Camian Academy

The package with the Latin course in it arrived last night so now we have everything we need for Monday when we start doing school all the way classical. Ani was really excited over her Latin stuff. As I was closing the door after it got here Ani and Cameron asked what it was and I said it was Ani’s Latin course. I noticed just as I shut the door the UPS guy was almost to the door of the apartment building and stopped, turned around, and gave us a peculiar look when I said that.

We started school at 10 this morning.

Warm-up: Ani wrote on the whiteboard “My dream is”. Cameron said he never remembers his dreams and usually he doesn’t think he dreams. Ani, however, wrote out quite a long tale. “One ay Cameron and I wanted to get some pistachios and we went inside and the person at the counter said to go out the back door and we did. There was a lot of people there but they were staring at a dead person. And they were trying to figure out who did it. Just then we heard a bad guy sound. Then we saw a dark shadow which was a bad guy’s shadow. Just then we saw a bad guy. Me and Cameron and Mommie hid behind some cars. Daddy wasn’t afraid of the bad guy because he had his own knife. Once the bad guy came up to him they got into a big fight. All the good guys hid behind cars so they would be safe. Daddy killed the bad guy. All the people were safe again.” Clearly her father is a super hero according to her!

Langauge Arts: Ani took two spelling tests, one of misspelled words and one for lesson 32. She did three pages in Spelling Workout A. She read lesson 32 paragraphs 1-8 in the McGuffey Second Reader. She did First Language Lessons lesson 18. She wrote thank you notes for her birthday gifts from her friends Savannah and Melissa, Buddy and Mary, and Alexis. Cameron reviewed the short sounds A, E, I, O, and U say through a worksheet, dot-to-dots, and singing. I read four chapters of Robin Hood (great illustrated classics) aloud to the kids.

Math: Ani did two workbook pages in Math-U-See Gamma lesson 17. She also counted by 7’s orally.

Religion: I read four pages aloud to the kids from the Illustrated Book of Mormon Volume 3.

Piano: Ani reviewed the flash cards she has learned so far and practiced the piano for a little while.

Unit Study: In Looking at Rocks we read about Diamonds and the Rock Rainbow. We examined the last 5 rock samples and added them to our rock display.

We finished school at 12:15. 2 hours and 15 minutes today.

We started school at 9:30. Once again we did Children’s Miracle Music and then sat down at the chalk table. Looks like that works pretty well.

Warm-up: I wrote on the whiteboard “Rocks are”. Cameron said permanent. Ani wrote that they are her favorite and her favorite rock is mica.

Language Arts: Ani took a spelling test and then did four pages in Spelling Workout A. She read lesson 30 in her McGuffey Second Reader. She did lesson 17 in First Language Lessons. She wrote thank you notes to Aunt Betty and Nan for her birthday gifts. Cameron reviewed the short sounds A, E, I, O, and U say. I read chapters 9-12 of Robin Hood (great illustrated classics) aloud to the kids.

Math: Ani watched the video for lesson 17 Math-U-See Gamma and counted orally by 7’s.

Religion: I read four pages in the Illustrated Book of Mormon Volume 3 aloud to the kids.

Piano: Ani did a page each in her lesson book, activity and ear training book, notespeller book, solo book, technic book, and two pages in her theory book. She also learned the flash card showing 4/4 time.

Unit Study: I read the four pages on coal in Looking at Rocks aloud to the kids. We examined 5 rock samples and added them to our rock display.

We finished school at 11:30. For the beginning Cameron played Jump Start First Grade. About 30 minutes before we finished my friend dropped her son off so I could watch him while she went somewhere so Cameron played with him a bit as well.

We started school at 9:30 this morning. The kids watched some old Felix the Cat cartoons (on one of those $1 DVDs from Target) while eating breakfast after they woke up. Then we did Children’s Miracle Music and immediately after that was done they sat down for school right away.

Warm-up: I wrote “Pink is” on the whiteboard. Both of them answered my favorite color.

Language Arts: Ani took a spelling test and did four pages in Spelling Workout A. She only has 5 more lessons in that one (4 pages each). She read lesson 29 in the McGuffey Second Reader. She did lesson 16 in First Language Lessons. Cameron did lesson 5 in The Ordinary Parent’s Guide. He definitely doesn’t like repetition of poems and stuff so we have to adjust the lesson. He has now done all 5 vowels. I read Robin Hood (great illustrated classics) chapters 5-8 aloud to the kids.

