The Life Cycle of a Butterfly

Another interactive notebook science day....

Science this Week for Charlotte

This weeks Science for Charlotte...

It's an Interactive Notebook page.

The lesson plan DOES include instructions for completing a left hand page as well, but I feel that just doing the interactive page is enough at the moment.

Christian Liberty Nature Readers

It only took me about 6 hours to locate these particular books in amongst the bookshelves today.  I started looking at about 6 am and then, when it occurred to me to continue looking, looking I did.

Page one of the contents, but it has 154 pages in its entirety.

I love the simplicity of the text and layout, nothing taxing or distracting.

I love that it also includes a review of each section.

I highly recommend this set of books if you can get them!

The Story Book of Science

For those moments when it's nice to have others do the reading for us.

To listen to this book, chapter by chapter,

click HERE....

End of May Update on Charlotte { 6y 9m }

Here's where Charlotte was roughly by the end of May.  She's currently in Grade 1 according to the public schedule, but as you'll see, homeschooling has allowed a little more wiggle room to accommodate her more appropriately.

{ Bible: }

Charlotte has continued with her character copywork and is now at the end of Creativity.

Don't forget that you can pick up this workbook for FREE on the blog here.

{ Math }

In the maths department Charlotte is making exceptional gains.

As of posting this particular photo, Charlotte is actually past the 40th lesson and has started official multiplication in all earnest.

{ Reading } 

She is thoroughly enjoying reading her Rod and Staff Nurture reader.  There has been a hidden blessing in not doing too much in the way of Bible Stories with her previously to this.  As she reads each story for herself.... she is scandalised, captivated, entirely intrigued by the content of each story as she goes on through.  Not having those basic Bible story backgrounds already - it has shocked her at some of the content, and thus kept her completely interested in reading.

Here's a recent story that she's read.  Yep, this is considered Grade 1.  The story actually goes over to the next page.  She reads these out loud to me so that if there is any need for help or correction I am right there to address any problem immediately.

{ Science } 

We're having some down time with Science and keeping it light with a little detour on the Water Cycle.  I'll be looking to start a new topic soon though.

{ Penmanship }

Another thing that Charlotte has been regularly attending to this month was cursive handwriting.

{ History } 

We also continue with SOTW II.  I've moved it to Fridays so that we can be free to spend that read aloud time on Mondays and Wednesdays on another History book.

That other book or read aloud time is for this:

We're nearly finished......

And of course she is still working largely from Rod and Staffs Phonics and Reading workbooks.

{ Art }

To see Charlotte's Art, you'll have to pull up all the Art Monday posts.  I generally keep all the Art together.

* * * * * * *

Yes, so I just wanted to do a quick little update on where Charlotte was at this point in time.

Thanks for visiting.

Today I have a little treat for you.....

found on Youtube.....

Enjoy!

The Molecular Shape of You

(Ed Sheeran Parody) | A Capella Science

Homeschool Update Chloe

It's been a seriously long while since I did a straight out comprehensive homeschool catch up.  Nobody knows what my children are using these days, unless of course we're facebook friends and you visit my wall regularly.

I haven't even got a current curriculum list on the blog anymore either.  The years come and go like a blur.  { The baby is 3 already and pretty much toilet trained. }  We swap in new materials, we swap out old materials.

So, Thank you for visiting today.  Let me share with you about what my 12 year old is doing { she's about to turn 13 - and I was blogging about her as a 4 year old - some of those posts may or may not be here on the blog  since I deleted the blog once upon a time ago..... but I digress }:

{ Chloe } 

Bible:

Rod and Staff workbook 7.  At some point this year she'll make the jump over to book 8.  She truly likes it - the series has been a good and solid keeper.

{ English }

Currently using Christian Light Education { CLE } Grade 5.  Don't let those grade numbers fool you - there is some serious grammar in there!  And you seriously can't go wrong if there are quizzes and tests included.  I love that it is entirely open and go.  No prep work needed.

{ Reading }
Mostly at her own leisure, but occasionally I'll put a book in her hands.  She still reads a fair amount, but yeah... 

{ Maths }

This year we made a purposeful choice to allow her to use Maths Quest 8.  It is entirely inline with her grade level should she had gone to any local public school.   Some days are good, some are tough.  She will not give in.  She will not return to a lower grade.

This month she'll be swamped out with Geometry.  We'll be toggling between her main text book, maths online, and a pack of foldables that explains all the formulas.  I highly recommend getting the mathsonline subscription - we are entering our 4th year.  It is brilliant, and worth every. single. penny. spent on it.

{ History }

This year Chloe is using History Alive.  This book also runs current to her grade level.  It's ok.  Not brilliant, but ok.  But at least it lends itself to basic note taking skills.   A couple of paragraphs and it's all done.  So it doesn't tie her up for half the day.


{ Science }

This year we picked up something entirely new - and public school based. ie.  Australian.  It's Pearsons Science for her current grade level.  Read a chapter, look the experiments over, do a worksheet.  

{ Geography }

Ummm, guess what?  Yep, another grade level school text.....

It's serving its purpose, so there's that.

{ Art }

We continue with randoms each and every Monday.  Everything from Australian birds, to flowers, to girl faces.  Next term I have some construction animals for them to assemble.

