The Aeneid ... our way

There are so many options for going through the Aeneid, yet I'm only going to repost the links for the things we used for our go through the Aeneid ~ Virgil ..... since you asked E☺
Taking into account that we were needing to go with the most budget driven options, free preferably.
I tentatively thought of purchasing In Search of a Homeland: The Story of the Aeneid ~ Penelope Lively for Daisy; however, Bookdepository.com didn't have it in stock so we just left it and used what we had.
Our local library did not have a copy of the Aeneid to loan, and I did not want to wait on an inter-loan copy - for us it's a case of miss the cue and we do not seem to get back to the books missed.

• Free online lecture:
• Abridged audio download   (purchased on sale in 2012)
• A quick overview on Educational Portal (for Daisy)  … which I won’t link as the children and I thought it contained a lot of ‘unclothed’ paintings, more than any of the other e.p clips we’ve watched to date .
• Book   a free kindle edition and selected due to the more poetic styled writing by Dryden 

(For someone wanting a more story styled (free) kindle version, this one may fit)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil

If I was really wanting to go the full depth with the Aeneid, and I had known of the learning surge Bobs was going to invest in …  I’d have been more organised and scouted around the 2^nd hand book sales to purchase a hard copy of Fitzgerald’s translation.

We’re happy with what we’ve used though.

Quo Vadis... our way

I’m tossing this post up here in answer to a question about our read through with Quo Vadis, not as a promotional post for others to read Q.V

We wanted to read a classical literary work about Rome rather than the Maier title Sonlight is currently using in Core 200 and so elected to go with a title that is used in other highschool currics ; Quo Vadis used to be one of the SL Core 8 titles too, from years back.

We are reading & listening (via audio) through this book together.  

*Recommending that the parent be familiar with the content in this book before handing it over to your student.

We are airbrushing out some of the ‘physical attraction’ moments. :/

Daisy is listening along, to various portions of the story, as Jay and I go through this book.  

While this book is unashamedly Christian in tone, and intent, there are some Roman history portions I do not want her listening in to!
  

This book does contain some very adult themes; 

the greed of physical desire at a base level, 

confusing lust with love, 

and detailing the practices, vices, and violence, of a debauched filled Roman’s lifestyle.  

In short, Nero was a narcissistic, amoral despot and Sienkiewiecz is writing about the people, culture, and environment he ‘ruled’ in.

We’re moving between a kindle edition and an audio (they are not whispersynced!)

• Illustrated kindle book  ( $0.99) 
• Free audio book
• Go through a quick overview of The Four Loves first. Really helpful during our discussions of the characters in Quo Vadis – especially with Marcus Vinicius - as we compare a Christ driven love and a Roman, culturally, driven love.
• Character list for quick reference 

With Jay especially, though Daisy is listening in on these discussions too,  we are finding Quo Vadis is creating a good platform to discuss 1 Corinthians 13, and the reality of  enduring “love”  being an action, not a feeling.

I’ve downloaded some highschool study guides and we’re incorporating portions of those as we go through Q.V.

Quo Vadis Study Guides   (scroll down)

Our Week Ahead (Ancients) ~ 30th Sept

History
We're studying through Augustus Caesar , and are about to start reading through the birth of Christ.
Daisy rather enjoyed going through this Educational Portal clip about Augustus Caesar.

Our Bible /history portion relating to the birth of Christ comes from:
KJV Bible: Matthew 1,  and portions of the first 2 chapters of The Book of Luke
Victor Journey Through the Bible: 196-201

Bobs is Reading

• Invitation to the Classics ~ Cowen  (he's on the last excerpt associated with late Ancients)
• Quo Vadis ~ Sienkiewicz  or an illustrated copy
• Bomb ~  Sheinkin  (WW11 interest )



Daisy's Books
She has nearly finished all her books set up for this year and so is/has been  re-visiting
- Danny the Champion of the World ~ Dahl,
- Black Beauty ~ Sewell,
- Dr Dolittle ~ Lofting,
- The Old Fashioned Girl ~ Alcott (a new title for Daisy and a favourite from my girlhood!!)
She is also preview reading a book intended for our church's library:
 Life With Lily ~ Kinsinger & Fisher
Once she has finished those I'll pass over the reader noted in my schedule:  The Vinegar Boy ~ Hawse

Bobs and I will complete The Aeneid this week, which we are counting as poetry first, and a history title last.

