Day #34/175 Days

Similar to yesterday. I'm working on figuring out what will work best for us this year. It's been difficult with such a large age range. Tapestry of Grace is looking very interesting.

• math 
• writing journal
• independent reading
• own interests (computer and paper airplanes and trains and outside time)
• AWANA club

Day #33/175 Days

A quiet unschooling day:

• AWANA verses
• Piano practice
• math
• reading
• writing journals
• Conductor - paper airplane construction

Day #32/175 Days

Today we did the following:

• Mission to India study
• Piano practice
• Piano lessons
• Calculadder drills
• Regular math
• Worked one-on-one with Happy (Get Ready for the Code, Math Drill, handwriting)
• Writing journals
• Independent Reading

At piano lessons today I began looking at Tapestry of Grace. We may be changing how our homeschool looks in the very near future.

Day #31/175 Days - Fine Art Co-Op

My sister and I have been having a hard time getting together to do our co-op. Today was our third meeting. We covered all of the following:

• Read in Story of the Orchestra about cellos and listened to the track
• Created a mini-book about cellos
• Read in Story of the Orchestra about organs and listened to the track
• Created a mini-book (To create these each boy lists one thing about the instrument and I write it on a blackboard. They then pick three of them - there are four boys - to copy in to their booklets.)
• Read from Meet the Great Composers about Haydn
• The boys answered some fill-in-the-blank type questions while listening. We reviewed the answers when done.
• Read from A Young Scholar's Guide to the Composers 
• The boys answered the Student Review pages while listening. We reviewed the answers when done.
• Created a mini-book about Haydn (done in a similar fashion to the instrument ones)
• Listened to the CD track from Meet the Great Composers with Haydn's work. Had the boys pick out cellos and organs.
• Took a walk on our lunch break
• Watched Lesson 3 in "God & The History of Art" about "Early Christian Art" by Barry Stebbing (I really like these videos)
• Discussed the video
• Watched the rest of Lesson 1 in "Beginning Drawing" and the boys did the lesson 
• Read about da Vinci in Art in Story
• Viewed some of da Vinci's paintings online and in books

Photos from the day:

Day #30/175 Days

Today was another "unschooling" type of day.

Conductor has really become interested in planes lately. He has a book with different airplane patterns in it. We are constantly making copies of them and he has created quite the collection. He spends hours at time constructing his planes.

Lego-Man is computer focused lately and working hard on getting his games done. This is part of his 4-H Money Camp project. He plans to sell these at upcoming craft fairs.

Independent Reading
Adventures in Odyssey CDs (love these!)
Even a bit of math drill thrown in for good measure.

Day #29/175 Days

H&H or "They Dynamic Duo" were here today. That limits a bit what I do with the boys as five children ages 18 months to 14 is a bit much for me now that I don't have H&H on a regular basis.

The boys read today. Played with H&H - always a good learning experience! Listened to lots of Adventures in Odyssey stories on CD.

Lego-Man is working on learning how to make computer games. He spent quite a bit time on this task.

Piano Practice - of course.

We ended the day with two hours of AWANA club.

Day #28/175 Days - Co-Op

Today was our co-op days. The middle group (Conductor) and the older group (Lego-Man) did reports on either books set in Maine or written by Maine authors or Maine authors. The younger group is working on a lapbook based on the book Blueberries for Sal. (9am-11am)

Today was also our last class at LC Bates museum. The younger children did printing. They created their own stamps and used an old printing press to make cards. The older children finished up on the printing class from last time and then did a short class on school. We've really enjoyed these classes. (1pm-2:30pm)

The boys ended the day with piano practice.