Our Week Ahead ~ 23rd March 2015

We're on week 6 of our history schedule and the children are managing to complete the work set each week.   Paring the reading down in Biblioplan is necessary to keep us moving steadily forward week to week in history, otherwise we get totally out of synch with any other reading we have lined up to compliment Biblioplan. 

This weeks Biblioplan chapter is very full, yet I think Jay and Daisy will be able to complete it as the rest of their reading load is lite.

 (Yes, I do hand the Companion to them to read individually  - it's easier for us to each read it separately, now they are older, and then we discuss topics of interest during history time on Thursday.  Thursday is the day we do mapping work and the day I also have them type up a history outline, or a narrative piece.

·       Bible

All: 1 Timothy   
We are going through the book of Timothy very slowly as a family, and enjoying a wonderful indepth study of this book together.

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

Other:  Faith Lessons  Vol 3:  Life & Ministry Of The Messiah

Cursive Copywork:  piece of your choice

·       History & Geography

Biblioplan Ch 7:  30 Years War pgs 151 - 175   (Tues – Thurs)

Mapping: wk 7B Thirty Years War

  ·       Family

Read Aloud: Out of Many Waters ~ Greene (SL7) p9-105

Afternoon Audio: Don Quixote ~ Cervantes 

Car time audio:  The Best of Our Island Story

N/F:

Trial &Triumph Ch.27  Adolphus 1594-1632 

Christian Men of Science ~ Mulfinger: Kepler 1571-1630  (Scientist for this term)

King Alfred’s English ~ White

Poetry:  The New Oxford Book of Children’s Verse ~Philip

·        Daisy ~ History, Literature & Book Basket:

N/F: ITTC: John Donne 1572-1631,  Herbert - The Temple 1633

Reader:  still to be decided

Poetry:  The Walker Book of Classical Poetry .. ~ Rosen

None of us are enjoying this book as much as I hoped we would, so we are going to drop it and just focus on using the book both children read from, aloud, during Family Time in the morning.

Free Reading:  Limbo Lodge ~ Aiken

Audio: El Dorado ~ Orczy (read by Karen Savage)

·        Jay ~ History, Literature & Book Basket:

N/F: ITTC: John Donne 1572-1631,  Herbert - The Temple 1633

1: Book Basket: 

Won by the Sword ~ Henty  (lite read)

Practical Happiness ~ Schultz (discuss with dad)

2: Free Reading: various - delight led

·       English

Both:

Timed writing together with mum.      (Tues – Thurs)

Typing.  Either a narration from history reading, or from your current reader          (due Thurs)

Daisy:

Essentials in Writing, Level 8:  Lesson 4B +

RnS

Restart  AAS

Jay:

1: GG Yr 3 Lit (1550-1900)  ~ Shearer  Lesson 5: John Donne (1572-1631)

2: Essentials in Writing, Level 10:  Lesson 3+

Review in RnS

Greek & Latin Roots

·       Maths

Daisy: 

CTC Math  

Computer Science 101

Jay:  

IXL 

Computer Science 101

 ·       Science (both)

Emperor (Moths) Caterpillars. 

Daisy: How Things Work  (Coursera)   Mon, Tue, Fri

Jay: Mechanics - Coursera                     Mon, Tue, Fri

Our Emperor (Moth) Caterpillar eating his freshly discarded skin.   Pict taken by Dn

·       Languages

Both: Rosetta Stone French      Mon, Tue (Daisy only), Wed, Thurs

·       Logic

Jay: Chess

·       Other
Daisy:  Complex Loom band designs .... she made a horse last week (& lots of other things!)

Apologia Chemistry 3rd edition - Link to Dr. Wile's Review

Just popping this link here for others that may be interested:

Dr. Jay Wile's review of the 3rd ed for Apologia Chemistry.

