Group Activities
Geography/Art
From The Complete Book of Marvels by Richard Halliburton, Dad read these sections, and the girls watched accompanying videos:
- Carcassonne, City of Romance [video]
- Mount St. Michael [video]
- Reims Cathedral, Holy Monument [video]
- Matterhorn, Tiger of the Alps [video]
- St. Bernard Monastery [video]
- St. Peter's, Church Supreme [video]
- Vesuvius, Famous Volcano [video]
- Pompeii, City of the Past [video]
- Blue Grotto, Cavern of Loveliness [video]
C. also learned the locations of the continents using this game.
Latin
We continued our lessons in Getting Started with Latin: Beginning Latin for Homeschoolers and Self-Taught Students of Any Age by William E. Linney, which introduced the second declension.
Shakespeare
We read the children's versions of Richard III and Othello from Shakespeare Stories by Leon Garfield and the girls watched the animated adaptations. For Richard III, the girls acted out part of Act 2 Scene 2 as a group, and then watched the film adaptation starring Laurence Olivier. For Othello, M. memorized Iago's speech from Act 1 Scene 1, lines 57-65, C memorized Othello's speech from Act 3 Scene 3, lines 267-279, and E. memorized Desdemona's speech from Act 1 Scene 3, lines 179-188. At the end of February, they were still working on finalizing those.
Read-Alouds
- At the Hot Gates: An Account of the Battle of Thermopylae by Donald Sampson
I read aloud these titles:
- The Animals' Christmas by Anne Thaxter Eaton
- The Tough Winter by Robert Lawson
- Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper
- From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
- Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
Catechism
We did a little bit of work in our Catechism books, and then got ready for Lent with Ash Wednesday coloring pages, Lenten paths to color in, and Mardi Gras masks (with hearts for Valentine's Day!), and we colored and "buried" the Alleluia in a bookshelf. We attended the Latin Mass once in January once in February.
Poetry
We finished reading Poem Making by Myra Cohn Livingston and then analyzed "The Pirate Don Durk of Dowdee" and "Barbara Frietchie" using what we learned.
Science
C. worked as far as I wanted her to go in the Classic Science student book by Scott McQuerry. Then she read Lili: A Giant Panda of Sichuan by Robert McClung. E. and I read The First Book of Bugs by Margaret Williamson together.
Both girls started listening to me read The First Book of Plants by Margaret Wiliamson. They also watched Life on Earth: Plants and wrote narrations on the Venus fly trap.
M. and I continued reading Secrets of the Universe, covering these chapters:
- The Law of Conservation of Matter
- Pascal's Law - How Liquids Behave
- Boyle's and Charles's Laws - How Gases Behave
- Bernoulli's Principle
- How the Elements Combine - The Law of Definite Proportions and Gay-Lussac's Law
Health
C. had two visits to the orthodontist and read about puberty in The Body Book for Girls.History
C. read with Dad from The World of George Washington by Genevieve Foster. She wrote narrations on the Declaration of Independence and Benjamin Franklin.
M. read The Ancient South Asian World, and watched episodes of the History of India from Great Courses, as well as The Story of India and What the Ancients Knew: India. She took notes on the Great Courses videos. Then she read The Ancient Chinese, and did a worksheet for each chapter, focusing on the Word Bank, What Happened When, Cast of Characters, and All Over the Map exercises. She did narrations on the Ramayana and Mahabarata and on Confucius.
M. and E. read Virginia Schomp's collections of Indian and Chinese myths together.
E. continued reading A Child's History of the World by V.M. Hillyer. She also The First Marathon: the Legend of Pheidippides by Susan Reynolds and A Gift for the King by Christopher Manson.
English
M. switched from from Rex Barks, which was becoming tedious to Sentence Diagramming. She completed the Beginner level quickly and moved on to Level 1. She finished Vocabulary from Classical Roots A, but we realized there were earlier levels she would benefit from doing and gave her Level 6 next.
C. continued working on the Beginner level of Sentence Diagramming.
E. did several worksheets to practice identifying verbs.
R. worked with me in The Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading and practiced reading these Hooked on Phonics readers: Pig Wig, Pig Wig Can Hit, Tag, and Ann's Hat.
A. practiced identifying her letters and started learning the sounds for short A and short E from The Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading.
Math
M. continued working on Challenging Word Problems 3 and Singapore Primary Mathematics 6B. She needed extra work on fractions and area. In Life of Fred, she continued with Decimals and Percents and she worked on 7th grade math and Algebra 1 on Khan Academy.
C. -finished Singapore Primary Mathematics 3B and moved on to 4A. She finished Life of Fred: Farming and moved on to Goldfish. In Khan Academy, she is still in fourth grade math.
E. continued working on Singapore Primary Mathematics1B, and she is 80% finished with early math on Khan Academy.
Music
M. and C. have been working on the music theory exercises in Practical Theory by Sandy Felstein. All three girls did note identification and ear training on the computer and practiced piano and recorder daily. M. and C. played recorder duets of "Rondo" and "O Come All Ye Faithful"; C. and E. are doing a recorder duets of "Rigaudon." Occasionally, they watched episodes of How to Play the Piano with Pamela Pike from Great Courses.
Physical Education
This winter, they ran outside when the weather was nice and played with a sled on the hill with neighbor kids in the snow.Typing and Handwriting
All three girls practiced typing on Typing.com. M and C. also did Ten Fast Fingers and C. also did some typing on Keybr.com. E. practiced cursive daily; the other girls wrote their narrations in cursive.
