What We've Learned: March and April 2014

Education is an Atmosphere

“I want to do great things for the kingdom.  Those great things, however, are loving, training, and teaching the greatest things in the kingdom – His children whom He has put under my care.  For such is the kingdom of God.” ~RC Sproul Jr.

 

 

Education is a Discipline

Over the past month or so, I’ve been working on tweaking our morning routine to run a little more smoothly.  This is tough for me because I am NOT a morning person and deal daily with the temptation to sit around in my pj’s doing nothing but reading and drinking coffee until 10am every.single.day. But I do see fruit in getting everyone going and keeping everyone moving along to the next thing in the mornings.  We are able to accomplish that which needs to be done with a better attitude, and it leaves us with more time to pursue those things we would like to do during the rest of the day.  So we’re working on it.

 

Part of this has entailed moving James towards independence with washing the breakfast dishes, with the goal of his being completely independent by the time he turns 6 in June.   We’ve been buddy washing for a long time, and I know he is capable of washing them well.  He’s a little prone to dawdling, however, and a little attached to having me right there.  So we’ve started talking about how he will be 6 soon, and when he’s 6 he’ll be a big boy and able to wash all by himself the way Michelle does at lunchtime, while I slowly start moving away to work on something else for a minute.   Why the push for James to be more independent with the dishes?  So that I can work with Elizabeth (just turned 4) on a basic morning routine (getting dressed, making her bed, etc).  This has been pretty spotty and haphazard up until now because I just couldn’t keep a good enough eye on her while trying to oversee everyone else.  If James can be more independent, then I can be more focused on her.

 

 

Also in the interest of improving our morning routine, I decided to give up computer time before chores, school, and some kind of devotional time are done during Lent.  I’ve tried to develop this discipline before and always failed….I do dearly love getting online and seeing what all my lovely Forum ladies have been chatting about over in North America while I’ve been sleeping on this side of the Atlantic. J   But trying to fit this internet time into the morning has generally meant a more rushed devotional time, kids who go do everything but what they are supposed to because Mama is distracted, and a slower (and therefore more frustrating) start to our school morning.   I found that the Lent aspect of it provided the motivation I needed to just.do.it this time, and I hope that now I have a habit I can stick with from now on.  It really does make a huge positive difference in our home when I can discipline myself to stay off the computer during the key ‘transition’ points of the day.

 

Miss Elizabeth and her dad with their winning pinewood derby car "Fish Out of Water" - just one of many fun family activities sponsored by our co-op this past month.

 

Education is a Life

April has been our Conference and Co-op Month, so we haven’t been in our normal homeschool routine.   (We did wrap up through AO Year 2, Week 9 before stopping for our break at the end of March, however.)  The way our co-op works is pretty unique due to our situation here, so I thought I’d share a little bit what 'co-op' looks like for us, and some of the highlights from this session for our kids.

 

Michelle with her co-op teacher - also our very dear family friend.

 Most homeschool co-op type groups meet once a week, but due to the fact that the majority of the homeschooling families in our mission community live somewhere outside of the city, meeting weekly isn’t possible.   So instead, we meet 3 times per year for 2-3 weeks at a time, long enough to make it worthwhile for those more remote families to travel into the city.   Families are asked to participate in at least 2 of the 3 sessions.  Our family prefers to skip the session in August and attend the sessions in December and April.   During these weeks, the homeschooled kids attend school with the children who attend our mission-run primary school full time.  For all of the students, however, they mix up the normal schedule and curriculum to make it possible for the homeschooled kids to participate in fun group activities that aren’t possible when homeschooling in a remote setting.   There are usually special history, science, and writing projects that are scheduled as well as fun things like sports, drama, art, and music.  Last December they did swimming.  This April’s session has included a study of the Renaissance for history and astronomy for science, music appreciation, drama, and baseball.  The little ones usually have the option to go to preschool twice a week during the session too.  A grand time was had by all, although we were more than ready to get back to “normal" when the session finished.

