Classroom update!

I wanted to briefly update on our home classroom space. We quickly outgrew our little hallway classroom when we started Classical Conversations. This new space was already set up like this with the mantle, table, and chairs. It was not used for schoolwork  - just crafts and snacks mostly. It is basically in our "great" room though, so I am trying to make it match the surrounding decor. "Great" room sounds silly - we have a small house, but through some renovations, we have opened the floor plan significantly so our living room, dining room, and kitchen are mostly one undivided space, other than  structural necessities.

I bought a few Deka hanging systems from Ikea and use them to display the subject matter for the week. On it, I hang worksheets, visual aids, mini timeline cards, maps, and our science and history acts and facts cards. I love that I can clearly see what all we have going on and can just pull things off the clips when ready to use.

I finally came up with a system for cumulative reviewing. I have this little photo box that has 4 sections that you can pull out. I pulled up images of fabrics used in my living room and printed for the outside of the box. The 4 sections each have 6 weeks of material for me to reference when quizzing Blaine. They have all material we have learned and mini maps for the geography for each week. Then I hand cut envelope pockets from some coordinating scrapbook paper I had in my hoarder closet that I have mentioned before in a previous post. I printed squares for all 24 weeks of curriculum with subjects for each (I will add as the weeks go by). All they have are week numbers and subject so I can reuse them for all 3 cycles. We divided the squares up between the 5 envelopes and will pull them out throughout the day to go over material. I am trying to think of a way to make it fun - probably reward stickers to go with it. I'll figure it out, but I feel like our homeschool is lacking rewards and discipline.  I am also considering something along the lines of a red/yellow/green light to go along with a reward system.

On the mantle, I keep our globe, review box (for my reference), supplies, and random things pertaining to our schoolwork. I've been trying to get the kids to say the Pledge of Allegiance lately, so I framed the flag to go above it. Last 6 weeks, our science studies focused on ecology, but we are about to start some astronomy, so we have the telescope out and ready! 

Opposite this area is a roll top desk with my desktop computer on it. It is very convenient to sit Blaine at the table and direct his attention to the computer for expansion YouTube videos.

I am still trying to get a loose routine going for us. I just can't seem to figure that part out. I'm still not sure that I want to.  I feel like a major bonus of homeschooling is that you don't have to set alarms, but I am trying to figure out what to designate for certain days/times. I also have to work around the things on our weekly/bi-weekly schedule of CC, MOPS, PE, Little Friends Club, and basic errands.  All of this while retaining flexibility. These first 6 weeks of CC, I feel like I've at least partially figured out what works for Blaine and what doesn't, so I'm hoping by the end of these next 6 weeks, I will get more of a feel for our rhythm.

Homeschooling: CC - Cycle 2 - Weeks 4, 5, and 6

I am late posting what we did for weeks 4 and 5. We have a busy week and weekend ahead of us, so here is what we've been doing and what we have planned for the week.

History

Week 4:

The Magna Carta and the Hundred Years War. Blaine colored while I read.

Week 5:
The Hundred Years' War, Joan of Arc, and the Plague (age appropriate discussions with some sword fighting play involved).

Week 6:
The Renaissance!  Specifically, we are learning about Shakespeare, daVinci,  Copernicus, and Michelangelo.  I plan on elaborating a little on each of them throughout the week and coloring these as we go.

I'm going to show Blaine this virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel. Something fun that I am planning on doing is taping some paper to the bottom of our junior size table and laying on our backs to draw and color.

Geography: More puzzles!

Week 4:

European Rivers (printable)

Week 5:
European Cities (printable)

Week 6:
European Mountains (printable)

English: Cut and paste activities each week.

Week 4:
Nominative Pronouns

Week 5:
Objective Pronouns
<temporarily down>

Week 6:
Possessive Pronouns

Art

Week 4:

Abstract art. We classified things into 2 categories. Real or abstract. Obviously there are more categories than these 2, but for a 4 year old, these 2 will do for now. We took a field trip for a lunch date to see my oldest friend, Martine, and check out some artwork in both her condo and her gallery.

Blaine said this one was his favorite.

Week 5: Perspective
I made this cut and paste and we talked about horizons, vanishing points, and shadows.  We put the people on the sidewalk appropriately and shaded where their shadows would be according to the sun's position.

Week 6: Final Project Week
We combined the last 5 weeks of our fine arts skills and with his tutor's leadership, Blaine drew this owl mom and baby! I'm so proud of him!

Math: Skip Counting 

Week 4: 7 and 8

 Week 5: 9 and 10

 Week 6: 11 and 12

Science:
Every week we did some worksheets that I downloaded from C3.

Week 4: Natural Cycles - Carbon and Oxygen, Water, and Nitrogen 

Week 5: Reactions to environmental change - Adapt, Migrate, and Hibernate
Something funny I have to share... This week we talked about some funny things like how Daddy shaves his hair short in the summer because it is hot and how Paw Paw Chuck grows his beard out in the winter to keep his face warm. 
Week 6: 6 forms of pollution

Latin

Week 4:

We repeated last weeks 1st Conjugation Imperfect Tense exercises (here)

Week 5 and 6:
1st Conjugation Future Tense cut and paste (with handwriting practice)

Homeschooling: CC - Cycle 2 - Week 3

This week is not over and we have not completed everything listed here, but I thought I would post anyway. 

