Last week DG also went to another painting class with friends, and they all seemed to have a wonderful time.  She certainly did!  For now her cute owl is watching us from his piano perch, but we'll probably find a home for him in her room or our sewing/art room soon.

I think her painting to accompany Unit 6's poem, "Firelfies in the Garden" is lovely too.  It is going to be so neat to see all of her poetry paintings bound into a book at the end of the year!

Weekly Review-August 8-12

We've had a good and busy week.  DG finished up Unit 5 of Creation to Christ this week. 

Highlights from Literature studies:

DG was SO glad that we finished reading The Golden Bull.  Overall, she did not enjoy this book because she thought it was too sad.  It started off sad and even though the ending was "happy", it wasn't enough so to leave a favorable thought about it for her.  However, we learned a lot about Ancient Mesopotamia through reading it, and I think it was an excellent selection for that time period.

I'm happy to report that after one chapter of Boy of the Pyramids she was asking for another!  Perhaps she will enjoy this book much more.  (It's very good-----I've already read it.)

Since we did not complete all of Preparing Hearts for His Glory last year, I have decided to have DG read some of those books for her independent reading time this year, and she is currently reading Little Miriam of Galilee.

DG really enjoys the poetry painting work!  Below is a picture of Unit 5's rocks painting followed by her completed field painting from Unit 4.  I am also showing a close up of each because she really enjoyed adding the details to each of these.   We added "sand" to the first picture by using a toothbrush to flick on paint.

She has been enjoying painting in her free time too, and she has completed several pieces.  Those below have been done with watercolor pencils or crayons and water.

Last week DG was able to attend the first meeting of the Jr. Homemaker's Club that another homeschool mom is leading.  The girls were taught how to thread a sewing machine, make a bobbin, and sew basic stitches.  DG was eager to practice more at home and made two doll pillows and a blanket that she gave to her cousin for her dolls.  (Kit helped model before they were given away.)

The girls also learned how to do a finger chain stitch to prepare for beginning crochet.  DG has made lots of chains this week!  I have tried to teach myself how to crochet several times, but have never stuck with it.  So I am determined to learn again now to be able to help her; and I have (I think) successfully mastered the basic chain stitch and single crochet. DG wanted to start practicing a chain stitch with a hook, so I introduced it to her yesterday.   She did a great job completing a few stitches before time snuck up on us and we had to rush out the door for her dance company rehearsal!

Today we went on a field trip to a sea turtle center/hospital.  It was so much fun!  I'll close with a few pictures from the trip.

 

Fourth Grade- Week in Review-4-Part 1

Since I have been titling each week in review post by the unit number completed in Heart of Dakota's Creation to Christ, and we are only half way through that unit so far, this post will be in two parts.

We've had a great week, though we are not quite finished with our unit work.   That aside, we have been able to spend a couple of afternoons swimming since this was a break week from DG's dance schedule.  And we were able to spend one morning at a painting class with friends, followed by lunch and a trip to the bookstore.  (All the girls LOVE to read!)

DG's finished painting:

Last week much of our "off" week was spent at dance.  DG's studio had their recital----and it was beautiful!  She had so much fun!  The production was "Noah's Ark" and DG was in The Vineyard dance, The Flood dance, The Rainbow dance, and the finale dance.

And as a special treat for DG, her father participated in the recital this year too.  He was part of a group of men that fought just before the flood scene.

Next week, DG spends four days at her studio's dance camp as a teacher's helper for the younger girls.  She is so excited about that as well!  We'll finish up our CTC unit between now and the end of next week, and I'll be back with pictures of her unit work.

Until then.....take care!

 

What We've Been Up To

I don't know how the days and weeks pass so quickly, but they do!

We have been enjoying much of our new year and will be entering phase two soon!  We'll be adding in a few more subjects on a regular basis and also ending our summer co-op.

So what have we been up to?

We've met during the summer with some other families, and it has been a nice!  We have completed nature study, drawing lessons, picture study. poetry reading and narration practice together.  We studied works of Henri Matisse and used Drawing with Children for art lessons.

Here is one of JB's drawings and watercolor inspired by the drawing lesson too:

Some other things to note:

JB has completed her first nine chapters of math.  She is doing GREAT!  We are using Math U See Beta right now and anticipate starting Delta this year.  We'll see  She is also working some from Math Mammoth (time, money, fractions, geometry) and completing Daily Math too.  (Last year we used Evan Moor's Daily Math, this year, so far, I've been making problems for review.)

She also completed her first current events report page.  I thought we'd use God's World News this year to practice writing short current events reports based on the articles.  I got the idea when thinking about how Ambleside Online incorporates current events reading for the older students.  She enjoyed writing her first two reports.

We've been reading from various books including Meet Christopher Columbus, Christopher Columbus, Understood Betsy, One Small Square:  Arctic Tundra, A Child's History of the World and Grandpa's Box.  JB is currently reading Treasure Island on her own and she is REALLY enjoying it!  (It's so exciting to listen to her talk about enjoying books.)

