Holiday Break

We are currently on our Christmas break - we have been since last Monday. Starting on January 3rd we'll be using a brand new (to us) curriculum called Tapestry of Grace (TOG).

TOG is a classical curriculum which means it follows a cycle of set topics. For instance in history it is Ancient Times, Medieval, Early Modern, and Modern. You would start with a general overview for younger students (grades K-4), then in the next four year cycle (grades 5-8) you would build upon the earlier knowledge, and finally in the high school years you would get in to more details. There is more to this but that is the basic overview.

What I like about TOG at this point is the ability to study the same topic with all of my boys at the same time. Obviously Lego-Man will be doing things in a bit more detail than say Happy but we'll all be on the same topic which will (hopefully) make it easier to do school work together.

Things will definitely be changing around here and I'll be taking this next week to put together all of our material. See you back on January 3rd!

Day #60/175 Days

• Computer Review game
• Wii Fit
• Independent Reading

Day #59/175 days

• PC
• Wii Fit
• AWANA Club (2 hours)

Day #58/175 Days

Homeschool Christmas Party....I was so busy with kids I didn't get a chance to take photos.

The kids played games and did crafts. We ended the day with a potluck lunch. 

Day #57/175 Days

• Piano Lessons
• Practiced piano
• PC - educational games
• Wii Fit

Day #56/175 Days - Fine Arts Co-Op

Due to some issues with travel and such, we only focused on music today.

• Read about the oboe in Story of the Orchestra
• Listened to the music selection and picked out oboe
• Created mini-book
• Read some information found on the Internet about the clavichord
• Watched a YouTube video of someone playing one
• Created mini-book
• Read about Handle in Meet the Great Composers
• Read from the "Young Composers" book and did student review pages
• Created mini-book
• Created paper nativity scenes.

Day #55/175 Days

• Read Library Books
• Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve by Jan Brett
• First Snow by Kim Lewis
• Snow Dog's Journey by Loretta Krupinski
• Marmalade's Christmas Present by Cindy Wheeler
• Max's Christmas by Rosemary Wells
• How to Raise a Dinosaur by Natasha Wing
• Watched "Clive & Ian's" 12 Questions of Christmas
• Watched some links on Jan Brett's page about polar bears
• AWANA verses
• Simple Schooling Freebies - Arctic Animals (Conductor & Lego-Man)
• AWANA Club

Day #54/175 Days

• Piano Practice
• Piano Lessons
• Making paper airplanes
• Wii Fit
• PC games
• Independent reading

Day #53/175 Days - Field Trip

This was a busy day. We started at one end of the state and then went in the opposite direction. Lots of driving means lots of audio books though. We listened to a whole set of Adventures in Odyssey CDs - a favorite of the boys.

We headed to our favorite museum today for the model train exhibit. We also did walk around (despite the protests of my oldest son) for about an hour. I'll let the photos tell the train story. We did discover that one of the local model rail clubs has a "junior" membership and I'll be looking in to that a bit more for Conductor's upcoming birthday in April. He just wants to drive the trains when we come to these exhibits. Being a member - junior or not - would allow him to.

After the museum we headed back north to meet up with our 4-H group. This was our first official meeting of the new year and we worked on creating "theater journals" to record what we do this year. The kids had a great time working on them and did a great job!

Day #52/175 Days

• AWANA
• Wii Fit
• PC games
• Reading independently
• Piano Practice

Day #51/175 Days

• Quarter Mile Math
• Charlie Brown history video
• Practice piano
• Read for 30 minutes
• AWANA verses
• Review game website (Conductor)