 

The Music class learned handbells or recorders - this is Michelle's group playing "Ode to Joy"

 

To be completely honest,  I don’t love this format.   This isn’t a Charlotte Mason or Classical friendly school, so I don’t always like the way that the academics are approached.  I don’t like that it eats several weeks out of our school year at home that I have to make up for somehow, meaning that we lose some of that flexibility that is a benefit of homeschooling.  I don’t love rushing to get Michelle out the door by 7:45 every morning, packing lunches, and dealing with homework.  And I always think I am going to be able to tackle all kinds of personal projects during this time, but between helping with various aspects of the session (parent involvement is expected) and still having my two littler ones at home with me, I actually find I have less time for such things than when we are homeschooling!  I debate with myself every single session if we really want to continue participating.  So why do we still do it?

 

The drama production was loosely based on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.  Michelle is the narrator between the two posts there.  Caesar is lying dead at her feet.

 

The biggest reason is because to not do it would be to cut myself off from our mission community.   As much of an independent spirit as I am, community is important – for me as a parent and for my children.   It provides me with an opportunity to serve, too.  I am a teacher by training and have a heart for MK education, especially to equip and encourage missionary parents who never wanted to homeschool but find themselves in the position of having to do so.  This is my opportunity to be able to do that…thus far in rather small ways, but who knows how God will work in the future?  This is also the main opportunity that our kids have to interact with children who don’t live in our city and participate in activities like swimming and drama.  I love that they can still do those things, even way out here in Africa.

 

Somebody got a little tired of being in the outfield during their final baseball game of the session!

 

And one other rather key thing…usually after two or three weeks of living the “school” life, I find myself so very grateful for the blessing it is to be able to homeschool my children.  Homeschooling – especially homeschooling using Charlotte Mason’s methods and Ambleside Online – has brought a great deal of richness to our family life.   On those tough homeschooling days, it can be easy to romanticize how nice it might be to just send my kids out the door every day.   Having to actually do it for three weeks always makes me more than ready to bring them back home again.  It makes me realize anew how much I really do like having them around all the time and how much I love learning and growing together with them.

 

 

And that’s priceless.

 

What have you been learning these past couple of months?

What We've Learned: February 2014

Education is an Atmosphere

“See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are.”  (1 John 3:1, NASB)

 

Alternative use for packing tubs...

Education is a Discipline

So, last month, we were still struggling to find a routine.  This month has gone much more smoothly due to several tweaks in our routine:

 

I wrote about our new evening routine here.   We’ve been following this routine for about 4 weeks now and it is still going really well.  It has made a huge difference in our evenings.  And now that we have a workable evening routine in place (read: our evenings aren’t totally in chaos anymore), I feel like we can tackle some of the related habits such as improved table manners, pleasant table-time talk, holding the older children more responsible for cleaning up their stuff thoroughly and without nagging, and more enthusiastic participation in our evening devotional time.

 

Monday mornings have also often been chaos around here, so that was the next thing that I wanted to tackle.  One of the nature study ideas I wanted to try this year was to have a meal-time outside on a regular basis.  However, it is often too hot to do this at noon for lunchtime, so I decided to try a breakfast picnic instead.  I chose Monday as the day because I thought this might provide a pleasant motivation to  get moving on a Monday morning as well as create less mess in the house to clean up so we can easily get started on the rest of our schoolwork when we come back in.   We’ve done this the past two weeks and I think we have another “keeper” in our routine.  We’ve taken a simple low-mess breakfast (hard boiled eggs, muffins, drinkable yogurts for the kids) out into the yard, enjoyed the cooler morning air, and taken some time for nature observations and journaling.  Very pleasant way to start the week.

 

Also, inspired by this post, I put our other “activity” subjects (drawing, paper sloyd, science experiments) into a looping schedule.  In a good week we can get to them all, but in a disrupted week we just carry over the extra to the following week rather than feeling grouchy because we missed out on drawing or science time AGAIN.   We’ve been much more successful hitting at least 2 of the three the last couple of weeks as well.

 

Papaya Leaf Dancing...

