homeschool highlights

It's been a while since the last update. Mostly because we've had a lot of interruptions to the schedule. We've spread two weeks worth of work out over three weeks. Of course, one of the advantages of "officially" schooling year-round this time is that we've got the leeway to do that without having to make up a lot of work on weekends.

So what has Annie been up to since the last update?

*Her English class is still going well, and she's still enjoying it a great deal.

*She's learning a lot of great new vocabulary. We love our "klatches" and the vocabulary game. A huge thank you to everyone who plays! And she's donated several thousand grains of rice.

*We've read and discussed a plethora of dark and eerie stories, including among many others, "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs and "Jerusalem's Lot" by Stephen King.

*Real world math has had Annie working with living expenses and budgeting, and algebra has seen her working mostly with inequalities.

*We're still traveling through time in the history of western science, and have met people such as Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, William Gilbert, Galileo, Rene Descartes, Pierre Gassendi, Christiaan Huygens, Robert Boyle, Francis Bacon, Marcello Malpighi, Giovanni Borelli, and Edward Tyson.

*The Civil War is still our focus in U.S. History...Annie can't seem to get enough! Grant and Lee have finally met, battled intensely, and are now outside Petersburg. And we learned about battlefield medicine. Yikes.

*She's completed the first two packets for the quarter in DBQ, and written essays on political parties in the blossoming nation of the U.S. and on the differences between the North and South leading up to the Civil War.

*We're continuing to explore Africa, looking at the physical and human geography of the continent. We're about to start looking at some of the history and some of the current day issues. And by the way, thank you Jean, for sending us the e-mail about your dad's experiences. We actually haven't read it yet, but are looking forward to getting to it when we start exploring current day Africa.

*Still focusing on elections in U.S. Government. Along with learning about the candidates, their positions on the issues, and the elections process in general, Annie participated in a on-line mock election for school age kids.

*Music consists mostly of fluting. But Annie did also watch a video, Music and Culture, which featured the musical traditions of some Polynesian, African, and Native American cultures.


*She's still taking an art class on Thursday evenings. Since last post, she's completed a watercolor painting and a painting using acrylics. We're also looking briefly into the lives of selected artists, so far looking at Da Vinci and Michelangelo.



*We're still learning about HIV/AIDS in health education, doing some demonstrations of how most viruses are spread as compared to how HIV is spread, and learning about risky behaviors. We've also read and discussed articles on the importance of sleep, autism, and vandalism.

*At Camp Arrowhead, Annie took classes on fire-building, outdoor cooking, and outdoor survival skills.

*As far as phys ed goes, Annie is also still enjoying swimming lessons on Wednesday evenings. She also continues to jog with Rich on a semi-regular basis, and has been hiking twice. And of course, bike riding never gets old.

home school highlights

Week one of quarter two is now behind us. There's always something fun about starting a new quarter. While we always try to keep things fun and interesting and relevant, at least as much as possible while still "following the rules," there are definitely times when we're just ready to move on to something new.

For example, under the heading of literature, our focus has moved from poetry to short stories. (I knew before we started the year that quarter two was to be set aside for short stories, because that's when Halloween falls. Not only do both Annie and I simply love dark, eerie, spooky type stories, but I also ran across a pre-planned unit using the short stories of Stephen King. It looked great, and anything to save me a little work is a definite plus.) Anyway, we spent this week reviewing the elements of short stories. And Annie is reading "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs this weekend. That's one of those short stories that has vividly stuck with me since the first time I read it back in my school days.

As far as English goes this quarter, Annie will be in her Advanced Composition class through the end. Good for me because I don't have to do all the work. But really great for her...she's loving this class. And it's definitely keeping her challenged! And of course, we're still handling vocabulary in the same way, with weekly lists, our vocabulary klatches, our weekly games, and FreeRice.

Math...still plugging our way through algebra. And in "real world math" this week, Annie worked with input/output tables.

Our new unit in science is "the history of science". We're using The Scientists by John Gribbin as our "sort of" textbook, and going off on tangents from there. (By the way, so far at least, we're both enjoying the book.)

The original plan was to finish up with The Civil War last quarter, but Annie has been so fascinated with it that we've gone in a lot more depth than originally planned. (One of those home school perks!) This week we spent mostly comparing/contrasting Lincoln and Davis, now that we've had a chance to really "get to know them". We also watched a biography about each of them.

In geography, we've switched to world geography, and our starting our journey around the world with Africa. To this point, we've focused mostly on Africa's physical geography and climate.

