I told you that I'd be back with a review...
Before I do that, let me make a suggestion...do not embark on TOG the week you return from a two week vacation...before you have grocery shopped, re-organized the guest areas that were used profusely during the one week you WERE home during the vacation, and most especially NOT before you've completely unpacked. This sort of thing will set up MANY road blocks to every other item in your day...and you will find yourself DAILY frustrated with wondering where on earth those colored pencils got to...what happened to that book...what ARE you going to eat...and what do you MEAN I'm out of underwear? This has been a public service announcement.
So...TOG! I just love it.
As you might notice in my public service announcement...things were not perfect this week...no where near. But the one thing I was (MOSTLY) ready for was TOG...I had all the books that I could get (there are some coming from various vendors and some I chose to do without)...I had a schedule...I had maps and teaching aides...and I was set.
My schedule turned out something like this...
MONDAY -
TOGETHER
Read all of one spine (spine is a MAIN text for the class...TOG has a couple of "spines" for this unit that you read just a few pages or a chapter as overview to the more "literature-type" sections)...
Read one of the lower grammar picture books, "Brigid's Cloak" (there were 3 total)
Read most of "Who were the Romans" as background for understanding the state of the Roman Empire when the barbarians started defeating them regularly.
LITTLE GIRLS (Bear Mostly, Monkey Face played with a puzzle at my feet...but both Beanie and MF climbed up several times to see pictures)
Read a picture book by Robery McCloskey "Blueberries for Sal" and another that I can't remember and a chapter in a junior novelization of "Barbie's 12 Dancing Princesses" (I know, I know, it can't all be top of the line...besides both Bear and MF LOVE it and will sit still...which has to be teaching them SOMETHING.)
TOGETHER
Then we worked on Geography Terms, River, Mountains, Deserts. We found rivers; the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Nile. We found mountains; the Rockies, the Andes, the Alps, the Himalayas. We found deserts; the Sonoran or Arizona Desert, the Sahara Desert, the Kalahari Desert, the Gobi Desert.
BREAK (Lunch and momma chores)
AFTER LUNCH
Beanie did Dictation
Bear did a reading lesson and a writing lesson
The little girls MOSTLY played in the 45 minutes after lunch...Bear's reading and handwriting take about 10 minutes total. Beanie's Dictation is new and took probably 20 ish minutes to explain the concept, copy the dictation, go over the errors, pull out the spelling words and fix the errors. So even with the lessons and the lunch time clean up they all got a few minutes to run around and play.
From 2 -2:30...I rested...it was MONDAY after I had had about 9 hours on the road on Saturday...and then stayed up way too late Sunday making sure that I had everything together to fly with TOG in the morning...it was necessary...pbbbbbbb.
ABOUT 2:30 (Little girls SLEEPING)
Bean and I set about reading the REST of the stuff scheduled for the day. The stuff that was either too boring or slightly too graphic for the little girls.
We read one chapter of another spine (Story of the World) ,
Read about our Barbarian for the Day "Atilla the Hun",
Started reading King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table...this took a fair amount of discussion because, well, it's not EXACTLY a happy story, is it?
We started reading Aladdin and other Tales from the Arabian Nights...very glad for the time to discuss quietly with my oldest girlie because, once again there are some things that need to make sense before you can move on.
And then read another chapter of a literature book we've been reading called "Mountain Born",
Now if you've followed me THIS far...Tuesday and Wednesday are a breeze because we followed the same schedule, only the books changed...and Tuesday through Thursday are Math days, so that also was added.
Thursday was a touch different because by Thursday most of the REQUIRED reading is done...we are still working through our list of barbarians...We've done Alaric the Visigoth, Atilla the Hun, Genseric the Vandal...Thursday was Theodoric the Ostrogoth and Friday will be Clovis, who we have read before...BUT all the spines are done...all the lower grammar picture books are done, we are working on the upper grammer stories (King Arthur and Arabian Nights) but at this point it's just reading the next chapter...Dictations are now taking very little of MY time...I just read and correct, Bean knows how to do the rest. Math is still what it is, but at this stage once she understands it, she is really at the MEMORIZATION phase of her times tables so again, it doesn't take a lot of input from me.
So THURSDAY was our Art day. We spent about an hour drawing. We are using 1 2 3 Knights, Castles and Dragons...and yesterday the girls drew and colored a princess (of course) and scrapbook mounted them for their history folders...I really REALLY need a scanner.
Today, Friday, is review day...we are going to go over the Geography Terms one more time...slap some Barbarians up on the Timeline...paint a salt map of an imaginary land that we made the week before our vacation...finalize next week's spelling list from the dictation spelling words...Review all the math times tables and hopefully play our Timesattack video game.
As for a review of TOG. This has been a wonderful week of learning a bunch of things I never would have pulled together on my own. Sadly, Bubba is the history buff and he is not that interested in teaching it. I, on the other hand am more of an English buff...(now don't go critiquing my writing) and enjoy reading and diagramming and spelling and that sort of stuff and a Science buff...I'm into bugs and slime and colors and chemicals and stuff. History has RARELY been a consideration let alone a passion.
But this is fun. I've learned so many things this week...things I didn't even realize that I didn't know. For instance...
1. When someone SAID barbarian, the picture in my head was of the Mongols...I KNEW that there were some germanic barbarians...but didn't realize that MOST of the barbarians that destroyed Rome were of European (not Asian) descent. That's what I get for getting most of my history out of historical romance novels.
2. I did not realize that the 1001 Arabian nights stories were all from ONE story of the lady Shahrazad who TOLD the stories over 1001 nights to save her own life.
3. I didn't realize that the Alps were the fuzzy cap on the boot of Italy. Kind of like the snow boots that I wore when I was 7.
4. Those barbarians are VERY interesting characters...from Alaric who insisted on being buried at the bottom of a river, to Atilla who was told that he would die when he fell in love and then died the day after he was married, to Genseric the Vandal and all his Vandal nation who destroyed EVERYTHING in the cities that they conquered so that even NOW we call wanton destruction vandalism, to Theodoric who conquered and conquered the same guy (Odoacer) . Theodoric STILL managed to charm Odoacer into agreeing to be king WITH him, only to turn around and kill this co-king as soon as possible so that he, Theodoric, could finally be the ONLY king of Italy. This stuff is facinating. Where have I been????
5. I knew that St. Valentine was a guy...but I didn't know that he was a healer and that "From your Valentine" was written in a note accompanied by a crocus...on his way to his execution Valentine gave this note to a jailer for the jailer's daughter whom Valentine was treating for blindness. HIS portion was not a "LOVE" story per se...or at least not the type of love that we've come to associate with Valentine's Day...but the pure love of a nice elderly man (doctor) for a sick little girl. He was executed February 14, 270. Valentine's Day has been combined with a Roman custom that was celebrated February 15th where notes were drawn and maidens who had written the notes were courted...but that's not what St. Valentine himself was about. I never knew that.
All that to say...I'm having a great time learning these things right along with them. I like that I have the freedom to choose the books that we are going to read from a pre-determined EXCELLENT list of books. I like reading and reading and reading and talking and talking and reading some more. I like the kids all around me constantly...weird, because I already THOUGHT they were around me constantly...this is more.
Well, I'd best be off...there is much to be done.
See you around...
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