PLANS FOR NEW YEAR

Our "school" year runs from January to December, so the girls will be in "grades" 10 and 6 after the first of the year. We are really just continuing to read and finishing up a few odds and ends right now. Not a full schedule at all. These are our plans for the new year.

BIG GIRL

Lial's Basic College Math - will finish this book

Daily writing

American Literature

Our Mother Tongue - grammar overview

Streams of Civilization 2 - will read through this book

Spelling - will continue to work through our lists

Grudem's Systematic Theology - a huge book, but she can handle it

Various books for literature

Student News Daily online - I'd like her to start reading this daily

LITTLE GIRL

CLE Reading 5 (CLE is about a grade level ahead)

CLE Language Arts 5

Maps and Geography book

Life of Fred Fractions

Various books for science

Various books for literature

Possibly dictation, using Spelling Wisdom

BOTH

Daily Bible reading and discussion

Scripture memory

Poetry memorization and reading

Artist study

Composer study

Periodic Table overview

Cultural geography/country study

Various worldview books

TruthQuest histories (continuing)

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WEEKLY REVIEW

We started a new Bible memory passage this week. Philippians 4:4-7. The girls are still reviewing the "old" one, as well as each of them doing one of their poems each day.

We are going to be finishing up our Classical Karaoke for Kids book before the first of the year, so we can start back to doing one composer at a time.

I skipped quite a few artists that were on our list and we went with Pieter Bruegel the Elder for our current artist. His paintings are quite detailed and interesting to look at.

Our current country of study is Denmark.

We are pausing with our periodic table studies until after the first of the year, so we can finish up the Classical Karaoke book. We will begin again in January.

Still reading one or two poems a day from our anthology.

Still reading The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible and The Deadliest Monster daily. These two books are fascinating and contain much truth and much to think on.

Still reading Little Town on the Prairie a few days per week.

For Middle Ages, Big Girl is reading The White Company, by Doyle. I read from our TQ book and from Story of the Middle Ages spine this week on the Hundred Years War and various things surrounding that period.

For American history, we are reading White Star, a Dog on the Titanic. We will also be watching a documentary on the Titanic from Netflix, whenever it gets here.

Big Girl continues in her LBC math book, a couple lessons per week. She also does some writing on the computer every day, and we go over it together. She is still doing one vocabulary lesson per week, reading from her biology and history books, and is finishing up Chosen By God. She also did a spelling lesson this week.

Little Girl did her last MUS Delta lesson this week. She will do the final tests next week, then work on a few problems per day that I will print up for her until the end of the year. She will start the LOF fractions book then. She will be finishing up her CLE Language Arts 4 next week. Not sure if we will start the new level then, or wait. She has started doing a page daily in her Maps and Geography workbook again. She also completed a spelling lesson, and did her independent reading.

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VACATION

We are taking this week completely off for Thanksgiving week.

We made some homemade crackers yesterday using this recipe:

1 cup flour

Half tsp. salt

Half stick butter

Fourth cup milk

Mix flour, salt, and butter together in food processor or using a pastry blender or fork. Add milk and make into dough. Add more milk or flour as necessary. Roll dough out very thin on a baking sheet ( I bought one of those pastry rollers for this - nice!). You can score with a knife or pastry wheel to break apart later, or just bake it whole and break it up into uneven pieces. Bake at 400 degrees until lightly brown. This varies extremely depending on your oven. Start with 10 minutes and go from there. Took mine 20, I think. This also makes a really good flat bread for dipping in oil or sauce if you roll it out a bit thicker.

Here is a really good youtube video of the process, even though I didn't use her recipe or make the double batch she did.

Homemade crackers

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REVIEW AND LOOKING AHEAD

This week, we just stayed with our Proverbs memory verse. I want them to have it down completely before moving on.

We moved on to Michelangelo for our artist, but are going to be moving on again after the Thanksgiving break. We are all tired of these Romanist painters who painted (or sculpted) nothing but vulgar images of what is supposed to be Biblical scenes, combined with pagan gods. Ick! We will be skipping ahead quite a bit, in spite of the "importance" of a few we are skipping. What is considered important to the world is not what is important to those of us not of this world.

We started reading The Deadliest Monster this week, by Jeff Baldwin. It is a very good overview of different worldviews, with the focus on Christianity. We are liking it so far.

We finished up the Louisa May Alcott book this week for our American history. For Middle Ages, we read some chapters from Story of the Middle Ages.

We are on the next to the last Little House book, I think. It is Little Town on the Prairie.

We will take next week off for Thanksgiving, then be back for 3 weeks before the obligatory xmas break. Little Girl will be finishing up the last of her MUS book in that time, as well as her language arts book. In January, she will start with the Life of Fred fractions book, and the Junior Analytical Grammar book.

Big Girl won't really have any changes at this point.

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THIS WEEK

We read about John Wycliff and Louisa May Alcott this week. Big Girl is working on a story about a fictional ranch that she and her sister own for her daily writing. It is really quite good.

The spelling practice Big Girl is doing seems to be actually sticking, so far. She said it may be because the words so far have been easy. :-)

We will be starting a new Bible memory passage this week: Philippians 4:4-7.

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BACK ON TRACK...FOR A WHILE ANYWAY

I'm glad to be back in our routine this week. Unfortunately, it won't last long before it is interrupted by Thanksgiving, and again by Xmas. I will be glad when January comes and we have a long time before anymore breaks. All these little breaks every time you turn around are a pain.

