Homeschool Wrap Up Week 6

We had a short week this week because of District Fair.  It is about an hour from the house and they have camp sites available so we load up the camper and stay out there.  It started on Wednesday and we came home on Sunday.  Fall has not come to SW Arkansas.  It was HOT!  Last year it was cool in the mornings and evenings and we had to wear a light jacket.  This year we were roasting.  I can only hope that with these warmer temperatures that maybe we can make it through State Fair without freezing this year!


Week 6 in our Homeschool

Bible: We read 2 chapters in the Book of Luke.

History: We completed lessons 43, 44, and 45 in The Mystery of History Vol 1.

Art: We watched an art history video from HiGASFY on Pissaro.

In the afternoon....

Emmie completed 2 days of Elephant Learning in Math.  She started lesson 6 in Memoria Press Classical Spelling.  In AAR Level 2 she completed lessons 48 and 49.  In literature she is still working on Teedie, A Story of Young Teddy Roosevelt.

Lily completed 2 lessons in CTC Math and 2 lessons in her Reading Eggs workbook.  She started Lightning Lit 4.  Lessons her first day went fine reading the assigned chapter in the book The Earth Dragon Awakes and completing the assignments.  But the second day she started reading in the book and it skipped from page 22-55!   So I sent an email off to Amazon and got an immediate response that they would send another book out.  But she couldn't work on her assignment that day.

Anthony and Christian completed 2 days of math.  They completed Step 25 in AAS Level 6 and worked on two writing exercises in Jump In.  They also started Memoria Press Literature.  They are reading Robin Hood .


Other Activities this Week.....

Chelsea has started back to work and had sub jobs Monday and Tuesday all day so we had Willow and Liam.  I was a little worried about Willow since she had not had much practice with a bottle but she made it ok.  She would only drink an ounce at a time and only if the bottle was upside down, but at least she would drink it!

Monday we babysat Willow and Liam.  That afternoon the girls had gymnastics.

Tuesday we babysat again.  Alex shot trap that evening.

Wednesday we spent the morning loading things for the fair.  Art took Wed, Thurs, Fri off of work.  He stayed with Christian and Alex to take the animals down to the fair while the rest of us went to Kid's Club and headed down after.

We had to get the pig ready for her show the next day.

We went through the craft buildings to see how the children's exhibits did.  At county fair everything is judged against itself so everything gets a ribbon.  At district everything is judged against other things in the category so not everything gets a ribbon.  Christian, Emmie, and Nick did not get any ribbons, but Lily and Alex did.

Lily's.  Her skirt also got 3rd.

Alex's

Thursday was the pig show.  There were 18 classes of pigs with 12-13 in most classes.  It was a long show.  Our pig came in 10th in her class.

Emmie had dance.  Alex came with me so after we dropped her off we could run home and feed and water the animals that were left home and gather up rabbits to take to the fair.  We discovered one of our rabbits had died.

When we got back we had to get goats ready for show the next day and by then it had cooled off enough that the children could ride the rides.  Lily and Christian went on all the big rides and Emmie and a friends little Guy rode the kiddie rides.

Friday was the sheep and goat show.  Christian placed 6th in his class and Alex placed 3rd in his.

Anthony went to the doctor and had his stitches removed.  He was happy to wear two shoes again.

Friday night we went to the rodeo.

Saturday morning was the rabbit show.  The two that we were able to take placed 5th and 1st. The rest of the day we just hung out.  Sunday morning we loaded up, cleaned up, and headed home.

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!

Homeschool Crew Review: HiGASFY

We LOVE when we have an opportunity to review art curriculum.  My children love drawing and studying art.  But we have never really done an art history program before.  We have looked at paintings by famous artists and studied some of their history but never have gone into great detail with it.  I was very excited to have a chance to use and review a three month subscription to  HiGASFY Art History Video Series.
HiGASFY stands for Have I Got a Story For You.  This video series is geared for students in grades 1-8.  Throughout each video Ms. Beth and her animated drop of paint named Gasfy introduce your students through 4 different art periods: Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Renaissance, and Baroque.  Each period covers 3 artists.  In the Impressionist period you will study Monet, Pissaro, and Degas.  The Post-Impressionist study focuses on van Gosh, Matisse, and Picasso.  While studying the Renaissance you will learn about da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael and the Baroque period covers Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. Each period has 12 episodes that last 20-25 minutes each.  Each video is full of fun and interesting information on the featured artist and their lives told in story format.  You also learn art vocabulary and have an opportunity to view many works by the artist with explanations on the works of art.  The beginning of each video is a review and the end has a teaser for the next video.

