Weekly Review - 17th July- 7th August

Well this is the third time I have attempted to record out Week in review. i use the term week in review very loosely now. First off I lost my week in review (a very long detailed post) and then the other weeks I started and then did not finish. So her is a round up again, sigh!!

We had a very good week initially with getting work going. I was especially pleased that we still had Anna-Lisa here and we were trying to get everyone back on track with lessons.

I was and have been fairly happy with Moran and Myffwyn's lessons. We have really been doing a lot of  letters and work sheets and not really that much in creativity. I have introduced the Christopherus 1st Grade Curriculum into our work and this has a very quick introduction to learning the letters of the Alphabet.
They girls have loved the story and the chalk board pictures I have done to illustrate the letters, most of which have been review letters from our Alphabet Path.

 We have also introduced some nursery rhymes that I used with the older children that we have on tape. I just randomly put this on one day and the children have loved memorising the songs. It was also a trip down memory lane for me. However it also has great action songs which Corbyn especially loves too.

We have varied from day to day the amount of work done and books read, partly due to them playing other games and partly because I was tending the baby or not quite organised at the time.

Moran has taken a real interest in recognising letters though and when we brought back new library books last week she quickly claimed a book to 'read through' which involved looking for letters she has learned.

I have also been trying to blend letters together but she struggles with this blending and really needs a lot of work to 'remember' how to do this each day. Myffwyn I am sure know how to do this but is much more interested in still being a little girl and not putting in the effort that I think she can. I tend to think her a little lazy with this.

Rogan has greatly improved (perhaps matured) over the last month or more. He is getting up very early to achieve an early start and therefore finish time for all his work. I am greatly impressed with his diligence and the quality of work he is doing. He has also seems to finally have a desire and love of reading. I was thinking this would never come for him but once again it just needs the right type of books: for him The Mismantle Chronicles.

Vellvin as ever is very diligent in all her work, she rarely does not complete her assigned work for the day and  even gets work done when others are not as motivated. Vellvin is making progress in each of her areas but maths still is the one area that she has more difficulty in.

Saxon has I think been the most distracted in his work over the month or so since starting back. He seems to find the fact that starting later a bit of an detriment to finishing work. He does have better days than others with this but can be quited distracted with other things. However unlike many of his siblings Saxon LOVES maths and would do this as his only subject if allowed too. He is intense with all his work (and play and thus life itself) and so can be totally absorbed in the lesson if he has enough interest in it.

Eden has done a lot of good work over the last month or so but can get bogged down in her understanding of a maths point and then spend too much time on it and not finish other work. This then makes her quite distressed at not completing the other work, especially her favourite subjects. Eden however does read more than her fair share of books and finished three new Redwall books in 2 days. She would have finished sooner but I did require some other input into family life.

Autumn is working hard  especially on her Literature and  Apologetics.
She is my Elementary helper with the younger children but depending on her mood that day she is better at it than others.
Autumn is currently trying  to work out what it is she wants to do with her life and I think this is a little irritating for her as well as frustrating and thus this can affect the amount of work she does and also her motivation.

We have also started two read alouds.
The Penderwicks at Point Mouette which we are reading together at night and Beezus and Ramona which is our lunch time read aloud along with the children's bible, as we have a sit down lunch together.


In the afternoons we have been doing a 1/2 hour exercise walk together (myself included) and most of us have been doing some sort of craft work, mostly knitting or crocheting when we can find the time.


Of course free reading especially of those new and library books has been high on the list of preferred free time choices


And last but not least we have been watching The Victorian Farm and The Edwardian Farm and have learned a great deal about farming and household tips, not to mention the time period too.


Oh, I nearly forgot, some of the children have started to make Christmas gifts already and I am working on my list too.


Hoping to have a review at the end of this week.

Blessings,

Weekly Review - 10th July

At the moment with the children they are working on the revised plans we worked on after Trahaearn's birth. These have been not completed fully each day even so as we have had an influx of appointments and visitors that tend to disrupt things even if the intention is still there to complete a full day of lesson work.

