Homeschool Update: February 2023

Group Activities

We continued working on memorizing Psalm 133 in Latin using these memory cards from Learn Church Latin.

Our read-alouds were: The Winged Watchman by Hilda van Stockum, The Time Garden by Edward Eager, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, and Bread and Butter Indian by Anne Colver. 

We continued reading about sculpture in A Child's History of Art and watched related SmartHistory videos.

We returned to reading The Catholic Treasure Box and finished Volumes 16 and 17. 

Our February poetry collection was Poetry for Young People: Robert Browning.

On Ash Wednesday, we began our daily Lenten Scripture readings. They are the readings that correspond to ornaments on the Jesus tree, but we're not doing the tree this year. The girls each have a path from Catholic Icing to color and track the days of Lent. Also on Ash Wednesday, we prayed the Daily Stations of the Cross that I picked up at Mass. We're also singing Ave Regina Caelorum and Stabat Mater Dolorosa every day and watching the daily Lenten reflections from Brother Francis. 

Religion 

C. continues to memorize The New Saint Joseph First Communion Catechism.  

History 

M. continued to study World War II with The Story of World War II by Robert Leckie as her spine. She read several historical fiction titles:  The Moved Outers by Florence Crannell Means, Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, Twenty and Ten by Clare Huchet Bishop, the entire Fairmount Avenue series by Tomie dePaola, all of the World War II titles in the You Choose series, and The Battle of Britain by Quentin James Reynolds. 

She also watched various videos: Machine Gunners, Victory at Sea, Uranium (first part only), Race for the World's First Atomic Bomb, The Desert War, Wartime Farm, and Days that Shook the World (Guadalcanal and Kristallnacht episodes). 

C. began to study Ancient Eastern history in A Picturesque Tale of Progress. We covered these sections: 

• Genghis Khan Conquers Asia (The Mongols in the Gobi Desert; Genghis Khan; The Conquest of Western Asia; Mongol Conquests in Russia and the West; The Invasion of Europe; The Beginnings of Russia; The Ravaging of Russia; European Conquests)
• The Mongol Conquest of Persia (Travelers to the Mongols; The Attack Upon Persia; Bagdad, Glittering City of Caliphs; A Decaying Empire; The Assassins; The Conquest of Bagdad; The Empire of the Ilkhans) 

She also read: The Adventures of Marco Polo by Russell Freedman,  The Travels of Benjamin of Tudela by Uri Shulevitz, Sindbad by Ludmila Zeman, Sindbad in the Land of Giants by Ludmila Zeman, Sindbad’s Secret by Ludmila Zeman, as well as Arabian Nights: Three Tales by Deborah Norse Lattimore and the Illusrated Junior Library edition of Arabian Nights. 

She wrote a narration about Marco Polo. 

E. and I continued reading  History Can Be Fun , up through colonial America.  She watched more episodes of Liberty's Kids.

Math 

M. continued working on 6th grade and Getting Ready for Algebra I in Khan Academy. She also worked on Challenging Word Problems 3 and drilled multiplication and divisions facts on Math-Drills.com, and completed one chapter per week in Life of Fred: Fractions.  

C. worked on Khan Academy 3rd grade, Singapore 2B, addition and subtraction drill on Math-Drills.com, and she started Life of Fred: Edgewood. 

E. continued working on Khan Academy Early Math, using the soroban and rods to assist with addition and subtraction. She drilled "big friends" using SnappyMaths.com.  

English 

In addition to their historical fiction reading, M. read Stella Batts: Broken Birthday by Courtney Sheinmel and started Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling and C. read Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum, The Wishing Chair Again by Enid Blyton, and Stella Batts: A Case of the Meanies by Courtney Sheinmel.  

E. read Meet George Washington, Annie Pat and Eddie by Carolyn Haywood, and Nathan Hale by Virginia Frances Voight 

M. and C. finished reading aloud The Half Sisters by Natalie Savage Carlson to Gran over Skype. 

M. completed the exercises in Rex Barks 3-13. C. named the parts of speech in sentences taken from a 3rd grade workbook.  

All three girls wrote Valentine messages to their siblings. C. started writing two stories:  "Max and Maria: The Magical Adventure" and "The Unicorn and the Magical Garden." E. started writing "Victoria and Tim." 

