Homeschool Weekly Wrap-Up

First I have to brag, while not technically a "school" thing, I'm still so proud of my kids . . . as I think I've mentioned, the church we attend doesn't have a "Kindergarten" Sabbath School (normally ages 4-7, though it would vary somewhat from church to church) so the girls are attending Primary (normally roughly 1st to 4th grade). AND for the first time, they are actually expected (in SS, not just at home) to memorize their memory verses. I'd tried to walk a fine line between encouraging them to memorize them even though they never got to demonstrate that knowledge at SS, but not pushing it to the point that they balked completely at memory work at such a young age. So, they went from the very easy Kindergarten/Gracelink memory verses that they just had to repeat phrase by phrase after a teacher, to the more difficult Primary/My Bible First memory verses and a teacher who wants them to actually memorize and repeat the memory verses. 2 weeks ago, the teacher introduced (or re-introduced, I don't know if they were already doing it or not, none of the other kids that have been there so far actually memorize their memory verses) her "incentive" program, each week they say their memory verse they get to put a paper flower in the "window box" and then will bring them home at the end of the quarter. Well, the girls were all over that. The first week was a relatively easy memory verse, but this past week was rather long and had some kind of big words (It is written, "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God"). Interestingly, they got the CONCEPT of the memory verse very quickly but stumbled over the exact wording for awhile. L had it down by mid-week (the week before A was much more into it all), but A really struggled. BUT she got it! She was so proud of herself. And, when I asked the teacher, after class, for next week's lesson paper (they don't have a quarterly, just the weekly papers so if you miss a week, you don't have the lesson story for the following week) because we'll be at my parents' next weekend, A suddenly realized she won't be here to get her flower next week. The teacher said if Mommy let her know they'd said it, she'd let them have both flowers the following week, whew! AND this week's is very easy, no worries about getting it memorized LOL. I think the girls will enjoy being able to say it for Mama & Papa too. (A also was disturbed that she'd miss the next part of the story of Saul/Paul that the other teacher is talking about during the first part of Sabbath School each week (they use Gracelink for the first part of their program, but not it's quarterly or memory verses, then use My Bible First for the "lesson", it took me awhile to figure that out, but by this week I was pretty sure that's where the Saul/Paul was coming from & looked it up this evening & I'm right LOL) so I assured her that we'd read the next part of that story this week sometime (or see if Papa wants to tell them the story next weekend, afterall Primary is his preferred age group so it should be right up his ally LOL).

Ok, on to "school" stuff . . . as I expected, they're loving the American History we're starting. We're having trouble w/ the "black & white" viewpoint of little kids, they want to know if the Native Americans were the "good guys or the bad guys", I think after numerous conversations I've gotten through their heads that in any group of people there are people who do bad things, but that doesn't make the group of people bad (and that when it comes to the Native Americans there were wrongs committed on all sides, though we haven't really "gotten there" yet). I wasn't sure about using Draw Write Now with them so young, but since it was at the library, I figured we'd give it a try (and once we started doing the copywork as part of Bible and they were enjoying it so much, I was more confident they would enjoy DWN as well). And they LOVED it. In fact, after doing it on Wed, A was ready to do another page on Thurs, and was said to hear she'd have to wait till next week LOL. We DID shorten the copywork, and only had them do 2 lines instead of all 4 that were on the assigned page. They're enjoying the book. Since I wasn't able to get the History Pockets book from the library (& w/ doing the abbreviated version of the Native American part of the curriculum (going into the details of the different tribes is abit beyond them at this stage LOL) I couldn't justify buying it for like 4 days of work) we just looked at various Headdresses online and talked about them. I meant to have them make one too, but we were too busy that day so we may try to fit that in this week (since crafts are always a hit). We also took a stab at making Hominy but either I copied something down very wrong or the recipe had a major typo, it ended up burning, sigh (ok, I just double checked, I didn't copy it down wrong! 1 c water, 1/2 c dry popcorn, let soak overnight, then bring to a boil & simmer 3 hrs, it cooked dry & burned in WAY LESS than 3 hours!! Ann, I used the History Pockets recipe (thanks to the publisher having the whole book available to view online, let me know what you figure out when you get to this (or if you've already done it, did it work for you?) . . . I told the girls we might try it again another week if I can find another recipe.


They're continuing to enjoy our study of the Solar System. I got another Solar System book this week from the library so we'll check it out for next week and see which we like better.

They have said they liked the Bible stories better than the Ladder of Life series we've been doing. Just because of lack of time on my part I think we'll continue w/ LofL for this next week, and maybe the one after (this next week is going to be beyond hectic, no time to figure out something else) but then I need to figure something else out . . . they'd be happy going back to re-reading the Read and Learn Bible again, so I need to decide if we want to do that or something else character-study related (need to see what resources I have saved away LOL), or perhaps a little of each, reading one story out of the Read & Learn Bible, but then do something character-study related as well. Whatever we do, I need to come up with a way to continue the copywork (even if it's not really related to the rest of what we're doing) they're enjoying it and it's something I'd like to encourage.

They are also really linking the notebooks we're doing this year. I got them each a 3 ring binder (pink & purple of course LOL) and each day after they do their copywork we put it in the binder, we also have an American History section and put our Draw Write Now sheets in the notebook as well. And I've told them that when we're done w/ the Solar System unit we'll put their lapbooks in their binder as well, so at the end of the year it will be a record of all we've done that year.

This next week will be a short week. Weather (and dh's work schedule) permitting, we're going to Sesame Place on Tues (couldn't go this past week because of dh's work). And then the girls & I leave Thurs morning to go spend time w/ my parents and various friends in MD, including the much postponed (due to teacher's illness, and then summer craziness) Kindermusik end of class party. So, we'll only have Mon & Wed to even pretend to "do school" this week, and I suspect those days will be rather busy w/ errands, laundry, etc as well, so we shall see . . . I did end up reading the part of the Native American book that was scheduled for Monday on Friday (since we didn't have the hominy to make/eat) so that puts us abit ahead there, and not having the History Pockets left us w/ a couple "blank days" for history during the Native American section.