10/7: Final Review of Trail Guide to World Geography

 We did it - we finished World Geography!  I'm giving both of the high schoolers 1 credit World Geography on their transcripts.  

Altogether, it took us 6 months to get through this unit study.

For World Geography, we did:

• Trail Guide to World Geography
• Mapping the World with Art, by Ellen McHenry
• Literature that takes place in different countries around the world
• It's A Jungle Out There (South America)
• A Long Walk to Water (Sudan)
• Hatchet (Canada)
• Born Free (Africa)
• Red Scarf Girl (China) - EXCELLENT book
• Gandhi (movie version - India)
• Around the World in 80 Days (movie)

Trail Guide to World Geography

• We made it through the guide using a large, dry erase markable map sold by Rainbow Resource:  https://www.rainbowresource.com/product/001554/USA-World-Double-Sided-Laminated-Map.html?
• It's recommended to buy Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide, but we did not use it as much as I hoped.  We mostly used the internet, National Geography videos on Youtube, etc.
• We did not do the Around the World in 80 Days unit at the end of the Trail Guide, because I had added so many other things to the course
• There is an absolute ton of map work in this course.
• Altogether, this was an absolutely wonderful unit study.  This was one of my favorite curricula - ever (in 13 years of homeschooling).

Mapping the World with Art

• This was a wonderful resource to add onto the Trail Guide.  It's a series of DVDs (I think she might have downloads now, I'm not sure).  On the videos, she guides the kids into drawing the entire world.  You just need the videos, paper, pencil, ruler and sometimes a protractor and compass.  There is also a PDF with notes about each region, and she has a YouTube channel with videos.
• The girls ended up drawing the entire world.  

Literature

• All of these books were excellent, but we particularly enjoyed Hatchet and Red Scarf Girl.  Red Scarf Girl is absolutely an incredible book.  It's an autobiography of a girl who lives during the Cultural Revolution in China.  High school age is probably best for Red Scarf Girl, in my opinion.  We ended up having a lot of conversations about communism, how the Communist Party tried to erase Chinese culture, etc.  Hatchet - that was a book I had never read before, but we listened to the audiobook during lunch, etc and we all really enjoyed it.  Even the 6 year-old liked the book.

Homeschool Day 10/6

 1st Grader: School Break

9th and 11th Graders: Finishing World Geography week

• Animal Farm
• Finished Night by Elie Wiesel (excellent book)
• World Geography
• Trail Guide to World Geography (Australia and Oceania)
• Mapwork - Australia and Oceania
• Country Fact Sheet (Europe)
• 9th grader - Norway
• 11th grader - Italy
• Mapping the World with Art (Western North America)
• Shakespearean Theater (outsourced class for the 11th grader)

This is it!  Tomorrow we are finished with World Geography!  1 credit World Geography on their transcripts.

Homeschool Day 10/4

 1st Grader - School Break

9th and 11th Graders - finishing World Geography week

• Night (Elie Wiesel)
• World Geography
• Mapwork (Asia)
• Trail Guide to World Geography (Asia)
• Country Fact Sheet
• Russia (11th grader)
• Japan (9th grader)
• Ate at a French restaurant for lunch
• Voice Lessons (11th grader)
• Escape Room with their homeschool friends (both 9th and 11th graders)

Homeschool Day 9/28

 1st Grader

• Winnie the Pooh (read-aloud)
• Go, Otto, Go (he read to me)
• Handwriting practice on the whiteboard app on the iPad
• Math
• Counted to 100
• Counted by 10s to 100
• Added lawn dice after we threw them in the grass
• Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day
• Bats
• Gymnastics
• Played outside

9th and 11th Graders - Geography Week

• Gandhi (movie)
• Night (Elie Wiesel)
• World Geography
• Mapping the World with Art (Antarctica)
• Red Scarf Girl
• Trail Guide to World Geography (Asia)
• Mapwork (Asia)
• Country Fact Report 
• Brazil - 11th grader
• Peru - 9th grader
• Gymnastics class
• Played outside

Homeschool Day 9/27

 1st Grader

• P.E. - we played disc golf together
• Math
• Telling time on the hour 
• Balance scale with gram weights
• Copywork
• He copied a sentence from his reading
• Reading
• Go, Otto, go (he finished reading this to me)
• Winnie the Pooh (read-aloud)
• First Language Lessons 1
• Story of the World 1 (Ancient Egypt)
• MetKids: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Looked at virtual exhibits of ancient Egypt
• Cub Scouts

9th and 11th Graders: World Geography Week (finishing our geography credit)

• Animal Farm (read-aloud)
• Night (Elie Wiesel)
• World Geography
• Mapping the World with Art (South America)
• Red Scarf Girl (audiobook)
• Trail Guide to World Geography (Asia)
• Map of the world puzzle
• Country Fact Reports - North America
• 9th grader did Canada
• 11th grader did the U.S.
• P.E. - we played disc golf at the park
• Piano Practice
• 11th grader did Driver's Ed and practiced driving (Aceable for driver's ed)

Frustrated with a few of our curriculum selections

 Trail Guide to World Geography

I absolutely love this unit study for high school. My high schoolers are really enjoying it, too.  I'm actually learning a ton.  But it says K-12 on the description and I'm trying to use it with my 1st grader.  He really likes what we've done so far (he's on Week 4), but 99% of it is very much over his head.  I think I need to set up a geography unit study for him on his level.  He obviously likes geography, but he won't like it if it's too overwhelming/difficult.  