 

Education is a Life

Michelle – Age 8 – Year 2

We are already up through Week 6 of AO Year 2.  It’s going by quickly, and has been so very enjoyable.  Among other topics we have read about William the Conqueror, and much to Michelle’s dismay the Normans did indeed conquer the English.  She was dreadfully disappointed...although apparently this is a common sentiment among other Year 2 students.  J   As an adult, I knew what was coming of course, but I will admit that in my textbook-study of history, I had never thought of the Norman Conquest as a two-sided conflict.  And this, my friends, is why I love AO so much.  Michelle is likely never to forget the Norman Conquest because of how much she was drawn into the story, and I as an adult gained a new perspective on what was previously just a blip on a timeline.

 

Michelle has been reading Leif the Lucky, The Burgess Animal Book, and Understood Betsy independently and narrates all of them really well.   She is also making great strides into written narration.  She is keeping a notebook for the animals she reads about in BAB – after she narrates orally to me, she draws a sketch and writes a few sentences to tell what she has found interesting about one of the animals in that chapter.   Here is a recent entry:

 

Click on the picture to view it larger

 

She’s also enjoyed doing comic-style written narrations and completed this one of the first half of Leif the Lucky (she plans to do a second page to add to this when she completes the book, and a cover she tells me “so it’ll be a real book mama”):

 



Click on the photo to view it larger

 

I’m really pleased with her efforts.

 

Math – well, it goes. J  We have been working on subtraction with regrouping, counting coins (American and Cameroonian), and continual drill and practice on addition and subtraction facts.

 

We’ve also been doing drawing and paper sloyd (paper folding) projects, exploring properties of water with Science in the Beginning, memorizing a speech from Shakespeare (they ADORE Shakespeare!) and getting back into a nature study groove.

 

Showing off her paper sloyd envelope.  More on sloyd soon, I hope...

 

 

James – Age 5.5 – Year 0.5

James is a delightful student.   We enjoy our daily reading time together.  He has been reading to me from the Little Bear books. He has been enjoying all of the books I am reading to him, and especially Among the Farmyard People.  We’ve reached some very basic adding and subtracting in MEP 1A, and he continues to enjoy copying a sentence chosen from his reader each day.  I am still not requiring narrations, but on the occasions when he offers them they are very thorough and detailed.  In all, he is taking to his formal lessons quite well.  (Moving him towards independence with household chores, however, is another matter....)

 

Nature Journaling

 

Elizabeth – Age-Almost-Four – Year 0

Still the tagalong!   She will be 4 right before we break for Conference and Co-op at the end of the month, but when we get back to our homeschool routine at the end of April, I will pull out some of our alphabet manipulative stuff and start being a little more intentional about playing around with them with her.   Friends of ours with twins about the same age as she is also just offered to let her come over and do learning activities with them one morning each week.  She went the other morning and had a ball, and the rest of us got our work done with time to spare before lunch. J

 

Yet another little bookworm

 

Mama – Year 4, etc.

I am about three weeks into Term 2 of AO Year 4.   I added in Plutarch this term and am really enjoying it.   I started with Poplicola and am using Anne White’s highly recommended study guide.  I see why they are highly recommended – they really do make Plutarch  less intimidating.   I am also absolutely LOVING Genevieve Foster’s history book George Washington’s World.   I love how she weaves together bits of history from all over the world, and some of the little bits that she includes in each story are really interesting.   I’m really enjoying the biography of Abigail Adams too.  I’ve never read/heard much about her.   I’m getting the sense that although her culture and time dictated that she stayed behind the scenes, she really was very influential in the life of her husband, and therefore in the life of her nation.  As a “behind the scenes” kind of girl myself, I appreciate stories like this – you don’t have to be high-powered and out-in-front to make a difference.

