May {Homeschool Log Book}

Welcome to May’s edition of our homeschool log book.

As you know, we start our mornings with chores, followed by morning time. This year, we are working our way through Apologia ‘Anatomy & Physiology’, Apologia ‘Who is God?’, Mystery of History Book One:

We finished both Black Ships Before Troy by Rosemary Sutcliff and Aesop’s Fables. We’ll be moving on to Odysseus’ Wanderings and using Aesop’s Fables to learn how to do keyword outlines:

We also read a couple of World War I picture books Flo of the Somme and Peace Lily as well as Becca’s favourite, A Pocketful of Pinecones:

I will be aiming to start writing a few book reviews each month, and these will definitely be included.

Rebecca (Aged 11, Yr 6)

English

Becs is using Night Zookeeper for her English Curriculum. English has been something she has struggled with her whole life. Learning to read was not easy for her, and as an off shoot, neither was spelling. This is the first curriculum I’ve used where the results have been almost immediate. Again, I will probably do a review of this later in the year, but it is a computer program mixed with traditional methods, one reinforcing the other:

The program includes a set of reading books which are used for comprehension, imagination and learning different writing skills. Over May we completed the first book in the series, The Giraffes of Whispering Wood, as well as all the written activities to go along with it. Unfortunately, I was going through my study yesterday, getting rid of all my notes related to my master’s degree and must have accidentally thrown out all of her work because I can’t find it anywhere!

I need to be a bit more diligent taking photos from now on…

Maths

Becs uses Conquer Maths and tries to do a maths lesson each day. She is working at about 96% and in general really enjoys maths. She’s been learning about long multiplication, short division, long division, guess and check method (which she needed to do a couple of times to really understand), using a diagram, making a list, column graphs and looking for patterns.

Textiles

Becs has completed an artist study on Cath Kidston, learnt all about patterns and using a Cath Kidston motif for inspiration, created her own and then showing her knowledge of patterns using the motif. She also filled in and completed the accompanying booklet which goes with this module (I’m not allowed to show it as it needs to go to the examining board):

This coming month, Becca will learn to block print, screen print and tie-dye.

Mixed Media

We have spent more time than we perhaps should have on this level two qualification. The first module is learning about clay modelling and wood working, as well as stage/scenery design. For part of this module, Becca was required to get her head around tone and contrast in drawing. It is this skill which took the time. It is such a key skill for learning to draw accurately that I felt we should stick with it until she really understood. Becs has spent hours sketching and colouring in solid shapes, each time improving on the one before:

She learnt about mark-making and applied her knowledge to mark-making on clay:

This was to prepare her for the task of making a mandrake person (think Harry Potter!).

Art

Last month we lay the foundations for an artist study on Claude Monet. We had a very special visit to the National Art Gallery where she sought out paintings from one of last year’s artist study, Vincent Van Gogh, and took some photos with her favourite painting of his:

We also spent a lot of time simply sitting gazing at Claude Monet’s paintings. There wasn’t a huge selection, but enough that she could get a sense of his art:

We also bought a selection of resources and postcards to go along with her Claude Monet artist study this coming month:

Abigail (Aged 13, yr 8)

English

Abigail’s English has taken off this year. She has been studying with Wolsey Hall and has been doing really well. She still finds the actual process of writing hard, and has been given permission to type her assignments. Working through the National Curriculum book ‘Ignite‘, last month’s assignment was to create a report about a topic close to her heart. Having done renewable energy in her last assignment, this time she chose to report on discrimination. I have included a copy of the assignment below. She received 100% for it.

Maths

Abigail also uses Conquer Maths. This month she has learnt simplifying, short stories, equivalent ratios, using scales, rates, simple interest, discounts, profit and loss, commission, and substitution.

Science

Activate Book 1

Science is Abigail’s passion! She began book one in the Activate series at Christmas, and this month finished it. It is split between biology, chemistry and physics. Abs has really enjoyed this book.

MEL Chemistry (Oxygen Pack)

Abs does these as and when she has the time. As such, neither of us are very good at capturing it on camera, me because I don’t know she’s doing it, and her because she is actually doing it! Next month…

Apologia Chemistry and Physics

She has completed two lessons of Chemistry and Physics this month, filling in her notebook, and doing lots (and lots) of hands on experiments.

Environmental Science (GCSE)

Abigail has been learning about renewable energy in her Environmental Science. I had bought her a go along book and fun activity box which she has really enjoyed. I have six hundred and five photos of her building, playing and enjoying all the activities which went along with the book and science set. I’ll include a few…

Another interest of Abigail is learning how to give an Indian head massage. I trained donkey’s years ago, so I’ve been teaching her everything I can remember. She now earns a bit of pocket money each week massaging Granny’s head.

A great month!