Week 36, 2012 - Last Week of Homeschooling....

Our homeschooling time came to an end this week.  It is both a sad and exciting time for us all, I think.  Someone in our area scheduled a trip to Salato on Thursday and it has been a favorite trip for us over the years, so I thought it appropriate that we end on that note.  This is a sort of free demonstration area set up at the headquarters of our state fish and wildlife offices.  They have on display lots of native species, both indoors and out, of both plants and animals.  They also have fishing lakes on site that they keep stocked most of the time (although the boys caught nothing on the day we were there - but then they were trying to fish with nothing but corn kernels)....  We attended a birds of prey talk and then toured the facility before fishing in the afternoon.

     


     


    


Our public schools got out on Thursday, and our summer neighborhood swim team started on Friday, so my son elected to finish up some work earlier in the week, and he has continued to finish some odds and ends of reading through this weekend in order to conclude his last day's work.

Here's a look at what we worked on during our last week:

He had his last Algebra II class.  His instructor gave him a list of theorems and a compass to use in geometry next year.  I thought that was very sweet of her!  She gave him a set of problems, along with the answers, that he could work on as he chose.  He finished most of them up last week.  I need to get a more advanced math calculator for him in order for him to finish up the last few over the summer.

He finished up the Spanish workbook that I've used this year as fill-in around his outside class.  It included a lot of vocab and grammar practice work and work in writing complete sentences in Spanish.

He finished up his Latin Grammar I book.

He finished up his review in Vocabulary for the College Bound by taking an online test over chapter 3.  He had been reviewing lists from last year for several weeks.

He finished up work in both his Easy Grammar texts.

He completed some short writing assignments for me related to technology and our use of it now and in the future.  We had already been tying in current events to our history readings for the past several weeks, so this week we looked a lot at how technology is changing our world and speculated about how it will continue to change in future.  Our science and history studies were tied together this week.

The workbook pages I used for these exercises were from a book entitled The Basic Needs of Man, Artman and Grim.



Here is a synopsis of the book from Alibris (although it is out of stock there):

"This book celebrates the progress man has made in the past millenniums as he struggled to meet his basic needs. Students are asked to think about their basic needs as they exist today and as they prepare for an unknown future. As the next millennium passes, will the basic needs of man change or remain the same? Students are asked to think about progress-past, present, and future."           

In our little science class at home, the boys got together one more time and created a different robot.  They chose a version that has spinning parts.  This kit is an old one, but if you can still find it on the Internet, it certainly was a hit at our house!  (I posted a link to it last week.)

My son worked with some micro-planes from a kit, finished up a little flight workbook we got at the USAF Museum, and completed a K'nex kit on bridge building.  He also read Kingfisher's Boats, Ships, Submarines and Other Floating Machines. 

This is a new cover for the micro-planes kit, but it looks like it still includes the same planes....

This is the smallest K'nex bridge kit I can find available at this time.  Our kit was actually put out by Scholastic for K'nex and was even smaller than this, although it looks like it came with a very similar work/info booklet....  I've had it a long time.  If you are building a library of items to use for school work with your children, it's not a bad idea to subscribe to Scholastic circulars for all ages for a while and watch the items that come up for sale each month (I'd subscribe to all grade levels as you never know which circular they may choose for specific sales)....



He continued reading through the daily devotional book we've been using this spring.  I think that he's going to keep it out and continue with it through the summer.

In literature, he completed Huck Finn and read I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov.  We also listened to some of the Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury, on CD.

    










For our history topic of the week, the new millennium, we read from Kingfisher and Usborne.  We read excerpts from an Enchantment of the World volume:  Afghanistan, and looked back at the Gulf War using First Facts About American Heroes (re: Schwarzkopf) and the Encyclopedia of the US at War.

My son completed his readings in SOTW and Volume 10 of Hakim's series.

He read I Want to be an Astronaut, Stephanie Maze, and I read from a series entitled Future Files, by Copper Beach Books.  The volumes we covered were Future World and Emergency: Planet Earth. 

