Less Traveled By ~ Homeschool Edition

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 - 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!

Narration

One of my goals for this year is to have JB narrate (Charlotte Mason (CM) style) from at least one subject each day.  For some reason, she does not seem to enjoy narrating orally.  However, she asked if she could do a written narration for one exercise this week (a narration of the first chapter of The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse by Thornton Burgess), and it was so nice!  Much more expressive and detailed than the verbal narrations that she has done.  :-)  Being the proud mamma, I just thought I'd share.  I'm going to type it up exactly as she wrote it----spelling, capitalization and punctuation are hers.  :-)  The only thing I've changed is typing JB where she actually wrote her first and last name.  :-)

Danny Meadow Mouse is Worried
Narrated by JB age 7

Danny Meadow Mouse was sitting on his doorstep thinking and thinking.  But of course he was only thinking because he was worried.  He was worried because his tail was so short!  The reason he was worrieing about that was becasue---well nobody knows not even Danny himself.  But I can tell you somthing.  When he had met his cousin Whitefoot the day before Danny saw how elegantly he was dressed.  And Danny thought the most wonderful thing about him was his long slim tail.  And since then he was jealous about that long tail couisn Whitefoot had and the short tail he had himself.

At the bottom of her composition she drew a quick sketch of Danny. 

Since this chapter and narration was a part of her Classical Writing Primer (Spring) work, she has already asked when she can do another from that book.  :-)  We'll continue to work on verbal narrations, but I will also allow her to write anything by request (though this is not a requirement of CM at her age). 

The Turtle and the Bunny

I thought I'd share a recent narration of JB's.  You might recognize the source,  though she did ask if she could add some of her own original ideas as she was retelling the story.  I think she did a wonderful job!

The Turtle and the Bunny

One day a rabbit teased a turtle.  The turtle said, "No matter how short my legs are or how slowly I walk, I could beat you in a race."   The rabbit said, "Okay, but we will need someone to declare who is the winner."

"How about we can ask the fox," said the turtle.  So they asked the fox and he said, "Ready, Set, Go!"

They all started off except for the turtle.  The turtle walked slowly and steady. 

But the bunny, far ahead and out of sight, was leaping and bounding all down the lane toward the finish line.  Then the bunny looked behind him and couldn't see the turtle.  So he thought to himself, "Maybe if I rested I could still win the race."  So he stopped by a willow tree in Mrs. Parson's yard.  So he laid down under the little willow tree and started snoozing.

After awhile the turtle came wobbling up toward the finish line.

In the rabbit's dream he was under an apple tree reading a book when an apple fell on his head.  Suddenly a willow branch fell on his head and he woke up!  Far off in the distance he could see the turtle heading for the finish line.

He jumped up and started racing to the finish line.  At that moment when he got to the finish line, the turtle crossed the finish line and won the race. 

"But I can run faster," said the rabbit, disappointed.

"Indeed you do," said the fox.  "But the turtle won the race this time."

So slowly going home the rabbit thought to himself, "If I had not stopped to take a nap, I could have won that race!"

The End