However as usual the trend to read more and do other activities becomes more evident when there is more free time so to speak.
I am looking into the term unschooling and how this may apply to us, as I do see that although structure is a must in a large family that this can also stifle creativity with too many activities for lessons and the resulting general lifestyle chores etc.

We need to address the fact that DVD watching has become more active in the home with older and younger children alike. Although I monitor computer games a lot and this is not a big thing with the children anyway, the older girls tend to spend too much time just browsing on blogs and random computer time. This needs to be cut back as well.

I also notice that without a routine (which is life at the moment) that Vellvin especially stresses over the lack of accomplishment of the lesson check off list and this comes into other aspects of her day.

Early rising has been non existent since Trahaearn's birth and the little ones start their day with no structure as I have not organised anything and am still in bed with him. The oldest girls and Saxon are not up either and only Vellvin and Rogan are up to help with the little ones, thus resulting in stress levels again for all.

The non structure has not helped Corbyn and Moran with he sensory issues they have and Moran needs more structure for her development ability. This is resulting in behavioural issues that need to be addressed as well. They tend to view all the time as free time and are not keen to do their learning, as I am otherwise occupied with the baby while doing the lessons it is harder to enforce this .

Even though we still have Ann-Lisa visiting it will be a full return to the revised lesson plan tomorrow the 11th  (even though we have sick flu children).

I realise I have not posted the plans we worked out (for our own benefit and records) and will attempt to do this today with the daily chore list as well.

Hoping to get weekly review happening again this week.

Blessings,

A Very Vague Update

Well I am finally doing an updated post to my poor neglected Learning Blog.

Since starting lessons  this year I actually have found it hard to keep on top on the plans I made, mostly for the little ones. The progress of the little girls reading was not to my satisfaction and I am disappointed in what I achieved with them.
It is a constant battle for me to vary the creative side (my Alphabet Path ideas) and the actual more fundamentals of learning to allow the balance to happen.
I am trying and have been over this week to balance this a bit more and will be posting more achievements for the little ones soon as well.

Our older children have waxed and waned with their enthusiasm for the prepared lessons and the completion of these has varied too form week to week.

Partly this has been due to my lack of energy during my pregnancy, frankly it hasn't been until after Trahaearn was born that I recognised how tired I had been.

This seemed to not help the focus of the older children and the completion of set work. Especially towards the end of my pregnancy when most of the time was anticipation of the baby coming home and waiting for this to happen.

However I do know that the 'extra' things they attempted and achieved were quite numerous.
We had many books read, crafts attempted and completed and lots of games and outdoor time in the warmer weather.

We have adjusted our learning and chore schedules to help ease into the new life we have with our baby and I am hoping to get back to regular and more complete weekly reviews.

Blessings,

Weekly Review 1st - 5th March

This week we had a very busy, interesting and intense week.
We actually managed a couple of field trips .

The first was to the Imaginarium which is the small science Museum in our town.
The children all really enjoyed the puzzle theme they had at the moment and racing the T-Rex to see if they could get eaten.
There is a Dinosaur Exhibition in May they are all keen to go to.
On Saturday we went to the Gowrie Park Rodeo and saw some close up views of the animals and the Rodeo competitors.

As to formal lessons the older children were very committed to finishing their work for the week.

The older children have really liked the change to GramarLand and Stories of the Saints.
They continue to keep up the pace with History of the World studies and The History of Science. The History of Science is a more involved study that they are going well with.
Science experiments continue to be well liked and they are recording thee well in their books. Rogan especially loves these.

Latin is going well and Eden is the only one who isn't really keen on it.
All the Art lessons are progressing well. I can see an improvement in all the children's work and they are all enjoying this, especially Saxon still.

Nature Journal entries are very involved and they are real works or art and observation.

Geography has continued to be a very popular topic and all the children have progressed with their learning .

