Homeschool With Tracey

Here is my review on week 3 of My Father’s World - Rome to The Reformation home school curriculum, and how it is working for us.  We love homeschooling!

Memory Work - We actually aren’t going to try to memorize any of the memory work in RTR; but I do plan to go over it and use it for copy work and dictation, as suggested in the TM.  We are reading the verses recommended, and my 4^th grade daughter is looking up the chapters and verses.  This has been wonderful practice for her.

English from the Roots Up - learning these Latin roots this year has been great.  I love that we are doing numbers first, and that we are going to tie them in with the Roman numerals.  I need to make those cards with the Latin number on the front!

Handwriting - I’m not having my 7^th grader review handwriting because it isn’t necessary.  My 4^th grade girl is doing A Reason for Handwriting curriculum and is learning cursive this year.  There are many lessons, so she is just going through those.  You know, I’ve never looked at My Father’s World handwriting…I want to be sure and purchase that for my boys.  A Reason for Handwriting is kind of “girly.”  Anyway, she’s doing great learning cursive.

Spelling - I love that MFW starts you slowly in the Spelling Power curriculum.  This week I am reading the Quick Start steps.  I believe it is really important to read these steps each year, because, at least for me, I tend to forget the details.

English - I have my 7^th grader continuing in her All-In-One English Series book.  She continues to do very well in that.  I love how MFW doesn’t push grammar in the early years.  Whew!  That used to drive us nuts with the other curriculum we used.  My 7^th grader is also doing The Indian in the Cupboard study guide from Progeny Press (as recommended by MFW).  I honestly thought that The Indian in the Cupboard would be a silly book, but was I wrong!  My 7^th grade daughter, who has read more books than I can count, said that this was the BEST book she has EVER read and that she wanted the whole series!  Whoa!  That floored me!  I have never heard her say, “This is the best book I have ever read,” about any book!  I love that the guides will help put a biblical perspective into the story.  Wonderful!  My 4^th grade daughter is finishing up Primary Language Lessons.  I really love these books (Primary and Intermediate Language Lessons).  They have all different types of English learning in them.  You can read more about them at MFW under Language Arts.

Math - 7^th grade girl is doing very well in Saxon 8/7; 4^th grade girl doing very well in Singapore 2A, which she will be finished with next week; and my 1^st grade boy is doing wonderful with My Father’s World First grade math.

The Roman Empire - Great book!  We’re learning about Roman homes and gardens, mosaics (will be making a mosaic next week with paper-could have used dried modeling clay, but the girls didn’t care about getting that intricate), and frescoes. 

I love all of the stuff we are learning about Pompeii!  My 4^th grader is used Pompeii, Buried Alive! as a read-aloud this week and she thought it was fascinating!  We got the recommended movies from the library, as well, and are going to watch those.

Augustus Caesar’s World - We love this book!  I had no idea that it would read so much like a story.  I feel like we are reading a great novel, not a history book.  My 4^th grade girl continues to be grossed out by the murders…so my 7^th grade girl is being sure to “bloody” up her coloring pages to gross her out even more.  Cruel girl!

Book Basket - Many wonderful books this week.  I have been fascinated with the whole Pompeii story.  My 7^th grader always reads almost all of the book basket books, but I haven’t asked her what she thought about them yet.  I keep forgetting to have my 4^th grade girl (who doesn’t read very often…sigh…the tom-boy!) rummage through them.  I need to remember that.

The Human Body for Every Kid - is proving to be a fun science book!  The girls are enjoying the experiments, and so am I!  We did the balancing against the wall one on Thursday; and the hot, warm, and cold water bowl one on Friday.

God and the History of Art - This book is going okay for my 7^th grade daughter.  She says she is interested in it, but doesn’t put much effort into the assignments.  Sigh.

Foreign Language - We’re dabbling in sign language this year, but I forgot to do it this week!  Oops!

Other - My 4^th grade girl is learning to type with Jump Start Typing.  She’s only done it one day but loves it!  She keeps asking to do it, but I figure I shouldn’t let her do it all day or else she will get burned out and get sick of it.

Another great week in My Father’s World!

Last week went great!  We are really loving Augustus Caesar’s World alot.  The stories are so fun to read!  I got all choked up reading about Julius Caesar’s death!  My 4th grader was kinda grossed out by it.  She said, “Did that really happen?”  I think it scared her a little…just knowing that it was true.  This is my Spider Man loving kid, so she doesn’t get disturbed easily.

I really liked the two experiments on the brain, too, in The Human Body For Every Kid.  I like having my 4th grade daughter do the drawings, as well.  That will count as art this year, as far as I am concerned.  She also likes to do the art in Draw Write Now books.  I get those from the library sometimes.

English from the Roots Up continues to be a very interesting learning experience, for me!  My girls are memorizing these terms quite easily, too.  I’m sure they’ll appreciate the roots later.  I’m always like, “Wow!  I didn’t know that that came from a Greek (or Latin) word!”  They just look at me.  :o)

Streams of Civilization is a tough read, but you don’t have to read much of it.  MFW even suggests summarizing with this book.  I find it interesting, but a bit dry.  It is basically a “textbook” thingy.

The bookbasket suggestions look wonderful.  I can’t wait to watch the DVDs.  I plan to have my 4th grader us Pompeii, Burried Alive! as her read-aloud for a week.

We are actually going to finish up Week 2 on Tuesday, because we took Friday and today (Monday) off for Columbus Day.  So, we haven’t played the Odd or Even game yet.  We’ll do that tomorrow.

I’m very glad that I bought The Story of The World, Part 1 Activity Workbook to go along with this curriculum.  The coloring pages are neat, and my oldest daughter just HAS to be doodling on something while I am reading.  The pictures to color are very graphic, too, so they would appeal to boys as well as girls.  I haven’t wanted to add the colored photos to the history notebooks, however, basically because it would just clutter it up too much.  I like the map work in that book, too.  I love My Father’s World’s map work, but my 4th grader just isn’t as quick to understand it all, and The Story of The World’s maps are easier for her to understand.

Ok, so I’m off to order more library books and get set for tomorrow’s work!

 This year, with my 12 and 9 year old daughters, we are using My Father’s World (www.mfwbooks.com) Rome to the Reformation package.  This is our 3rd year with My Father’s World, and we have really enjoyed their curriculum.  Their curriculum has worked the best with my large (5 children) family.  You are able to combine different ages (grades 2-8) with their curriculum, which is something that I really need to do.  I will post more on My Father’s World at a later time.

Our first week went very well, considering.

Considering I didn’t plan ahead as well as I should have.  We got back from vacation (a 2-week trip to my parents’ house in Michigan) and started up 2 days later.  I was semi-ready…but not completely.

I wish I would have looked through the Teacher Manual just a bit more.  I like to have EVERYTHING ready.  I was making a couple of copies of things at the last minute…but oh well.

I LOVED the experiemnts my 12 yo daughter did for Apologia General Science!  They were so cool!  I should have taken pictures.  I hope the rest of this year’s experiements will be as good as those were.  Lots of times, with previous curriculums, the science experiements may or might not work out.