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Sunday, April 10, 2011

Mt. Hope Academy 2011 ~ Week 13

Sigh. I'm about ready to give up here. This post looks just fine in compose mode. Then I publish it and there are no line breaks. Arghhh!! I don't know how to do Html and it takes too long to put in all those tags when I give it a try, plus it seems to not like me going between compose and html mode. And I can no longer embed YouTube videos. Something is really screwy. Maybe it is a sign. A really bad sign for blogging. ;-P
Classical Conversations: Week 23 Bible memory, U.S. Presidents, presentations (public speaking), science experiments, music, geography, history/science/Latin/grammar/math memory work, and social/gym time.
CC Memory Review
Faith: Sing the Word from A to Z
Fine Arts: Bill Nye: Architecture (DVD), Masters of Art: The Story of Architecture, Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin, A Weekend With Winslow Homer by Ann Kay Beneduce, Winslow Homer picture study on YouTube, IEW Poetry Memorization
Language Arts: IEW Student Writing Intensive (SWI) A (key word outlines), Building Language (stem lesson 8), Practice Island (sentences 23-27), All About Spelling (Step 24, review. Finished with Level 1!)
Languages: Rosetta Stone, Song School Latin (chapter 23,24)
Geography: Geography Songs: Former USSR, Colored maps of Central Asia, Map drawing (blobbing) continents
Math: Singapore workbooks daily, Practiced Associative, Commutative, and Distributive Laws, Teaching Textbooks (Wahoo!!)
Science: Bill Nye: Heat (DVD), Conduction, Convection, and Radiation Rap on YouTube, Bill Nye: Fluids (DVD), Bill Nye: Farming (DVD), Popular Mechanics for Kids: Radical Rockets/Slither and Slime (DVDs)
History: Usborne Encyclopedia of World History: War in the Middle East
Literature: Pilgrim's Progress (unabridged, dramatized audio book), Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels (DVD - full length movie version)
Luke's Assigned Reading: The Robinson Crusoe Reader (Christian Liberty Press), Eyewitness Classics: Robinson Crusoe (The classic story, plus fascinating background facts and photographs), The Family Pilgrim's Progress by Jean Watson, Gulliver in Lilliput (Step Into Reading Level 3), Gulliver's Adventures in Lilliput by Jonathan Swift, retold by Ann Keay Beneduce, illustrated by Gennady Spirin
Levi's Assigned Reading: The Skippack School by Marguerite de Angeli, The Tinker's Daughter: A Story Based on the Life of Mary Bunyan by Wendy Lawton, The Little Pilgrim's Progress by Helen L. Taylor, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (unabridged), Jonathan Swift's Gulliver retold by Martin Jenkins, illustrated by Chris Riddell (love!)
Luke's Free Reading: Magic Tree House: Revolutionary War on Wednesday, Twister on Tuesday, Earthquake in the Early Morning, Civil War on Sunday
Miscellaneous: Games with distance learning program teacher, Wacky Bounce House with friends, Family Swim Night, Birthday party, Lots of archery, Luke piano practice and lesson

13 comments:

Sheryll said...

What are you using to compose your post? Have you tried Windows Live Writer? (If you're not using a mac, that is.) It's a free program. I have much better luck with formatting in Live Writer than when I use blogger. Plus, you can save a draft to your hard drive for backup. Formatting is so frustrating!

Heidi said...

Sheryll, Thanks for that suggestion. I think I'm going to give it a try this next week if I can find some spare brain cells to try something new. :)

April said...

I am having the same issues with blogger and yes, it is very frustrating. Let me know if you find a remedy, meanwhile I'm plugging in the spaces in html mode...

Amy said...

Just wondering - how do you find the books that your kiddos are going to read? We also homeschool and attend CC (which we love) and it seems the hardest part for me to find level appropriate books on topics that we are discussing.

Thanks -

Heidi said...

Amy~ Are you wondering about any subject in particular? How old are your kids?

MissMOE said...

Oh I hope it isn't a sign! I love reading what you do each week and gleaning from what you do.

Heasleye said...

I was also going to suggest Live Writer. When I was doing my reading round-up posts last year and including thumbnails of the books with links, Live Writer was a much simpler way of putting together those posts. Seth uses it all the time and reminded me to use it when I posted a video recently. We are WordPress people, but the Live Writer seems to be a good thing. :)

E

Amy said...

I was just wondering in general - I noticed your book lists did coordinate some with your work. How far in advance do you plan? Where do you find your book titles to read and then do your purchase them all?

I have 2 girls - 9 and 7 - one a reluctant reader and one a more motivated emergent reader - and then a bouncy 4 yr old boy :) I feel like my question is always - "so what are they going to read now?" Feeling a little lost and overwhelmed. I could spend hours pouring over books. Seems this is my hardest part of schooling.

Thanks so much!!

Melody said...

Hi Heidi :-) Just wanted to send some encourageent your way :-) I understand the frustration of when technology is frustrating, but know that even when there's problems with the formatting or the other thingie (I'm soo tech-challenged) your words encourage us so much. Press on :-)

Melody in WA

jeana said...

I'm the same way as Amy....can be overwhelming. I use your suggestions, Heidi the most. I just love your selections!

Jeana

Bella Art Girl said...

Heidi!!! did you and I talk about Teaching Textbooks? love it with a capital L!! hope to see you this spring/summer and catch up for reals!

Heidi said...

Thanks for all the encouragement, ladies! I think I'm going to give Live Writer a try and see how it goes.

Amy~ I could spend hours pouring over books, too. I wish I had more time to plan ahead, but I'm often flying by the seat of my pants. I took a break from our regular history and science studies and centered our learning around the memory work from CC while we were in session this year. I have tons of books on hand, so some of that was just pulling off my shelves. We use Story of the World, so many of our history books came from the SOTW activity guide and The Well-Trained Mind. I spend a lot of time online and searching on Amazon, too. For CC, I had a calendar/planner and I would write down the CC topics on each week and then take it to the library with me. Sometimes I'd get books a few weeks in advance, but I borrowed a lot of movies and could only have those 7-14 days. I *really* liked having the history and science encyclopedias at home, because we could almost always find extra stuff to read about each topic. At the beginning of each week, I just set out a stack of books for that week's topics and hand them out whenever I needed the boys to be reading. I'm not sure if that answers your question or not, but I wasn't very systematic this year. :)

Bella Art Girl~ I don't think we have talked about it, but I'm in love with a capital L, too. :) I didn't realize they had math 3 out already, or we would have started much sooner!! I'm thinking math might now be one of my favorite subjects. ;-P Oooh, I would LOVE to get together sometime soon!

Heather said...

I only know a few lines of html, so don't despair. If I can do it, anybody can. :)