Weekly Report # 6

The week went well and we are still working our way up to a full schedule. What we accomplished:

Faith, Character and Catechism:

Boyhood and Beyond: James and Father read Where Do I Belong and Mr. Industry vs. Mr. Sloth.

"Every day you have the desire to be industrious. Every day you have the desire to be slothful. Some days one desire is stronger than the other. The desires you follow determine the man you will become." pg 92

St Joseph Baltimore Catechism: # 5 Creation and Fall of Man; Bible History Cain and Abel and Matthew 5 the Beatitudes. All lead to some interesting discussions.

Math: Completed Lessons 15 through 18.

Voyages in English: Lesson 4 writing skills pertaining to personal narrations and focused on Compound Predicates and Direct Objects.

Spelling: Lesson 4 Hard and Soft c & g. James scored 18 out of 20 on test.

Writing with Ease: Lesson 20 - concentrating on identifying narrative thread in excerpts from Alexander the Great and his Horse. James has no problem taking dictation.

History: This Country of Our Chapter 29 Founding of Connecticut and War with the Indians. Even the Indians were at war with one another. But after this particular skirmish, peace for 5 years or so.

Science: In Physics read and discussed all about Simple machines. In Isaac Newton Chapter 2 and all about his study at Cambridge. James and Father did a lever experiment using 2 4 x 4's.

Reading: James and Father reading the Bard of Avon together and learning all about Shakespeare.

We didn't get to Art or Latin this week. Don't know what happened to our days but they seem to have gotten away from us.

Last Saturday we participating in the Boy Scouts California Capital March. Unfortunately Schwarzenegger didn't show up. No sure what happened. His staff must have double booked him because instead of addressing the Boy Scouts, he spoke at a NAACP conference. The boys and parents were all disappointed but the Lt. Governor, John Garamendi spoke and he was quite eloquent.

Getting it together

The walk there

Lots of people

Entrance to the Event

Father and James

The kids were exhausted but did good. Resting while waiting for the speeches to start.

Weekly report # 4 & 5

Last week was an extremely light week. After accomplishing very little on Monday and Tuesday, hung it up for the week. I think the planned change to 6 weeks on, 1 week off isn't going to work. After three weeks we all look forward to a little break. I use it to regroup and get stuff done around the house. Father uses the break to work on his electronics project. James still gets in plenty of educational stuff although informal. Research on the computer, working on making lego movies, etc. So going back to 3 weeks on and 1 week off.

What we accomplished:

Faith, Character and Catechism:

Boyhood and beyond: Father and James read 5 more chapters about Coveting, Temptation, Education for Life, Forgiveness and Dirty Diapers and Get up Again. The quote I like the best is:

"Whenever you fail, never lie down and quit. Get up! Restore. Get up! Reconcile. Get up! Rebuild. Pick up and ball and run. As long as there is even one second on the clock of life, GET UP!" pg 79

Read and discussed: Matthew 4 Temptation of Jesus. James had lots of questions about Satin tempting Jesus in the desert and all the why's and how comes and why didn't he.... St Joseph Baltimore Catechism 4 Creation of the Angels. Fun discussion about good, bad and guardian angels. Bible History 4 The Fall of our First Parents. Discussed tied back again to temptation.

Saxon Math: The repetition seems to be working and I'm loving the scripted lessons.

Voyages in English: Lesson 3 all about time lines and creating personal narrative from timeline. Completed sections 1.5 subjects and predicates and 1.6 compound subjects.

Writing with Ease: We're in the middle of the book on Week 19 and all about identifying central actions in scene, plus narration and dictation. The excerpt from Edith Nesbit's "Five Children and It."

Spelling Workout: Completed Lesson 3 Long Vowel Sounds

Exploring the World of Physics: Father and James completed reading and discussing Chapter 3 all about gravity. From Physics Workshop, James put together his Gravity Locator tower and experimented with finding the center of gravity (or center of area).

They also started reading "Isaac Newton and Physics for Kids."

History: Read Chapter 28 How Maine and New Hampshire were founded in This Country of Ours and Also started reading "Bard of Avon, the Story of William Shakespeare. Started having James practicing copywork using George Washington's Rule of Civility and Decent Behavior. "Rule #1 - Every action done in company, ought to be with some sign of respect, to those that are present." He still likes to print in all capitals. Working on getting him to write everything properly with capitals only at the beginning of sentences and the rest lower case.

Artistic Pursuits: We completed Unit 2 and learned all about Line and Shape and artist George Catlin. We practiced free drawing a small pumpkin.

Lively Latin: Completed lesson 1.1 and that's about it. Inevitably this gets push aside when tired from completing everything else. Working it in slowly.

Read Aloud: I finally discovered the secret to getting James interested in a story. I read the book, tell him about it and he either expresses interest or says meh!. The other day I read The Black Stallion and told him all about the story. The response - that's nice mom. Okay. Then I started reading "The Ark, The Reed and The Fire Cloud" by Jenny Cote. A scottish terrier, Max who lives in Scotland of course, hears a mysterious voice coming from the reeds saying Come to Me - Follow the Fire cloud. It's an adventure about animals being lead from all over the world, meeting up with their mates if they didn't have one and journeying to Noah's ark and the resulting flood. I started reading it and mentioned it to James and he's show me, show me.

He looked at the book and decided he wanted to read it together with me. So we've been reading it together every day, three or four chapters at a time. It's a fun read, especially with all the different characters accents - scottish dogs, french cats, spanish hummingbirds, english whales. However, I'm finding I can't go from a scottish brogue to an irish one. They kind of get mixed up. This is one story I'd love to have as an audio book. We are two thirds of the way through.

