Friday, March 29, 2019

Living History, Angola, IEW lessons, First Day of Spring, and Tennis



We started our week off with our annual Homeschool Living History Museum.  This year we have roughly 30 projects that ranged from Ed Sheeran to Blackbeard.  We represented the Wright Brothers, Harriet Tubman, and P.T. Barnum.





Tennis started back officially this week.  We are inside currently because the weather is not great.  Hopefully though we will be able to move outside in the next week or two.  Currently they are practicing serving and returns.





In Geography we learned about the country of Angola.  These are pictures of our geography meal.  I made:

Paracucua street peanuts




Portuguese Peri-Peri Chicken and corn fritters.


Lydia started a new program from Techie Homeschool Mom.  This week she learned about Grant Wood.




We did a lot of exercising this week.  Joey is old enough to join us on the gym equipment.  So he started his membership to the gym so that he can exercise also.



While I was getting Brayden and Caty to walk, Joe and Lydia were shooting some hoops.




On our way home one night, the sunset was beautiful!!



The first day of spring brought us:

Butterfly (LCarb) cupcakes

Baskets full of rainbows for each kiddo.  

Spring themed sandwiches for lunch with salads.



Candy flower pretzel treats



Rainbow waffles with fruit salads....




We tried standing an egg on end.  It worked.  But we were disappointed after researching this myth that it can be done at anytime of the year.



Caty had to transplant her pea plants.  They outgrew her egg cartons.





This week also brought Cook Club at the library.  This month's chef was Bobby Flay.  Caty picked out a garlic burger recipe to make.  This was a hit!   Every one of the kids loved them and so did the members of Cookbook Club.





We rocked out our mismatched socks for Rock Your Socks Day 2019 #rockyoursocks2019 for Down Syndrome Awareness!




Brayden has Joe's old cell phone now.  He saw a bird right next to the van and had to get a picture of it.  

On Friday we had a bunch of friends get together for basketball and fun.  Lydia is loving this!



Another of Lydia's projects was writing a story for the Toledo Library Story contest.  We started using IEW Fix-It Grammar because as we started this project, I really realized how much they were both struggling in writing.  We are working between The Nose Book and Robin Hood levels.  



Caty found a cupcake decorating book at the library.  We had to laugh....it turned into a real "Nailed It" moment.




But they all really liked the cupcakes.  I have figured out how to continue to cut more sugar in baking.  Unfortunately this mix isn't the greatest.  But still trying.  Joey cannot eat almond flour, so sometimes that gets to be a struggle.

Lydia and Caty are both working their way through their Math programs.  Both still using Teaching Textbooks.  Lydia is working on multiplying Mixed numbers.  And other more "advanced" math other than addition/subtraction.  She and Brayden are working on the same level.

The girls started studying World War 2 this week.  Brayden is early American History.  He's studying pre-American Revolution through French-Indian War the next couple weeks.  He doing a combination of videos and non-fiction books, including the Who Was series.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!  See everyone next week... Linking up with other families....


Homeschool Coffee Break



Memoria Press - Poetry For The Grammar Stage Review




Memoria Press

Lydia and I recently had the opportunity to study and delve into a look at poetry when we were chosen to review Poetry For The Grammar Stage from Memoria Press.  Lydia has a new respect for poetry, we were definitely not disappointed!!
Poetry For The Grammar Stage is a collection of poetry that was grouped together for roughly Grades 3-7.  The set includes Poetry For The Grammar Stage Anthology, Poetry For The Grammar Stage Teacher's Guide and also Poetry For The Grammar Stage Student Workbook. We received a physical copy of each of the books for our review.



The Poetry For The Grammar Stage Anthology book is the bound book of poetry selection for use in this series.  Thirty-two poems are included in this level of Literature & Poetry from Memoria Press.  The poetry includes selections that will match up classic literature titles such as Robin Hood, The Cricket in Times Square, A Bear Called Paddington and Heidi.  There are some classics from well known poets such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, and even Walt Whitman.


The Poetry For The Grammar Stage Student Workbook has pages that match to each reading selection in the Anthology book.  The suggested schedule is to read the poem together.  Students should copy and illustrate the poem.  



Depending on the length of the poem, this could take a student just a bit of time.   I found that Lydia struggled and got very frustrated with this portion of using Poetry For The Grammar Stage.  She struggles with eye and hand coordination when doing any type of copywork.  This is part of her learning disability.  It takes her an extra long time to copy small portions.  At the first sign of struggle in the very first lesson, I could see frustration already starting.  Once it has started, I knew she would not want to continue further and develop a hatred for poetry.  So I removed the copywork portion of the lessons.

That brought us to learning the vocabulary and working with rhyming in the stanzas, as well as comprehension questions.

Lydia struggles with writing period.  So this unfortunately was also an area that she struggled in.  As we talked through the comprehension questions for review and analyzed the very first poem, I discovered that more adaptations would need to be made to make this an enjoyable study for Lydia.



That is when I gave her the Poetry For The Grammar Stage Anthology book to read.  She and I would take turns reading a poem, depending on the poems length.  We did this daily.  Daily we would review and discuss poetry terms that were highlighted in the workbook.  We discussed the rhyming patterns and comprehension questions to get a better understanding of each poem.  By adjusting to a verbal question and answer, I was able to keep her frustration levels down to nothing and this gave her the confidence to keep going in our studies.

She started working on art to go with her poems.  Lydia loves to draw and was learning how to draw optical art.  She loves this and can work on it when she's not struggling with her hand tremors.  This day she created an example of "The Wind" she said.



Poetry For The Grammar Stage Teacher's Guide is really just a complete copy of the Student Workbook, but with all of the answers filled in.  Parents are encouraged to review the poetry terms in the back of the Teacher's Guide, by doing this it was a refresher for me and I was able to speak with Lydia more confidently about each poem.  

We actually split up talking about a poem over a weekly period.  Since she was not copying it.  I needed to find a way to reinforce the material that we were learning and discussing.  Our schedule included a minimum of one poem each week, and we would work on memorizing it.  If a poem was longer though, we would spend more time on it due to the length or material involved if there was a lot of vocabulary to discuss.  

This is one of the biggest loves I have for the Memoria Press curriculum.  I can easily adapt it to the kid's learning styles.  We have been using their materials with all of our kids, and I have been able to adapt all of the materials to each of our kid's learning disabilities.  The curriculum is also very easy to use and does not require extensive pre-planning.  I was able to add the lessons easily to our schedule each week, and also just as easily adjust if we wanted to spend extra time on a poem.

We have been enjoying our study of Poetry For The Grammar Stage so much, that when we study American History next year I plan on purchasing Poetry & Short Stories: American Literature Set to enhance our studies.

Several members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew were able to review various materials from Memoria Press. These include:

Classical Phonics with the First Start Reading Program
Poetry & Short Stories: American Literature Set
Poetry, Prose & Drama: The Old English & Medieval Periods Set
Poetry & Prose Book Two: The Elizabethan to the Neoclassical Age Set
Poetry Book Three: The Romantic to the Victorian Age Set
Prima Latina
Latina Christiana
First Form Latin
Second Form Latin
Third Form Latin
Fourth Form Latin + Henle I

Click on the link below to see how they used these materials in their homes and with their families. 


Phonics, Poetry & Latin {Memoria Press Reviews}
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