In addition to the videos, each art period also has a curriculum bundle that is included in your subscription.  In the bundle you will find lesson plans (PDF download), flashcards you can print, and a Name That Artist assessment game/test  (uses power point software.) The lesson plans contain 16 weeks of lessons for each period.  12 of the lessons have a corresponding video.  The first lesson talks about and has the student make a portfolio and the other lessons that do not have a corresponding video have a free draw assignment.  Each of the lessons that correspond to the videos have several activities to choose from including: hands on activities,art activities, critical thinking activities, vocabulary, writing, science, history, and more. There are also crossword and word search puzzles.

Here are a few images from the Name that Artist assessment.  You first see the image and have time to guess the artist and then the answer will show up on the screen.

I have been using HiGASFY with my 8, 10, 12, and 14 year olds.  My 2 year old grandson was here when we watched a few of the videos as well and he said," It's amazing!" (one of his new favorite phrases.)  We started with the Impressionist period and have been watching 1-2 videos per week.  I have to say I wasn't sure what to expect.  Sometimes with video curriculum the videos are not great quality but the HiGASFY videos have been wonderful.  You can tell that a lot of time and effort went making the videos.  The picture and sound quality are outstanding.

We love Ms. Beth and the way she teaches.  She has a wonderful speaking voice and story telling style. Every episode is filled with interesting information and background on the artists and you learn history of things going on at the time as well.   Did you know that Monet started out drawing caricatures? I didn't. The artwork shown in the video is amazing and Ms. Beth goes into details about it such as which direction the light is coming from or pointing out things in the picture, while still making it interesting.  The teaser that ends each video makes the children eager for the next lesson.  I think I have learned more from 8 weeks of watching these videos then I did from my college art history class.

My girls were inspired by the Impressionist videos to hold their own art show featuring their own art work.  Here are a few pieces they displayed.

There is a wide age range listed on the video series, grades 1-8.  The animated drop of paint named Gasfy is cute for the younger children.  Older children may think it is childish but Gasfy is only a small part of the videos and his presence will not take away from all of the information they will learn from watching the videos and completing the activities in the curriculum bundle.   Some of the younger children may not absorb as much information as the older ones but they will still get a lot out of watching the videos, viewing the artwork, and completing the activities in the curriculum bundle if you choose to use that as well.

To see what my Crew Mates had to say, stop by the Crew Blog!

Homeschool Wrap Up Week 5

I ordered the rest of my curriculum at the end of last week and am still waiting for a few things to come in but we had a good and productive week this week.  Next week we will be taking a few days off for District Fair.

Bible: We read 3 chapters in the book of Luke.

History: We read 3 lessons (40,41,42) in The Mystery of History on India and Hinduism, The Olympic Games, and Jonah and Amos.

Music Appreciation- We finished Chopin's Later years in Zeezok Music Appreciation 2.

Art- For Art History we watched 2 videos this week from HIGASFY the last one on Monet and the introduction to Pissaro.  I love the information she gives on the artists and all of the artwork you get to see. Lily, Christian, and Emmie also did a landscape drawing lesson from Creating a Masterpiece. 

I'm not sure what happened to the third drawing.  They were playing art show so it might have gotten hung up someplace I didn't see.

In the afternoon...


Emmie did 4 days of activities on Elephant Learning for Math.  She also did lesson 5 in Memoria Press Classical Spelling.  For reading she completed lesson 47 in AAR Level 2 which was reading the story The Wild Rice Harvest.  For language arts she started lesson in Lightning Literature Grade 2.  Her book is Teedie, A Story of Young Teddy Roosevelt (we listened to it being read on Youtube since we don't have this book.)  The grammar assignments were on adjectives and she started planning a report on George Washington.

