My homeschool updates become fewer and fewer. One year I posted monthly, another every two months... this year, you get a year-end post with fewer pictures. As I add more students to my line-up, I have less time for other things and we devote more time to school. But here's a little peak at our year...

Some Favourite Chapter Books & Series:

   

   

 

 

This year, we have been working our way through the Chronicles of Narnia series. We also did a lot of reading aloud with our Canadian history (most of which is undocumented because we're done for the year and the vast majority were library books). Emilie is really enjoying all the Little House picture books and the Fairchild Family series. 

Catechism/Religion:

Along with our trusty Baltimore Catechism and Saint Joseph First Communion Catechism, these were some of our favourite books to study and learn about our faith and the Mass this year.

Math:

Math. Lots of Math. Not a whole lot of pictures to show it. Lots of speed drills. Joseph focused on multiplication, division, and intro to fractions. John Paul focused on money, addition/subtraction facts, learning borrowing, and much more. Emilie learned to write her numbers and did tons of hands-on math with blocks and patterns.

English:

The kids have really improved their reading, writing, spelling, and grammar skills. 

Joseph has a great handle on sentence diagramming and the two of us have even taken to using a computer program for testing our skills. He has read well over 100 books and developed a love for history and fantasy. He has greatly improved as a writer and even finds himself enjoying writing projects some of the time! 

John Paul is our funny story-teller and enjoys making surprise endings and decorating his sentences with smiley-faces or doodles. He has excelled as a reader and recently read his first three Nate the Great books in one afternoon before begging me to order some more from the library. 

Emilie has been tracing and making her own alphabet letters for months now and making her mother wonder how I will possibly supply all the workbooks necessary to keep this girl going once she actually begins Kindergarten. She is my first keen "workbook" student.

And Jude occasionally decides to read quietly by himself for a few minutes, thereby giving us a break from his wild escapades that daily, hourly, minutely interrupt our school day.

Here are some funny samples of John Paul's work:

History: 

This was our year for studying Canadian history and we went hard core. I have borrowed dozens and dozens of books from the library and Joseph has read just tons of fiction/non-fiction titles. These are a fraction of what we looked at throughout the year, as well as a small sample of our history notebook pages. I'm so happy our kids love history like I do. They told me all year "history's not really school, it's fun!"

From taking online tours of the Fortress of Louisburg and Barkerville, B.C.; to reading the story of how Madeline de Vercheres defended her family's fort on the Saint Lawrence with just an old soldier and her two young brothers against the Iroquois; to discussing the morality of the early explorers when they kidnapped and took Natives back to Europe; to mapping the explorations of David Thompson, Alexander Mackenzie, and Simon Fraser on the west coast; to following the settlement of Western Canada and the founding of the RCMP... we have covered so much. It's really been an awesome year. 

Geography:

We have some more work to do on our Canadian Geography, but because it was so intertwined with our history studies we got a lot of map study done. On one occasion, I borrowed a massive historical atlas of Canada from the local library, much to the surprise of the librarian. We wanted to see the actual maps that Samuel Champlain and David Thompson made! These have been a few of our resources we've used for provincial work as well.

Music/Arts:

Every year this looks a little different. We do a lot of cross-curricular work, so it's in our history, religion, or science. We love to pull out our pastels and watercolours. But it's not always as "organized" as it was in the past when I had only little kids (and a library program to attend if we wanted). 

We did some picture study, listened to stories about composers and read their lives; we memorized poetry and Scripture; we read a children's version of Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night Dream and memorized parts from the play; we built a lot of Lego, including gothic churches (because "architecture" right?). 

Joseph and John Paul took Suzuki piano lessons and excelled. Emilie has decided to compose her own little piano pieces (she is decidedly not a prodigy, but it's cute none-the-less). 

Science:

We studied light and sound; rocks, minerals, erosion; electricity and magnetism. The kids did a ton of "scientific" study for fun and interest, not thinking of it as "school." This is another one of those subjects that isn't considered school in our house. Our favourite experiment was when we harnessed potato power to set off a beeper -- and it worked! Another fun activity involved mapping out all the natural resources in our province and seeing the patterns emerge, then studying where and how our potash, diamond, and other mines work.

  

As we ease into summer, I'm focusing a lot more on lower elementary and read-aloud science. One of my favourite authors to pull from is Gail Gibbons. Even as a adult, there's always something to learn from a picture book! These are just a few of the titles we are pouring over:

And finally, we did our end-of-year party last night with an awesome BBQ pizza and traditional root beer floats. It's been quite a year! Thumbs up to that.

Homeschool Notes: November/December

It's been a busy few months. BUT I have few photos to document all the wonderful stuff we've done and the milestones our little students have achieved.

Morning Basket
Poetry: "Bed in Summer" by Robert Louis Stevenson, "The Village Blacksmith" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Sea Fever" by John Masefield.

Read-alouds:

 

Math

Highlights: Joseph mastering his multiplication tables, including a very decent understanding so far of double-digit multiplication. John Paul finishing his Kindergarten math book (!) and beginning work on grade 1.

Language Arts

Highlights: Joseph finished reading 50 chapter books. John Paul finished Lesson 50 in 100 Easy Lessons. Both boys have Reading 100 charts. They each had a Tim Hortons treat date with Mom for completing half their goal!

Social Studies

Highlights: Spain, Holland & Italy

Spain: Reading Anno's Spain and Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Studying famous painters and imitating Van Gogh's "Starry Night". Watching YouTube videos of the Alhambra, Gaudi's architectural masterpieces, and a Catalonian human tower. 

   

 

Holland: Reading The Winged Watchman. Learning about the importance of windmills and how the Dutch drained the land.

  

Italy: Studying famous Italian art and artists: Michelangelo, Botticelli, Da Vinci, and Raphael. Touring the Vatican, Venice, and Rome via videos and books.

  

  

Unfortunately, international cuisine nights are slightly boring because of my limited diet for Jude, but we're still trying to get a bit of a cultural experience and still enjoying our efforts.

We read Canada at War and reenacted famous WWI battles on Remembrance Day.

For Advent, we continued our traditions of the Jesse Tree, our wreath, and unwrapping a Christmas book every day to read. The kids got chocolate coins, candy canes, and books from St Nicholas. We celebrated the Immaculate Conception twice: a trip to Saskatoon for a beautiful Latin Mass and then our own parish feast day Mass. The boys have a new job caring for our refurbished candle stand at church and love lighting new candles and replacing old ones. We celebrated Our Lady of Guadalupe by making a brand new icon and having a special Mexican feast. 

We're continuing to celebrate Christmas and enjoying evenings singing carols in the light of our tree before going to bed. We watched It's a Wonderful Life! with the kids. 

It truly is a wonderful life!