This week, we read Philemon and started 1 Timothy. I decided we needed to start doing some Bible memorizing, so our first passage that we are working on is Proverbs 3:5-8. I want to do passages that have practical use, that are handy to have in mind for situations that come up in life. We get in enough pure theology on an everyday basis. Also, I started having one of the girls (alternating) read a Psalm out loud and discuss it each day. This is hard for Little Girl right now, but she will get better.

We started reading about Finland this week. We are still reading from a poetry anthology each day, as well as the girls reciting one of our old memorized poems each day. We are also still going through the Themes to Remember book, and the periodic table that we have been doing for a while now. Our current artist is Da Vinci, if I haven't already mentioned it.

Big Girl wrote a long paper on cat genetics as her writing assignment this week. I go over her writing with her daily and we correct and edit together. I think she will learn simply by the repetition.

We finished up a book on Theodore Roosevelt. For Middle Ages, we read some chapters online from Our Island Story.

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UPDATE

Well, we have only done one full week of school since the last post. Birthdays and doctor appointments.

We have continued to read through the New Testament in basically chronological order. We will be starting Philemon next. Also, I have decided that I will start requiring the girls to read out loud from the Bible each day, and to explain what they have read. We will start in Psalms, doing one at a time, or part of one for the longer ones. It will be good for their speaking ability, as well as their thinking skills in figuring out how to explain the meaning.

We finished up Jekyl and Hyde, and have started a Frankenstein adaptation. Then we will read The Deadliest Monster, for worldview.

We read a book on George Washington Carver, and are currently reading about Helen Keller.

For math, Big Girl is continuing in her LBC book, and Little Girl has been working on her multiplication tables and a couple long division problems each day that we had school. We will do a new lesson next week. She doesn't have much left in her MUS book, then we will do LOF fractions.

Little Girl is still working through her CLE Language Arts, and is in the 9th book. Big Girl has resorted to only reading through her writing book, as she just wasn't really getting anything out of the writing assignments. Next week, I am going to start having her just write something each day, and we will go over it. Big Girl is working through her spelling words a bit at a time. We tested through the SWR book and wrote down all the words she missed in a notebook. We will work on those words a few at a time, using Spelling City online, as well as analyzing the words.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

I am getting lazy about updating this.

Last week, we read from Ephesians for Bible.

We have been reading poems by Edgar Guest, though we are not memorizing any of his.

We started reading about Sweden this week for our country study/geography.

For our artist, we have started on Da Vinci.

We are still reading about Marco Polo, and the girls read books on Booker T. Washington. We also are reading Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, as well as a story book on economics called The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible.

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UPDATE

We are having a "light" week this week, since tomorrow is Big Girl's birthday. We have been reading about George Washington Carver for U.S. history, and Marco Polo for Middle Ages.

We started Fra Angelico for our artist. I'll be glad when we get through these Roman Catholics who painted nothing but graven images. Ugh.

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UPDATE/ LATE WEEKLY REVIEW

I didn't get around to doing a weekly review this past weekend, so I will catch up now.

For Bible, we have finished up both Corinthian epistles, and started on Romans today.

For poetry, we are still reading from a poetry book each morning. The one we are using now is called The Best Loved Poems of the American People. I found it at Goodwill.

We are still reading about Norway for our geography/culture study.

We started a new artist - Jan Van Eyck. The girls like him a bit better than Giotto.

Last week, we read a biography of Nelly Bly for U.S. History. We also started reading Around the World in 80 Days, by Jules Verne. This week, we started a biography of George Washington Carver.

For Middle Ages, we are still reading Adam of the Road and The Wonder Clock, and reading from our spine books, a bit each day.

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THINKING AHEAD A BIT

I made a list this morning of the things I want to cover with Big Girl over the few years she has left of "school." I have been thinking a lot of what our ultimate goals are, and of the fact that what we do does not have to (and really should not) look anything like traditional school. If she ends up wanting to go to college, it will surely be a community college where she will simply have to take a test to get in. At this point, she has no such aspirations.

I am a big believer, as I have said before, of playing to the girls' strengths, instead of focusing on their weaknesses. God has made each of us different, with our own gifts and interests. Not everybody was created to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a scientist. Very few were, actually. Big Girl's strengths are in reading, writing, and creating. She is not a math or a science person. For math, she will finish up the Lial's BCM she is halfway through right now. Then, some time before she graduates, we will do a consumer math. That is all the math she will ever need in "real life."

I do want to do an economics overview with her, using the Richard Maybury books we already have, as well as perhaps the Abeka book my sister gave us.

As for English, she will finish up her Wordsmith she is doing, then do the Wordsmith Craftsman book, which has more practical "real life" writing instruction. Either that, or Jensen's Format Writing. I'll have to look over them again. At some point, we will go through Our Mother Tongue, which we already own, for a grammar refresher. I also want to go through a couple spelling reference books with her that we have here.

After she finishes her Apologia Biology, I think we are going to get a couple of homesteading books and do a sort of course on homesteading and gardening. I also want her to have some basic first aid and nutrition education at some point. Neither of those will take long.

For the really important stuff, we will go through Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology, as well as some worldview books, one being a John MacArthur book I already have.

She will continue history with her sister, as already planned. Besides all this, there are about a billion really great books I want her to read. :-)

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WEEKLY REVIEW

The only thing different for this week is that we started reading a Landmark book on the Wright Brothers for U.S. History.

