Our Work for Week 11 - 2011....

~  My son completed Pilgrim's Progress this week and is finishing up the analysis work that his teacher assigned to go along with the reading of Part II of the book.  I believe they are beginning Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde next week - appropriate for Halloween, I think, and as a go along with the mysteries we've been reading at home....

~  He read more Poe at home and we attended our local children's theatre today for a terrific production that encompassed a number of Poe's stories/poems, and also gave insight into the tregedies in his life that influenced his writing....

~  He finished reading The Man Without a Country.  He'll read more Poe through Halloween, then we'll switch to O. Henry's stories....

~  In history, I finally finished up reading Andrew Johnson: Rebuilding a Nation, Cathy Dubowski:




It was a good juxtaposition against "The Birth of a Nation" film that we viewed earlier. 

We also read more on certain battles that he had an interest in from Scholastic's The Encyclopedia of the United States at War:

On Wednesday, we spent half the day at Camp Nelson, visiting with one of the best Frederick Douglass re-enactors in the country.  We got to see a nice film about the encampment and tour their new interpretive center, as well as the officers' quarters building, an old farmhouse (which has always been there).  Camp Nelson was the primary location where slaves came to join the Union army.  Many of their families followed and there were numerous problems that arose from this.  It was as a result of one of the purges in cold weather, when over 100 women and children died, that the U.S. agreed to free all that came into the camps and provide them with adequate housing.  We're going back out tomorrow night for a ghost walk....

       

http://www.campnelson.org/images/Museum/index.htm

http://www.campnelson.org/home.htm

http://www.spiritoffrederickdouglass.com/bio_crutcher.htm

I finally got to move into the next time period (although there is always some overlap), breaching the time period of the 20th century by reading from the Usborne Illustrated Atlas of the 20th Century and Time-Life's 20th Century America:

            

I also began reading The Yanks are Coming, by Albert Marrin:

He caught up with his reading in Volume 8 of History of US.  We'll be adding in additional readings next week.  Now that chemistry lab is finally ended, we'll have an additional 3 hours a week to cover history and lit, so I hope we'll be back on track shortly!

~  Everything else is running smoothly.  He completed his last lesson in Latin Primer III today, so he'll be wrapping up tests and moving into the grammar book next week. 

~  He completed another calaca for Dia de los Muertos.  This started because we have a local ballet company whose director hails from an area in Mexico where this celebration is very large.  She wrote a ballet that centers around this celebration and we attended it a couple of different years.  They arranged to have locals set up various altars that are used during this celebration so that visitors could get a better idea of the culture. 

I bought a couple of little wooden skeletons at Michael's a few years ago and we had never painted them.  I had glow in the dark paint to use, but we had just never gotten around to using them.  My son got interested in using Sharpie's in myriad colors to do artwork.  When I finally pulled out one of the skeletons last year, we brainstormed and he decided to decorate it as a calaca.  He did a "girl."  It was so cute, but we never had time to do another, so he just completed the "boy" to go with it.  They are so happy and upbeat.  I much prefer them to all the scary, gory things that our culture promotes during this season of the year. 

(I didn't have the heart to mention to him that "mortes" is feminine....)

I'm not glorifying death (except as it leads to eternal life), mind you, just looking for a less gruesome way to get through this season with a boy....  (The Halloween concert last weekend was actually very cute, too!)

Wow, that skeleton became disarticulated quickly, LOL!

Now we turn around three times and it's Christmas....

Regena

Week 10 Highlights - 2011 (Eighth Grade)....

~  In religion studies, my son continues reading through Bible Prophecy.  He has just finished The Screwtape Letters for an outside lit class, as well as Screwtape Proposes a Toast, and has begun The Pilgrim's Progress (also for Lit class).  We've been having many interesting discussions as a result of these studies!

~  Algebra II studies continue to go well with his tutor.  In review and drill at home, we've finished Module A of VideoText and begun Module B.

~He's playing "Skeleton Stomp" at a Halloween themed piano recital tomorrow evening.

~  We just bought Barron's 501 Spanish Verbs to use as a reference for his Spanish studies, on the advice of his instructor.



~  Other language arts topics continue as before with us proceeding through Vocab for the College Bound and two Easy Grammar books.

~  Only a few more lessons to go in Latin Primer III!

~  We continue to work through a geography map skills book as well as completing maps to go along with SOTW chapters (and others).

