faith4faith.org

Aug 2008

Another school year has begun. It's hard to believe that Faith is in 5th and Carue in 3rd. They were both excited to get started on their school year and get back into a routine. We are excited to be doing Sonlight again this year. We took a year off last year (from

Sonlight) to give Carue a little more time to mature into the material. It is a perfect fit this year. We are doing Sonlight 4 and I am adapting it for each of them.

The kids and I are so grateful for the blessing of homeschooling. Usually the first comment I hear from people is, "You are so brave- I could never do that- you must have so much patience." Well the truth is there are days when it is a lesson in patience but nothing replaces the joy of teaching my children. We are allowed to have Jesus in every subject and corner of our homeschool. We can sleep until 7:30, eat a good warm breakfast and start are day without chaos. If we are facinated with a topic (for example we are loving our South American Study right now) we can park there and learn all we want.

For me, it is pure joy to watch my children learn a new concept. What a priviledge to see the light bulb go off and the joy of knowing they know how to do something new.

Here is a run down of what we will be completing this year.

Faith: 5th Grade

Handwriting: A Reason for Writing

Spelling: A Reason for Spelling E

Wordly Wise: 5

Rod & Staff Language Arts: 5th Grade

Horizons Math: 5th Grade (Faith is flying through this so I think we will be moving on to 6th grade math before long.)

Spanish: La Clase Divertida (http://www.funclase.com/welcome.html) - it's great!

Bible: Bob Jone Bible Truths and Beautiful Girlhood (This is a devotional that Faith and I are doing together. It is wonderful! It comes with a companion guide that leads disucssion and journaling activities for mom and daughter.)

History/Geography: Sonlight 4 2nd part of American History

Reading/Read-a-loud: Sonlight 4

Timothy Ministries: Taking Physical Science, Creative Writing and Musical Theater

Music: Piano and Violin lessons

Art: Creativity Express (http://www.madcaplogic.com). This is our art curriculum. We can't recommend this product enough. The kids LOVE it! They are learning so much!

By the end of the year Faith will have read the following books:

All of a Kind Family

Bruchko

By the Great Horn Spoon!

George Washington Carver

Gone Away Lake

Helen Keller

Hero Over Here

In the Year of the Boar and Jackie RObinson

Old Yeller

The Perilous Road

Plain Girl

The Seventeenth Swap

Shades of Gray

Sing Down the Moon

The Story of Thomas Alva Edison

The Terrible Wave

Thimble Summer

Turn Homeward, Hannalee

The Wright Brothers

Plus all the other books she will devour just for fun! :-)

Carue: 3rd Grade

Handwriting: Horizons Penmanship

Spelling: A Reason for Spelling C

Wordly Wise: 3

Rod & Staff Language Arts: 4th Grade

Horizons Math: 3th Grade

Spanish: Still in the process of picking the correct curriculum.

Bible: Bob Jone Bible Truths and Boy's Devotional for 7 to 9 year olds

History/Geography: Sonlight 4-- 2nd part of American History

Reading/Read-a-loud: Sonlight 3 Readers; Sonlight 4 Read-a-loud

Timothy Ministries: Taking Physical Science, Gym and Just for Boys (Building and creating wonderful "Boy-things" out of wood and PVC pipes!

Music: Piano lessons

By the end of the year Carue will have read the following books:

The Corn Grows Ripe

Vostaas: White Buffal's Story

A Lion to Guard Us

Pochahontas and the Strangers

Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims

The Thanksgiving Story

The Courage of Sarah Noble

The Bears on Hemlock Mountain

The Skippack School

The Matchlock Gun

Ben Franklin of Old Philadelphia

Mr. Revere and I

Meet George Washington

Phoebe the Spy

George Washington: Our First Leader

Martha Washington

The Cabin Faced West

Om-kas-toe

Meet Thomas Jefferson

Sarah Whitcher's Story

Naya Nuki

Robert Fulton, Boy Craftsman

Sarah, Plain and tall

Tikta'liktak

Stone Fox

As a family this is just a sampling of the many books we will read:

Sonlight Read-a-louds:

Across Five Aprils

All Sail Set

Behind Rebel Lines

Caddie Woodlawn

Cheaper By the Dozen

Chucaro: Wild Pony of the Pampa

The Great Turkey Walk

The Great Wheel

In Search of the Source

Little Britches

Miracles on Maple Hill

Moccasin Trail

Oxford Illustrated Book of Poems

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Rules of the Road

The Winged Watchman

For Sonlight History/Geography:

American Adventures I

Exerpts from The Landmark History of the AMerican People Volume 1 and 2

A Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt

Lincoln: A Photobiography

The Monitor and the Merrimac

Simon Bolivar

South America

The Story of the USA Book 2, 3 and 4

A Unit about Canada

William Wilberforce

The World Wars

Older homeschool news

Our 2007-2008 school year has come to an end. We now begin our summer of learning. For us this means that the "curriculum" for the year may have come to an end but not our desire to learn new things!! Faith has graduated 4th grade and Carue 2nd. We have had such a wonderful year filled with reading amazing books while snuggled on the couch, Carue learning cursive and long division, Faith starting pre-algebra concepts and developing a thirst for high school (yes- high school) math, amazing adventures in Geography, History, and exciting walks through Bible times. Another year of Spanish has been mastered and science experiments have baffled and amazed us! Faith took a wonderful class called Beautiful Girlhood which was her favorite class at Timothy. She also took a wonderful public speaking class and did an amazing job of presenting end of the year speeches in front of the parent group. Carue was old enough for Lego Simple Machines this year and LOVED the class. We have had so much fun. We look forward to our summer filled with lots of reading, adventures and for Faith diving deeper into math. Faith will write more wonderful stories over the summer and Carue will complete amazing Lego creations!