Thursday, March 11, 2010

Wrapping Up the Year

We started this school year back in July! I thought, what with the construction on our home, we would have many interruptions with our school work. To my surprise, we stayed on schedule just as the house construction did. There were no major illnesses this year and everyone stayed on the level. All this means that we have only 5 weeks of official school left as of Monday!

So where are we and what needs to be wrapped up? Good question! Remember this post way back in August?  We did not do everything on the list.  I think anyone who knew us and read the list back then knew that it would not all happen. There are, after all, those wonderful rabbit trails to hop down all through the year. However, the core goals got done.
  • Latin--I had only planned for Tom Sawyer (7) to study Latin but the girls wanted to join in. Each has about 25 vocabulary words down and loves to sing along with the songs. 
  • Cursive handwriting for Tom Sawyer--Hmmm, we never got around to cursive.  Maybe, we will start it over the summer.
  • Shakespeare--We were supposed to read two plays. Instead, we read a Shakespearean quote most weeks.
  • Nature study and nature journals--Hurray! I finally got this off the ground and the kids loved it. We did entries about every other week in our nature journals, myselfincluded!
  • Language arts--We had lots of resources this year for language arts. Early on, I threw out of the mix A Reason for Spelling. We did spelling dictionaries, spelling games and www.spellingcity.com instead. We are a Charlotte Mason family, not a textbook family. When will I ever learn?! We kept up with Explode the Code and Copywork. Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood learned to read! Yippie!! Little Red Riding Hood will have her reading party in just a few weeks.
  • Math--We really enjoyed Horizon Math this year, even if it is a textbook. We also got lots of "living math" books and real world math into our daily lives.
  • Literature--We did A FIAR book each month with our Five in a Row Group plus our Shakespeare quotes. During tea time, we read the following chapter books:
  1. A Bear Called Paddington
  2. Gullivers Adventures in Lilliput
  3. Five Little Peppers and How They Grew
  4. Page Boy for King Arthur
  5. Cole Family Christmas
  6. Leif the Lucky
  7. Chocolate by Hershey
  8. The Railway Children
  9. The Legend of King Arthur
  10. The Apple and the Arrow
  • History--We fell behind in history. We will finish up with the Middle Ages in the next few weeks and do an Explorer Unit study over the summer to catch up.  (Summer for us is May and June).
  • Science--We covered all of our science unit studies except the last one. We are supposed to start geology next week. However, we are going to do nutrition and cooking instead. My dh's cholesterol test results came back. YIKES! Also, we have fallen off the gluten-free diet more than I wish to admit. With allergy season upon us, we are starting to see ds meltdown royally with his body so weakened with allergies. So I am going to teach the kids proper nutrition for our family and learn some new recipes with them to get Daddy and Tom Sawyer back on the level.
  • Art--We studied all of the artists on our list through Botticelli. Now we are going to just do art projects for the rest of the year. We will resume Charlotte Mason style picture studies with the new school year. The new school year will start in mid-July.
  • Music--The kids really took to music this year. Everyone made progress with piano lessons and we studied the orchestra. The kids also studied Hayden as well as the music and play, Peter and the Wolf.
  • P.E.--Everyone enjoyed their out of the home classes: ballet, swimming, horseback and bowling.
Wow! That about does it. I look forward to a fresh start in July and some mini-activities over the summer. I will talk about our summer plans soon. I have so much churning around in my head at the moment. Lots to think about and plan.

Blessings, Dawn


7 comments:

  1. Sounds like you have had a great and productive year. I am new to the Charlotte Mason approach and still learning. Congrats on only having 5 weeks left. Enjoy your "summer"! Blessings.

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  2. Sounds like y'all accomplished ALOT this year! Have you tried Queen's homeschooling for your LA/Spelling? I really like it. It's very laid back and CM-ey. I like the idea of having a Little Red Ridinghood party. I've been trying to figure out what to do for my 3 and 4 1/2 year old next year. I wanted to do something fun but easy and I think Before FIAR might be a good idea. I'm going to put it on my list of stuff to check into. Glad your post prompted me to think of it.

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  3. Way to go!

    It is great to be able to see all that is accomplished and to do it before your estimated time table. Wow.

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  4. Sounds like you've had a great year! Congrats Mom!


    Following the Iditarod is very simple. iditarod.com and they post the musher standings. I even pay the annual fee for the Iditarod Insider so we have access to more of the videos. The kids just love this each year. We pull out our map and then make new sleds/dogs (thanks to Enchanted Learning color pages) and then choose our mushers. Last year our vet actually went as a volunteer so we met with him afterwards to ask questions and see his pictures.

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  5. I just love this school wrap up! Its encouraging to see all that you have done, that its okay not to finish, its okay to toss a curriculum ( so to speak), and that you are taking a wonderful break!!!!!

    I am really rethinking how we do school for next year. DDs will be in 11th and 9th. Want to do more hands on ...we did it when they were young without thinking about it but as we got into high school we staryed away.

    Looking forward to seeing your CM studies and life outside!

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  6. It sounds like you had a wonderful year ! And that your wrapping up seems very managable to finish. We will be schooling till August and take one month off and start up in September again. Also your change of plans sound fun. Yes, using real life connections will make it mean more.


    Thank you for your sweet words. They mean a lot to me.


    Blessings and ((HUGS)) my SSiC

    In Him<><

    -Mary

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  7. Great job Dawn! I'm always amazed at how much you accomplish! Well done.


    I look forward to hearing more about what you are doing for nutrition. I think we'll be doing something along those lines this summer too. We need it for various reasons and I want to make it fun. I know you'll have fun ideas!


    Blessings

    Leslie

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