Our Week Ahead ~ 19th August ( Ancient China Tie-in)

History & Geography

Our history week ahead is focused on Ancient China, and Japan. 

We’ve all been looking forward to this as I’ve scheduled in a history jump ahead with the Silk Route as a tie-in topic.

This week is geared up more for Daisy, though I’ve set some complimentary reading about China and Japan for Bobs too.

The book basket titles are not very Ancients orientated:

• Audio:   Daughter of the Mountains ~ Rankin Core 5/F  (this is a repeat title for us and is a good book for spear heading a discussion about a Buddhist's worldview)
• Reader: A Gladys Aylward biography either the one by the Benges or the Trailblazer title by the Jacksons (the Trailblazer one needs screening for sensitive/young dc – some brutal slayings, in one of the villages,  are described in detail.)
• N/F & geography:   The Silk Route (7,000 miles of History) ~ Major (a picture styled N/F book)
• Research:  EHE  pg 133 (The Silk Road) and the Middle East mapwork & the book box.   The old Core 5/F
• N/F & science:   Silkworms ~ Johnson (core 5/F)
• Audio:   SOTW1 tie-in audio ch: 32 & 33  (China/Confucius)
• N/F biographical:   Life & Times: Confucius and Ancient China ~ Rowland - Entwistle
• Research:   EHE pg 60 (Confucianism).    The old Core 5/F
• Reference:   UILE or Kingfisher, World Book Encyclopedia c/d-rom, Biblioplan Text etc…

With the EHE, from the old Core 5/F, which is a discontinued Sonlight item but still available for sale....  we are using only select pages, not the entire set that goes with a country or region.  I'm finding that the children are automatically learning more about the region/country/topic being studied as they look for the answer to complete our study sheet.
The pages are our study guide and we use whatever resources we want to use to complete our research sheet.

We haven’t definitely decided on our next family read aloud  - Bobs has recommended a book that he enjoyed as a reader: Cyrus the Persian.

We will be reading through portions of China: Land of Dragons and Emperors ~ Yen Mah

She writes a very no holds barred account of Confucius… with her life experiences seeping through into each sentence (?) 

Time for more study on Confucius.

Tie-in importance has taken a back seat this week for Bobs as we are wanting to go through an over view of some more of the great books and so will continue on with Invitation to the Classics ~ Cowan & Guinness and this site        (NB: for Y......previewing recommending  ;)  )

I’m doing my own online studies with the great books mentioned in Cowan & Guinness book, and I’ve noticed that epic heroes and tragic heroes seem to abound in ancient lit  ;-)  

Bobs will be reading through, and completing,  select portions of work out of Glencoe World History, and his reader this week is anything he’d like to read.

Science:

I don’t usually talk much about science online since we are so delight led with it …..

The children are keen to get a good chunk of science reading  done this week, so having lighter history titles during our set reading time provides an ideal opportunity for us to achieve this.

We’ll also be going through a few more sessions of Biology 101 and are working towards getting ready to start our spring time planting ‘project’ .

Adding here;  Biology 101 adheres strictly to 6 literal days of creation – we’ve been able to work around that , we are not literal dayists,  and are learning a lot from these Dvds.

As a family we are doing a great deal of research into other breeds of self shedding sheep, and miniature highland cows ....

We have 10 days left before the chicken eggs start hatching in the incubator.  We set it up in a hurry as the eggs under one of the broody hens were not ‘doing’ anything and we’d like this hen to have her first brood of chicks to care for.

The perpetual motion ‘engine’ is hit a difficult patch  …. and is not a topic Dn and Bobs are currently wanting to discuss with anyone ;) - once they get over their inventors hump :D they may be back to talking about it.

In the interim all Bobs wants to talk about is….. chickens,  and roosters, and best breeding features, or .. any topic to do with chickens and eggs (wry smile).

Math:

This week I’m helping Daisy to get focused (find her working stride) on using Making Math Meaningful 5.  

We need to have a physical book choice for math on the days when we just cannot access Khan, and sometimes she is not ready for the work required in the next level of LOF.

Thursday and Friday we are still focusing on our Great Courses math review course.

Bobs has decided when he’s not ‘helping’  us  with it, that he’ll revisit LOF Geometry.

Kiwi mum offered some additional  encouragement (thanks) J  for as she stated,  “He has ‘time’ to back up and enjoy delight led math topics”.

Language Arts:

Dasiy will be working through wk 27 of WWE3, a new lesson in AAS 4, and creating a written narration for history.

WWE is a near perfect fit for Daisy and I’m watching her writing skills strengthen as she continues to work through the summarisation/narration exercises. 

The dictation passages are an excellent time for additional grammar and spelling practice.  It’s encouraging to see her pausing during her writing  time to employ the rules she has mastered in AAS.

Yay!!!!

Bobs has one week left before he starts the research portion of WWS1 …… (I think I’m ready for this last part of book 1 – I’ll let you know after we’re all done ;)  ).

He’s writing across our other subject areas this week also – so that counts as a successful language arts week…. in my books at least.

Bible & Memorisation:

Bible focus for us for the next few weeks will be the book of Hebrews, and Dn is leading the discussions.

We’re going through the hymns and scriptures we’ve learnt so far this year, as review.

Daisy is learning a piece of poetry to recite to us …. while Bobs would just rather read one out – memorising poetry is not his favourite thing,  unless it’s an Edward Lear styled limmerick ;)