Homeschooling

There's only another month until Summer Vacation!

Since there's only a month left of school and we completed all of the state standards awhile ago, we've been doing more Waldorf based education, in preparation for the following year. We've been taking eurythmy, wet-on-wet watercolor, and handwork at a place called P&H Grange.

We're covering things that we would have done this year if we were in Waldorf school. For me, that would be the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

My Middle Ages "S.S." book.

The last post that I did about my Middle Ages book ended with Australia/New Zealand, the bottom of the world. The one after Australia was about the Medieval Franks, and the most recent one is Medieval England. The next one that I'm going to do is about the Crusades to recapture Jerusalem.

My current favorite is "The Norsemen" which is about the Vikings. It is my favorite because the border that I drew around the page features Scandinavian runes.

2/7/09-2/13/09

This week we started to learn about volcanoes for Joey's science. For Story of the World, we learned about the Plague, or Black Death. I made my yarn for my flute case also this week.

I made the yarn for the case out of some dyed wool and some fiber that we already had. First we dyed some white fiber with a light red (Brazilwood), and it turned out a peach-ish color. Then I alternated using the yarn we had, a combination of yellow and deep red, and the one that we dyed to make the yarn. I am going to crochet the yarn to make the case.

Here is a picture of the yarn:

For the Plague, we learned that the actual name is the Bubonic Plague and that it came from a disease that is carried by fleas. The fleas gave it to the rats, who in turn gave it to all of Europe, one part at a time. Once the Black Death subsided, the need of peasants and farmers increased, so they could demand to be paid instead of just being given a place to live. Because of this, the Feudal System of Europe where there is a lord who owns the land and gives the peasants and farmers land in return for working for him, broke down. Now, the lords started to get poorer and peasants slightly richer.

We just started to learn about volcanoes. We learned about the different types of eruptions, about the Ring of Fire, and about earthquakes.

1/17/09-1/23/09

This week on Monday, it was Martin Luther King's Day. We learned about what he did and what he fought for (fought as in political speeches and boycotts, not actual violence). He made many speeches, including the famous "I Have a Dream" speech, where he talked about the Declaration of Independence and how we still weren't following it at the time. He lead the bus boycott where all African-American people wouldn't ride the buses because they had to sit in the back. By refusing to ride the bus, the bus companies were losing money. After about a year, the law was lifted.

Because it was a holiday, we didn't have to do any structured homeschooling. Instead, we did some artsy projects. We made some things out of polymer clay. I made a bow and arrow and three canes of twisted color, and Wilson also made a cane. Joey did some stamping and needlefelting. We all did some natural dyeing with silk cloths using blueberries, brazilwood and tumeric.

At art this week, we finished our walrus and still life projects. Wilson did a the walrus project too. After art, our girl cousins, Emily and Sydney, came over to our house.

For my Middle Ages book this week, I did a page of Medieval Asia. I drew a small map of that area and wrote some facts about China, Korea, and Japan.

Later tonight, we are going to go to the Olive Garden for dinner with the rest of the Tan family to celebrate Lolo's and Aunt Shelley's birthdays.

Saturday-Friday 12/13/08-12/19/08

This week I had two band concerts. One was at a church and the other was Arden Fair Mall. I got to play in beginning band with saxophone, intermediate band with clarinet, and my band stayed to play the songs with the advanced band too.
Here are the songs that we played:

Beginning band: Minor Rock, Rio Bravo, Jingle Bells, and Dr. Rock.

Intermediate band: Freedoms Force, Kum Ba Ya, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Tenth Planet, Walkin' Cool, and Star Wars.

Advance band: Valley Forge, If I didn't Have You, All Through the Silent Night, Swingin' on a Star, 12 Days of Christmas, and Christmas of the Toreador.

Also this week, we read the story of The Nutcracker and we are doing to go to see Joey and my cousins, Emily and Sydney, perform The Nutcracker. We are going to go my little brother's gymnastics show today and on Sunday we are going to go to my clarinet recital at a church. There were a lot of performances this week.

This week I started my Middle Ages book. I made two pages one on The Fall of Rome, and another on the Byzantine Empire. I drew a nice map for The Fall of Rome, and I'm doing a drawing of the Hagia Sophia for the Byzantine Empire.