We've set the U.S. Constitution aside (seems to be a popular thing to do these days) for the time being, and are focusing on elections for a while. Would be a shame to pass up this timely opportunity. This past week we learned about primaries and caucuses, and spent some time "meeting the candidates".

In addition to regular reading/listening/watching of the news, we're still focusing on the issues of poverty under the heading of "current events".

For phys ed, swimming lessons have started again (one night a week). And Annie continues jogging with Rich, as well as spending a lot of time bike riding with her friends.

Annie is still adjusting to her braces when it comes to the flute, but she thinks she's about back to par. She's been practicing away for a mini-recital she's giving us tomorrow.

For visual arts, Annie started taking classes with a friend at a local art studio (one night a week).

In health we've begun a unit on HIV/AIDS.

And if we did anything else this week, well, it's just not popping to mind right now.

Homeschool happenings--week(ish) 1

Ahhh, the start of a new year. Just something exciting about starting in on new subjects and projects and experimenting with new ways of doing things.

So what have we been up to so far?

Math: Our main focus for this year is algebra. (Which I have to learn all over again...been 30ish years since I had it.) So far, we've just been reviewing things like working with integers, fractions, decimals, absolute values, etc. Should be hitting some new stuff this coming week. Annie's also doing a bit of work with "real world math" and doing math puzzles each week.

English: Annie thoroughly enjoying the World-Building class she took this week at Writers and Books. Like there was ever any doubt she would; after all, this is creative writing we're talking about here. :)


Vocabulary also falls under this heading. Annie judged the first round of the Vocabulary Game, and she had her first vocab test. And we moved on to List 2 this morning by holding our Vocabulary Klatch. Some interesting new words. (I will try to get them posted for this week's game later today.)

Literature: This quarter's focus is poetry. While each week, I give a short lecture about various aspects of poetry, for the most part, the time is spent reading, reading, reading. Annie fills in a sort of poetry log about all the poems she reads, and at the end of the week, she types up her favorites. At the end of the quarter, she'll print these out and we'll bind them into a little anthology. Among her favorites this week were "Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else, Except Richer" by Ogden Nash and "Milkweed" by Michael Teig. We also each choose a favorite or two each week to read aloud to one another.

Science: Rich is handling the first quarter here. He and Annie are doing an entomology unit. She's started an ongoing database on insect defenses using Thomas Eisner's For Love of Insects. They went on a field trip to Tinker Nature Park and got to talk to the beekeeper and witness swarming (the forming of a new colony). The also went on the first of what I suspect will be many field trips to Mendon Ponds Park to do some bug-watching, where Annie started keeping a field journal. She also made some Venn diagrams comparing/contrasting insects with spiders and insects with earthworms.

Social Studies: For the U.S. History portion, we are studying the Civil War. We watched the movie Gettysburg, in preparation for are trip to Gettysburg (which fell through for the time being). And we began watching Ken Burn's The Civil War. (After each section of this, we discuss the highlights and Annie takes notes.) She's also making a collection of famous quotes.

For history through literature, Annie read Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

For the geography portion, we're starting with principles of geography. This week we watched an episode of Principles of Geography titled "Themes of Geography". Lecture and note taking. And she began work on an assignment about language and location.

For the government portion, she read a short little intro book titled What Is a Constitution? and completed a worksheet.

For the document based questions portion, she began work on a packet about Native Americans. This particular packet includes six documents, and Annie completed the short answer section of the packet.

Music: Annie continues to work on her flute using Smart Music and tackling new songs from a variety of books. We'd like to find her a new flute teacher one of these days, but for now she's doing quite well with Smart Music.

Art: Annie is taking a nature photography for kids class at Tinker Nature Park. The first of two class periods was yesterday. Each kid was given a disposable camera, which we have to get developed before the next class. Annie is so excited about all she learned that she begged us to take her to Tinker Nature Park last night so she could practice. We've decided to let her use our old digital camera...and she is loving it! Below the photo of her are a few of the photos she herself took last night.







Phys Ed: Still no wins, but plenty of effort on the soccer field. Hours upon hours of swimming at Grandmother's house, too.



Health: Annie completed the first two pages in Health Science. She also played a round of Trivia Showdown against Rich. She lost, but did fairly well considering she was playing against a biologist. She probably would have beaten me. :) Maybe next time I should let Rich be the moderator, while I play against her.

Practical Arts: Annie learned about woodworking yesterday...planning, measuring, basic use of tools...as she helped Rich build a bookcase to house all our homeschool books.
























Library Skills: Annie completed an introduction to the atlas worksheet, and we watched The Animated Atlas.

And that's it for all the required subjects. In addition, we've began a unit on critical thinking using a book simply titled Critical Thinking.