Geography Day 3

On Day 3 we had the children draw the 5 great circles and label them. Then they added three lines going across as shown on the maps below: the International Date Line, the Prime Meridian and the International Date Line. There is only one International Date Line but because it is being drawn on a flat surface it needs to be drawn twice to show that it goes around the world.



Next we printed out the Uncle Josh's Outline Map below (or a similar one) and had them draw the same things as they did above.



After they completed that task they repeated the first exercise on the back of the original piece of paper they started on.

That's it for today!

Geography following The Core - Days 1 & 2

After reading a lot of the discussions about The Core on WTM and having read the book myself we decided to try Geography the way Leigh Bortins suggests. I couldn't make sense of it but my dh, Father of Pearl on WTM, happens to have a Master's of Geography so he is running the show. I know others have had problems with implementing this great idea as well so I am posting what we do each day here.

Days 1 and 2 are the 5 Great Circles that are discussed in the Geography chapter. They are the Artic Circle, the Tropic of Cancer, the Equator, the Tropic of Capricorn and the Antarctic Circle. Even though they are called circles (because they circle the earth) they are to be drawn as flat lines across the page as shown here. These are to be done until it is easy for the kids so it may take longer than 2 days.



We are using the map below from Uncle Josh's Outline maps to guide us with the circles.



This is as far as we have gotten (we just began 2 days ago). I will post tonight's work tomorrow (God willing... :) ).

I have always wanted to have a blog about our home education but didn't think anyone would read it. I now know that the good folks at the Well Trained Mind forums have threads for having a look at each other's blogs so I thought it would be fun to join in.

Our style is going in the direction of classical and we are implementing it more and more and as I am able to understand it. I have decided that Core 4 will be the last year that we use Sonlight and that we will switch to a completely classical mode after that, right around the time each child will approach the Logic stage.

And so here is an introduction to our school:

Thing 1 (age 11)

History Spine: Landmark Book of the American People
Reading: Lord of the Rings
Read-Aloud: We are finished until after Christmas Break.
Philosophy: Sophie's World
Logic: Fallacy Detective
Grammar: Rod & Staff 4
Math: Racing through Teaching Textbooks 3 in order to cover the basics missed in a few less than positive years of Math class.
Handwriting: Finishing up Handwriting without Tears (cursive)
Foreign Language: Greek

Thing 2 (age 9)

History Spine: A Child's History of the World
Read-Aloud: Robin Hood, The Canterbury Tales and Tales from King Arthur
Reader: He is going through the Harry Potter series
Logic: Fallacy Detective
Grammar: First Language Lessons 1
Math: Teaching Textbooks
Handwriting: Handwriting Without Tears with Thing 1
Foreign Language: Lively Book of Latin

Thing 3 (age 6)

History Spine: Living Long Ago and The Usborne Internet Linked Children's Encyclopedia
Read-Aloud: The Family Under the Bridge
Reader: Trying to get through beginning readers
Grammar: First Language Lessons 1
Math: Singapore and Miquon
Handwriting: Handwriting Without Tears

Thing 4 (age 3)

Whatever holds her attention!