Dn is in the last few chapters of reading The Bronze Bow ~ Speare  to us.
Sonlight Curriculum introduced our family to Elizabeth George Speare's books - I really like Speare's books and this one is a certainly a keeper,
The Bronze Bow has a more 'satisfying' ending than is found in one of the books I'm about to read to Daisy, Sparrow Alone ~ Petersen.
(Sparrow Alone makes for an interesting read and noting here it does contain some mature themes - in particular aggressive male 'interest' towards the key female character.)

Our car time audios:
FOTF The Luke Reports (a favourite listen!)
SOTW1 Ch: 36 1st Roman Prince.

It's term break here for the public and private schools and we are in partial break mode too ... a few days of scheduled learning and a few days off. 
We will be completing 2 days worth of some academic learning - English (language arts ☺, WWS, WWE, AAS, RnS) and Math.
Regardless, Bobs and Daisy can always be found reading, listening to an audio book and keeping themselves busy doing something: idle hands, and minds, are not a good look ☺

Our Week Ahead (Ancients) - 16 Sept

It's a short week for us so we'll be going through a condensed version of our history schedule.
I put the books out as

Bible
We're currently reading through the book of Hebrews (KJV) and are really enjoying the conversations that are happening around that book of the bible.

I know I've said it before, lots, and I'm just repeating that sentiment; I'm loving the logic stage of learning with my children.
I appreciate hearing what they think about topics and books, and how they came to those thoughts or conclusions.
I remembered a mom saying on TWTM, sorry can't recall who that was, that she was enjoying teaching and discussing topics and books at logic level and beyond with her children, as opposed to having them work completely independently.
Nodding in agreement as this is my experience also; and Bobs and Daisy certainly prefer it this way too.

History and Geography
The topics for, our, week 29 are:
Julius Caesar, and , Cleopatra.

All
Famous Men of Rome:  Sulla, Pompey the Great, Julius Caesar, Cicero
DK History Definitive Visual Guide:Julius Caesar pg108-109,  Cleopatra pg 120-121
Stories from Shakespeare: Julius Caesar ~ Chute
SOTW 1: Caesar - Ch: 34&35 (car time audio)
Documentary about Rome

Bobs 
Biblioplan Ancient Text: Julius Caesar's World (optional)
Free Reading (book basket)
Aeneid (abridged)  continue with
Story of Mankind: The Roman Empire Ch: 23

Daisy
Julius Caesar and the Romans ~ May (optional)
Free Reading (book basket)
Audio: Ancients Ocean Blue (hoping it's more promising than the review given ;-) )

I forgot to order a book we wanted to use with Daisy, about Cleopatra, so we're going with a much lighter option we've procured from the library:
Danger Zone: Avoid Being Cleopatra (which the rest of us will pick up to casually glance through :) )

Other Subjects
Both children are diligently working on Khan Academy, this week, for math and computer science.
Science continues with our hands on "experiments", reading, and our biology dvd course.
Both children are off on a seriously involved zoology tangent at the moment - so Dn is entertaining the idea of a field trip to the zoo, again.
What is not to like about a field trip to The Zoo in sunny weather.

For Bobs, his typing practice, grammar, and spelling will be done inside history and science - creating outlines and summaries.
We still use dictation for Bobs; and the pieces I select out for him are detailed and certainly more complex than any dictation pieces he's worked on, to date  ☺
I've just been through a repeat listen of Susan Bauer's Writing in the Highschool Years - which is such a help filled audio for me as I can often make, or think,  things are harder than they need to be.
I'm aiming to gets Bobs up and writing again in the last section of WWS.
Last week was read and discuss.

Daisy will do spelling with AAS, and inside her written narrations for WWE.
I don't write out her narrations any more, haven't for ages, she does it once we've talked it through.
Her WWE narrations are also a good chance for handwriting and grammar practice.

We're in week 30 of WWE 3, which touches on the The Black Stallion ~ Farley, and, King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table ~ Green.
Where possible I like the children to have read, or be familiar, with the literature or topic being covered in WWE.
Though she has not been exposed to Green's retelling of King Arthur, she is familiar with Pyle's, audio version of the same tale.
She has not read any of Farley's books.
For a child that loves horses so much, she is not overly fussed on reading literary fiction about them (??)

