Showing posts with label EiW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EiW. Show all posts

14 April 2015

Our Week Ahead ~ April (Tues) 14th 2015

We're still on partial break this week so I've come back and crossed out some of the things I has listed here in my draft post  There will be no writing this week, we're planning on just doing bible, math and reading, and audios.

With my week ahead posts, from now onwards, I'll only detail the 'next' history topic we'll be studying along with any new items that we'll be using each week. 
We're going through our bible lessons slowly and thoroughly this year and so I'll only include the bible subtitle when we get to a new book in the bible.  Studying the bible with two teens is certainly generating some interesting conversations.  Love it!  
I am so thankful to God for Jay and Daisy, and being blessed with the opportunity to home educate them is such a privilege - I wouldn't swap it for anything!
Home educating them is one of the most challenging, rewarding, tiring ;), humourous, and prayer filled tasks I've ever undertaken.

·       History & Geography
Biblioplan Ch 10:  English Colonies Restoration of the Colonies War pgs 228,  230-251a   (Tues – Thurs)
Mapping: nil
·       Family

1:  Read Aloud:
Master Cornhill  ~ McGraw pt1 (SL6)    (1665)
I'm hoping we enjoy this book, as our past experience with reading some McGraw books hasn't been very favourable;
we all enjoyed Seventh Swap,
only Daisy liked Golden Goblet,
Moccassin Trail was not (!) a success as a read aloud in our home,
Mara, Daughter of the Nile I pre-read it & decided not to use for Jay - we switched to an Agatha Christie who-dunnit it instead; Death Comes as the End.
ETA:  Dn has chosen to read Jay's reader, A Parcel of Patterns, as our family read aloud and so I'm currently waving Master Cornhill under Jay's nose to see if he'll read it ;)

2:  Book Basket/Audio:
ITTC ~ Cowan     Milton - Paradise Lost 1667,  Bunyan - Pilgrims Progress 1678, 1684
King Alfred’s English ~ White  pg 77 onwards

The Dairy of Samuel Pepys: BBC Radio Drama  My sister sent me a precious, old (!), book with some of Samuel Pepys' diaried excerpts in it, and so I've been keen for the children and I to go through a greater portion of his dairy together.  The unabridged version is too long, just now, so I've elected to use the BBC's radio drama for us to enjoy over the next few weeks. Update: We ended up dropping this as the content issues just got worse 

·        Daisy ~ History, Literature & Book Basket:
1:  History Reading: 
Famous Men of 16th & 17th Century ~ Shearer: Cromwell (1599-1658),   John Milton (1608-1674)
Dog Days ~ McCaughrean (lite reading, story set in London 1753)
2:  Poetry:  wks 8-12
Coleridge 1772-1834, Byron 1788-1824, Shelley 1792-1822
3:  Free Reading: Elsie’s Vacation ~ Finley
·        Jay ~ History, Literature & Book Basket:
1: Book Basket:
 Screwtape Letters ~ Lewis
2: History Reading: 
 FM of 16th & 17th Century ~ Shearer: Cromwell (1599-1658),   John Milton (1608-1674)
(1665)  A Parcel of Patterns ~ Walsh  (SL 200) content issues.  Recommending this book be pre-read before handing to students.  Not for sensitive readers!!  (ETA:  Now switched to a family read aloud as Dn didn't want to read Master Cornhill :D)
·       English
Daisy:
1:  Essentials in Writing, Level 8:  Lesson 8 +

Jay:
1:  Greenleaf Guide Yr 3 British & American Literature (1550-1900)  ~ Shearer
  Lesson 7:  Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
2:  Essentials in Writing, Level 10:  Section 2: Lesson 1
3:  The Screwtape Letters Online Guide (selections only) wks 8-10

30 March 2015

Our Week Ahead ~ 30 March 2015

It's a short week due to Easter remembrance starting on Friday.  I shan't wax eloquent in this small intro to our week ahead, but will say that we have enjoyed going through Out of Many Waters ~ Green  (SL 7) as a family read aloud.  I've read it before, but Daisy has never heard it so Dn picked it up to read it out aloud to all of us.  The ending is a little less than Dn & Daisy hoped it would be.... I won't add any spoilers here for those that haven't read it yet.
Next week is our end of term break, and we are all looking forward to that.

