2012-2013 Quarterly Report: Winter Quarter

I dread the Winter Quarter.  I know I'll be working against gray weather, cold temperatures, innumerable illnesses, and the expected boredom and burnout that accompanies the onslaught of the aforementioned events.  January, February, and March are easily my least favorite months of the year.

Unfortunately, these three months are crucial to our homeschooling success.  Without all the distraction of sunshine and its call to bask in outdoor activities, Winter Quarter offers a chance to hunker down and blast through assignments uninterrupted.  (If you can manage to force yourself out of your bed in the dark, gray mornings.)

I've fallen down hard during previous winter quarters, and I wasn't having any of it this year.  Knowing that I was going to loathe sitting at the homeschool table any more than I was required to sit, I scheduled out-of-house activities and big birthday parties to keep us excited about other things, therefore encouraging us to get schoolwork out of the way as quickly as possible so we could devote ourselves to the more interesting items on our agendas.

The plan worked really well!  We powered through this last quarter, much to my immense relief, and we're relatively on-track when the spring quarter starts next week.

Where We Are

(Lesson or page listed is last lesson/page completed)

Math

• Bluebird:  Lesson 115 in Saxon 3
• Penguin:  Lesson 105 in Saxon 1
• Junebug:  Lesson 44 in Saxon K

Language Arts

Penmanship

• Bluebird = Page 113 in Zaner-Bloser 3
• Penguin = Page 89 in Zaner-Bloser 2M

Phonics

• Penguin = FINISHED
• Junebug = Page 19

Spelling

• Bluebird = Step 5 in All About Spelling Level 2
• Penguin = Step 23 in All About Spelling Level 1

Grammar

• Bluebird = Lesson 46 in FLL 3
• Penguin = Lesson 66 in FLL 1

Writing
Not a lot happened in writing this quarter.  I did fine with coming up assignments ahead of time in previous quarters, but it slipped through the cracks this quarter.  I'll (obviously) have to remedy this in the spring quarter.

Foreign Language

We're muddling through Lesson 10 in Latina Christiana 1.  Latin is going as well as could be expected, honestly.  It's new and we're having a hard time fitting it in, but it's getting done--slowly, but progress is definitely being made.

History

Story of the World #3, Chapters 17-26
I kept wanting to do something big for The American Revolution, but couldn't get it going, so we wasted a lot of time treading water on that chapter.  Oh well, there's always next time.  Moving on.

Science

The kids can now reliably recite the elements in order up to Thorium (90).  They have a fair number of the last 22 elements already down, but I wasn't really paying attention because I was only concerned up to Thorium.

They did a few experiments with Michael over the winter quarter and have read a few books here and there about various topics pertaining to chemistry.  Hopefully we can increase the amount of science going on in Brooketopia in the spring.

Reading

Bluebird:

• Johnny Tremain
• Ben and Me

Religion

We are now through 3 Nephi 16.

Music

Bluebird continued on with her piano lessons.

Art

Penguin did that one landscape drawing... 

Girl Scouts

Bluebird:

• City council address for her Brownie Quest journey
• My Best Self
• World Thinking Day patch

Penguin:

• Considerate & Caring petal
• Respect for Myself & Others petal
• Safety award
• Financial Literacy I leaf
• Cookie Business I leaf
• World Thinking Day patch

Physical Education

Bluebird continued with her tennis lessons.

It would easy to look at this list and feel a little bit like a failure because "work done" in some of that later categories isn't that impressive.  However, I believe it's more important to focus on math, language arts and reading in these young years, so missing out of some of the extra-curriculars just has to happen sometimes.  Hopefully I can include more extra-curriculars next quarter, but if I can't get to them, it's not the end of the world.

Goals for Spring Quarter:

Bluebird:

• Finish Saxon 3, preferably early so we can do some intense drill on number facts for a while.
• Finish ZB 3
• Get at least through Step 15 in AAS 2, ideally finish the book.
• Finish FLL 3.  Yep, all 54 lessons.  (I see some summer studying going on in grammar...)
• Writing assignments.  That'd be good.  (Another potential summer study subject.)
• Lesson 20 in Latin.
• Read A Tale of Two Cities; Carry On, Mr. Bowditch; Frankenstein; Sacajawea; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Boy in the Alamo; and Moses, Me and Murder.
• Finish her current piano book.
• Finish her Brownie Quest journey, Dancer badge, Painting badge, Celebrating Community badge, Snacks badge, Safety Award, Global Action Award, and the Faith Year 2 award.

Penguin:

• Finish Saxon 1, begin Saxon 2
• Finish ZB 2M
• Step 5 in AAS 2
• Finish FLL 1  (34 lessons)
• Writing assignments
• Read through a reading list that has yet to be determined by moi.
• Finish her current Daisy Scout journey, Respect Authority petal, Faith Year 2 award, Use Resources Wisely petal, Make the World a Better Place petal, Global Action award.  Soaring through another Journey would be nice, but it's doubtful that it's going to happen.

Junebug:

• Continue with phonics instruction, math lessons, and Kumon workbooks.  Anything she does only serves to get her ahead for Kindergarten.

Family:

• Finish the Book of Mormon
• Art lessons
• Music appreciation lessons
• Start training for the 5K that Bluebird and Penguin want to run in the autumn
• Science lessons
• Finish SOTW 3