I did decide to keep moving with Middle Ages History while we are reading through the two fiction books. Just some readings from spines this week.

I think I forgot to mention when we started studying Ireland. Well, we finished it up this week. We will be starting Norway next week.

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TYPICAL DAY

I thought it would be neat to do a post on what a typical school day looks like for us right now. We don't have scheduled times for anything, but simply a basic order of things to get done.

About 6:30, Big Girl likes to go ahead and get up and get a head start on her independent work (usually vocabulary and math).

About 7, we wake up Little Girl, and they eat breakfast while I read the Bible to them and we discuss what is read. Then they go brush their teeth and get their hair brushed.

If the day is going to be hot, we go ahead and walk the dogs. Sometimes, we wait and do some reading first and then walk, or when the weather is cooler, we don't walk until after lunch.

The girls do their memory work, usually poems, but recently, the books of the Bible.

I read from a poetry anthology.

We look online at paintings from our current artist, or sometimes read about him, either online, or from a library book.

We either read from a book, or look at websites on our current country we are studying.

We listen to a song by our current composer, or read about him. Currently, we are going through the Themes to Remember books, so it is different things and people each day.

We read our little book about the elements of the periodic table, then look at some videos and websites on the "element of the day."

I read from our current history books, usually one chapter from each, and we usually have at least 2 going at a time, sometimes more.

I read from our current "fun" book. Usually a chapter.

Little Girl does her math. She is currently working a few problems in her book, then practicing her multiplication tables with games on the computer.

Big Girl works on her independent work. Math, vocabulary (if she hasn't finished it), science, history reading, and writing.

Little Girl does her language arts lesson.

Little Girl does her dictation for spelling.

Little Girl does her current spelling words on Spelling City, a website.

Little Girl does her independent reading, usually 3-5 books, a chapter a day of each.

Little Girl practices her typing.

Big Girl and I work on our Spanish lesson.

Big Girl does her spelling.

What is amazing is that we usually get all this done by lunch. Sometimes we have a few things to do afterward, but not often.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

Back to work this week. We are in 1 Corinthians in our Bible reading. The girls have pretty much memorized the books of the Bible in order. We have just been reading a book of poems for our poetry, instead of focusing on a particular poet. For artist study, we are still on Giotto. We found a big book on him at the library and I use one of his online paintings as my computer desktop every couple days. The girls look at it and discuss it. For our composer study, we have started the Themes to Remember books and cds. We will finish them before starting back at the "beginning" with our composers one at a time.

We finished up our book on Thomas Edison this week. We started two books for Middle Ages: The Wonder Clock and Adam of the Road.

Big Girl and I finished our second lesson in Spanish.

Little Girl is close to the end of her Math-U-See Delta book, and we are taking a break of sorts to work on her multiplication tables. She already knows many of them just from use, but we are using some online games and one I downloaded to really learn them well before moving on. Meanwhile, she does a couple long division problems each day to keep that fresh. When she finishes Delta, she will move right into the Life of Fred Fractions book.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

Well, the girls both ended up with really bad colds, so we took this week off too, except for our reading.

For Bible, we finished Galatians and 1 and 2 Thessalonians. The girls just about have the books of the Bible memorized.

For U.S. history, we started a book on Thomas Edison. For Middle Ages, we read The Whipping Boy.

Big Girl and I did our first lesson in our Berlitz Spanish book this week.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

We took off this week except for reading. We finished up Otto of the Silver Hand, and read a book on Louis Pasteur. We also finished up the Little House book we were on, and started The Long Winter.

Our Berlitz language books came. The French one isn't nearly as good as the Spanish and German ones. It doesn't even indicate which syllables should be stressed in any way, like the others do with all capital letters in the stressed syllable. Nor does it have a pronunciation guide of any sort at the beginning. Of all of them, the older edition German one is best.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

We started with an introduction to Galatians this week, and will be reading that next for Bible.

For U.S. history, we watched a film about Madame Curie and read some more from the scientist book we have been going through. We also read Drake Drills for Oil and a book about the making of the Brooklyn Bridge.

For Middle Ages history, we started Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle. Big Girl also read The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian by Lloyd Alexander.

For free reading, Big Girl read The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin.

I ordered the Berlitz Self Teacher for Spanish this week, and Big Girl and I are going to give Spanish another try. I also ordered the French one, and we already have the German one, just for fun. If we make it through the guide, then I will see about ordering us an actual curriculum.

Just a side note: None of the covers on these books (except the Spanish one) look like the ones in the links. I hate these modern covers they put on everything now. Makes the books look cheap and trashy, in my not so humble opinion. If I were judging by the covers, I'd have skipped over them.

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POETRY

We have been memorizing poetry for quite a while now, and as I said elsewhere, we focus on one poet at a time while memorizing his or her poem. I will read a poem each day by the particular poet we are studying. We keep the memorized poems, along with the pages I make for the bulletin board (with the poet's picture, country, and birth and death dates) in a notebook. The girls review the old poems by each of them reciting one each day. We do those the same way we do our current memory work: Big Girl will recite the poem while Little Girl looks at it and corrects any mistakes, then they switch. I started doing this when I realized that I was memorizing the poems myself just by looking at them and correcting the girls when they would recite them. So it serves double duty.

Here is a list of the poems we have memorized so far with their authors. At first, we did simpler ones, that were mostly by poets who wrote specifically for children. I tried to choose the most "important" and well known poems and poets. Here is the main site I use as our source.