For my critter love friends I've included a few natural science pictures near the end of this post ♥

·       Bible
All: II Timothy 
Hymn: Jesus, Priceless Treasure (Johann Franck) (All Glory, Laud & Honor C/D)

·       History & Geography
Biblioplan Ch 8:  The Puritian Migration; the English Civil War pgs 176-181,  187 - 198   (Tues – Thurs)
Mapping: wk 8  English Civil War
·       Family
1:  Read Alouds:
Out of Many Waters ~ Greene (SL7)   (finished! :-)  )
** The Story of New Zealand ~ Basset  12A : The Explorers, p.18-19  
It feels so good to be coming back around to some NZ history again! This is the last go through of Early Modern Times World History for Jay... I'm tying not to mentally over focus on that point.
2:  Afternoon Audio:   The Best of Our Island Story
3:  Book Basket:
Christian Men of Science ~ Mulfinger (Kepler)
King Alfred’s English ~ White
Life and Times: Pepys & the Stewarts
Adding these pictures because it's nice to see what an OOP book looks like.
 ·        Daisy ~ History, Literature & Book Basket:
N/F: Life and Times: Pepys and The Stuarts ~ Ross (recommend this for younger years, not for Daisy's age group, yet she wants to have a quick fly through and enjoy the pictures ;) ) See what we are using for Samuel Pepys in this post)
1:  Life Lesson Book: Made You Look ~ Graydon
2:  Reader:  Limbo Lodge ~ Aiken
3:  Book Basket:  Beyond Beautiful Girlhood  ~ Noonan  (with mum)
4:  PoetryOver the next 6 weeks
Coleridge 1772-1834, Byron 1788-1824, Shelley 1792-1822
5:  Free Reading: Elsie’s Vacation ~ Finley
6:  Audio: Don Quixote ~ Cervantes  parts 3 and 4
·        Jay ~ History, Literature & Book Basket:
N/F:  Life and Times: Pepys and The Stuarts ~ Ross
1: Book Basket:
 Screwtape Letters ~ Lewis (wks 7-10)
 Practical Happiness ~ Schultz (discuss with dad)
2: Free Reading: various - delight led
3:  Audio:
 Don Quixote ~ Cervantes  parts 3 & 4
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God ~ Edwards (Screwtape Letters Side Study)

·       English
Both:
Timed writing together with mum.      (Mon - Thurs)  Switch to copywork from your current reader 
Typing.  Narration from history reading.        (due Thurs)

Daisy:
1:  Essentials in Writing, Level 8:  Lessons 6A +
2:  RnS
3:  AAS Level 5
4:  Word Up!  The Vocab Show (Latin and Greek Roots)

Jay:
1:  Greenleaf Guide Yr 3 Lit (1550-1900)  ~ Shearer
  Lesson 6:  George Herbert  (1593-1633)
Our family enjoys poetry and so this course is nearly a custom made fit for Jay.  We are tweaking and modifying, just a little, how we are using this guide as we go along.
2:  Essentials in Writing, Level 10:  Lessons 7 & 8
This course is working so well for Jay as it's allowing him to pull together all he's learnt in WWS and now apply it with guided instruction.  
3:  The Screwtape Letters Online Guide (selections only)
4:   Review in RnS
5:   Greek and Latin Roots

·       Maths
Daisy: 
CTC Math 
Daisy is really learning with this program - it's an excellent fit for her.  She passed her first topic test with 97% which has boosted her confidence no end!   
Jay:  
IXL 
Emperor Moth Caterpillar spinning his cocoon.    Picture taken by Dn   :)
·         Science (both)
Emperor (Moths) Caterpillars.  One caterpillar, Nehemiah ;), has entered his cocoon.  So interesting to watch!  He changed to the colour shown in the photo the night before he started spinning his cocoon.
Daisy: How Things Work  (Coursera)   Mon, Tue
Jay: Mechanics - Coursera (8 wks)   Mon, Tue

·         Languages
Rosetta Stone French for All; yep, including Dad & Mum      Mon, Tue (Daisy only), Wed

·         Logic
Jay: Chess
Daisy:  ??

PS:  Look who we found in the pigeon loft; two squabs!  Totally unexpected as we've been diligently removing the eggs so that we wouldn't have any more pigeons. Ha ☺
Dn took this picture,  and included his fingertip on purpose to show the size of these little fellows.

14 January 2015

Researching Essentials in Writing

I'd been in pause, pray, and ponder mode over what to do with Daisy for this year with English and perhaps beyond that - namely the writing instruction part of that subject.

We don't think she's ready for Writing With Skill, Vol 1 yet - a possum in the headlights is not the look we're wanting.
The writing instruction Susan Bauer gives in those books is almost custom made for Jay - Daisy is needing something else; something incremental and preferably with a visual instructor who teaches with short instruction clips.

After researching our options, and narrowing down the choices for something that could work for Daisy.  I asked for other Sonlighter's experience with one course in particular, emailing the author (Matthew Stephens) and then read through Merry's review, over at Hope for Homeschool.
We made a decision ..... and I managed to make good on the sale price and free postage (yes, free to NZ!) Essentials in Writing was offering a little while back and purchased Level 8 for Daisy.
I'll update once we've got past start up mode; which is in 3 weeks from now  ......