Our First Day of School 2011-2012

We started the day reciting the first few verses of Psalm 23.
 Next we did chapter 45 in Saxon 5/4 which was on Parenthesis, Associative Property and Naming Line Segments.  Math seems to take him a long time because he dawdles and not because he does not know the information. He kept complaining that in school his teacher did not make him do this but then again his grades at school reflected that because she let him daydream. I am here to teach him how to focus on the task at hand.

Up Next, Was Apologia Science Human Anatomy and Physiology. We read a few pages in Lesson one and started are project on Mummifying Fruit. He enjoyed the setup and he was amazed at how fast we finished the lesson. We learned what the study of Human Anatomy and Physiology was and how the Egyptians used salt and other chemicals to preserve the body. The Egyptians kept the heart in the body  because they believed they needed it for the next life and discarded some of the other organs because they felt they were not needed.

Grammar- Today we learned about the two parts of the sentence. We learned that the Subject was what the sentence was about and the predicate was what the subject was doing or what they are like.

In History we learned about Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire. We learned that he inherited three lands as a young child and teenager upon the deaths of his father and grandfathers. He wanted more so he asked the Pope if he can be the Roman Emperor. The pope did not want to give him that title and so he went to war with the Pope. The Pope was defeated and made Charles V the Roman Empire.

The next topic was on  the Spanish invasion of South America and how they made the natives slaves and spread disease. They also too their gold and sent it off to Spain. They had the children work in mines which were dangerous to their health.

In Reading we were introduced to the background of the first book in the Chronicles of Narnia series. The book is entitled The Magician's Nephew.

Finally we finished the day up with Religion/Catechism we learned about the Creed and God's purpose for us. We also learned how we are to make it to Heaven.

To sum it up we had a busy day and we have some adjustments to make so we can run the day smoother overall good first day.

Less Than Three Weeks Away

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    School starts for us on Labor Day. We have collected all the books. Most of my lesson plans are completed for the first nine weeks of Lessons.  Up next, I have to get the notebooks to put stuff into. I am going to get him to help me put his notebooks together. I am so excited for the year however, The Gamer, is less than thrilled about it.  He would much rather game all day and not have to do anything academic.

    During the summer, we have been doing Saxon Math 5/4 as summer enrichment since he was very behind in Math leaving the Public School arena. He has greatly improved and is now understanding what he did not understand while in school.  He averages 85-100 on his review tests. My plans are to finish up Saxon 5/4 by January and move on to Saxon 6/5.

My History goals for this year include: Learning about World History as well as US History between the years of 1600-1850. These years are referred to as the Early Modern Period. Some the highlights include the end of the reign of Elizabeth I, The Thirty Years War, Slavery, American Revolution, French Revolution and several other topics leading to The Gold Rush of 1849.

This year in Science, the topic is Human Anatomy and Physiology. We will be exploring the history of the study of the Human Body as well as various systems of the Body. We will have projects and notebooking in order to enhance understanding of the functions of the body at an elementary level.

For Literature I am going to take a slightly unconventional approach. We are going to Read through the entire Chronicles of Narnia series in Chronological order. Included in this approach is the Christian Novel Studies guide that incorporates the Bible throughout the novels. This series uses Literature Analysis,Devotions and Discussion questions in order to teach Literature effectively to the 5th-8th grade student.

Language Arts will be a separate course from Literature. For this we will be using Hake Grammar and Writing.  This will be our first year with this course. I have heard rave review for this one. It is taught a lot like the Saxon Math series as in it use incremental approach to grammar.  Another good thing is that is has Weekly dictation and Journal Entries to help the student improve their writing skill along with their creativity.  The Writing Portion teaches the art of essay writing as well as a few of the different types of essays.

I am using the Homeschoolspelling.com website for his weekly spelling words. He will have different activities involving the words so that seeing them on a regular basis he will become familiar with the spelling of the words.

Hymn study is a memorization and singing of a hymn. Each Month a Hymn is selected via the website Ambelsideonline.org. I feel these hymns will help him to become closer to God and are a fine way of getting the mind ready at the start of the school day.

Finally we have Religion 5 for Young Catholics. This year we will focus on the Ten Commandments and the Apostle's Creed. Also included in this study is the Baltimore Catechism and the Concise Bible History.