Fall Art Gallery

Here are a few of the kids' most recent works of art.

Jacob's

Fall Scene

Trees

Robin Hood Becomes an Outlaw

Noble Bird

Dragon Attack

Wild Horses

Grace's

Horse in the Moonlight

Cattails in Sunset

Wild Horses

The Pie

Kayla's

Riding Horseback

Rainbow Princess

Homeschool Highlights Week 6

We had a full schedule this week and accomplished a lot in all of our subjects.   In Bible we continued with the Plan A James memory work.  So far, so good!  We are actually keeping up and have memorized through verse 15.  The Teacher's Manual had a neat suggestion to spur the kids on.  We bought a weekly pill box from Walgreen's and filled each day with 3 Skittles -- one for each of the 3 times they review the verses.  It has helped us to keep on top of things.

Our History topics included the founding of the New Amsterdam/New York Colony, tobacco in Virginia and the slave trade, and Angola.  We played 9 pins, a game similar to bowling and a favorite during the colonial era.  We also made butter.

Jacob's Notebooking Page

Shaking up the cream for a LONG time!

We started our new read aloud, Amos Fortune Free Man, but the kids do not want to hear any more of it.  They are very sensitive, and the horrors of slavery just make them upset!  It looks like a great book, though, so I am going to read it myself and give them a synopsis.

Birds were the topic for Science and we learned a great deal.  

Our soda bottle bird feeder.

Building edible nests.

Eating the nests!

Dissecting owl pellets was both fascinating and.....

.....horrifying!

This came with the kit we ordered.

A few of the bones we found.

 

Grace's Notebooking Pages

Our Music appreciation studies included a thrilling recital by Spanish pianist, Daniel del Pino.  He played an entire program of HUGE works, one after the other, with ease.  He was an inspiration to the kids as they practice for their upcoming recital.

Daniel del Pino

Practice, practice, and more practice!

 For Art we concluded our 6-week study of Pieter Breugel.  We did picture studies of a few of his works and the kids have started to put together an album of all of the works we study.

That's our week in a nutshell!  To view other Homeschool Highlights in My Father's World go to Discover Their Gifts.

Homeschool Highlights Week 5

We started a new Hymn this week, "The Lord's My Shepherd."   It is a rendition of Psalm 23 from the 1650 Scottish Psalter.  The melody is more involved than previous hymns, so it's taking a bit longer to learn.

For Bible we completed our inductive study of  James 1, in preparation of memorizing the rest of the chapter.  We learned that God does not tempt anyone to sin, we must bridle our tongues, and we need to be doers of the Word and not hearers only.


In History we studied the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and John Winthrop.  We had good discussions regarding Roger Williams, the Puritans, the founding of Rhode Island, and the separation of Church and State.  For further study on the Puritans I read the book Worldly Saints.  It paints a picture of the Puritans that one does not often see, quoting primary and secondary sources.  

Our Colonial Hornbook

For Math we've been doing a review of the four basic operations with fractions (6th grade), a big review test for Grace with borrowing and carrying, and beginning number bonds in Singapore Math Level 1A for 1st grade. 

 

We had a big Music week.  Our current composer is Franz Schubert.  We've been enjoying his "Unfinished Symphony."  We also went to a Brass Quintet concert and Sunday went to see the Toronto Consort.  What a treat!  They performed a variety of Renaissance pieces on period instruments. 

The weather on Friday was too beautiful to stay inside and do our school so we went on a field trip to a nature sanctuary.  A few old buildings have been moved to the property, including a schoolhouse from 1847.  We decided to have school there.  It was so much fun to be transported back in time!

To view other Homeschool Highlights visit 

2 Ladybugs and a Lizard.

Enjoying Nature

Just a few minutes down the road from our house is a most magnificent nature haven!  It's a 2.25 mile loop around the Pike River.  We spend hours upon hours here, either walking or biking. This past year we identified over 30 prairie plants and have enjoyed observing all of the changes throughout the seasons. 

Here are a few things we saw on our nature walk today:

We were able to get really close to this snake and see its sides expand as it breathed.

This little patch of Illinois Bundleflower was so pretty all summer.  The flowers are little, white puffs and the leaves are wispy and fern-like.  Now it has produced its seeds in small, twisted, wafer-like pods that sound like tiny maracas when you shake them!

This is what the kids refer to as our "Big Slough"  where "millions of rustling grass-blades made one murmuring sound, and thousands of wild ducks and geese and herons and cranes and pelicans were talking sharply and brassily in the wind." (By the Shores of Silver Lake) 

It's fun to pretend!  Actually it is home to one Great Blue Heron, a Green Heron, some ducks, and thousands of red-winged blackbirds that make quite a busy sound in the early evenings of summer.  We were out of town for one week at the end of August.  When we came back the blackbirds had gone away for the winter and it was so quiet -- it seemed like a different place.

The kids counted 108 grasshoppers today.

The Milkweed pods have popped!

Small white Asters.

We found this book to be an excellent resource for identifying prairie flowers.