Learning Notes - Week 1 (August 26-31)

Week One of School is done!  I kept Learning Notes so that I could show how I attempted, with some success, to slowly start intergrating more information instead of my usual method of "here's all the stuff you need to do all at once!  Why are we all crying?!"

Monday

Prayer, singing the doxology.

Our Bible reading was Mark 1:1-3 with a discussion of the role of a herald.

The 9yo read the first section of Ten Boys Who Made A Difference, introducing us to the boy Augustine of Hippo.  The 7yo read us the first section of Ten Girls Who Used Their Talents, and began the story of Anne Lawson, a modern day aircraft mechanic with Mission Aviation Fellowship in Tanzania.  Both of these books, and in fact the entire series, are written by Irene Howat.

We reviewed days of the week and months of the year for memory work.  The 7yo had her piano practice and then her lesson.

We read section one of SOTW 2 - reviewing the Romans and where their empire stretched.  We looked at the map that was in the book and also at this:

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The children set the stove timer and read for 30 minutes on books of their choice.

Tuesday

Morning Time:  Prayer, singing the doxology.

Mark 1:4,5 - we talked about baptism and the Jordan river.

SOTW 2 - we finished chapter one and the review about Romans and began our timeline with the division of the Roman Empire in 286 AD.

The 9yo continued reading to us about Augustine, and in this case his brush with death as a young child and how it made him want to get baptized, which he later changed his mind about.  That tied in nicely with our gospel reading of the morning.  The 7yo read another section of the biography of Anne Lawson.

We reviewed days of the week and months of the year and added in the first line of The Lord's Prayer "Our Father, who art in heaven".  The 9yo got to remember the first book of the Old Testament - Genesis.

The 7yo started learning to knit with two needles and the 5yo how to knit using a circular knitting loom.  Like this:

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We went to the library and picked up this graphic novel:

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The 9yo finished it in a few hours.

Both the 7yo and 5yo worked on their knitting.

Wednesday

Prayer, singing doxology

We read Mark 1:6-8 and discussed poverty, John's attire and food, and how he felt about his mission.

The 9yo read to us about Augustine growing up and discovering how he felt unfulfilled by the material goods and status he had acquired.  The 7yo read to us about Anne Lawson's childhood.

We reviewed days of the week, months of the year, the first line of The Lord's Prayer, and the 9yo added Exodus to his memory work on the 39 books of the Old Testament.

We read the first section of chapter one in SOTW 2 and introduced the Celts.  I pulled out the large world map and we reviewed the extent of the Roman Empire and looked at where the Celts lived.  We also looked at this book from Usborne:

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After reading a few pages we went outside and practiced building a miniature iron age hill fort in the garden.  Then we watched the Time Team episode where they excavate Capitol Hill (Season 20, episode 3, the internets inform me).

The 7yo practiced her piano.

Everyone read for 30 minutes on books of their choice.

Thursday

Prayer, singing the doxology

Mark 1: 9-11.  We discussed why Jesus would get baptized, what the dove represented, and the concept of 'sending out' or 'commissioning'.

The 9yo read about Augustine becoming a Christian.  The 7yo read to us about Anne Lawson's 'Scripture Union Day' at school.  We discussed what a martyr is.

SOTW 2 - We continued chapter 2 and read about the coming of the Angles and Saxons to England and looked at the accompanying map in the text.  We also continued reading in the above book on Celts.  The oldest two followed up our discussion of Celtic foods by watching a segment of the BBC show Secrets of the Castle where they used a quorn to grind grain.   Oh, and we discussed the idea of borders and how they change and used this book to illustrate that concept:

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Memory work - We reviewed days of the week, months of the year, the first line of The Lord's Prayer, and added on the second line and the 9yo added Leviticus to the list of Old Testament books.

We pulled out The I Hate Mathematics Book:

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We discussed the idea of a hypothesis, or prediction, and made a prediction on whether the majority of people in our town would be wearing shoes that had laces, or shoes that did not have laces.  We went for a walk and recorded our findings.  Our educated guess was that more people would not have laces because more people would be wearing sandals since it was warm outside.  We were wrong - 17 people had laces on their shoes compared to 11 without laces.

The 9yo and 7yo read for 30 minutes individually.

The 5yo and I started our review of the previous lessons we covered in Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons.  We made it halfway through lesson 8.

Friday

Prayers and singing the doxology

Mark 1:12,13.  We discussed what 'the wilderness' is and watched a four minute video of the various wilderness areas of Israel from Youtube.

The 9yo read to us about how Augustine helped clarify the Christian faith for the early church.  The 7yo continued the biography of Anne Lawson through her school years.

SOTW 2 - We finished Ch. 2 which included an excerpt of Beowulf.  We looked up the definitions of 'epic' and 'poem' in the dictionary and then talked about what an epic poem is.  I started Michael Morpurgo's Beowulf as a read-aloud:

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The 7yo did 15 minutes of piano practice.

The 9yo and I looked at and discussed the Saxon 5/4 book he will be working through this year.  We did oral review of lessons 1 and 2, and a few practice questions, focusing on showing your work, just flipping through and getting a feel for where he should start.

The 5yo and I continued our review of 100 Easy Lessons.  We finished reviewing up to lesson 14.

The 9yo and 7yo each read for 30 minutes.

The children all did handwriting practice.  The 5yo printed, the 7yo did a few letters in cursive, and the 9yo did an entire cursive page of the alphabet.

Saturday

This will likely be a formal school day in weeks to come but this week, not so much.