tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17225142032499352272024-03-14T04:16:41.037-05:00Adventures at Trillium AcademyA blog to describe our homeschooling experience, which began August 2009. Come follow our journey!Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-52542123563955466452011-11-11T21:24:00.003-06:002011-11-12T07:51:40.144-06:00Fall Highlights!More than another month has sped by! I am still playing catch-up and wonder if I will ever feel as though I am on top of what is happening in school. I am constantly struggling with the "are we doing enough" question; between our being a slow-moving family in the morning, plus building in our music practicing first thing after breakfast, we aren't starting academic work until close to 9:30-10 a.mHelenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-73782249329871801182011-09-25T15:01:00.000-05:002011-09-25T15:01:06.767-05:00Surviving the First Month!The first month has felt like hanging on to the back of a speeding train. We started before I was fully prepared, but it has been just go, go, go ever since we began that I haven't had a chance to catch my breath (or catch up!) Here are our first day of school photos...
New supplies always generates big smiles!
Our 1st grader, 4th grader, and Preschooler!
So far the big challenges are Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-3407376190728893452011-08-30T17:22:00.003-05:002011-08-30T17:26:59.962-05:00Quick Recap from the 2010-2011 Year!Where did the months go? My son Harry has been wondering why on earth I haven't updated the Trillium Academy site in so long...it has just been that kind of summer!
Let me try to briefly summarize how we ended the academic year...
MUSIC:
As usual, music played a big role in our boys' lives this spring. For my birthday in May, Harry and Ron created a "Birthday Recital for Mommy" as my present-Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-9490887726222964982011-05-08T23:00:00.002-05:002011-05-09T13:31:28.333-05:00Weeks 26-30: China, Japan, and RussiaThe weeks fly by! It has been too long since my last update. We have continued our tour of the world, stopping by the countries China, Japan, and Russia. The boys have kept up with their daily geography review and I'm pretty sure they can out-name me with their current geography knowledge. This week, we move into Australia and Oceania, with Antarctica the final continent on our list. It's still Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-73426983601235058722011-04-07T21:03:00.001-05:002011-04-07T21:07:03.565-05:00A Carschooling Week!Short post this week! We celebrated Ron's 6th birthday this weekend, which included dinner out with visiting grandparents on Saturday night, a Chuck E. Cheese outing with a couple of fellow violin-playing friends on Sunday night, and then he opened presents on Monday, his actual birthday. I was totally exhausted after a long weekend and so Monday we just did our music practicing and took the restHelenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-37869865787009252622011-04-01T15:08:00.001-05:002011-04-01T16:22:09.477-05:00Week 25: Finishing Our Time in India!This week we were back to school, after having a nice week off for Spring Break. We didn't go anywhere, we just kept it simple and coordinated our break with my husband's Spring Break...this is one of the things I love about homeschooling, that our schedule is totally flexible! He took them to Chicago one day during the break so that I could get ready for a speaking trip to the West Coast, and weHelenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-26590159134901782902011-03-18T07:26:00.000-05:002011-03-18T07:26:09.183-05:00Weeks 23 and 24: 100 Day Party!We did a number of things these past two weeks, but really this post is all about our 100 Day Celebration!
First, I used last year's idea and scattered the numbers 1-100, written on apple Post-Its, all over the walls of our main floor. The twist this year is that the numbers from 51-100 were written as math problems for Harry to solve, to make it a little more difficult. With the help of their (Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-26471454175992436732011-03-03T23:44:00.000-06:002011-03-03T23:44:34.317-06:00Weeks 21-22: Ongoing Questions!This week I'm going to post about some of my ongoing/current questions and concerns. Just to demonstrate that homeschooling is not always a flawless, trouble-free journey with smiles all around every day. Let's do this child by child...
Harry, 3rd Grade:
My biggest concerns with Harry is that we are just not getting enough done every day. We are a generally slow-moving family, and I always haveHelenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-42624606874123693832011-02-19T00:30:00.000-06:002011-02-19T21:07:18.111-06:00Weeks 17-20: Castles, Oceans, Grasslands, and SNOW!!I've been dying to update this blog, but life has just gotten in the way. I can't even comprehend that we are past the halfway point of the year. I feel like we just started school yesterday! Nevertheless, the weeks march on. Here is a quick summary of what we have been up to this past month...
Germany and Rivers....
We ended our time in Europe with a focus on Germany; did you know that there Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-79991767500917454822011-01-21T23:54:00.000-06:002011-01-21T23:54:46.238-06:00Weeks 14-16: Doing What I Can...The weeks fly by! I have been insanely busy since the new year trying to help promotional efforts on my new book (The Missional Mom), which was released on Jan. 1st, so my school blogging has gotten shortchanged! We've been in school two weeks, working around my somewhat erratic schedule, but it looks like the dust has settled somewhat and next week we will have a fairly normal school week! Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-29642914675619553492011-01-04T15:51:00.000-06:002011-01-04T15:51:29.379-06:00Happy Holidays/New Year!Well, I never did get to post about our last week, and nor have I done our semester review. But we did get in a great deal of fun activities in our trip to California over Christmas! Just a few photos...
