Classical Moms...watcha up to?

[chalupamom]

Just curious!

We're doing some Ancient China stuff right now and having fun with folk stories and nursery poems (memorizing a couple in conjunction with a few at the start of "First Language Lessons").

We're also talking about our favorite nons and verbs, and talking about floods (prompted by discussions of Nile/Yangtze river flooding, as well as floods in the news lately) - how they hurt, how they can be beneficial, why they happen, etc.

So what are you up to?

[teachinmaof3]

Right now we're getting used to having a newborn in the house. :LOL My plan is to get back into the groove next week.

In History we're ready for Japan and Australia (I can't remember what chapter of sotw2 we're doing next).

In Science we'll be studying Weather for a few weeks then the Solar System.

[zonapellucida]

Well, we just finished Chrisopher Columbus and are now working on John Smith in our history book. Math, we have covered up to the 3 tables and fractions. We are doing the Heifer Int program with our reading so today we made beautiful pictures of San Martin Alto, Eucador. We are starting biomes of the world, ummm, and are finishing up a plant experiment. My thought was to start a bravenet page for them so they could display their work. Started it now am lost as to the rest of the process. But I digress--Oh cursive practice and grammar --subject/predicate, nouns verbs proneous (lots of MAD LIBS LOL!!). That is the last couple days--

[Mallory]

In history we are studying ancient india (lots of tales from arabian nights) and the early hebrews- a subject I am having a hard time wrapping my head around as an athiest, I just keep telling myself that we can look at it the same way we looked at egyptian gods and beliefs, "this is what happened and this is what some people believe."

In science we are doing anatomy, the circulatory system right now, digestive next.

My 6 year old has started reading early reader/picture books and wants to all the time. My 4 year old would like to but I am having a hard time having fun with it when I can tell that those squiggles on the page don't mean a thing to him. I wish he wasn't so interested in it yet, because it is going to be a frustrating road for him right now.

The 6 year old is doing adding, again the 4 year old is very interested, but he has a much easier time with numbers.

We try to do some recorder, Hot Cross Buns right now, and hopefully starting on a holiday song soon.

[daekini]

I'm going to poke my head in and say "hi!"

My babes are only 2 yo and 11 weeks old, so we're not 'studying' anything yet... but we plan to hs classically!


nak
wow. i just noticed that i'm the 3rd poster in a row with a dc named Miles!

[JGEMom]

In history we are studying Egypt and working on our chicken mummy.

In science we are talking about gasses and reactions so today we made rockets and blasted them off with baking soda and vinegar, the kids had so much fun doing this.

Everyone in the house is a reader at this point even my almost 5 year old which makes life so much easier! My oldest is working on a report on Abraham Lincoln for writing.

We use Saxon for math, Rod and Staff for grammar, and Power Glide for Spanish.

[Charles Baudelaire]

We did the chicken mummy too!!! Right now, we're on the Minoans and Dark Ages of Greece. I'm trying to get ahold of the last two books in Mary Pope Osborne's retelling of The Odyssey.

Originally Posted by JGEMom

In history we are studying Egypt and working on our chicken mummy.

In science we are talking about gasses and reactions so today we made rockets and blasted them off with baking soda and vinegar, the kids had so much fun doing this.

Everyone in the house is a reader at this point even my almost 5 year old which makes life so much easier! My oldest is working on a report on Abraham Lincoln for writing.

We use Saxon for math, Rod and Staff for grammar, and Power Glide for Spanish.

[eilonwy]

We're doing classical kindergarten-- learning to read, mostly, though I'd like to start some very basic math work in the next few months (budget permitting). I'm very fond of Saxon, but the Saxon K program just feels very wrong for BeanBean. Any thoughts?

[chalupamom]

Originally Posted by eilonwy

I'm very fond of Saxon, but the Saxon K program just feels very wrong for BeanBean. Any thoughts?

I felt the same way. I can totally get why people are into Saxon for higher grades but for K it just felt to be a little much to me.

We went with Singapore Earlybird for this past year and were very pleased with it (we ordered the version available from singaporemath.com). It's nicely illustrated, has exercises and examples easily adapted for home use and was not overly repetitive. In the cases where my son wanted or needed to go more on a given subject I just made up some games or a worksheet or something.

We may well switch to Saxon in a year or so but right now we're finishing up Singapore Earlybird 2B and are about to start Primary 1A. I think it's a nice start to the subject for younger kids.

[Kim]

In history we are studying Egypt and working on our chicken mummy.

Charles Baudelaire and JGEMom:
Quick question-- Where did you get the idea for a chicken mummy? Is this part of the WTM curriculum? Other?

[Katiegs]

More classical moms! Cool!

We're in SOTW 2 and just finished the Franks and Islam. We're having a Moorish dinner with friends from our hsing group next Weds. - any suggestions for good music to listen to? For science we're doing astronomy because ds kept asking, "When will we do astronomy?" whenever I brought out the earth science, so I just switched semesters. Miquon for math, Spelling Workout C, English for the Thoughtful Child, and Prima Latina round us out. I love hearing what other hsers do for history projects.

[Charles Baudelaire]

Originally Posted by eilonwy

We're doing classical kindergarten-- learning to read, mostly, though I'd like to start some very basic math work in the next few months (budget permitting). I'm very fond of Saxon, but the Saxon K program just feels very wrong for BeanBean. Any thoughts?

