Our 2014-2015 Photo!

Off to a Goofy Start!

Spanish

We have decided to use Getting Started with Spanish this year.  I bought it last year and we never got around to using it.  We will do this together as a family 3-4 evenings a week.  So we have to turn off the phones, computers, & tv's to get this done!  So for our first week of school we have gotten through Lessons 1-6.  They are pretty short & sweet but I am assuming it will ramp up by mid year.
We got each child a workbook to use as well so they can practice more spanish terms.  I am ordering the Easy Spanish Phrase Book from Amazon as a quick reference tool.

I am excited to do this with my family!  I feel like we will all learn more & quicker as a team!

Each of us keep notes for each lesson to study on days we don't have Spanish.

Getting Started With Spanish  is full of free Mp3 download files to listen to the author, a native speaker, pronounce all the exercises for you. This may be extremely useful when we get deeper into the book.

I am not sure why this picture is uploading in a different position, but I'll add a link from Amazon so you can see it better.  

Spanish Elementary

Spanish Middle/High School

Both by Carson Delosa

The Complete Book of Spanish Grades 1-3

Some other resources that I will throw in this year are Salsa videos and Discovery Education's Elementary Spanish videos.  You can see these links on the right hand side of the blog under a "Handy" column.

Flower's First Week of School!

Flower's Transition Year in Motion!!

As I have mentioned on our 2014-2015 Page, Flower is going to do another year before High School.  I'm calling this year her Transition Year.  This will leave her to graduate high school at 18 years old instead of 17 years.  She is excited to have one more year before we are really crossing our t's and dotting our i's.  

I have let Flower choose certain topics to study this year.  She loves history and wanted to go back to the Middle Ages-Renaissance era.  She also wanted to learn more about our government and civics topics. 

In science, she felt she needed to spend more time on chemistry and human body/health.

She loves to read and LOVED The Hobbit last year!  This year she picked Literary Lessons from The Lord of the Rings for her literature study.  Inside this LOTR study, she will also learn about Arthurian legends, like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Beowulf, and ancient epics like The Illiad, The Odyssey, and The Aenied.  She will discover the world of Tolkien and explore Middle Earth!  I'm going along with her as well!

The month of August is the time where we will ease back into our structured days.  We are only schooling 4 days a week through August giving us our Fridays free to hang out with friends and enjoy the rest of the warm days of summer! 

 During this month, Flower is going to be using Saxon Algebra I, Lord of the Rings, Analytical Grammar's high school reinforcement book (she is using the Shakespeare one), IEW's Continuation Course Level B, Health, Guitar lessons, and Spanish.  We will start her other subjects in September!

Though we have a classroom, Flower prefers to work at her desk in her bedroom.  She seems to focus there away from everyone.  

Bambi's First Week of School!

Bambi has finished her first week of  6th grade!

Like Thumper, Bambi was ready to begin this year!  She too loves her work space, though we aren't finished setting it up.  Again, for the month of August we are schooling 4 days a week....taking Friday's off to hang out with some of our friend's in public school and to help ease our way back into the groove of things!

Bambi started this week with Saxon 6/5, finishing Daily Grams before we start Analytical Grammar in January, Phonetic Zoo A, IEW Writing Middle Ages Theme Book, Mosdos Press Pearl (see our Focus On sheets I made to go along) & book basket, Health, Fiddle lessons, and Spanish.  We will add the rest in September!  You can see her yearly curriculum list on the 2014-2015 Page.

Mosdos Press, I believe, is going to be a winner for Bambi & Thumper.  Now I wish I ordered a set for Flower.....

I will have Bambi work on Mosdos as "Lit Day" for 3 days of the week.
First, we discuss the Focus of the story together, filling out her Focus On sheet as much as she can before reading.  Then, she reads the story.....this week we read the first half together going over literary devices and analytical questions together....then she read the rest herself.  She filled out her Plot Diagram, I won't have her do this portion for every story, and then we discussed.
I also had her work on a worksheet from the student workbook dealing with "Characters" in the story.

She picked out a personal reader for the week.....Black Beauty!