     






















He finished up his last day of bowling and they threw a pizza party for all the kids participating.  Each person also received a nice trophy and some other items.

We dropped of his registration info at the private school he will attend and obtained info on soccer, volunteer work, and summer reading so that he can get started on work he needs to do this summer in those areas.

I have begun cleaning out my school room and listing books for sale.  I'm trying to pull together things I want to keep for potential future classes I might teach (at least until I decide what I want to be when I grow up, LOL....)  I am trying to get set for a couple of classes I already have scheduled, and  weekly tutoring in language arts/geography/history for another student.  I will probably be posting some of that info as I move along in my preparations.  I also want to put together a post of online links I used for physical science this year, as there were a ton of them!

Happy summer everyone!

Regena

Week 35 - 2012 - One More Week to Go!

Since we are continuing to wrap up outside classes, as well as work at home, there's not much to report save for our continued reading.  I think that I neglected to mention some of the books we have been reading related to our week 33 study of Australia and Oceania.  I have been reading aloud from Australia, Antarctica, and the Pacific, Kate Darian-Smith; and Hawai'i, Martin Hintz.









           


My son read Islands of the Pacific Rim and Their People, Macdonald.













This week, we have continued with work related to the presidents, civics and government topics.  I used a voting manual I've had around for a while to talk to him about ways that we can inform ourselves about the voting records of candidates before voting for them.  He has been reading through the information about the more recent presidents (from Reagan forward) in Scholastic's Encyclopedia of The Presidents and Their Times, David Rubel.

He read the last chapter in SOTW IV this week, and is reading from chapter 41 to the end of Volume 10 of Hakim.

We covered the period of the 1990's into 2000 this week, focusing on human rights issues.  In addition to reading from our standards:  the Haywood Atlas, Usborne Atlas, Kingfisher Encyclopedia, Remember the Ladies, and Haywood's Atlas of Past Times, I also read Hillary Clinton's speech to the UN Conference on Women from Words That Built a Nation. 

I read aloud a simple, children's version of the universal declaration of human rights adopted by the UN.  It was prepared by Amnesty International.  We discussed at length the good intent of the document and the problems caused by the simplicity of the language when applied to real life situations around the world....

I read a chapter on Bosnia and Kosovo from Freedom on Fire: Human Rights Wars and America's Response, John Shattuck.  It was interesting that General Mladic has been in the news this week and we discussed the lengthy time it has taken to bring some war criminals to justice.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mladic-trial-20120517,0,6653722.story?track=icymi

On the science front, the boys finished the robot they were building and were so enthralled that they wanted to build another, so I agreed to let them meet again next week in attempt to get another one done.  Here are some pics of their current creation:

My office is currently full of books that I'm going to be selling as soon as we're finished with school and I have time to list them.  Once we conclude, I've got to make another run through the school room to see if I can cull more books.  I'm trying to clear the room enough to put a large table in there so that I can hold classes for homeschoolers there next year.  I feel like I'm swimming in books right now!

Regena

Week 34 - 2012

Back to work!  It's difficult with summer-like weather, public school kids getting inexplicable day-long breaks so near the end of their own school year, and our focus on the changes coming for next year, but work we did....

My son finished the last of the three modules of Videotext that comprise Algebra I work.  This was used over the course of the year as review and drill work for him.  He will continue with his math tutor until the last week of May, where they are working on Algebra II topics.

He is continuing to read through the At Home Devotionals and seems to be enjoying them.  He continues with Huck Finn, as well.

We're continuing to review his vocabulary work with the use of online flashcards and study sets (spelling, matching words to their definitions, testing), and we're finishing up work and review in both his Easy Grammar texts.

His outside literature class and the writing it entails has ended, but he has been doing some writing at home for me related to Cold War topics (and next will be some government related topics). 

He is nearing the end of his work in Latin Grammar I.  I think he has decided to study Latin in high school next year, as well.  If he then decides he doesn't like it, he can always switch back to Spanish and still get in three years of that.

He has one more outside Spanish class, and we're all going to eat at a Cuban restaurant we discovered earlier in the year that we like.  We'll then finish up the year with the workbook I've been using at home for reinforcement.