Ooey Gooey - Anonymous

The Germ - Ogden Nash

The Vulture - Hilaire Belloc

It's Dark in Here - Shel Silverstein

The Land of Counterpane - Robert Lewis Stevenson

How Doth the Little Crocodile - Lewis Carroll

Some One - Walter de la Mare

Silver - Walter de la Mare

Hurt No Living Thing - Christina Rossetti

The Duel - Eugene Field

Jabberwocky - Lewis Carol

I Chased a Dragon Through the Woods - Jack Prelutsky

The Tyger - William Blake

Trees - Alfred Joyce Kilmer

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Paul Revere's Ride - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (only did part of this one)

O Captain! My Captain! - Walt Whitman

Charge of the Light Brigade - Alfred Lord Tennyson (half of this one)

Daffodils - William Wordsworth

Eldorado - Edgar Allan Poe

Because I Could Not Stop for Death - Emily Dickinson

Old Ironsides - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost (my favorite poem and poet!)

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

Daddy Fell Into the Pond - Alfred Noyes

The Owl and the Pussycat - Edward Lear

The Spider and the Fly - Mary Botham Howitt

The Arrow and the Song - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

And if anyone is wondering "Why memorize poetry?" Here are some good articles. I don't agree with everything in them, being a Christian, but there is some good stuff to be pulled from them. The "disagreeable" parts will be obvious to other Christians. (Just philosophy type stuff.)

Poetry Memorization

In Defense of Memorization

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WEEKLY REVIEW

Well, we ended up going with another poet after all. I found this cute book in the Goodwill, by T.S. Eliot, on which the musical, Cats, is based. We will be reading through it, and some of his other poems, before we get back to our anthology. We won't be watching the musical, however, as I hear it has inappropriate content. What a shame.

We started with Aaron Copland this week, and will be continuing for another week, before doing a couple more modern composers I decided to go ahead and cover while we are "here."

We will be starting on Ireland for geography this coming week. Also, we will be going back to the beginning and world artists now, after spending a year or more on American artists. We will start with Giotto. I don't care for a lot of his paintings, or many of the others from this time period, due to their portrayals of Christ. But we cover them because of their significance in history, though I will be very picky about which paintings we focus on.

Big Girl finished up her Easy Grammar Plus last week, and will be taking a break from grammar for a while to work on her writing, which she loves.

For history, we finished up our book and a video on Alexander Graham Bell. For world history, we read some about France and Germany during the Middle Ages, and Frederick Barbarossa. Big Girl is reading The Red Keep, by Allen French.

In Bible, we finished Acts, and have started the book of James. Also, for memory work, since we aren't doing a poem right now, we are going to memorize the books of the Bible in order again. Big Girl still remembers most of them, but Little Girl doesn't even remember ever doing it the first time.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

We finished up Robin Hood this week, and will be starting The Red Keep next for Middle Ages history. We started Mr. Bell Invents the Telephone for U.S. History, along with a book called Scientists Who Changed the World, which is a compilation of about 20 different scientists and inventors.

We are continuing with our little book on the periodic table, but only doing one element a day, along with looking at some online videos about them. We are also looking at this periodic table which is linked to Wikipedia.

I don't know if I mentioned, but our country we are on right now is Scotland. Interestingly, both Alexander G. Bell and Andrew Carnegie (who we just finished reading about) were from Scotland. Likewise was Sir Walter Scott, whose books Big Girl has been enjoying lately. We didn't plan that, but it just worked out that way, as so often seems to happen. :-)

For our poetry, we are just going to continue reviewing our old poems daily, along with reading from an online compilation of poetry. If I come across a poem I want them to memorize in our daily reading, we will do it, instead of covering any more poets specifically.

As for our artist study, we are finishing up Rockwell, and I don't think I am going to cover any more of the moderns. None of us enjoy many of them anyway. We will take a short break and then go back to the beginning.

With composers, we will be starting Aaron Copland this week, and he will be the last modern composer we will cover. Then, we decided, we are going to go through the 3 Themes to Remember books we have, one at a time, until we are finished. Then we will go back to the beginning, and do one at a time again.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

Our new composer this week was George Gershwin, most famous for his Rhapsody in Blue. We are going to hang out on Longfellow for a bit longer, even though the girls have pretty much memorized the last poem. We finished up a couple books this week, and started a little fun book about the periodic table. We will just read a bit of it each morning.

Big Girl started her word lists in SWR this week. All the words are words she knows so far, to get used to the marking system and rules.

Big Girl read The Talisman, by Sir Walter Scott.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

Not too much new this week. We did start memorizing The Arrow and the Song by Lonfellow. Also, in our study of Acts, I decided to just read straight through Acts first, so as not to break up the flow, then read the rest of the NT in chronological order.

Big Girl finished setting up her log for SWR. We will start the word lists this week.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

Back to school this week.  We started a new composer, Sergei Prokofiev, most famous for Peter and the Wolf.  We started reading Robin Hood for our Middle Ages history.  We all love it.  Big Girl read another version of it by Howard Pyle for literature, as well as a couple other smaller versions we have here.  She really likes comparing.  We also watched the old Erol Flynn Robin Hood on Netflix.  It was fun.