Maths seems to be a slight challenge for Eden and Vellvin. Saxon and Autumn seem to be managing the Maths challenge at this stage.
Rogan's math is a challenge for me as I find I don't have a lot of explaining time and am hoping to get some Math U See for him to use. Which would allow me not to be involved in the explaining process.

Autumn loves her Logic and has completed about half of the book but Saxon isn't that keen and tends to leave it till last.

We still haven't fine tuned the Reading/quiet time and our Scribbling Squires and Orchard House Circle activities yet. Hopefully this week.

The little girls finished "G Week" in Along the Alphabet Path. We read a lot of stories again and spent time in a "Table Top Activity Day".
I am planning a review week this coming week of the Letter A-G with a lot of writing and using different methods to check how much they actually know.

Blessings,

Weekly Review 22nd-26th February

Well as I am posting this on Thursday the main things I remember from last week is that we had to change a couple of resources.

The Introduction to Classical Studies just wasn't working for Saxon Velllvin and Eden. It was very time consuming and they really didn't like the Greek Myths stuff at all.

The other change was in Grammar. We had bought Simply Grammar as one of the first books for Homeschooling back in ...... This is the forth time I have tried it with the children and it just doesn't work for our children.
So we are now using until we finish it, Grammar Land by M. L. Nesbitt. This is more to the children's liking as well.

The younger ones are going well with the Alphabet Path but I still need to get their other work moving along better.

Rogan still struggles with independent work as he would rather be doing what the younger ones do or play still.

Autumn, Eden, Saxon and Vellvin as well as Rogan are really enjoying their Art work. I am especially pleased with Rogan's increased ability and not it only is Saxon improving in Sketching as well but he actually LOVES it. This is a dramatic change in attitude for Saxon and it goes to show that you just need to find the right type of Art work to begin with.

Geography, Science and History are still going really well. Math is difficult for some on some days and not on others. Poetry, spelling, Latin and Music seem to be going at a reasonable progress.

All in all we still need to keep on track with finishing work but the older ones especially are committed to their lessons each day and are progressing well.

Blessings,

Weekly Review 16th - 20th February 2010

Well, last week wasn't a great week at all.
Mostly we were in survival mode with illness in the house Emergency trips to the hospital.
Picking up Kynan on Monday, shopping and taking Moran for a blood test

Not much to report except that we read some books aloud and the well children played Risk for most of the week, on and off. Assigned reading was done and any crafts and then nursing and cleaning that needed doing by well people.
The little ones did bits and pieces of F Week stuff even though we had officially finished.

Our night routines were shattered mostly but we did not watch any DVD's during the week at all.

I'd love to make it sound better but this is real life so.....

Blessings,

Weekly Review 8th - 12th February 2010

This second week of lessons for us had the older children really working hard to keep up to date with the weekly list of work.
Most of the kinks have been worked out of the schedules and finding resources.
They have enjoyed the Geography programme I have for them and still loving the History.
Some of the children are going very well with the Human Body study and their Latin. Others know they need to put in a little more effort. You know who you are!

The older ones have found it tiring with the extra work to be done and getting it done along with everyday life. Needless to say we have not got an actual cleaning schedule started yet.....clean as you go is the way at the moment.

Autumn created flash cards for the bones of the body...very creative idea honey. Well Done.

I have to still get Rogan's work all set out how I am going to do this.

As I have had to drive and pick up Braedon with work this week with Kynan away , this has made it a bit hard to keep the little girls work happening on the plan we had set up.
Bedtime routine is going well most nights but really requires a lot of preparation and planning to make it work well. However if we miss it Corbyn especially asks for 'milk and toast."

We have finished "F Week" as much as we will. WE did not cover most of what I wanted but both the girls can write and recognise the letter so we will move on to G Week next week.
We did complete some fun activities, read lots of books and said lots of finger plays and songs.
We did not do a lot of written or colouring in work this time.
The girls really enjoyed this time together and I can see them mastering the letters with this approach.

We did try to make play doh (missing a vital ingredient, so was postponed till today) and made edible paint to finger paint with so we could 'finger paint' for F Week.