Boy Scouts: Tuesday was the monthly pack meeting and everyone went in their halloween costumes. The older boy scout den did a haunted house and it was fun watching all the kids go in. The first time, most of the younger kids had trepidation all over their faces. When they came out, face were lit up with glee and almost all of them went right back to the line to go through again. It was the first time James has ever experienced a haunted house type thing. I decided to go through with him the first time, since we didn't know what to expect. The kids were dressed up as gorillas, ghosts, and goblins and just jumped out from behind black curtains yelled boo and stuff. Pretty mild. He ended up going back again and again and again.

Tomorrow we are going down to the capitol for the California Capitol March in celebration of 100 years of scouting. The mayor will lead the march from Raley field to the Capitol steps where they will present a report on scouting to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then back to the Field for all kinds of fun festivities. It should be interesting and I'll be taking lots of pictures.

National Novel Write Month: I told James about it and he thought of a story he wanted to write. He's already started working on it and is writing a chapter a day. Fan fiction type of story about Super Mario Brothers. I wasn't going to stop his creative process by telling him he couldn't start until November 1st. So he's unofficially involved. I'm champing at the bit to start my story and working on outlines, writing down ideas, figuring out characters.

Weekly Report # 3

This week went pretty well, except for a few minor glitches. Our schedule gets thrown off for the day when Father sleeps in and leaves later for work. Benefits of having your own business with employees who open the shop for the day. We usually start lessons as soon as he leaves. But when he doesn't get out of here until 11:30 or so, we just hold off until after lunch. Sometimes this works. Other times, I swear James brain has left the building. Hello? Anyone home?

Faith, Character and Catechism: Father and James read two more chapter in Boyhood and Beyond: Ch 5 A man and Ch 6 Be of Good Cheer.

"There is not a set day when you become a man. It's not a matter of age. Manhood is built within you little by little. Each time you accept one of life's responsibilities as your own, you take a step toward manhood... Each time you claim some task as your own, you advance toward manhood. When you begin to see the needs of others and feel the urge to meet those needs, you're becoming a man. When you develop a useful skill, gain wisdom, or protect someone that is weak, you are moving toward your life's purpose." pg 42

"Get to know the truth. Refuse to let yourself become discouraged. Let God's cheerful Spirit rule your heart. Life is full of hope. If you find yourself sliding into discouragement or into a sour attitude, know for sure you are listening to some form of lie. Go back to the truth and believe it." pg 49

We completed Lesson 3 Unity and Trinity in St Joseph's Baltimore Catechism, Chapter 3 Creation of Man in Bible History and read Matthew 3:3 John leads the way in Adventure Bible.

Voyages in English: Chapter one Personal Narratives. Lessons two covered Introductions, body and conclusion and we focused on subjects and predicates. Homework I gave to James to complete on daddy day was pretty simple: Think of something you made recently, like the birdhouse, and list as many details as possible about the experience. Then write a conclusion to the personal narrative about the experience.

I'll spare you the list, but his conclusion was great: "It saves the birds from the cat's grinding jaws."

Wordly Wise: I'm not liking it and neither is James. Shelving it for now.

Spelling Workout D: Lesson 2 Short Vowel Sounds. Scored 18 out of 20 on the spelling test. Two words going into the word locker for more practice next week - adopt and pencil.

Writing with Ease: Will pick this back up next week. Janet from Across the Page wrote up an excellent post spotlighting WWE this week. Well worth checking it out.

Saxon Math: Moving right along and though it seems a bit easy for James, the repetition is great. May end up moving a bit faster and doing two lessons at a time.

Exploring the World of Physics: The guys read and worked on Chapter Two - The Laws of Motion. Father says it is challenging and James is getting it. He covered the math equations presented in the chapter on the laws of motion. Pretty advanced stuff, but its all going into James head. He scored 100% on the questions at the end of the chapter with a bit of help from Father. When I got home from work and quizzed him, he answered the questions correctly. I'm impressed. Want James to learn more about Isaac Newton. Shelved Tiner's biography of Isaac Newton. Found it to be a bit too depressing and wasn't enjoying reading it. Picked up "Isaac Newton and Physics for Kids: His Life and Ideas with 21 Activities" by Kerrie Logan Hollihan. It is much more detailing, interesting, positive and has some interesting activities to do such as making your own waterwheel and making your ink.

History: Read Chapter 27: How Quakers first came to New England. Interesting, because I either didn't learn this part or had forgotten how hated the Quakers were and the attempts to get rid of them.

Lively Latin: Still haven't actually started any lessons as of yet. Read a bit more about the mysterious french connection and picked a latin name for James. He picked Titus. I picked Scribonia for the fun of it. But when a certain party who will remain nameless said Scribonia sounded like screw bony, I decided against it. Maybe I'll just skip the latin name. :)

Artistic Pursuits: Completed Unit 1 all about Space. Learned all about vertical and horizontal spacing. About artist Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze with a bit of history about General Washington thrown in. We tried free drawing from a photograph that I forgot to pick in advance, so was scrambling to find something to draw. James chose to draw a lightsaber from a picture on front of one of his movies. I drew a flower from a photograph in Woman's day magazine. And no you don't get to see it. Both our attempts were quite amusing.

Picked up some additional books this week - now we just have to find the time to read them.

Weekly Report # 2

We were a bit all over the map this week, adding some things and taking away others. It will probably be a couple more weeks before we have the schedule fine tuned.

Faith, Character and Catechism: Father and James read Chapter 3 - Authority and Chapter 4 One Degree at a Time of Boyhood and Beyond.

"God does not give authority so that you can force others to obey your wishes. Authority is the opportunity to use all your skill, your resources, and all your wisdom to make those under you successful." pg 26.

"Learning to be a man includes learning to calculate the direction and temperature of your heart. Be willing to change that direction the instant you sense you are one degree off course. When your heart temperature loses one degree of warmth toward God, make changes right away. A small good change today may prevent years of trouble in the future." pg 36

They had a great discussion about responsibility and baby steps to change. Father also learning much from the book as well. I've been reading ahead of them so I'll know what they will be discussing and loving this book. He and James also read the Tale of Three Trees by Angela Hunt. Father said it made both him and James misty eyed.

