Homeschool Update: Week of 10/5/20

Morning Time

• Poems from Sing a Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year selected by Fiona Waters, illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon (Nosy Crow, 2018): "Conkers" by Clive Samson, "The farmer flings" by Anonymous, "The Scarecrow" by Anonymous, and "Cliche" by Alison Chisholm 
• Questions from The Big Book of Tell Me Why by Arkady Leokum, illustrated by Howard Bender: "When were rockets first used?", "How was glass discovered?", "Who invented the thermometer?", "Who invented the microscope?", "Who invented the camera?", "Who invented the automobile?", "Who invented the airplane?", "How was the telephone invented?"
• "All People That on Earth Do Dwell" sung from The Vatican II Hymnal
• "Arkansas Traveler" sung from Wee Sing Fun 'n' Folk 
• Painting from Come Look with Me: Enjoying Art with Children by Gladys S. Blizzard (Charlesbridge, 1996): The Old Stagecoach by Jonathan Eastman Johnson
• Listening to Rodeo: Hoe Down by Aaron Copeland
• Lesson 5 from The New St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism 
• Recording weather, including temperature, sky color, wind strength, and clouds, as well as animal activity and observations about the leaves. 

History

C. did ask Gran her questions about her family history, but after that she was tired of thinking about it, so we shifted gears and jumped right into natural history. I know this is really science, but since we're using it as a prelude to ancient history next year, it feels right to think of it as history for her purposes. We read a couple of pages each day from Life Story by Virginia Lee Burton and First Days of the World by Gerald Ames. She absolutely loves it. We also supplemented with YouTube videos: "Where Did Earth Come From?" from SciShow Kids and Earth & Its History from turtlediary. 

M. read about the Franks and Charlemagne, and she also heard part of The Song of Roland. 

Table Time 

On Monday, we did a craft where the girls glued googly eyes and drew faces on foam acorns. On the other days of the week, I took different combinations of kids for a walk. On Tuesday, M. and baby A. went with me to deposit our ballots in the board of elections drop-box. On Wednesday, C. went on a hunt for acorns with baby R. On Thursday, we went to the dentist and then I tried taking all three big girls for a walk. but M. kept running off, so she was forced to go back home while I took C. and E. On Friday, I took M. for a 3-mile walk on her own. 

Math

C. started the second Life of Fred book, Butterflies, and M. continued in Goldfish. C. started basic multiplication in Singapore while M. finished with pounds and ounces and moved onto review. Both girls also did Khan Academy daily.

Preschool

E. played a few Halloween games on Khan Academy kids, and we read picture books together, including a new review copy, Bears and Boos by Shirley Parenteau. My husband also worked with her on holding up the proper number of fingers for the number three. We (along with C.) discussed fire safety on our walk. 

Science

We had mostly finished our BFSU lesson on energy, but we reviewed everything from last week and then talked about how energy moves. C. is especially attentive to these lessons, which I'm pleased about because I don't always think of her as being very science-minded.  

Reading and Writing

C. finished Happy Birthday from Carolyn Haywood. M. continued reading Mossflower. M. worked on worksheets about proper and common nouns and plurals in Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills: Grade 3. On Saturday night, they listened to the audiobook of Half Magic; during the week we're still reading aloud Magic by the Lake, and my husband is reading Robin Hood after dinner.

Music

Both M. and C. practiced recorder and piano every day. 

Physical Education

In addition to our walks, the girls also did the 10-minute exercise video from the Ten Thousand Method one day.  

The Read-at-Home Mom Report for 10/12/20

Finished Books

I started this week by zipping through Three Stuffed Owls, a vintage teen mystery from the Carson Street Detective Agency series by Keith Robertson. I didn't love it quite as much as The Crow and the Castle, but it was well-written and funny and I thought it would pair well with  Owls in the Family. The dialogue was probably the best part. 

After that, my husband handed me Twenty and Ten by Claire Huchet Bishop insisting that I read it immediately. I previously enjoyed All Alone by this author so I had no objections, and I was definitely not disappointed. This is a great story about a group of French schoolchildren who assist in hiding a group of Jewish children from the Nazis. 

