Mummies

In the past few weeks we have studied Egypt.  It has been a lot of fun, in fact I have learned quite a lot of things myself.  Mostly about the Egyptian gods. 
It is not uncommon to hear this while Noah is reading…”That is interesting!”, or “That is just so fascinating!”  He makes me smile with his many interests. 
We tried something that I don’t think worked out quite like I intended, but Noah had a great time doing it.  He wanted me to make him a mummy – minus the pulling out the guts and brain and stuff.  (his words)



We used a roll of paper we hand on hand.  I just wrapped him up in it.
Amongst the many books we read on the subject, we also watched this youtube video on mummification.

Noah got a real kick out of this mummification song. 

Noah’s 2012-2013 schoolbooks

We will be starting school for this year on August 27th.  Yes, later than usual, because I have jury duty.  (Which makes Noah really excited that he can wait an extra week.)  However, he has been warned that this year he has PLENTY of work to do.  (He is not too happy about that)  But, I know he will do fine.  We are also trying something new to us, and he get his whole week’s work at one time, and can CHOOSE when he wants to do it.  It has to be done by the due date , and properly!  I, obviously, will still teach him the new stuff, I just won’t be hounding him each day to finish his work.  All in the continuing process of raising a child to be independent. 
So here it is our curriculum for Noah’s fifth grade year…. 
MATH ~ I have decided to change what we have been doing (Christian Light).  While I loved it while we were doing it, he was beginning to be bored with this program, and I can’t have that!  So, we are doing BJU Press Math 6.  Yes, I know he is doing “sixth grade”, but he is ready.
GRAMMAR ~ I am changing this subject too, for the same reasons as Math.  He would breeze through the Christian Light books and I would never have to explain anything.  Again, one of the reasons I homeschool him  is so that he is challenged, so BJU Press English 5 it is. 
SPELLING ~  We are continuing on with Spell to Write and Read.  We started this last year, and it works great. 
VOCABULARY ~ During this year homeschool conference, I sat in a workshop by Judith Darling.  She recommended Vocabulary Workshop by Sadlier-Oxford, so we are giving that a try.   
HISTORY ~  Continuing with Tapestry of Grace we are going through Year 1.  This will cover the Ancient world from Creation to the fall of Rome. 
SCIENCE ~ I am taking a big chance in Science this year, and jumping him up to what most consider science for 7-8th grade.  I believe he will handle it well.  In keeping with MY (and his) for him to graduate early, he needs to begin this year by doing this book.  He LOVES Apologia science so I forsee no problem.  It is his favorite subject.  We are doing Exploring Creation through General Science.
CREATIVE WRITING ~ One page creative writing due at the end of each week.  In addition to the Jump In writing book.
GEOGRAPHY ~ I have searched and searched for a geography program I liked.  I found it this year at the homeschool conference.  I was not surprised when I turned the book over to find out who published ~ Apologia.   It is called Around the World in 180 days.
LATIN ~ Continuing on same as last year, we are sticking with Visual Latin.  Absolutely Awesome. We just download the lesson onto the ipod and away he learns.  Check out the site, you can see a whole lesson!
SPANISH ~ Rosetta Stone.  What can I say we have been doing this for 21/2 years now. Hopefully, he will finish this year.  But, he likes Latin better than Spanish. 
ART ~ We are going to try and have him work on pastel drawing this year, through the info we get from this blog.  Hodgepodge.  They have awesome ideas.
GYM ~  Mostly we are going to work on Nutrition, Endurance, and swimming. 
BIBLE ~ He is going to have a verse (or few) a week to memorize.  Because memorizing is good for the brain, memorizing the Bible is perfect. 
TYPING ~  Mavis Beacon, and some other technology stuff. 
READING ~  I will post a list of the books I have him reading this year later.  The first book will be Captains Courageous. 
After Christmas, Noah will be doing basic electronics, and making an oscilloscope.  Honestly, I don’t even know what that is, but the course teacher will help him!  He will be taking this course through this company, Applied Inspirations.