This week was all about Angels. James and I read Chapter 2 Creation and fall of the Angels in Bible History all about the war between the angels and Lucifer being banished. And since September 29 was the Feast day for all the Angels, read all about Archangels, our guardian angels in Saints and Angels and what is a Saint. Completed Chapter 2 of Matthew in New Testament.

Saxon Math: Progressing well and completed Lessons 4, 5, and 6. Gave James a one minute timed test on doubles today and he got them all correct. Then I had to explain the purpose of timed tests since we rarely give them. Something he needs to learn for the future.

Voyages in English: We are working on Chapter one: Lesson one - What makes a good personal narrative this week with grammar focus on sentences. Still working the kinks out on the plan, but still loving the teacher's manual.

Spelling Workout D: Completed lesson one Consonant Sounds. Since when did W become a vowel? That's a new one on me. A E I O U and sometime Y and W. Learn something new every day. James scored 16 out of 20 on spelling test missing twelve, barrel, eleven and hammer. Something to work on for next week.

History and Geography: In This country of Ours read Chapter 24 The Story of Harry Vane, Chapter 25 Story of Anne Hutchinson and the Founding of Rhode Island and Chapter 26 The Founding of Harvard. All very interesting. Started Father and James reading Cool Geography by Jane Glicksman. Neat book and we'll be charting the course of our reading on the U.S. and world maps.

Physics: Father reviewed Chapter one with James and went over the math mentioned in the chapter. They did Experiment 1 in physics workshop - Potato Trap. Something to do with weight x gravity = force. They failed to take a picture of the potato trap that James built and the experiment. However, I do have a napkin with math equations and the answers written on it. Pictures, people, I want pictures.

Lively Latin: We started reading the precursor to all the lessons about why study latin and how it came about, etc. Next week, we'll start getting into the meat of the program.

Read Aloud: James and I are reading together "Star War, Young Jedi Knights Delusions of Grandeur." The history read alouds I planned for the week sort of went by the wayside. We're still working out how many different books, reading one chapter of each, we can handle at a time and still keep the stories straight.

Boy Scouts: This week the kids are working on their Fitness requirement which means reading all about the food pyramid, keeping track of what they eat for a week, then planning meals for the next week. James and I will be sitting down tomorrow, working on the plan and then he gets to go food shopping with me on Sunday. This should prove to be interesting.

Weekly Report #1

We started lessons this week after a long break so made it a light week. Each week will add in more until we are up to speed. Introducing quite a few things this year and much more reading involved. One thing I am totally stoked about, plus shooting myself in the foot for not doing so sooner, is getting the Voyages in English Teachers Guide. Oh my goodness, it is a gem. Last year we did without and I only taught from the grammar section based on Susan's Well Trained Mind recommendations.

According to Bauer "the writing exercises are not useful in building expository writing skills and should be skipped," and recommended other writing programs. After reading through the teachers manual, I totally disagree and I could see was feeding the poor kid hamburger when all along I could have been feeding him steak. Yeah - Father looked at me strangely as well when I said that to him. Then he took a look at the guide and understood what I meant. I've used a couple of the other writing programs and they didn't work so well for us. My opinion, the writing section is awesome, plus builds upon the grammar section. The guide says it is a balanced plan of writing and grammar and it sure as heck is. Plus it has built in some great social study and science connections to have James research and write about. So I'll be spending the weekend outlining the first few chapters and figuring out the schedule based on their sample "one chapter, one month."

I also semi figured out the schedule for a few things, plotted it out and typed up a master schedule. It is subject to change.


Faith, Character and Catechism: James and Father read the first two chapters in Boyhood and Beyond by Bob Shultz and discussed. We started St. Joseph's Catechism and did lesson 1 - Purpose of man's existence, Read Bible History- Chapter 1 Creation of the World and started reading Matthew in the New Testament. All lead to some interesting discussions.

Saxon Math: Going back to basics and getting more, less, left and right down pat, plus how to graph. I have a feeling we are going to move quickly through some of the lessons to the more difficult stuff.

Wordly Wise: Introduced James to wordly wise vocabulary study and he seemed to like it. We completed chapter one studying the definitions for words such as benefit, complete, develop, dismay, hail, lack, master, patriot, and sufficient and he did pretty well. Except for the writing part, which he totally hates. But evil mom made him write everything out, despite the complaints. :)

Writing wise, he had to write a short paper for cub scouts on someone he considered a good citizen and he picked George Lucas. It was short and sweet.

"What makes George Lucas a good citizen?"

In 1991, George Lucas started the George Lucas educational foundation. George Lucas testified before congress to improve internet for all school children. George Lucas believes that the internet is the new learning method and is replacing the text book.

I am a member of the foundation which also publishes a great magazine "Edutopia". Lucas is trying to reform the education system and there are many interesting insights in the magazine and the web site is chock full of information. Someday James will be going to public school, so hope to see some of the innovations Lucas and company discusses put into effect.

He also wrote a letter to George Lucas requesting a tour of his studios and skywalker ranch, since he is a budding filmmaker and loves all his movies. His personal secretary wrote James a nice letter back (since Mr. Lucas is a very busy man) and suggested a couple biographies to read and sent him a star wars magazine.

Physics: James and Father started reading the first chapter - motion in Exploring the World of Physics and talking about physics. I also had them familiarize themselves with the Physics workshop kit they will be doing experiments from each week.

Lots of neat experiments in this one and the pieces are all similar to legos. James has already tried to abscond with a few pieces for his collection. Speaking of lego's, he completed the x wing fighter. He got really into it and after I went to bed one night, father discovered him still working on it at 2:00 a.m. We had to lay down a few rules.

Assigned Reading: I'm trying to assign books I pick out and have James read for 30 minutes to himself. I had him read "My Life as an afterthought astronaut" and he decided he didn't like it, so read the first two chapters and the last chapter. When he came to tell me he had finished the book after 15 minutes or so and couldn't answer any question about the characters, I knew something was up. It finally came out he skipped to the end because he didn't like it.