Our Week Ahead ~ 9th Sept (Ancients)

Our History/Geography topic this week:
Roman Wars, Emperors and Empires.

Bobs 
Biblioplan Text : Punic Wars (highschool)
Hannibal ~ Green
Judas Maccabeus ~ Healey (flick through read only)
The Story of Mankind  ch:22 Rome & Carthage
FmoR: Fabi – Marius
Portions of Julius Caesar ~ Shakespeare (his choice )
Lite read: Hostage Lands ~ Douglas Bond
Audio: The Young Carthaginian ~ Henty (Relistening to a favourite)
And various documentaries he has selected out to watch with Dn.

All of us:
Invitation to the Classics: Virgil ~ Cowan
Biblioplan Text : Punic Wars (maps & discussion)
The Romans ~ Burrell (Wars, Republic and Empire, The Army)
Stories From Shakespeare ~ retold by Marchette Chute (Julius Caesar)
The Fallacy Detective
Audios: Aeneid by Virgil dramatised and abridged   (Y, caution recommended)
our car time audio (dd) SOTW1: War With Carthage.

Daisy 
A Triumph for Flavius ~ Snedeker
A Roman Centurion ~ Wood
UILE, and portions of Biblioplan Companion text.
FmoR: Fabi - Marius
The Ancient World (fashion & costume) Roman Army

She’s currently going through Winnie the Pooh again, as she enjoys Milne's humour -  so sweet to see her revisiting early childhood favourites 
Daisy's extra, and delight led reading is usually too extensive to list so I just don't.


Language Arts
Our end of the week literary extra continues to be:
 Julius Caesar ~ Shakespeare (week 2 of 4)
This post details some of the items we're using.
I’m amazed at how interested both the children are in Shakespeare’s play on Julius Caesar – they are understanding Shakespeare in it's original format just fine… all the years of hearing, and reading, the KJV bible are paying off, as Lynn Bruce's Ambleside article mentions, "familiarity with King James English will make other literature more accessible.", 
 and for our family this has certainly been the case. 

Bobs, who has never been overly fussed on memorisation, is going around spouting off portions of the play with great dramatic flair. Ha! 

And I'm ensuring that our language arts focus capitalises on our current study through Shakespeare/Caesar;  and amazingly Daisy's WWE lessons this week tie in perfectly with that.  The lessons for week29  are all on Julius Caesar, and the dictation is from Shakespeare.
I'm having Bobs take a small WWS breather before we settle back into completing Vol.1.

He is completing dictation pieces taken from Shakespeare, 
is blending his typing and persuasive writing time together,
and creating summaries from various sources he is reading.

Daisy is doing well with her current AAS book and is content to do, on average, half a lesson each day.

I've switched back to regularly reviewing the AAS spelling rules with Bobs, as I've come to find that orchestrating that small task is helpful and necessary.
I do notice when he's tired his spelling acumen floats right out the window.

Favourite Books List ~ Ancients

I've had a few people ask what books we'd recommend for Ancients for their students and instead of typing up what I liked, I thought I'd ask the children what they have enjoyed reading so far. (Now updated to include the rest of the years titles)
(We've just begun reading about Ancient Rome ... I'll update again once we've finished those last few weeks of reading).

For those looking for Ancients based literature - I'd recommend you take a look at Veritas Press' selection in their catalog , and Biblioplan's line up.
There are many other sites/brochures/lists about but those are the easiest choices for me to link, late, on a Friday night ☺

Listing the children's favourite chapt bks, readers & read alouds.

Jay (13)
Favoured Read Alouds:

R/A   10: The Cat of theBubastes ~ Henty    (audio book)

R/A   18: God King ~ Williamson
R/A   18: Famous Men of Greece     (using as  individual reading)
R/A   23: Within the Palace Gates …. ~ Siviter     (Excellent Book! Caution for sensitive children)
R/A   23: D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths (audio book.  wished we’d had the book) 
R/A    30: Quo Vadis ~ Sienkiewicz  (contains very mature, adult, themes!!  We read this together & discussed those issues as we went along. One key topic was love is verb, not a feeling!  Feelings come and go.)

