Sherrod Family

[sherrodfamily]

Today the girls did Lesson 2 in their music curriculum, which is about Farm Animals, and Marty practiced piano for awhile.

Noah read a bit in the Anatomy book and then the girls helped him set up an experiment where we will (apparently) mummify an apple. They put a control apple in a bowl by itself and buried another apple under a mixture of baking soda and salt. We’ll check to see what happened in a week!

Noah started reading Homer Price and he’s been working on a project with some cardboard outside (treehouse maybe?)

We’re doing a weather unit for writing so we brainstormed weather words and everyone made a list.

[sherrodfamily]

A smidge of math done by Noah today. But we finished Charlotte’s Web and he read the last of Frog & Toad are Friends. And a bit more of Archaeologists Dig for Clues. So that was something. 😊

[sherrodfamily]

This week we’ve accomplished a little less than I liked, but I’m satisfied. Noah chose Apologia’s Anatomy & Physioogy for his science curriculum. I’ve heard to save that one til kids are older, but he is fascinated by the human body and we spent a long time looking through the pictures in the book and discussing a few items.

A friend from church gave us a copy of Anna Comstock’s Handbook of Nature Study, and as it features heavily as a resource in the Exploring Nature with Children that I was considering, I took it as a sign and will be purchasing that soon.

We’ve done a little bit of math and Noah is still plugging through some Frog & Toad. We are almost done with Charlotte’s web too and Noah drew a fun picture of the farm yard with a lot of elements from the story...and a few he made up himself, like a shark in a pond by the barn. :-)

Tuesday we went on an ABC hike at Bledsoe Creek state park. I was hoping the guide would show us different animals and plants that started with all the letters of the alphabet, but they just gave us each a paper and we went on a scavenger hunt and had to find the items ourselves. The guide was not remotely knowledgeable about the park, which was disappointing. But we enjoyed following the path and then playing on the playground afterward.

I think we’ll swing by a new library and pick up some books tomorrow. The kids haven’t been there before, so that will be an adventure. And they have a good playground there as well.

[sherrodfamily]

We’ve had some fun lately visiting state parks. A couple weeks ago we went to Old Stone Fort State Park for Archaeology Day. We saw a movie discussing the history of the park and archaeological research done there, we went on a guided hike to see a waterfall, and the kids got to participate in an archaeological dig. The park ranger had buried items for the kids to find, but they had it gridded off like a real dig and they learned how to use tools that an archaeologist would use and how to measure the depth at which they found objects and how to chart it. Noah is reading a book called Archaeoligsts Dig for Clues.

We also visited Cedars of Lebanon State Park, where John’s parents stayed in their RV for a weekend. The kids got to camp with their grandparents and we took a short tour of their nature center and saw a butterfly garden. I would love to come back and explore there more in the future (its only a few miles from our house).

Today we got back in a “school” groove. We practiced our address and phone number...Noah had to write them in sentences, Marty had to fill in the blank, and Gloria practiced writing her name. Gloria finished her “B” Rod & Staff workbook and Marty & Noah each did a math sheet. Noah read some Frog & Toad and Marty read 4 Fun Tales. Campbell and I sang some songs out of an Old MacDonald songbook (all the songs are about a farm). We all sang our Music songs and we practiced greetings in Spanish.

Marty read a story from the Lion Storyteller’s Bedtime Book and a story about a boy named Jabo from Africa. Noah is listening to Charlotte’s Web and reading Wonderful Houses Around the World.

I haven’t been able to decide on a Science curriculum for this year so today I pulled out all the Apologia Young Explorers books and let Noah decide what he wanted to study. He chose Anatomy & Physiology. I think he’ll enjoy it. Hopefully we can start that tomorrow and we are going to go on an ABC Hike where we learn about animals and plants from Tennessee whose names start with each letter of the alphabet.