I'm thinking of either buying Beautiful Feet's Around the World with Picture Books   , Guest Hollow's Jr. Geography Curriculum, or just setting up my own unit study.  Either way, I need to sit down with it and come up with a plan.

Government & Economics

I feel like a serious failure in this department.  The 11th grader has read a number of living books about government and economics, including reading original source documents like the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, etc, and watching a Senate hearing's live broadcast.  But, I really feel like our coverage of these two subjects is pretty abysmal.  I don't like government and economics and it's hard to creatively and lovingly put together wonderful unit studies on a topic you absolutely hate (and think is boring).  At this point, I'm so burned out from even hearing about politics and government, that I don't actually want to teach it.  Ever.

I'm thinking of using this as a springboard for economics https://mru.org/teacher-resources/courses/high-school-economics , but I think I might be too dumb even for these videos.  

I'm thinking of going through Notgrass Economics together with the high schoolers (I already own it).

Homeschool Day 7/7

 1st Grader

• Well, he made up for yesterday.  He was loving school today.
• Beginner's Bible
• We read Flat Stanley
• Math
• www.educationunboxed.com has a game called "What's in the Box?"  We played 'what's under the cup.'  It's an addition game.  You take two cuisinaire rods and place them in an addition sentence using notecards.  You place the "answer" cuisinaire rod in a box (or under a cup).  The kid has to find the cuisinaire rod that's the answer and then compare his answer to the one under the cup: http://www.educationunboxed.com/whats-in-the-box-part-one/ He loved this game so much that he got mad when I said it was time to stop.  😬
• Summer's Lab Science - we started the unit on clouds.  We looked outside and identified the clouds in the sky.
• Trail Guide to World Geography - he really likes geography, but I'm starting to feel like this is just way over his head.  I want to keep doing geography with him, but I might have to start from scratch and put it together myself.

9th Grader

• Bible (Genesis)
• Dragonbox Algebra
• Online Spelling Bee
• Read-aloud The Wave
• The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)
• Trail Guide to World Geography
• The Long Walk to Water
• Guide - South America, including discussions of earthquakes in Chile, volcanoes, map work, Machu Picchu

11th Grader

• Bible (2 Kings)
• Algebra 2
• Online Spelling Bee
• Read-aloud The Wave
• The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)
• Trail Guide to World Geography
• The Long Walk to Water
• Guide - South America, including discussions of earthquakes in Chile, volcanoes, map work, Machu Picchu

Homeschool Day 7/6

 1st Grader

• Yeah, this was a terrible, non-productive day for him.  He mostly wanted to play with his toy dragons.  I did what I could and then just let him go
• Handwriting without Tears
• Wild Math
• We counted by 5s and 10s
• He used the Montessori number chart to fill in the 5's and 10's in order
• We used plastic farm animals to go over even and odds
• He did a few addition problems
• He read a few words from his reader and that just went south quickly.  It was not very productive.  
• We read Flat Stanley

9th Grader

• Bible (Genesis)
• Algebra 1- we worked some review problems together that she missed in the workbook
• Language Lessons - book titles
• The Wave
• Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)
• World Geography
• Trail Guide to World Geography (South America) - did some great note-taking in their notebooks on special geographic features in South America
• The Long Walk to Water
• Mapping the World with Art - I think they drew the Ukraine
• We watched The Joy Luck Club (with some censoring) 

11th Grader

• Bible (2 Kings)
• Algebra 2 - she started the section on those coin word problems and consecutive number word problems
• Language Lessons for the High School Student - expository writing
• The Wave
• Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)
• World Geography
• Trail Guide to World Geography (South America) - did some great note-taking in their notebooks on special geographic features in South America
• The Long Walk to Water
• Mapping the World with Art - I think they drew the Ukraine
• We watched The Joy Luck Club (with some censoring)

Homeschool Day 6/30

1st Grader

• Beginner's Bible - we started the New Testament
• Math
• Counted to 100
• Skip-counted by 5s and 10s
• Used farm animals to learn about even and odd
• Did some simple addition problems using the rubber farm animals
• BOB Book - he read an entire book
• Alphabet puzzle - he put the puzzle together, but I also made him tell me the letters' proper names
• Summer's Lab Science - we made a solar oven and cooked s'mores in the driveway...well, and then ate them
• We read Flat Stanley 

9th Grader

• Bible - Genesis
• Algebra 1 - she needed me to do more problems on the dry-erase board.  Solving two equations with two variables
• Online Spelling Bee
• She read Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)
• I read The Wave
• Trail Guide to World Geography (South America)
• Mapping the World with Art - the Caspian Sea
• A Long Walk to Water
• We watched a video about the Panama Canal and watched a time-lapse video of ships traveling through the canal + the locks
• Video about Venezuela's Angel Falls
• Video about the Mid-Ocean Rift

