We mostly school year round...taking time off when we need it or feel like it. I officially have a 2nd grader and a kindergartner! ACK! Where has the time gone?
This is our fourth year of CC, back in the cycle we started on. I have started a new CC Community up here, which has been an interesting and mostly really great experience. Maybe I'll blog about it sometime.
This year, we are working through Cycle 2 of Classical Conversations. We are studying the middle ages right now. We use Saxon Math 3 and Spell to Write and Read, as well as Answers in Genesis Science books when applicable. We use the library a lot.
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| Nicole organized her spelling words into categories. |
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| Hannah is giving a "presentation". |
Although Nicole is not old enough to be in Essentials, I have been trained as a tutor and am currently a director of Foundations & Essentials. So, I have recently been exposed to Institutes for Excellence in Writing curriculum. I love it, and can't wait to dig deeper in a couple of years. However I decided to try a key word outline with Nicole. I wrote a "Bob" book up on the board. She told me what 2 key words were for each sentence. I underlined them.
Since this was her first time, I wrote the keywords down in outline format.
Then, I erased the original story and had her dictate back to me the story using just her keywords. Amazingly, with no prompting from me....her story came out better than original. She naturally added adjectives and adverbs. I was so excited!
I have caught Nicole reading on her own a lot more...which is a big deal. I'm wondering if I should get her eyes checked...or if she just thought it was fun to read with a magnifying glass.
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| Reading about Crocodiles. |
These are two of the books in the PreScripts series that CC just put out. Hannah's is the top one. she practices a cursive letter, and then either draws or colors each day.
Nicole's is the next level. She practices a letter, copies a Bible verse, and then does a little drawing. They really love using these books!
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| Our first week was about Charlemagne. I'm pretty sure I never learned about him, or this time period. Fascinating!!! |
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| Caught her reading again! This time about Gila Monsters! |
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| Hannah is learning to read a well...slowly...but she'll get there! |
The first week, we also learned about the 7 biomes. This was a project the kids did. They each drew a map of the world (Hannah "blobbed" hers) and then filled it in with representatives of the biomes.
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| Hannah's blobbed map of the world |
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| Nicole spent more time and tried to add more detail to her hand drawn map of the world. |
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| Hmm...it turned. See Antarctica on the left, that should be on the bottom, so turn that in your head...it didn't work when I tried. You can see that Nicole has the basic idea of the shapes of the contentions (I double dog dare YOU to try to draw the world;) |
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| Then, they filled it in. |
grasslands= grass
deserts= sand
scrub lands= sticks
tundra = saran wrap with baby powder and glitter
deciduous forests= maple leaves
coniferous forest= pine needles
tropical rain forests= big green leaves and bright flowers.
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| Hannah and Nathan's finished map. |
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| Nicole's finished map |
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| 8 parts of speech flower:) |
We also went to the Florida Aquarium with some friends. My creature adventurer enjoyed learning about some sea animals and taking their pictures.
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| touch tank |
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| ahhhhh!!!!! |
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| Whoa! Check that out! |
We had a great start to our new school year....more to come :)
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