He and father read together "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" from The Blue Fairy book. Both told me it was very hard to read with the english verbage and father said James kept correcting his english. Don't know if reading the tales are going to work out for those two. May have to rethink it.

I made him come up with a list of books that he is going to read during the Fall from the pile o books on the assigned reading shelf to see which ones he'd pick. The books he choose are:

1. Star Wars Young Jedi Knights - Delusions of Grandeur
2. Bionicles Legend 10
3. The Box Car Children
4. The Water Horse
5. Magic School Bus Chapter book: The Truth about Bats
6. 20,000 Leagues under the Sea (scholastic edition)
7. Meg mackintosh and the Case of the Curious Whale Watch
8. Meg Mackintosh and the Mystery at the medieval Castle
9. Peter and the Starcatchers
10. Spook's Shack
11. Landon Snow and the Auctor's Riddle
12. Meg Mackintosh and the Mystery at Camp Creepy.

The list doesn't include the read alouds I've chosen for the year that include Wind and the Willows, Swallows and Amazons and a few others. This year is going to involve much more reading and writing. We'll adjust as we go along.

We also bought him one of these to aid him in his filmmaking project.

Final Weekly Report for 3rd Grade

We are officially done with 3rd Grade -- Yippee, Yahoo and Woozer!

We are completely and utterly burned out and ready for the summer break. The plan is to take 6 weeks off, then start fresh as of September 1st. We'll see if either one of us lasts that long without going crazy. I just finished reviewing what James completed during the year and it always amazes how much we got accomplished.

I went into the review with the feeling that we missed something, but it doesn't look like we have. I tend to get that feeling especially with Math. We dropped all the formal mathematics this year and just concentrated on addition and subtraction using Kumon Workbooks. Half the time he uses his fingers to count. The other half the time he manages to figure it out in his head and snaps off the answer and then there are those days that he just looks at me blankly. I do believe it is time to move forward and upward. Now I have to figure out whether to go with the spiral or mastery approach and take another look at Math-u-see, Modern Curriculum Press mathematics and Saxon to see which will be the best fit. I've tried all three in the past, just need to settle with one and not give up when we hit the wall. Going to work diligently on drills and memorization.

What we accomplished this year:

Devotions and Bible study: We did a mini proverbs study, devotions about God, attitude, respect and during the middle of the year started Explorer Bible Study of Genesis. We got about half way through Genesis, then stopped to work on an obedience study. Debating on whether going to continue Explorer or move on to Greenleaf's Guide to the Old Testament. We are already very familiar with Genesis so will probably move on.

Language Arts:

Completed the Grammar section of Voyages in English which included learning about Sentences, Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs and Conjunctions, Punctuation and Capitalization, and Diagramming. We did a couple exercises in the written and oral communcation section but James already knew how to write a personal narratives and his creative writing skills are very good. We will be casually working on how to write book reports over the break. He is going to be required to read 20 chapter books and write a synopsis on each one in order to earn Monsters Vs Aliens DVD in September. We will continue with 4th grade VIE.

Completed Spelling Workout C with flying colors. He seems to have a photographic memory and misses very few words. Will continue with SWO Level D for 4th grade. Thinking of adding Wordly Wise. I was looking at it the other day and seems it would be very beneficial.

Cursive: He finished Handwriting Without Tears 3rd and 4th grade cursive workbooks. We started the 5th grade workbook but stopped when it started getting into grammar skills, latin and other things. Will save it for later.

Writing: We started with writing strands at the beginning of the school year but it was much too simple. Switched over to Writing With Ease by Susan Wise Bauer mid year and continue with it for 4th grade. Also James has been writing lots of stories about Godzilla and putting them on his Godzilla blog.


Science: Concentrated on Chemistry this year as suggested by Well Trained Mind. James isn't big on experiments so we did more reading than anything else. Father was in charge of science and he came up with interesting exercises for he and James to do. They read DK Eyewitness Chemistry, read about different scientists such as Archimedes, Mendelev, Roger Bacon, Alan Turing and Robert Hooke. Also read living history book "Mystery of the Periodic Table", "Archimedes and the Door of Science," "Galen and The Gateway to Medicine." and "Periodic table-elements with style" Plus he's been rereading all the Magic School bus books. Will be moving on to Physics using Exploring the world of Physics and lots of hands on stuff such as the Physics workshop.

History: Been working our way through This Country of Ours by H.E. Marshall slowly but surely. We are up to chapter 25 and will be continuing for the 4th grade and finish up, including adding in geography study of the states and presidents.

We didn't do any art, music or language study this year, but will be adding it all in for 4th grade. James loves to draw so we will be doing Artistic Pursuits for grades 4 - 6, and adding in Meet the great Composers. Also Father wants James to start an instrument this next year, so we will be investing in a Yamaha keyboard. Plus (keep your fingers crossed) attempt Latina Christina. James still wants to learn Japanese. I have Before You Know It so may just set him loose with that and let him do it on his own, see what happens.

Will continue with Webelos and mix in working on the achievements with homeschool stuff. He is also interesting in learning Kung Fu so will be looking into that. Otherwise will have to figure out a physical education program since he isn't really into organize sports.

Phew! I'm done - think I'll go take a nap now. :)

Weekly Report # 32 and 33 June 15 through 26th

We're coming down to the wire with 3 weeks left to go. We changed books for a couple things during the year, because they just weren't working out, so we are in the middle of Writing with Ease, the math workbooks, and cursive. We finished Voyages in English and the only thing to finish with 3 lessons left is Spelling Workout. When we are done with SWO, James will be officially done with 3rd grade. We are going to work on getting him caught up with math, then we'll have him take the CAT - California Achievement Test to see how he is doing. Time to revisit the different math programs.

