Labor Day weekend was a time for catch up and review, but (hopefully) disguised as play. I've been describing myself as a brand new mother with this homeschooling gig. I want to do everything right- as in "don't let the baby fall asleep anywhere but the crib" kind of thing. In homeschooling, I'm still obsessing over the crib so to speak. I don't want any chance of getting behind; cutting out activities sounds, well, like neglecting my newborn baby. Logically I know that I'll eventually work through this thinking, but it'll take some time and experience.
We spent Saturday at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. We started in the geology section.
The kids had one worksheet to complete inside the museum. They were to find a rock, draw it, and use a list of descriptive words to write about their findings.
We then walked through the dinosaur exhibit. I had given each child a clipboard with paper in case they wanted to draw anything interesting or write down any questions to look up later. Brooke chose to draw this little cutie.
Lydia recording her findings.
She wanted to climb the wall and touch that dinosaur.
This week's material acquaints the child to their own city. We spent last week learning about ancient Mesopotamia, and this week they will learn that their city has its own past. On Monday, we walked along Main Street of our small town and looked at the original buildings from our city's earliest beginnings. Last month I bought a book with historic photos and facts. Here we stood in front of the city's bank built in 1909. The original photos pictured dirt roads and horses.
Standing in front of what was once the high school, built in 1909.
We're also learning about electricity this week, so after reading Where Does Electricity Come From? by Susan Mayes, we drove to the gates of our local power plant to see how coal keeps our lights on.
That's a lot of coal!
We've been covering map skills since day one of last week. I wish I'd taken of picture of Bill teaching more map skills last night. He used a road map to show where distant relatives live, and had the kids show him a driving route, and determine the distance from our house to theirs.
This morning we were back to a regular schedule, combining days 6 and 7 of Weaver's Chapter 1 Day by Day plan. Our Bible story covered Noah's Flood. We then switched topics and discussed electricity in more detail. Tomorrow we'll make a homemade circuit, and read biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison. The girls have been writing daily in their creative writing journals- they are such good story tellers. Math is going well- I absolutely love our Singapore Math curriculum. Madeline is speeding through her workbook, and will already be moving on to the next book next week. I'm guessing she'll slow down as it gets progressively harder. Brooke is moving along at a more steady pace- math isn't her favorite, but she's learning without frustration. Isaac is moving along in his math workbook and activity book as well. He's gaining confidence in his reading lessons. We used this method to teach Brooke and Madeline and had great success. It's helping Isaac with his speech as well. He hasn't qualified for speech therapy in over a year, but still struggles with several sounds. I love that Weaver also incorporates speech therapy with Kindergarten Wisdom Words.
Brooke started flute lessons last week and is loving it already. Isaac is still active in karate, and earned his first new belt a couple weeks ago. Ballet starts up next week for Brooke and Madeline. I'd like to find an art class soon for all four of them. Slow and steady has been my motto the past couple days. It's not been free of occasional frustration and stress, but really- what in life is? So thankful we are doing this!
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