This school year is flying by!  Whizzzzzzzzzzzz, and weeeeeeeeeeeee!  I’ll give a little update on what we have done so far.

Here are the items we worked on during our morning “Together Time.”

• Read daily portions of the Gospel following the Ecclesiastical year using  The Planner
• Memorized up to “and in one Lord Jesus Christ” of the The Niceno–Constantinopolitan Creed of 381 A.D.
• Read and thoroughly enjoyed the first 4 chapters of The Living God Volume 1
• Read and learned about The Divine Liturgy using Heaven on Earth
• Listened to 8 hours of audio (half an hour per day) summarizing the history of Israel and Judah, titled Our Young Folks Josephus
• Read and key word outlined Chapter 1 in Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day
• Practiced “The Beatitudes” from Matthew Chapter 5:3-12
• Practiced the first 15 Greek & Latin Roots from English from the Roots Up Volume 1

I’m so happy.  I finalized our book list, coordinated our readings into chronological order, and typed out our weekly reading schedule for 36 weeks of study.  We are going to have a great year of homeschooling. Stay tuned; I’ll be posting samples of work and updates throughout the year.

Here is a quick look at our book list for the 2011-2012 school year.

2011-2012 A Smart Start Book List

Below is a link to our weekly schedule of readings.  I still have to plug in “The Creed,” and “The Living God.”  I’ll update the link once I plug those sections in.  I’m waiting on the books to arrive from Amazon before I can do that.  The blue boxes with white type indicate a Feast Day.  If the Feast Day does not land on a school day, I placed it on the Thursday before so that we can read about that Feast before it occurs.

2011-2012 Weekly Schedule

It’s been a while since I posted, and since I’ve had a few comments and a little activity on my blog, I thought I’d post an update on our homeschool.  I’ll start out with a little history to bring everyone up to date.  Last Christmas, we took a family road trip to Disneyland.  Just prior to our trip, I was struggling with feeling at an impasse with my faith, as an Evangelical Christian.   A few days before we left I started a thread on The Well Trained Mind Forum, hoping to find some direction to move forward in my Christian walk, after coming to terms with my post-evangelical state.  A few ladies who responded to my thread introduced me to Orthodox Christianity, which I had not yet been introduced to formally.  I was intrigued, even though I had clearly stated in my opening statement that I didn’t want to follow a new religion or go to a new church.  I loved (and still love) the members of my church, and I didn’t intend to switch churches.  I just wanted some direction to move forward in my Christian walk.  Yet, I was intrigued enough to peek in.  So, I decided to log onto Ancient Faith Radio dot com, which was recommended to me.  There were many podcasts that seemed interesting.  So, on the road trip to Disneyland, which was a 20 or so hour trip, I dialed up a few, OK maybe a dozen, podcasts.  From the very start, learning about the Church history time line from the Orthodox perspective, I was engrossed in learning more.  My husband and I listened to podcast after podcast all the way to Disneyland.  What we learned blew our minds!  We had a wonderful week at Disneyland, and on the trip back up we listened to podcast after podcast from Ancient Faith Radio.  Upon our return home, we decided to find a local Orthodox parish to inquire more.  Fast forward to today, we are still inquirers at that same local Orthodox parish, and we are still learning about the ancient faith.  There’s a lot to learn, about two thousand years of history and Saints lives and teachings.  We will never run out of things to read and learn and grow from in the Orthodox Church.

Due to this new passion for learning about ancient Christianity, we will be taking a new direction in our homeschooling next year.  I have decided that we will go through Church history as our main spine of learning, along with studying the Orthodox faith, and the political history of the time and place of the early Church, Byzantium.  I am very excited about our new direction.  I plan to keep this blog updated with the progress of our studies for anyone who is interested, if not only for our former K12 teacher, whom the children and I are dearly fond of.  She has promised to stay in touch with our learning next year, even though we won’t be using K12.  =(

For all those who are following this blog because of my passion for K12, I am sorry that I will no longer be contributing to K12 users in that way.  For those who just want to keep up with what we are doing here in our homeschool, I would be honored if you would come along side us and follow what we are doing.