 

I continue with The Iliad – Silvia had some lovely thoughts to share on our group reads over at the Forum.  And I’m continuing with Desiring the Kingdom – I really wanted to like this book, and it HAS given me good food for thought, but I am also finding it a little bit of a disappointment.  Smith raises good questions, but I'm not sure I like his approach to finding answers to them.  Anyhow.  The discussion and reading various perspectives on other’s blogs has been a good experience, though.  I’m still planning to finish it since I’m blogging it and all….but at the same time, I’m sort of chomping at the bit to move on to something else in this genre.   Maybe I’ll just read ahead of schedule, finish it, write a couple of posts on anything that strikes me to post in the appropriate weeks? (Is that cheating?) Charlotte Mason’s School Education and CS Lewis' An Experiment in Criticism and Vigen Guroian's Tending the Heart of Virtue and Laurie Bestvater’s The Living Page  (well, if my copy of it ever arrives rather than being LOST AT SEA!) are calling my name…..  (So many books, so little time...)

 

Oh and I finally downloaded some of the talks from the 2013 Circe Conference when they had a special a few weeks ago: good, good stuff.

 

What happens when Mama passes over the camera to the 8-year-old so she can take pictures of nature specimens that interest her....

 

What have you been learning in your family?

What We've Learned: January 2014

Education is an Atmosphere

“God saved you to sanctify you.  God is in the beautification business, washing away spots and smoothing out wrinkles.”

~Kevin deYoung, The Hole in our Holiness

 

Family life is truly a crucible for sanctification.  It is here that I am made most aware of my wrinkles, and most aware of my need to depend on Him.

 

 

Education is a Discipline

We’ve been back to school for about 4 weeks after 2 weeks of co-op in December and 2 weeks of Christmas Break.  It’s taken us about that long to get back into anything resembling a normal routine – in actuality we’re still trying to get there.  This week probably won’t be the week….but maybe next?  One can hope, right?

 

That said I’ve been thinking a lot about habits and routines lately.  Some of this inspired by this blog post, and some by our discussion of Desiring the Kingdom.   Perhaps my goal should be to take some time over the next month to think through what our goals should be. J

 

 

Education is a Life

Reading to Keep Cool

 Michelle (Age 8 – Grade 2 – Ambleside Online Year 2)

After Christmas, we truncated the last 6 weeks of Year 1 into 3, which worked out fine because the reading schedule was pretty light.  We did exams again, and I was pleased with the results.  The favorite book of the term turned out to be Viking Tales.  (Even I was rather fascinated to realize that it was the Vikings from Norway that settled Normandy, and from there went on to conquer England.)  Here are her exam questions and answers relating to that book:

Tell the story of Gyda’s saucy message and what Harald had to do before she would become his wife. (Viking Tales)

His uncle went to Gyda with a lot of men, but she said she would not marry Harald until he was King of all Norway.  So he had to fight and fight until there was no one else to fight with.

 

Why was Harald known first as Harald Shockhead and then as Harald   Hairfair? (Viking Tales)

Gyda sent a saucy message and Harald said he would not cut his hair or even comb it until he was king of all Norway.  So as he had not cut or combed it, his hair stuck out on every side of his head.  After he had fought for a long time, he said he was king of all Norway so he washed his hair and combed it and the Earl cut his hair.  And then they said he wasn’t going to be called Harald Shockhead anymore, but be called Harald Hairfair.

 

We have since started Year 2, this time pretty much completely as written with the exception of the fact that we are using Little Pilgrim’s Progress instead of the real thing (we’re saving that for next year) and we switched the order of Seabird and Tree in the Trail because Seabird we already had, and Tree is still on the Slow Boat. J   I have assigned Michelle to read Leif the Lucky, The Burgess Animal Book, and Understood Betsy independently this term, so we’ll see how that goes.  Her narrations from this first week were quite good.   I am really excited about this Year – so many wonderful books in there!

 

In Math U See Beta, we’ve completed through Lesson 19 and will start multi-digit subtraction next week.  The past couple weeks we have been doing big column addition problems with numbers in the hundreds and thousands and have learned some good lessons in being careful with our work and finding ways to make 10’s, a very helpful strategy when adding big columns with 4 or 5 numbers.  We have also been playing around with money – both American currency using RightStart games and Cameroonian currency via keeping track of her allowance.