Workbook Page

Bambi's Workspace......Not completed but still useful!  She likes working in the classroom, undisturbed!

We are back to Phonetic Zoo this year after using Logic of English for 5th grade.  I feel like Bambi has more of a handle on her phonograms, but she still placed in PZ Level A.  We are taking this one day at a time!  She does like the set up for Phonetic Zoo much better than LOE & All About Spelling.  

For Writing this year, Bambi is going to use IEW Medieval Writing theme and Essentials in Writing Grade 6.

She likes variety....so we will work on IEW 2-3 weeks and then EIW6 1-2 weeks continuing in that pattern until we complete both.  I don't expect to finish IEW Medieval this year, but we shall try. Also, we are starting EIW at the Composition section instead of the beginning.  The beginning of EIW6 is mainly grammar and sentence structure.  I feel she has that under control so we'll be starting in the middle.

Thumper's First Week of School

Thumper had a great first week of 3rd grade!

We started August 11th this year....a week later than usual.  For the rest of August, we will be schooling for 4 days a week....taking our Friday's off!  We have some friends that haven't started back to public school yet and Friday's give a great opportunity to get together with them before summer is over!

For the month of August, Thumper will be working on First Language Lessons Level 3, Essentials in Writing grade 3, Logic of English Cursive writing, All About Spelling Level 3 (Please see my student workbook pages I made for this), Math Mammoth/Saxon 3, Spanish, and reading with Mosdos Press Opal & selected books in his book basket.  You can check out his yearly curriculum on the 2014-2015 Page!  In September, we will incorporate the rest of our subjects, like science & history, and I'll post here about that then.  

This year Thumper has requested his own work space.  We set up our phone station by the fireplace in the living room for him and he absolutely loves his area. He truly works better knowing he has his OWN space and not just the kitchen table.  It's not big by no means, but it's his! 

I was unsure of how Mosdos Press would be for Thumper.  The stories are pretty long, or longer than what he is use to reading in one sitting.  He impressed me by the fact that he just wanted to keep reading on!!  Mosdos Press Opal was a hit!  Below are some pictures of the inside of his book, the Eyes On sheet I created, workbook page, and a craft he made to go along with his story of the week.  We are planning to use Mosdos reading 4 days a week throughout the year.  He will pick books from his basket or shelf for silent reading and to read aloud to me!  He picked some of the sweetest books to start with for August.  These books were read by both of his sisters when they were about his age.  They are called The Lighthouse Family by Cynthia Rylant.  There are four books in the series.....I can't seem to locate "The Storm"......

We used Mod Podge & colorful tissue paper to decorate his jar, which was a craft to go along with his story.

Turned out beautiful!

First Language Lessons 3 is a continuation of Levels 1-2.  I made worksheets last year to go along with Level 2 and I am somewhat happy that I don't have to create those again this year!  But, I may make some study sheets as we learn more if I feel it is necessary.  I will post them if I do!

We are gearing up for our second week of school starting tomorrow.  I will post here more next week about All About Spelling showing how we use our student workbooks!  We did hand our board this year on the wall where I can lift it off to move to the living room near Thumper's workspace area.

Essentials in Writing worked well with Thumper last year.  He didn't have much trouble at all with it.  He is not use to writing a whole lot but we are going to work on that this year.  He will also finish the last half of Writing With Ease Level 2 in the second semester.

Buzzword Poster and Printouts for Jr. Analytical Grammar

Before I post about our first week of school for the 2014-2015 school year I wanted to share this document of Buzzwords used in Jr. Analytical Grammar that Bambi used for her 5th grade year.  We printed these out, she cut them out, and pasted them on a poster board.  It was VERY helpful for her to look at the poster as she went through her lessons instead of looking back through her book.  We also typed up the Six Deadly Splits to add to her poster.  I do not have these as a printout. Also, on the header of the printout, I state that there are 15 buzzwords, but there are 19 in all for you to cut out.   Bambi plans to use her buzzword poster for Analytical Grammar this year, which we plan to start in January after our Christmas break.

Buzzwords 1-19 Printouts