Saturday, February 08, 2014

Educational Report: Week of February 2, 2014

Phew, are we all tired! It's been a fun week but we've been busy NONSTOP since last Saturday! Our good friends, the Arendse family, arrived from Texas late Saturday night to settle in a for a month long visit. You read that right- one whole month! Their home is for sale in Texas & Jeanelle wanted to come here so they could focus on their lessons. Yep, somehow its easier to educate living under one roof with 12 children than in a house on the market. Makes perfect sense, right. ;) Thankfully, we both educate classically & use the same curriculum for majority of subjects, plus several groups of children are in the exact same spots in their studies so they can work together. The day is FULL but it's going well- praise God! We wrote out a schedule to keep us moving & we're amazed at we can accomplish in a day.

Memory time was consistent this week- yahoo! Both families met each morning for a time of prayer & Bible memory. Everyone is working on Philippians 2:1-11. Most of the children got the first 2-3 verses down this week. I had several children look up & define consolation, ambition and esteem. (Vocabulary & penmanship!) After spending a few minutes doing this all together, our families separated so we could work on our own things. I decided to keep our memory work simple since our time was shorter. We memorized 40 Veritas Press timeline cards and everyone worked on individual catechisms. For poetry, the older three continued to work on What I Live For, while Jonathan & Elizabeth worked on My Shadow. I'm letting Jonathan & Elizabeth work on catching up with history & science sentences so they will know everything the older children do, so we spent time reviewing those each day.

It's been great fun for Patricia to have the Arendse's two eldest daughters study history with her this week. We listened to two lectures about medieval music & agrarianism. She finished reading Sir Gawain and started The Inferno. She also took one opportunity. The younger children completed their lapbook assignments on British taxes so we can move on to a new lesson! Covering that lesson took entirely too long but I have a feeling we won't move too fast with company in the house. ;)

Patricia & Benjamin completed module 2 for their science but they still need to take the test. The younger children only did copywork of science sentences this week. Still need to buy that (annoying) lily for that (annoying) experiment. 

The boys loved having David join them in person for Latin this week! Review & drill was the theme and we can see lots of progress already! Patricia began Latin Alive! book 1 this week with the Arendse girls. Actually, I should also say that Jeanelle & I began it also. The first chapter covered pronunciation and syllabication. I think the girls are learning that this series is going to demand a lot more from them & that they are going to need to put in a lot more effort. (The Primers came easy to them.) It's a good thing.

Math went well this week with lessons & drill. Both Benjamin & Matthias moved into their level B of their books. (Each of their Singapore math books have level A & B.) Jonathan & Elizabeth enjoyed having the Arendse's youngest, Kathryn, join them for their lessons. They all three are learning to focus & not giggle and chat during lesson time. Guess that's something home educators don't often need to learn!

Kathryn joined us for language arts also. They covered one lesson of PAL reading & writing. This week's writing was especially exciting- they made their first key word outline from Goldilocks and the Three Bears & then wrote their first paragraph, including a "ly" word & strong verb for their dress ups. (You must check out IEW if this confuses you!) We all worked on the outline & paragraph as a group, I wrote it out on the whiteboard & they copied it down. They were allowed to each choose their own dress ups. All three children were beaming at what they wrote! :) In addition to PAL, we did spelling, several pages of Explode the Code and copywork.

The older three children wrote their final drafts for their essay on Florence Nightingale. Patricia and Benjamin also completed three days of Writing with Skill. Benjamin's lesson covered outlining, a new skill for him, while Patricia's lesson covered identifying protagonist & antagonist. Matthias did dictation one day. Everyone did a bit of spelling & copywork. Patricia and Benjamin worked on the second chapter of Our Mother Tongue, which discussed verbs. They are going to spend next week nailing down to memory the lists of helping & linking verbs.

Eric covered "Tu Quogue" and the genetic fallacy for logic this week, as well as their first test. Three of the Arendse children sat in for the discussions.

It's been a blast to hear the piano playing constantly! Between both families, we have 9 children practicing! Good thing we wrote out a schedule, though they all play beyond their allotted time. Patricia participated in a Friendship Concert on Sunday (that's a RARE thing around here, to do something like this on the Lord's Day- not at all something we want to do often!) at Spivey Hall. Jeanelle & here two eldest daughters, as well as my parents and brother came to watch. (Eric stayed home with the other children. We were sad to not have them their but happy not to spend a fortune on the tickets!) Benjamin joined Patricia in attending a workshop with their piano instructor on Monday. The teacher was from Japan! She only spoke a handful of English words, so a translator was needed. In addition to piano, lots of stringed instruments were heard throughout the week- we're getting in lots of free instruction while the Arendses are here!

Don't worry, in addition to their studies, the children had free time to play & craft. We know the children would prefer to just play & we'll work in a few of those days but lessons are a priority.

I keep saying this but I really do intend to post our curriculum up in that header & post more pics. I took several this week of the children's map work but I need to edit them first. In addition, i want to get back to listing our weekly memory work in depth like I did before. I'll try to work on all of this soon. Try because right now there is 12 children in my house. You should see the amount of food we are consuming. Oh, my! And the laundry... and dishes. It's mind-boggling but a blast. Well, not the laundry & dishes. 

1 comment:

dawn said...

Oh, my! I know you all will have a great time! Sounds overwhelming but wonderful. Love to all :)