The paragraph writing book that Little Girl was doing was quickly getting very complicated, which makes sense since the cover says it is for up to grade 8.  So I have dropped that for now.  Not sure if I will resume some sort of writing exercise for her or not.  I said earlier that I didn't think she needed it, but I am not sure.  If I do, it will definitely be Beechick inspired, like copywork and dictation, along with writing things in a different tense, or from another point of view.  Nothing too complicated.  

I started Spell to Write and Read with Big Girl.  We haven't actually started the spelling lists yet, but she already knows most of the phonograms from when we did it before a long time ago. We did some pages in the log, and will finish those next week.  Then the following week, we will be ready to start the word lists.

We started our chronological reading through Acts, inserting letters where they fit into Acts, this week.  

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WEEKLY REVIEW

We took last week off, except for our read alouds, because so much has been going on.  We did start a couple new books for American History.  We are reading a biography of Andrew Carnegie, and I am reading a book called Toby Tyler, about a boy who runs away and joins the circus, to Little Girl.  Big Girl has read it before.  

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WEEKLY REVIEW

It's been very busy around here, so I am late getting this up.  But better late than never.  Our new artist is American artist, Norman Rockwell.  We really enjoy looking at his work.  Our composer is Igor Stravinsky.  As with most of the moderns, we just do not really care for him.  I'll be glad when we start back at the beginning again with the old ones like Bach and Beethoven.  The girls will too.  But we have a few more moderns to cover first, for exposure if nothing else.  

We are still working on memorizing The Spider and the Fly.  It is the longest we have done yet.  We will finish in another week or so.

For middle ages history, we started reading The Magna Charta.  

Our current country for geography is Wales.  Not a whole lot to study there, and the library didn't have any books on it.

Little Girl did her usual lessons in everything else this week, as did Big Girl.  Big Girl has decided she needs more teaching on punctuation than what is given in her Easy Grammar book. So, after she finishes it up, which will be soon, I think I will order her Jensen's Punctuation.  It looks very good, with plenty of practice.  She has also decided that she would like to do some spelling work.  We think she needs to learn the spelling rules and practice them so she can apply them to unfamiliar words.  So I am going to start Spell to Write and Read with her.  We will just start farther in the book than you do with a younger student.  Little Girl did it for about a year, and I can see her still applying what she learned.  She is more of a natural speller than her sister though.  I think the start in public school with their whole-word approach to reading and their "invented spelling" ruined Big Girl.

Big Girl should be finishing up Ivanhoe this week, then we will watch the movie.  One of the older versions, of course.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

Nothing new with our fine arts this week.  We will be changing composer and artist next week.

For American history, we have been reading about the start of cities, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.  For Middle Ages, we read some spine books about Richard the Lionheart and John Lackland.  

Big Girl started Ivanhoe for literature this week.  She really likes it, and I am supposed to be reading it with her, but it puts me to sleep!  I might just read some Cliff's notes or something.  She also started her Lial's math.  So far, so good.  Just basic review at this point.  Her writing was about using adverbs and prepositional phrases.

Little Girl did all her usual lessons.  Her writing was about outlining paragraphs and using parallel construction.  She is actually doing better than I expected!  I am pleased.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

This week we finished up some books and started some new ones.  We started reading My Side of the Mountain, just for fun.  It is a really good book.  We started listening to Maurice Ravel for our composer.  He is much better than Ives, though not as good as the old masters. :-)  I guess we just don't care for modern stuff.

Big Girl didn't do any math this week, as we were waiting for the Lial's BCM I had ordered.  It came yesterday, and I have planned out next weeks lessons.  She just was not enjoying the biology she has been doing, and would have preferred to skip to the later, more interesting chapters in the book.  So I decided to just let her read through this book, with no questions or anything, and give her a half credit for it and a half credit for the physical science book she read through last year.  After she finishes, we will find some topic she is interested in and do an in depth study on it.  She did daily exercises in her Wordsmith this week, and the final assignment of the week was to write a restaurant review.   She did her grammar and vocabulary and is finishing up the Spurgeon biography this weekend.

Little Girl is continuing working through her subjects, as usual.  We have been working on outlining paragraphs this week, and will continue until it is easier for her.  She is doing great in everything else.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

Here is our week in chart form:

BOTH

BIBLE---Gospel harmony

POETRY---Mary Botham Howitt : The Spider and the Fly

ARTIST---Grant Wood

COMPOSER---Charles Ives

EXTRA READING---On the Banks of Plum Creek; My Side of the Mountain

U.S. HISTORY---Various books on the Statue of Liberty and Immigrants

MIDDLE AGES HISTORY---If All the Swords in England

BIG GIRL

KEY TO ALGEBRA---Book 4: P. 1-6

EASY GRAMMAR PLUS---8 pages

JENSEN'S VOCABULARY---1 lesson

LITERATURE---Charles Spurgeon

APOLOGIA BIOLOGY---Module 3: week 4

WORDSMITH---Week 3

LITTLE GIRL

MATH-U-SEE---Lesson 14

CLE LANGUAGE ARTS---LU 402: Lessons 13,14; LU 403: Lessons 1,2

SPELLING PLUS---Dictation list 43; List 44 words

PARAGRAPH WRITING---1 lesson

INDEPENDENT READING---Five Children and It; Abeka science 5; Vos story Bible; CLE reading story

TYPING---Practice

We are really enjoying Grant Wood's paintings, for the most part.  But we did not care for Charles Ives at all for our composer.  His music sounded pretty much like noise to us.  We will be moving on next week to a new one.  

I ordered Little Girl Paragraph Writing Made Easy, and we did the first lesson this week and started the second.  I think we will like this.  

