1997 -1998 School Schedule

Each morning we sing a song from an old old song book. These are American folk songs.
Or we sing a song in Spanish. It's a great way to practice what we have been learning.
Daily devotionals are next. Our church has a great daily devotional book for children. This book explains,in easy to understand terms, a verse of the Bible.
Triple is also learning The 10 Commandments (in order) for our Co-op group, so we review them each day. Then he works one page of his Sunday School lesson book each day.
Then he does one “daily gram” (Mon. - Fri.) and checks it himself. His capitalization and punctuation skills have already improved 50%. (These are grammar practice sheets.)
Our co-op group has been using "Easy Grammer" curriculum. I was given one of these books last year. I decided to go through it and use some of the pages from it as practice work sheets also. It is a wonderful program.
He then takes out his Australian Fact Journal, and charts the temperature in Melbourne. (Mon - Fri.) He gets the temperature off the internet.
Next is Spelling. (Bob Jones University Curriculum) (Pre test on Mon., Workbook pages on Tues., Test on Wed..... if he makes 100 then no more tests for the week ... if not then write misspelled words 10 times on Wed, 25 times on Thurs., and 50 times on Friday with the word being added to next weeks list .... Weds. he has a work book page on dictionary skills, Thurs. is Journal writing, and Friday is free time if he has completed everything.)
This year his spelling book has added 1-3 state names for him to learn to spell each week. I decided to use this opportunity to teach some more American geography and to teach him the names of the capitol cities of each state. We started a "State Notebook." The states he has to learn to spell each week is the states he has to gather information on. He writes the name of the state and the capitol then has to find out the name of their state tree, flower, location (N, S, E, W, NW etc.), state motto, etc. Any interesting facts about that state (Wyoming has Yellowstone Nat'l Park ... the first nat'l park in the U.S. .....) He then has to collect interesting newspaper and magazine articles about that state to put in the book. He found a great article about the large resort that was used in movie "The Shining". It's in Colorado. Anything that is interesting about that state. When we studied Louisiana, Trip made Jambalaya for lunch. It was great!
He also has a spelling journal. On Thurs. they give a suggestion for a journal idea. It may be something about the funniest thing that has ever happened to him .... or maybe the most tragic. He has to write 2 - 3 paragraphs.
Then we do Saxon Math. (Mon - Fri) He has to do a timed test of 100 facts. (sometimes adding, sometimes subtraction, multiplication, or division. He has 4 minutes to complete the test. He hates these, and this is the first year I have insisted on him doing them. His math skills have already improved. I just wish there was a better .... less painful way to accomplish this.)
Then he does a math lesson. Every 10 lessons he has a test. On the days he has a test, we don't have a timed test or lesson.
Writing comes next. (Mon. - Fri) We have started a "Writer's idea notebook." Each day he has to look up 2-3 new words in the dictionary. (I have a list of them.) He then has to read the definition then write the definition in his own words under the alphabetical letter in his notebook. If I make him define the word in his own words then I know he understands the definition. He then has a data base of new words to use in his writing.
Then I make him list something or write something. One assignment was list 25 words you like to say. Any word. (example: opaque .... super sonic ..... roadrunner ....)
The next day he had to use words from his list of 25 to make descriptive phrases .... the super sonic, opaque roadrunner ..... It doesn't really matter if they don't make sense .... this is just an exercise to get him to use a lot of adjectives together.
One assignment was to write a letter to an animal you want for a pet. Persuade the animal that he will take care of it, feed it, love it ..... He chose a bandicoot. Another assignment, he had to write a letter to an author telling him how much he enjoys his books. (And we really did mail it. I found the address on the internet.)
Next comes English. (Bob Jones) Grammar, punc., capt., word forms and usage. Mostly are working on sentence structure. Too long sentences. Too short sentences. Non sentences. (OK ... I know ... I should work on this myself!!)