[sherrodfamily]

Day 3

We accomplished a lot today. We started our music lessons and learned a fun song about an octopus. And we worked on introducing ourselves in Spanish. Gloria started her new workbook since we still can’t find the last one (she only had a few pages left), and Marty is getting a lot better at the missing addends. We read about games, pets, and homes around the world in People. And we read What’s Smaller than a Pygmy Shrew?, Rabbit & Tiger Save the World, and The Shepherd and the Clever Princess. Gloria and Marty also brainstormed ways they are special and practiced writing their names on the white board. And we practiced kicking a ball and hanging by the legs from the climbing dome in the backyard. Noah went to see The Incredibles movie and was supposed to write a few sentences about it, but I’m not sure if he actually did.

[sherrodfamily]

Noah building a race car to test on the track at Legoland

[sherrodfamily]

Campbell being happy

[sherrodfamily]

Gloria reading

[sherrodfamily]

Marty coloring.

[sherrodfamily]

Noah with a Porsche, his new dream car.

[sherrodfamily]

Day 2

Today we started reading People, a book about how every person is unique and different. It has illustrations of people from many countries and cultures, and shows different modes of dress, different ways of writing, even different games played in a variety of people groups. We loved looking at the details and the girls were particularly interested in the jewelry worn in different areas of the world. We also read a story called Arion and the Dolphin, and Gloria and Marty each read a bit in 100 EZ Lessons. Marty worked on some more missing addend problems, but Gloria didn’t do anything in her workbook because it’s missing. Losing books is the biggest reason that we get off track in school, I think, so hopefully this one will turn up quickly. Noah spent the day at Legoland with G-mom and Aunt Ashley. He got to do some Lego challenges, see his first 4D movie, and he picked out a Porsche that is his new dream car (I’ll post a pic of him with it). They rounded out the day with Johnny Rockets and a trip to Build-a-Bear where he picked out some surprises for his sisters. Pretty cool field trip.

[sherrodfamily]

Noah’s almost like-new Curious George. 😊

[sherrodfamily]

First Day of School

[sherrodfamily]

Today was our first day of the 2018-19 school year, per the state of Tennessee. Marty & Gloria had a church lesson based on Psalm 119:11, “I have hidden your word in my heart.” They learned that they can take God’s word with them wherever they go and they played a game with a blow-up globe. We read Ask Mr. Bear, Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is?, and Three Months’ Night. We learned about hibernation, red giants, and galaxies. Marty & Gloria each read some Fun Tales, Gloria practiced writing 1, 2, and X in her Bigger Steps workbook, and Marty did a few missing addend problems. And we had a little break for outside exploration where we found several mushrooms and Marty discovered a tiny but beautiful flower. Noah is visiting G-man & G-Mom. They went to church and later G-mom showed him how to use her sewing machine and he helped repair his stuffed Curious George, which had lost a couple limbs and most of its stuffing. He now knows a little about sewing machines and prosthetic limbs. He also sewed and ironed a cape, and spent a long time at the pool.

[sherrodfamily]

2018-19 School Year

The 2018-19 School Year officially starts tomorrow at Sherrod School. Maybe this year I’ll post some pictures of what we accomplish. Plans include Pfeiffer House Music’s Kindergarten program, Calico Level A Spanish, Math Mammoth (Grade 1 for Marty and 2 for Noah), Write Shop Level A, All About Spelling, Rod & Staff workbooks for Gloria, Sonlight History (Level B for Noah & PK for Marty), 100 EZ Lessons for Gloria & Marty, one of the Apologia sciences for Marty & Noah, and CBS for Bible (Corinthians for Noah and preschool for the others). I hope we actually get some of it done.

[sherrodfamily]

Intro

I've tried blogging a couple times without much success, but here goes another run. I have a two-year-old son Noah who is starting preschool in September and we're going to use the curriculum from The Learning Box Preschool. I did a lot of googling and only came up with a few brief reviews of the curriculum, so I figured I'd blog our experience with it in case anyone else is ever interested. My hope is that, as a truly original blog, this will eventually generate millions of dollars of income so that my husband John and I can retire and...well, do whatever we want, I guess.

I'll probably include some other fun things about our family's happenings like the picture I'm including with this post. It's a picture of what Noah has been up to while I've been starting this blog. 

Ok, actually I'm not going to post it because John says that Noah would be scarred by it one day in the future and that certainly isn't my purpose here. So I'm just going to end here and go give Noah a bath.