Wordsmith Craftsman and Language Lessons for the High School Student

 15 year-old complained about Wordsmith Craftsman for the last time.  I pulled it from her curriculum and I just ordered Language Lessons for the High School Student, volume 2.

https://www.queenhomeschool.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=366

The 13 year-old is using the junior high series and she seems to like it a lot, so I'm going to have the 15 year-old try it, as well.  

From the samples on Queen's Homeschool website, it looks like volume 2 covers:

• Different forms of essay writing - persuasive essays, etc (which she could use more practice with)
• Editing
• Picture studies/narration
• Dictation and copywork
• Some creative writing

Here's a scope and sequence for their language workbooks, but it's not updated, because there is now a volume 3 for high school as well as a grammar workbook for high school:

https://www.queenhomeschool.com/samples/LLplacement.pdf

Here is their complete review of high school grammar book:

https://www.queenhomeschool.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=60_61&products_id=370

I've never used anything else from the Queen Homeschool website, so I don't really have an opinion of it.

Free Reading Week 1/25-1/29

 My junior high and high schoolers have a free reading week this week.  They're reading from their literature or book crates.  I won't be able to teach them this week, because I'm taking the rising freshman to his TSI tests at the college.  He's having some anxiety, so it would be helpful if I drove him to the campus and helped him find the testing center (well, and got Starbucks, too).  

Kindergarten STEAM week: 1/25-1/29

 This week, we will take a break from our curriculum and have a STEAM week.  Here are the activities I've planned:

Lego Math Games - I plan to do the addition and subtraction board games

https://thekindergartenconnection.com/totally-awesome-lego-math-activities/

Lego Measurements

https://www.playdoughtoplato.com/lego-measurement/

Model Clay Turtles

https://www.weareteachers.com/best-kindergarten-art-projects/

Lego Challenge Cards

https://thestemlaboratory.com/lego-challenge-cards/

Make Painted Windsocks

https://www.weareteachers.com/best-kindergarten-art-projects/

Oobleck Science Project

https://www.instructables.com/Oobleck/

Tornado in a Bottle

https://mommypoppins.com/kids/50-easy-science-experiments-for-kids-fun-educational-activities-using-household-stuff

Flower Color Wheels

https://www.weareteachers.com/best-kindergarten-art-projects/

Adding Pages

 I'm slowly adding pages to this blog.  I added a Math Resources page this morning.  I listed links to different math curricula, a few reviews, living math books, blogs and a few sites with math project ideas.

Saint & Hymn Study 1/22

 Instead of doing a saint and hymn study this week, we've been watching The Chosen series.  The entire first season is on Youtube, along with commentary.  We're on episode 6 and I like the series, but the teens were surprised at how much liberty the show takes to build characters and a storyline (and that's actually one of the big criticisms of the series).  I do think it's worth watching and I've enjoyed watching it with the kids this week.

Bible Readings

13 Year-old is reading from John.

15 Year-old is still in 1 Samuel.

I'm reading Mark.  

15 Year-old still needs to work on Health, read a chapter in The History of Medicine and go to her theater class.

Homeschool Day 1/21

 Kindergartener

• Math workbook page
• Handwriting without Tears - one workbook page + working with the capital letter chalkboard
• Read a story from the Reader - All About Reading
• Played Playdough

Five in a Row - Mirette on a High Wire

We went through the art sections in the teacher's guide.  We also got out some watercolor paints and paper.  We made a color wheel with complementary colors - paired blue/orange, red/green, and purple/yellow. 