Science 

In Middle School Chemistry, M. and I completed these lessons:  

• Represent Bonding with Lewis Dot Diagrams
• Water is a Polar Molecule
• Surface Tension

In BFSU, C. and E. covered these topics:  

• What is Air Pressure?
• Air Pressure Inside and Outside
• Air, Atmosphere, and Wind
• Air is a Mixture of Gases 

We also went on a walk to do some birdwatching for the Great Backyard Bird Count.  

Physical Education

The girls rode bikes on nicer days and also went to the playground a couple of times. M. and C. both mastered the monkey bars. 

Art 

M. and C. worked on Flip Animation. M. started using PaintZ to create digital drawings. C. and E. followed instructional videos on Art for Kids Hub.  

Health

R. swallowed a chicken bone and visited the ER and we all learned about digestion. C. asked about how the nose works and watched a Dr. Binocs video to find out. 

Music 

The girls continued listening to The Ring of the Nibelung and they each practiced piano and recorder daily. We did one evening sing-along. 

Homeschool Update: January 2023

Group Activities 

In January, we started working on memorizing Psalm 133 in Latin using these memory cards from Learn Church Latin. 

I read aloud The Trees Kneel at Christmas by Maud Hart Lovelace and The Mitchells by Hilda van Stockum. The girls listened to A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck on audiobook. 

We began reading the section of A Child's History of Art focused on sculpture and watched related SmartHistory videos. 

Our poetry collection for the month was Poetry for Young People: The Seasons. 

Religion 

C. began to study The New Saint Joseph First Communion Catechism. The twins learned to make the Sign of the Cross and say the blessing before meals. 

History 

M. continues to study the 20th century. She watched the 1982 film Gandhi. She watched some of A Walk Through the 20th Century with Bill Moyers about the world's fair, as well as a newsreel on YouTube about the event. She also watched some episodes of The World at War and the episodes of Days that Shook the World about Pearl Harbor and The War of the Worlds.  She watched the 2017 film Dunkirk with my husband and he also showed her Dunkirk-related clips from War Walks and The Making of Modern Britain. 

She read a lot of historical fiction, as well as some nonfiction: 

• Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan
• The Chestry Oak by Kate Seredy 
• The Little Ships by Louise Borden
• Dolphin Crossing by Jill Paton Walsh
• Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler's Shadow by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
• Doodlebug Summer by Alison Prince 
• Katy Parker and the House that Cried by Margaret Mulligan
• The Exeter Blitz by David Rees 
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt for Kids by Richard Panchyk
• Gandhi by Leonard Everett Fisher 
• Balto and the Great Race by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel 
• China's Long March : 6,000 Miles of Danger by Jean Fritz
• Snow Goose by Paul Gallico 

C. learned about the founding of the countries of France, Germany and Italy and then learned about Marco Polo. We read these sections from A Picturesque Tale of Progress: 

• France Becomes an Absolute Monarchy (The Beginnings of France; Joan of Arc; Louis XI, the Spider of France) 
• Germany and the Holy Roman Empire (Early Germany, The Investiture Struggle, The Failure of German Unity)
• Italian City States and the Renaissance (A Divided Italy; Venice, City of the Sea; Rome, the Eternal City; Florence and the Great Painters of the Renaissance)
• Marco Polo Explores the East (The Lure of the East; Marco Sets Out for China; The Land of Kublai Khan)

She watched a video about the Investiture Conflict and read a lot of books:  

• Leonardo, Beautiful Dreamer by Robert Byrd 
• Leonardo DaVinci by Diane Stanley 
• Michelangelo by Diane Stanley
• Joan of Arc by Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel 
• Joan of Arc by Josephine Poole 
• Mont St. Michel for Young People by Lucien Bely 
• The Apple and the Arrow by Mary and Conrad Buff 

E. read about Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Greece in History Can Be Fun and started watching Liberty's Kids. 