What we accomplished the past couple weeks:

Bible study: We put aside Explorer Bible Study to concentrate on attitude and character. 9 year old boys - what can I say. I won't say what issues we've been having, but it resulted in the Wii going into the garage, no internet and all the Godzilla movies relegated to the closet. We started "Write Upon My Heart - Obedience" from Keepers of the Faith. Seems to be working well. There was one particular part in it that hit home which was "How do you affect the world around you? Do you offer cheer and trust to those around you by being obedient? Or are you one of those people who has you own way while those around you patiently endure the discomfort of it?" We learned some new words for obedience and looked up their definitions in the dictionary. Such as Accordance, acquiescence, compliance, deference, dutifulness and submission. We have had some very good discussions about what they mean and how to use them.

We also instituted a no argument, no talking back policy and he gets sent to his room immediately for a certain period of time with no discussion, no explanations. We've tried the talking about it routine til we're blue in the face. He's heard it all and knows what is wrong and right. Life has calmed down quite a bit since we instituted all these changes and it seems to be getting through. The cause and effect stage seems to be kicking in (yeah - finally!) and the questions have been flying lately about who, what, where, when and why, why, why.

Voyages in English: We finished the grammar section so went back to the oral and written communication section and started discussing What makes a good personal narrative. The task was to write a personal narrative, telling events in order and using time words such as when, then, finally, etc.

James wrote:

"When I went to the campout Dad and I set up the tent and when everybody did skits and songs, I stood up and did a Godzilla Joke, which made everyone laugh and applaud. The next morning I ate cheerios for breakfast and heard Dennis shout Pack 380. Which meant get over here. After finishing outdoorsman stuff, I went home and watched you tube videos."

We are going to go on to cover other areas like descriptions and book reports for the next three weeks. When I'm discovering he gets it the first time, we are moving on and up.

He also wrote a great report on Neil Armstrong for the citizenship achievement badge for Webelos. I handed him the encyclopedia and a handout I got off Enchanted Learning and told him to read the information. After reading the information, he started writing a report on Armstrong and refused any assistance from me whatsoever. He didn't want me telling him how to write it or what to include. This is what he wrote.

"In 1930, Neil Armstrong was born on his grandparent's farm in Auglaize, Ohio. In 1955 when Godzilla raid again was being made in Japan, Armstrong went to Purdue. And got a Bachelor's award for engineering. In 1966 he and David R. Scott performed the first successful docking of 2 vehicles in space on the Gemini 8 mission. In 1969 when Godzilla's Revenge was made in Tokyo, Armstrong landed on the moon in Apollo 11 lunar module while Mr. Collins orbited the moon in the c.m. aka command module. Upon his step on the moon, Mr. Neil said "That's one step for man. One giant leap for mankind!!"

He keeps surprising me and sometimes I think I'm underestimating him and need to step things up a couple notches. We in the midst of deciding what will be adding for 4th grade. Father wants him to start learning an instrument so we considering getting a Yamaha digital piano with midi. I've fallen in like with Artistic Pursuits so most likely will add it since James loves to draw. I'm also working at getting him to work more independently, but still stay focused so he isn't taking all day to finish something that should only take 15 minutes. I would love to have an hour glass. Off to do some research and enjoy our sunshiney day.

Weekly Report # 31 June 8 - June 12

The guys had a great time last weekend on their first camp out and today James received his outdoorsman achievement pin, plus the biggie, his Bear Badge. Today was the monthly pack meeting and after handing out achievements, they had water fights.

As James said every time he got hit with a water ball, "I've been wounded." He's so dramatic.

We completed week 31 of lessons and we all are more than ready for the summer break. 5 more weeks to go, then looking forward to a much deserved break.

What we accomplished this week:

Explorer Bible Study: Lesson 14 - Genesis 18 Destruction of Sodom. All about God deciding to destroy Sodom and Abraham asking him what about if there are 50, then 40, then 20, then 10 good people, would he not destroy it for the sake of 10.

Voyages in English: We finished section 8 about diagramming (kind of glossed over that section) so we are done with the grammar section. I'm going to pick out a few chapters in the written and oral communication section such as Personal Narratives, Descriptions and Book Reports to do for the remainder of the 5 weeks.

Spelling Workout C: Lesson 29 consonant clusters - scored 20 out of 20 on the spelling test.

Writing with Ease: Week 14 and the excerpt was from "The Mouse and The Motorcycle" by Beverly Cleary. Worked on narration, copywork and dictation

Cursive: Mixing grammar with writing. All about Adjectives - regular, comparative (er) and superlative (est), plus present tense adverbs and makes verbs agree.

Math: He is getting faster with the double digits both addition and subtraction

Chemistry: Read all about the story of chemical Analysis.

Read lots of books, James drew quite a few pictures of Godzilla and he wrote another short short story for his Godzilla blog and I don't know what happened to the rest of the week. It's a blur. That happens sometimes.

TTFN

Weekly Report #30 - 6/1 to 6/5

Shhhh! Can you hear that? It is complete and utter silence. For the first time in years, I have the whole house to myself for a night. Father and James have gone on their first ever solo overnight camp out and it is the first over nighter with his cub scout pack. We have spent the week gathering the gear, checking out the tent and James practicing putting it up, buying new sleeping bags and camp paraphanlia. We had a huge thunderstorm Wednesday night and it's been threatening to rain, but the dark clouds have passed over. They've only called once so far, but I'm sure I'll hear from them several time over the next 24 hours. I may not sleep much, since I can't sleep without Father home, but I have a good movie and plenty of books to keep me occupied.

What did we accomplish this week besides getting ready for the camp out.

Explorer Bible Study: Lesson 13 The Birth of Ishmael and the Covenant. Genesis 16 and 17. The establishment of the covenant with the newly named Abraham and Sarah and the Lord's plans for Sarah's maid and her offspring.

Voyages in English: Almost done with section 8 about diagramming. It is more of preview of things to come so not placing too much emphasis on it. Completed 8.5 through 8.8.

