November flew by and I can hardly believe the first semester of our school year is nearly finished! Here is how we spent the month of November in our homeschool:

Bible

Little Bug requested that we read the Bible again during our morning Bible time, so of course I said we could. We read through Genesis chapter-by-chapter last year and it was a beautiful time with my girls, so we picked up right where we left off and we are now reading through Exodus. I have been astounded by some of the questions my girls think to ask as we are reading. We’ve had some wonderful discussions as we are reading the story of Moses and their escape from slavery in Egypt.

Language Arts

We have gotten a slow start to All About Spelling Level 2, but we are picking up speed now at the end of November. AAS is such an excellent spelling curriculum. Little Bug is learning the rules and applying them to her writing. The curriculum is user-friendly just like AAR. I hope to use this program with all of the kids even though it is very teacher-intensive.

We’ve read through chapter ten in Little House on the Prairie and now we are working on the study guide through chapter ten.

I divided the CC English Grammar Memory work into four days so we consistently practice every week what Little Bug has already memorized. We are also working through First Language Lessons Level 2.

Christian Light Education’s KII program is a gem. We are on workbook 4. The work is precisely on Sweet Pea’s level. We work in there as well as Explode the Code Book B (which she just completed) and A Reason for Handwriting. She will begin ETC Book C.

Read Aloud

The last 15-20 minutes of our morning school time is spent with me reading aloud to the girls. We enjoyed Molly’s Pilgrim this month as well as several other titles:

Math

Little Bug completed the first LU of Level 2 Christian Light Education math and we began 202. I am so thankful for all that Little Bug is learning and that she is truly mastering concepts as we move through each Light Unit.

Sweet Pea counted to 100 nearly every day as well as played lots of games and activities to help her with number sense.

After Halloween, Sweet Pea saw all the candy sitting in my bedroom and she asked if she could organize it, so that was her math one day! She categorized the candy and had lots of little piles of candy!

Independent Work

The girls work on their independent work right after breakfast. During this time I get the kitchen cleaned up from breakfast and read to the boys. This day, Sarge was determined he was going to do independent work with his sisters! This actually lasted WAY longer than I expected. Little Bug does copywork and Explode the Code. She also writes down something she is thankful for in a notebook. Sweet Pea writes her numbers 1-30 and then chooses another activity to do that is either a language arts skill or math skill.

Sarge

Sarge put the number of pumpkins that was on the apple on each apple. I was very impressed he caught on to this very quickly. He enjoyed this and did it several times this month during his Learning Time.

Sarge built this all by himself! It is so fun to see him start playing more and more like a big boy!

Classical Conversations

We completed our human body models on the last week of CC for this semester! This was such a fun project for the kids.

We had our Thanksgiving Feast with our CC Community on the last day before the holiday break. We invited the church staff to join us and then all the Foundations students sang part of the Timeline Song for everyone after we had finished eating!

Symphony

The homeschool support group we joined this year was going to the Symphony on November 5th. I thought that would be the perfect field trip since we were learning about music theory in CC. Dave and I took the girls and we had a nice time together. There was an Orchestra Zoo before the symphony started and the girls each got to experiment playing several instruments.

History

We continued our American History study this month as we learned about the American Flag,

flag ettiquette and Betsy Ross,

and pioneers who were traveling the Oregon Trail in the mid-1800’s!

We have nearly finished Volume 3 of Story of the World. We listen during lunch about 3 times per week.

Geography

Week 10 was our last week learning all the states and capitals. Little Bug knows ALL 50 states and capitals. She can start at Maine and go through the entire map pointing at each state and naming the state and capital. I am quite impressed. She also put this map together without any guide!

Mission Project: Thanksgiving Baskets

Our homeschool support group does monthly Mission projects and we were able to participate in November’s project. The kids put together 30 Thanksgiving Baskets for poverty stricken residents in our city.

Little Bug worked hard the two days before this event creating Thanksgiving cards to be placed in each basket. This recipient was thrilled with his card!

Pilgrim Village

The week of Thanksgiving we read the Bible and did math and then the rest of the morning was reserved for crafting a pilgrim village in the garage!

Mother & Daughter Cooking Chaos

We participated in a cooking event at our church on November 17th. We designed aprons and then we got to prepare our own personal pizza. Grams is the one who signed us up to go and paid! It was a nice event and we all enjoyed the time there together and with the friends who also sat at our table.

The Holidays are now in full motion and the countdown to Christmas is on!

- Elaine