Was Our Week Ahead ~ in November 2016, is now...

This is my last post on Modern Times history and literature covered during 2016.
It's more to archive the books read, and audios listened to during the end of November, into the middle of December.  Academic school has officially finished for 2016.  (Though Jay's new English teacher has gifted him an assignment to complete before the middle of Term 1, 2017.  We've closed the books and just walked away from it - it'll still be there next year.)

We're really happy to close the door on November - finishing assessments for Te Kura added extra excitement to life-happening things;  talk about a horrible, no good, very bad, month (Judith Viorst),   .... but, let's not talk about it   ;-P
I'd rather focus on the grace of God seeing us, along with those we love and care about,  through ♥
And learning to acknowledge, once again, that there are "things" we cannot change.

Our family is quietly enjoying preparing things for the end of year celebrations.  Celebrations that surround the commemoration of Christ's birth.
This is a lovely time of the year for us - I look forward to it very much.

Beneath is the literature, Daisy & Jay, read late November to mid-December:

Daisy

3:  ITTC: 

o   Solzhenitsyn  – One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) p.357

o   Contemporary Writers   p.361

Short Stories:  

Contents of The Dead Man’s Pockets ~ Finney (1956)

Free Reading:

• Alas, Babylon ~ Frank (sensuality edited out)
• The Gammage Cup ~ Kendall (fantasy.  Does have romance element in it.  Recommend parents read it first.) 
• The Boy in Striped Pyjamas ~ John Boyne
• Mama’s Bank Account ~ Forbes

Audio’s in Nov/Dec:  

• Sermons
• The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweil ~ Konisburg
• Tale of Holly How ~ Wittig Albert
• Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood ~ Wittig Albert                                                                                         (both of the above Wittig Albert books focuses on Potter, proportedly, believing in fairies;  and, the Tale of Holly How feels enshrouded in that theme  :-/)

o   4:  Short Stories:  

Contents of The Dead Man’s Pockets ~ Finney (1956)

Jay

3:  ITTC: 

o   Solzhenitsyn  – One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) p.357

o   Contemporary Writers   p.361
      
      Short Stories:  

Contents of The Dead Man’s Pockets ~ Finney (1956)

Free Reading in Nov/Dec: 

• Virtual Billions ~ Eric Geissinger (library bks)
• The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld ~ Jamie Bartlet (library bks

Audio’s in Nov/Dec:  

• Sermons
• Finance Lectures

Retro Post ~ Wedgits

This is not an advertising plug to sell this item, our sale is all done and dusted ... I'm just in the frame of mind to showcase another early homeschooling gadget.

WEDGiTS!

Our children used to love tinkering with this set of Wedgits (as did any other people who happened to be in our space at the time the Wedgits box was out).

When they were really little we'd do the whole (excellent) Montessori idea, I'd build a shape and they'd copy the building of it ... here's a small funny though >

During some more involved building sessions with 3 yr old Daisy, I was trying to nut out how the pieces went together so that she could "monkey see" "monkey do".

Bobs, 5yrs old, could see marmee was just not getting it, so quietly sat RIGHT in front of me with the pieces needed to make the shape and s.l.o.w.l.y built it while I watched - even then it took me at least 4 goes to get the shapes to lock in place (laugh!). I was not doing well with following 3D instructions - which Wedgits are.

(Great early (? snort) years discovery toy. Our family built with these from ages 2-8.)

Needless to say Daisy mastered Wedgit building from watching Bobs, then they both ending up teaching marmee how to build 'involved' Wedgits.

*WEDGiTS currently can not be purchased in NZ - Australia is our closest distributor.

Alphabet Bingo - Memory Lane with Sonlight

I'm currently having a rather large homeschooling items purge - ouch, who knew selling memories pinches just a little - and as I was typing the pictured item up for sale tonight .. all the fun times the children and I had playing with those very simple looking Sonlight language arts games just brought back a flood of good 'early' home educating memories .... I haven't checked to see if Sonlight still sells these, if they do snaffle a set for the elementary age learners in your home.
They are really fun!
Here are some of the ways we used these sets, all while playing bingo, mind.

Sometimes the games had to go really slowly and be played with just a few letters/blends/words at a time.
As the confidence and 'reading' ability grew the games became a counter-placing-race:
Use the alphabet bingo set to assist little ones to recognise each letter by it’s name.

Then using the same cards, the students recognise the (short) phonetic sound of each letter. (Add long phonetic, or alternate phonetic sounds at a later stage .. you know these cards go so well with All About Spelling and any reading program.)

The letter blends (groups) cards are perfect to use with an emergent readers or to re-enforce letter blends for spelling.

The word cards are excellent for practising common sight reading words.

Can also be used for spelling - the parent or teacher spells the words and the students are to find them ...

Bingo!

(sorry, ☺ just couldn't resist it )

Part 2: Unfounded Expectations and Completing this Year's Work

continued...

