School Highlights

We are back into the full swing of our school schedule. We continue to enjoy using Tapestry of Grace (see sidebar link). We have two weeks left of Unit 2. This week we delved into the Westward Expansion – specifically the OR Trail. This has led to quite some dreaming and discussion about us driving the OR Trail this summer. The younger two and I read “Little House in the Big Woods” and girrrrlllls….they ASKED me to read the NEXT BOOK! {Inside joke being that I LOVED the Little House book and could never get any of my older 5 children to listen to them!} I’m currently searching for journals of those who traveled the trails, the kids are pouring over atlases and we’re scheming. Living in the lower 48 it has occurred to us that we could drive this alone and Mike could meet us in WA….because he probably will never get the time away from the office for this project.

We began a new science book. I was a bit skeptical of this choice but we let Jared pick it. He chose the text on Zoology from Apologia’s elementary science course (see sidebar link). One of the first things we did was come up with a mnemonic phrase to help us remember the classification system. In keeping with our Narnia theme we came up with “King Peter Chases Over Fields, Grass and Streams” (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species). Unfortunately, I did NOT have all the items I needed for us to do our experiments on lift and drag – so we’ll try to get that done yet this weekend or early next week. I hate it when *I* slow down the kids’ study – but it’s a fact of life. I remind myself we aren’t sprinting here but in a marathon and in the long run….two days late for an experiment is not going to mess anyone up for life. Ah a funny during science. I promised not to name names. I had spent some time reading and discussing the material in this book. It’s a bit over a 1st and 2nd grader’s level so I don’t expect mastery - aiming for familiarity and we’ll cycle through them again before they hit Jr High. I asked what the word “instinct” means. They answered “instructions that God gives an animal for survival”…WooHoo – a very good answer. Then, pronouncing very carefully so they would hear the difference, I hopefully asked “What does EX…tinct mean? Someone answered “an animal with no stink”. :::snort::: As I thought of it later it does seem an o.k. definition.

The older boys finished “Les Miserables”. The famous three and I finished “On to OR” and the youngest two students and I are tearing through various OR trail books and the Little House series (Chris are you still my friend?). Jared finished”Moccasin Trail”.