A Week, Briefly (11/26/18)
The week started with a blizzard.
Which was awesome because there was snow to play in almost all week long!
We had 6 Morning Meetings . . . and we started The Jesus Storybook Bible. I love reading this Bible storybook so much! I've timed it so that we will spend this month building up to the nativity and then we'll read about the birth of Christ on Christmas Eve morning.
We'll go on to finish the rest of the stories through January and perhaps early February.
In addition, we started Advent on Sunday night (yes, I know it's early), and we had Advent School each day in place of Academy.
This year we're heavy on crafts that go along with the symbols of Christmas. We covered the star, the color red, and evergreen trees this week.
Pixie finished her 5 geography essays and turned them in on Wednesday.
Whew!
The teens and I finished The Grapes of Wrath and returned to our usual Symposium schedule with one exception: I've allowed Super Star to drop Spanish.
It really wasn't working for her.
There was no need to beat a dead horse.
She'll study something that is more meaningful to her . . . once we figure out what that is.
The teens finished their watercolor projects for Unit 5 in The Good and the Beautiful.
And we had a terrific book club meeting on Friday.
For the second year in a row our book club meeting has coincided with the Colorado Ballet's live stream of their Nutcracker dress rehearsal that they offer as part of their educational outreach. They allow homeschoolers to participate as long as at least 10 students will be watching . . . easy-peasy at our house!
It's fabulous because my crew get to watch a full-length, professional production with lavish costumes and set right in our own living room. In addition, there are behind the scenes shots, interviews with the dancers, and camera angles that allow us a much better view than we'd ever get from the "cheap seats" in a theater. My young ones ate popcorn and asked questions all the way through, and Brother and Beowulf had to be sent from the room to play elsewhere as their attention spans were maxed, but they are getting exposed to the arts as they can handle it, and I'm grateful!
In addition to outdoor play for the young ones, there's been rather a lot of Lego building and other indoor pursuits.
And I am so, so, so, so done with our Shiller curriculum materials.
Mister Man likes them though . . .
Actually, I will let Mister Man keep using the math materials because they engage his attention and challenge him, but the materials and lessons are simply confusing and distracting to the rest of my young ones. I really thought they'd work, and some lessons are terrific and teach my kids skills that I might not think to work on with them otherwise (such as the short term memory exercises in the Language Arts books that I've done with Brother), but as a whole, the lessons are too random, too quick to change, and too full of distractions.
I knew that simple workbooks work for my crew, but I'm always lured into thinking that I should be more hands on and more exciting in the lessons I teach. That is not the truth. Efficient, incremental, focused lessons are what we need when I'm working one-on-one, and those need to be followed with very simple independent practice. Then the kids can extend their lessons in their play.
And they do.
I gave it a full semester fair trial.
(It was rather an expensive lesson to learn 😖 . . . but I did add some really cool manipulatives that do work to our collection--i.e. wooden Montessori alphabet letters for spelling practice!)
I've been making small purchases here and there, returning to workbooks that work for giving my kids the practice they need to retain information and use it on their own later on.
Which was awesome because there was snow to play in almost all week long!
We had 6 Morning Meetings . . . and we started The Jesus Storybook Bible. I love reading this Bible storybook so much! I've timed it so that we will spend this month building up to the nativity and then we'll read about the birth of Christ on Christmas Eve morning.
We'll go on to finish the rest of the stories through January and perhaps early February.
In addition, we started Advent on Sunday night (yes, I know it's early), and we had Advent School each day in place of Academy.
This year we're heavy on crafts that go along with the symbols of Christmas. We covered the star, the color red, and evergreen trees this week.
 |
| Popcorn and hot chocolate were the snack after playing in the snow all morning. They were ready for me to read another chapter of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. |
 |
| We made red holly berries out of paper strips to represent the color red for Christmas. The kids were kind of grossed out to think of red as the color of Christ's blood that atoned for our sins, but they let it go and had fun making their paper berries. |
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| We also did our first of 7 scheduled Christmas themed Picture Studies. It was more challenging than I meant it to be, but the part I liked was having them draw what they saw in the painting. |
Pixie finished her 5 geography essays and turned them in on Wednesday.
Whew!