I'm not overly interested in the authors name on a text, it's the content inside that is of interest to me and after reading through Dr. Wile's review and concerns over the latest release -  3rd edition - of Apologia Chemistry our 2nd edition copy is looking better and better ;)
For those looking for the errata for the second edition go here  (scroll down for the other Apologia books)

Emperor Gum Moths - Cocoon to Hatching

Tossing up a few of the pictures we took, in 2013, for any others that are as interested in emperor gum moths as we are ☺
We had to take the pictures through a plastic container so the quality is not that great. Clicking on the picture will allow a closer look at these amazing creatures.

Caterpillar weaving it's cocoon #1

Caterpillar weaving it's cocoon #2

Cocoon just made

Emperor gum moth emerging from the cocoon #1

Emperor gum moth just hatched.

Closer view of the feathered antennae.

Drying off #1

Drying off #2

Pet Post ~ Delight Led Science Projects

Pictures of some of our delight led science projects for this year.

One of Jay's racing pigeons with it's squabs

The squabs come inside for regular handling

Young pigeons require lots of handling - they have razor sharp talons and poop lots, hence the towel

One of Jay's poults hatching

3 newly hatched poults - Bronze Crested and Australian White cross

Tilly, and the poults she hatched

Tilly and all the poults roosting

Jay's turkeys, Pearl (Poppy's behind the bush) and Titus McPerky with Leroy

Pearl.  Jay's beyond-friendly Australian White.  She loves to be petted

Daisy's new Wiltshire sheep. Abah-ram has just start to shed

Both ewes are now with lamb :)



Daisy's calves (front to back): Peppermint, Cocoa, Cookies n Cream

 

Periodic Table Link

A blogging friend, Chareen of Every Bed of Roses, writes one of my favourite posts to check each week titled Tuesday's Treasures  and last week she shared this wonderful link to a Visual Periodic Table,  a perfect go along to one of Bob's favourite science books, The Elements ~ Theodore Gray

Our Week Ahead: 3rd March 2014

I recently learnt a really good trick from a blogging friend: type posts up and then schedule them to publish themselves while you're away busy doing something else. 
So I started typing this in advance and to schedule "it' to post itself on Monday 3rd March...
Ha!  Life got to whirlwind speed and so I'm briefly stepping out of the whirlwind and coming back to brush up the draft & hit post. (At least the draft was nearly all done ☺)

Summer is officially over for us and it surely feels like autumn, we've got feijoas and walnuts falling off our trees (weeks earlier than normal!)  :/
Part of our family exercise of late has been cutting, wheel barrow-ing and stacking huge piles of wood for winter time fires.

Here is what our scheduled week ahead looks like - sometimes the reality pans out to be quite different.

• Bible 

All: 1 Corinthians ch:6- ch:8 & discussion with Dn
Bobs: the book of Ezekiel (continue)
Daisy: 1 Samuel  (continue)
Me: 1 Corinthians (study)

Memorisation & Cursive Copywork:
Hymn: review Hymns from 2013 (wk 2 of 3)
Scriptures: Christian Life 1 verses pg 217 from Living Memory ~ Campbell (wk 2 of 8)

• History & Geography

Topic: Great Britian Pt.1
All:
Biblioplan Ch:2 Great Britian:  Celts, Roman Britons, Angles, Jutes, Saxons, King Arthur, Stonehenge, Beowulf, Arius & Athanasius, Nicea
Mapping: The 5 Oceans, &, Great Britian (biblioplan)
Encyclopedia Research: Medieval World
Famous Men of the Middle Ages: Egbert of Saxon (AD 802-837)

Family 
Read Aloud: Black Horses for the King ~ McCaffrey (SL)  AD 500
Poetry: Favourite Poems, Old & New ~ Ferris (SL),
&/or, The New Oxford Book of Children's Verse ~ Phillip
Car time Audio: The Best of Our Island Story ~ Marshall (Naxos)

Daisy ~ History & Literature:
SOTW 2  ~ Bauer  Ch 2: The Early Days of Britain
Reader: King Arthur & the Knights of the Round Table ~ Pyle (audio opt)
& book basket selection/s
Audio:
Poetry: A Child's Introduction to Poetry ~ Driscoll

