August 13, 2013

Finally Ending and Barely Beginning

Well I have had a huge break from blogging this spring and summer, but that doesn't mean that we have not been hitting the books and doing some school now that we are home. We have been home for a few months. We have been wrapping up our year three which is centered around the study of Ancient Greece and Rome. Thus the toga party last week and the silly pictures of the boys in their togas and tunics.

TJ the "Terrible"

TJ the "Magnificent"

Zak the "Fierce"

Zak the "Great"

Max the "Innocent"

Max the "Tyrant"

We did a little unit about Picasso which does not do the artist justice but it was all we had and every little bit counts. Now I bet when they see his work out in real life they will know recognize it and now a little about this interesting artist. Following is a snapshot with of some of our projects in it.


We have been taking a break from doing our nature notebooks as well as taking a break from other lessons so we can wrap up the subjects with material still remaining and get ready for year 4. But the boys did have a very sad afternoon last week that I wanted to share with you. Zak one of my twins came inside after having been in the yard with his brothers and he was crying and sobbing and very very upset. He told me he had accidentally stepped on the little nest of baby birds that they had only just discovered the day before. The nest was in the grass on the ground and vey well hidden.  So we learned the camouflage has it's down sides. Zak was devastated and did his best to bury the little dead bird. However not all the chicks were hurt and we managed to save one. Here is it's picture.

Doesn't he have the cutest little eyebrows?

Well we are done with year 3 and already midway through our first week of year 4 knee deep in Tales from Shakespeare, Visual Latin, Paddle to the Sea, Stories from the Middle Ages, the map of Europe and more. Below is Max doing a map drill with our enlarged old style map of Europe from Homeschool in the Woods.


Thanks for dropping by....see you soon with more updates of our home education journey.

2 comments:

  1. How do you do the map drill? It looks so interesting!

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    1. I chose 20 well known countries from Europe and made a little flag banner for it on a long stick pin. The map is mounted on foam board and covered with clear tape. It is a bit wrinkly, I would do this differently next time.

      Each map drill the boys learn one country, so to begin I had them simply look at the map with labels and find the countries that had flag labels and place them in the right spot. I made note of Belgium as we have been reading about it in our geography lessons to work on for next week. So in addition to putting in the pins for all countries they copied how to spell Belgium on a blank map. Next week they will add Belgium without looking and write the name on a blank map with no labels. Then they will review the others by placing them on the map looking at the map with labels and learn another country like Austria. Each week they will add one more country by name without looking at the map with labels and review the others by placing the pins into the country using the map with labels as a guide. In geography we will learn about 10 countries more in detail so they will have some ideas to hang their map drill on. And of course Europe in in our history studies as well so they will be more familiar each week with this simple map of Europe.

      Thank you for your question, let me know if you have any further ones. :)

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