Week 6 (just a little late)

Time is flying by here with the Heathens! With our theater troup starting back up, we have been very very busy here.

During Week 6 we hosted a playgroup in our home. It has been great having some of the younger children in our homeschooling group come over and just play. Fifi has made some wonderful new friends around her age! (finally) We also hosted a Tween Movie Night, which brought tweens all the way from Painsville to watch the Harry Potter movies! I think my friend Willow was more excited about these then the tweens lol. Lola is excited that these events have such a great turn out. Lastly, Nacho taught an art class to the group. Five families can and learned how to draw cartoon characters step by step. I love the idea of student led classes because they not only allow the teens in our group a chance to teach, but it gives the moms in the group a chance to sit and chat. We also went to our theater troup's read though. Our schedules are getting busier but we love it!

In week 6 Coco worked with:
Spelling- we wrote the words 3 times each, wrote sentences, wrote a newspaper article using at least 8 words and did a word search I made on www.theteacherscorner.net.
Language Arts- we worked with determiners. We worked with her Language Arts text book, her Scholastic Success workbook and her Comprehensive Curriculum workbook.
Math- we started working with Rounding and Estimating numbers. We used worksheets from www.abcteach.com, our Comprehensive Curriculum workbook and worksheets I made.
Science- we worked with measurements in Science. We used our Comprehensive Curriculum workbook and our Physical Science text book.
Social Studies- we are learning about Vikings as explorers. Being that we are Normandic Wiccans, we have tons and tons of information about Vikings. We also used print outs from www.enchantedlearning.com.
Journaling- we are working on writing longer journal entries. I am correcting them at the end of the day so she is now able to see the spelling and grammar errors. We are covering topics like - "What would you do if you had $100?", "What is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?", and "If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?"
We also made Personality Spirals, these are a spiral of construction paper cut with cut outs from different magazine of pictures of things that they think represents them. We then hung them up in our classroom. I will post pictures of them tomorrow.

In week 6 Fifi worked with:
Spelling- we learned the color words. We did color by numbers, wrote each word twice, and completed workbook pages from our Comprehensive Curriculum . We also played a game where we put a bunch of crayons in a bag and she had to pull a crayon and then put the right color on a poster board with the words spelt out on it.
Language Arts- we worked with complete sentences and what they are comprised of. We worked in our Scholastic Success workbooks, our Comprehensive Curriculum workbooks and with pages printed from www.instructorweb.com
Phonics, we are still working in our Hooked On Phonics workbook for Grade 1. We learned more rhyming words and to sound out the difference between Bs and Vs at the beginning of the words.
Math- we are working on counting by 2s. We used our Scholastic Success workbook and played games (hop scotch and made up cheerleading cheers)
Science- we started learning about giraffes. We read stories about them and worked with the printout pages from www.enchantedlearning.com We also made hardened paper beads that look like giraffes and made necklaces. I got one for my birthday!
Social Studies- we are still working with maps with our Scholastic Success Map for Grade 1 workbook. We made a map of the park using a key and worked more with directionals. We also talked about the Wiccan directional color associations. She is now coloring North green, South red, West blue and East yellow on every page lol.

Lola is still doing very very well with OHVA. She loves the workload and the teachers. We are doing alot of work with the Italian Renaissance both in art and history. She is reading A Wrinkle in Time by M Engle. I bought her the audio copy so we could listen to it during the day on the computer and she read the hard copy at night. OHVA doesn't really have a study guide or any quizzes, so I printed her one from www.coreknowledge.com This gives her a chance to work with vocabulary words from the book, do character summaries and state her opinions about the storylines.

Nacho is really doing well with his new curriculum. While I do have to sit at his desk with him the entire 4 hours, the work I'm getting from him is the best work Ive seen in three years of homeschooling.