Three days per week, we are doing art. We are going through an art lesson book I got at a near-by book store. We are learning to draw cartoons, but it is great for teaching shadows, and shading.
We also study prints that I have ordered. We learn to recognize paintings from various artists.
At the start of the year, we were doing music two days per week. We were learning to play the recorder. Now he goes to band on Wednesdays. He is learning to play percussion instruments. (At the moment, that is the bell kit and drums.)
Reading. Mondays he does a speed and comprehension reader. This is from ABeka Books.
M-Th he reads out loud from a McGuffey reader. (wonderful, inspirational stories.... good character building stuff.) Then he has 20 minutes of silent reading from one of the many books I have in my library. Usually heroic stories (real heroes .... it bugs me to hear the media call Olympic athletes heroes ..... why are they heroes??????) He recently finished a 200 page biography about Robert E. Lee. He was one of our Civil War heroes ... and possibly a distant relative.
Note taking: Trip has a "reading notebook" that he takes notes in. He will do a book report about this book using his notes.
Friday is Science reading day. We have a Christian Liberty Nature reader. He reads a story from it and takes a verbal test on what he reads. He then gets to watch a 20 minute science video.
History (M-Th ...Bob Jones Heritage Studies.) This year we are studying about the states again. It's a little more boring this year. I may switch over to ABeka next year. It's just so easy to use BJ .... but I'm not sure it is better. I think he needs more "meaty" stuff.
Friday history is Australian History. I bought some old library books that we read through each Friday.
We also have co-op meeting on Friday, so he will be doing some plays and reports for this class occasionally.
Science(ABeka) (M-Th .... Science reading and video on Friday) I love ABeka Science and Health. Challenging and interesting. (I hate most ABeka readers ... boring!!!!) He will do Science for about 30 weeks and Health about 6 weeks. Lots of fun experiments.
Spanish - Power glide language course. Intensive. We need to water it down a bit. Trip loves the story behind the lessons. He is a secret agent that has gone to an island to meet his contact. The people on the Island only speak Spanish, so he has to learn Spanish as the adventure unfolds. We have taken to writing the Spanish names for everything and sticking then on things around the house. (La Puerta ... door) We do lessons M-Th with a co-op meeting on Friday morning to practice what we have learned.
We do 10 minutes of Greek and Latin Root words (A course called English from the Roots Up), and then 10 minutes of AU words each day.
We are also doing 20 minutes of typing 3 days per week. (Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing)
We have swimming on Mon., Tues., and Thurs. afternoons.
He also practices Archery in our back yard.
First and Third Fridays are home school park days.
Second and/or fourth Fridays are field trip days.

We are also doing some extra activities this year. We recently put together a kit that lets you do "20 fun and exciting computer activities." Its a small electronic board ... complete with resistors, capacitors, nand gates, LEDS, and a piezo transducer. We even had to hook up two different computer chips. This was great fun and very interesting. The information in the instructions was wonderful. It even explained how to read the band codes (# of ohms) on the resistors. My brother, Mack, who was in the navy, taught me how to read these when I was about Trip's age. I can't believe I remembered as much as I did. We both learned a lot!
We also made a geodesic dome .... made from rods rolled from newspaper. It took us one whole afternoon to finish it. It looks neat. We cut the directions in half, and the thing is still 3-1/2 feet in diameter!! We have it hanging from the ceiling in our classroom.
Our last project was a solar powered hot dog cooker. It worked well, considering it was late November when we made it!
Finally, for anyone worried about us not getting the socialization he needs, he is with other children on Mon., Tues., Wed., Thurs., and Fri. in a “learning environment.” On weekends, he plays with his neighborhood friend. Friday afternoons, he occasionally goes to play with one of the home school kids at their home. He actually gets to “socialize” more now than when he was in public school, where he wasn’t allowed to talk at lunch or in class. Also, most of the other children in his public school were in daycare, so he couldn’t play with them after school either.