Recap of the past 4 weeks

Language Arts:

Grammar-  We've finished learning all the parts of speech and have moved on to learning the parts of a sentence.  We know what a subject and predicate is.  We will soon start labeling all the parts of speech and parts of the sentence in our Practice Book.

Poetry-  We've learned all about foot and meter- we can tell you the difference between an iamb and a trochee, a dactyl and and an anapest.  We learned maggie and millie and molly and may by e. e. cummings, and now we're working on Winter by William Shakespeare.

Spelling and Vocab- We've worked on different letter combinations that make the same sound like, oo, oul and u all making the same sound in words such as wood, could, and put.  We've also learned the Latin stems ex and spec and have had spelling words with those stems.

Reading- The boys have done some independent reading of nonfiction books from their library bins.  They also took turns reading The Big Wave by Pearl S. Buck to me.  As a tie-in to our history lesson on China, we read a beautiful picture book called The Paper Dragon.  For read-alouds, we read Runaway Ralph and are in the middle of The Three Musketeers (children's version).  We are also listening to The Pepins and Their Problems in the car.  They've also done a couple pages in their Spectrum Reading Comprehension workbooks.

Handwriting-  We've moved on to the loopy letters- e, l, h, k, etc.

Math:    They've learned all the multiplication facts and are working on mastering them, by doing worksheets, flashcards and games.  They've done a couple Multiplication Mosaics pages, too.  They are reviewing addition on a new fun website called Clever Dragons.  Andrew thinks we will be able to move on to division soon, but I think we'll do some measurement and geometry first.

History:  We learned about the 30 Years War, and about Japan isolating itself from the outside world and driving out the Catholic missionaries.  We learned about the Manchus invading South China and driving out the Ming Dynasty.  We learned about the line of Moghul emperors in India and why Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal.  We learned about the unfortunate King Charles of England who took over from his father James I.  We learned about the Cavaliers and the Roundheads, how Charles was beheaded, and how Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector of England.

Have I mentioned how much I love Story of the World?  And how helpful it would have been if I'd known this stuff before I went off to college?  These kids don't know how lucky they are!

They also went to a class at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History about Plains Indians.  It was an interesting class- mostly about what resources they used to survive.  Here are a few photos from that day:

Andrew wore his headdress from Grandma, and received quite a few compliments on it.




Science:    Science has been exciting.  We've been discussing chemical reactions and and things such as catalysts that affect chemical reactions.  We looked up some really cool chemical reactions online.  You can see some of them here.   We made some chemical reactions of our own, too.  Below are photos of NaCl reacting with the CO2 of Coca Cola:

French:  We've worked on learning larger numbers, reviewing days of the week and beginning to learn the months.

Latin:  Phrases we learned- Facta, non verba, Dixi, Terra firma, Semper ubi sub ubi ubique, and Non est mea culpa.

Chess:  Watched the video about En Passant and continue to go to Chess Club.

Music:  Working on Jolly Old St. Nicholas on the recorder.  I was hoping to get them to do a duet in time for Christmas, but that's not looking too good at the moment.

Life Skills:  We made checklists for cleaning the living room and their bedroom and went over how exactly to do each item on the checklist.  We also practiced pouring drinks without spilling.

Health:  We covered hair and nail care, health care product advertising (how to read past the claims), following directions on prescription medicine,  and the difference between prescription and OTC drugs.

P.E.  Struggling with this one.  I posted about Swim & Gym, but we need to figure out something more. I do make them do random exercises, but my New Year's resolution is to get a better phys. ed. routine going.

I think I've covered just about everything.  I'm sure I forgot some stuff, but it's getting late, and I'm being beckoned to the second floor for bedtime routines.

Eddie broke my camera.

So, I've been using Nellie's camera, but this is really cramping my style.  I've been so used to having the camera out to take pictures of school stuff and delicious food.  Whatever will I do?  Maybe if I'm a really good girl, Santa will bring me a camera for Christmas.

Stolen from another homeschooler . . .

This is from an article ‘Home Is Where the School Is’ by Patricia Heidenry from the October 19, 1975 issue of The New York Times Magazine. " My desire to educate the children at home is based essentially on my belief that it is almost immoral for the children to spend a large portion of their youth in one building with more than a thousand other children and teachers in an environment that is lifeless and not life-giving. I use the word "immoral" to emphasize how strongly I feel about the time that is wasted by children in school. And I use it to indicate that this time wasted is something more important than children's I.Q.'s. Our children's lives – not their reading scores – should be our primary Concern. Children's lives are more than products that must he molded until they adapt well to society, or to another school, or to the work force. As it is now, a child's life is very much bound up with schools and schooling, and that animating force that gives life to each child is ignored in the rush to maintain reading levels, to excel academically, to make the honors class, to pass and to gain admittance to college. Children have no control at all over their lives in most schools. Their personalities and their individual talents are never the basis of the curriculum."

Craft Fair Goods

Well, my first show wasn't that great, but I think it was mainly because there weren't a whole lot of customers.  I'm holding out hope for the next show.  Thanks to Aunt Kaki for sitting with me the whole time and for pushing the purses and gift card holders!

As promised, I'm posting a picture of my setup.  This was the original setup, then with the help of Aunt Kaki, we rearranged some things.

Brussels Sprouts

Okay, I know most people equate brussels sprouts with torture, but come on, people, don't these look scrumptious?

I made them with a recipe for an orange juice glaze that I took out of one of my brother-in-law Jerry's cookbooks about 9 years ago.  I love this stuff!

Swim and Gym

So, the boys finally admitted to enjoying themselves at one of the CSU homeschool Swim and Gym sessions.  And, I finally remembered to bring my camera, although the pictures came out pretty blurry.

This month's session was swimming lessons and Flag Football.  There was a big age range of kids, but I was impressed at how well the older kids included the younger kids in the game.

Deliciousness

I haven't had much time, nor have I been too inspired to cook lately, so meals around here have been pretty boring lately- until last night.  Nellie had brought home a jar of sundried tomatoes that had been sitting on the counter, calling to me for several days.  Sitting outside in the chill night air, passing out candy to trick-or-treaters, made me very hungry, so I dreamed up this concoction, then came in to cook it while Nellie stayed out with the candy bucket:

I sauteed onions in olive oil over medium low heat to get them nice and sweet, then browned a pound of organic, grass fed ground beef in with the onions.  While it was cooking, I added garlic powder, dried oregano and basil, crushed red pepper flakes (for a little kick!) and some salt and pepper.    When the meat was done, I drained the fat, added the tomatoes until they were heated through, then poured the concoction over brown rice spaghetti noodles that I had been cooking while preparing the rest of the food.  In the meat pan, I added a couple tablespoons of water, and wilted a couple handfuls of baby spinach, which I stirred into the dinner.  

This was SO delicious.  I wish I had more.  But I used all the tomatoes, or I would make more right now!  Shopping on Friday, so guess what I'm having for dinner this weekend!