I believe that his outside geography club will meet next week.  We missed last time because of testing.

In history, we've been studying the time period of the 80's and the end of the Cold War Era (and what that meant for many countries around the world).  We started with readings from some of our usual suspects:  Usborne's atlas, Haywood's atlas, and Remember the Ladies. 

From Words that Built a Nation, I read Reagan's Farewell Address and we talked about his Star Wars initiative.

I read just the end from The Cold War, Taylor, regarding detente through the break-up of the USSR, as well as a bit about spying.  I also read Spies and Spying, Potter, and we discussed.

   

My son read chapters 38 - 40 in Hakim's volume 10, as well as chapters 39 - 41 in Story of the World.  He also finished up his reading in See How They Run and continued with The Presidents.  He's currently completing several worksheets daily related to civics and government topics, as well.  He read through a pamphlet put out by our county government on good neighbor policies and we discussed the covenant for our neighborhood and rules that govern people living together at all levels of society. 

On the science front, he attended his last chemistry lab.  At home, they selected a robot style and worked on building a K'nex motorized robot while I read excerpts from Artificial Intelligence, Philip Margulies, and we discussed.




(This looks like an updated version of the kit we have....)

As an aside, here's a pic of my newly blooming, shade loving clematis, too!

My son continued with his weekly bowling outing on Wednesday.  His youth group was able to use some of the free game coupons they've given him last weekend, as they all went bowling together.  We've also been busy trying to help out some members of our church for the past couple of weeks during what has been a very sad time for all of us.  We're almooooooost to summer....

Regena

Testing Week - 2012....

Glad that's over!  Everything seemed to run very smoothly.  My son attended his outside classes this week but we did not do school at home, save for some test prep to get him in the swing of things.  He tested on Wednesday and Thursday, but finished up early so that we did not have to go back on Friday.  I didn't have to work, either, so we got half a day off!

This has been the hottest April/May I can recall since we moved here almost fourteen years ago.  My spring flowers are all almost gone already in the heat, but here's a little look at what's going on in my garden:

Dwarf Bleeding Heart amongst my blue hostas....

Columbines in peach....

Coral Bells (Heuchera) - these are in the geranium family

A type of golden Coreopsis....

My blue clematis (love this one!) I have another one that takes less light, but it's not blooming quite yet....

Some of my early spring whites are still blooming, but as you can see (below), the phlox has almost burned up in the heat....

And these poor guys are pretty spent, too....

Here are some of my lovely Hellebores (Lenten Rose).  My favorites are these creamy whites which are green when they first open.  These shrubs are exceedingly slow growing, but they bloom here generally in March (February this year) and continue right through spring, then hold the blooms after they've dried intact on the stems for months.  They remind me very much of orchids.

These are the last of my wild Iris, which I transplanted from my home in Tennessee.  They are a far cry from the showy irises developed by breeders.  They are only about 3 inches high; tiny and delicate.  But when a large ground cover of them blooms in spring, the color is so clear it almost glows!

Another variety of ground geraniums beloved by me.  While most I buy are for their leaves, this one has a very orchid like flower with just a touch of pink in the center and I love them!  It spreads like a ground cover, too....

More Lenten Rose....

Now this geranium really is mostly for its leaves.  The spiky, foamy flowers are okay, I guess, but not my favorites....

My red buds have long blown and they've already put on thick mounds of seed pods this year.  Did you know you can eat the red buds while they are emerging and they are full of Vitamin C?  They make a nice, peppery addition to salads and are lovely, too!

My service berry is also full of berries this year and *I* plan to get some of them before the birds strip the tree!

...and the juniper is putting on its new growth and new cones for the year, too....

Johnny Jump-ups that seam a little straggly.  I don't think they're getting enough light....

That pretty much sums up what's happening in my yard right now.  I just picked a nice bunch of radishes for munching this week - my first produce from a tiny (about 3 x 3) garden plot.  We will be planting a community garden at our church this next week.  I wonder how things are going to fare in the coming heat....

Regena