The first week of school

The boys' teepee villages we made in history:

The first week of school has gone really well! So much better than last year! We now do our writing as part of science or history-- I have them write 4 sentences about what they learned or something like that. I'm pretty much only using the K12 language arts, and only a little bit. I take what they say to do for Alex and Nathan and mix it together and use it to create my own so they can still do it together. I'll use the K12 science for a general outline.

For science, I am using Apologia Flying Creatures, and science experiment books, and Discovery Channel Science series books and other books from the library. The only book I am using that wasn't at the library was the Apologia-- I love the Provo library! I will use the topics from K12 science for that grade. I will either read from the book (they are interesting books we get at the library, not like a textbook) or I read it and say it in my own words or make an activity or something out of it. Then we do a science "experiment" that has to do with what we learned about. On Wed. we read one page about states of matter in the Discovery Channel Science book "Matter" and then we did a couple of experiments I saw in the experiment books: we took matches and put different objects in the fire to see if they melted, burned or stayed the same-- of course the boys really enjoyed that. Then we put different things like oil, syrup, lotion, water, salt water, enchilada sauce into plastic cups and put them in the freezer to see which ones froze. We also put ice cubes in different places to see which ones melted first. The one on the black grill in the sun melted in about 10 seconds! The last thing we did was to put in a muffin tin with muffin liners: bread, salt, sugar, water, butter and put it in the oven on 400 degrees for about 20 min. and see what happened. They really loved science!

For history, I have the "History of US" series from the library that I read to myself and some other books on the subjects we are learning. Then I'll tell it in my own words to the boys, showing some pictures, and then we read books from the library on that subject, do projects (for Native Americans I got "More than Moccassins" book from the library) and go on field trips. Tues. I told them that the Native American Indians were here first in North America, and told them what the book "Trail of Tears" (Landmark Events in American History) said in my own words. Then we made teepees. I started reading for our read aloud book "The Sign of the Beaver" by Elizabeth George Speare. I got library books on different Indian tribes, and lots of picture books of Indian legends. So on Thurs. we read about the Cherokees, and read an Indian legend book, and went to the BYU museum of peoples and cultures (it had just closed, so we're going right now, as soon as Baby Katie wakes up from her nap).

Fridays are going to be the homeschool group get togethers, and PE at the public school.

One thing I had a hard time with was getting everything in. This last week has been a breeze. I think part of it is that we are not reading off the computer so I have the kids attention longer, and they are older. Another thing is that I start with math and language arts, have lunch, and then we do the fun things: art, history, music and science. But we do art and science on Mon. and Wed. and music and history on Tues. and Thurs. I make the 30 min. of reading to me "homework" and not part of the school day, and the read aloud is either in the car on CDs or at bedtime- CDs or me reading. I just need to add piano lessons and foreign language! Maybe next week.