Jay really enjoyed Julius Caesar ~ Shakespeare.  That play kicked off a Shakespeare fest - with both children watching as many of the BBC produced history plays (King XYZ) that they could find on youtube.  Those they couldn't find as recorded productions Jay read ☺
Favoured Readers:
5: Gifted Hands ~ Carson
8: Pharoahs of Ancient Egypt ~ Payne
8: Do Hard Things ~ Harris
13: J.R.R Tolkien books 
15: The Well of Sacrifice ~ Eboch    (Aztecs. Americas tie-in.  Not for sensitive children)
18: Exploring the World of Biology  ~ Tiner
19: Tales of the Dead: Ancient Greece   (rivalry at the Olympic Games)
20: Boys With No Names ~ Sheth  (India tie-in)
( recommend !! parent pre-reads before handing to your student)
21: Cyrus the Persian ~ Sherman A. Nagel     (not for sensitive children, NEEDS editing!!)
27: Famous Men of Rome     (using as individual reading)
30: The Luke Reports ~ Focus on the Family (audio)
34: For the Temple ~ Henty (read by Jim Weiss)

Daisy (11)
Favoured Read Alouds:
R/A  10: Hittite Warrior ~ Williamson  (SL G)
R/A  21: Cyrus the Persian ~ Sherman A.Nagel  (not for sensitive children, NEEDS editing!!)
R/A  23: Within the Palace Gates …. ~ Siviter   (Excellent Book! Same advise as Nagel’s book!)
R/A  23: D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths  (audio book … wished we’d had the book) 
R/A    30: Quo Vadis ~ Sienkiewicz  (contains very mature, adult, themes!!  We read this together & discussed those issues as we went along. One key topic was love is verb, not a feeling!  Feelings come and go.)
Favoured readers:
1: The Magician's Nephew ~ Lewis 
8: Adventures in Ancient Egypt ~ Bailey
10: Tirzah ~ Travis
12: The Dragon of Lonely Island ~ Rupp  (China etc)  (& the sequel)
12: Adventures in Ancient China  ~ Bailey
19: Adventures in Ancient Greece ~ Bailey
27: Mystery of the Roman Ransom ~ Winterfeld
27: Roman Mysteries (some of) ~ Lawrence (audio series)
28: Classics Illustrated: Julius Caesar   (tie-in to our Shakespeare play)
29: Detectives in Togas ~ Winterfeld
29: Ancient Oceans Blue (audio book)
30: The Luke Reports (FoTF radio drama)
summer time listen: The Girl of the Limberlost ~ Porter (the mother in this book is initially awful!  recommend parents pre-view!  We all enjoyed this book, yes even Dn & Jay ☺☺) 

She also enjoyed:

-  the You Wouldn’t Want To Be…  books

-  Cat Mummies by Kelly Trumble
-  A few of the Horrible Histories books (caution required for some!!)
-  Pharoah’s Handbook ~ Usborne

-  Aesop's Fables (various but this one is a favourite)

And lots of other books from the library that I didn't detail as we went along, or are off our own shelves and are, sadly, out of print.

Ancients and Shakespeare

Dusting off this draft post and hitting publish - literary purists may wish to ignore this post ☺

We're on our proposed journey to go through one of Shakespeare's plays each year for highschool.
And no Eliz, we have no plans to include Romeo and Juliet in that line-up :)

This year we've elected to go through portions of Julius Caesar, as the content ties in with the later end of our ancients study.

I'm sure others have a much more stream-lined, or classical approach, to studying Shakespeare but we're approaching this area of home educating in the same manner we seem to do everything else:
the way that seems to work best (better?) for the learning needs and preferences in our family. ☺

Start by watching this small Sparknotes clip
Bobs and Dn to watch this online version of National Geographic's documentary: Julius Caesar: The Roman Empire  (not for sensitive, or younger children).

