Dogwood Forest Creek School

Hey, I'm back! One of my new homeschool year resolutions is to update a bit (or a lot) more regularly. Dave and I have even worked out a plan where he'll cook with the kids on Friday evenings while I update here. We'll see how that all goes...

Anyway, we're back in school mode around here, since Dave started back to work last week. I can report accurately on what we do from week to week because Dave made me a handy little spreadsheet in Excel that I can print out and pencil in what we do in each subject. And I've been doing it! I was a bit worried about this year and how much stuff I had planned, but so far it's been going pretty well. The kids are enjoying everything, and I have a giant stack of papers in front of me waiting to be filed away in various binders that seems to indicate we've been doing quite a bit. Of course, we're still easing back in to high gear...Ari's new Singapore books just came today, so he hasn't been doing a lot of math yet. Our outside classes start next week, so that will make things a bit more hectic...but overall, I'm pleased so far.

I'll update the sidebars later, but the rundown:

Ari
Math: Singapore 4 with some Life of Fred and Penrose thrown in here and there
Writing: Writing with Ease...he's finishing up the second workbook (well, he's about 3/4 of the way through) and then we'll do the third
Grammar: First Language Lessons 4. We tried Growing with Grammar last year, but it was not a hit with Ari. So back we go to FLL! And Michael Clay Thompson--still working our way through Grammar Island
Latin: Lively Latin. Going very well so far. He pulled out his flashcards today just for fun.

...and then he's doing lots of reading, BBC's Dance Mat Typing, and he should be starting up piano lessons with Daddy next week. We finally got the piano tuned after a lapse of about 10 years, during which it was moved to different houses twice.

Milo
Math: Right Start B. While I sometimes wonder what I was thinking taking on something that seems so much more involved than Singapore, I also sometimes think, "wow! he's really getting this stuff!" And most of the time it doesn't take too long, really. He's enjoying it.
Language Arts: First Language Lessons, Writing with Ease 1, All About Spelling, Explode the Code 3, and various readers. I know I keep saying the same thing, but his reading continues to improve little by little. He'll get there!
Latin: Song School Latin...he and Gus are both doing this. So far so good.

Gus
Whatever Milo's doing, he insists on doing. Also, lots of library books and some workbooks...he just insisted I buy him the first Explode the Code, so I did, but I'm not sure he'll really be interested in it.

Together
History: We're doing American History since 1850--books I picked out, notebook pages (from History Scribe, though I suspect we might wind up using mostly the blank ones), and we're trying to do one craft or project a week. Also doing a state study, though I'm waiting on some books to get here to really start that. I'm hoping the Friday night cooking will tie in with that--regional recipes from wherever we're studying.

Science: We're doing the REAL Science Odyssey from Pandia Press Try it Before you Buy It thing for life science. We've done 3 of the labs so far, and it's gone well, so I think we'll likely stick with it. It'd be nice if one year I could stick with a science plan for the whole year!

...and then a bunch of other stuff--poetry, Bible stories (they're VERY into the Bible Scribe notebook pages right now, especially Gus), Puertas Abiertas for Spanish, Are They Thinking?...

I'm being very scattered, I realize. I'm sleepy, and I have a ton to update about. Soon I'm going to drink a beer, too, which won't help my organizational skills. Anyway.

I'm attempting to limit our outside of the house obligations this year. So as of right now we'll be gone much of the day Mondays doing Spanish class at our homeschool center and Odyssey of the Mind. And then I volunteered to run a book club once a month, too, on Mondays right after Spanish. Other than that our only set plan is lunch on Wednesdays with my grandmother and playgroup on Fridays. Ari wants to take a computer animation class that's offered near us, but I told him we should hold off on that until after our Disneyland trip in September, since he'd need to miss a week for that. Also, we bought bikes for the whole family (a complicated assortment of bikes and trailer bikes), so we're hoping to do a lot of biking. Like tomorrow!

Okay, so next week a more standard update, but for now a few pictures from our first two weeks:

Here are a few of the kids making a papier mache bowl. Umm, like they did during the Civil War. Or at least that's what our Civil War Days book tells us. It was all the rage--papier mache. We used a regular bowl slathered with petroleum jelly as a mold, and I was certain that it was never going to come off the mold in one piece...but it did, more or less! Hooray!

...and here's Milo making some hardtack. I'm not sure this project really drove home the idea that it really sucked to be a soldier or sailor because of all the tasteless hardtack...because my kids sort of thought it was awesome. The book suggested jam or honey, but they also liked it fine plain. Of course, Milo and Gus regularly beg to lick the spoon when I make regular old loaves of bread, so perhaps it's not too surprising.







And here are the history books we've been reading. I'll do a sidebar about these, too. But, yeah, basically we're starting with slavery and the Underground Railroad. The Last Safe House is a nice one--it's a fictionalized story about the Underground Railroad, interspersed with factual information about different related topics and also a few projects. The People Could Fly is a collection of African American folktales that we're reading here and there. Despite my collection of boys, I bought a few different American Girls books for the year--the one here is Addy's World--it's a series about growing up in various time periods, with lots of pictures and detailed drawings (house cutaways and that sort of thing--a bit Usborne reminiscent) about different aspects of everyday life. That's sort of the angle I'm trying to focus on this year, so I picked up a few books from this series. It doesn't seem particularly girl-intensive so far--there is a background story about whatever American girl is featured, but it's fairly subtle (and my boys have no issues with female protagonists, anyway).




The last few are the kids working on science. Ari's taking notes from our plot study in the first one. In the last two, we're doing a cell study, looking at an egg.