Bobs ~ History & Literature:
HoTMW ~ Bauer (discuss with mum)
Greenleaf Guide to Medieval Literature:
Lesson 1: Bede ~ The Ecclesiastical History of the English People  (complete)
Reading: The Hound of Ulster ~ Sutcliff (opt) completed. Bobs enjoyed this book, and devoured it. He said to note that there are some mature female/male relationship themes in it.  (Recommending you pre-read it Y)
or a book basket selection
Other literature: Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court ~ Twain (audio) completed ages ago, says he  :-o
Bobs said he was really enjoying this story until Twain took a Charles Dickens "bender" (gloomy & depressive) in the last part of the story.
History Audio: This Sceptred Island vol. 1 

• English (or Language Arts ;) )

Daisy:
Continue with reviewing in All About Spelling, Grammar in Rod n Staff 4
Type thank you letters
Complete current lesson in Story Starters ~ Andreola

Bobs:
Continue with reviewing AAS rules,  Grammar in Rod n Staff 6,
Latin & Greek Roots
Type thank you letters
(Greenleaf Guide Above)

• Math

Khan Academy for both (continue)

• Science

Chemistry 101
Continue our study of turkeys, ducklings, and pigeons

• Electives

Daisy:
Piano
Home Economics (baking)
Delight led extras

Bobs:
Drums
Carpentry (with Dn)
Lego ;-)
Delight led extras

Titus McPerky ~ Our Pet Turkey (& a duckling update)

Titus McPerky was not doing well on his own, despite having buddied up with Boof-Boof,  one of our older chickens.

He'd get out of his enclosure and hang around the hen house until Boof-Boof was let out in the afternoon and then he'd just mope.
So we've been trying to get him company of his own kind - turkeys are very social critters, and need their own kind!

He now has a "girl" friend and is slowly returning to being a McPerky sorta turkey.  Miss McPerky currently has no first name.

Leroy stands guard during swim time, note the cat ;)

They grow so fast.....

see how much,  in just a few weeks.  Daisy's lap is their favourite place to sit.

  And just for Tracy ☺:

The pigeon loft is built and up...  Dn took note of ramping up tactics from history so we could get this thing off the ground - it's very heavy.  Ramp in place, we literally pushed it up to the top, then Bobs & I steadied it while Dn drilled and screwed it into place

All up and now home to 2 pairs of racing pigeons

Dr. Jay Wile ~ New Elementary Science Course

We're currently reading through Dr. Wiles new elementary science book:
Science in the Ancient World.
Currently, the free download is only available to those outside the USA - so yes, Vess,  Canadians can access it too.

The first 'course' Dr. Wile put up, Science in the Creation Week , contained so many things I don't like to use in a science curric - similar to Apologia's jnr texts  - that I'll leave that one for someone else to review.  Others will *love* it!   

We'll ... perhaps not those that have no desire to navigate through a 6 literal days "science" view point. The index for Science in the Creation Week and a 1 page peek can be seen here

I'm enjoying Science in the Ancient World so far and we all like the writing style - we'll continue to do it as a discussion based 'option' - and no Eliz we have not felt so inclined to do any experiments, yet.

The differing levels for lesson review at the end of each topic make this text very adaptable  - and easy to use with a variety of ages, and ability.

This course does have a similar format to Science in the Creation Week, with the Ancients text covering scientific discovery made by natural philosophers, spanning the era from the ancient Greeks upto, and including, the time of Leonardo da Vinci.
The index for Science in the Ancient World can be viewed here ... and yes it is the Ancients index, someone just forgot to change the title ☺

Maybe it's the topic being covered as opposed to 'writing style' - but Science in the Ancient World was definitely more appealing to us than the Creation Week text

* dragging this post forward and updating with picts.

Science ~ Living Books Lists

Resharing our favourite science books lists here,  again - as they may be of interest to others too .

