Saturday Notes
I drove Makayla to work in the snow and dropped off library returns in the drive thru on the way home before 8:00am. Some roads were clear while others were very snowy and messy, and it was very foggy because the temperature was rising.
Sunday Notes
I forgot to take any notes today, but overall it was a typical Sabbath day with family, church, and more family time.
Monday Notes
We had a solid day of school with kids working through their materials cheerfully. In history we had two lessons, my favorite part of the day. For the first lesson we learned about the history of flight, including the Wright brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, and the Hindenburg airship. Our second lesson gave us a quick description of the Great Depression (1930s) and World War II before landing us in the Cold War. We learned about communism, the Warsaw Pact/Eastern Bloc, NATO, the countries involved in each, the Berlin Wall, the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, and Gail Halvorson (the Candy Bomber).
Tuesday Notes
Today felt like everyone needed me for something, all in the same hour. Makayla and I discussed her literary analysis essay. Joseph, Emma, and I did some experiments related to Newton's First Law of Motion. Daniel and I revisited fractions with all four operations. Oliver and I worked together on long division. Caleb needed guidance doing his reading. Mason and I worked on a drawing from Draw Write Now book 2, which he will then do copywork for during the rest of the week. Samuel wanted to read to me as well. We made it through everyone's work and even baked pumpkin and banana muffins for lunch.
Today's history lesson was part two of our study of the Cold War. Today we talked about China's path in communism, North and South Korea's disputes, propaganda, radio broadcasts, Radio Liberty, Raidio Free Europe, and the attempted rebellions of Hungary and Czechslovakia from the Warsaw Pact.
The kids are enjoying our history lessons, and so am I. We move ahead in time to the Space race tomorrow. I am pretty sure we'll have to do some movie watching in the next week to go along. We will watch Hidden Figures, the first lunar landing footage, and probably Apollo 13.
In the afternoon I pulled out paints and some of my kids helped me make some painted hearts to hang up on our art line. I got this free lesson from Patty Palmer at Deep Space Sparkle here. If you check out her post she has a short video demonstration and a free printable. I spread the pictures out through this post. They were done by kids ranging from age 3 up to 14.
In the evening we pulled out different paint colors and did painted hearts round two. These used blue/green/yellow, with white and silver accents.
Wednesday Notes
A very gray and rainy day greeted us. I printed out the free 90+ page Companion Guide to go with The Brave Learner by Julie Bogart (affiliate link to Amazon) because that is my next non-fiction read. I am excited to really dig in and study this book for a few months. I did decide to attend The Brave Learner Conference in July as my continuing homeschool teacher education for the year. The best part is my sister, who is also a homeschooling mom, is attending with me!
Today is a special day at our house. Rebekah turns 1 year old! She lives up to her middle name - Joy. She is delightful and a precious gift we are grateful to have in our family. I am feeling a bit nostalgic as she is our last baby. That means we have the dubious pleasure of 'lasts' happening. Last 1 year old. I am not quite sure what to do with myself knowing that after nearly two decades we will no longer have a baby in the house. It is exciting, too. I have absolute peace that this is the family God wanted us to have. These children. There were so many years of having babies that we did not feel that peace of 'we're done', and having it now makes moving forward easier.
Homeschooling still happened as usual. Makayla finished a Latin translation with me early in the day. There were math and grammar lessons, writing assignments, brainstorming, spelling, and history. It was a good day's work.
Thursday Notes
Today's school work was a bit scattered. Everyone but Makayla did school work in the morning, before I took Jason to his shoulder surgery check up. Everything is healing fine. 3 more weeks in the sling, starting stretching in PT next week. Recovery will still take months. Hoping to be able to go back to work in May. When we got home from the appointment Makayla got going on her school work, but then had to put some of it off when our internet went down for the early afternoon. It eventually came back on and she finished up. She also decided to start watching the Psychology Crash Course video series.
In the late afternoon I did our last two lessons in The Good and the Beautiful History 1 with the kids. We learned about Ronald Regan, read some of his words, and listened to part of a speech he gave in our audio story. Then we learned about the splintering of the Eastern Bloc communist countries and the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. We saw photos and read a story set during that time as well from our illustrated reader. The only assignment left for the kids in history is to write about some things they learned in the last few weeks of history. They will do that next week. Then we are on to some science units for the rest of the school year!
Friday Notes
I had a couple excited teens who woke up and got right to work on school. Joseph and Emma wanted to get work done early because at 11:00am they were going to see The Lego Movie 2 with my husband. They bought their own tickets last week and had been counting down. I dropped them all off at the theater and got home in time for Makayla to head to work. That left me home with the younger 7 kids. We put together this 300 piece dinosaur puzzle. A couple kids had Pokémon card game battles. Daniel helped make lunch.
Now it is early afternoon. Rebekah is napping, the movie goers are not home yet, and I'm going to spend a solid hour reading The Brave Learner and writing in the Companion Guide (that is FREE here). That's as far as I've planned for the day.
I was wondering if anyone would be interested in hearing about how our curriculum picks are going this year? I've also considered an update post on how each child's learning is going. Or if you have any questions you want to ask me? Feel free to leave a comment or email me and I'll try to answer them in a post in the near future!
Happy Friday everyone!
Sounds like a great week. I love the artwork! Rebecca is growing fast, happy birthday to her!
ReplyDeleteI'd be interested in hearing about how your curriculum is going. I just had to make a switch that I'm hoping makes a huge difference, but it'll push us to get through.
I'd love to hear about the curriculum and each child's progress. The artwork is so beautiful. Rebekah is just precious. I am glad you feel peace with your family. That is a blessed place to be.
ReplyDeleteBlessings, Dawn
I love to read what you're willing to share about your family. I think it both comforts and inspires me to see what's going on with other large homeschooling families. :)
ReplyDeleteI have too many "I'm glad for you" comments to write them all out. Just know that I rejoice when you rejoice and mourn when you mourn. I hope my sharing from afar offers some friendly companionship--even though it is virtual.
Happy birthday to your Baby!
My babies are now 4. It is odd . . . and not as restful as I thought it would be as so many of my kids have so many different special needs . . . but I am trying to embrace it. I'm glad you have peace. I don't, and I don't know why. There are perhaps special assignments ahead for us. We'll see!
You inspire me often!