Homeschool Highlights #1

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We began our celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles this week, so we had a very relaxed week in our homeschool. To start off our week, we each made an edible sukkah (that's Hebrew for tabernacle or booth), read about the feast in the bible, camped out in an indoor tent and worked on our notebooking pages from Grapevine's Biblical Feast and Holy Days book. (You can read more about what we did here).

We continued with our basic studies this week including bible, math, reading, handwriting, language arts, writing and greek/latin roots (our curriculum is listed in my sidebar).

We just started using Queen Homeschooling's Language Lessons this fall and I am happy to say that they like it! I have been scheduling LL right after their handwriting, so that they are in the mode for writing nice. We are using LL for the Elementary Child 1 & 2 and LL for the Secondary Child 1. So far their lessons have included:
  • picture study and narration
  • observation and narration
  • copywork
  • poetry terminology
  • types of poetry ~ limericks
  • capital letters
  • syllables
  • parts of speech review (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)
Language Lessons is definitely "an informal course in the language arts with a Charlotte Mason flavor."

My question is, do I need something more "formal?" I think they like it because it is so relaxed and friendly.

We have taken a break from our regular writing program to do My Access (an online writing program that I am reviewing). The boys spend about 30 minutes a day online learning about the writing process and earn "points" for activities they complete. We still need to work on actually submitting a work of writing though. They have spent more time playing with the font size and color than writing. Dylan made a handy chart to help him type without looking. (More on this coming soon)

We started a new science this week ~ Christian Kids Explore Chemistry. We worked on lesson 1, but I need to find a way to include notebooking into this series. So, we will continue with Lesson 1 and share more of what we did next week. (I will be reviewing this as well).

This week, we also listened to Sara's Wish audio book (see my review here).

We moved our workboxes again. I will share more about that in an upcoming review on the Workbox System. But, I will say that I am happy I did, and we did much better about filling our workboxes this week.

A few other things in review are AVKO, ACT/Discover, and ABC Teach.

As you can see, I am scheduling a lot of products that I am reviewing into our homeschool. It is bringing a lot of variety into our eclectic blend of materials. Many of the items I want to continue to use on a regular basis, so I have to find a way to fit them all in! Which means, I need to make a "schedule" for that. There I said it. Now, I will have to at least try to do it. If you know me, you know that I am a planner and a doer, but not a scheduler!

Did I really just say I would try to make a schedule?

We also picked up several cratefuls of apples, made an apple pie with the little ones, attempted a pumpkin cake, made challah bread and cinnamon rolls, and learned how to skin and process our first deer.

And we have three Hunter Education Graduates this week! Jordan is now eligible to hunt large game, and Nathan can hunt upland birds (turkey, pheasant, and grouse). Super excited for them and I hope they get to go hunting soon!

There you go ~ my first homeschool weekly report. I got a few requests for a weekly report, so I will try to do one again next week. I may still post some individual subjects because that is often how I plan a lesson ~ right in a blog post. But, I will link them in my weekly report and we will see how it goes.

I hope you all had a great week!

8 comments

  1. Awesome! I love reading your posts and learning right along with you! So happy the boys are now "hunters" - what a blessing fresh meat is!

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  2. Wonderful Week-in-Review! Thanks, Michelle.

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  3. Looks like you all had a great Sukkot:) The edible sukkah is adorable.
    Do you follow the weekly Torah portion schedule? If so, you might want to check out my column (Not the Early Childhood Educational Activities one, but the Religious Education one).
    I am doing a "Preschool parsha" series that has crafts that go along with each portion. I'm posting the activities in advance so that people will have time to plan the lessons. B'resheet crafts are already up and Noach ones start going up today:)
    Here:
    http://www.examiner.com/x-23914-Religious-Education-Examiner

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  4. Horray for a weekly review! It sounds like a good week. All the reviews do keep things interesting, don't they? :)

    I *heart* Schedules! They are a great tool.

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  5. I love love love Queen's language lessons! (well, anything that Queen's puts out!) Have a great week!

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  6. Chel,

    Thank you for the post on the Hunter's Education! For all of your friends out there I cannot tell them how much being able to hunt has been impressed upon my heart to provide food for our family. As Andi's husband mentioned that it isn't about the killing, but about knowing that what you are doing is helping your family by providing food. Great post!


    Love,

    Luke

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  7. I am really interested in the language lessons you are doing. I will have to keep reading to find out more about it. I went to the website already and looked at it and it seems really great.

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  8. I have a funny to share about LL. I purposely did not put it in Nathan's workbox for tomorrow because he is getting so far ahead on it. Tonight as I finished putting a few things in, I noticed he had put it in himself. *Ü*

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