Math 

M. is still working her way through 6th grade math on Khan Academy and Challenging Word Problems 3. She is reading Life of Fred: Fractions. I started having her drill multiplication and division facts on Math-Drills.com. 

C. is still working on 3rd grade math on Khan Academy and she is working her way through Singapore 3A. She finished Life of Fred: Dogs. She is drilling addition and subtraction facts using Math-Drills.com.  

E started working on Early Math on Khan Academy. She drills "big friends" (numbers that add up to ten) using SnappyMaths.com.

English

The girls have been doing a lot of independent reading and lots of writing for fun. 

E. is working on memorizing "The Arrow and The Song" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. C is learning "Night" by William Blake and M. is learning "Hope is the Thing with Feathers" by Emily Dickinson. 

M. diagrams two sentences from Rex Barks each week. C. identifies parts of speech in a daily sentence. 

M. wrote Christmas thank you notes on behalf of all the kids. 

E. is beginning to learn to print her letters.

Science 

M. did these Middle School Chemistry lessons about the periodic table: 

• Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons
• The Periodic Table
• The Periodic Table & Energy Level Models
• Energy Levels, Electrons, and Covalent Bonding
• Energy Levels, Electrons, and Ionic Bonding

C. and E. covered these topics using  BFSU: 

• What's the Difference Between Plants and Animals?
• All Matter is Made of Particles
• The Difference Between Solids, Liquids, and Gases
• Reversible and Nonreversible Changes
• Distinguishing Materials

Physical Education 

We were sick a lot of this month, but there were a few impromptu living room dance parties in lieu of exercise. 

Art 

M. and C. have been making animations using FlipAnim.com. E. has started following drawing videos from Art for Kids Hub. 

Health

M. and read about the menstrual cycle in The Care and Keeping of You: The Body Book for Younger Girls and we had a discussion about how babies are made. 

Music 

All three girls practiced piano and recorder daily. They did one lesson from How to Sing and started listening to the fourth opera of The Ring of the Nibelung. For Epiphany, they watched the 1996 version of Amahl and the Night Visitors. 

Homeschool Update: November/December 2022

Group Activities

We finished reading aloud Those Miller Girls, then listened to By the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson and A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus on audio. Before Christmas, I read aloud A Christmas Carol, and during the twelve days of Christmas, my husband read aloud This Way to Christmas by Ruth Sawyer. 

The girls continued to work on their poetry memorizations. We've been delayed in recording their videos, but hope to get these done in early 2023. 

For Advent, we did our daily Jesse Tree readings from The Jesse Tree by Eric and Suzan Sammons and we used ornaments printed from Catholic Sprouts and other online sources. We also used The Catholic All Year Prayer Companion for the O Antiphons and the Christmas Novena. 

We continued reading aloud from A Child's History of Art and finished all the chapters about paintings and watched the relevant Smart History videos. We also continued reading poetry from the Poetry for Young People series, and we finished the titles about Edna St. Vincent Millay and Shakespeare. 

The girls started singing lessons with How to Sing from the Great Courses. All three practiced piano and recorder daily. 

For music appreciation, they finished the third part of The Ring of Nibelung, then switched to Handel's Messiah for Christmas. 

We started working on pronouncing the words of the Credo in Latin and picking out some of the nouns.

History 

With E. I read aloud The Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs and The Golden Book of Cavemen and Prehistoric People.  

With C., I read aloud these sections from A Picturesque Tale of Progress: 

• The Glory of the Byzantine Empire (Leo the Isaurian, the Defender of Christendom; The Height of Byzantine Glory; The Coming of the Turk)
• The Crusades (The First Crusade; The Kingdom of Jerusalem; Later Crusades; The Children's Crusade; Results of the Crusades)
• Europe After the Crusades (Knights and Troubadours; The Growth of Towns; The Great Gothic Cathedrals; The Heretics; St. Francis of Assisi and the Gray Friars; The Fall of Constantinople
• United Christian Spain Expels the Moors (The Magnificence of the Moors; How Minstrels Sang the Story of the Cid; The Conquest of Granada)
• The Development of the English Nation (Early Britain and the Coming of the Anglo-Saxons; The Anglo-Saxon Tale of Beowulf; Ireland Preserves Culture; King Alfred and the Coming of the Danes; The Norman Conquest; The Development of Parliament)