 

Michelle continues to enjoy playing around with words – we’ve been doing little bits of spelling and grammar and she seems to really enjoy both of these things (she actually asks if/when we are going to do them!)  Nature study is one of those things that’s gotten left off in the quest of getting back into a routine, but they have enjoyed informally observing our pet mice!  Some of my goals for her for this coming term are including more map work with our history and geography readings and upping the amount of writing that she is doing a little bit.  (Yes, she is a bit on the young side by CM standards, but she is more than ready and capable which I think is a more important rule of thumb than an arbitrary age.)

 

Reading by headlamp

 

James (Age 5-1/2 – Advanced Pre-K – Year .5)

I just shared about James’ Year .5 plan here.   We are really enjoying our time together each day. 

 

Reading is more fun with a friend

 

Elizabeth (Age 3-1/2 – Along for the Ride – Ambleside Online Year 0)

Elizabeth often sits in on James’ Year .5 readings…or else she goes outside to play.  We are blessed to have lots of little preschoolers running around our compound these days. J  She loves doing poetry with us though, and always wants a turn to recite.  We occasionally do a page from a Rod and Staff preschool workbook, and I’m thinking about getting some alphabet manipulatives out for her to play around with sometime soon.   She definitely has a fascination with the letter “A” (the first letter of her real name) and the number 3!  Those are hers.  She is also always asking “why?”, and sometimes her questions completely stump me.  (“Why is that a carrot, mama?  Why is grandma your mom, mama?”)

 

Shoot, even the pets read at our house...

 

Mama (Age ?? – Always Learning – Ambleside Online Year 4)

I just finished reading through Term 1 of Year 4.  My surprise favorite has been Robinson Crusoe.  I never in a hundred years would have picked up this book to read on my own – guy stranded for almost 30 years on a deserted island?  No thanks! – but I am so glad that AO included it in the curriculum.  This book is packed full of insights about God’s care, God’s sovereignty, gratitude, and far more.  I’m looking forward to reading and discussing this one with my kids when they get to that point.  Next week, I’ll start Term 2, and am adding Plutarch to my reading list this time around.

 

Aside from my AO reading, I have also been enjoying The Iliad with the Forum book discussion group – not only is it an exciting, epic adventure, it is also an interesting observation of human nature.   And several of us have noted that reading about the capricious nature of the Greek gods makes us more grateful for our True God who is Good, Sovereign over all things, and Unchanging.

 

What have you been learning?

What We've Learned - October through the first week of December 2013

Education is an Atmosphere

Philippians 4:4-9 (NASB)

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!  Let your gentle spirit me known to all men.  The Lord is near.  Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Finally brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on those things.  The things which you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

 

Moving Morning Tea Time and Nature Journaling outside for a change!

 

Education is a Discipline

I’ll be honest, we’ve REALLY fallen off the habits bandwagon these last two months.   My husband was gone for 10 days, we had a houseguest for 3.5 weeks (albeit a really lovely one!), and have had back to back minor illnesses ever since.  And quite honestly, I am weary and struggling a bit with motivation. Sometimes it’s just tiring to be constantly vigilant over our children’s habits (and our own!), you know?  Anyhow, we are on a 4 week break from our normal routine now…2 weeks of co-op and swimming lessons and 2 weeks for the holidays (which we anticipate being quiet – no big plans or travels)….so I’m hoping we will be able to reboot in this category.  

 

 

Education is a Life

Michelle – Age 8 – Grade 2

Since I last checked in with a what we’ve learned post, we completed AO Year 1 Term 2 and did exams for the first time.   We’ve since completed the first 6 weeks of Term 3.  (After break, I’m planning to speed up the remaining 6 weeks of Year 1 so we are finished by the end of January and ready to start Year 2!)  We are enjoying our new history read, Viking Tales, but she misses Fifty Famous Stories which isn’t scheduled this term.  After struggling with Parables from Nature for the first 2 terms, we have finally hit a stride with that book as well and really enjoyed our last assigned reading from this book.  Taking the time to define a couple of key vocabulary words before we started and spreading it over the whole week rather than only one or two sections helped a lot!

