December School

It has been a few weeks! Christmas has come and gone. I figured I will do one giant report for the whole month. I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of things next week. But for now I am enjoying a low key month. We kept up with regular lessons through the 17th and then took the rest of the month "off" (if there is such a thing). Here is a run down of some school work and some not-so-schoolish work that we have been busying ourselves with.

Reading

• Together we are continuing through our Advent book, Tabitha's Travels.
• We are still reading aloud The Witch of Blackbird Pond. It has been our slowest read aloud this year. Partially because, with Christmas approaching, we have had many late nights where our read aloud time is cut short or nonexistant. It also isn't a favorite of the kids'. Evelyn doesn't mind it but Quinn can't stand all of the "romance" and people "falling in love with each other" as he puts it. I think the story is awesome. I remember loving it as a kid but had forgotten much of the story. Either way it has helped them to get an understanding of Puritans and Quakers and the problems faced by the two groups back then.
• Evelyn's independant reading has consisted of: Ben Franklin of Old Philadelphia, Phoebe the Spy and several non-school related books.
• Quinn read Mr. Revere and I, Young George Washington, The 39 Clues 9 & 10, and is starting the trilogy The 100 Cupboards.
• We are having fun reading many old favorites to Leah such as Caps For Sale, Click Clack Moo and many others.
• For years we have LOVED Story Nory for free stories narrated by a wonderfully dramatic and enthusiastic storyteller named Natashia. It is well known in the homeschooling crowd but I just wanted to put a shout out in case anyone is looking for great stuff to put on their mp3 players. This past month we have been listening to The Christmas Carol and The Nutcracker as well as several other favorites of ours from StoryNory. Leah LOVES Natasha's version of The Three Little Pigs and laughs uncontrollably everytime the pigs say "chinny chin chin".
• We love the dramatized audio Bible Word of Promise and have been listening to the account of Jesus' birth from all four Gospels.

Math

• Quinn completed through lesson 20 in 5b. He is working on percents. Changing fractions to percents and percents to fractions and decimals to percents etc.... He has caught on quickly. Let's hope that after the break he will remember some!

• Evelyn is continuing a little more quickly through her book. She seems to be grasping the concepts a little more now. I have been having her do five minute math drills to help her pick up some speed with her math facts. Every correct answer earns her a minute on her DS later that day. A good reward considering video games are generally pretty limited during the week.

Writing

• We completed another unit III assignment. This time we did The Fox and the Crow. Both kids had fun with this one and it was a tad shorter than the last. I am thinking we will do one more Unit III after ther break then move on to Unit IV.

ART

Lots of self initiated creativity occured like usual as well as some Mark Kistler drawing lessons.

Evelyn drew Baggins and then decided to add the girl
looking in so taped on another piece of paper.

Quinn's boat from two perspectives from a Mark Kistler drawing lesson

Evelyn loves to draw people on stage in extravagent costumes.

Quinn likes to draw tanks, cannons and other things that fire!

Quinn also likes to draw scenes from video games.
This is from plants Vs. Zombies.











DANCE

Evelyn had her dance recital. Each age group performed a jazz routine and a ballet routine. Also one of their teachers performed. The kids really loved to watch one of their teachers dance.

RANDOM OTHER STUFF

Quinn made cookies for his CBS Christmas party

COOKIE DECORATING
Every year we have at least one cookie painting session. This year we had two. Once with friends.

 

 The kids attended a homeschool class on aviation at The McAuliffe Shepard Discovery Center. The 5th-8th graders got to use Flight Simulation programs and the 1st-4th graders did various projects to learn about planes and flight. They had a lot of fun.

 Leah and I amused ourselves for two hours during the classes. Her favorite activity was the Walk on the Sun.