Homeschool on Steroids

We have been so busy the last two weeks- busy with our school work, and busy with life.

J-Straco had his first musical performance at an open-mic night at a local cafe.  He played a contemporary Christian song, 'Free To Be Me' by Francesca Battistelli. 
The majority of the performers were also students of J-Straco's guitar teacher, and between the ages of 7 and 16.  It was a very non-threatening environment for him to try out an audience. He had a huge cheering section consisting of both grandmas,  an aunt, two uncles, and many cousins.  He did GREAT!

The Princess with her cousin and Ima

The Princess with another cousin, and favorite babysitter.

Farm Boy with his best cousin-buddy

We also took a field-trip to the local children's museum.  All three kiddos (and mom and dad!) had fun exploring the exhibits. 

Daddy and Farm Boy try the human-powered hamster wheel

Both Boys spend a lot of time making 'spag-marsh' creations.

The Princess like the ice rink on the roof.  She practiced ice-skating.

J-Straco loved looking at pine cones, feathers and rocks under a microscope in the roof-top club house.  Everyone enjoyed a special presentation on 'Amphibians of Wisconsin', complete with an opportunity to see and touch different amphibians.  The Princess now wants a salamander for her birthday.

We also worked on some valentines, in preparation of our upcoming co-op's Valentine's Day Party.

School work, you ask?  Yes, we manged to fit some of that into our schedule as well, although not as much as normal due to the fact that daddy was in Canada this week and I was in 'surival mode'.

I have just received our new science curriculum: 

and:

  Because I haven't coordinated the curricula, we watched a couple videos for our science this week. 

We watched:



and:

The boys created more 'spag-marsh' (hard spaghetti noodles and mini-marshmallows)  creations, trying to replicate some of the structures in the videos.

In addition to the above, we also did:

Math:  Farm Boy is cruising through Math Mammoth 4b, and has been working on division.

J-Straco tried out some Pre-Algebra from Dolciani's text, but decided he'd rather finish his Math Mammoth 5. He is now working on dividing decimals and converting fractions to decimals.

Grammar:  We learned how to diagram adjectives, and learned about possessive nouns and pronouns used as adjectives. We did some parsing to help identify the differences.

Writing:  I had the boys do 'Winning With Writing' for the last two weeks, and to be honest, I don't think I like it.  I'll need to re-evaluate my goals for their writing, and see what else may work better.

Latin:  We have been reading 'Horatius at the Bridge' and chose a portion to memorize.  This tied in well with our history studies of the government of Rome. We also started using Minimus Latin as a fun supplement one day a week.  The boys created Birthday Cards in Latin, which turned out really cute.  We also started another new curriculum:

I plan to use this a few times a week to work on our pronunciation.  The boys really enjoyed the TPR (total physical response) aspect.

History:  We read about the first Olympic games in Greece and the beginning of Rome.

Greek:   I have decided to make Greek a required course for J-Straco this semester.  He did it last year as an elective, but let it fall off after a few months.  It is now back on his schedule on a regular basis. We have been listening to the Greek Alphabet song all week, and Farm Boy has picked up on the letters and sounds.  My next goal is to entice Farm Boy to tackle Greek as well. 

Bible:  We do a couple lessons a week in God's Names, by Sally Michael.  So far we have learned; Elohim-strong Creator, Jehovah Yahweh-self-existent & unchanging, and El Shaddai-God Almighty.

Philosophy:  Some of our recent topics of discussion were:  Should you be rewarded for your efforts in school, Should you let little things bother you, and Is it your duty to give to charity.  We were introduced to great thinkers like Confucius, Marcus Aurelius, and Moses Maimonides.

Reading/Lit:  We are still reading The Children's Homer, and The Lost Hero, and listening to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  The boys also read books on the Olympics. 

I have been reading Climbing Parnassus, and The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What It Means to Be an Educated Human Being, and listening to The Modern Scholar: The History of Ancient Israel: From the Patriarchs Through the Romans on my I-Pod.

We are so excited that Daddy is on his way home, and we hope to get back to normal next week.