Math: Ani mulitplied by 4’s aloud and then completed lesson 16 of Math-U-See Gamma. Cameron did 5 pages in lesson 3 of Math-U-See Primer.

Religion: I read four pages in the Illustrated Book of Mormon volume 3 aloud to the kids.

Piano: Ani did a page each in the lesson book, notespeller book, and technic book. I no longer have to remind her which fingers go where since she knows the thumbs (finger #1) go on middle C.

Unit Study: In Looking at Rocks we read about salt. I had planned to start salt water evaporating but Jamie and the kids prepared that on Sunday. They also did one of sugar. The kids discovered one of the rocks that was growing crystals is done. This is the one in white vinegar with a penny in it. The other two are growing snow white crystals while that one grew bright blue ones due to the copper in the penny. We examined five rock samples and added them to our rock display.

We finished school at 11. 1 1/2 hours today.

We started school at 2pm.

Warm-up: I wrote on the whiteboard “I don’t like”. Cameron said he doesn’t like homemade Zuppa Toscana soup. Ani wrote that she doesn’t like raw carrots.

Language Arts: Ani took a spelling test. She did four pages in Spelling Workout A. She read lesson 27 in the McGuffey Second Reader. She recited the poem Work and illustrated it for her notebook, finishing lesson 15 of First Language Lessons. Cameron did lesson 4 in the Ordinary Parent’s Guide. I read About the Author and chapters 1-4 of Robin Hood (great illustrated classics).

Math: Ani watched the video for Math-U-See Gamma lesson 16 and did one work page. Cameron reviewed the numbers 0 through 9.

Religion: I read four pages from the Illustrated Book of Mormon aloud to the kids.

Piano: Ani went through the flash cards and then practiced the songs and exercises she has already done for about 15 minutes.

Unit Study: In Looking at Rocks we read about pumice. Then we started working on our rock display using the 10 rocks the kids examined on Friday.

We finished school at 4pm. 2 hours of school.

This morning I ordered Latin for Children. After school I let Ani try a lesson of Rosetta Stone Spanish. She really liked it and asked to have that added as part of school. Soon we will have everything we currently need for homeschooling and will be all the way to classical education. Everything else we need for the next year will come from either the curriculum fair next month or ordered from Rainbow Resource when we need it. We do still need a stand for our keyboard, though. I am getting sick of having to put it out on the table for Ani’s piano lessons. She’d probably also practice much more if she could get to it since right now she has to have me get it out since she can’t lift it since it’s too big.

We started school at 9 this morning.

Warm-up: Ani wrote on the whiteboard “In warm weather, I” and then she wrote it on her paper and added play in the sun and drew a huge picture of the sun.

Language Arts: Ani did a spelling test and did four pages in Spelling Workout A. She read lessons 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25 in the McGuffey Second Reader. She continued to memorize the poem in First Language Lessons lesson 15. I read chapters 18 through 22 of Heidi (great illustrated classics) aloud to the kids, finishing the book.

Math: Ani counted by 4’s orally and finished the worksheet for lesson 15 of Math-U-See Gamma.

Religion: I read four pages of the Illustrated Book of Mormon volume 3 aloud to the kids.

Piano: Ani did a page in her lesson book, a page in the activity and ear training book, a page in the notespeller book, and a page in the solo book.

Unit Study: In Looking at Rocks we read about slate. Then the kids began examining rock samples. They will look at 10 each day for 5 days. For each type there are two of the same rock. Next Friday the kids will put together a rock display and since Ani started making a book with her observations about the rocks anyway we have decided the display will be in book form and we will glue one of each type of rock on the pages in it.

We finished school at 11. Two hours today. Ani will be very happy when we have social studies and science and Latin and Spanish added to it starting about a week from Monday (provided everything has arrived by then). The only thing we are removing is the unit study part and that generally doesn’t take more than 15 minutes of our entire school time. So no doubt our school time will get longer very soon, much to Ani’s delight.

Today we started school at 9:45.

I wrote on the whiteboard “My least favorite food is”. Ani insisted she has no food she really doesn’t like.

Language Arts: Ani did two pages of Spelling Workout A. She read lesson 20 in the McGuffey Second Reader. She began memorizing a poem in First Language Lessons lesson 15. I read chapters 14-17 of Heidi (great illustrated classics) aloud to the kids.

Math: Ani watched the Math-U-See Gamma lesson 15 video. Then she counted out loud by 4’s and wrote down counting by 4’s (and 2’s and 6’s) in her notebook where she writes random things.