A friend on Instagram was reading The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg and I realized I didn't remember much about it from my previous reading 15 years ago and decided to listen to the audiobook to refresh my memory. I remember loving it a lot more the previous two times I read it (once as a kid and once in library school), but it was still enjoyable. My friend mentioned that she had compared it to Wonder and I see the parallels, but I think The View from Saturday is the superior book by far.

At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon was my other audiobook for the week. The audio recording was 20 hours long and yet when I reached the end of the book, I was disappointed and wanted more! Thankfully, this is the first of a long series, and they all seem to be available through the library. 

Currently Reading

I'm still listening to I Wear the Black Hat by Chuck Klosterman, but it's taken a back seat to the Mitford books. I'm almost 15% of the way through the second Mitford book, A Light in the Window.

This week, I also started Invincible Louisa by Cornelia Meigs, which I'm really enjoying and Pegeen by Hilda van Stockum, which I borrowed from a local homeschool mom. 

Up Next

I have a buddy read of Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham planned with the same Instagram friend who read The View from Saturday. For book club in early November, I also need to read The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria Augusta von Trapp. And those ARCs continue to linger unread...

I'm linking up today with The Book Date for It's Monday! What Are You Reading?. 

Homeschool Update: Week of 9/28/20

 Morning Time

• Poems from Sing a Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year selected by Fiona Waters, illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon (Nosy Crow, 2018): "Apples" by John Siddique, "New Sights" by Anonymous, "The Leaves Are Green" by Anonymous, and a short excerpt from "As You Like It." 
• Poem from Exploring Nature with Children by Lynn Seddon: "September" by Helen Hunt Jackson
• Questions from The Big Book of Tell Me Why by Arkady Leokum, illustrated by Howard Bender: "How did candy originate?", "How was fire discovered?", "Who invented matches?", "Who discovered electricity?"
• "Now Thank We All Our God" sung from The Vatican II Hymnal
•  "Cindy" sung from Wee Sing Fun 'n' Folk 
• Painting from Come Look with Me: Enjoying Art with Children by Gladys S. Blizzard (Charlesbridge, 1996): Interior of a Ropewalk by Charles Bird King
• Painting from Exploring Nature with Children by Lynn Seddon: Haystacks - End of Summer by Claude Monet 
• Listening to The Happy Farmer by Robert Schumann
• Lesson 4 from The New St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism 
• Questions from the 500 Questions Game Book (Parragon Books, 2017) for fun on Friday
• Memory work: C. mastered "The Fairies" by William Allingham and M. mastered "If" by Rose Fyleman. Both girls recorded their recitations on video.
• Recording weather, including temperature, sky color, wind strength, and clouds, as well as animal activity and observations about the leaves. 

History

C. worked on learning the names for the different relationships on a family tree and began mapping a family tree of her own. We got stumped on my husband's side of the family a little bit and wrote down some questions to ask Gran during our weekly Skype date. 

Table Time 

On Monday, we skipped this time because we met up with our friends in the nature study group. On Wednesday, we skipped it again to celebrate C.'s birthday. The other days of the week we colored Archangels (for Michaelmas on Tuesday) and played with Legos.  

Math

M. and C. both started working on review sections in their respective Singapore workbooks. C. finished Life of Fred: Apples. M. worked independently in Life of Fred: Goldfish. They also both did work on Khan Academy. 

Preschool

E. enjoyed sorting buttons in a muffin and stringing beads on pipe cleaners. She colored one page in her Melissa and Doug alphabet pad. 

Science

The BFSU lesson for the next two weeks is C-1 Concepts of Energy I - Making Things Go. Using Early Elementary Science Education by Shannon Jordan as our guide, we discussed four different types of energy - heat, light, movement, and electricity - and categorized different actions based on the type of energy that causes them to happen.  We also talked about how energy changes from one form to another and emphasized the fact that matter never becomes energy and vice versa. 

Reading and Writing

C. started reading Happy Birthday from Carolyn Haywood. M. finished Redwall and has moved onto Mossflower. She also read Riding the Pony Express by Clyde Robert Bulla.

Music

Both M. and C. practiced recorder and piano every day. 

Physical Education

During our time with the nature group on Monday, all three girls ran around with friends and played some sort of game involving bodyguards. 