13 Year-old

•  Watched an algebra lesson
• Language Lessons for the Secondary Child
• Worked on spelling the books of the Old Testament
• Free reading from her book crate and I read aloud
• Apologia's Anatomy & Physiology - still reading about skeletal muscles.  I came to a realization today that she is getting more information from this middle school anatomy text than the high school sophomore is getting from her high school level Health course (ACE).  I've already been beefing up her labs with high school level labs to accompany the textbook.  She participated in several of the high schooler's biology labs at this point already.  If I can add a unit on First Aid/CPR, I'm planning to give her a half credit in Health.  She's literally covering the exact same material as the high school health course, but in better detail.  Because she wants to be a dentist, I plan to go through Apologia's Human Anatomy course anyway in a few years.
• Ballet class

15 Year-old

• Algebra 2 - we have reached a point where there are only a couple of lessons left of solving algebraic equations.  I'm now having trouble solving them.  I completely forgot about the Quadratic Formula.  I'm trying to remind her that there's light at the end of the tunnel.  After this unit is measurements and more graphing.  Then, on to Precalculus.
• Wordsmith Craftsman - I'm dropping this after this week - this isn't working out
• Huckleberry Finn
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
• German together
• Music Appreciation - last week, she asked, "What's bluegrass??"  Well, you're going to find out!  She listened to Earl Scruggs and Friends 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown' - a famous bluegrass song used in car chase scenes in old movies
• Apologia Biology - lab 3.2
• Ballet class

LAB 3.2

This lab entailed viewing different slides of protists under the microscope.  These are slides you can buy as part of a kit through Home Science Tools.  The protists are dyed, so you can see them more clearly.  Here's some examples of what we could see in our microscope:

Paramecium

Volvox

From my understanding, the circles that look like lily pads are the individual cells.  They group themselves together in colonies - which is what the pink bag-like thing is that's surrounding them.

We saw this under the microscope - it looks like the colony broke apart.

I love Apologia Biology and basically anything from Home Science Tools.  This is the third time I've taught this course and I really enjoy all the labs.

Homeschool Day 1/20

 Kindergartener

• Read Beginner's Bible - story of Esau and Jacob
• Did an addition workbook page - Kindergarten Math with Confidence
• We skipped reading, because he was objecting before we even started - I think he might need a break - I think reading is becoming difficult, so now he's wanting to avoid it

Five in a Row - Mirette on a High Wire

We drew maps of the inside of our house and took turns hiding "treasure."  We then followed the maps to find the treasure.  He loved this exercise.

We did the Drama section in the teacher's guide.  I read a sentence from Mirette on the High Wire and he acted the sentence out.  He also loved this.

13 Year-old

• Language Lessons for the Secondary Child
• Free reading from her book crate
• School cut short by PE

15 Year-old

• Watched her algebra 2 lesson (Mathusee)
• Read Huckleberry Finn
• Wrote a one-page character sketch of Jim in the book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Read Lincoln biography
• Biology reading
• US Government - she watched a video called "The United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights"

Physical Education

School was cut short by PE today.  It was raining, so doing a sport outside wasn't going to happen.  We met another homeschooling family at a trampoline park and the kids jumped around and played for hours. They were exhausted afterwards.  Five year-old better sleep well tonight!  I think that was 3 weeks worth of PE.

Homeschool Day 1/19

 Kindergartener

• Handwriting without Tears - drew the letter B on the mini chalkboard (the chalkboard that Handwriting without Tears sells is actually making a big difference) and did the workbook page
• He skipped math, because he really didn't feel like doing school, so I let him skip it
• Instead of reading, he put together an alphabet puzzle.  He also took foam ABCs and cuisinaire rods and played with them for about half an hour.  He built towers from the rods and put some of the ABCs in "jail" made from the rods.  

Five in a Row - Mirette on the High Wire

We watched a video of an aerialist tightrope walking over a volcano and over Niagara Falls.  We also watched a video on Niagara Falls.  He did the "metal" section in the teacher's guide and we started an experiment where we placed 3 pennies in 3 different solutions: water, lemon juice and vinegar.  We'll pull the pennies out tomorrow and see if the solutions had any effect.  I got out a set of magnets and we learned about the north and south poles on a magnet.  He played around with the magnets - getting them to repel and attract each other, based on the poles.

