Barefoot Homeschool Adventures: End of July

End of July in Review

We've been back from vacation for just a week, and got back into our normal routine, whatever that is! We spent some time reading aloud together and watching a documentary.

We began reading through The Story, which is a version of the Bible that tells the whole story of the Bible in chronological order, without repeating anything (as the Bible does....a Lot!). This is the kid's version, which we will follow with the regular version. This week we read all about Creation, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. It was all review, but a great review none the less!

We also started reading America's Story 1. It's considered a textbook, but I think it tells American history as a great story and it's interesting to read! It's also got gorgeous pictures inside! We read about the Vikings, the Explorers, the early colonists at Roanoke Island and Jamestown. Again, we've covered all of US history before, so this is all review...but we love revisiting our old "friends" in these stories of the past! The kids wrote about what they learned about different Native American tribal groups.

We even did some math this week! Julie and Derek did 4 chapters from Life of Fred and Belle did a few lessons of CTC Math.

And of course, we have played a ton of board games! We reviewed our US Geography with 10 Days in the USA. We visited early man and built a village in Stone Age. We worked together to fight a house fire in Flashpoint. We also learned a new game about building and running power plants that was awesome, called Power Grid!

We also watch 4 of 6 parts of a mini-series called Into the West. It's FANTASTIC! I just happened to run across it on Monday when I went searching for a documentary about Native Americans. It was produced by Stephen Spielberg and it lives up to his reputation! It follows two different families, one white, one native american, during the time of the Oregon Trail and the Gold Rush. I'm amazed at the historical accuracy (as far as I can tell), about what it was really like to live during that time period. The kids are LOVING it! Finding great movies like this really brings history alive for my kids!

And of course, a week just wouldn't be complete if Storyteller wasn't working on her Fan Fictions! She spent hours doing that this week, along with writing a 3 page essay to submit for a scholarship from the local Tech Council. They are giving away 50 laptops from a 2017 Scholarship, and still have many of them left! Apparently public school kids aren't too keen on the idea of having to write a 300+ page essay. My girl wrote 3 pages, and it's excellent! Now we're just crossing our fingers!

We wrapped up the week by watching Goodbye Christopher Robin, a movie about A.A. Milne, the writer of Winnie the Pooh and his son Christopher, who inspired the beloved books. It was such a tear jerker, but the girls loved it!

Next week we will be doing our Monthly Charlotte Mason style exams and finishing the documentary. We'll also be playing tons of board games, as if you had to wonder!