This has been our first somewhat normal week of school. Just when we got started, Ken and I headed out of the country. (Have you been reading my Botswana blog posts??? There are still more to come!) So Kathryn had a little hiatus from school, and Lindsey had to plug along through her classes without any help from us: a pretty tall order for a brand-new-to-homeschooling teen! But we're back, and I'm finally re-adjusted to this time zone. Hurray!
Kathryn and I are getting ready to "visit" Europe, so this week we've been studying maps, and labeling a wall map of Europe with names of countries, major cities, major water and land features, etc. She has been loving our smaller write on/wipe off maps, and has done something with those (at her own request) all but one day this week. I'm loving this as a great learning tool for her.
Lindsey is doing well with her classes, but my biggest prayer for her education-wise this year is that she will learn to love learning. Right now it is NOT enjoyable most of the time, but she's working on trying not to talk so negatively about it. She's hanging in there, though, even with the difficult classes. In fact, math was the subject she struggled with most last year, and the one she was most concerned about, but she has a good solid mid-range B in Algebra! Way to go, Lindsey!
One thing Lindsey is still getting used to is seeing Bible verses or "God" in her text books. She commented about that a few times this week, in her Rod and Staff grammer book and Apologia Physical Science books in particular. She thinks it's cool and so do I!
This afternoon Kathryn has a Girl Scout Brownie meeting, and Lindsey has square dance lessons after class, because there's a family square dance next Friday night at church for the Independent Studies kids. Fun!
Kathryn and I are getting ready to "visit" Europe, so this week we've been studying maps, and labeling a wall map of Europe with names of countries, major cities, major water and land features, etc. She has been loving our smaller write on/wipe off maps, and has done something with those (at her own request) all but one day this week. I'm loving this as a great learning tool for her.
In math, we've been doing four lessons from Horizons 3 each week, and we're doing much better with it than last year. We are using book two, so the plan is to finish up grade 3 math mid-year, and then do the first half of grade four in the second half of this school year. This week she's been doing things like: perimeter, pictographs, word problems, multiplication, fractions, and more.
We're enjoying Christian Kids Explore Biology. This week we studied cells, and Kathryn had eagerly anticipated our hands on project: making a Jell-O cell model! I forgot to buy any Jell-O at the store, so our sweet neighbor gave us some. If we do this again, I'd probably use a lighter color, but it was no less fun or educational with the red color. Kathryn added a vanilla wafer as the nucleus, uncooked pasta, sweet-tarts, a few cashews and sunflowers to represent the various organelles in an animal cell.
We're enjoying Christian Kids Explore Biology. This week we studied cells, and Kathryn had eagerly anticipated our hands on project: making a Jell-O cell model! I forgot to buy any Jell-O at the store, so our sweet neighbor gave us some. If we do this again, I'd probably use a lighter color, but it was no less fun or educational with the red color. Kathryn added a vanilla wafer as the nucleus, uncooked pasta, sweet-tarts, a few cashews and sunflowers to represent the various organelles in an animal cell.
Later that evening, we ate the cell (minus some of the more odd parts we'd added)!
Another skill Kathryn has been learning is finding the definition of words in context. For each lesson in biology, she makes a list of vocabulary words and writes out their definition. We keep those in her biology notebook.
Lindsey is doing well with her classes, but my biggest prayer for her education-wise this year is that she will learn to love learning. Right now it is NOT enjoyable most of the time, but she's working on trying not to talk so negatively about it. She's hanging in there, though, even with the difficult classes. In fact, math was the subject she struggled with most last year, and the one she was most concerned about, but she has a good solid mid-range B in Algebra! Way to go, Lindsey!
One thing Lindsey is still getting used to is seeing Bible verses or "God" in her text books. She commented about that a few times this week, in her Rod and Staff grammer book and Apologia Physical Science books in particular. She thinks it's cool and so do I!
This afternoon Kathryn has a Girl Scout Brownie meeting, and Lindsey has square dance lessons after class, because there's a family square dance next Friday night at church for the Independent Studies kids. Fun!
