We have decided to homeschool through summer. We have begun Sonlight’s Core C this week. We are taking it slow and spreading one day out over 2-3 days for now. My niece, K, (and occasionally, P) is spending most of the week days with me over the summer. Here are some highlights of what we are learning right now:
Bible
Reading about Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah
Scripture Memorization
I bought all four kids a journal to record scripture to memorize. The journal is also for writing down thoughts, prayers, worries, really anything. Our first scripture to memorize is:
Romans 3:23 "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"
I find such comfort in this scripture. We are not perfect and we don’t have to pretend we are. We all sin, we all do things that fall short of God’s perfect glory. In knowing that, and owning that, it is easier to be able to establish a relationship with God; to be able to go to Him and ask forgiveness, something He promises to grant.
History/Geography
We are reading about Martin Luther, the man who stood up to the established church in the 1500’s, and brought to light all the practices and law that was inconsistent with the Bible.
If you ask the boys about Martin Luther, they will probably say he was a guy who tripped on a tree root and sliced his leg open with his unsheathed sword. And, oh yeah, he almost was struck by lightning once, too.
We have marked on our map where Martin Luther lived (in Germany).
Read Aloud
We are reading ‘The Boxcar Children". What a delightful story. I typically have my niece read it to the boys. Today, she was not here, so I read a chapter. There was such a cliffhanger at the end of th chapter, ‘A’ begged me to read another chapter. I admit, I wanted to find out how it turned out as well…
We are also reading from a poetry book and a Mother Goose book. (yes, I am giving mother Goose another chance…)
P.E.
My niece, P, is helping me create a summer P.E. program. She actually created an Excel document to record the lesson plan, and improvements. I am pretty impressed.
Language Arts
We are using a book called, "I Can Read It!". It’s a little stretch for ‘R’, and a little too easy for ‘A’, but it’s working OK for us. I was not getting anywhere with ‘R’ on the Bob Books and this is working much better for him. Here is an activity where the boys pick a word and then have to make that word out of letter flashcards. I had the boys "teach" each other today:
This program also has them write quite a bit, even though it is not a handwriting program (something I will be adding later…)
Science
We are having so much fun with Science! We have learned a ton in just the few days we have done it. Let’s hope some of it sticks!
Here are the boys showing off their worksheets about the water cycle, and the colors of the rainbow:
We also tried to create a rainbow with a glass of water, but was not successful. I ended up buying a prism later in the week.
There is a Science DVD that explains some of the experiments we will be doing over the year. They boys love it and insist on watching all of the experiments over and over. It messes up our Scientific Method of creating our own hypothesis, but…whatever…
Here’s an experiment we did today. We have created a scientific journal for recording our hypothesis, eperiment, and conclusion. The boys narrate to me the process and I record it, then the boys draw a picture on the journal of what we did.
In this experiment, we are learning about how air expands when it is warm. We took a ping pong ball and dented it…
Placed it in a glass of very warm water and covered it with a plate, thus submerging the ball…
In about 15 second, we removed the ball and discovered that ball had returned to its original form…
The warm water heated up the air inside the ping pong ball. The air expanded and pushed the dent out!
Nutrition
DH asked if he could teach the kids every Friday on nutrition. Today, he taught about the food pyramid. Here are the boys coloring in their pyramid. Then, they played the My Pyramid Blast Off Game. (An interactive computer game where kids can reach Planet Power by fueling their rocket with food and physical activity. “Fuel” tanks for each food group help students keep track of how their choices fit into MyPyramid.)
Sign Language
One of my best buddies (living in Alaska), just loaned me four of the ‘Signing Times’ DVDs. We are currently watching and learning signs from "Nice to Meet You." The boys love this and want to watch this everyday. Thanks Dakari! I love you!!