We still haven't manged to get our afternoon sessions of Orchard House Circle or Scribbling Squires happening or Poor Box toys.

We did attempt to participate in Our Lady of Lourdes celebration but it didn't go well......a very bad day in other respects.

I noticed that it is very different again with the added situation of Kynan being away. I need to get Braedon driving so we are not just dependent on me driving when Kynan and Stephen are not here.

We have swapped Saxon and Eden on daily chores. Saxon is back on morning tea as he is a reliable early riser and Eden is now on washing, she does a great job on this too.

That is all I can remember at the moment.

Blessings,

Weekly Review 10th - 5th February 2010

As we are starting a new school year here I am going to try to keep a weekly review/overview of what we did each week.
This being the start we were allowing the whole week to iron out any kinks in the schedules we had prepared. We discovered that there were a few kinks in time management of the organising of getting everything covered.

Autumn seemed to have her time which she planned by herself thought out carefully and had allowed Friday to be an easy day.

Eden got caught up in her Grammar story and so was behind in other work because of it. She also did not understand about splitting up the 1 week worth of work into 2 or more parts, especially history.

Saxon seemed to be all over the shop and not being able to focus on the getting done of the major points. Very unlike him. I wonder if the 5.30am starts are too much for him at the moment?

Vellvin seemed to have a similar problem to Eden in not understanding the breakdown of the tasks into time management phases.

I think I will have to help them re organise some of the wok.

Rogan was keen and did a lot of work compared to last year but I need to have everything organised for him. I am considering having a work basket approach for him.
Note to self- have a look at Lynn's stuff

All the children were very keen and said they enjoyed the subjects very much. They especially like the History of the world.
Note again. See if we can get an audio book of this especially for Rogan.

Some of the subjects did not happen:
~ music practise, we have a broken piano keyboard cord (as of start of term), I need to source a new one.
~ we did not get Orchard House Circle or Scribbling Squires happening or quiet time with reading in the afternoon.

I was pleased with the breakfast routine and the learning that is happening in covering our faith and prayers along with the singing of hymns.

Moran, Myffwyn and Corbyn did not get as good a start as I would have liked as I was helping the older ones with sorting out which books to use for subjects as well as how to do this and that.

We did get some of our F week activities done and did some candle dipping for Candlemass. We read stories (more than these as well) and did some of Moran's and Arwen's OT exercises.

I need to get better at making these happen in the day.

Our new night time routine has gone well most nights and I have done some craft with Autumn and some special time making potato people with Myffwyn especially.

I did sense some unsettledness with Moran and need to give her some more one on one attention I think.

Another idea is to make sure that we ALL get up early enough to get a great early start.

All in all I am happy with how the week went and the children were too. They are keen to get things rolling at an even better pace and order next week.

Blessings,

Weekly Review 18 Sept - 9th October

Well this is hardly a weekly review is it?

Any way we have been very on and off with our progress
This week the older children started out very strong on the assigned work for the week.
However as we had feast days during this week we were not able to do all the set work.

They did start to get up very early again (5:30 am) and start the morning off very well. completing morning devotions, Bible reading, walk/run again and preparation for the morning chores.

The older 2 boys are still not as good at getting up although they did on a couple of days get up before 8:30am.

The little ones and I have been doing a lot of reading of the B books for Along the Alphabet Path.
We have done a lot of reading and not as much activity work as I wanted.
This I think is because we lost the momentum and once again took 3 weeks to do this.
this seems to be becouse we have a lot of interuption to the time we have spent together.

The older children are completeing lots of reading, both free and Assigned.

We have had a few major feast days which meant we have been focusing on these as well.

The older girls and I have started Orchard house Circle and we will continue to do this each week.

As I am completing this on Tuesday I have mentioned in Hearts for Home I think it is time for a review of what we want to achieve and what we actually are.

What is important and waht are are goals especially as we have not very long till we start Advent studies, which I need to get started planning on.


Blessings,

Weekly Review 21st August - 18th September

As we have had several weeks of illness I have been fairly happy with what we have achieved.

