School so far....

We're still plugging away at school.



History

We recently started Mystery of History Volume 2.  We're doing OK so far on our read aloud/video/audio list. 

The girls watched Paul, The Emissary (a tad much for them).   We finished Beric the Briton, the Jim Weiss audio that we  listen to in the car whenever we're out and about.   We have read Forbidden Gates, the story of Stephen the first martyr.   And we finished Twice Freed, the story of Philemon and Onesimus.

We are now on Pearl Maiden for our read aloud.  I read on a blog that it was pretty violent, so did some pre-reading and found it to be no worse than Beric the Briton or Twice Freed.  All three talk frankly of Christian persecution, gladiators, and the arena.  For our car audio, we have started   For the Temple (also by Jim Weiss).  Both Pearl Maiden and For the Temple deal with the destruction of the Temple in AD70.


Science

This week we watched the second part of the Mankind section of Biology 101, so we've been studying anatomy and physiology.  Really this series is very basic and has been a good review for us.  We like the many cool facts he throws in.  LOVE the fact that it's literal-6-day-creation based!

The girls continue to do their co-op science as well.  DD14 is half way through Unit 4 of Mike Snavely's Creation or Evolution (which I'm teaching at co-op).  Truly I thought the kids would enjoy the lecture videos more than our working through their workbooks, but the workbooks generate great discussions!   DD11 continues the Science 4 Real Kids Biology with her co-op class.  Occasionally, you'll hear her practice some of the vocabulary words, like  rough endoplasmic reticulum!  What a mouth full!


Grammar

We continue our Fix-It, which we do once per week.   The girls are getting better at catching errors!  We did Week 11 this week.  They are enjoying the modernized tale of The Frog Prince.

We throw in Winston Grammar now and again, mainly for review though I admit DD11 never really "got" the parts of speech before.   She's doing a bit better since starting Winston Grammar.  We did Worksheet 11 this week.

Literature

We're sailing along with Lightning Literature.  Tom Sawyer is complete, as is the first section on poetry.  This week we also finished Alice in Wonderland.   I printed out Fortunately For You's Reading Records to go along with their Lightning Lit workbook pages for Alice.   We'll be moving on to The Bride of Yellow Sky, then take a break from literature until after the New Year.



Foreign Languages

DD14 continues with Getting Stated with Latin, though she's beginning to struggle with remembering all the words and forms now that so many have been introduced.  She's on lesson 63.  She doesn't want to do any other foreign language, except maybe Greek (at least Greek roots and prefixes/suffixes).  She sees no point in learning any other.  When she's done with the Getting Started book, I'm wondering if I should look into Visual Latin or The Latin Road to English Grammar????

DD11 continues with her Spanish, using DiscoverSpanish.com and occasionally, OnlineFreeSpanish.com.  She loves Spanish.  I think she particularly likes seeing how much I remember from my high school classes, oh way back when!  This week I also started her on Mango,which we can access for free through our local public library.  She is thinking about majoring in Spanish when she goes to college. I'm still debating if I should get Rosetta Stone or Tell Me More for her.



Math

DD14 continues with VideoText Algebra and Life of Fred Beginning Algebra.  Both are fairly short, so she's been able to do a lesson in each every day.  Some days she struggles, some days she doesn't.  She recently started the second module of VideoText.  She's on lesson 52 of LOF (using the Companion book).

DD11 is, at the moment, only doing Life of Fred: Fractions.  She's really struggling with it, despite the fact that we made it 2/3 through the Math-U-See Epsilon book last year.  I keep wanting to start Epsilon back up, but I had hoped LOF would be a good refresher for her.   I'm not sure when to start Epsilon again!   She has also been working through the Challenging Word Problems Book 2.  I like how it shows to break the problems down......now if I could just get her to actually do it like they do.  Sigh.  She's half way through the book.



Bible

We have unfortunately let our PictureSmart Bible slide right now.  We've just been so busy (or sick) and it seems to be the one we slide....though the girls do ask for it!  At least they do their PBS mail order Bible studies.   We also have started our Advent readings.  We are currently reading Tabitha's Travels  from the Jotham's Journey series.  When we're done with it this year, we will have been through the trilogy TWICE!   Six years and the girls STILL love and always beg for me to read it!  New this year to our Advent traditions is our Cradle to the Cross Wreath for Advent and Lent.  These are made by Caleb Voskamp and are soooo beautiful!




Miscellaneous 

The girls have both been active in their 4-H group, having more meetings than usual this time of year.  We did a fundraiser in October, and then we had another fundraiser this week!  The October fundraiser went well.  This week's didn't go as well.  While we did not have as many people attend as we had hoped, we did make $350.  We were able to purchase a personalized horse halter for each club member. The kids will also have a pizza party and be going ice skating for their CHRISTmas party this year.


The girls have also been involved with their Youth Group each week, studying the Bible and building relationships through fun and games.