Lord have mercy.

Here are a few samples from week 11 in WAVA/K12.

Hannah and Ezra finished up unit 3 in science on the subject of weather.  One of the main topics in this unit was the earth’s water cycle.  To remember the three steps of the water cycle, the children made up this song.

Ezra and Hannah sing The Water Cycle Song

This week Lizzy finished reading Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis.  She wrote these summaries in response to this book.

Here are a few samples from the children’s work in week 10 of their WAVA/K12 school.

In History 2, Unit 4, Lesson 5, Hannah and Ezra learned about Mt. Vesuvius erupting, and burying the ancient town of Pompeii in Italy.

Here is Hannah’s narration page from this lesson:

Here is Ezra’s narration page from this lesson:

Lizzy created this art piece from her Intermediate Art: American B Unit 2, Lesson 9:

Here are a few samples from our K12 week 9.

Hannah created this art piece from Art 2 U1 L2.  It’s her self portrait.

Ezra created this art piece from Art 2 U1 L2.  It is his self portrait.

This week Lizzy wrote a compare and contrast essay from Intermediate Language Skills A Composition Unit 3.  Here is a draft of it with our teacher’s comments, and Lizzy’s corrections.

This is our “Direct Student Contact” with our WAVA teacher, Ms. Mayer. 

Ms. Mayer, thank you for your encouragement and support.  Sometimes schooling from home is lonely and draining.  A call from you or an encouraging note always brightens my day, and keeps me going strong.  Thank you for all you do to keep us “keepin’ on.”  -Jennifer

From Hannah:  Dear Ms. Mayer, I wrote this poem about Ezra fighting with me, and I hope you enjoy it!

In this lesson Hannah told me her poem, I wrote it on the black board, and she copied it onto paper.

From Ezra:  Dear Ms. Mayer, For my history narration, I wrote about Jesus Christ being born. 

Ezra wrote, "Mary was in her house and something terrifying happened. An angel appeared and said a verse. He said, Luke 2 10-11, 'Do not be afraid, I give you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord.'"

This is Ezra's coloring page from the same lesson.

Here are a few examples from the children’s school in Week 7.

This week Hannah’s literature focus was on Rumpelstiltskin.  She absolutely loved this story.  Her favorite part was at the end when Rumpelstiltskin tears himself in half.  She roared with laughter when I read that part to her, and she jumped up and pretended to tear herself in half.  One of the assignments was for her to imagine she was walking through the forest, and coming upon Rumpelstiltskin’s hut, she peeked through the window.  Then, she was supposed to write a description of what she saw.  Here is her description.  She told me the words, and I wrote them down for her.

Ezra and Hannah learned about Julius Caesar this week in history.  Ezra shares one of his narration pages by reading it to us in this video:

In US History this week, Lizzy learned that after the Civil War blacks gained many freedoms and privileges such as the right to go to school, to vote, and to hold public office.  Unfortunately, however, their new found rights began to degrade through segregation laws and “Jim Crow” practices.  In this video Lizzy describes the Supreme Court case known as Plessy v. Ferguson, which allowed these segregation laws to continue.

Here are some samples of the children’s work which were completed in week 6.

This week Hannah started to learn about composition.  In Language Arts 1 unit 2 lesson 14 Hannah dictated the words for her composition, which I printed for her.  She also drew a picture to accompany her composition.

Ezra and Hannah met Cleopatra for the first time.  Ezra wrote a narration which said, “Have you ever heard of Cleopatra?  There was two rulers in Egypt, a smart guy and Cleopatra.  So, Cleopatra was thrown out of Egypt.”  Here is a scan of his narration page.

Lizzy read an article in her Literature course from unit 3 lesson 2.  In this video she describes why she liked this article.

Here are a few samples of the kid’s work for Week 5 in K12.

Hannah’s picture – “Flying”

Ezra’s Friendly Letter – Draft

Ezra’s Friendly Letter – Final

Lizzy’s Paragraph on Dogs – Draft

Lizzy’s Paragraph on Dogs – Final