Vanderhoof School of Excellence: ECC Week 4: North America--USA

What a week we have had. The week started coming off of a camping weekend. So we started tired, but we still did plenty of work. This week we reviewed states names and where they each are on the map. We also started working through 3 new books. The first one is A Trip Around the World put out by Carson-Delosa Publishing, the second is The Illustrated World Atlas by Alisdair Rogers and the third is Flags of The World which is a sticker book put out by DK Publishers. It was fun putting stickers with the corresponding flags for each country in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. We explored Farming and Industry here in the United States of America as well as facts about the Old Glory, and learned interesting facts such as the United States National Bird was almost the turkey. We began a study of the book of Matthew, worked to memorize Matthew 1:23, also read about the Navajo in Window to the World and followed the suggestions about how to pray for the Navajo. We also read about Harriet Tubman and we identified more leaves in our leaf collection. We also examined more about desserts particularly what happens when it rains in the dessert. Last week we did not do art appreciation so we decided to do extra this week so we examined 4 different Impressionistic Paintings: Water Lillies by Claude Monet, Claude Monet in his floating studio by Edouard Monet,Moulin Huet Bay, Guernsey by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and The Thames below Westminster by Claude Monet.

Water Lilies

One particular thing I was particularly proud of Caleb for doing is that he decided to enter a contest where he has to read a book and write a report about the book. The contest is a national contest and is part of the Cub Scouts. Caleb struggles in reading. He has dyslexia and we have finally found our groove together for him to progress out of a spot he has been stuck in. Well he could have picked a really easy book to do this report on. Instead he picked a challenging book. So he will be reading and writing a report. Other things we did we did a fire drill, worked in the garden, had a surprise of going to a parade, saw praying mantis in the garden, picked out pumpkins, another camp out, baking cookies, a pack meeting for both boys where Caleb collected 18 awards and Simeon received his first award, as well as so much more. Of course we also did reading and math, but they are not nearly as fun to share with you as these parts of the week are. Once again here are some pictures of the week for you to enjoy.

Camping out is so much fun and is a great way to get out in nature. A component of Charlotte Mason education is nature study. The camp out in this picture included a five mile hike where they learned a lot from the Boy Scouts who were leading this group of Cub Scouts.

As Charlotte Mason educators we have a garden as part of our schooling. There are so many unplanned, spontaneous learning opportunities. For example this praying mantis found in one of the green bean patches.

If things done in the public school can cross over into Cub Scouts then the two can cross over in our homeschool. Many learning activities we do came from Cub Scouts either directly or indirectly.

Caleb is working on his spelling.

Cooking is also a recommended part of the Charlotte Mason education so we baked cookies as part of our school day one day this past week. Ranger Cookies (Lone Ranger cookies as Simeon calls them), Peanut Butter Cookies, and Snicker doodles.

Simeon waiting for the parade. We stopped our school day short when we realized one morning that in the afternoon there was a homecoming parade just two blocks from our house.

One of my pet peeves is when someone says home schooled children are not socialized (as if we are raising them under a rock and they have no contact with the outside world or something). Here is a picture of my "unsocialized" home schooled child socializing with one of his friends.

Here is another picture of my "Unsocialized" home schooled child socializing with not only one friend, but 2 friends. If I had posted more pictures then I would have had 5 more friends he socialized with that afternoon.