Our Final Week

This week we are finishing up our first term. Along with that, we finished this term's history spine, Joy Hakim's Reconstructing America. Our final topic has been African American issues and leaders, and I had dd choose one topic or leader to do a scrapbook page on. She chose "Booker T Washington," and I thought I'd share the page. It has a quote, a couple facts, and a mini-bio. As Providence would have it, this topic fit perfectly with discussing how big of a deal it is that we have elected our first AA president!

Next week, we begin a new term studying the Progressive era with Joy Hakim's book of the same title. I am switching and ditching a few things, and I'll post on that later. : )

A Peek

In our homeschool, we have been studying the Reconstruction period and studying some of the states. We have taken a leisurely literature approach to history using the TruthQuest AHYS III guide, and are adding in some notebooking/scrapbooking here and there. Miss M told me this morning that she wanted to share some of her notebook pages, so here you go:

So there is the first peek into our little homeschool this year! I hope you enjoyed it. More to come, Lord willing.

Week 4 Report

Peach Melba. Great Barrier Reef. Ayers Rock. Botany Bay. School of the Air. Our week was pretty much all about the topic of (as you already guessed!) Australia! With all of it's curious creatures and interesting people, Australia holds endless fascination for Miss M. Enchantment of the World: Australia, our spine book, was packed with fun facts and beautiful photos of the Land Down Under. After studying the Aboriginal people last week, this week's focus was European exploration and colonization. Using directions in Country Report Projects for Any Country as a base, Miss M made a notebook timeline of events in Australian history. With a fun, documentary film theme, the 3-D notebook page flips up, and each event can be shown and explained one by one. I love pages with movement!

We began Composition this week using BJU's English workbook. The first assignment is a personal narrative story, and this idea was a hit with Miss M. I personally love how BJU takes a student step-by-step through the planning process a with plenty of hand-holding. Although Miss M likes to write stories, she needs help organizing her thoughts and ideas. BJU is just the ticket!

Our homeschool co-op met for the first time this week. It was a blast and always a highlight of our week. Our co-op classes include phy-ed, art, and science this year.

Some productive free time activities this week included reading about coral reefs from our library basket, listening to an unabridged audiobook of Tom Sawyer, watching the Australian movie “Silver Stallion” and earning some extra cash-ola by walking the neighbors' dogs.

On Friday we put away the books and took a field trip to World War II Day at a local historical military fort. Every station was hands-on and we stayed the whole day. I learned so much!

It was a good week, Mate!

Blue Ocean Saturday Freebie

If you've ever visited my blog, you know we are notebooking nuts. : ) Added to any subject - geography, history, science, handwriting, notebooking is a winner at our house! As a gift to you, I thought I would share a file of the Blue Ocean notebook page that Miss M used for science copywork this week. This is a very open-ended page for you to print out and try for fun. The writing area could be used for copywork, list of facts, or summary of what was learned. Using Google, picture books you have laying around, or an online encyclopedia, have your child choose 1-3 images or maps to add into the blue, 'blank' area. If your child prefers, she could draw her own illustration on typing paper, cut it out, and add it as an image.

Now, if your kids prefer worksheets, no mommy-guilt allowed. Children are all different, and it doesn't make much of a difference, as long as they are demonstrating what they've learned. Our style just happens to be more in synch with the process of creating a notebook than filling in worksheets. Go with what works!

Here is an image of of the blank page:

Click HERE to download and print as a JPEG.


This is ONE idea from my daughter (10 y.o.) for completing this notebook page (Sorry for the poor photo!):

My fifth grader did this page with no help from me, whatsoever. Using our book basket as a resource, she was directed to research 3 topics and create a notebook page with at least two to three sentences copied about her favorite topic. Then she was directed to add at least 1 photocopied image from the same book she used to find her copywork, or to draw her own illustration. She likes making choices about specific topics chosen, and enjoys creating her notebook pages. Yet, there is enough direction for her to know what is expected of her.

Feel free to download this page and make use of it any way you like. If your child uses this notebook page, I would really appreciate it if you send me a pic!

Week 3

This is my first weekly report!!! I am so excited about this idea and love seeing what the rest of you are doing!

We were on vacation last week and we also had a 4 day week because of the holiday Monday - so this week seemed a bit lackluster to me. Maybe it was a bit of post-vacation 'letdown.' Here is what we DID get done.

Memory Folder - Psalm 91, "Sea Shell" by Amy Lowell

Sea Shell by Amy Lowell

Sea Shell, Sea Shell,
Sing me a song, O Please!
A song of ships, and sailor men,
And parrots, and tropical trees,
Of islands lost in the Spanish Main
Which no man ever may find again,
Of fishes and corals under the waves,
And seahorses stabled in great green caves.
Sea Shell, Sea Shell,
Sing of the things you know so well.