In Math he is working with Number Lines. We are still using his Algebra 1 math book from K-12. His weekly average is 94%
In Science he is still working with power and energy. We are still using Holts Physical Science and printables from www.teachervision.fen.com His weekly average is 100%
In Health he is working on Personalities. We are still using his Health book from Prentice Hall. His weekly average is 83% (We still have an issue with writing out his answers in complete sentences and loses points off his grades for those errors)
In Social Studies he is learning about Religious Intolerance in Europe. He did a worksheet from www.teachervision.fen.com and wrote a paragraph about a specific incident. His weekly average is 81%
In Language Arts he is working on types of sentences. He is still using his Language Arts book from K-12. His weekly average is 98%
In Spanish he worked with a new vocabulary list and congregating standard ar, er, and ir verbs. His weekly average is 95%
He also attended an anime class at the Stark Main Library and was placed on the make up committee with the Stark County Little Theater Troup.

So Proud of My Nacho!!

This concludes Nacho's first week of traditional homeschooling for high school. I couldnt be more impressed with his effort and enthusiam for the curriculum we created!

This week he completed:
Algerba 1- Using Algebra 1 by K-12
Review of Variable Expressions ~ 100%
Working with Variables~ 100%
Translating Word Equations~ 80%
Replacement Sets~ 100%
Week in Review Quiz~ 100%

Language Arts- Using Language for the 21st Century (Prentice Hall) and worksheets from www.teachervision.fen.com
Proper Sentence Structure~ 98%
Subject and Predicate Agreements~ 100%
Writing a Paragraph in Steps~ 84%
Punctuation Review~ 100%
Writing a Presuasive Paragraph~ 90%

Physical Science- Using Physical Sciene (Holt)
Work and Power (Chapt 8, Sect 1) + Vocab~ 100%
What is A Machine (Chapt 8, Sect 2) + Vocab~ 100%
More Power to You- experiment~ 100%
Mechanical Advantage (worksheet)~ 100%

Social Studies- Using www.teachervision.fen.com
Learning how to Research a Topic~ not graded
The Blitz of London (worksheet)~ 28%
The Blitz of London (redo worksheet)~ 100% = 64%
Write a Research Paragraph about the Blitz~ 90%

Health- Using Health (Prentice Hall)
Quality of Life~ 60% (not complete sentences, wrong page set up)
Risk Factors~ 100%
Causes of Death in Young People~ 90% (incomplete answer but well written)

Begin reading Robinson Crusoe. Study guide from www.coreknowledge.com
Study Guide Chapter 1~ 80%
Study Guide Chapter 2~ 100%

Spanish 2- Using Primsleur's Spanish II and Spanish Verbs by Vivianne Bey
Lesson 1~ not graded
Lesson 2~ not graded
Present Tense Verb Conjegation~ 90%
Verbs (worksheet)~ 90%
Lesson 3~ not graded

Unlike previous years, this is high school. Nacho is suddenly required to write out his answers, using complete sentences. He is required to set up his answer pages by certain specification. He is being graded this time.

For those of you whom I speak with everyday, yes I have to sit at his desk with him and keep him on task. Four hours everyday of reading my own book, looking up every 15minutes. If I walk away for any reason, I lose him. LOL But with results like these, its totally worth it, dont you think?

Holy Crap its Ocotber 8th!

I am a bad bad blogger. I think about you dear blog, I really do. Then my world crowds in around me and silly things like actually homeschooling my children take precedence. Seriously we have been busy. We have fought illnesses, braved making new friends, watched Gabe at his attempts with dating (which Hello he isnt allowed to date!) We have been grounded, gone on job interviews for jobs we dont want, lost a tooth, gotten haircuts... I wont promise to write more often cause I hate breaking promises. I will try to be a bit more consistent though.

Fifi:
In the past two weeks, Fifi my darling Fifi has master Addition with gummy bears, skittles, Care Bears and is now.. completely out of order, working with money. She gets it. She hasnt really ever worked with subtraction but to her money makes sense (cents LOL I am so tired I am slap happy)
Fifi is also working with more three letter spelling words. She insists on doing the same things Coco does so she is trying to write sentences, put them in ABC order and do a crossword puzzle. Umm, yeah, shes 4. She cant write sentences, ABC order requires ALOT of help and I can't make crossword puzzles with 3 lettered words. If anyone knows a site that will let me, tell me.
All three of my girls are also going to be in a play next month. Lola got one of the leads and Coco got a decent part and Fifi is grouped with all the other preschoolers in the play. We have rehearsals three to 5 days a week for the next month. I will youtube the play for those that want to see it.