13 Year-old

• Algebra Honors page - Ok, I assigned this, because it's based on directions and Cartesian coordinates.  It looked like a great page to do, but she had a really hard time with it.  I sat down with her and started to work the problems and I couldn't figure it out.  At that point, we put it away.  I don't feel like the problems were worded well.
• Language Lessons for the Secondary Child - picture study
• Copywork - she is using fountain pens for her writing.  They are gorgeous.  She has a beginner's set and they're very easy to use and come in different colors.  Very nice for cursive.
• She did her free reading from her book crate, I read aloud, and she listened to some classical music
• Apologia Anatomy & Physiology - we looked at connective tissue and muscle tissue under the microscope

15 Year-old

• Algebra 2 - Honors Page - permutations.  She figured this out all by herself.
• Wordsmith Craftsman....she was supposed to write a business letter.  Well, she wrote a business letter to the Wordsmith company explaining how their writing program was too easy and redundant.  Needless to say, I'll be online later tonight looking for another writing program.  This is the 3rd or 4th time she's complained about Wordsmith being too easy.
• Huckleberry Finn
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
• Apologia Biology reading
• German together
• Mapping the World with Art - she finished drawing North America.  I have to say, she really enjoys doing these lessons.

College Kids

• Sophomore started school today.  She currently has a 4.0 GPA, we talked about maintaining her GPA this semester and what that would mean for her if she keeps this up.  I'm trying to talk her into medical school (she wants to go into medicine, anyway).
• Rising Freshman is working on TSI practice tests.  His math scores are coming out higher than his English and Writing scores - which really isn't accurate - his English abilities are hands-down better than his math abilities.  We're trying to figure out why he's missing questions on the reading section.  I think he's reading TOO much into the questions.  They're usually looking for the most simple answer and he isn't a simple answer kinda guy.

Me

All I did was work today.  No Bible reading.  

Homeschool Day 1/18

Kindergartener

• Read Beginner's Bible together - another story of Abraham and Sarah
• Workbook page from Kindergarten Math with Confidence
• All About Reading - we used plastic letters to build and sound out the words from the story he's reading next in the Reader

Five in a Row - Mirette on a High Wire

We read the book Mirette on a High Wire and did a few of the activities in the teacher's guide.  We stretched a tape across the carpet and had the Kindergartener practice walking across the "tightrope".  We also talked about practicing something that's difficult in order to get better at doing that task.  

He had ballet class and played on the playground afterwards.

13 Year-old

• Ugh - algebra.  Algebra with decimals and fractions...triple ugh
• Language Lessons for the Secondary Child - this was dictation from a letter George Washington wrote to his wife
• Sequential Spelling
• I read aloud, she read from her book crate
• Mystery of History 4 with Timeline Figures - we read about the Trail of Tears
• German together
• Ballet class

15 Year-old

•  Algebra 2 - one more workbook page on dinomial theorems and that's enough.  We're never going to use that in our lives.  I don't even remember those being on the ACT
• Sequential Spelling - we're almost finished with level 6 and after that, spelling is getting a bit ridiculous.  She thinks she is a bad speller and requests to do spelling, but I think her spelling is fine.  I don't see any reason to waste any more time on spelling at this point.  She spells better than I do
• Read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and wrote a character sketch of Huck Finn.  She wrote a good, full page about Huck Finn's character and his reactions to moral dilemmas
• Read biography of Lincoln
• Biology - read from the text
• Latin
• Art Appreciation - continued the chapter on 19th century art in Gardner's Art Through the Ages 
• Ballet class

Me

I finally finished the book of Matthew (I'm reading the Bible from cover to cover).  I started the first six chapters of the Gospel According to Mark.  I also read the historical background info on who wrote the book of Mark.  I actually really like the directness in this book.  I think this is one of my favorite books of the Bible.

Lutheran Homeschool Marketplace & Press

A great website that is currently being built...  

I spoke with the lady who's trying to put this all together and she is putting a ton of effort into this site.  You could get lost on her site for hours.  

https://www.lutheranhomeschool.com

Homeschool Day 1/15

 Kindergartener

Ok, he listened to the hymn with us and looked at the bacteria under the microscope, but other than that, he got into everything...ransacked the living room...trashed his room...jumped on the couch and looked out the window, screaming...it was not a good day.  sigh..