Titanic

This coming April 15th, is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  We are going to do a unit study on the the Titanic.  One because it’s history, and Noah likes history, and he likes learning about the Titanic. 
There are so many things to study and learn about the Titanic that even you will be learning something.  Which is another reason we will be doing a study on the Titanic –it interests me also.  Besides, this time of year, we all start to get a bit antsy for things other than our same old/same old work. 

Picture of newspaper article from 1912 – from titanticuniverse.com website

A really good website I found for a good listing of Titanic websites is Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day.
There are articles to read, even some sites with interactive stuff!
Titanicuniverse.com is also a good site.
BOOKS:
Here is a list of books on the Titanic -
Voyage on the Great Titanic by Ellen Emerson White
Remembering the Titanic by Frieda Wishinsky
I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912 by Lauren Tarshis
Titanic (DK Eyewitness book) by Simon Adams
The kid’s guide to the Titanic by Sean Price
Ghosts of the Titanic by Julie Lawson
The incredible quest to find the Titanic by Bradford Matsen
Check your local library for many more titles!
There are also History channel documentaries on the Titanic. 
Netflix also has many titles on the Titanic.

A project we will be doing after we have read and watched our fill of Titanic information – Noah will write a front page newspaper article on some aspect of interest to him about the Titanic. 

Teaching about World War II

Figuring out exactly which parts  about World War II has been a bit challenging.  I wanted to take three weeks to cover it.  I wanted to go into a lot of detail, but not too much.  For instance we kinda just touched the surface of concentration camps and all that.  {we will save that for when we get to this again in 4 years from now, he’ll be old enough then} 

The plane he made after today’s lesson

Our Plan

So, we will notebook the main people involved during the dates of 1939-1945.  For us, notebooking means we use

 this page.
Read a basic book about Anne Frank, and read this Corrie ten Boom book.


We also will have a list of Vocabulary words.  Dividing an extensive list of words between three days a week. 
Subjects we are covering.

Europe in the War
Homeside and women in the war
Spying in the War
the Pacific side of the war
planes of the war
Inventions during this time

Projects we are planning…

make  your own plane
make a yellow star, and write about what you think your feelings would have been if you were a Jewish child during this time
make invisible ink
put together a ration kit
map the countries involved
send a care package to a soldier
listen to WWII era music

I got a lot of my ideas from these books

Both of these are excellent books. 

Today, was a day in our studies that Noah liked – project day.  He is not so much a fan of notebooking day. 
World War II planes. 
Some pictures of him in action. 

Copy the pages from above WWII project book


He really liked reading about all the planes


We needed a better color example for our project, so we googled it. 

Notice the gum – he insist it helps him concentrate. 


The finished project – to make this he just used white poster board, and colored pencils, and markers. 

Quite a week

Last week was quite a week.
First, a visit to New Jersey (to visit Grandparents), and then a visit to the Statute of Liberty, and Ellis Island.  We had studied Ellis Island in history this past year, and since we were “close”, I thought it would be a great thing for Noah to experience. 
To be honest, I didn’t really have high hopes. 
  But… He seemed to really like the museum.  I guess seeing the exhibits in person got him to thinking about the people that came from other countries.  


He’s reading about famous Americans and where they originally came from
    Completely fascinated by the kissing post.
Here they are telling all different ways of greeting your loved ones depending on what country you are from.

 
I am not sure what he was thinking exactly, but he was staring at these shoes – for a while.
I found it fascinating just watching HIM!

This is a replica of Ellis Island.  He looked at this while also. 
I think he liked the tiny, plastic people they put in there.
Waiting on the ferry.
The Statue of Liberty.

He humoring me, (I asked him to take off his hat and sunglasses for a better pic).
He thought I was silly…   … better! 

It was a great field trip… even if it was close to 100 degrees out.  Seeing what those people coming through Ellis Island went through makes you stop and think how good we have it here in this country. 

Our Curriculum for 2011-2012

Ok.. so I am a planner... or I try to be. 

    So.. I FINALLY (to me) have our next years curriculum all set.   And I discovered something about myself  :)  I like curriculum that is multi-grade level...   I don't know if it has a specific name or not, but...you know...  those subjects that are not just "for 4th grade", but more like Tapestry of Grace, for instance.  Which brings us to our first one. 