The Read-at-Home Mom Report for 10/5/20

Finished Books

In the last two days of September, I read more than half of September by Rosamunde Pilcher in order to finish it before October. It really picked up as it got past the halfway point and I wound up giving it four stars.  

I recommended Feed by M.T. Anderson to a local friend and decided to listen to the audiobook so I could discuss it with her. I think it's actually more disturbing and interesting now, in the age of Tik Tok and Instagram, than it was back in 2002 when we really only had Facebook. 

The Nantucket Inn and Nantucket Neighbors by Pamela Kelley are entertaining women's fiction novels that I listened to on Scribd while I decided what I really want to read this month. I'm not sure these books even had any real conflict or character development but they were easy to breeze through. They were easier for me to read than Elin Hilderbrand, but very similar to her books in terms of content.

Currently Reading 

I Wear the Black Hat by Chuck Klosterman took a backseat to other books this week, but I plan to get back to it and finish it before the audiobook expires on Libby. 

At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon is an audiobook I picked up because someone on Instagram recommended the series for having a "fall vibe." I'm totally hooked. The story is gentle and wholesome, but also funny, and I love the writing. (My one qualm: I feel like toilets are mentioned a lot. It feels weird.)

Up Next

I have a stack of books on my desk and I'm still trying to decide where to start. Two options are Three Stuffed Owls by Keith Robertson, a vintage middle grade mystery I've had on my shelves for a couple of years now, and Invincible Louisa by Cornelia Meigs, which my Instagram friends chose over Walden by Henry David Thoreau as my "friend pick" for a bingo challenge.  

I'm linking up today with The Book Date for It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 

Homeschool Update: Week of 9/21/20

Morning Time

• Poems from Sing a Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year selected by Fiona Waters, illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon (Nosy Crow, 2018): "Windsong" by Judith Nicholls, "Auguries of Innocence (Excerpt)" by William Blake, "Summer Goes" by Russell Hoban, "Noisy Noisy" by Jack Prelutsky, and "The Swallows" by Elizabeth Coatsworth
• Questions from The Big Book of Tell Me Why by Arkady Leokum, illustrated by Howard Bender: "How did medicine start?"; "When did people start cutting their hair?"; "When was soap first made?"; "Who invented shoes?"; "Who made the first false teeth?"; "How did forks originate?"; "When did man begin to drink milk?"; "Where did ice cream originate?"
• "Lead Kindly Light" sung from The Vatican II Hymnal
• "The Wabash Cannonball" sung from Wee Sing Fun 'n' Folk 
• Painting from Come Look with Me: Enjoying Art with Children by Gladys S. Blizzard (Charlesbridge, 1996): Portrait of Baby with Dog by Joseph Whiting Stock
• Listening to Hungarian Dance No. 2 by Johannes Brahms
• Lesson 3 from The New St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism 
• Liturgical year: Padre Pio (9/23)
• Questions from the 500 Questions Game Book (Parragon Books, 2017) for fun on Friday
• Memory work: M. recited "If" by Rose Fyleman and C. recited "The Fairies" by William Allingham
• Recording weather, including temperature, sky color, wind strength, and clouds, as well as animal activity and observations about the leaves. 

History

C. spent the week carefully copying all the events we decided to put on her timeline onto a large piece of paper in chronological order. On Friday, she added some illustrations.

M. read about Mohammed and the development of Islam in A Picturesque Tale of Progress. She wrote and illustrated a narration about Mohammed and filled in a chart listing the five pillars of Islam. 

Table Time 

One day, I moved the girls outside to do kinetic sand during this time. The other activities for the week were lacing cards (which only M. wanted to do), the "Doll People Dress Up!" coloring page from this set of printables (which M. and C. both loved), and sticker collages. 

Math

M. and C. did the usual Singapore and Khan Academy math work. M. is still doing weights and measures (mostly kilograms) in Singapore 3B and C. is still working on addition and subtraction in 1B. They also did a chapter each in Life of Fred on Wednesday. M. is in Goldfish and C. is in Apples. 

Preschool

E. is kind of a preschool dropout right now. She likes the idea of school, but would prefer that it consist primarily of snacks and videos. She doesn't like most of the things the older girls did at her age, so I mostly just say yes when she asks me to read aloud and offer activities when she seems receptive.  

