Homeschool Week in Review: Vol 16

We logged a lot of hours homeschooling this week. We normally take December completely off for a breather. However November had a lot of off days, so I decided to homeschool on. The beauty of homeschooling is you can take a break when you need to and come back to it when you’re ready to learn. This week we were on fire.

Birthday Celebration

Michael turned 6 this week; I cannot believe it. We celebrated with a Montessori celebration of life AKA the walk around the sun and Pokemon #allthethings.

I made him a little timeline of his life too. He of course loved hearing about himself and looking at how he’s grown.

Science

Seasonal work. The kids had a hard time with this as our leaves don’t change in Autumn and flowers are bursting all over the place right now in December). Plus Summer is basically three seasons long in Florida.
I tried.

Geography

There was a lot of interest in the biomes of South America, so we did some map-making, puzzles and we watched Chasing Monsters (Season 1 Episode 4) on Netflix that deals with adventuring along the Amazon. I’ll have to gather more materials while the curiosity is fresh.

I was so proud of Mary who did this entire map in one sitting. She was determined to complete it in one day, and so she spent the entire morning creating it. I love to see that level of intense focus. That’s what we’re all about.

Math

We discovered this awesome hundred board by Insta-learn by Step through an Instagram friend. I knew it’d be perfect for Josie since numbers don’t always click for her. With this board they literally must.

Little did I know how much everyone would love completing this version of the hundred board. Mary completed it, in full, three times in one day. As you can imagine this took well over an hour, maybe longer; she was so content doing math I stopped keeping tabs except for when she announced, “Guess what. I’m done, but I’m going to do it again.”

As Dr Maria Montessori herself once said, “Free choice is one of the highest of all the mental processes.”

Whatever floats your boat kid. 😉

Everyone completed the new hundred board at least once this week.

Other math consisted of the multiplication bead board, unit division board as well as multiplication and division charts for Mary. I’m currently reviewing the elementary math album, so we can move on to even more advanced work in the new year. She’s so ready!

Math becoming more and more abstract for Mary

Mike and Josie are working on linear counting and number formation, bead chains, snakes and the like. For Josie, I took out our tens and ones stamps and she pretended to check and grade my work. Want to motivate a kid, let her give you F minus minuses. Very fun.

Religion

We’re doing some Catechesis of the Good Shepherd at home with our nativity set (improvising a little). We lit a candle, read the scripture twice (once just to meditate on and once with the figures being set into place as I read). Then I asked some questions to reflect on: “Who is this child? Who is this Mother? “What names did the angel call him?” Etc.

Josie continues to use the word brother instead of son when I had her recount the story, but I think she overall contemplated and understood. Words persist to be tricky in all forms.

Language

Lots of not-pictured reading. Everyone is making great progress. The literary / creative writing nerd in me is thrilled we’re finally making strides. I’m aching to teach my kids Shakespeare.

Music

Dress rehearsal for strings orchestra Christmas concert and the last private violin lesson for all the kids was this week. I will practice with the over the break. I will practice with them over the break. I will practice with them over the break. I will… if I say it enough times it’ll come true right?