Homeschool Week 20: The Eureka Daily

Language Arts: We have finished By The Great Horn Spoon. Phi read the last 3 chapters this week and we completed the last 2 novel studies. I didn't have the time to read along with Phi and so she was very much on her own when it came to understanding the story. This story was okay, definitely not my favorite this year but it seems to be the only grade level book on the gold rush. Now that this book is over I am hoping we start something new right away.

Math: This week was the hardest we have had yet. Phi is really struggling with just getting the motivation to work on math. Her retention when it comes to math is also working against us. If she comes in with a good attitude and concentrates we can end math with her feeling confident and understanding the subject matter. But the next day she can't remember a thing. I really believe her attitude plays a big part in this. I am trying to make it more fun and we played some on-line games but she still needs to learn the basics. Right now its adding and subtracting mixed numbers.

Social Studies: We continued learning about the gold rush. We learned how President Polk was the one who gave a speech that started the whole rush. It was amazing the things people believed about gold in California. Her assignment was to develop her own newspaper. It includes a story and picture about a 49er, a map of the California gold fields, an ad for the Panama Shortcut route and all about Sutter's Mill. This was fun to put together and thanks to templates on google drive it was easy!

Science:  This week was a recap on the planets. We looked at their distance from the sun and how the outer and inner planets differ. It was an easy week with just a few questions to answer.

This was a really hard week emotional for us. Phi is having issues with seeing us as teachers and parents at different times. I really think math is giving her such a difficulty that she thinks anything else would be better. She wants to go back to her private school which we won't do for a few reasons. I reminded her that her Poppa and I made this decision based on a lot of different things but the main reason is because we only have our kids with us for such a short time. And we want to be with them as much as we can. We feel that by homeschooling until 6th grade gives us more time with our children. It also allows us to teach and learn together. Homeschooling has brought out some of our worst sides at times, but it has also brought out some of our best.

Homeschool Week 17: Alta California Gold

Language Arts:

Phi is starting a new book that goes perfectly with her social studies/history lessons. This is a book I have never read before and I am reading along with her. This story is about a young boy named Jack and his butler Praiseworthy. After overhearing that his Aunt will be losing her house Jack is convinced that he can go to California and strike is rich to help his aunt and siblings. Jack and Praiseworthy have their boat tickets stolen and are forced to stowaway on the boat. They turn themselves into the Captain and their sea adventure begins. This book also has a novel study attached with it. This novel study has a lot of great links to websites with video and even music to help pull the lessons together. 

Math: This week we studied composite and prime numbers. Phi did okay, but she STILL has not memorized all her times tables and that makes everything so much more difficult. I finally broke down and will be making her write each multiplication table 100 times. When she first started her multiplication tables I wanted her to do this and she did not want to. So we tried everything else and nothing has really stuck so we are going old school. Phi is not thrilled.

Science: We started Chapter 6 of her e-text book all about earth and the planets. Which of course we covered last year. This week was a review about revolutions, orbits, axis, ellipse. We reviewed why we have seasons complete with a diagram. We even talked about wind patterns and why wind moves in arcs. We did a cool experiment with a spinning cardboard and a marker.

Social Studies: We are at 1849 in California history. The beginning of the gold rush to California. We read about the first pioneer American's who traveled to Alta California. People were convinced they could come to CA and get rich quick! We studied about the 3 different ways people came to the US (Panama, Around the Great Horn and across the Oregon Trail). Her big assignment was to create a poster convincing people to come to Alta California. You know we took it up a notch. We watching some Huell Howser on California Gold for inspiration and then Phi wrote a script for "Alta California Gold". This is probably the best video we have done to date...

We have a planned field trip/off-roading trip to Calico, Ca this weekend to check out an old mining town! 

We had so much fun this week! As always we are looking forward to next week!