(You can find the last post in this series here. )

I am trying to post a little wrap-up of each week of grades seven, four and five year old kindergarten year throughout the 36 weeks I have planned for school this year.  I hope this will encourage mothers that are homeschooling multiple children (or who want to but are worried!), and  encourage mothers that even homeschooling children of multiple ages who are far apart in age is doable. 

Living with the Seasons:  We had a lovely Feast of the Ascension Day, and are now gearing up for Pentecost Sunday.  What a beautiful time of year!  The pools are open and we have been swimming frequently, and summer feels as if it is just around the corner!

Homeschool Planning: I am not sure I have made substantial progress since the last time I posted  in this series, but still feel confident that it is possible to finish planning by the end of June and just focus on artistic work the rest of the summer.  Fifth grade pretty much has a flow for every block, as does eighth grade at this point, along with plans for a once a week World Geography wrap-up in the autumn and American Government in the spring semester.  My little six year old year is still only about half-way done, and obviously I still have many presentations to write and mull over to go with the flow of the blocks planned out.

Kindergarten:  We have had a lovely spring circle and Feast of the Ascension story (found in “All Year Round”).  We have added in many spring fingerplays and songs as well.  This week we are moving into a new story for the last two weeks of school, and I am thinking about all kinds of plans for the six-year-old kindergarten year.  Cooking, baking, water play and swimming, seasonal crafts, sand play, walking distances are just a few of the things we have been doing the past few weeks.

Fourth Grade:  We are still working hard on math – both practice math of all four processes, games involving multiplication, Extra Lesson kinds of activities, spelling, and fractions.  We will be ending school soon, next week, and have a well-deserved break.  We only have a few chapter left to read in “Heroes of the Kalevala”, which has been enjoyed by our fourth grader.

Seventh Grade:  We are working hard on a review of measurement conversions and other past math topics each day.  We are also finishing up our Latin America block.  This was what was in our Main Lesson Book regarding Latin America as of my last post:

• A beautiful title page
• A physical map of Latin America with all mountains and highlands, lowlands and coastal plain areas labeled/ discussed as well as the Atacama Desert
• A summary of the Andes Mountains and a painting; I want to go back and do a portrait of the people of the Andes if we have time
• A summary of The Pampas and the gaucho, quotes from “Martin Fierro”, the epic gaucho saga by Jose Hernandez which we read.
• A summary of the Amazon Basin; drawing of  toucans!

The last few weeks we added:

• A lovely map of the four voyages of Christopher Columbus, a map of Hispaniola and a discussion and summary of the Taino people.
• A very lively discussion and delving into the life and religion of the Mayan civilization. I feel strongly that the Maya should be in Fifth Grade for those of us in North America, but since we didn’t include it there, we are doing it now.  Our daughter composed her own summary from  notes taken, and we have looked at sections of the Popol Vuh. We also worked in clay and in using vivid chalks for a picture.
• Now we are moving into the Aztec civilization, and will do the Incan Empire in our final week of school this year.

I found many books used and from the library that assisted me in putting together this block, including:

• A little Latin American coloring book by Rod and Staff, the Christian publisher
• A used copy of “World in Focus: Central and South America” by Allman
• Mayan Mythology by Currie
• Secrets in Stone:  All About Maya Hieroglyphs by Coulter
• Popul Vuh:  A Sacred Book of the Maya by Montejo
• Mayan and Aztec Mythology by Ollhof
• The Aztecs by Heinrichs
• Mountains Around the World:  The Andes by Aloian
• The Inca Empire by Newman
• The Inca from the Early Peoples Series by World Book
• Macchu Picchu by Elizabeth Mann
• The Inca by Braman
• Fiction:  Secret of the Andes by Clark
• Fiction:  Pedro’s Journal

I would love to hear what you are working on right now!

Blessings,
Carrie