The children have finished their math and language arts requirements for this year - at their request, I condensed the last part of the lessons in their math books and agreed that if they could get the set amount of math problems all right to go with each topic (no mistakes) we could continue to move at a much quicker pace.
Bobs wanted to complete the remainder of his MMM book as there are rewards that go with completing homeschool books in our home. (Computer time credits, pizza and a rental movie)
Daisy who is just as focused to collect her rewards spent the last 6 home educating days completing her MMM book ..... in her spare time ☺

I've decided we will come back in the new year to revisit the topics on New Zealand history covered in SOTW3 with more detail and a New Zealand flavoured telling of these portions of history.

Laughing a little here .... New Zealanders do NOT listen to Jim Weiss reading this chapter of SOTW3; he very inventively reconstructs the maori pronunciation!! The children thought it was really funny: me-or-e for maori and why- tan- gee for Waitangi. He very obviously made this recording before his visit to New Zealand. ☺
I had the children read set chapters out of our NZ history book : Builders of NZ, instead.

Along with the last lesson to cover in SOTW3 we have one more Sonlight book, By the Great Horn Spoon, to read - time to employ a handy dandy audio book.
For those interested there are two choices (we're listening to the first) :
By the Gread Horn Spoon, read by Kayray (free audio book)
or a paid version By The Great Horn Spoon! by Sid Fleischman, Narrated by Willard E. Lape, Jr, the Full Cast Family

Despite - what felt like - our shuffley hodge-podge working style this year we are closing out our Core 3/SOTW3 run embracing a sense of achievement rather than a sense of failure due to tasks not done as originally hoped or planned - in a nut shell, it's me just letting go of my unfounded expectations.

(It's taken me 3 weeks to get here and get this post ready for sharing - every time I come back the details have changed again ☺
It may take me a while to get back here to post again -I have a ton of links and things I'm wanting to post about, including our substitute text now that ALL has be shoved to the back burner - right now though we're decluttering, onselling and packaging-n-posting (!!!) a pile of homeschool items and attending end of the year practises and concerts, and .... getting ready for Christmas.

In the meantime though...
Praying that we may all make the time to pause and peacefully count the many blessings we are gifted with.
Blessings to each of my dear friends and fellow homeschoolings.
~Chelle~ )

Part 1: Unfounded Expectations and Completing this Year's Work

It has taken me close to a complete home educating year to find my teaching footing with the following mix; Bobs needing and chomping at the bit to work at a higher level (let's just change up the gears and add in part of another core shall we), and Daisy requiring a little less time with mum 'elbow teaching' but more time with me teaching home craft topics (cooking, paper crafts, and sewing instruction do require some time and patience ☺) ... and Dn starting to work from home (who knew a grown man could create such an on going distraction to the children and I - just by being there? ☺).
As is pretty normal in most homes, life happens too as part of that continual adjustment mix.

It took me a good 10 months of learning to let go of unfounded expectations for the home schooled part of lives and realising we were being gifted with other lessons to learn from, or walk through.

The replacement lesson modules have been:
someone in our home recovering from a longer term illness;
loved ones divorcing;
death;
an on/off run of unexpected visitors and house guests;
out of our norm (!!!!) ministry responsibilities;
and, high-wants (translate that as unreasonable and demanding) clients.
Those are some of the more prominent aspects of what this year has gifted us with and are not events one can actually plan into a schedule. Yet those are the times that have gifted us with some of our deepest and best learning moments;
Moments of patience,
moments of compassion,
moments of praying through intense grief,
moments of love and hospitality,
and,
moments of being faithful and diligent.

If there were "tests" that went with each of those life moments, I'm not sure how well we would have done with "passing" on some of them - we just endeavoured to place our trust in God as we worked through each lesson. It's best to forget about passing any sort of test, as the value of those life moments just leave lasting impressions in the ongoing formation of the children's character (and ours!!) that can not be learnt solely at the dining/homeschooling table.

With the academic lessons the children have been so patient and accomodating as I/we've stretched and relaxed trying to find a good working pace around the constant life changes.

I think we've finally found our stride ... and, laughing, the end of the year is looking us right down the barrel. I thought we would be finished in 2 and 1/2 weeks ... not with the children I've been blessed with, they see the end in sight and start pushing me to get us done marmee. We have ONE week left of our history schedule to complete which feels so good.

to be continued ....

(this post was apparently too long for certain folks to get through in one reading ... so I've cut it in half *just for them* ☺)

End of Year Learning ~ Part 1

End of Year Learning ~ Part 1

We had such good intentions to make a jump start on Core 3/SOTW3 ... however life-would-just-get-in-the-way and the reality looks a little different to our intentions.

Together: we've been learning our bible verses and creating 'beautiful' pieces of copywork (smile) as well as reading through Jotham's Journey which is a very interesting, thought provoking advent story (we are not doing the whole 'light XYZ candle' thing though).
I didn't think I was going to appreciate it very much, the book starts out with Jotham's total lack of character on full display ... read on marmee dear, the child is going to develop character with some hard earned lessons.
**For those with sensitive children "pre-reading is adviseable".

Both children have been practising for their end of the year music concerts and playing 'beat the bag scrabble' and listening to audio books while they play: the audio books of current choice have been the dramatised audio bible, The Treasure Seekers, The Wouldbe Goods and, Ivanhoe. They do like variety.
I'll detail more about their individual pockets of learning, complete with pictures, next time.
To be continued ....