From our Book Baskets - Torches of Joy by John Dekker, The Sea and It's Marvels (World Book), Australia (Enchantment of the World series), and The Book of Dragons by E. Nesbit



Current Read-Aloud - Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott - This is an absolute delight and a must-read for homeschool families!

Geography - We used the 17" x 22" full-color topographic map (which folds up and fits right in our geography folder!), blackline map to color, "center" geography cards, and directions which are all included in Evan-Moor's Australia workbook. I love, love, love Evan-Moor products! They are so fun and easy to use. After doing the bodies of water map, Miss M chose 4 geography question cards, looked up the answers, and then made a small question-and-answer flip up book. The cover (still drying) is inspired by Australia's Aboriginal artwork.

Math - We finally began math this week. I have to say that Christian Light Math is a real winner at our house! I actually saw something in the workbook that a math-hater like me found....well.... INTERESTING!!! Can I share? It was a lesson on checking long multiplication problems using digit sums. I thought this was a pretty cool trick. Maybe I am just dense, but I don't ever remember learning digit sums in school. See lesson below.


Science - Not much here. We did informal reading using library basket full of books on oceans, coral reefs and volcanoes. Miss M did a copywork page with dolphin illustrations.


Music - This week we continued our composer study of Franz Schubert. For the first time, we listened to the "Classical Music for Kids" online show. What a treasure! "Take Me to Your Lieder" was a BIG hit with Miss M. She loved taking the online quizzes and insisted on doing all of them.


Copywork/Dictation - Copied a few sentences from a science-related library book and dressed it up with some illustrations from the book. See below - sorry for the glare from the page protector. : ) I love how decorative paper and a few pictures dress things up! We also did copywork/dictaion from one SL 5 Languge Arts Activity Sheet using text from "Call It Courage."


Productive Choice Time - Miss M spent several afternoons making various homemade puppets. On her own, she rigged up a puppet theater using two chairs, a broom stick, and a beach towel so she could give proper performances! Quite a resourceful girl. I have to say, the productions were brilliant! : ) One night, she acted out Eight Cousins with her puppets as Iron Chef was reading the story. Now, that was hilarious!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Somehow my fonts got messed up and I have been unable to fix or change the font sizes. Oh well - hope you don't mind. If you have any clue how to fix it, I'd appreciate it if you let me know!

And, how was your week?

Anatomy of a Notebook Page

Today Miss M decided to create her first notebook page of the (5th grade!) year. She would like to present it here!

Together we would like to show you show how she put together her page. We'll try to go step by step and show pictures – I am a visual person, as you can see by all my posts! : )

Step 1:
Learn about a history, science, or other topic. That should be a no-brainer, we do it all the time, right? Here's the clincher: schedule in a couple of hours to notebook about it. Include any writing or copywork you have done and create a beautiful page or pages to enhance it.

Step 2:
Mommy Prep. : )
Mom's involvement will depend on the ages and abilities of your children. If your child is younger, you do more prep, and as they get older they take the reigns and do almost everything themselves. Miss M is a new 5^th grader this year, and here is what I did to get ready for a smooth notebooking session:

• Chose and printed out decorative paper. I tend to scrounge around for mine at sites like Shabby Princess Free Digital Page Kit Downloads
  

• Provided copied directions for the notebook project, using a page from Country Report Projects for Any Country by Scholastic. Another good place where your child can see directions for pages is ScrapbookingtoLearn.com.
  

• Provided questions (we have previously gone over) from our Sonlight 5 curriculum. Textbook questions work well too. Miss M uses them to create Question and Answer matchbook mini-booklets. (Another option is a written paragraph or sentences about the topic.)
  

Step 3:

Using Google, books, digital encyclopedia, or purchased software, acquire 1 or more images for your page. (Miss M is using the World Book recommended in Sonlight 5)

Step 4:
Cut images out and arrange on page. Don't glue yet!!!

Step 5:
Add writing. This week we didn't do any, so Miss M made question and answer match books using some Sonlight 5 discussion questions. Arrange writing with images until you are satisfied. Don't glue yet!!!

Step 6:
Add title, and any optional decorative embellishments such as photo corners, stickers, buttons, etc. Ours was pretty simple. When you are happy with how it looks you can finally glue it down!

When your beautiful new page is dry, add to your notebook (we use a binder full of blank page protectors) and you'll have something you can be proudly show off to family and friends. Kids love notebooking most when some of the (boring!) prep is done and they get to do the creative part. Moms love notebooking because it serves as a systematic record and review of what has been learned! Love, love, love looking back at our notebooks over the years. If you've never tried it, have a go at it this week. Maybe the notebooking bug will bite you, too!

P.S. --Miss M says she hopes you liked her 'Pacific Islands' page!