Big Girl hit a snag in algebra again.  She got to the fourth book in Key To, and it just wasn't clicking.  She isn't making the connections she needs to in order to do algebra. So she looked at Lial's Basic College Math with me this morning, and said she liked the looks of it, and we ordered it for her.  I figure we can come back to algebra when she is about 16 or so, and more ready to tackle the kind of thinking needed to grasp algebra.  The Lial's will keep her basic math fresh meanwhile, and even looks to have some useful stuff she hasn't covered yet anywhere else.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

This week, we continued our Gospel study for Bible.  Heading toward the end soon.  We also finished up with Benjamin Britten, and will be starting a new composer next week.  For poetry, I did find another poet to study - Mary Botham Howitt.  We are memorizing her famous poem, The Spider and the Fly.  Our new artist is Grant Wood, known for his famous painting, American Gothic.  We are enjoying his folksy paintings much more than the last artist's abstract stuff.  We just do not care for abstract.  

For world history, we continued If All the Swords in England.  We were reading Little Britches for U.S. history, but I got really tired of it, even though the girls really liked it.  Big Girl is going to finish it on her own, and if Little Girl wants to read it some day, she can.  It was ok, just too long and detailed to suit me, especially for reading out loud.  Also, I just want to move on.  So this coming week, we are going to move on to the Statue of Liberty.  I think we all got enough of the Paul Bunyan book, so we just watched a disney video about him on YouTube. 

We really enjoyed The Search for Delicious, and finished it up this week.  Big Girl and I also really liked Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting, and finished it up this week as well.  For literature, we are going to read a Charles Spurgeon biography next.

Big Girl did her usual subjects, finishing up her 3rd book in the Key to Algebra series.  Her writing lessons this week focused on concrete and descriptive nouns.  

Little Girl did her usual lessons as well.  We did a few writing lessons in R&S, as planned, but I found out they are just not what she needs, and ordered her a paragraph writing workbook.  We will start that as soon as it comes.  She started reading Five Children and It, by Edith Nesbit this week, and she is really liking it and reading much more per day than I assigned.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

This week, we finished up Edward Lear for poetry, and will be moving on to someone else next week.  I am not sure who, though.  I am finding very few poets left whose work I like enough to want to focus on reading it for the length of time it takes to memorize one of their poems.  I am thinking about just choosing a poem to memorize, then reading from some poetry book each day. We have Favorite Poems, Old and New, and could mark any poems that would be worth memorizing as we come to them.  I think we would like the variety.  Also, there are some great poems I'd like to do, but the rest of the particular poet's work is either too hard, too boring, or whatever.

For our artist this week, we did Georgia O'Keefe.  She is famous for her abstract paintings of flowers, as well as skulls and bones of cows, and the New Mexico landscape (also abstract) paintings.  I wanted the girls to be exposed to her because of her fame, but we didn't really enjoy her paintings very much at all, and will be moving on to another artist this week.   I haven't looked to see who yet.

We continued listening to Benjamin Britten (at least, whenever we remembered to), and will stick with him for another week, since we are changing both artist and poet.  

We started reading about England and looking at the map and flag, which we put on our bulletin board.  It is hard to find anything that just focuses on England, and not on the UK.  We found a little book written in 1982 or so, that is really well written with some nice pictures.  Even if everything isn't up to date, it is the England that I want my girls to be exposed to, with the rolling hills, quaint villages and houses, and historical districts.  

For our Middle Ages History, we started If All the Swords in England, a historical fiction focusing on Thomas Becket and his time.  For American, we are continuing to read Little Britches.  Also, just for fun, we are reading The Search for Delicious, by Natalie Babbitt, because we like Tuck Everlasting so much.  She is a really good writer, and I love reading her writing.

Speaking of Tuck Everlasting, Big Girl and I read through the second third of it this week, and have one more week to go.  We used the Glencoe literature guide online to discuss what we had read.  Her lesson in Critical Thinking was Eyewitnesses and Circumstantial Evidence.  She did her usual Easy Grammar and math and vocabulary lessons, as well as continuing in Module 2 in biology.  We started her Wordsmith writing this week.  The first lesson was supposed to be to write a two page paper on "what I did last summer."  But since we school all year, I changed it to something that would interest her more - horses.  The idea was that it would be a very broad subject that would be too hard to write about, and she realized it immediately.  But I had her do it anyway because the book says she will be taking it out and working on it throughout the year.

Little Girl did lesson 12 in MUS Delta, and did 4 lessons in her CLE Language arts.  It is still really just review of stuff she already knows, so I am starting to skip lessons.  I noticed the next light unit gets into things that are new.  Something I did discover, though, is that she does not really know how to write a paragraph.  She can tell me exactly what one is, and how it is supposed to be, but when she was supposed to write one, she didn't do well at all.  She had two quotes that were unrelated.  So I decided we would do just the writing lessons in her R&S 4 English book.  It is just right, because the focus in this particular level happens to be paragraphs.  I am thinking of adding some copywork again, of good paragraphs.  We will see.  As for her reading, I finally decided to just drop the light units and let her just read the stories.  She was glad and said she really likes the stories.  She finished up Pinocchio this week.  Not sure what I will start her on next.  I was going to have her read Edith Nesbit's Five Children and It online, but I am not so sure I like depending on the computer so much.  I will decide this weekend.