Bonajo - Science Books 

Penny Gardner - Readable Science

Cranial Edumacation ~ Science Living Book List
We don't follow a traditional science course but do like science-y topics☺ and as the children enjoy reading science and nature focused books I do try to have a variety of those on hand, for them to pick and choose through.
Having a list, or two, to select from is a great help.

I've always had such plans to use a science spine, something like Apologia, and then add in some living science books - similar to this - but we just couldn't seem to stick with Apologia ... and ended up so rabbit, or random, trailed it seem pointless to back up and carry on.

The Long Walk to Water

The Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park was our final Sonlight recommended read aloud for this year. 
The book tells a very powerful and emotive story, I've had to edit parts out on the fly for Daisy as we were reading this book right before bed time.
If you're not doing Core F, this is a book I'd recommend picking up to read - it's a sobering and impression leaving book.

For science studies last week it seemed like a natural tie-in to revisit our water studies.
We'll also be watching a tie-in talk on the dire need for clean drinking given by Jordan Wagner, US business man and a pastors son.
The links below will flick over to you tube ...  I can not vouch for any extra links that may show up on the side bar, once you get there :-/

Watch Part 1: http://youtu.be/G-hnVM8QXo8
Watch Part 2: http://youtu.be/fis1EElDhng
Watch Part 3: http://youtu.be/9k34-jrKyBQ

There are a few free teachers guides about to go with Parks book

https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/floridamedia.../_9alongwalktowater.pdf

www.ilfonline.org/.../2012.../MG_LongWalktoWater_Activity.doc

Nature Study? Lambs

We do like to indulge in bouts of some very hands on episodes with our science/nature studies.

The current bout has been hand raising 2 dorper lambs who were just a few weeks old when they came to live in our backyard.

We're learning a ton.
The lambs, Clementine & Gemma, are wildly in love with our Bichon - who thinks we've brought these lambs home as friends for him!  They are really sweet to watch playing together.
Here Leroy is waiting outside the gate to be let in after the children have feed the lambs their bottles☺

Below show pictures of Clementine & Gemma making their way into the house (!!) to get to where DH is making up their afternoon bottle - he'd left the door open since it was a sunnier winters day.

They have become very friendly and do make the best pets.  These 2 are not for 'eating' (gasp. horror) they were purchased for breeding purposed ... we're hoping to eventually get lambs from them ....

Nature Studies ~ Hands on Zoology

We look forward to delving into a longer term nature study each year, a nature study that is very hands on. Mostly those episodes have involved 'raising' something.
Well this years 'raising' episode has created a great deal of enjoyment and excitement.
The children purchased a breeding pair of guinea pigs and there enters another round of hands on zoology for us.
Our guinea pig sow, Cookie, has finally given birth to four pups. They are just the sweetest wee things.
Here are a couple of pictures of them - at just a few days old.




We've learnt so much about guinea pigs and their whole gestation cycle. As soon as Cookie had given birth to the pups we put Max, the boar, into a seperate cage as sows come back into heat very quickly after birth - and back to back births can kill her. Not what anyone would want for their loved pet.
After Daisy read that a sow can have up to 50 pups in her life Bobs decided he'd work out the fibonacci math for a breeding pair of guinea-pigs - which was some staggering number ☺

Nature Studies ~ Spring

We're well into spring here and I keep meaning to enjoy another of Barb's, from Handbook of Nature, Outdoor Hour Challenges.

I may just get Bobs and Daisy to select which one/s of Barb's topics they'd like to do. We purchased the pdf last (?) year but for others wanting to join in, the free selections are listed here: Spring: Nature, Music and Art Studies

We haven't been very faithful to record our efforts as the whole episode becomes 'adventure driven with a camera and referring to guide books later". We may start out with the best of intentions to do trees and get very distracted by birds, especially if they have young ones .... ☺. For us, this means the outing was still a success: We became enthralled by another facet of God's beautiful creation ..... and the unused sheets of paper get put quietly back in the file.

