LLRHomeschoolmom

After a month of school, I’m finding out what works & what doesn’t.  This was my first time with Sonlight and although I Love the book selections, that’s the only part I’m really using.  We talk about what we’ve read, but I don’t usually use their study guide questions.  Since I don’t seem to be conforming to their plan, we’ll just use their reading schedule as a book list and continue to do history the way I always have – adding in my own activities and lapbooks, reading from the various history books that I already have about each topic, etc.

We’ve been doing a lesson from Growing with Grammar about 2 or 3 times a week.  On the other days, I assign some kind of writing exercise.  Sometimes it’s copywork from the book he’s reading or the ideas I find here:  Online Grammar and Writing Handbook.  The Remember Me Pockets have some daily writing prompts that are great for handwriting.

I’m not getting to Science as often as I had hoped, but I’m giving myself two or three years to get through Apologia General Science.  That will give us time to get into some other science topics that catch Luke’s interest.

Math & Spelling are both going well as we continue with what we were using last year.  Our "Theme Fridays" are definitely a hit!  Luke has requested that next week’s theme be "Airplanes", so if you have any suggestions let me know.  Today’s theme was "Columbus"
                                                         
                                       Columbus Boxes
Box 1 – Listen to the "You Are There – Columbus Discovers America" recording which I downloaded from homeschoolradioshows.com
Box 2 – Christopher Columbus Reading Sheet from theholidayzone.com
Box 3 – A maze, also from theholidayzone.com
Box 4 – A Math Worksheet from softschools.com
Box 5 – We made a Columbus Day Poster:

So far this month, we’ve finished Walk the World’s Rim by Betty Baker.  We read this book together & I think we both enjoyed it….a little sad at the end, but a good story.

One of the foods that they mention in this book is "Yam Cakes".  We tried this recipe: Cherokee Yam Cakes and they turned out really well.

Luke read Om-kas-toe on his own.

I usually read biographies or non-fiction books, so this month I decided to try to read a fictional book:  Peace Like A River by Leif Enger.  I really enjoyed the story and it didn’t end the way I expected.

We’ve also started books about our composer & artist of the month – Bach & Michelangelo.
In honor of Alice Dalgliesh’s birthday, we read Bears on Hemlock Mountain.  Donald J. Sobol’s birthday is this month too, so we’ll be reading some Encyclopedia Brown books.  I have his Two-Minute Mysteries book on order from Paperback Swap.