We are still doing our Gospel harmony overview, and I really need to get planning what exactly we are going to do next.  I have a basic idea to go through the NT (excluding the Gospels) chronologically using Acts, like Veritas Press does.  Just got to get it all planned out.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

We continued looking at paintings by Edward Lear this week, and will start a new artist next week.  We will continue with him for poetry though, because there are many more poems we'd like to read, even though the girls already have The Owl and the Pussycat memorized.  Our current composer is Benjamin Britten, famous for Peter and the Wolf and The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra.  

We finished up the "introductory" chapters 1-3 in our BJU Geography this week, so we will be moving on to the actual countries.  We will read the pertinent section in BJU, then stop and do a study of that particular country, with books we own, library books, websites, and videos, if we can find any.  We have a spot on our bulletin board for it, too, where we put the name, flag, map, and some pictures of things the particular country is known for.  Our first country will be England.

Little girl did 4 lessons in her CLE Language Arts (all but the spelling and handwriting parts), and we did the CLE Reading orally.  I think we will finish it up orally.  There are some good things in there I'd like to expose her to.  But I am sure we will not continue with a reading program.  Of course, knowing me, I know better than to say "never."  She also did her MUS, spelling, typing, and independent reading.  She is currently only reading the Vos Story Bible, Abeka 5th grade science book, a COFA book (not sure which one), and Collodi's Pinocchio, which she will finish up next week.  

Big girl is working through her Apologia Biology, 16 days per module.  This was her first week doing it that way.  The way I scheduled it out, she has reading to do 3 days, then looking at the extra book links on Friday.  She did about two pages per day of EG Plus, and is still working through Key To Algebra and Jensen's Vocabulary.  We are still working through Critical Thinking together.  I like the topics covered, but we don't always feel the need to do all the exercises once she has the idea.  She started her first book for our literature this week - Tuck Everlasting.  We read from a guide online about the author and the introduction to the novel, and then both she and I are reading it at the same time and taking notes.  Then, on Monday, we will have a discussion and read the pertinent notes from the Glencoe guide online.  I thought it was best to start with an easy, but really good, book.

We finished up our reading about Castles this week, and will be starting on the first Crusades next week.  This will be something that is hard to find accurate information on, I am afraid.  But we will see.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

This week in world history, we started studying about castles.  We are reading one fact book and one fiction book, Castle Diary.  I also have a couple other books with lots of pictures for the girls to look at.  

In U.S. history, we started reading Little Britches, and are reading the chapters in our spine for this time period.  We also started a big anthology full of Paul Bunyan tales and poems.  We are still reading On the Banks of Plum Creek, and we also are reading a biography of Robert Frost that I didn't realize we had when we were studying him. 

I am going to start having Big Girl do her vocabulary in one week per lesson, instead of two like we have been doing.  Also, we are cutting back the pages she will do in Easy Grammar so that we can add some writing and literature study.  I ordered Wordsmith for her.  She likes the looks of it, and so do I.  Also, we are going to start doing a literature study of one good book at a time, reading it slowly and taking notes and using any guide I can find online for additional discussion.  She and I will read the same chapters, take notes, and then discuss.  For her Apologia Biology, I am going to start planning out 4 weeks (16 days) per module.  There is no rush to get through it, as there are only 16 modules, and this will allow time to look up things on the internet and anything else we might like to add.  She also commented that science was much easier to digest in small chunks than in big ones.

I have figured out that the CLE reading that Little Girl is doing is just not for us.  It is pretty much just busy work, which we don't need.  I am going to keep doing the lessons, but orally.  At least until I get tired of it.  I may end up just letting her read the stories.  There are better things to spend our time on.  

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WEEKLY REVIEW

This week, we started a new composer, artist, and poet.  Our poet and artist happen to be the same person - Edward Lear.  He is most famous for his nonsense poetry, such as The Jumblies, and The Pobble Who Had No Toes.  We are memorizing his most famous poem, The Owl and the Pussycat.  We like his paintings so far.  He did a lot of Audubon-style paintings, and was actually compared favorably with Audubon.  His other paintings so far have been historical in nature with a sort of fantasy-feel to them.

Our composer is Ralph Vaughan Williams.  We do enjoy many of his pieces we have listened to so far.

In geography, we are still plugging along in the BJU book.  This week, we learned about how the economics of the world work.  Kind of dry, but useful information.  

In history, we are reading William the Conqueror, and will finish it up this week.  Also, for U.S. history, we are reading Thunder Rolling in the Mountains, a historical fiction book written from the point of view of Chief Joseph's daughter.  The girls are reading books on Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and sharing what they read each day with us.

Big Girl finished her second Key To Algebra workbook, and will be starting the 3rd one.  I had her start reading Streams of Civilization again as a review and to tie things together in our history.  She read the chapters on the Middle Ages.  

As for her Critical Thinking book, we both were getting very tired of the second chapter, which is on logic, with all the symbols and whatnot.  So we skipped to the next one, and figure if we need anything we skipped, we can look back at it.  The first lesson is on "probable vs. possible."  

Little Girl started her CLE Language Arts this week.  So far, I like it.  We don't do the handwriting, and we are still doing our own spelling, though I do have her do the spelling exercises in the book.  I won't have her copy the spelling words in a notebook anymore though. I like the variety each day, and the constant review of what has been learned.  And the way they actually use what they are learning.  She is continuing to read one story per week in her CLE reading.  Not sure what I think of it yet.  I do want to finish this level though, regardless.