We also read aloud some sections in Rulers Of Britain by Peter Somerset Fry, and she read many supplementary books on her own: 

• Walter Dragun's Town by Sheila Sancha
• Cathedral by David Macaulay
• The Duke and the Peasant by Wendy Beckett
• Mosque by David Macaulay 
• El Cid by Geraldine McCaughrean
• Bayeux Tapestry by Norman Denny 
• Magna Carta by Walter Hodges 
• Good Masters, Sweet Ladies by Laura Amy Schlitz

M. continued moving through the twentieth century, finishing WWI and then focusing on the 1920s. She read: 

• Guglielmo Marconi by Richard Tames 
• Bring Out the Banners by Geoffrey Trease 
• The Scopes Trial by Renee Graves
• The Story of Albert Schweitzer by Anita Daniel
• The Good Master by Kate Seredy
• The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy
• Homesick by Jean Fritz
• Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze by Elizabeth Foreman Lewis
• Winter of Spies by Gerard Whelan
• Katie's War by Aubrey Flegg
• The Story of Scotland Yard by Laurence Thompson 
• The Story of the Secret Service by Ferdinand Kuhn
• The Golden Pharaoh by Karl Bruckner 

She watched Inherit the Wind, Days that Shook the World, Men Who Built America, and a little bit of Century of Flight. 

Math 

M. finished the review sections in Singapore 4B, and she continued working on Challenging Word Problems 3, Life of Fred: Mineshaft (which she finished) and 6th grade math on Khan Academy.

C. continued working in Singapore 2B and Life of Fred: Dogs.  She also worked on 3rd grade math in Khan Academy. 

E. continued working with the soroban and did a few pages of Singapore 1A. 

English 

All three girls read independently throughout November and December. C. named the parts of speech in assigned sentences, and M. continued diagramming sentences in Rex Barks. 

M. finished a story called "Hildegarde" and C. finished writing "The Unicorn and the Wolves." 

Science 

C. and E. covered all the lessons in BFSU Volume 1 about energy and did some worksheets and watched some related videos from Crash Course Kids.

M. did these lessons in Middle School Chemistry: 

• Changing State - Freezing
• Changing State - Melting
• What Is Density?
• Finding Volume - The Water Displacement Model
• Density of Water
• Density - Sink or Float for Solids
• Density - Sink or Float for Liquids
• Temperature and Density

We finished our read-aloud of Romance of Chemistry.

Physical Education

While the weather stayed warm, the girls rode bikes as much as possible and played on the playground. They got a basketball for Christmas and had a little lesson on dribbling, passing, and shooting. 

Homeschool Update: October 2022

Group Activities

After we finished listening to The Lion of St. Mark, we started reading aloud Those Miller Girls by Alberta Wilson Constant. On Halloween, we listened to The Best Halloween Ever by Barbara Robinson. The girls continued working on their poetry memorization. They are still learning "The Goat and the Three Red Shirts" (E.), "Barbara Frietchie" (C.), and "The Cremation of Sam McGee" (M.)

We read some more issues of The Catholic Treasure Box, and then took a break to begin learning the Nicene Creed in Latin. We use this video to practice pronunciation, and this video to learn to sing the chant. We didn't pray a Rosary every single day, but we continued using the videos from The Little Rose Shop when we did pray it. We also added in a Novena for a family we know who recently lost a baby. 

We continued reading aloud from A Child's History of Art. For music appreciation, my husband read aloud the second Metropolitan Opera Guild picture book adapted from the Ring of the Nibelung, and the girls listened to the accompanying music. For poetry, we read aloud all the poems (but not the prose excerpts) in Poetry for Young People: Edgar Allan Poe.

The three girls practiced piano and recorder daily and they practiced singing rounds like "Chairs to Mend" and songs we previously learned, including "Red River Valley" and "All Through the Night." 