Spelling: Lesson 28 - worked on words spellings with /ch/, /hw/ and /h/ sounds. James did an excellent job of completing most of the lesson by himself. Just missed a couple words on the test, mixing up witch with which.

Cursive: Progressing nicely. What else can I say about handwriting. He is doing very well, but still likes to print everything when he is writing stories.

Writing with Ease: Week 13. Still working on identifying central details in a description. The excerpts were from "The Borrowers" by Mary Norton.

Math: Alternating between double digit addition and subtraction. Watched james breeze through the subtraction without having to count on his fingers. Seemed to figure them out with a snap. Awesome.

Science: He and Father finished reading the last three chapters in Galen. They read about "Making Synthetic Materials" in Dk Chemistry book. Father had James help him with electronic stuff while working on his microphone preamp.

History: Read Chapter XXII in This Country of Ours - "Story of the Pilgrim Fathers." Story of the Pilgrims, the mayflower and meeting Samoset and Squanto.

Other stuff: James read the junior novel of "Monsters Versus Aliens" plus "Good Times Travel Agency: Adventures with The Vikings" to me, among other things. He also wrote up and posted three short stories for his Godzilla blog. He was having a no technology week because watching Godzilla movies everyday causes an argumentative, bad attitude after a while. We are going to back it down to once a week. I had forgotten this had happened once before and it was due to watching the movies every day. He detoxed and calmed down with no TV and Internet access, and limited Wii usage. Good attitude was rewarded with a Wii session of Mario Kart racing with me. I'm getting tired of coming in 2nd, though. Maybe I'll practice a bit while he's at the camp out. :)

Weekly Report #29 5/18 to 5/22

We have 7 more weeks of lessons left and with our 3 weeks on and one week off schedule, we will be done the end of July. We could power through and not take our breaks and be done by the end of June. But I'd end up being a grumpy old mom and hating life in general, so slow and steady we go.

What we accomplished this week:

Explorer Bible Study: Lesson 12, Genesis 15 - Covenant with Abram. We are slowly working our way through Genesis. In Genesis 15 the Lord made his covenant with Abram giving all the land from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates to his descendants. The study is still holding James attention. I asked him because it seemed to be getting a bit dry, but he said he likes it, so we'll keep going. He keeps asking when we are going to get to the part where God renames his Abraham. Almost there.

Voyages in English: Started the very last section, # 8 all about sentence diagramming. Made an interesting discovery. Father never learned about diagramming in school, which surprised the heck out of me. I remembered doing all kinds of sentence diagramming way back when. So, Father and James got to learn all about diagramming this week: 8.1 Subjects and Predicates; 8.2 Possessives; 8.3 Adjectives and 8:4 Adverbs.

Spelling Workout: Completed lesson 27

Writing with Ease: Week 12 still continuing to identify the central narrative thread in a passage. The excerpts this week were from John Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress. It was interesting reading the passages with James and telling him about the story. What the names represented and explaining the meaning of carrying a burden on your back. Makes me want to read the story again, plus find a children's version to read with James. Also, discovered that Father had never read the story either. Maybe we'll make it into a family read.

Handwriting without Cursive: Completed review and mastery section and started with the Grammar section. James is not having any problem writing words in cursive now and doesn't need examples to show him how. By george, he's got it.

Math: Alternating between subtraction and addition workbooks. Now doing 2 digit subtraction and explained about place value and putting the numbers in the proper columns.

Science: Continuing with Galen read Chapter 9 - Galen goes to Rome and Chapter 10 Galen's medicine. Father and James read all about the first plastics in DK chemistry book and discussed.

History: Read chapter XX in TCOO - Story of the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe. We've finally finished with the story of the colony of Virginia and the demise of Jamestown. Next up, the Plymouth company.

Besides the formal lessons, we are working on attitude, good sportmanship and conduct. James seems to think he should win the wii races every time and gets upset when someone else does.

Cub scouts: The advancement ceremony to Webelos was held last week. James hadn't quite finished his bear badge achievements and only has three or four things left to go. Those will all have to be finished up this week before his den master submits the advancement paperwork to webelos. The den leader told us we had time to complete the rest of the achievements during the summer, but the master said differently and said should have been finished by the ceremony. Because of the miscommunication and the fact it wouldn't be fair to James, since he has worked really hard to get the achievements done, she gave us to June 1st to finish.

My education: Reading and analyzing "Heart of Darkness" this week and next week. I read "Heart of Darkness" last year so at least have an advantage. My tasks will be to

1) Do a close literary analysis of one section and chose at least two things to follow: imagery, symbolistm, diction, metaphors, similies, or character development.

2) Chose one example of foreshadowing and describe the effect it has on the reader and characters.

3) Characterization: Choose a character other than Marlow or Kurtz and analyze. Tell how the character is developed and by what means.

4)Take one of the three questions and write a 500 critical essay about it.

That aught to keep me busy for a while. :)

Weekly Report # 28 - 5/11 to 5/15

Another week down and only 8 more to go. We are in the midst of a mini heat wave and temps should cool back down for a little bit. Just a precursor of what the summer is going to be like.

Explorer Bible Study: Lesson 11 Genesis 13-14 Abram and Lot separate. Abram decides to separate from Lot and Lot of course chooses the best land. The 5 kings from the Valley of Siddim and the four kings from the East join in battle.

Voyages in English: Finished up Section 7 in which James learned about direct quotations and where to place quote marks. Next week on to diagramming. That should be interesting.

Spelling Workout: Lesson 26 /oi/ and /ou/ sounds James is getting better at distinguishing between the sounds and the spellings. Got 18 out of 20 words correct.

Writing with Ease: Week 11 identifying central details in a description. The excerpts were from the original 101 dalmations. James has only heard the disney version so interesting to read excerpts from the original. I realized I hadn't read the original version myself, so will have to get it. Did excellent job of narration.