Coco:
Coco is in the process of learning fractions. We have completed the math facts through the 12's table and are working on moving on to the wonderful world of fractions. My mom bought this great kit a few weeks ago and Coco was so excited to break it out. Its called Five Fun Ways to Learn Fractions and Decimals. I think she got it at the Christmas Tree Shop.
Since Mimi has stopped coming here, Coco has done so much better with her spelling and language arts. We are working with punctuation in Language Arts but in three days she was though periods and such. She is working on semi colons, commas, and quotation marks now. I am using the CC for most of it. I love our Comprehensive Curriculum guides. I bought new ones for next year and the year after for Coco and Fifi. Lola wants to go to public school next year.
In Science we are revisiting the formations of the planet. Apparently, Coco was distracted the first time. We are doing it over again as we start our chapter on lithospheres. We started working with matter but she knew it as well as I did so we went backwards for a bit.
We are finally on Delaware. The girls insisted we actually study Connecticut. They liked the easy week LOL. We made art projects of historical moments in CT history. We looked up all of our friends and family on the maps. We talked about the land forms that we had been too, the state parks, the beaches, the mountains... Now we are on Delaware.
Both of the older girls are now taking ASL as an independent study. I have provided them the books and videos and they are learning with each other. Once a week, they show me what they have learned.
Coco is also taking a new creative writing class at the library. She loves it!
Lola:
Lola has started fractions again too. We are reviewing adding and subtracting fractions from last year before we start the tough stuff.
Her spelling is damned near perfect as always. They are all still using http://www.aaaspell.com/ and http://www.theteacherscorner.net/ for most of our spelling needs. I love that aaaspell puts all of my work together for me and theteacherscorner lets me make crossword puzzles, word scrambles, word searches, math sheets and more...
We are working on the nervous system in Science now. It is not as easy as I thought it would be. I have been searching online for a body systems workbook. There are very little printable work for certain systems so we are just reading and talking about it. I have had to read the work first and make my own worksheets for her. A few of our sites have some printables like http://www.enchantedlearning.com/ and even theteacherscorner. Todd also went online and found some National Geographic specials on the human body. If anyone has any ideas on how to teach specific systems please let me know. Later this month we are starting the skeletal system, I plan to use the Hannah Montana Bone Dance song lol.
All four kids have been working with poetry this month. We worked on legends last month. The girls each wrote 2 legends and this month they have written a million poems. I have everything from
M-Makes me breakfast
O-Outstanding reader
M-Makes me lunch
M-makes me dinner
Y-Why because she love us.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Lola stinks
Just like poo

We are now reading Shel Silverstien with Fifi and Coco and Emily Dickenson with Lola. Nacho is reading Poe but not saying much about what he is reading. I would hate to ruin poetry for him but quizzing him.

Lola is also learning Spanish, ASL and Creative Writing independently. I get some great stuff from her when I don't tell her what to do. I wish that worked with all of them but alas, I have Nacho...

Nachos entire homeschooled day comes from the text books we bought online. Every Sunday I sit down and review the work he did do independently and write out his next weeks schedule. He also spends about three hours every Sunday catching up and finishing the work he didn't do. This system, as much as it drives the controlling neat freak in me crazy, works for him. He understands the work. He asks questions and is actually doing quite well. It drives me nutty that he does it all in one day but hey... whatever works right?
I know he is working on quadratic expressions, properties of matter, Vikings, Norse mythology, building an herbal remedy for eczema (which he has) and poetry. He isn't writing any but he is reading them and I honestly think that is more important.
He working on 6 to 8 Spanish verbs a week in three tenses and making sentences that make sense on weekends. He is using some of the http://www.livemocha.com/ stuff and some Rosetta Stone but not much, he doesn't like them.

All in all, we are finally making some friends here. We have been able to get out and go on a homeschool field trip with them. Nacho has a sudeo girlfriend who is also not allowed to date. Lola loves the whole play thing and being the center of attention. Coco loves her creative writing class and roller skating. When asked what her favorite part of the writing class she replied, no one else from our family is there... And Fifi loves her art projects and roller skating. She is also loving the fact that we got for her all of the Disney classics on DVD so she can watch movies that seem like old hat to us but sadly they are all new to her. She loves Robin Hood and Cinderella. Who knew she had never seen them?