~  We're working with pulleys in his at-home science class; he and his classmates calculated the mass of various things, such as their signatures, in his Wacky Science class this week.  He only has one more fall chemistry lab to finish after this week!

~  He's read SOTW chapter 15 and is working his way through chapters 17-21 now.  He's working his way through chapter 21 of Volume 8, History of US, so we're finally moving into the time period surrounding the lead-up to WWI.

~  He finished Pygmalion this week and is now reading The Man Without a Country.  I had to print this off from Project Gutenberg because it has become another classics tragedy of my library system....

http://gutenberg.org/ebooks/16493

~  His Home Ec class made biscuits and pizza this past week.  Because the food was too hot to eat at the end of class, they were told to leave the food to eat at the end of co-op.  When the kids came in to eat the food, other kids had taken all of it!  My son is somewhat perturbed....

~  He finished up his second acrylic art work project this past week.  I posted pics of these earlier in the week....

~  He has two soccer games this weekend - fall soccer is almost at an end!

~  We attended the most wonderful production of some of Poe's works at Frazier History Museum this past week!  The actors did amazing things with the words of Poe in presenting "The Raven, The Black Cat, AnnaBel Lee, The Bells, and The Conqueror Worm...."  We're going to see a Children's Theatre production of some of Poe's works here next week.  It will interesting to compare and contrast these!

http://poestories.com/read/conquerorworm

Regena

Art Class!

Week 9 Work - 2011....

~I feel like we're drowning in science right now!  Just a couple more weeks and we'll be back to a more normal schedule (instead of 6+ hours of it per week) and hopefully we can get caught up in other areas of the curriculum (like history and lit).  I'm pushing back our start date for the time period around World War I until we can get finished with the things we're working on for the Civil War and it's aftermath.

~I think we're caught up with most everything else now and back on track.  Logic is currently suffering, however.  It seems to always be the first thing to go....

~My son is finishing up his assignments related to The Screwtape Letters this weekend.  I think his teacher combined questions from a couple of different studies for the work they did.  They worked on some extremely thought provoking questions for this book and we had many very interesting discussions as a result.  I enjoyed it, too!  Next, they are going to begin The Pilgrim's Progress, In Today's English, and I'm looking forward to it, too....

     


~I'm told that he has chosen to write a poem using the names of God as one of his final projects for the Screwtape study and I can't wait to see it!

~We only have four lessons to go to finish up the first module of VideoText Algebra.  I think he will finish those on Monday....

~  We only have five lessons to go to finish up Latin Primer III, then he will begin the related grammar series.  I expect to start that series week after next.

~  He attended a two hour art lesson on Wednesday.  They completed a nice landscape, using acrylics.  They will meet next Wednesday to complete a still life of some sort....  It's nice to get some art worked into the mix!

~ He has been reading Pygmalion this week.  He also read more Father Brown mystery stories....

~I still need to get my Fall decor out!

Regena

Typical Daily Schedule for Eighth Grade

Someone on the Well Trained Mind boards asked what a typical middle school daily schedule looked like and I posted this info for them.  I thought I'd also post it here in case anyone who doesn't read those boards might be able to use it.

Our schedule varies some from day to day because of outside classes. It also changes from month to month as classes finish up, etc. Here's what my son is currently doing (eighth grade):

Monday -

8-9 He spends about 10-15 minutes on something religion related that changes from week to week. The rest of the time is spent in reading his literature selection for that week.

9-10 Math, which is generally one or more lessons of VideoText algebra (unless he has extra homework to complete for his outside algebra class).

10-11 Language Arts work and Foreign Languages; Geography - He's just doing some light work in geography this year. Right now that's one page a day from a workbook. He does a page a day from Easy Grammar Ultimate. He does an exercise a day in Vocabulary for the College Bound. He does either a lesson in Latin or a quiz or test. Some days he has some cursive copywork to do.

11-12 Piano lesson

12-1 Lunch

1-2 Outside Writing through Lit class

2-3 Reading history related texts (and sometimes taking related quizzes; or he sometimes takes those during his language arts writing time).

3-4 I'm reading history aloud with him and discussing, or we're watching history videos, etc.

Tuesday -

8-9 Religion/Reading (as on Monday)

9 - 9:30 Begin written work from Language Arts/Language/Geo block (as on Monday) - we also are reviewing Easy Grammar Plus and completing some exercises from that book not used last year. He splits up his writing for the week from his outside class and does one fourth of it on this day.