"Cruella de Vil arrived while the puppies were playing. She tried to take Lucky, but he nipped her ear which tasted like pepper."

Handwriting without Tears: Cruising right along doing two pages a day and finished pages 16 through 23.

Math: Working on both Addition and Subtraction. Father and James did a bonus lesson about Exponents and Ratios. How two things compare to each other. Taking James favorite subject - Godzilla and using ratio to draw Godzilla to scale. Ready to start having James memorize math fact tables from living memory. Will work that in next week.

Science: Father and James read two more chapters in Galen about Alexandria and Galen and the Gladiators. In Chemistry they read about organic synthesis and discussed. All just exposure right now and James is soaking it in.

History: In TCOO read Chapter XX Bacon's Rebellion. Poor Bacon. The two faced governor gives Bacon a commission to hunt down the indians and as soon as he is out in the field, withdraws the commission and sends his troops to arrest him. Bacon finally takes matters in his own hands and marchs against the governor and ends up burning down Jamestown. He dies before he finds out he was in the right. The king finally gets wind of the governor's collusion and pulls him back to England.

I introduced James to Francis of Assissi and we read Brother Francis and the Friendly Beasts by Margaret Hodges.

James advanced to Webelos this week. The meeting was held at the park down the street and James den got to bring up the flags and salute the colors. James did great especially since it was a late minute thing and several people were giving him directions on what to do.

James and Jesse with Alexander (red cap) helping

Look at that happy face

How do you get 6 boys to pay attention all at the same time? Answer you don't

Don't put the slide on upside down, mom!


Look at me - DAD!

James has just about completed everything for his bear badge. We've been zooming through it all since we only had three months. Now he'll have a full year to work on his webelos stuff.

James has been playing Zoombinis Mountain Rescue this week. Last year he couldn't do it all and just watched while I did all the work. Now he is having a blast doing it all on his own.















Amazon explains it best: "Zoombinis are little blue guys and gals that inhabit a kingdom reminiscent of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, and ingeniously teach math principles using puzzles instead of numbers. In Zoombinis Mountain Rescue a group of Zoombinis gets trapped in a cave, and it's up to players to organize a search party that can withstand the logical travails of a journey through this perilous and quirky terrain. There are nine "obstacles" along the rescue route. Players cross a bridge of turtles by sorting Zoombini search party members by nose color, hairstyle, or other characteristics. Deducing (again, based on features) which Zoombini can snowboard down what path furthers the mission, as well. The search party is held up briefly in a cafeteria where it must use logic to wait on Norfs who drop oblique hints about what they want, or don't want, to order. Each game will stretch your child's ability to use forethought and analysis to assess a situation. Even the easiest of the three levels is designed to be challenging, so be prepared to help out along this creative and strenuous path."


So far he hasn't needed any help. What a difference a year makes.

Weekly Report # 27 5/4 to 5/8

I reviewed where we are at for the year and since we generally school year round, 3 weeks on and one week off, with various days off here and there, we just finished week 27. We have 9 weeks left and then will take some time off in August. We will be done with Voyages in English and Spelling. However, since I changed to Writing with Ease and Explorer Bible study midway, will take a break from it and carry it over to 4th grade. Other stuff, like math, we just keep going.

What we accomplished this week:

Explorer Bible Study: Lesson 10 - Genesis 12 and 13 All about Abram moving from Ur to Canaan to Egypt.

Voyages in English: Completed 7.6 Commas in a series, 7.7 Commas in Direct Sentences, 7.8 Commas in Compound Sentences and 7.9 Apostrophes.

Spelling Workout C: Completed Lesson 25 /o/ - aw sound. The words are getting a bit more difficult to spell, so bit more of a challenge. First time Father tested him, James got 17 out of 20. The next day, he aced it.

Handwriting without tears Cursive: Received and started the 5th grade cursive book. The first part is mainly a review of what James has learned so far and mastery of cursive. The other three sections build writing skills while teaching grammar, Latin and Greek vocabulary and writer's notebook with a variety of writing styles. The Latin and Greek vocabulary will be a great introduction, since we are going to start learning Latin in 4th grade.

Math: Started two new Kumon workbooks and working on double digit addition and subtraction. First few chapters of both books are review, so doing two pages a day. Testing his brain a bit making him go from subtraction to addition and back again. He gets on a roll with just one or the other and doesn't pay attention to the + or -.

Science: Father and James are continuing to read Galen and the Gateway to Medicine. Last week was our off week but they read chapter 3 and 4. This week they read Chapter 5: About Hippocrates and Chapter 6: Galen's Travels. In Eyewitness Chemisty they read all about "Chemistry of life" -- Biochemistry.

For some reason, we forgot all about History even though it was on the list. My bad. We did have lots of fun this week racing against each other on Mario Cart Wii. Although, my lovely son, who already knows all the courses like the back of his hand, likes to stack the deck a bit and chose the hardest courses for us so he can win. I actually beat him in a couple races today--yeah me. However, he didn't like that too much, since he usually wins, so it turned into a lesson about good sportsmanship.


On Cinco De Mayo, James den had a party and I came home early from work to go. We had some delicious Mexico food and the kids got to whack at a pinata. The boys had a blast with squirt guns and cap guns (without the caps though), racing around in the back yard, while we parents all got to have some adult conversation. V made sure all the kids got a shot at the pinata before letting them whack at it really hard, then it was a free for all to get the candy. However, once the kids were done scrambling for candy, they were all quite ready to share with those who didn't get very much.

Train up a child in the way he should go;
and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
(Proverbs 22:6)

Weekly Report # 26 4/20 to 4/24

I think we all had a case of spring fever this week which made it quite difficult to get anything done. We were all scattered - the same as the weather. We had a couple cool days, then two days over 90, then is cooled down again and rained. Our weird April weather happens every year, so not sure why it threw us for a loop. Must be the barometric pressure.

Explorer Bible Study: Discussed Genesis 10-11 about the tower of Babel and God's reaction to it.