We slogged our way through Saxon 1 last year and it was a bitch -- verrrrryyyyyy boooooorrrrrinnnng. The repetition was overkill. Since we've begun doing Miquon Math, it's gotten much better, as has Lou's math comprehension, especially since they introduce addition, subtraction, multiplication and division right in the first book. In book 2, it cycles back to addition (only in a more complex way). You can therefore do the program in spiral fashion or pursue one topic through all the books. The use of Cuisenaire rods has helped my daughter understand quantity, place value, and relative difference among numbers better than anything else. In short, I like it.

[Charles Baudelaire]

.

[zonapellucida]

Any good curricullum links??? I am still searching for what I want to use next year. This year is the ecclectic approach! Thank God for the net and free worksheets. We are using Abeka for history and Science with alot of addin from me. I just got a couple books from ebay and did not buy the whole kit. Needless to say I want to get the most for my money......

[Amy in NH]

We are working on the early 1900s using SOTW4 for world history and History of the US for US history concurrently. We're really just skimming through the world history for this period and focusing more on US history until we get to WWI. I have some supplemental activity books we use for projects, and we read a lot of biographies, historical fiction, and period literature. I seem to get stuck on all the supplemental reading cuz it's all so good, so we're now planning (2) 5 year cycles. I figure I'll let the kids choose an area in which to specialize, complete an internship, or take community college classes/CLEP during the last 2 years of their schooling. I'll have both of the olders start with outlining and timelining when we start ancients over.

For science we are finishing up a chemistry unit and then plan to start biology over again. Real Science 4 Kids has been a great chemistry program, the experiments have been fun and informative, and I think the kids have learned a lot. I have organized a group of friends who we will do a dissection unit with later this winter, and I ordered the kits last week.

Jacob is about to finish Singapore 6, and we're moving on to Jacob's Algebra (haha- it's a pun). We're also about to finish Latin Primer 1 and move on to 2. Aside from that, we're just plugging away with the other subjects.

[Queen Gwen]

We are unpacking moving boxes. I think the chicken mummy is in one of them. I dearly wanted to bury it in the yard of the house we just moved out of -- something for the new owners to discover and contemplate. I'm sure the packers wondered about it; they definitely wondered about all of the books and math manipulatives.

BTW, wrapping the linen bandages around the chicken takes FOREVER...I can't imagine doing an entire human body that way, focusing on the dead person for hours and hours at a time. What did those priests think about while they did it?

When we actually do some schooling these days 10yo works on Latina Christiana and some Singapore Math. Other than that, we work on learning our new address, phone number, etc.

[eilonwy]

It's been a while since anyone posted here (we're on the second page!); what's up?

We've been doing a lot of reading about airplanes lately. This week, BeanBean's favorite plane is the B-29. I was also wondering-- at what reading level do you think it would be reasonable to introduce First Language Lessons? BeanBean absolutely adores that book (I did it with my niece last year) and has been clamoring for "The Butterfly Book" (which is what he calls it) this week. The thing is, I'm not convinced that he's reading well enough for it yet; he's really not past the cvc stage right now, you know? He can memorize and recite no problem, but I really think that he ought to be a stronger reader before we start. Am I wrong?

BeanBean is very eager to "do homeschool!" and keeps telling people about it in stores. I've also got to hurry up and find him a math book... I think I'll be making a trip to the nearest homeschool supply store tomorrow to pick something up for him.

[Charles Baudelaire]

Well, lemme see...

As part of our Ancient Greece study right now, we're reading Rosemary Sutcliffe's Black Ships Before Troy and are going to be watching a video of Oedipus Rex this week sometime.

We're also working on the Real Science 4 Kids book in chemistry and beginning to do stuff with cursive, which Lou really likes (but also finds infinitely frustrating).

She's learning Spanish, so we've been reviewing basic verb conjugations today and simple phrases and stuff. Finally, we're trading off reading C.S. Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Anyone know anything about the Narnia movie scheduled for Christmas?

[Queen Gwen]

Eilonwy, couldn't you do First lang Lessons until you get bogged down by reading issues, then maybe mark time with some grammar games, other poems to memorize, etc.? I considered it as more of customizable program, so I tended to combine lessons, leave things out, add other stuff in, and generally fit it to our situation.

CB, my kids got such a kick out of RS4K chemistry. When we started they had zero interest in the subject, but dd declared it the most fun we've had with science so far.

We are still in the throes of school slugdom (a drainage pipe broke in the finished basement of our new house, so all the unpacking had to come to a screeching halt while we dealt with that...on a Friday night, of course, so we had to consider weekend plumbing rates vs. lack of water in half of the house). We finally stormed the Bastille today, so I need to find some version of The Scarlet Pimpernel and/or Tale of Two Cities for a read aloud. Alas, no library card yet, but at least I figured out where the library is.

[eilonwy]

Originally Posted by Queen Gwen

Eilonwy, couldn't you do First lang Lessons until you get bogged down by reading issues, then maybe mark time with some grammar games, other poems to memorize, etc.? I considered it as more of customizable program, so I tended to combine lessons, leave things out, add other stuff in, and generally fit it to our situation.

Yeah, I thought of that. I guess I'm still feeling really strange about formally teaching BeanBean (to say nothing of his sister) at this age. I'm 100% in favor of classical education, but also want to follow my son's lead, and every time he asks to do something new which strikes me as a little... excessive, or heavy on the actual schoolwork, an alarm bell goes off in my head and I want to just put the brakes on. Then I feel really guilty about not following his lead, and do what he wants until something else comes up. *sigh* I should totally know better, having worked all this out in my head years before I ever had children, but actually dealing with it in real life feels totally different. Anyway, I'm having issues-- I want to challenge him but not push, I want to follow his lead but I don't want him to be "working" all the time... but what if working is what makes him really happy? I could go on and on, but I'm not sure if this is even the right thread for it.