9:30 - 10:30 Outside Algebra II class

10:30 - 10:45 Continuing with written work and/or reading in car

10:45 - 11:45 Outside Spanish class with a native speaker

11:45 - 12 Continuing with work in car on the way to lunch

12 - 1 Lunch

1-2 Finish up written work; review science info, finish up projects, and/or do science reading in preparation for science class.

2-4 Physical Science Class with a friend at our house (covering simple machines and gears right now)....

Wednesday -

8-9 Religion/Reading (as on other days)

9-10 Complete about half of work assigned by Algebra II tutor

10-12 Complete block of language arts, languages, geography, as on other days

12-1 Lunch

1-1:30 Logic

1:30 - 2:30 History related reading

2:30 - 3:30 Reading aloud, etc. with mom for history

Thursday -

8-9 Religion/Reading

9-10 Other half of math work for the week

10-12 rest of written work, as on other days - if I can, I work Logic in before lunch, too, so that he can just read afterward. If not, then I take it with us and cover it prior to his co-op classes. We are trying to actually leave the house earlier than 12 a grab a bite of quick lunch because he has added in a 12:30 P.E. class at co-op that I hadn't planned for.... (Also work from Easy Grammar Plus on this day and complete Spanish homework, as well as exercises from another Spanish workbook used at home.)

12:30 - 1:30 P.E. at co-op

1:30 - 2:30 Home Economics at co-op

2:30 - 3:30 Wacky Science (physical science, mostly chem related this semester) at co-op

3:30 - 4 reads on the way home (whatever is most pressing)....

Friday -

8-9 Religion/Reading

9-10 Generally Videotext if other math work is completed

10-12 Standard exercises used the rest of the week, plus other things as time allows, such as review and revision, extra map work, memory work, other writing, etc. He's finishing up his writing for the week, so if he needs more time for that, other things may be left for another time.

12-1 Lunch

1-1:30 Reading time right now, because we're on our way to a fall chemistry lab that is already almost half over. Later this will be logic time.

1:30 - 4:30 Chemistry Lab (right now, but this will usually be history reading time for most of the year - if we don't have a Friday field trip!)

Because we have no outside classes on Wednesdays right now, I've been scheduling periodic outings on that day of the week.

Regena 

Getting Back to Work, Week 8 - 2011

I forgot that we had not one, but two field trips this week, after just getting back from a trip - so we're still not caught up, but we're getting there!  Here are some highlights of things we did this week (and last):

Science

While we were in Milwaukee, we visited Discovery World which contains a couple of rooms full of various sorts of gears and pulleys, as well as all sorts of other simple machines that can be tested and fiddled with. It was fun to get to play around with various versions of the machines we've been studying!

Tuesday's physical science with a friend saw them comparing various contraptions they'd built using wheels and axles, as well as gears.  I had my son build a catapult and they tested it in various ways, averaged shot results, etc. as we reviewed levers.  We also reviewed all the terms that have been introduced thus far.  We'll be wrapping up gears next time we meet and finally moving into pulley studies, followed by Rube Goldberg devices to finish off this study....

For his Wacky Science class at co-op, he came home and constructed a density column.

Only three more Friday chemistry labs to go this fall!  They are going well for him, but a three hour lab is a long class.  I'm glad that the lady who does these offers them in small chunks, rather than as a semester or year long classes.  When they are finished, we'll finally have more time for history and lit, which have been woefully neglected thus far this fall!

Field Trip!

On Wednesday, we traveled to an area farm at lunch time for a fun fall outing.  We've been going to one or more such farms around this time of year since this child was in pre-school.  This may be our last such outing, so I was very sad.  We did the standard apple and pumpkin tour that they offer, including educational info on farming and picking/processing apples, making cider, etc.  We toured the cider mill and took a hayride out to pick a pumpkin from the patch.  They also offer a large playground area, corn maze, and petting zoo.  Mostly the older boys who were there were in the "we're too old for such things" mode and didn't really play, so it was a sort of bittersweet visit for my son, I think.  We came home with fried apple pies, apple cider donuts, gallons of cider, and one of the best home remedies in the world: flash pasteurized apple cider vinegar!

I have no more little children.  I am old.  Life is going to change very shortly.  My older son hardly calls us this year since he went off to college.  Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that he wasn't homesick like he was his freshman year, but we'd still like to hear from him a little more (he did call me today)....  I'm trying to think of ways to move into my next stage of life, but it's sort of scary....  What will I do?  How will I be useful?

