Academics, Extras, and Dumbing Down

...a weekly wrap-up, of sorts.

Weeks have gone by in whirl winds. Have you ever had a homeschool season like that? It is incredible to me that the year is almost over. We have about 4 weeks left, and I feel like we are sprinting to the finish line. All the while I am planning for the next race year.

Just what have we been up to? A few highlights are found below.

History Studies are quickly moving toward modern times. We've gone from turn of the century (1900) to the end of World War II.

Some of the history books read were:

• Helen Keller, by Margaret Davidson
• What to Do about Alice? by Barbara Kerley
• Becoming Babe Ruth, by Matt Tavares
• Knit Your Bit:A World War I Story, by Deborah Hopkinson
• Hero Over Here: A Story of World War I, by Kathleen V. Kudlinski
• The Wright Brothers: Pioneers of American Aviation, by Quentin Reynolds
• Franklin & Eleanor, by Cheryl Harness
• Something to Prove: The Great Satchel Paige vs Rookie Joe Dimaggio, by Robert Skead
• War Horse, by Michael Morpurgo
• Snow Treasure, by Marie McSwigan
• Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles, by Tanya Lee Stone
• Anne Frank, by Yona Zeldis McDonough
• Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, Eleanor Coerr

A movie we watched as a family:
Chariots of Fire {found it on Netflix}



Assigned Reading, from oldest to youngest -

• The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom
• Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank
• Dangerous Journey: The Story of Pilgrim's Progress, by Oliver Hunkin
• I Can Read, Book 3, by John Holzmann*

*Ours is the older version.



New, and New-to-Us Books we found at the library -

• What Was the Battle of Gettysburg? by Jim O'Connor
• Bye, Bye, Butterflies! by Andrew Larsen
• Famous African Americans: Carter G. Woodson, by Patricia and Fredrick McKissack
• Mary Walker Wears the Pants, by Cheryl Harness
• Learn to Draw American Landmarks & Historical Heroes, by Stephanie Meissner*

*a new-to-us title



Questions I have...for Math
There are many questions surrounding math as we finish out this year.

• Algebra lessons are wrapping up for our oldest (2). We aren't sure if he'll do Geometry or Algebra II next year.
• Our sixth grader will complete her Horizons Math 6. We were pleased with it for her, but aren't sure what curriculum we will use next year. Her brother worked through Horizons Pre-Algebra in seventh grade, but we are not sold on it.
• Our fourth grader will move on to Horizons Math 5. No decisions to be made there!
• For our Kindergartner who is about to embark on first grade, we are deciding between Horizons and Singapore. 

Decisions, decisions, decisions!



In the Kindergarten corner:
Our youngest, aside from learning basics in math and how to read, is learning about Africa (3) and Human Anatomy (4). I hope to share more about each of these in a future post. For now, I want to share a few resources we found for creating Kente Cloth (West Africa) with paper for younger children. These are:

• Kente Cloth at Crayola
• Kente Cloth Strips at Kinder Art
• Kente Cloth printable lesson plan from Teacher Vision

Extra Activities

• ATC Club (1) - The girls are sending off some insect themed cards for an international trade.
• Volleyball (5) - Our oldest two children are involved in a volleyball skills clinic.
• Soccer has started for our younger two children. The first game was last week.
• Science Olympiad Medals (6) - Our oldest two competed and medaled in two out of three events each.
• Car for AWANA Grand Prix (7) - Though our youngest daughter's car did not place, it looked stylish sporting green and blue colors.

I am Reading
Books:

• Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, by John Taylor Gatto
• The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt

Articles from around the web:

• Meet the Family Who Sent 6 Kids to College by Age 12 from Today.com
• Obama Proposes Universal Preschool for 4-Year-Olds from HSLDA
• Homeschoolers Alarmed by Plans to Track Students from WND
• Common Core State Standards Initiative: Too Close to a National Curriculum, from HSLDA

Find more weekly wrap-ups at:

Weekly Wrap-up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Collage Friday at Homegrown Learners

Homeschool Mother's Journal at iHomeschool Network