13 and 15 Year-olds

They mostly worked together today on Bible and finishing the bacterial colony lab.  15 year-old also read The History of Medicine and worked on her Health course.  She also had her Musical Theater class at the enrichment center.

Bible

• Hymn Study - read the background info for the hymn "Amazing Grace" and listened to a version of it
• Saint Study - we didn't do a saint study this time, because we did the Angels & Demons study from this Lutheran Homeschool site:  https://www.lutheranhomeschool.com/product/angels-demons-a-bible-study-anthology/  This study was incredible.  We worked through the entire thing (all 50 pages) in one sitting.  We spent a bulk of our time on Christian Dogmatics by Theodore Mueller, published in 1934.  Excellent!  The reason why we did this study in one sitting is because the teens didn't want to stop reading it.

Bacterial Colonization Lab

Procedure:

• 10 agar plates with 10 sterile swabs
• The teens dampened each swab with sterile water
• They swabbed ten different household items
• They ran the swabs over the agar plates
• Plates were sealed and place in a warm, dark area for 4 days
• We opened the plates today and compared bacterial growth between the 10 items
• We took samples of the colonies, smeared them onto microscope slides and examined them under the microscope

Results:

List of items from the MOST bacterial colonies to the LEAST (most disgusting to least disgusting)

1. Bottom of dog paw
2. Aquarium water
3. Kindergartener's palm (yep.  We are going to have a little talk.)
4. Exterior of a worn medical mask
5. Interior of a worn medical mask
6. Laptop keyboard (at this point, these items #6-10  had very, very few colonies)
7. Headphones
8. Bottom of cat paw (ironically, one of the cleanest things on the list)
9. Unused mask
10. Inside of a toilet (yes, this was literally the cleanest thing on the list - which was shocking)

Some pictures of the bacteria under the microscope:

I'm assuming this is bacillus bacteria.

Close-up, this also looks like bacillus.

The picture didn't end up as clear as it looked through the microscope, but these looked like clusters of grapes.  They were also much tinier than the bacillus bacteria.  I'm wondering if they weren't cocci bacteria?

College Students

College freshman made an appointment for his TSI testing.  He did a practice test for the math and only missed a couple of questions, so I think he feels better about it.  

College sophomore is all ready for school on Monday.  She is trying to buy a used camera for her photography class.  They're supposed to develop their own film in the darkroom at the college.  Her classes for the semester: Developmental Psychology, Intro to Speech Communications, Intro to Horticulture, Photography I, and Nutrition.

Homeschool Day 1/14

 Kindergartener

• Math workbook
• Read the first story in his reader from All About Reading
• Handwriting without Tears

Five in a Row

We finished the unit on Owl Moon.  We set a stopwatch and timed several different units of time - like a second, 5 seconds, 1 minute, etc.  We did some of the art activities in the teacher's guide and he painted a picture of a snowy tree with a moon overhead.  

13 Year-old

• Algebra 
• Language Lessons for the Secondary Child
• Free reading from her book crate + a read-aloud
• Apologia's Anatomy & Physiology together - reading about muscles and tendons
• She spent a ton of time actually watching and helping with the 15 year-old's biology lab

15 Year-old

• Algebra 2 - dinomial theorems - ugh!  What a mess...
• Wordsmith Craftsman - more outlining, which is really offending her, because I think Wordsmith Craftsman might just be way too easy for her
• Huckleberry Finn
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
• Listened to "Yankee Doodle" with its real lyrics - read the history behind the song
• We skipped German, because the biology lab took so long
• Biology lab - pond water

Biology Lab - Pond Water

I've done the pond water thing a million times, but this lab was incredible today.  The pond water that had rice sitting in it created a protist population bloom that was awesome.  I used blue stain to make the protists really stand out.  We were able to actually see cilia and flagella moving under our microscope, along with protists rotating in the water - which is usually something too difficult for us to catch at home.  We were also able to see a paramecium puncture its cell membrane and then the cell lyse under the microscope.  It was a pretty incredible lab. 