HISTORY
We will once again do Tapestry of Grace for History,  I will get  some geography, and his missions, with a little of writing (see all-inclusive?) 

I LOVE Tapestry of Grace, we started with Year 3 - mostly just because that's the part of history I was interested in, and being a new program, I wanted an idea of what I was doing. 
There are different levels depending on the acedemic level of the child, for instance  Lower Grammar, Upper Grammer, Dialectic, and Rhetoric.   I, in all honesty, did a blend of some of these, based on what I wanted to do, and what he was especially interested in.
                                    Story:  We got to the part of slavery, and the Underground Railroad.  Now, I      KNOW Noah can be sensitive at times, but I had him watch about slavery on YouTube. I shouldn't have  Though, I was busy elsewhere,  after he was finished I came in and asked him what he learned and all.  He was so distraught, he DID NOT want to talk about it. I felt so bad.  So, needless to say, that was about all the slavery subject we did.  We will learned more when we come around to that part of history again -- in four years! 

There are field trip suggestions, links to the internet, project suggestions, and church history.  I currently don't go over the church history part, but we do read the missionary books given as suggestion!
Oh... and I don't really buy the books listed, unless I absolutely think I will need it, we have a great library system, and that works just fine. 


Click the image to learn more





MATH -

Again, we will stick with Christian Light.  I think it's great.  Just the right amount of work, and review for NOAH.  Not to much.   Not to little.  Though sometimes for incentives sake, I do allow him to work every other problem. 

...otherwise we would be on math FOREVER. This is just one of those things I don't get.  If he is calculating something in real life {read:  his money}  he does it quickly and correctly every time.  But, the minute that paper comes out, and he has to write them down....well..I think you know what I mean. 

Language Arts -

This will also be from Christian Light Publications.  We don't do the Penmandship part, or the Spelling.  I just use other curriculum for that. 

Spelling -

Spelling this year to say the least was a disaster.  He just doesn't get it. His week to week test look great, because he can memorize really well.  However, when it comes to the standarized test he gets a low spelling grade.   So... for next year I am going to try Spell to Write and Read.  From what I have read, it might be the key to what we need.  Hopefully.  Again, this one is an "all the way to 12th grade curriculum"  I like that, we can just start where we need to start and work our way from there. 

Vocabulary -

This is the first year I am going with a separate vocabualary program.  I have read some articles that said one of the most important things to know in the SAT's is vocab.  So.  I know, college?  But I told you I was a planner.  Besides, he likes vocabulary and words.  He seriously has his dictionary by his seat in the car, just to randomly read it.  Which can lead to some pretty funny conversations.  Trust me.  This is the book we are using... 

Reading -

Last year, we did reading with Christian Light, and it was very good.  But, this year I think we are going to try some more of the books listed in the Tapestry of Grace program.  I will just be buying a separate Reading Comprehension book, though he has no problem with comprehension.  We also have a book report book from Lakeshore Learning, he will fill in after he has read a book. (time limits imposed, of course!)

Geography -

I am going to be using some of the MANY resources that are on the internet, and we   he is going to make a Geography Notebook. 

Other Stuff We Do

Rosetta Stone Spanish 

Latin   - Visual Latin

He will be writing his own blog (his idea), to give him more writing skills (my idea)

For Handwriting we will do A Reason For Handwriting

Art -- Artistic Pursuits

So... that about covers our curriculum for next year....  It's going to be a great year!

First Aid Unit

This week part of our History lessons are on Florence Nightingale.  So, I thought that for fun we will also do a first aid unit.  He should love this as he is interested in all things medical.    We will be learning the 4 C's of first aid:  confidence, common sense, calmness, and comfort.  Also some definitions of first aid terms, and practicing some "mock" first aid on each other.  This should be fun!  I know I got these ideas from one of the many homeschool blogs that I read every day, so thank you for your ideas.  They were great.

ETA:  I found the site I got these ideas from, here is the link: http://hsbapost.com/2009/11/24/first-aid-unit-study/  Thank you, Rhonda for these ideas, my sons loved them!