I love this kind of science!!



Adding also for other C.M, nature studying New Zealanders:
We tend to prefer using, what I call the NZ addition to Anna Comstock's Nature Study book, Nature Study By D. Beggs as our reference.  The book is O.O.P and was originally used in New Zealand schools (years back!!!). 
I'll get myself organised enough at some point to generate a more complete post about this book.

Home Educating Conference with Dr. Jay Wile and His New Elementary Science Course

Home Educating Conference with Dr. Jay Wile

Or, should that be titled: What On Earth Is Chelle Doing At A Traditional- Approach- to- Science Conference?

Freebie First - Dr. Wile is offering the first book in his new series, Science in the Creation Week, a creation based elementary science curriculum, for free to those that live outside the USA. That test pilot offer is especially good for Australian & New Zealand home educators with the download being ready for field testing in August 2012 .

Here's the web link for those interesting in following this curriculums development.

2013 update: Our quick review of the next book, Science in the Ancient World,  in Dr. Wile's elementary science book series can be found here.

Now back to the more current happenings in my small world: I couldn't really believe that I was willingly electing to go to a science conference - shudder - all those topics that just seem to delight only the males in our home and here I was driving, about an hour up the road, to sit through topics like echo-hysteria (which was actually very interesting) and science from the bible. I must admit that during the last lecture I quietly slipped out and headed for home - I think I was starting to shut down from 'science' overload.

Dr. Wile, author of Apologia Science is a very engaging and eloquent speaker - if you get the chance to attend one of his conferences, even from my slightly, ha, resistant to traditional science view point, go! You'll come away the better for it. Maybe not a convert to the traditional science approach, but like me - the better for listening to Dr. Wile expound on a subject he is gifted in and passionate about, and hopefully learn more about this wonderful creation we live in.... as well as come away encouraged by just being around other home educators for a day (without the washing to switch).

The hand out notes for the conference sessions held in New Zealand can be found here . I enjoyed two sessions more than the others: What are They Doing Now? (revisiting previous homeschoolers and seeing where they are now) and the second session was Teaching Critical Thinking.

Dr. Wile waved the "in favour" flag during his critical thinking talk for the math curriculum we use and like so much: Making Math Meaningful.

Makes one feel good about the choices they've made, though we'd still like & use it regardless of that comment (smile).

For the interested, before you ask (smile)... yes, I am still thinking about, and going through, the upper levels of Apologia for Bobs to start using midway through 2012, as I think, with a few adjustments, he may enjoy going through that.
(update:  We just slide right off the wagon with even 'trying' to use this course.  Ah well ...) 

Science

Seems like many of our posts lately are about this topic ..... odd really, with me so science orientated (laugh.  I'm not).

Daisy has completed her Exploration Education box and is strongly encouraging Jay to 'get done' so that they can enjoy their next choice for science (Yes, it will still be part of our science boxes approach).

After comparing the various options available and since the children have enjoyed building "Billy Bones" (only seven weeks to go and Billy, picture above, is all built!!) we decided they might like to have a go with:

Apologia's Exploring Creation With Human Anatomy,

Complete with a notebook each, regular level and junior level,

And the wonderful experiments supply box.

The items are not all loose like this they have been efficiently packaged together into plastic lock bags which relate to each lesson's experiment and labelled accordingly.

Daisy wanted to get started as soon as the box arrived - since it comes complete with quite a few American sweets, (smile) such a novelty and a book you can colour in, cut, paste and create lapnotes for! I think the junior level notebook is lovely and bar the line spacing for writing (too large), this notebook is a perfect fit for Daisy to complete on her own.

We've also selected a few books to go in the children's book basket; a notable reading mention for Jay is Tiners, Exploring the History of Medicine.

I noticed that Lilliput Station have some really nice free notebooking pages to go with Exploring the History of Medicine.

I'll keep you 'posted' as we go along, how well we're all doing with this :-)