History

Week 3: We learned about Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lion-Hearted, and the Crusades. Blaine did some coloring pages while I read and we made a sword and shield with cardboard, paper, and foil. 

Geography

Week 3: Western European countries - I made another puzzle (printable here). Blaine really seems to like these. I will probably do one every week. 

English

Week 3: Cut and paste activity

Art

Week 3: Upside down drawing activities. If you read this post, you will know that Blaine LOVED THIS drawing activity. He was so excited when he flipped the paper over and saw what he had drawn.

Math

Week 3: I have to be honest.  Blaine has a very difficult time with numbers.  We do our memory melodies and these cut and paste skip counting activities very quickly because I am still working very diligently with him trying to get him to do basic counting. He is showing some improvements, but math has always been a frustrating challenge. I'm open to suggestions.

Science

Week 3: Parts of the food chain. I googled some more random clip art and came up with this cut and paste activity. We took an unexpected trip to the aquarium and insectarium this week and seized the opportunity to learn hands-on about some consumers and decomposers.  Also, we talked again about week 2's topic of consumer types: herbivore, carnivores and omnivores.  We had fun guessing what each animal was by what we observed in their habitats. Our timing was perfect for a few exhibits, seeing the animals being fed.  Blaine will also play a food chain game that I found, available here. 

Seeming underground, in a dark room of the insectarium, I took the one and only picture of our downtown adventures. Here's Blaine on a huge worm... a decomposer!

Latin

Week 3: We are still learning verb conjugation endings - imperfect tense. Nothing fun to show. I did do a cut and paste activity and later we combined our Latin with handwriting exercises. Here are printables for both.  Our tutor came up with a cute pictorial available on C3 that Blaine enjoys and has been very helpful.

That's it! 

Homeschooling: CC - Cycle 2 - Weeks 1 and 2

There are a lot of people asking me a lot of questions of what our homeschool curriculum involves. I am eager to share everything we are doing with our friends and family. Here are a few things we did last week and this week...

History:

Week 1: We learned about Charlemagne.  My favorite coloring pages come from Google image searches and filtering for line drawings. Blaine colored these while I read about Charlemagne and practicing reciting/singing his history sentence for the week. 

Week 2: We learned about William the Conqueror. Blaine colored this image of William the Conqueror while I read. We also discussed feudalism and did a cut and paste activity. I can tell Blaine is definitely starting to absorb more of what I'm teaching him because last night, he jumped onto the sofa, threw all the pillows off, stomped his feet and declared that he was William the Conqueror and Vivienne was King Harold. It was basically the funniest thing ever. 

Geography:

Week 1 - I made this "puzzle" (printable here) and laminated everything so we can reuse it. We also looked at everything on a globe and talked about how we live on the continent of North America. He really liked singing a song we downloaded from C3 and can identify all the continents and oceans!

Week 2 - I made another puzzle for European bodies of water (printable here). He is doing very well with geography. He quickly (in one sitting) memorizes everything.

English:

Week 1 - We memorized 8 parts of speech.  I made this pirate ship visual (printable here) with flaps that reveal parts of speech with a short description of their purpose. I laminated it so we can refer back to it throughout the year.

Week 2 - We talked about how pronouns replace nouns, so I came up with this cut and paste activity. Blaine really seems to enjoy cut and paste activities, so we will probably be doing a lot of those.

Art:

Week 1 - We learned about the 5 shapes used to "build" a drawing (boy terminology). I made another cut and paste activity to categorize shapes.

 Week 2 - We did this mirror image exercise and took a trip to the tattoo shop to play on the big light table to create mirror images.

Math:

Week 1 and 2 - Skip counting by 1s, 2s, 3s, and 4s.  I brought out the scissors and glue stick again with these projects. This was actually the first time I've let Blaine use scissors on his own. So far, he is ambidextrous but insists on cutting with his left hand. Maybe I should find some preschool lefty scissors if this keeps up. 

Science:

Week 1 - Blaine memorized 7 of the world's biomes  - this was one of his favorite subjects this week mostly because of a catchy song on C3. He is still asking to listen to it. I found a color by number project of North American biomes that he really enjoyed. I'm not sharing it because I really don't think it was accurate. But, at his age - I think the purpose was mostly to understand the world is made up of different biomes with various climates, animals and plants (more importantly being able to name them). And seriously - there is nothing cuter than a 4 year old saying "deciduous forest"

Week 2 - We are learning herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. I made this with random clipart found online and we did some other worksheets that I downloaded from C3. He is connecting that the chicken we eat is/was an actual chicken. He did seem a little troubled by that.

Latin:

We are learning present tense verb conjugation endings. Nothing really fun to show along with that, but he knows it! I am starting to consider future foreign language curriculums to add on at home. Maybe in a year or 2. Suggestions welcome! Considering Spanish, French, or possibly Mandarin.

That's it! Hopefully I will be posting every 2 weeks with what we are learning! Next week we start Hands On with Vivienne too!