Really? Home Education!: Week One Term 3 2014

We are into the second half of the year. We are escaping major illnesses, which is one of the main reasons we began home schooling. Our household was constantly full of illness, my schooled kids often having 13 weeks off school each year. It was rolling illnesses, so there was rarely a time when everyone was well. But I digress.

We had a reasonably successful week. It started with s delivery of books, and then a second and a third box. Still waiting on many, but the most important ones came. Story of the World and the Geography texts.

The kids continued with their maths excel revision books, and for English they wrote a narrative. I did this just to see how their writing has come along. I gave them no direction at all. They will need one more lesson to finish (and Jacob decided he wanted to write another novel so he will need longer).

They continued with their NOEO Physics lll science kit looking at gravity, Kepler and Newton.

They began Story of the World.
I have to say this is perfect for the way they learn. They actively listened and questioned and then they rewrote what they had learnt. We will go through the first two books, SOTW 1 and 2 and see how they go from there. Jacob and Maddie will cover their History curriculum for Stage 4 by doing this, and Connor will be using a supplementary history program where he will cover the rest of Stage 5 curriculum. I have made a workbook for him, one of which I will assign time each week for him to independently complete.

The kids also started a new Geography text and activity book. They have done mostly natural learning in the area of Geography, and I just haven't felt satisfied with it so far, so after a bit of research I took the plunge and purchased new books for both stage 4 and 5 geography.

Now, from kids who aren't overly enthusiastic about written work, for them to say that they enjoyed doing the workbook, well that means it must be pretty good.

For visual arts this week the kids did a sample run of a stop motion animation. They used this little set and furniture from IKEA. Knew it was going to be a winner. We had planned crating a video for visual arts, and this could also cover design and technology.