Homeschool Log Book {October}

This is all the work that the girls have completed over the last four weeks. In general things went really well. Becca in particular feels that the balance of academic with less academic is good. Abigail’s workload has been a little too high for my liking so next month I hope to reduce it somewhat and leave enough time for less academic work.

Morning Meeting

Who Am I? We are half way through Lesson Two. There are eight lessons in total so we are right on target to finish it by next summer.

Mystery of History Volume Two: We completed the following lessons: Constantine I and the Edict of Milan; The Golden Age of India; The Maya; St Augustine of Hippo; The Holy Bible and the Vulgate by Jerome; St Patrick, Missionary to Ireland; Attila the Hun and The Fall of the Roman Empire.

Depending how long each lesson is, I sometimes divide a lesson between two or sometimes three days. We have completed The First Quarter and will move onto The Second Quarter today.

The Way We Work: Explore the Human Body Head to Head – I read a double page of this each day. I have a degree in Nursing which necessarily includes lots of anatomy and physiology, but I have to say that half this stuff I either don’t remember ever learning or didn’t ever learn! I love David Macaulay’s book but this one confuses me occasionally 😬. It is getting harder to understand as we go through so I think I will be on the look out for another book about the body to read aloud.

The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way – This has to be our favourite resource this year! I bought this for Thomas years ago but I have never read it. Even Becca loves listening to it and she hates all things science! We’ve covered the Thales and Ratios; Anaximander and the First Thoughts of Evolution;; Founder of Astronomy; Anaximenes and the differentiation of Mars and Venus from the stars; Anaxagoras who Taught Pericles, Euripides and Socrates; Ionians and Reason Ruling the World: Pericles and the Persian Wars; The Parthenon; The Meteorite which fell into the Algospotamos River (468 BCE) and the Meteor Crater in the Arizona Desert.

Vincent’s Starry Night and Other Stories – This one is especially for my artist, although my scientist really enjoys listening as well 😊. This term we have learnt about The Stained Glass Windows of Chartres; Giotto; Medieval Scribes and Illuminators; The Castors of Ife; Andrei Rublev.

Lessons of Blackberry Farm – I’m reading this for Becca who particular enjoys Karen Andreola’s writing. We’re about three quarters the way through.

English

Read Alone Books

Abigail is still reading The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. She also read The Well of Sacrifice and Noughts and Crosses.

This month Becca has read the whole of ‘Scarlet’ by Merissa Meyer and is half way through the third book in the series, ‘Cress‘

We are continuing with our Chronicles of Narnia study. Over the four weeks we have completed The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with lots of accompanying writing assignments (I am going to write a separate post on these next week which I will link here). I also read outloud one of C S Lewis’ biographies and we are about a half the way through The Land of Narnia by Brian Sibley, which we are all thoroughly enjoying. I get the girls to write about Narnia three or four times a week and then I mark it with them sitting next to me. We are working hard to improve Becca’s spelling and sitting next to me whilst I mark is really helpful for her.

Becs also goes over to my mum’s each day to learn different spellings. My mum is wonderfully detail orientated and having her help with things like spelling, reading and grammar has been amazing. And it’s win win because the children love it and she loves it! ❤️

Maths (Conquer Maths)

The girls use Conquer Maths and it’s all on line. It teaches using a video and then checks understanding using questions.

Abigail (Last year of Key Stage 3)

Continued with Algebra I and completed the following lessons:

• Multiplication (100%)
• Division (90%)
• Algebra I Topic Test (78%, 92% and 100%)

Began The Number Plane

• Identifying Plotted Points (100%)
• Plotting Points (89%)
• Straight Line Graphs using Tables (95%)
• The Midpoint (100%)
• The Gradient of a straight line (90%)
• The equation of a straight line (100%)
• The Number Plane (91%)
• Multiplication with powers (83%)
• Division with indices (90%)
• Raising Powers (90%)
• Grouping Symbols I (90%)

Rebecca (First Year of Ket Stage 3)

Becs is working her way through the first year of Key Stage 3 and completed the following lessons:

• HCF by inspection (88%)
• Multiples (100%)
• LCM by inspection (80%)
• Prime factor decomposition (95%)
• HCF using Factor Trees (90%)
• LCF using Factor Trees (90%)
• The Square Root (100%)

Abigail (Aged 13-14, Year 9)

Abigail’s main school outside of maths and English is mostly science based.

This month’s Environmental Management has been all about Managing Natural Habitats, which she has finished.

This month she has also started a GCSE in Psychology and a GCSE in Sociology. She is loving both and is happily applying everything she is learning to herself…

Psychology has been all about sleep and dreaming which she has now finished, as well as beginning the next topic on Research Methods.

In Sociology she has finished learning about the sociological approach and is half way through research methods.

She will be doing these courses over two years and hopes to take the exam the year after next.

Lastly, Abigail is working her way through the Apologia text book and Key Stage Three Science book two. She works at these at her own speed and we do the end of unit questions together verbally. She has finished all the Chemistry lessons in the Apologia Text and will now move onto Physics. She has also completed all the Biology Lessons in the second Key stage three text and will now move on to Chemistry.

Rebecca (Aged 10-11, Year 7)

Rebecca’s main school apart from the English and Maths is 100% creative. She is currently studying towards a Level One qualification in Mixed Media and another Level One in Textiles.

Becs began her textiles work before her mixed media so we have been focusing on mixed media to get her to the same level. This month she has almost completed Booklet Three in Mixed Media. She has learnt all about Art Nouveaux, carried out a study of William Morris and tried out different techniques in silk painting.

She has learnt about patterns again, developed her own motifs from William Morris’ art and is about to begin painting her silk scarf with her own designs. She has not been well this month, and along with a half term break has not achieved all we set out to achieve.

Extra Curricula Stuff

The girl attend church and are active in the church youth group. They sing in a children’s choir once a week and give concerts three times a year. They both visit a friend’s house once a week and Abs also sees her best friend once a week if they are both free. There have been many events going on this month, which has been fantastic for Abigail, who loves to go out and about: Brick Fest; Light Party; Birthday Party; Two Sleep Overs; Visit to Thorpe Park; Spent lots of time with older sisters, Becca’s Baptism; Charades Family Night; Video Family Night; Cinema Trip to see ‘The Lost King’, a film about finding the bones of King Richard III in a carpark.