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WHAT WE ARE DOING

We took the week off week before last because we had some things we needed to get done. We were back to work last week.

We are currently reading the Landmark book, Custer's Last Stand, for American history. We are reading some of the spines and working our way up to starting William the Conqueror in Middle Ages this week. I don't know if I mentioned it, but I also subscribed to God's World News, to keep up somewhat with important current events from a Christian point of view. We enjoy those little magazines. We are continuing with Scott Joplin, Alfred Noyes, and Grandma Moses for music, poetry, and art. Will probably be starting new ones next week.

Big girl finished her first science module. We have been working through the Critical Thinking book together. Haven't gotten far. It is some hard stuff, but I know it is good stuff. Big girl is into painting model horses now, and she really does a great job! She has natural artistic talent. She has also created her own website where she has a model horse ranch, and posts her pictures and other stuff about all her horses. I must say, she did a great job. I love that she has the time and desire to pursue her own interests and to do what it takes to learn how to do them. This, after all, is one of my goals for homeschooling. To teach my children to learn for themselves.

Little girl has finished the Burgess Animal Book and started the Collodi Adventures of Pinocchio. It is another book online. I prefer actual books, but when you can't get them at the library, it is good to have the free ones online. We are also changing up some things with her language arts. We will continue to use the Spelling Wisdom passages, but she will use them for copy work one day, and for studied dication (typed) the next. We are continuing the dictated sentences from Spelling Plus, but adding back in the word lists. We will do one list (along with some review words) each week on the Spelling City site. She will work with them every day, testing and games. Then, the following week, we will work on the sentences for those words, plus the next word list. I like that they are common words that kids actually need to know, but I like the passages in the Spelling Wisdom for a little something more. Also, I ordered CLE language arts for her. I ordered level 4. She looked at the samples and said she really liked the looks of it better than the Rod and Staff she has been doing. She likes that it is a workbook, I think. I like that it has integrated review, and I prefer the writing exercises to what R&S has. We have only done a couple stories in her reading, and so far, it is ok. Nothing terribly exciting or anything, but not bad either. I have skipped a couple things and done others orally.

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WEEKLY REVIEW

This week, Big Girl started her Apologia Biology. We will probably be taking 3 weeks per module instead of two. We will take it as it comes. The first one is definitely going to take 3. There are a lot of neat links to visit in the bookextras section of the Apologia site.

We started studying Scott Joplin this week. His most famous pieces are The Entertainer and The Maple Leaf Rag. He composed and played what is called ragtime music, which was used in a lot of westerns, in saloons, and on player pianos. A lot of fun, familiar pieces there to listen to.

We started studying Alfred Noyes, and read his most famous (long) poem, The Highwayman. It was fun to discuss what the poem was really about, but it is a mystery, and we don't really know. We are memorizing his When Daddy Fell into the Pond. The girls think it is a fun poem.

We watched a PBS documentary on Buffalo Bill yesterday. It was kinda interesting, but I think a book would have been more enjoyable. Keeping that in mind. We also read a book about Annie Oakley this week. It was a fun picture book.

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UPDATE

Big Girl finished up her thinking skills book, and started Critical Thinking book 1 this week. Little girl likes to join in when we do it.  She says it is fun.  Big Girl also finished her Abeka Physical Science book this week, and will be starting her Apologia Biology next week.

Little Girl has been doing great with her Spelling Wisdom dictation and Spelling Plus dictation which I have her type instead of write.  I also ordered CLE Reading 4 for her, and we just started this week.  So far, so good.  Not a lot to go on yet as to how much we will or won't like it.  

We have been reading Rolf and the Viking Bow in world history, and about cowboys in our U.S. history.  We are continuing to read the Little House series, and will do so until we finish, while moving along in our history.

Also, for history, I have decided to do an overview using various sources while we are doing our regular history.  Right now, we are reading through the ending of A Child's Story of America, then we will move on to world history.  I think we will read through the Synge Story of the World books online first.  Then, when we finish those, we will start over with something else - maybe our BJU 11th grade world history books.  I think the repetition with the overviews will be good, along with continuing our TQ for in depth studies of people and events.

We have added the BJU 9th grade geography book to our daily reading as well.  Right now, we are just going through the first parts about geography in general. Then, as we get to each country or continent, we will stop and do a study on it.  We finished up Australia and are currently doing New Zealand.

We will be starting a new poet and composer next week.  We love Robert Frost (at least, I do, lol), but didn't care much for Mahler, except for the second movement of his first symphony, which is really fun.  We will be starting Alfred Noyes (who wrote the Highwayman), and memorizing his poem, When Daddy Fell Into the Pond.  We will be starting Scott Joplin for composer study.  He should be fun, as there will be some familiar tunes there.

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SPELLING UPDATE

I have added the Spelling Plus Dictation sentences back into Little Girl's daily work.  But she will be typing them instead of writing them, and doing them as prepared dictation, like the Spelling Wisdom.  This will give her extra practice with common words, and I also like the way the sentences spiral, giving her more practice with individual words than Spelling Wisdom does.  She is doing great with both, and rarely misses a word.

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DROPPING SPANISH

Well, we have decided to drop Spanish, for now at least.  With no real use for it, and no opportunity to actually use it, we can make much better use of the time it would take us to constantly review vocabulary cards and rules that we have no use for.  I know there are other benefits to learning a foreign language, but I feel that we can get those benefits in other ways that don't take so much time, such as root study.

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