Homeschool Highlights 4/27/20 - 5/1/20

This was one of the busiest weeks we've had in a while! Rod came in from El Paso for the week. His job was over, but he starts a new job in Austin, Texas on Monday. We had a ton of stuff to do, like planting our vegetable garden, planting some azaleas around my back porch and side of the house, cleaning out our storage shed, tending to cows, finishing fence, and cleaning up around the house.

We didn't get a whole lot of school done this week because I wanted the kids to be able to spend as much time as possible with Rod before he has to leave on Sunday. We will be able to go and visit him on this job! We used to travel with him all the time, but with the kids getting older (and more of them!) it got much harder. When I put the two oldest in public school, we only traveled in the summer. It's not ideal, but it's what he does for a living and I'm just thankful he has a job right now since so many people are out of work.

We studied New Zealand this week, and I say studied lightly because we didn't do very much. We read two books - one on Australia and New Zealand, and one was a Children of the World book on New Zealand. We read in our Children Just Like Me book and completed that worksheet. We learned about the flag and how it's almost the same as Australia's - the stars are different. We made some "bone carving" necklaces from air-dry clay like the Maori carve. The twisted one means "friendship and eternity" and the spiral one means "new beginnings, growth, and harmony." I couldn't get my pictures to load, but here are the pictures from Activity Village, which is where we got the idea.
 
Mercie finished her math book and language arts book this week! It always feels like such an accomplishment to finish the last lesson in a curriculum. She used "Learning Language Arts through Literature" and "Math Lessons for a Living Education 6." She liked both books very much. I've read many mixed reviews of "Learning Language Arts through Literature" but we really liked it. It's one of those curricula that you really need to complete start to finish to see results and for it all to come together. We did skip the two units of Research, but she did everything else, even the book units. She read "Big Red", "The Bronze Bow", and "Carry On, Mr. Bowditch" which were assigned from her language arts, and many, many more books on her own.

She started Latin this week with "Latina Christiana" from Memoria Press. It is a review product, but she really loves it! She watches an instructional lesson from the CD each morning, reviews her flashcards, and completes her workbook page. She also started working through Artist Pursuits, Middle School Book Two, another review product, and she said it's the best art book she's ever done. Her work looks fantastic!

Silas has been done with his math for a few weeks - "Math Lessons for a Living Education 3." He has been working on multiplying two digit by two digit numbers for a few weeks. I've been printing him out worksheets and just writing some problems for him to work. He is almost finished with his "Language Lessons for a Living Education 4" workbook. I'm not sure if I'll continue with this series next year or put him in "Learning Language Arts through Literature." He will use "Math Lessons for a Living Education 4" because I really love this math series! He found an old cursive workbook in our shed and has been working through that on his own - I love child-directed learning! He read the books "A Bad Beginning" by Lemeny Snicket (and went on to read at least six more in the series and counting), "A Chocolate Touch", "Because of Winn Dixie", and tons of books on his own. He has also been using Math Shed and Spelling Shed, online game programs (a review product).

Titus has also been finished with his workbooks for a few weeks, and I've been having him go through another workbook for review. He will use "Math Lessons for a Living Education 3" next year and either "Language Lessons for a Living Education 3" or "Learning Language Arts through Literature" - whichever I put Silas in. He has also been using Reading Kingdom, an online reading program, and Math Shed, an online math game program. He isn't writing as much as I'd like him to, but he does like to read.

We've also been doing some lessons in "Beyond the Stick Figure" art lessons. I think their work looks great! They finished the first part of the drawing course and started the second.

We've been outside literally all day long because the weather has been fabulous and we have had so much work to do! The yard is looking great, and our garden is beautiful! I can't wait for all of our tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, okra, onion, watermelon, lettuce, and cantaloupe to come up!

How was your week?

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