Winter Wrap Up

Devotional~ Continuing our Book of Mormon reading and I Walked To Zion reading (Trek prep) and added something really neat to our morning! We have many missionaries out from our ward (congregation) and also a bunch of my homeschooling friends recently had sons go out in the mission field. A lot of them send out a weekly e-mail to friends and family updating everyone on their exciting adventures. The kids love to hear about the experiences of young men we know and how their faith is growing. Reading the letters aloud has been a really nice part of our morning devotional! Literature~ Our Girls and Moms Book Club has been the basis of our literature reading. Ella Enchanted is what I would consider a modern classic and I really loved The Wheel on the School! It has really long chapters and moves a bit slow, but it has such great examples of working together, educating yourself and forgiveness.

Five in a Row~ Roxaboxen, Little Nino's Pizzeria and The Story of Ferdinand. M-9 especially liked Ferdinand and discovered some funny details in the artwork.

Science~ Continuing our Biomes study by making a Biome Book.(M-9's project) So far we have covered Deserts and the Rainforest. I used the Roxaboxen Fold n Learn from the Five in a Row digital store for the pictures of the desert. We have been using our Geography Envelope System to talk about where the different biomes lie. They tie together quite nicely!

Social Studies~American symbols and patriotism continued as well as a really great study of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. We listened to MLK's "I have a dream" speech on line and as always, it brought tears to my eyes. He was such a stirring orator! We also learned about Ruby Bridges and desegregation and went to her website to get her address. The plan is to write her a letter we hope she'll return. Somehow that project got put on the back burner but we still want to do it. We also celebrated President's Day by reading books on George and Abe. Oh yes, and since C-13 is learning about the judicial system, we read a cute little book that explains everything really well called Marshall the Courthouse Mouse.

Language Arts~ Here are a few of my favorite things we have been using. Phonics Pathways for spelling words, Handwriting Without Tears for cursive, Primary Language Lessons for grammar and Writing With Ease for copywork/grammar. I use the Startwrite software program to create the Handwriting Without Tears font for their personal worksheets. I love Startwrite! Wordigo is a great game that takes just 7 minutes to play and works on spelling. P-11 loves it! (And L-15 even more, says she!) It is sooo frustrating sometimes, though!

Math~ M-9 really likes the Greg Tang books and we are still working through our collection. We played some great games from Peggy Kaye's Games For Math. I really like the Spectrum Enrichment math books for the word problems. I'm a word problem maniac because I feel like they are so important! All the kids love to play Muggins. It's a great game where you can use all four operations. Love it!

A word about Folders: I have been putting a math page, a handwriting page and a page for spelling (they create their own lists using rimes), in a color coded folder for kiddos #2,3 and 4. It sounds so basic, but it's been a nice way to "start" our school time for the day. Usually they open their folders and work on them during breakfast.

Winter is a short "quarter" for us. I like to stick with the seasons for our school rhythm, but December is really a time of its own with Christmas, therefore Winter book lists always seem shorter to me.

We were also kept busy with Shakespeare play practice and L-15 and C-13 had lots of book discussions, opinion papers, research projects and a science fair with our Commonwealth School. Always busy!