11th Grader

• Bible - 2 Kings
• Algebra 2 - she's on one of the final lessons
• Online Spelling Bee
• She read Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)
• I read The Wave
• Trail Guide to World Geography (South America)
• Mapping the World with Art - the Caspian Sea
• A Long Walk to Water
• We watched a video about the Panama Canal and watched a time-lapse video of ships traveling through the canal + the locks
• Video about Venezuela's Angel Falls
• Video about the Mid-Ocean Rift

Geography Videos

Building of the Panama Canal (TED Talk): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE_UuHRtXCY

Panama Canal Full Transit Time-Lapse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8TkcWhmByg

Angel Falls in Venezuela: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_tqK4eqelA

Homeschool Day 6/28

 1st Grader

• Beginner's Bible - read about Daniel and the Lion's Den & Jonah and the Whale
• Math - we watched about half an hour of SchoolHouse Rock math videos, especially the videos on skip-counting
• Explode the Code
• Summer's Lab Science - we started a unit on Weather.  The first lesson is about the sun.  Today, he did a sun coloring page and we read an easy reader science book about the sun.
• Flat Stanley - we read the first chapter of the book and he colored his Flat Stanley and cut it out.

9th Grader

• Algebra 1 - she watched the video
• Language Lessons 

11th Grader

• Algebra 2 - she's watched the video on Hyperbolas
• Language Lessons for the High School Student

9th and 11th Grader Together

• Read The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)
• Read The Wave and discussed genocide in different countries around the world and the question of "how could the German people let the Holocaust happen"
• Trail Guide to World Geography
• We did more map work on North America
• Mapping the World with Art - they drew the Black Sea region
• Read A Long Walk to Water (Sudan)
• We answered questions from the Guide about Mexico, watched videos about the Yucatan Peninsula and some of the Mayan cities.  We learned about the Temple of the Moon and Temple of the Sun (Mayan ruins).  We watched a video from the National Parks about the Native American cliff dwellings in New Mexico.

Homeschool Day 5/18: Back to work

 I'm almost finished with everything I wanted to do - renovating the house, organizing all the curriculum, going through old school papers, etc.  I wanted to take the summer off, but the kids were wanting to start back up again.

We started new curriculum today.  But we are working with no schedule.  I'm just doing what we have time for and feel like doing for now. 

1st Grader

• Explode the Code
• Summer's Lab science (unit on Plants)
• Trail Guide to World Geography
• Originally, I had no intention of doing this with him.  It's a year-long unit study curriculum and looking through the content, it looks more appropriate for 2nd grade and older.  It's broken into three levels: elementary, middle school and high school.  So, you could use this unit study for K-12, technically.  I had no intention of using this unit study with the 6 year-old, but once he saw me working on it with the high schoolers, he threw this huge fit and started crying, because he wanted to do it, too.  So here we are...adding Trail Guide to World Geography to his curriculum this year.  *rolling my eyes*

9th Grader & 11th Grader

• Algebra - 9th grader algebra 1, 11th grader algebra 2
• Language Lessons (Queen's Homeschool - continuing from before our break)
• Independent reading
• Trail Guide to World Geography
• Mapping the World with Art (Mesopotamia)
• Geography questions for Week 1 (we covered one week in one day)
• Living geography book: It's a Jungle Out There
• Piano practice
• Final gymnastics class for the year

After our first day of Trail Guide to World Geography....I LOVE this unit study!!!!  This is going to be a great unit study.  I don't plan to stretch it out all year, though.  I'm planning to finish it this fall at some point and then move on to our Physical Science unit study.  I am trying to cover 4 weeks from the teacher's guide per week.  I anticipate spending 3 months on it, finishing up with the unit on Around the World in 80 Days.

New Curriculum Review: Trail Guide to World Geography

 This also just arrived from Rainbow Resource:  https://www.rainbowresource.com/product/014495/Trail-Guide-to-World-Geography.html?

Also bought this as a supplement:  https://www.rainbowresource.com/product/000695/Ultimate-Geography-and-Timeline-Guide-4th-Ed.html?

This is a unit study curriculum for grades K-12.  I thought about using it with my 6 year-old, but after flipping through it, I think it's too much for 1st grade.  I think starting 2nd/3rd grade is probably about right.  I plan to use it with the 13 year-old and the 16 year-old together.  

The guide is broken up into 36 weeks, with the final few weeks a unit study using Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days.  There are also other mini-literature unit studies in the guide.  Each week has 4 days worth of activities in the guide, divided up by age groups: elementary, junior high and high school.

For 1 credit World Geography, I plan to do:

• Trail Guide to World Geography (high school level activities)
• The Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide
• An Atlas
• Mapping the World with Art 
• Living book that takes place on or discusses each continent   

So far, this unit study looks very enjoyable and it's light enough that I can add all kinds of stuff to it to make it very well-rounded.