Homeschool Update, March-June 2024

Group Activities 

Geography/Art 

From The Complete Book of Marvels by Richard Halliburton, Dad read these sections, and the girls watched accompanying videos: 

• Parthenon, Temple of Athena [video]
• Mt. Athos, Country of Men [video]
• Moscow, Heart of Russia [video]
• Santa Sophia, Mother of Churches [video]
• Ephesus, City of Ancient Temples [video] 
• Halicarnassus [video]
• Colossus, Statue of Helios [video]
• Pharos, Towering Lighthouse [video] 
• Pyramids, Huge Man-Made Wonders [video]
• Knossos, Buried Cretan City [video]
• Timbuctoo, Desert City [video]
• Victoria Falls, Sounding Smoke [video]
• Mecca, Sacred Moslem City [video]
• Petra, Enchanted City [video]
• Dead Sea [video]
• Jerusalem, Rock of Abraham [video]
• Baalbek, City of Marvelous Ruins [video]
• Palmyra, Zenobia's Domain [video]

We also used historical and current world maps to locate different countries that came up in our reading in other areas.

Latin 

We finished Getting Started with Latin: Beginning Latin for Homeschoolers and Self-Taught Students of Any Age by William E. Linney. We spent some time reviewing some of the translation exercises by translating from English to Latin, then started Keep Going with Latin. 

Shakespeare

We read a children's version of As You Like It and the girls watched the animated adaptation.  We will soon watch a version of the play as well. 

Read-Alouds

Dad read aloud these historical fiction titles:

• Children of the Fox by Jill Paton Walsh 
• Hostage to Alexander by Mary Evans Andrews 
• The Eagles Have Flown by Joanne Williamson
• Runner for the King by Rowena Bastin Bennett 

I read aloud these titles: 

• A Swarm in May by William Mayne 
• Noodlehead Stories (excerpts) by M.A. Jagendorf
• The Cottage at Bantry Bay by Hilda van Stockum
• The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge 
• Mystery of the Roman Ransom by Henry Winterfeld
• Swallowdale by Arthur Ransome 
• Magic or Not? by Edward Eager 
• The Whale People by Roderick L. Haig-Brown 
• Barefoot Days by Anna Rose Wright 
• Over the Blue Mountain by Conrad Richter 

We listened to these books on audio: 

• James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl 
• The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare
• When Marnie Was There by Joan G. Robinson 

Catechism 

We continued practicing questions and answers in our Catechism books.  

Science 

C. and E. listened to me read aloud The First Book of Trees by Margaret Wiliamson and Here a Plant, There a Plant, Everywhere a Plant, Plant: A Story of Luther Burbank by Robert M. Quackenbush, and they finished science for the year with the Green Planet documentary series.

M. and I finished reading Secrets of the Universe. 

The Van Cleave experiments started getting old, so she wrote up her last few lab reports on demonstrations from ExperimentArchive that were too dangerous to try at home. 

Health

Both M. and C. visited the orthdontist. M. visited the pediatrician and also accompanied A. to several appointments after she broke one arm, and a month later, the other. 

History 

C. read The Year of the Horseless Carriage and Abraham Lincoln's World. 

M. read The Ancient Greek World, The Ancient Roman World, and The Ancient American World and completed related pages in the accompanying workbooks. 

E. continued reading A Child's History of the World by V.M. Hillyer through the Fall of Rome. She started listing to The Story of Civilization Volume 1 for review of this year's history topics. 

All three girls went in period dress on a field trip to a one-room schoolhouse. 

English

In Critical Thinking Co.'s Sentence Diagramming program, M. completed level 1 and level 2. C. finished the beginner level and moved on to level 2.  E. did some adjective worksheets to help her practice. 

M. finished Vocabulary from Classic Roots level 6 and started level B. 

R. finished reading all but the last of the Hooked on Phonics readers. A. started reading consonant-vowel-consonant words.

Math 

M. continued working on Challenging Word Problems 3 and finished Singapore Primary Mathematics 6B. In Life of Fred, she continued with Decimals and Percents and she worked on 7th grade math and Algebra 1 on Khan Academy. She is working on Algebra this summer. 

C. finished Singapore Primary Mathematics 4A and made significant progress in 4B, as well as in fifth grade math on Khan Academy.  

E. finished Singapore Primary Mathematics 1A and started 1B. She finished early math and is worked quickly through 2nd grade math on Khan Academy and is now making significant progress in third grade math. 

Music 

M. and C. continued working on the music theory exercises in Practical Theory by Sandy Felstein. All three girls practiced piano and recorder daily. C. started learning ukulele and M. started guitar. 

Physical Education

Now that pool season is here, our main focus is swimming at the pool. The girls played freeze tag and other group games with friends in the neighborhood. M. and C. learned the basics of baseball from their aunt while watching Mets games on our visit to NY.