Here is a video my 13 year-old shot with her camera using our microscope.  Adding blue stain to the pond water really makes a difference.   

Homeschool Day 1/13

 Kindergartener

He was sick today with a cold.  I ended up going to the store and buying him a ton of fruit and vitamins, so I didn't do school with him today - which is fine.

13 Year-old

• Algebra - Cartesian coordinates
• Language Lessons for the Secondary Child
• Free reading from the book crate and a read-aloud
• Mystery of History 4 - Simon Bolivar with Timeline Figures!
• German together - learned how to conjugate verbs and worked on pronouns
• P.E. together

15 Year-old

• Watched her algebra 2 lesson
• Read Huckleberry Finn and the Lincoln biography
• More bacteria reading from Apologia Biology
• Latin
• Watched a TED Ed Video on the Declaration of Independence
• Read the entire Declaration of Independence
• P.E.

Physical Education (P.E.)

We usually do PE with another family on Wednesday afternoons, but since the 5 year-old was sick, we did PE on our own.  We played baseball at a baseball diamond.  We worked on batting practice, practiced pitching and worked on catching and throwing fly balls.  All the kids had a great time!  Even the college freshman played with us.

Me

Most of my day was shopping for things that would help the 5 year-old get over his cold, doing schoolwork and then running PE.  I bought him a ton of strawberries, grapes, blueberries, apples and bananas.  He actually feels better this evening after eating all those strawberries.  

Homeschool Day 1/12

 Kindergartener

Today was a typical day with math, reading and handwriting.  We studied shadows and the moon from our Five in a Row Owl Moon unit study.

13 Year-old

• Watched algebra lesson
• Language Lessons for the Secondary Child
• Free reading from the book crate + read-aloud

Agar/Bacterial Culture Lab

13 year-old and 15 year-old did 10 agar streak plates using sterile cotton swabs.  They collected bacterial samples from different locations, transferred the bacteria onto the Petri dishes and then we placed the plates in a warm location.  Samples were taken from places like dog's paw, inside/outside of worn medical mask, cat's paw, dog bone, aquarium water, headphones, laptop keyboard, etc.  On Friday, we're going to take a look at the streak plates and see if there is bacterial growth.  I'm hoping to get the microscope out and take a look at some of the colonies.  Hoping there is also fungus or mold.

15 Year-Old

• Algebra 2 Honors Page
• Wordsmith - outlining, which she's a bit offended by.  The writing is too easy for her.  I may have to drop Wordsmith and try to plan for something else for writing.
• Huckleberry Finn
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
• Apologia Biology - reading about bacterial colonies
• Agar/Bacterial Culture Lab
• German with me
• Mapping the World with Art - North America

I talked to her about dropping government and music appreciation and she said not to touch her curriculum line-up.  She said she likes all of it.

Me

I'm going to do some Bible reading outside on the front porch while I take the kids outside to play.

Homeschool Day 1/11

 Kindergartener

• Bible reading from The Beginner's Bible - Noah's ark, Tower of Babel, Abraham and Sarah
• Math workbook page - adding 1 and 2 to a number - we used the Mathusee blocks to see what the numbers "looked" like.  He loved this lesson.
• Reading - he read about 10-15 CVC words (consonant - vowel - consonant).  We worked on reading the words "the" and "a".  He is reading really well for a 5 year-old.

Five in a Row

He started Owl Moon from Five in a Row volume 2.  We read the book, then learned a little about owls and listened to owl calls on YouTube.  We ended up watching funny videos on baby owls, which he thought was hilarious.  School ended with an owl pellet dissection.  

Owl Pellet Dissection

We soaked the owl pellets in water to soften the hair (ew).  We then used tweezers to pull apart the hair and bones.  I explained what the bones were and we looked at several things under our 3D microscope.  We looked at the rodent teeth, a femur and a skull under the 3D microscope.