The older children have not done any formal work but have worked on Math's, Spiderwick Study and Assigned Reading as they were able.

They also played word games and board games with Boggle and Up words, scrabble and Cards being the favoured re-occurring ones, played often.

The little girls took all of this time to complete Week A of along the Alphabet Path. However I am pleased with the progress especially with Moran who seemed to actually"get it." In Church this morning she was pointing our all the letter A's in the Order of Service.

She has seemed very keen to actually make words and yesterday worked out how to write MUM herself. This is a big step forward and both girls are wanting to write complete words. They both write out any letters they can and ask if they make words.

Last week the Children from Autumn down to Rogan choose new Assigned Reading and all the children are very happy with the choices and are progressing very well with them.

Rogan especially is coming along with his reading finally finding books that he will spend free time on instead of playing.

Also craft and making things were done as they were able and Rogan has finished his Christmas presents and the girls have been working steadily on theirs.

They have been using new skills in creating these projects and have been learning patience and perseverance as they learn these skills.

All the children are lloking forward to getting on track tomorrow for a great week.
Blessings,

Weekly Review 17th - 21st August

This week started out fairly slow with Stephen leaving and the children adjusting to this again, while on the tail end of the colds.
Of course with Moran's seizure and hospital visit we really didn't get a start until Wednesday.

They were especially keen to start the Spiderwick study and did a good amount of work on this.
However the weekly testing items were not followed up at all except for the poetry which is a part of the Spiderwick study as well.
There is a fair bit of writing and English work in this and so we are not following Voyages in Literature or others like it.

The only one to follow maths up at all was Saxon and I really need to get better at getting this done with the children.

We did manage to go on a couple of Nature walks and gatherings and had a lovely time with this.

The children also did and impromptu play with filming after dressing up and having definite characters and a plot. They then filmed this on Saxons camera. If only we could buy a video camera I am sure they could produce some great action.

Rogan finished reading the Littles today and was very proud of himself. I need to think up a way to get him to read more, he certainly is able it just doesn't grab him yet. He really would rather do craft and writing stories to illustrate. He did a lot of the spiderwick study himself.

The little ones were fairly independent and after speaking to the doctor I am re thinking our approach to Moran and to Myffwyn also.

Reading aloud was not very well done this week either and I think it was just a week that started off not well and didn't progress past average at all.

I have reminded the children that all Assigned reading must be completed by the end of the month. They tend to get slack and read other books instead.

The Squires Page Series has been read a lot this week by the older girls along with Lucky Luke and other library books.

I am working out plans for the Little Women Study-- at this stage called Orchard House Circle and think I should do one for Saxon especially something along the lines of Rangers for the King perhaps.

We are also contemplating a return to Shakespeare using some of the new resources and reading aloud for the plays after reading Lamb or Nesbit.
We have enough reading people to do this quite successfully and think we will do this once a week and call it Fancy....Shakespeare!

The girls have along with Rogan been posting on their blogs fairly often as well. I still think this is a great way for them to improve their english in all manner of ways.

Some people have been working on Christmas presents as well.

Blessings,

Weekly Review 10th - 14th August

Well I do need to start even though last week wasn't a good one for actually recording acheivements.

All the children were sick with the cold and some with throwing up as well.
We pretty much ditched any formal plans and the children when they were able read a lot of their assigned reading and anything else they felt like reading, when and if they felt up to it
Some had the cough quite badly and were under the weather for most of the week.
We seem to be at the end with most but a couple are still lingering and I hope they will be back on deck on Monday to start the new plans.

We had been to the library last week and have a box full of interesting library books so these have been passed around too.

Sometimes we played some 'parlor games' and cards as well.
As Stephen was home as well and he was sick too, we also spent time just being together.
Stephen did start the first Spiderwick book as an introduction to the Spiderwick Study we will start next week.

If I can keep this simple I may actually keep a record of what we do instesd of trying to write out a daily achievement list, which has never been finished due to my running out of time and energy for recording about mid week.

Blessings,