After watching Sparknotes clip, above, view these youtube films of the play.
(recommend previewing before showing to your own students!) :

• Filmed Production 
• (watch and read) link updated May 2015

• BBC Animated Film (we watched this first for a quick overview, then the film above)
• pt1   
• pt2   
• pt3     

Included the Illustrated Classics comic as a go-along for Daisy.  Bobs has already read this :-)

Refer to portions of the focus activities and background from Glencoe Lit,  here .
I'm wanting to use Shakespeare's plays as visual productions, where possible, and then as discussion topics - not as a writing agenda.

Beneath is a tiny excerpt out of the book we are wanting to use, if it arrives in time -   No Fear Shakespear: Julius Caesar [1]   - or otherwise we'll go for the additional on line excerpts found  here 
 (Y, you may want to check for side panel content first?)

Act 1, Scene 1

Original Text
FLAVIUS
Hence! Home, you idle creatures get you home! 
Is this a holiday?
What, know you not, Being mechanical,
You ought not walk upon a laboring day without the sign
Of your profession?—Speak, what trade art thou?

CARPENTER
Why, sir, a carpenter.

Modern Text
FLAVIUS
Get out of here! Go home, you lazy men.
What, is today a holiday?
Don’t you know that working men aren’t supposed to walk around on a workday without wearing their work clothes? You there, speak up. What’s your occupation?

CARPENTER
I’m a carpenter, sir.

1: Citation: Crowther, John, ed. “No Fear Julius Caesar.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 12 Apr. 2013.

Our Week Ahead - 26th August

Turning over the schedule pages yesterday, it was so encouraging to see just 10 weeks of scheduled history left to enjoy... and to see all the signs of spring creeping into our environment.

Here is the line up for this week ... and it is to be noted we often use a buffet approach to our reading material: We leave the books out on the coffee table, along with other titles not mentioned here, and the children select the ones they wish to read.

Bible:

Hebrews 5-7

Memorisation:

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13 (Credo/SL)

Hymn: Love Divine, All Loves Excelling 

(traditional: clip 1

contemporary: clip 2 )

History & Geography:

Rise of Rome etc.., Celtic Tribes -  week 27

Together:  

Biblioplan Companion Text (Ch:26 Rome) Map Work

The Romans ~ Burrell,    Sections 1-3, &5

The Invaders ~ Burrell,    The Celts pg4-20

Famous Men of Rome: Romulus to Coriolanius (some to read, some  via audio)

(car time Audio: SOTW 1 Ch:27-28)

Bobs:

Kingfisher,  pgs 34-35, 66-69,

Glencoe World History,  Rise of Rome pg 148-155 (over 2 weeks)

Invitation to the Classics ~ Cowan (continue)

Reader: Warrior Scarlet ~ Sutcliff (900 yrs before Christ)

Extra: Roman Ship (Model & Book) ~ Candle Discovery Series 

Daisy:

UILE, 182-184. 188-189A

The Ancient World pgs 36-38, 44-45

Reader:  Book basket selection

Audio series: Roman Mysteries ~ Lawerence (some mature themes, recommend pre-listening)

Extra: Explore the Bible Sticker Book (complete) 

Family Read Aloud: 

Cyrus the Persian ~ Nagel … a flash back read ;)
This book is a riveting read and yet for those with sensitive children you will need to edit out some of the content... especially the portion on pgs 98-101  - the revenge killing of a young prince, it's awful!

Language Arts:

Bobs:

Prep: WWS 1 – reading through the instructors guide with mum to see what the required outcomes are for the research portion of WWS.

Dictation: from science reader : Exploring the Earth

Write from history summaries/outlines created during the week.

Review: all spelling rules (necessary ;) )

Grammar: RnS 6 continue
Friday Fun: Wordly Wise 3000 Games, and, Scrabble

Daisy:

Writing: WWE3, week 28, and, 1 level outlines in history

Spelling: AAS4 next lessons

Grammar: RnS 4 continue
Friday Fun: Wordly Wise 3000 Games, and, Scrabble

Maths:

Bobs:

Khan Academy
(just loving the new allocation feature!! Bobs works delight led through many topics and this new feature makes it so easy to assign some topics that ‘need’ extra work)

LOF Geometry (review)

Friday fun: TGC Secrets of Mental Math 

Practical: Bobs is helping Dn to build a shed for a digger.

Daisy:

MMM5 

Khan Academy,

LOF Mineshaft

Friday fun: Math game and continuing review with Mum in TGC Math.

