Educational Report: Catching up since April (+ a few pictures!)

My last educational post was way back on April 21. In it, I mentioned that we had battled some hefty-duty illnesses and were finally getting back to regular life & routine. Well... little did I know that Katherine would get sick! :( It's been a long, difficult stretch since March with all of the children except Matthias battling illness. Katherine's not 100% yet but we finally ventured out into the real world & even got back to more regular lessons this week. Who knew regular life was so glorious? :)

I'm gonna try to play a bit of catchup since my last post. We didn't do much but considering how sick we've been, I'm thankful for what we've done. Educating our children at home isn't measured in how many workbook pages or lessons we check off. Those things have their place but so much of education can't be checked off- the conversations we have about what they are learning, hours spent reading together, listening to lectures & talking, things discovered on walks & trips, wrestling with new ideas, learning to love each other & serve, watching gardens grow, etc. I'm not sharing these educational reports to say THIS is what education is because I know that it varies for each family & each child! I'm sharing these reports as a way to remember... But just remember, that so much more goes into their education that what I write!

Reading Aloud: we finished reading The Father Brown Reader: Stories from Chesterton and Sebastian Bach, the Boy from Thuringia. We've begun the second Father Brown book. We wrapped up our study of Bach & I'm looking forward to learning about Mozart next. We'll continue to listen to a specific selection each week at breakfast, listen to a few cds about the composer & read Mozart, the Wonder Boy. The children have really enjoy our composer study & I'm hoping that slowly, we'll begin to quickly recognize various composers. Eric started reading The Hobbit this week in the evenings before bed. He last did this when Matthias was a baby!

Everyone enjoyed going to the library this week. The book selection here is poor so we don't go often & I always have a huge number of reserves ready. I usually go in myself so the girls were especially excited to enjoy the tiny garden in addition to getting books (and I have to say, it's pretty amazing!):

Memory Time: Abigail finished learning Colossians 3:20, while the older ones went on to start learning the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20:1-17 (I think they have the first three down). For poetry, the older three children have committed 4 paragraphs of Paul Revere's Ride to memory; Jonathan & Elizabeth memorized There Was An Old Person's Whose Habits & began working on Jonathan Bing; Abigail has begun After the Party.For Latin, the older children finished Classroom Commands Song. Jonathan & Elizabeth learned Northern Border & Northern Border Capitals.The children now have week 12 history sentence about the Muslim Empire, as well as week 12 science sentences about plant systems down. They've enjoyed learning to sing skip counting by 1, 2, 3, & 4s and for grammar, they've begun memorizing a list of prepositions.

History: not much got down for the younger crew but we did learn about Paul Revere this week & the battle that began the Revolution. The children were excited to start making a map that will detail all the various battles as we study them. Patricia has kept busy with her history, covering lectures about 2nd & 3rd Crusades, End of Medievalism, Foundations for Reform, the Renaissance, the Reformation, Martin Luther, John Calvin & John Knox. She finished reading Talisman, Blood of the Moon, and Ivanhoe. She's begun researching for her final paper about the Knights of Templar.

Science: Patricia & Benjamin completed a unit test over modules 1-4 and then went on to complete module 5 on the history of life- archaeology, geology & paleontology. They began module this week, which covers the foundations of geology. They're excited to do the many experiments in this module! Younger children continued to do copywork from Classical Conversations science sentences. We did a few lessons from our AiG Plant Book because they've asked to do it- this week we studied about fruit.

Math: kind of hit & miss but we jumped back to it this week... well, everyone but Matthias. I didn't do one lesson with him this week. YIKES! But he did do drill.

Language Arts: Jonathan & Elizabeth have only 10 more lessons of PAL-Reading! Jonathan received Little House in the Big Woods recently & is enjoying reading it to me. I was surprised he picked this one but I'm also thrilled! :) Spelling & vocabulary, as well as a lot of copywork got done here & there. I'm hoping we can dive into more writing this next week!

Latin: Benjamin & Matthias finished chapters 12-15. They have really enjoyed me teaching them with their friend David over Skype once a week. I'm so glad to have the accountability because it's making me learn it with them! Patricia completed chapters 7 & 8, as well as a unit reading. I'm not keeping up with memorizing with her but we watch the videos together & discuss things. Her Latin is helping me teach the boys- I only wish I had more time to do it!

Logic: Eric continued to teach Benjamin & Patricia, covering the following fallacies: Appeal to Ignorance, Irrelevant Goals or Functions, and Irrelevant Thesis.

Art & Music: since getting sick, we've continued our piano lessons via FaceTime. I'm grateful for technology but we were all thrilled to have lessons in person this week! :) Does chalk count as art? They had a blast!