Weekly Report- Week Three 2009-10

For the first time in over five years we have a child in public school. Abigail started her first day of third grade at Keizer Elementary this year. She is having a great time, her teacher is considered one of the best and she is making friends. The girl who sits next to her in class is "super nice mom". She even gets to ride the bus (a whole 5 min. each way) which she is thrilled about. We hope and pray that Abigail will have a wonderful third grade year.

One of Miriam's crafts this week was playing with food coloring and coffee filters. My hands were a sickly grey-green color after this but we had a great time. Here are some of her creations.

The boys and I are leaning about the first European settlers in North America and that is a lot of fun. Soon we will move on to the American Revolution which is my favorite time period. The boys are also doing Apologia General Science and learning that Jr. High level science is very different from the elementary science we had been doing. There are tests! You have to study! You have to take notes! It has been interesting and all of the experiments have worked so far.

In another few weeks we will finish up Lively Latin book one and move on to book two. We have just moved beyond learning nouns and verbs to learning some adjectives. I am supplementing with occasional reading and translating from Ecce Romani for fun and to get them use to actually reading in Latin.

Weekly Report- Week Two 2009-10

The second week of school was off and running but anyone who does memory work knows that you need to come up with ideas to keep it interesting. I had the kids take turns following directions , in Latin, about what to draw. They worked together to quickly draw these pictures on the white board and I had to come up with the coherent Latin sentences to prompt them. It was a fun and different way to review our vocabulary.

For Miriam I am using Hearts of Dakota's Little Hands to Heaven. We read the story of Noah, the ark and the Rainbow this week. This is her rainbow craft. Abbie joined in but neither of them got the rainbow covered in colored paper as was the idea. They had fun though!

A note about our memory work. This is one area where I am the most proud of what we are accomplishing. So often in educational circles you hear "rote memorization" decried as old fashioned and useless. In a classical education memory work is imperative to create the foundation upon which further learning will be built . To really understand anything you must first learn the vocabulary and foundational principals of that discipline. That is what we hope to do with the memory work in our home. Our studies in Latin, English grammar, math, bible and history have all been made easier and more satisfying because of our memory work. Latin isn't so difficult to translate if you know your vocabulary. Math isn't as tough when you understand the directions to "find the sum" and American history is richer when you know "Paul Revere's Ride".

Tantum scimus quantum memoria retinemus

Loon Lake - Rain and Sun

It was Miriam's turn to camp with dad and she wanted to play in the sand, so Loon lake was the destination this weekend. We arrived to a downpour, played in the drippy sand afterward, and then enjoyed dinner in the rain. We escaped to the tent and played Hi Ho Cherry O until bed time. It rained all night, but a giant evergreen kept our tent dry.

Right after we packed camp in the morning the sun broke through and we enjoyed a good four hours on the Loon Lake beach in perfect 70+ sunny weather.

(Miriam did the sand angels without any prompting.)



(Our tunnel/bridge/wall project.)