History

E. quickly became bored with family history, so we moved onto Life Story by Virginia Lee Burton and First Days of the World by Gerald Ames, and near the end of the month we started The Giant Golden Book of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Reptiles by Jane Werner Watson, illustrated by Rudolph F. Zallinger.

C. started the month with Charlemagne, then learned about monks and the medieval church, Vikings, and feudalism. She read Viking Adventure by Clyde Robert Bulla, and Castle: How it Works by David Macaulay and watched The Secret of Kells and looked at some pages from the Book of Kells. She wrote a narration about the Book of Kells as well. 

M. continued studying World War I. She read a lot of historical fiction: 

• The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy
• You Choose: At Battle in World War I by Allison Lassieur
  
• You Choose: The Sinking of the Lusitania by Stephen Otfinoski
  
• You Choose: World War I by Gwenyth Swain
  
• The White Nights of St. Petersburg by Geoffrey Trease
  
• The Wild Children by Felice Holman
  
• Small Acts of Amazing Courage by Gloria Whelan
  
• The Night Run by Bali Rai
  
• The Guns of Easter by Gerard Whelan
• The Great Migration: African Americans Move to the North, 1915-1930 by Monica Halpern
  
• Some of Us Survived: The Story of an Armenian Boy by Kerop Bedoukian

She also watched a variety of videos: 

• The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima
• Shackleton
• Shackleton's Voyage of Endurance
• Harriet's Army 
• The Century (WWI episode)

Science

M. continued doing one lesson per week from Middle School Chemistry. Sometimes we do the demonstrations; other times, if the materials are something we don't typically buy and it doesn't seem worth buying them, we watch videos of the demos and complete the student worksheets accordingly. We are also reading one small section from Romance of Chemistry twice a week, and often the historical context we read about goes along with the MCS lesson. (M. claims to dislike Romance of Chemistry and complains that the scientists are boring). 

C. and E. learned about gravity this month, which included watching some videos from the International Space Station about how astronauts do things like make peanut butter sandwiches and wash their hair without gravity. We also talked about vertical and horizontal lines. They each completed a worksheet for each chapter. 

Math

C. worked on capacity and area in Singapore 2B. She is very close to completing the book. She did one chapter per week from Life of Fred: Dogs.

M. worked on Challenging Word Problems 3 and the review sections in Singapore 4A. She did one chapter per week from Life of Fred: Mineshaft. 

E. is still working on counting by two, threes, and fives on the soroban. She is beginning to learn the numbers that add up to 10 (" big friends"). 

Language Arts

C. is given a sentence from a McGuffey reader every morning, and she is asked to name the parts of speech. 

M. diagrams two sentences per week from Rex Barks. E. practices reading aloud from the McGuffey reader most mornings.

 

I read aloud Babe: The Gallant Pig to E., and then started reading her My Bookhouse: Through Fairy Halls. 

Physical Education

The girls rode bikes several times. 

Health

M. went to her own orthodontist visit and accompanied the twins to their check-up at the pediatrician. 

Homeschool Update: September 2022

It's a new school year! We started back up again with our full schedule of subjects the day after Labor Day. I have two official students this year. M (almost 9) is in 3rd grade according to the state and 4th for our purposes and C. (7) is technically in 1st grade, but 2nd for our purposes. E. (almost 5)  misses the kindergarten cut-off by just a few weeks, so we are doing kindergarten this year even though she's not officially of school age until next school year.

Group Activities

We are doing as many things as a family as possible. Each morning, we begin with a chapter from an audiobook. In September, we listened to The Gammage Cup and most of The Lion of St. Mark by G.A. Henty. After that, we go over some memory work: poems, geography, books of the Bible, our address and phone number, the planets, etc. (E.'s poem is "The Goat and the Three Red Shirts." C. is learning "Barbara Frietchie" and M. is learning "The Cremation of Sam McGee.") 

Then we read something about the faith. Right now, we're working our way through the Catholic Children's Treasure Box series. The girls also pray a Rosary together each morning using the "pray-along" videos from The Little Rose Shop. 