Practical: Sewing a skirt, and, Baking with mum.

Me J:

-Reviewing math topics with some TGC downloads, 

-still reading through Dr. Wright’s KitchenTable Math books    

(these are excellent books!.... and yes Eliz, I am recommending them :D)

-and, trying to get *my* head around Introduction to Number Theory,   in the hopes of luring Bobs in.  He remains steadfastly disinterested.

Science:

-Biology 101 DvDs, continue with “Day 5”

Science Readers:

The World of Biology ~ Tiner (Bobs) 

Human Anatomy & Physiology ~ Fulbright (Daisy)  

Extra:

Raising huhu grubs through to huhu bug stage :D (pictures to follow in a later post)

Our chick eggs start hatching on Wednesday.

About to incubate goose eggs.

Logic:

Fallacy Detective  (together)

Bobs:

The Art ofArgument 

Chess

Model Building

Daisy:

Perplexors 

Logic based games

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 ;)

Our Week Ahead - 5th August 2013

It's so encouraging to see each new week appearing on our schedule especially once we reached the half way mark of our history schedule a few weeks back.
We're reading through the books listed on Week 24 this week with our topics being Greek Gods, Wars, the Games, and Legends.

Bible Time
Ezra, and, Nehemiah (select passages that match in while we read Victory Journey Through the Bible and listen to the book of Nehemiah in our own, outside scheduled learning, time.
I find it a perfect opportunity to listen to the audio bible while we do household, or outside jobs.

During his bible time this week Bobs is comparing the characters of Jason in the New Testament, and Jason of the Golden Fleece.
He's read, and will then discuss, a simple reader:  Jason and the Golden Fleece ~ Riordan.  The book does contain some intense topics, one being where Jason's wife has a man cut up and boiled -  Daisy is not reading this book - fortunately there is no art work in the book depicting this scene.

Memorisation   (week 4 of 4 weeks)
Psalm 127
Hymn: All the Way My Saviour Leads Me  (we've all come to love this hymn!) 

History & Geography
As Bobs and Daisy are very familiar with the topics being studied this week I'm leaving the books in a select your own reading pile with a prerequisite being: create a summary or narration after reading.
The book pile consists of:
Usborne Encyclopedia,
Glencoe World History,
The Greeks ~ Burrell,
Story of the World (audio) Ch: 23 & 24,
Biblioplan's Ancient Companion Text (Kings of Persia),
Famous Men of Greece (Daisy will go for this one)

We'll be following a few more of the Ancient Greece links listed here  (I'm really keen for us to explore the Greek Art link).

A few other links we'll be visiting are:

A wonderful collection of photographs of Greek Architecture.

Who were the Greeks. BBC.   youtube (can't guarantee all of the content in  this, as we haven't watched it yet :-)

Part 1

Part 2

Daisy is still reading Theras and his Town, and Dn is continuing to read Within the Palace Gates ~ Siviter to us in the evenings.
D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths remains as our car time audio and ... edit that: deleting the link to the audio book we started listening to, the content was way too mature!!
(recommending that the content in the audio be previewd before using it - we often skip portions, or discuss gritty topics as we listen along.)

All other subjects are ambling along at a very satisfactory pace, and I'm praying that they will continue to do so.

I'm starting to gear up to work on our middle ages schedule, and am currently reading my way through a pile of books relating to that.  Such hardship for a book hoarder :)

Our Week Ahead ~ 8th July

Ancients: Go-along links to Awesome Stories

Repasting this link here: awesomestories, for others that may wish to use it; or as a reminder that this resource is out there :)

I've notated our collection of go-along links, below, for ancients.  Which may save others some time:

Mesopotamia: Hammurabi   2000 BC

Mummies: Includes Egyptian Mummies 

Greece: Troy   - Achilles, Hector and The Iliad

Greece: Olympian Games   776 BC

Greece:  Sparta & Persia: Battle of Thermopylae   480 BC

Greece: Alexander the Great  356 BC+

China:  Tomb of the Dragon Emperor  247 BC

Passion of Christ  AD

Pompeii  79 AD

Roman Games & the Gladiators : Marcus Aurelius   161 AD

Hadrians Wall: Anglo-Saxons  440 ish AD