 

In Math U See Beta, we have completed through Lesson 16.   We’ve covered addition with regrouping through the thousands, addition with money (use of the decimal point), measuring with inches, perimeter, and place value out to hundred-thousands.  I’m pleased with the progress we are making.  We are using Calculadder (written speed drills) and The Verbal Math Lesson (oral drills) for facts review and practice and occasionally playing one of the RightStart money games.  (Since we live outside the United States, she doesn’t have the same type of practical experience working with American money as your average American does, and the money here works much differently since 500 CFA is only about $1 – so  working with money here involves much larger numbers.  Hence the extra practice.)

 

In our group time we have particularly enjoyed the addition of folksongs (following the AO rotation here – we’ve covered “The Three Ravens” and “On Ikla Moor Bah’tat” thus far).   We finished Dangerous Journey and have moved on to Little Pilgrim’s Progress, and Shakespeare continues to be a highlight all around.   We completed the first unit of Science in the Beginning which covered the properties of light.

 

She does a lot of her schoolwork standing up - probably a good thing that she's not in a traditional classroom most of the time.

 

James – Age 5.5 – “Unofficial” Kindergarten

I haven’t done much in the way of formal lessons with James over the past few weeks, which is fine.   Part of the reason we decided to wait until he was 6 to really start school was to avoid some of the pushing and fighting that happened because I started Michelle on formal lessons when she was too young.  That said, however, he has really taken off with reading on his own – he is easily reading Dr Seuss type books on his own.  He’s also taken to drawing after I pulled out a couple of how-to-draw books.   He’s even starting to offer (voluntarily!) some simple narrations and opinions about things that we’ve read.   So there’s lots still happening in that mind of his, even if formal lessons have been on hold for the last little bit. J

 

Watercolor painting has been a favorite table-time activity for my little ones lately.

 

Elizabeth – Age 3.5 – Tagging Along

She has made big progress in being able to join in our group time without being too disruptive, which is huge.  I need to rethink how to include her more in other aspects of our morning though…she’s often asking me to do a puzzle or a workbook page with her and this has sort of wormed its way out of our schedule.   More reasons why we need a break to regroup. J

 

Not sure what's up with the cheesy grin...

 

Mama – AO Year 4

I’m partway through Week 9 and although it’s been a bit slower going that I would like, I’m still really enjoying my study.  I’m beginning to understand even more what a true living books education looks like – it goes far deeper than covering various subject matters in a literary form. (Perhaps this is part of what separates Charlotte Mason from other forms of literature-based schooling?)  It is the ideas – the wisdom and truth – that lay below the surface.  Robinson Crusoe has given me lots to think about gratitude and how God works in our lives.  This is far more than just an adventure story about a guy that gets shipwrecked on a desert island.  While the older science books like The Storybook of Science and Madam How and Lady Why might need a bit of supplementation with updated information, they offer a way of looking at the world with wonder and curiosity that you don’t find in a modern textbook.  It’s a beautiful thing to see and to experience.

 

Michelle snagged my camera the other day, so you get a rare photo of me too. :)

Something New to Us This Year: Exams

Last month, we completed Ambleside Online Year 1, Term 2 and conducted an exam for the first time.   I opted not to do any exams at the end of Term 1 because we were still transitioning, and I admit I was a little scared about how they would go.   I was really pleased with the results for this first exam, however, so I thought I’d share a bit about how we did it.

 

As you will see when you read the exam questions below,  the idea behind a Charlotte Mason style exam isn’t necessarily to get a “score” or to try to get the child to regurgitate a certain number of facts.  There is no review and no preparation before the exam is given, nor does the child see the questions ahead of time.   Instead the focus is on what the child knows.   Our exam was given almost entirely orally, so in many ways it was really a casual conversation.  Other aspects of the “exam” were not given formally at examination time, but I did make note of the progress we’ve made in such subjects as math, French, memory work, etc.   In the end, we have a nice record of what we studied and the progress that was made this past term. An exam can also help us determine what things are going well for us, and what areas are not going well so we can consider changing our approach over the coming term.