That's just a small sampling of what we've been up to!  Stay tuned for more....  :-)

Weekly Report-October 16

Here's this week's wrap up!  :-)

For our World History studies, we have been listening to Story of the World Volume 2 while we travel to violin lessons and as we travel to field trips and such.  We are up to Chapter 8, The Great Dynasties of China.  We had some good discussions about the spread of religion as went through the chapters on India.

For our American History studies, we finished up reading about the beginning of European exploration of the "New World".  We have been reading selections from This Country of Ours and America First; and we also read The Discovery of the Americas.

In Math, we finished up chapter 9 in Math U See, and JB started working in her "October Problem Solving" book.  I am going to try to add more variety into our math studies as JB continues to cement all of the basic facts.  She finished up week 9 in her Daily Math book.

 

 

 

In Language Arts we are focusing on nouns and have begun making notebook pages.  We started a grammar lapbook last year, but we are reviewing with notebook pages as we read through the Ruth Heller books.  This week we read Merry-Go-Round:  A Book About Nouns.

 

 

We started two new read alouds: Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Ben and Me:  An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin by His Good Mouse Amos by Robert Lawson.  JB is currently reading Little House on Rocky Ridge by Roger Lea McBride on her own  (She loves all things "Little House"). 

We are going to begin to focus on some of my favorite picture book authors and this week we started reading books by Patricia Polacco.  We read and enjoyed Babushka's Doll and When Lightning Comes in a Jar.

I am also excited to report that JB did an oral narration of a chapter from Fifty Famous People without one bit of hesitation!

JB has been doing a lot of writing in her free time lately.  She is working on one book called Fairyland and another called Miriam Marigold.  She has also taken great delight in starting a journal/diary for herself and has made several entries this week.  Here is an excerpt from Fairyland.

 

JB also finished an art project inspired by a post at Art Projects for Kids.  She really enjoyed the process of using the tissue paper to stain the paper---though some of our tissue paper didn't really bleed like it was supposed to!  I'll have to see if I can find another brand for future use.

 

She continues to enjoy dance and violin lessons and is learning her second variation of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on the violin. 

And there you have a sampling of what we've been up to this week! 
:-)

JB's Most Recent Art Piece

JB completed an art lesson last week following an Atelier video.
It was modeled after Eric Carle's style and shows the life cycle of a butterfly.  Here are a few close ups from her finished work.

Almost Wordless Wednesday

 

JB's favorite is the last one.  I love them all.  :-)
She is enjoying her new book.

JB Digs for Clues

We kicked off our study of ancient history with an archaeological dig, complete with "Ancient Egyptian artifacts".

   

 

 

 

She had a great time with this kit, but I did have to volunteer a little muscle and digging time.  :-)  There is an informational booklet that came with the kit and there is space inside for the young archaeologist to record descriptions and drawings of each artifact.  That feature is pretty neat.  We are reading on the artifacts together so I can provide a little extra momma-commentary, and we started talking about Moses and Joseph in relation to the Egyptians very briefly.  

Now to read Archaeologists Dig for Clues!  (How is it that a two week library loan period can come and go without a finished reading of a book?  We started it, but did not finish it completely......but we WILL!  :-)  )

Some other projects JB completed recently:

A new Atelier art lesson on drawing clowns (JB's clown is on stilts :-)  ),

and the first section of our First Language Lessonslapbook. 

 

 

A friend of mine and her daughter have been adding to a lapbook as they have gone through First Language Lessons 1/2, and we are borrowing some of their ideas.   I think it is such a great idea to complete a lapbook alongside the book lessons (since JB likes lapbooks  :-) )  and that it will be a fun way to review the parts of speech and other topics that we will cover.  In fact, I think that we will most likely combine some of the lessons and skip some of the review in the book and will instead review by sharing the lapbook with others and looking over it again ourselves.  I'll post more pages as we go this year. 

Until next time........

Art Work

I am going to start a new photo album (which will  soon appear in the side bar of the blog) to display pictures of JB's art work this year.  She has really been enjoying using drawing books that show step by step directions of how to draw certain things and these are two of her recent pictures.

She drew roots going down from the apple tree to get water.

I love the way she draws faces and smiles!  (The rainbow is a sticker.)

The colors are not coming through nearly as bright and crisp as they are on paper.  I can attest to the advice given in many art books......high quality art supplies make a difference.  JB has her own art box that we are adding to over time and she now has her very own small set of PrismaColor colored pencils which are so much easier to use than the pencils we have used in the past and the colors are excellent.  (I have used these colored pencils in my own art projects, but these drawings are really the first JB has done using them.)

All of these drawings were done with the use of Watch Me Draw:  Things Girls Love.  (Of course she said, "Mom, do girls love bees?" as soon as she saw the bee page.  LOL  :-)   She's not too sure about even liking most insects.  :-)  She IS really enjoying this book.