Voyages in English: We only completed one section in Section 7 Punctuation and Capitalization but it was a good one: Titles of Books and Poems. It was an excellent reminder on how to write the Titles for books which I had completely forgotten about.

Each important word in a title begins with a capital. The first word and the last word are capitalized. Short words such as of, to, for, a, an, and the are not capitalized unless they are the first or last word of the title. Underline the title of a book.

Put quotation marks around the title of a poem.

I don't ever underline the titles of books in my posts because I don't have the option in the menu bar and I'm lazy, but just discovered code for underlining here - "Html for the conceptually Challenged." That's me, definitely and the site is very helpful and makes it all look so simple.

Spelling Workout C: Lesson 24 was a review of lessons 19 through 23.

Handwriting without Tears Cursive: Completed the book and James wrote the graduation Poem translating it from print to Cursive:

"I used to think cursive was confusing

I look back now and that's amusing

I learned it's easy to connect each letter

Now I write faster and my looks better."

Notice anything interesting about the poem. Seems to be missing some punctuation. Hmm! I'm contemplating whether to continue with the grade 5 cursive or printing book. James still has a habit of printing everything either in all capitals or all lowercase. However, I don't want him to stop doing the cursive. Just made up my mind and will get both.

Math: Finished My Book of Subtraction and ready to move on to double digits, addition and subtraction combined, and multiplication.

Science: James and Father read Chapter 2 of Galen - Galen's World.

History: In This Country of Ours read Chapter XIX "The coming of the cavaliers." The followers of King Charles tried to take over the colonies and tell them how to behave and act.

Cub scouts: We worked on several achievements including writing a couple of letters to relatives, getting facts for a job, and pretend shopping for a car for the family. I picked up the Sacramento Bee last Sunday thinking it would be really helpful because it is usually huge on Sunday's with lots of car ads. The paper seemed thinner than usual and found out the reason why. Not as many ads and sections anymore. The car ads was a section of dealerships and websites to check.

We went online to look at Saturn, Lexus and Chrysler. James decided he wanted to buy a PT cruiser for the family after we studied the various cars. Even though the interior is ugly as heck, that's the one he chose. He's not influenced by mom at all. Me, I'd like to have the Lexus at the PT Cruiser price. Oh Well!

Father took James through the process of what he does to find parts utilizing catalogs and the internet for his prototype design and had him help look up parts and write the part numbers down.

Last weekend James had the fun but educational experience of exploring a B17 airplane: The Liberty Belle. Now that I look at what we did during the week, we actually did get quite a lot done. Next week is an off week for formal lessons, but we will continue working on Cub Scout achievements.

Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.
-- Plato

Homeschool Weekly Report

We are doing school light for the month of November while I am doing Nanowrimo. For more info on nano, scroll down below this post. This week we accomplished everything on our list, plus James enjoyed doing Iknowthat.com on the internet. Wonderful educational sight and he is improving his math skills with the Leon Math Stories.

Devotions: discussed love, wrote and memorized 1 Corinthian 13:8 Love Never Fails.

Lord Teach Me to Pray: Finished the section on Pledging our Allegiance and discussing the 2nd line in the Our Father.

English: Completed Lessons 17 and 18 Writing our Answers and Changing word order in making sentences.

Spelling: Completed Lesson 17 and learned all about Syllables. Besides completing the work book, on Daddy day had Father test him by having James write all the words and circle which ones had two syllables.

Math: He is in Unit 4 and working on basic facts, sums through 10

How to Write A Story: All about being creative and looking at pictures and seeing how many things you can think of when you look at a picture. Also modification, which was just basically doodling, which James never does. The task was to take a specific doodle shape out of the book and modify it. James created a feather out one doodle and in the process created some new brain cells. He had never doodled before and didn't think he could do it. He was quite pleased with himself.

Energy, Forces and Motion: he and Father read all about Nuclear Power and discussed it.

F.I.A.R: James and Father read Wee Gillis together and discussed. They looked up Scotland in the Encyclopedia. They also got into Blah,Blah,Blah conversations. In the story, it shows the adults in the story talking to other people, besides Wee Gillis but didn't include the conversations in the story. So Father decided to turn it into blah,blah,blah conversations. When I got home from work Thursday, instead of words, they were blah, blah,blahing with a lot of gestures. It was silly and fun

Homeschool Weekly Report

Studied James 4:8
Come Close to God. Then he will come close to you.











Pledging our Allegiance. Studying in depth the second sentence in the OUR FATHER.

"Your Kingdom Come"

and what allegiance means.








Finished Unit 3
Minuends through 10
Yeah!










Completed Lesson 16
Adding ing















Completed Unit 1
Lesson 16 and 17














James and Father read about Radioactivity and discussed.










On Wednesday, lessons didn't get done because Tuesday night the check engine light went on in my car. I took in it at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday and sat around the waiting room for almost two and half hours until they came out to tell me the O2 sensor was bad and needed to be replaced to the tune of $300.00 This just happened to be something that was missed a month ago when I had almost $2000.00 worth of work done on the car because the radiator sprung a leak and numerous other maintenance issues - all legitimate had to be dealt with. So I waited another 1 1/2 hours while they did the work. Fortunately I had brought "Hood" by Stephen Lawhead with me and enjoyed reading, while waiting. I got home about 1:45 and Father took off for work at 2:00. I cleaned out two pumpkins and carved faces in them. We had an early dinner and waited for it to get dark so James could go out trick or treating. Father arrived home at 7:30 and out we went.




James dressed as Superman and every one got a big kick out of outfit. We went to the houses we knew in the neighbor and were done in about an hour. Returned home and watched "It's a Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" while handing out candy to trick or treaters. They stopped coming around 8:30 and we blew out the candles in the pumkins, closed the gate and turned off the lights. Finally got James into bed around 9:30, but of course, he was wired from all the excitement. I'm not quite sure when he fell asleep, but I dropped into bed around 11:30.