13 Year-old

• Also participated in the owl pellet dissection - this goes with her anatomy & physiology course.  She was supposed to look at chicken bones, but rodent bones are fine, too.
• Math - she did the Honors Page in her algebra book, which was Pascal's triangle and how to manipulate graphs.
• Language Lessons for the Secondary Child
• She did free reading from her book crate.  I read aloud.
• History - we read Mystery of History 4 - chapter on Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo.
• German - we worked on the textbook together

15 Year-old

• Biology - she started the pond life lab in Apologia Biology.  Collected four test tubes with pond water and four different nutrient solutions.
• Algebra 2 - I helped her with more problems on factoring polynomials (yuck)
• Latin - she worked on this
• Art Appreciation - she continued 1800's art in Gardner's Art through the Ages
• Unit Study - continued Huckleberry Finn and the Lincoln biography

College Kids

• Sophomore's books are here.  School starts next week.
• Rising Freshman talked to the Success Coach at the college and is making appointments for his TSI tests

Me

I didn't get to read the Bible myself today.  I was too busy teaching, cleaning, cooking, calling my mom (who had a stroke), etc.  I'll try tomorrow.

I'm rethinking what's working and what isn't with the 15 year-old.  I'm seriously thinking of stopping Music Appreciation, because she is non-stop practicing piano, watching musicals and working with music during ballet.  Half her day is already music.  I'm thinking of stopping American Government, because she isn't retaining anything from the book.  I'm thinking of buying Notgrass American Government and using that as a full course next year, instead.  Because she is enjoying Gardner's Art through the Ages and Mapping the World with Art so much...I'm thinking of pulling those together as two full courses - one Art History and a quarter credit to a half credit Cartography.

Hymn Study and Saint Study for Week of 1/4-1/8

 Fridays is very light school - maybe about an hour at the most.

Group Hymn Study

• Crown Him with Many Crowns, written by Matthew Bridges, 1852, England

            https://youtu.be/dDCE8yGOCcY

Group Saint Study

• Saint Gabriel the Archangel -  including coloring page for the 5 year-old 

Bible Readings

• 13 Year-old starts the Gospel of John
• 15 Year-old is still in 1 Samuel
• 5 Year-old reads from the Beginner's Bible

Me

• I'm currently reading the Bible from cover to cover.  I'm still in the middle of Matthew.

Homeschool Day 1/7/2021

 Kindergartner

We finished our weeklong unit study based on Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddle Duck.  We listened to the audio book reading by Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor.  Well, we actually listened to the entire book twice.  He loved it.  We took graph paper and he designed Mr. McGregor's garden.  He drew a path, gate and a house for Peter Rabbit.  We took a lego rabbit and lego guy, plus dice and we turned it into a game. One player is Peter Rabbit and the other player is Mr. McGregor.  You roll the dice to see how many spaces your guy can move.  Peter Rabbit tries to get "home" before Mr. McGregor "catches" him.

He loved it.

On top of that, he did his usual line-up of reading, handwriting and math.

13 Year-old

She did her usual readings from her book crate.  We worked on Anatomy & Physiology, I read aloud to her and we worked on some algebra review problems.  I need to include more review problems every day, because she easily forgets things from earlier in the course.  

15 Year-old

As usual, she worked on the Huckleberry Finn unit study.  She did a short study of an American folk song from the late 1700s.  I gave a short presentation on the dry erase board on how to do Cornell Note-Taking.  She and I also worked on algebra problems that she couldn't solve alone.  We worked on a couple of pages of her German textbook - learning reflexive German verbs.

Me

I had three-hour-long dentist visit this morning for a crown on a molar that cracked in half.  That was miserable.  After that, we did schoolwork.  I walked to the park with the 5 year-old and 13 year-old.  They played for awhile at the park, but it was cold.  Afterwards was cooking dinner, cleaning the house and getting groceries.

I'm not prepared for our Bible studies tomorrow.  I need to find a hymn and a saint for tomorrow.          

15 Year-old's Spring Line-Up

 Buckle up, this is complicated.

