Site Review and Update

Digital Learning

Today I gave our son a choice for Language Arts: Grammar or Writing. Not surprisingly, he chose grammar as he's not a big fan of writing. He understands that he will need to do some writing by the end of the week and is learning the fine art of what his choices will mean for him. For example, if he saves all of his writing for Friday, then he will be spending a long period of time on writing in one sitting rather than breaking it up a bit more over the week.

These are the kinds of choices we all have to make in our every day life. If I save all of my dishes for "later" instead of doing them as we dirty them, then I'll have one big dish-washing session "later" rather than several smaller ones spread out over the day. 

Admittedly, I traditionally choose to do one big session. There is an honoring for each path, each choice made. There are no "mistakes", only different choices.

Today, my son chose grammar (as stated). As it turns out, I recently discovered a site to work on spelling words. We decided to give it a whirl today. I would like to report back that although there are no bells and whistles on the site (which can sometimes be a good thing), it is a nice way to help children memorize spelling words.  It doesn't allow you to make your own lists, at least not that I discovered, but it has a few nice little activities to help kids learn the lists that they provide. It is nice for a change of pace, to be sure.

The site is http://www.gradespelling.com/. It could use some individualization, as noted, but for what it is, it's a nice diversion from the norm for about 15 minutes.

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In other homeschooling news: we're gearing up to get back into the groove of Math-U-See alongside Waldorf-inspired main lesson book work (history, language arts, and science). We've taken the last two weeks off while I was waiting to have time to scan a few more chapters before we wrote on them, and decided to take a break from the main lesson book as well at the same time.

It's been fun using different resources than we normally use. We've also been visiting the library a lot more frequently (a habit I plan to continue!). My DD6 is really enjoying the story time. My DS8 seems to be losing interest in the story time, so he is starting to find other things to do in the library while his sister is sitting with the other kids.  This hasn't really translated to him reading a book on his own, but at least he has picked out a book for us to read later, which I'm considering progress for him.

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I'm already starting the planning process for next year. I know, I know.  Part of why I'm getting such an early start is because I discovered that I'm going to need to create my own study guide for The Children of Odin (unless any of ya'll know of one that I've somehow not noticed out there somewhere!).  I've decided that if I am going to go through all of this trouble, I am going to share my work....so stay tuned, because I'll likely be posting what I come up with.  I figure, if I share with others, it will save someone else from having to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.

I'm starting to collect resources for our (very large) unit on the Norse, including their mythology, their history, runes, and crafts.  We'll dig into as many aspects as we can over the course of the unit.  

I'm getting really excited about this unit!  We'll be both reading The Children of Odin as well as listening to it on audiobook.  We'll be trying to make our own (miniature) viking ship, shield, armor, weapons, etc.  We'll write with runes, we'll practice Viking-style fighting.  We'll read other stories about the Vikings and watch a few videos.  We'll do some geography work to trace their explorations.  We'll do a bit of farming, as it was very important to the Norse, and in the process learn more about plants, water cycles, as well as preserving food and cooking with the preserved food.  We'll make some jewelry and clothing that the Norse might have worn as well. 

It's going to be a really fun unit!

But....in the meantime, we're still working on the Old Testament stories, as it is part of the Grade 3 curriculum in the Waldorf tradition.  I'm getting a little OT'd out, to be honest with you, but according to some, it is important for children to have a solid basis in some of the world's religions, particularly the Old Testament, since three religions grew out from the OT and you see heeps of biblical references in literature and out in the world in general. It's important to be able to understand other people's perspectives as well.  

I feel like we've been doing the OT forever now, however, and will be quite glad to wrap it up in about a month. We'll cap it off with a viewing of The Ten Commandments and possibly Noah as well.  I have always loved watching The Ten Commandments - it's one of those Old Hollywood classic movies.  It should be interesting to see what my son thinks of it!