Home Economics

We caught up on home ec homework.  His class if finally getting ready to cook the next few weeks and I look forward to that (as I think we get to taste)!  He had assignments to complete regarding creating a monthly and two different weekly budgets for living on his own; and he had a weekly menu, as well as a monthly dinner menu to plan.  It was very interesting thinking through this with him and trying to figure out how to stretch his dollar as he was working with a net income of $1000 a month and rents for even one bedroom apartments here are generally over $500 per month....

Symphony Field Trip!

Today, we attended a performance of our symphony held at the Opera House (which is in a very lovely, old historic building).  We were in the third (upper) balcony and I could actually see even the back players for a change.  They were doing a "Rhythms of the World" educational concert and had the movable pit filled with various African and Caribbean drums.  After introducing everyone to several different sorts of rhythms in music through playing a variety of pieces, they brought in the UK drum ensemble for some rousing Carnival music and then they used the drum set-ups to play a traditional African piece and joined the symphony in playing "Oye Como Vas" - and the steel drums were fabulous on it, too!  I love our fairly new symphony conductor - I hope we keep him for years to come!  Their school day performance last year was terrific, too, and he did the most accessible version of Messiah last year that I've ever attended.  I look forward to attending performances in which he is involved as he's always innovating with his venues and various other aspects of the performance!

Next week, we will be doing a lesson in acrylic painting with a retired school teacher who is the new art director for a Michael's craft store here.  I hope that will go well - I've been looking for a good art teacher here for all the years I've been homeschooling....  We had a pretty good one once, but she moved to Colorado....  I've got some ideas lined up for working with a pottery and a stained glass place here, too, so hope to get in at least a few good art lessons this year....

Regena

Things We've Been Reading (Week 7, 2011)....

Following are some of the books my son read, videos watched, books on tape listened to, etc. during travel or hotel times while we were on our trip last week:

From The American Experience series, Ric Burns: "The Way West: The Approach of Civilization 1865-1869," narrated by Russell Baker.



Red River City, a 3-D story frieze, Raymond Elson and Rosemary Woods.

Buffalo Bill, D'Aulaires.

Listened to Annie Oakley, Kunstler.

In addition to looking at what was going on in the American West during the period following the Civil War, he also read through some info covering events occurring in other countries during that time period.  He read Story of the World chapters 9-14, and finished up through chapter 30 in History of US, volume 7. 

He read several stories not covered before from Usborne's Victorian Ghost Stories, Felicity Brooks, and also read Kate Culhane (another ghost story), Michael Hague.

     

He completed Little Lord Fauntleroy and really enjoyed it.  He then began reading A Little Princess, also by Burnett.

Just for fun, we also began listening to Coraline.

He also read through Simple Machines, Deborah Hodge, and finished up with The Clock, Wil Mara.

      

He had more lit work to do this last week than he's ever had for this class before (of course, because we were on vacation, LOL!).  He's reading and working on The Screwtape Letters right now.  Since this is a favorite of mine, I'm having fun hearing about the writing assignments and discussing them with him, too!

We're trying to get back into our routine today (Monday), but we've had a kink thrown into the works as my washer stopped working after one load last night!  A repairman finally came to my rescue at about 7 and got it going again - thank goodness.  I have his card, just in case....

Regena

Pictures from Week 7!

We did get some school work done this past week (more on that in another post), but we took a trip up the Keweenaw Peninsula, in the UP of Michigan, and here are some of our pictures from that pretty fall trip:

Cliffs containing some of the first copper mined in the peninsula.

Eagle River Falls (we're not sure why they have the middle section of this dammed....)  Oh, figured it out:  http://keweenawfreeguide.com/eagle-river-falls-dam/

Eagle Harbor Lighthouse in the rain.

Superior with a big fall storm moving in....

Laurium Manor Inn (B&B) - 13,000 square feet of unique and interesting history with wonderful art neuvo interiors....

Rock climbing!

The beginning of color in the inland valleys.

Mountain climbing to get four bars....

Tumultuous waves coming in the day after the storm, which had 60 mph winds.

Dapple Gray Inn (B&B), where we stayed in Copper Harbor (fabulous antiques!)

Copper Harbor Lighthouse - sorta blurred because the swells were still pretty significant trying to get out there on Saturday, after Thursday's storm....

We had fun, even though the guys didn't get to do a Friday fishing trip they had hoped for.  I hope we can go back in summer some time so that we can go out to Isle Royale.

Regena