Bible

• Reading through the entire Bible, she's currently in 1 Samuel
• Weekly Saint study
• Weekly Hymn study

English

• Wordsmith Craftsman

Latin

• Visual Latin with Lingua Latina reader
• Duolingo Latin

German

• Finishing Komm Mit 2, beginning Komm Mit 3

Biology

• Apologia's Biology with labs
• Tiner's The History of Medicine

Art & Music

• Working on acrylic portraits
• Continuing playing piano - mostly music from musical theater, but also some Beethoven

Unit Studies based on Classical Literature.  These studies include Literature, History, Geography, Government/Economics, Art Appreciation and Music Appreciation

• Currently working on a unit study based on Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Resources include:
• Mapping the World with Art
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
• Lincoln: A Photobiography
• Gardner's Art through the Ages
• Painless American Government

Physical Education

• We do PE with another homeschooling family once a week at a park. 

Extracurricular Activities:

• Musical Theater at a homeschool enrichment center
• Russian ballet with Pointe
• Member of a small ballet dance company (through the ballet school)
• Helping teach K-5 at our church's Wednesday night classes

13 Year-old's Spring Line-Up

 Bible

• The Gospel of John from the Bible (NIV)
• Weekly Saint study
• Weekly Hymn study

Math

• Mathusee Algebra 1

Language Arts

• Language Lesson for the Secondary Child
• Copywork, dictation and narration

History

• Mystery of History, volume 4 with Timeline Figures
• Assortment of books about the US Presidents and the US States

Science

• Apologia's Anatomy & Physiology

Literature

• An assortment of classical kids' literature that I thought she would enjoy.  She chooses what to read and for how long.  We have two books going at once - one book she reads on her own and one book I'm reading aloud to her
• A Treasury of Poetry for Young People

Music

• Listen to the Birds: An Introduction to Classical Music
• Learning to play piano
• Learning to play the drums

Physical Education

• We do P.E. once a week with another homeschooling family at a park.  The kids rotate through different kinds of sports: soccer, basketball, baseball, kickball, pickle ball, football, etc.

Extracurriculars

• Russian ballet with Pointe
• Member of a small ballet dance company (at the ballet school)
• Lutheran Confirmation classes - this is her last semester as a Confirmand

A little bit about us

A little bit about us...

We're a homeschooling family of seven from North Texas. 

We're Lutheran (LCMS).

Our oldest two children are in college and working towards careers in medicine.   

We're currently homeschooling our remaining three children, ages 15, 13 and 5. 

Our oldest two children started in public school in 2007/2008.  We pulled them from school, because they weren't thriving.  The oldest went to Kindergarten and 1st grade.  The second went to a half-day Kindergarten.  Both were having issues.  The oldest was having severe sensory issues and anxiety.  Right before we pulled her from school, she tested as gifted.  The second oldest developed anxiety and low self-esteem.  He was also behind the rest of the class in terms of reading.  By the end of his Kindergarten year, the rest of the class was reading and he still didn't know his letter sounds.  So, we pulled both of them out of school together.

Kids #3, 4 and 5 have never been to school. 

Kindergartner's Spring Line-Up

 Here is the 5 Year-old (almost 6) Boy's Spring Curriculum Line-Up.

Bible

• The Beginner's Bible
• Weekly Saint study

Phonics & Language Arts

• All About Reading Level 1, including readers
• BOB Books
• Handwriting without Tears: Kick Start Kindergarten, including letter chalkboard

Math

• Kindergarten Math with Confidence
• Mathusee Blocks as manipulatives

Unit Studies

• Five in a Row, volume 2 (literature-based and includes science, art, social studies, geography, etc)

On average, he spends about an hour a day on formal schoolwork.  We do P.E. once a week with another homeschooling family at the park.  He takes Russian ballet once a week and he goes to a Wednesday night children's class at our church.  He also does different sports sessions with i9 sports - where he's played basketball, T-ball, coach-pitch, flag football and his next session is soccer.