On Mondays and Wednesdays, I read aloud a chapter from A Child's History of Art by V.M. Hillyer and we look at the art pieces featured in the chapter. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, my husband does music appreciation. This month he read aloud Adventures of Richard Wagner by Opal Wheeler, followed by the Metropolitan Opera Guild's four picture books of the Ring of the Nibelung. On Fridays, we read from a book in the Poetry for Young People series. This month, we read the Robert Frost volume edited by Gary Schmidt. 

On Monday and Friday afternoons, my husband leads the girls in singing. They are singing "Sing, Sing Together" and "Chairs to Mend." The girls each practice piano on their own, and the older two girls do recorder as well. 

History 

For kindergarten history, E. is learning about the history of her family, and using that to begin to understand what history is. We read the intrductory sections in What's Your Name?: A Book of First Names and What They Mean by Beth Goodman and Nancy Krulik and looked up the meanings of first and last names in our family. Then we read about timelines in My Backyard History Book and E. made a timeline of her life, which she is slowly working on illustrating. We also started looking up the front page of newspapers from the birth dates of different people in our family. She enjoyed seeing the Polaroid camera ad in the New York Times from the day I was born. We are also working on learning the meanings of words like uncle, aunt, nephew, cousin, brother-in-law, etc. 

C. is in year two of the grammar stage, which covers from 600 to 1600 AD. We are using A Picturesque Tale of Progress as our spine, and so far we have read about the Byzantine Empire, Mohammad, and the Franks. She ended the month partway through reading Our Little Frankish Cousin of Long Ago. 

M. is in year four of the grammar stage, which is basically the 20th century. (She covered the Civil War over the summer). Her main spine is The Century by Peter Jennings, but with many other books to supplement. Highlights so far have included the Chicago Fire, the sinking of the Titanic, the Wright brothers, the San Francisco Earthquake,  and World War I, for which her spine is The Story of World War I.  She is still working on narrations that she started over the summer. (My husband does history with her.)

Science

This year, M. is doing the Middle School Chemistry curriculum from the American Chemical Society. So far, we have completed three demonstrations of how molecules move in water at different temperatures, and she has drawn a molecular model and completed a short lab report for each one. So far, this feels like just the right pace for her. We are also slowly reading The Romance of Chemistry together and discussing one small section at a time. (Reading a chapter at a time proved to be too burdensome.)

C. and E. are doing volume 1 of BSFU together using some materials created by a mom and shared online. Each lesson has an accompanying worksheet, which is challenging for E. but so far she is keeping up. So far, we have covered sorting objects into categories, how to distinguish between solids, liquids, and gases, and how to change from one state of matter to another. We also discussed the difference between living and non-living things and watched a SciShow kids video about them. 

Math 

Math is just continuing on from where they left off in summer. M. is doing Challenging Word Problems 3, along with the review sections in Singapore Primary Mathematics 4B. C. is still working on Singapore Primary Mathematics  2B. E. is counting by ones, twos, and fives on the soroban and using the rods to do simple addition. 

On Wednesdays, M. and C. do a chapter from Life of Fred. C. is in Dogs and M. is in Mineshaft. 

Language Arts 

Two days a week, M. diagrams a sentence from Rex Barks. Each morning, C. is given a sentence and she identifies all the parts of speech. Both girls have been doing quite a bit of creative writing in emails back and forth to each other, emails to me, and in stories they type up in Google Documents. Their formal writing is mainly emails to their aunt, thank you notes, and narrations about science and history.

M. is reading a lot of historical fiction to accompany her history studies. C. has been reading some longer books: Tumtum and Nutmeg and Mossflower. E. is on a Carolyn Haywood kick, and she also read Meet Thomas Jefferson and Little House in the Big Woods. In the evenings I read aloud Attaboy Sam by Lois Lowry to E. and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to C. 

Physical Education

The main source of exercise has been walks to the playground and bike rides in the neighborhood. M. and C. are working on learning to pump on swings. E. learned to ride her bike with pedals. 

Health 

M. continues to learn about teeth as her time wearing braces is most likely coming to an end soon.