Religion: I read four pages of the Illustrated Book of Mormon Volume 3 aloud to the kids.

Piano: Ani did a page in her lesson book, a page in the activity and ear training book, a page in the notespeller book, two pages in the solo book, a page in the technic book, and a page in the theory book.

Unit Study: We read about graphite in Looking at Rocks. We went through Learning About Rocks.

We finished school at 11:15. 1 1/2 hours.

Buy.Com was actually out of the Story of the World volume 1 text and so cancelled that part of my order. The other books aren’t much good without it so I went to Amazon.Com and ordered that book plus the art book I had picked. Those added up to $1.66 less than $25 so I added chapter book #20 of the Magic School Bus (Rocky Road Trip) to get the free shipping. I also ordered The A to Z of Classical Composers from an individual seller on Amazon. Once all those books arrive we’ll be set for history, science, art, and music history!

Today we started school at 10:30.

Warm-up: I wrote “My favorite person is” on the whiteboard. Cameron said I am his favorite person. Ani, always fair, said her favorite people are me and her father. She went on to say she likes her father because he goes on walks with her and she likes me because I do school with her.

Language Arts: Ani did a spelling test and two pages in Spelling Workout A. She did a handwriting page on the letter Z. That completes the alphabet. Now I think I’ll just let her do copywork to improve her handwriting until I introduce her to cursive. She read lessons 17, 18, and 19 in the McGuffey Second Reader. She did lesson 14 in First Language Lessons. Cameron did worksheets I made on the letters A, E, and I. He definitely knows the short sounds those three make now. Of course he told me my elephant picture did not look like any elephant he’d ever seen. I am no artist, that’s for sure. I read chapters 9-13 in Heidi (great illustrated classics) aloud to the kids.

Math: Ani did oral multiplying by 6 (by far her least favorite of all the multiplication tables so far) and completed the pages for lesson 14 in Math-U-See Gamma. Cameron reviewed the numbers 0-9 and used the foam letters to put the numbers in order.

Religion: I read four pages of the Illustrated Book of Mormon volume 3 to the kids. I hadn’t realized how much Cameron pays attention to when I read those until Sunday. He had been asked to give a talk in Primary and when we asked him what he wanted it to be on he said the allegory of the olive tree. That is where were are in the reading of volume. He then proceeded to tell the whole story, with very accurate recall, to Jamie. And so for his talk he told the story while I whispered to him the words to say and Jamie held up the pages in the Illustrated Book of Mormon.

Piano: Ani did a page in the lesson book, a page in the activity and ear training book, a page in the notespeller book, and a page in the technic book.

Unit Study: In Looking at Rocks we learned about marble. Then we completed the Learning About Minerals (Dover) book.

We finished school at 12:15. 1 hour 45 minutes again. Of course that’s really only a small portion of the “school” we do throughout the day. Ani has spent the last 10 minutes making herself a worksheet to do. She does a lot of stuff like that (sometimes making worksheets for Cameron to do). After we finished school we made cookies. Granted it was just the break apart and put on the cookie sheet type, but the kids enjoyed it all the same and enjoyed watching the cookies bake through the window on the oven. Every day we read in the afternoons. We get books from the library each week and we get lots of chapter books for those read aloud times. Plus Ani reads a bit on her own, more some days than others. And then there are all those other times when learning happens in a setting that doesn’t even remotely resemble school. I would never be able to even venture a guess as to just how much “school” the kids do each and every day over and above formal “doing school.”

This morning I ordered the books we need for science and history from buy.com. Since we will finish our last unit study next Friday I figured it was time to get those books.

We started school at 11.

Warm-up: I wrote on the whiteboard “I like to pretend”. Ani wrote that she likes to pretend to play Magic School Bus.

Language Arts: Ani did two pages of Spelling Workout A. She did a handwriting sheet on the letter Y. She read lesson 16 in McGuffey Second Readers. She did lesson 13 in First Language Lessons. I read chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 of Heidi (great illustrated classics) aloud to the kids.

Math: Ani watched the video for Math-U-See Gamma lesson 14.

Religion: I read four pages in the Illustrated Book of Mormon Volume 3 aloud to the kids.

Piano: Ani did a page in her lesson book, a page in the activity and ear training book, a page in the notespeller book, and a page in the theory book. She also went through 7 of the flash cards. She now knows where all the white key notes/names are.

Unit Study: In Looking at Rocks we read about limestone. Then the kids painted big rocks.

We finished school at 12:45. 1 hour and 45 minutes today.