Homeschool: Week #6 and What is Working for us!

I posted our Curriculum for 2014-2015 back at the beginning of the summer, but I just wanted to update and share a few things since we have been back at school for 6 weeks now.

::::Spelling and Reading for Lyndsey::::

This year I am using All About Spelling and All About Reading with Lyndsey.  I let her phonics lessons slide the second semester of last year just because we did not really like the level 3 of Sing, Spell, Read and Write.  I could definitely tell by May that we HAD to get back on track for this year!

I started her in level 2 on spelling and level 3 on reading.  It has been an easy adjustment other than she had never learned how to label syllables or an actual list of Silent E rules.  We spent a few weeks just covering those basics to catch her up.  She loves the reader, and the stories are fun to listen too!  We try to cover a lesson a week which is 2-3 days of material.  I hope we can speed this up as she adjusts to the schedule and other new subjects!

 ::::Geography::::

This year we are covering world geography with the Trail Guide to World Geography.  The girls are enjoying the daily questions and looking up answers in the atlas.  We are labeling a lot of maps and reviewing a lot of basic geography terms along the way.  We are studying the continent of North America right now.  The girls have learned all the provinces and territories of Canada as well as the Great Lakes and United States (from last year).  They had fun using Shephardsoftware.com to learn and review the provinces of Canada!  

Lyndsey chose Canada for her geography fair project for the end of September.  The girls worked through a Webquest to discover interesting facts about Canada this week.  They had fun looking through JM & Corynne's coin collection from their trip to Canada last October.  

We were able to participate with our homeschool group on a geography Mystery Skype with another classroom in the United States.  I am so glad that our group sets up these skypes.  It is a great way to focus in on solving geography clues to determine where the class is skyping with us is from!

::::Music::::

We love our new music history curriculum! I hope to post more on the unit on Bach that we just completed very soon!

The girls are also continuing their piano lessons with a friend of mine this year.  She comes to our house on Thursday mornings and gives the girls lessons!  

The girls started working on Flashnote Derby and Noteable iPad apps this summer to work on musical note memorization.  I think it is helping them!

                                                                    ::::Latin::::

We have started Prima Latina again this year.  We are in Lesson 4 which is still a review from last year when we completed through Lesson 5 (sad)!  This year is going so much better!  I bought the DVDs, and the girls and I watch the DVD on Monday morning.  Then we do the workbook pages together.  I have set up the vocabulary (and other information) on Quizlet for each Lesson.  Everyday they login to Quizlet to review the vocabulary.  On thursday or Friday morning, they take a little vocab quiz just to make sure everyone is on the same page!

:::::Science:::::

For this first semester we are studying Astronomy.  I ordered the Focus on Elementary Astronomy  for Lyndsey and the Focus on Middle School Astronomy for Lauren.  I am really not pleased with these books. We are just using the middle school version because the elementary is just to easy for Lyndsey.  I am basically using the books as a guide, and I am pulling much more information from internet homeschool sources.  It is taking a lot more planning time than I wanted to spend, so I will be looking for a different curriculum for our Chemistry & Geology studies later in the year.

As for the topic of Astronomy, we are loving it!  We have done many projects already.  I am putting together an Astronomy post for the blog to document our fun!  Best of all, the girls left for Space Camp at the Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, today with JM.  I know they are having a BLAST!!!

:::::History:::::

We are loving Mystery of History Volume 2!  We listen to the CDs for the reading.  This is a nice reading break for me!!!  After the reading, we fill out the notebooking pages to review the material. We are also putting together a timeline and lapbook as we go through the lessons.  We cover 3 lessons each week.  Then I choose one of the extra activities each week for the girls to do.  I like how some of the extra activities use geography/mapping skills and artistic skills.  In the picture below the girls are free hand cutting on the island of Patmos where John was exiled and wrote the book of Revelations. 

:::::Art:::::

I am working on individual posts for each of the artists we are studying with Meet the Masters.  Each lesson is very interesting and the projects create art work based on one of the artist's original pieces.  We just finished Van Gogh's Starry Night last week. 

Starting next Friday, the girls will also be taking a lesson from an Abrakadoodle instructor.  The lesson will focus more on the artist we are studying.  We are all very excited about this class with other homeschoolers!

::::Extras::::

We are continuing to use AlwaysIceCream.com for basic skill reviews and typing.  I really never have to ask them to do this because it is so much fun!

Xtramath.com is a flash card game on the computer that they both work on every morning.  They work on math fact mastery and speed.

Another homeschool mom is leading a K-nex Bridge building class this year.  During the first class, the kids focused on learning the terminology and working together to build bridges using limited resources.  This class is going to be a fun class to apply a few engineering and scientific skills!