The teens and I finished The Grapes of Wrath and returned to our usual Symposium schedule with one exception: I've allowed Super Star to drop Spanish.
It really wasn't working for her.
There was no need to beat a dead horse.
She'll study something that is more meaningful to her . . . once we figure out what that is.
The teens finished their watercolor projects for Unit 5 in The Good and the Beautiful.
 |
| Belle's |
 |
| Super Star's |
 |
| Pixie's |
For the second year in a row our book club meeting has coincided with the Colorado Ballet's live stream of their Nutcracker dress rehearsal that they offer as part of their educational outreach. They allow homeschoolers to participate as long as at least 10 students will be watching . . . easy-peasy at our house!
It's fabulous because my crew get to watch a full-length, professional production with lavish costumes and set right in our own living room. In addition, there are behind the scenes shots, interviews with the dancers, and camera angles that allow us a much better view than we'd ever get from the "cheap seats" in a theater. My young ones ate popcorn and asked questions all the way through, and Brother and Beowulf had to be sent from the room to play elsewhere as their attention spans were maxed, but they are getting exposed to the arts as they can handle it, and I'm grateful!
 |
| #everybodyseedance |
In addition to outdoor play for the young ones, there's been rather a lot of Lego building and other indoor pursuits.
 |
| Cutting paper snowflakes (and no, no one in our house is named Jared--that's a random spelling project name on the paper in the bottom right corner) |
 |
| One day Brother led a dance lesson. |
 |
| Tiny Model Magic frogs |
And I am so, so, so, so done with our Shiller curriculum materials.
Mister Man likes them though . . .
 |
| This is what happens with manipulatives during a subtraction lesson. |
Actually, I will let Mister Man keep using the math materials because they engage his attention and challenge him, but the materials and lessons are simply confusing and distracting to the rest of my young ones. I really thought they'd work, and some lessons are terrific and teach my kids skills that I might not think to work on with them otherwise (such as the short term memory exercises in the Language Arts books that I've done with Brother), but as a whole, the lessons are too random, too quick to change, and too full of distractions.
I knew that simple workbooks work for my crew, but I'm always lured into thinking that I should be more hands on and more exciting in the lessons I teach. That is not the truth. Efficient, incremental, focused lessons are what we need when I'm working one-on-one, and those need to be followed with very simple independent practice. Then the kids can extend their lessons in their play.
And they do.
I gave it a full semester fair trial.
(It was rather an expensive lesson to learn 😖 . . . but I did add some really cool manipulatives that do work to our collection--i.e. wooden Montessori alphabet letters for spelling practice!)
I've been making small purchases here and there, returning to workbooks that work for giving my kids the practice they need to retain information and use it on their own later on.
It looks like a fabulous week. The teens' watercolours are beautiful. They are obviously talented. Art was one of those things I never really got to as much as I meant to - I outsourced occasionally which worked better. Sometimes it is a hard lesson to learn with homeschool curriculum. Once you know what works stick with it - even if it is not new and shiny, or the latest must have in homeschooling circles. I sometimes fell into the trap of buying what I liked or would have at their age, rather than getting what I knew (or should have known) would work for them.
ReplyDeleteI think we all fall for the new and shiny curriculum now and again. I know I do. I really love the watercolor pictures and the crafts are so much fun. The kids look so delighted to be out in the snow. My teens were over snow last year. It will be interesting to see what they think of it this year. I love that you all get to watch the Nutcracker from home.
ReplyDeleteBlessings, Dawn
I'm always impressed by all of the arts and crafts that happen at your house! And the watercolors are really lovely.
ReplyDeleteWe would love to have a blizzard! For a day or two anyway, on a week-end when most people are home so no one gets stuck in it. Those water color paintings are gorgeous! I love all of the Christmas crafts. I have made many expensive curriculum mistakes. They sound so good in theory but not so much in practice.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned that the audiobook for the 6th Incorrigible book was a different person and not as good as the others. In the acknowledgements in the back of the book, the author dedicated the 6th book to Katy, the reader of the first 5 audiobooks. She passed away from an illness before the 6th could be recorded.
I hope you are having a good week!
Thank you for telling me about the narrator, but that's sad news. My kids will grieve when I tell them.
DeleteThe watercolors are beautiful!
ReplyDelete