Science

In our second week with Building Foundations for Scientific Understanding, we did Lesson B-2: "Distinguishing Living/Natural Nonliving and Human-Made Things." This included organizing this set of items into their proper categories and discussing how we can tell by looking at something whether it is alive or not. 

Reading and Writing

M. continued working her way through the worksheets in Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills: Grade 3, and she also wrote a few more sentences in her story about Mr. Albatross. (See last week.) 

C. and I finished our shared read-aloud of The Boxcar Children. 

We also started a new lunchtime read-aloud: Magic by the Lake Edgar Eager. 

Music

M. and C. both practiced piano and recorder for 15 minutes every day this week.

Physical Education

We have been skipping the daily exercise video in favor of running on the deck. I think that is likely to continue until the weather turns uncomfortably cold. 

The Read-at-Home Mom Report for 9/28/20

Finished Books

 I finished three adult novels this week. 

The first was Finger Prints by Barbara Delinsky, which I zipped through on audio. Because I'm more used to reading mysteries rather than romantic suspense, I was a little bit annoyed when I was able to easily figure out who was secretly causing problems for the protagonist, who was in the witness protection program. Still, I like Delinsky's writing, and in general, I like reading these backlist titles from 30+ years ago. This book also gave me a chance to use my free trial of Audible Plus. 

The second book I finished was Beartown by Fredrik Backman. This was my first time reading a book by him and though the language and subject matter were rough, the writing was excellent. This book started out strong and actually got even better as it went along. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel Us Against You, and it looks like there is a third book in the works for 2021 as well. I'm also really impressed that Backman isn't even 40 but has already written so many novels and seems to have a lot of perspective on various stages of life, including some he hasn't yet lived himself.

And finally, after nearly four weeks, I finished Green Dolphin Street! Every time I read Elizabeth Goudge, it seems to take forever, but the payoff is always so good. I gave this one five stars and would read it again even though it was such an undertaking for me. I wish that I had the brain power to join in the discussions more on Instagram, but I never feel like I have an answer to the questions that are posted, and I usually end up just reading other people's comments. 

Currently Reading 

I'm still determined to finish September by Rosamunde Pilcher by the end of September, even though I have 400 pages to go. I really felt like I needed the audio to help me out so I got a free trial at Audiobooks.com because none of my usual audiobook apps had it. I had some issues with the app because I was out of data on my phone and didn't realize the book didn't download all the way, but now it is fully downloaded and I'm hoping to listen to a lot of it to try and get it done by Wednesday night.

The other book I started is a nonfiction I heard about on an old episode of What Should I Read Next? and that's I Wear the Black Hat by Chuck Klosterman. This is an exploration of villains and how we feel about them. It's a great palate cleanser after reading a lot of fiction this month. 

Up Next

I have several books from Netgalley I didn't touch at all in September. I think I may need to do a weekend ARCs-only read-a-thon to get through them.

I'm linking up today with The Book Date for It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 

Homeschool Update: Week of 9/14/20

We mostly stuck to the same schedule for week two of the school year with just a couple of exceptions. One was that we "skipped" school on Monday morning to go with some friends on a nature hike through the woods. C., especially, really took to the whole thing, climbing fearlessly over fallen tree trunks and otherwise diving headlong into the natural world. The other change was that M. is now doing English while C. does math and math on her own with me at a later time when all the other kids are busy or asleep. She was just sitting and staring off into space otherwise, so we made the change on Friday.