{ LOTE }

I want them to learn Greek.  She would prefer French.  So, we toggle and somewhere in all of it we also did some Japanese.   We're still using Elementary Greek 1 and First Start French 1.  No serious progress has been made in either book, but we do a little here and a little there.  Sadly, there is no Latin on the table.  It's not even on the horizon.  You may shed a tear for me if you are so inclined.

{ Australian History }

This year Chloe is working from the BLM from a RIC publication book.  I have some gorgeous Australiana in books that I feel would prove to be a better resource though.

{ Literature }

Currently in a BJU Literature book.  She really likes it.  I think it's mostly a good waste of her time though because she doesn't use it the way its intended, you know, with answering detailed questions.  She loves the reading, but the questions don't really do much for her.

{ Randoms }

As you know I also throw in randoms.  This year they've done some stuff on spiders, horses, and salmon.  I just pick up pieces from the lapbooks for them.

{ Extra-curricular }

Chloe does Pathfinders, which is the Seventh Day Adventist version of Scouts.  There is a TON of camping.  She loves it.  Best thing since sliced bread.

* * * * *

All this school text book stuff, I'm starting to feel entirely sorry for the child.  What are we doing?  Just ticking the boxes on the Australian Curriculum Frameworks booklet?

We're definitely moving from Christian American to Secular Public and when I write it all here I am seeing this tragedy unfold. 


* * * * *

And then I had a bit of an internal crash.  Yep, I cried.  I resorted to public school texts because I have a lot of children to juggle, and I am doing it entirely alone.  I don't have the confidence that I should have.  I also do not have the intelligence that I should have.  And of course the season of one's life either enables or destroys you.... right now I'm in a bit of a low.


* * * * *

Then I remembered AO

and I thought, it's not too late, you could do that - well, at least some of it.

So I started building the book list.

I felt overwhelmed.  I felt sick in my stomach.  True story.

I cried some more.

I'll let you know if I get it together - or if Chloe will remain doomed to the mediocre public school education at home.

Starting the School Year With.....

{ Chloe }

This year I figured that we could read some serious books, and read some fun books.  So I took the liberty of choosing the serious books.  I'll let Chloe choose the fun ones as we go along.

I'm actually sitting on the fence about her Science.  What I have is good enough, for sure, but I dunno, thought we'd actually start the year with a serious detour - that may or may not set a precedent for something else, since I just can't commit to starting our previously organised Science curriculum.

So yes, we are detouring with this:  an interactive foldable on the Digestive System.

Can't wait to see how it all looks when it's completed.

And as it turns out, Chloe decided that she didn't want to work on Saxon anymore - she was entirely happy to work from Maths Quest instead.

Then we finished up our first day at the beach....

This is Chloe and Noah.

Interactive Plant Lapbook

Next week the girls will have another lapbook week off school.

The two lapbooks that we'll be doing are:

ANTS

and

PLANTS

As you know I already made the Ant Lapbook, so today I went ahead and made the Plant Lapbook - so we'll all be good to go on Monday.

A cover...

What it looks like when you first open it up.
Vocabulary on the left.  I actually supplied 7 vocab words and a blank - so there would be some choice as to the level of child you were teaching to.

A cloze........ but there is a secondary cloze in the file for older leveled children.

The pockets.   I decided to add 8 sequencing cards to this pack.

Of course a good labeling exercise - as always.  :)
Cut and paste available.

Life cycle - cut and paste.

Just glue the appropriate information under each picture.

The compare and contrast exercise.

I also added a cut and paste for this as well.

If there are any other words you would like to see added to it,

please let me know, I would love to add them.

I included 3 different writing templates this time.

This is the junior one, and also shown is the copywork for it.

How it looks when you open up the 3 added inserts..

The left hand side is added at the left flap inner crease, the middle one added to the top,so it opens up from the bottom, and the third on, added to the right hand flap inner crease.

Clear as mud, sorry, but I've tried to explain how to put it together as best as I can.

The cloze and the pockets.

The drawing activity.

The little fold up books and sequencing cards.

A close up of the vocabulary words I chose for my youngest.
I'll choose harder words for the older girls next week.

Yeah, it's a bit of a solid project - because there's reading to do alongside it.

But at any rate, if you are interested,

you can pick up a copy from my store,

it's currently on sale for $2 - total bargain!!

Just click HERE to go and check it out.

Thanks so much.

Week 15

This week Hannah started Saxon 6/5.  Yep.  We've been following the Robinson Curriculum method of using Saxon for mastery and wow, can I just tell you how impressed I am with the results.  Amazing.  By the way, it's made amazing by the fact that Hannah is only 6 { although she will be 7 in a couple of weeks }.

These days she does a lesson a day.  She hasn't had to re-do any lessons yet { she scores too high - like in the 90's }.  Then in the afternoons for FUN and POCKET MONEY I let her do a few CTC Maths online lessons.  Yesterday alone set me back 50 cents - that's 5 lessons.When I first started paying them for the online lessons I thought 20 cents a lesson would be ok, but I had to drop it because of the amount of lessons they wanted to do.

Art by Hannah:

Art by Chloe:

Read, Trace, Outline, and write a small paragraph.

By Phebe

By Hannah

We're detouring from our usual scheduled Rod and Staff for a month or so with Rocks and Minerals.

Vocabulary Cards & Types of Rocks

Vocabulary - cred { believe }

This week I'll be linking up with:

I hope you will join us.