 

My examination questions were based on the exam questions provided at Ambleside Online, although I added to and changed some of them to cover more definitively what we’ve been doing since we’ve made some minor changes to the Year 1 reading list.  It also reflects that my Year 1 student is older (8 and not 6, and therefore more advanced in most of the skill subjects than a Year 1 student in their first formal year of school.)  Here are the exam questions that I ended up using:

 

AO Year 1, Term 2 Exam for Michelle (age 8) – administered October 28, 2013

 

Mathematics

Describe progress through math program and topics covered.  Attach most recent exam.

 

Language Arts

Write three sentences, one to show the correct use of “to”, one of “too” and one of “two”.

Write from dictation: Tom went canoeing on a smooth western lake.

Attach one writing sample from this term.

Provide a list of independent reading completed

 

Memory Work

Make a list of memory work completed this term.

 

Tales

Tell your favorite scene from Dangerous Journey, or about your favorite Shakespeare play.

Tell the story of Grace Darling.

 

History

Tell how the Giant’s Dance was brought to England, or how Arthur became king.

Tell about Gregory and the Pretty Children.

 

Geography

Tell some of the interesting things you learned about the Arctic or Antarctic this term.   Would you want to live there? Why or why not?

Look at a blank map with mom.  Tell the name of each continent (7) and each ocean (5).

Tell how you might tell direction from looking at the sky.

 

Natural History and General Science

Tell everything you can remember about your favorite nature discovery this term.

What is the most interesting African animal that you read about this term?  Tell why it was interesting.

Tell why a black object will get warmer than a white object.

 

Picture Study

Describe your favorite picture from this term’s picture study.  What did you like about it?

 

Handicrafts

Show a sewing project and a drawing project to someone outside your family.

 

French

Describe progress in The Learnables French program.

 

And here are a few samples of answers that were given.  With the exception of language arts and the items that I simply noted progress in, the exam was given orally, so this is a transcription of the answers she gave.

 

History: Tell about Gregory and the Pretty Children.

A man named Gregory was walking through the marketplace when he saw some children.  When he saw the chains about their necks, he figured out they were slaves to be sold.  So he made up his mind to buy them and teach them about Jesus.  He wanted to go out and teach the rest of the people of Britain but the people loved Gregory so much that they wouldn’t let him.  So he sent Augustine (not the same one as in the Augustine book).  The first time, they ran home.  But they set out again and the next time they reached England.

 

Tales: Tell the story of Grace Darling.

She was a brave girl.  When they saw some people drowning trying to keep above water, she wanted to save them.  But her father said that the waves were too strong, but she wanted to try at least.  So they tried and they succeeded and they brought them to their lighthouse where they were cared for and let them go to their homes after the storm stopped.

 

Natural History: Tell everything you can remember about your favorite nature discovery this term.

Two banana trees sprouted.  The younger ones look like they are growing pretty well.  They are bigger than they were before.  We also saw some Madagascar periwinkles.  They are almost pink in the middle.  I also found a quartz rock.

  

Handicrafts: Show a sewing project and a drawing project to someone outside your family.

           

A recent drawing project – I am pleased to see how she is developing an eye for perspective, and also used some of the ideas about overlapping we had talked about recently as we have worked through Drawing with Children.

 

 

Two recent sewing projects – a wallet and a potholder.   Both of these were taken from ideas in the book Sewing School, which I can highly recommend.   She’s done 4 or 5 projects from this book completely on her own now, with very minimal help from me.

 

Language Arts: Attach one writing sample completed this term.

 

 

Here is a notebook page from this past term – this is basically a very simple written narration of a portion of “The Unknown Land” from Parables from Nature.

 

Overall, I was pleased with the results.  Her narration skills are really blossoming!!   I was interested to see that the questions she gave less-detailed answers too were nearly all substitute books I had brought in which makes me think they just aren’t as good as the AO selections, and perhaps I should just stick with AO as it is written! J  Based on the results of this exam, I am looking to change a bit my approach to geography and French, and add in some extra practice with money for math.   But overall, I got the sense from these exams that we are making good progress and are generally on the right track!

 

Do you do exams in your home?  I’d love to see how you do them too!