Morning Time

• Poem from Exploring Nature with Children by Lynn Seddon (used for the nature hike): "Autumn" by Emily Dickinson 
• Poems from Sing a Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year selected by Fiona Waters, illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon (Nosy Crow, 2018): "Plum" by Tony Mitton, "I Had a Little Nut Tree," "Magpies" by Judith Wright, and "Seven for a Secret" by Anonymous. 
• Questions from The Big Book of Tell Me Why by Arkady Leokum, illustrated by Howard Bender: "When were books first made?"; "Who invented cartoons?"; "How did our system of counting begin?"; "What makes money valuable?"; "How did coins get their names?"; "How did we get our system of measurement?"; "When were the first police organized?", "What is the F.B.I?"; "How did fingerprinting start?"
• "Lift High the Cross" sung from The Vatican II Hymnal
• "Polly Wolly Doodle" sung from Wee Sing Fun 'n' Folk (accompanied by Daddy on guitar on Friday)
• Painting from Exploring Nature with Children by Lynn Seddon: Squirrels in a Tree by Archibald Thorburn
• Painting from Come Look with Me: Enjoying Art with Children by Gladys S. Blizzard (Charlesbridge, 1996): The Oddie Children by William Beechey
• Listening to Symphony No. 5 First Movement by Ludwig van Beethoven
• Lesson 2 from The New St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism 
• Liturgical year: Exaltation of the Cross (September 14), Our Lady of Sorrows (September 15), Sts. Cornelius and Cyprian (September 16), St. Robert Bellarmine (September 17), St. Joseph of Cupertino (September 18)
• Questions from the 500 Questions Game Book (Parragon Books, 2017) for fun on Friday
• Memory work: planets, days of the week, months of the year, birth dates, address, phone number, 50 states, countries of Europe, four directions, 13 colonies, four marks of the church, poems (M. is working on "If" for Rose Fyleman , and C is working on "The Fairies" by William Allingham. They have both almost mastered them.)

After morning time, we went outside to record the wind, sky color, temperature, humidity, precipitation, animal activity, etc. The girls were supposed to do this independently but they were misbehaving so much I have to go out with them. We skipped the exercise video each day, but we had hours of outdoor playtime on Sunday and Monday, including M.'s first-ever game of kickball. 

History

I read our schedule wrong last week and did two weeks of history for M., so this second week was pretty relaxed for her. She illustrated her narration about the Empress Theodora and made her own list of laws modeled after the Code of Justinian, after which she watched "Why We Have Rules." She also watched Khan Academy's video about Hagia Sophia and another YouTube video about the Byzantine Empire. (Note: this video looked great at first glance, but when I previewed it, I heard talk of Justinian's sex life and had to pass.)

C.  watched two YouTube videos explaining timelines ("Timelines for Kids" and "Timelines Introduction"), started listing events for a timeline of her life and, on Friday, began to copy them in chronological order onto a big piece of paper. 

Table Time 

This week's activities at the dining room table were sticker collages, drawing with chalk, stringing beads (which they all refused to do), and a memory game involving a spinner that caused many tears when M. won the first round.

Math

M. and C. did the usual Singapore and Khan Academy math work. M. is still doing weights and measures in Singapore 3B and C. is working on addition and subtraction in 1B. 

Preschool

E. was not as interested in doing school this week. She did a few minutes of Khan Academy Kids each day and played with magnet letters. We read a couple of picture books: First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger and On Market Street by Anita Lobel.  She also asked to do some questions from My First Brain Quest and she agreed to do a coloring page a couple of times. She spent a good amount of time playing with our large collection of finger puppets as well. 

Science

This was our first week of Building Foundations for Scientific Understanding and we did lessons A-1: Organizing Things into Categories and  A-2: Solids, Liquids, Gases. We mainly just discussed these topics, but one day, I gave each of the two girls a tray of random objects and asked them to organize them into categories. Another day, my husband had them write down various categories that our family members could be placed into and then had them play a "Guess Who?" style game where one girl thought of a family member and the other one asked category-based questions to narrow down who it might be.

Reading and Writing

M. is still working her way through the worksheets in Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills: Grade 3. This week, she focused on spelling homophones. She said her favorite exercises were the ones requiring her to find mistakes in existing sentences and correct them. She also started writing a story entitled "Mr. Albatross: A Detective Story." 

Here it is: 

One day Mr. Albatross was going for a walk. He passed a tree under which was a man's body. Mr. Albatross went over to the tree and shook the man,  but he didn't move. He didn't talk either. He just lay there silently. Then Mr. Albatross said, "Methinks you are dead." The man said nothing, but a voice said, "I am lord of these trees." Mr. Albatross looked beyond and a saw a row of trees stretching all the way to the west. "And I came to you in the form of a man."

C. and I read a chapter of The Boxcar Children together each day. She also worked on some writing about her experience on the nature hike. For her, I'm primarily working on slowing down enough to comprehend what she's reading (a problem I had as a kid) and developing a love of writing.

We also finished our lunchtime read-aloud of Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George. 

Music

M. and C. both practiced piano and recorder for 15 minutes every day this week.