Lily completed 4 lessons in CTC Math.  For language arts she worked on 4 lessons in her Reading Eggs workbook.  Her lightning literature arrived on Saturday so she can start on it next week.

Anthony and Christian did 4 days of CTC Math.  They completed Step 24 in AAS Level 6.  In Jump In they completed 2 exercises on writing an opinion paper.

Alex completed 4 days of MUS Pre-algebra.  He finished Biology 101 and is almost finished with Apologia Health.  He also completed 4 days of Easy Grammar.  He will start on his new history and science after district fair.

Our evening read aloud before bed has been The Long Ride Home by Susan K Marlow.  We have not started a new one for the boys and wont until Anthony is back to sleeping upstairs.

We got some building planks from Brain Blox this week.  They have spent hours building with them this week.

Other Activities this Week

Monday our 4 H Club went to pack OCC Boxes for a community service project.  We packed 271 boxes in one hour!  Operation Christmas Child is a wonderful service project for children and families!

After we finished  the girls had gymnastics.


And after that I had a homeschool meeting.  We did a Homeschool 101 meeting for those who were interested in learning more about homeschooling or those who have just started and was looking for more information.  We  had a great turnout.  I spoke on homeschool laws while another mom spoke on getting started and homeschool misconceptions.  I can stand up in front of large groups of children and speak with no problem.  Adults on the other hand....not so much....but hopefully they left with more information then they came with :)


Tuesday Alex went and shot trap.

Wednesday we had Kid's Club and Children's Choir.

Thursday we went down to the Pike County Fair to watch the pig show.

This little boy came over and started playing with Liam

That afternoon Emmie had dance.

Friday Anthony had a foot doctor appointment.  He got a great report.  His toe is healing better then expected and he will get his stitches out next Friday.

Emmie helped me bake a pie on Friday.

Saturday we ran our camper out to Hope to get a spot for the fair and then went to Grandview for Lily, Christian, and Alex to participate in the Marksmanship Challenge which included: bait casting, BB Shooting, archery, 3 D Archery, and slingshots.  Alex won 1st in his division and Christian won 3rd in his.  I get a mom fail for not taking sun screen but the only ones who burned who Alex and I.

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!

5th Grade Curriculum Choices for the 2019/2020 School Year

I recently wrote about my curriculum choices for my 3rd grader this year.  You can find that post here.  My 5th grade daughter's curriculum is very similar to my 3rd graders with a few exceptions.  Lily has already gone through all the levels of All About Reading and by 5th grade does not need a reading curriculum.  She reads on her own quite often and will have books to read for "school" in her literature studies.  She also does not do a formal spelling curriculum.  She has always been a good natural speller so we haven't done a lot with spelling.  But she is using the Reading Eggs 200 Essential Reading Skills for 5th Grade which has spelling, grammar, and comprehension exercises.


I would choose completely different things if Lily was the only child I was homeschooling but these choices work better when homeschooling multiple ages.

During the morning school hours we work on our "together" subjects.  For Bible this semester we are reading straight from the Bible, currently in the book of Luke.


For history we are using The Mystery of History Vol 1.

We always do some kind of nonfiction read aloud in the mornings, usually a biography.  This year we are working through Zeezok Music Appreciation 2 so our biographies are famous composers and we listen to some of their works as we go through the books.

I chose Apologia Botany for science.  This is the only book out of the elementary series that we have never used.  I ordered the Junior Notebooking Journal and the science lab kit to go along with the text.

Art- We currently have a subscription to Creating a Masterpiece Drawing lessons and will be working our way through those.  We also are working on a Art History video series called HIGASFY.

In the afternoons we work on individual subjects.


 Math is CTCMath.  This is an online math with video lessons and short assignments.

For language arts Lily will be using 4th Grade Lightning Literature.  I chose 4th grade instead of 5th grade because I really liked the book selections and I know Lily will too.




She will also be using 200 Essential Reading Skills for 5th Grade.





I think that these choices will be a good fit for Lily.  I am still trying to decide if I should add a language study as well but I am going to wait and see how things go over the next few weeks first.

Happy Homeschooling!