Wish we could have spent more time at SeaWorld, which was my favorite part of the trip. So many educational things we could have done and seen there! But now we're back home, I'm trying to Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-59418986769175165532010-12-17T23:04:00.000-06:002010-12-17T23:04:01.757-06:00Weeks 12 and 13: Lots of Paint!We are ALMOST done with school for 2010! But we have just a few more days to do next week...we lost a week after Thanksgiving because the teacher (aka, me!) was so sick she could barely function. So, we will do school next week right almost right up to Christmas Eve. As for the past two weeks, here is our update. Not so much detail because I am starting to run out of steam! Thank goodness for a Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-89912747530850159102010-11-19T12:51:00.000-06:002010-11-19T12:51:09.862-06:00Week 11: Eggs Are Strong!This week, I am going to keep our post short and sweet! Let's try a different format...
Harry's highlights: (3rd grade)
Finished his time in South America; he learned to read bar graphs, conduct research on the ten tallest mountains on the continent, and continued to learn about all manner of flora and fauna in the rainforest
Progressed in his Singapore Math book with a re-introduction of Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-85345235626900953422010-11-12T22:57:00.000-06:002010-11-13T00:25:48.478-06:00Week 10: Getting to Know South AmericaThis week we spent time learning about South America a variety of ways, particularly Harry. Ron, Harry and I have all become much more adept at identifying all the South American countries, and Harry has additionally learned about people groups such as the Yanomami Indians, for whom he has been praying this week, thanks to the wonderful book Window on the World. We're reading the biography of Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-25615822871263921092010-11-05T09:59:00.000-05:002010-11-05T10:27:16.420-05:00Weeks 8-9: Fun Outings and Some School, Too!I knew my streak of posting two weeks in a row would not last! October hit us like a ton of bricks, and now here we are in November, amazingly. We took a Fall Break week this year after week 7, which was perfectly timed as I was definitely feeling the need for a respite by that point in the year. Among our fun Fall Break activities was a visit to a local farm to pick out pumkpins, enjoy the Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-62916803131358015042010-10-15T11:05:00.000-05:002010-10-15T11:09:26.885-05:00Weeks 6 and 7: Visiting Mexico!I knew it would be hard to keep up the pace of posting every week! So here is an update from our past two weeks. We've been continuing our tour of North America, spending time in Mexico and attempting to learn all the countries in Central America. (I was shocked at how poor my own knowledge was of all those Central American countries! It's a good thing I'm being challenged to brush up on my own Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-50041509963713786212010-10-01T10:18:00.000-05:002010-10-01T10:19:56.721-05:00Week 5: All About Butterflies!This week, we moved things around in Ron's kindergarten curriculum to focus on butterflies, because the caterpillars we'd been watching had all emerged into butterflies early this week!
A recently-hatched butterfly, resting above the leftover cocoons from our five painted ladies!
The My Father's World curriculum we use assigns each letter of the alphabet to a particular object or animal and Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-19471128346284915742010-09-27T21:12:00.000-05:002010-09-27T21:12:49.332-05:00My First Blog Award!Wow! I still find it hard to believe that other people actually read this blog other than myself! But I recently learned that Beaglemamma at Training Them Up chose my blog for her list of One Lovely Blog award recipients. I'm completely stunned and very honored.
I am supposed to choose 15 blogs that I would like to similarly bequeath this award to...and I will...but it will have to wait a Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-65916515311081930432010-09-24T09:39:00.000-05:002010-09-24T09:43:29.075-05:00Week 4: A Trip to the Moon and More!I'm going to try to actually post two straight weeks in a row! Let's see how it goes. I can't believe we are already at the end of week 4. For some reason, the school year is flying by this year. Last year we scheduled "light weeks" every four weeks or so, and I was feeling like I really needed it after our first four weeks. This year, I think I can just keep going a couple more! (Let's see how Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-80479116042492753742010-09-17T09:29:00.000-05:002010-09-17T21:29:26.128-05:00Weeks 2 and 3!I'm so impressed by the faithful bloggers who post every week or more! I just haven't gotten into an every-week rhythm, although I'm working towards it. So here is my update from the past two weeks.Geography: The kids will never forget the names of the seven continents now that they've sung the song that MFW-ECC taught them (think "Yankee Doodle" using these words: "North America, South America/Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-2957120772851570802010-09-04T00:06:00.000-05:002010-09-04T01:04:50.527-05:00Our First Weekly Report of the 2010-2011 Year!It's hard to believe that summer just came and went so fast! But here we are, finished with our first week of our second year of homeschooling. This year, we are continuing with My Father's World and using their Exploring Countries and Cultures curriculum, which will give the kids a great foundation in world geography and hopefully a heart for missions as well, which is a strong emphasis in the Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-65919417826225209152010-08-18T00:04:00.000-05:002010-08-18T00:05:55.167-05:00My First Blog Hop!What is a blog hop?A blog hop is a linky list that is SHARED ON MULTIPLE BLOGS.When several blogs put the same linky list code on their blog, theexact same list appears on each blog.Blog visitors can submit their entries on any blog that contains the list.The entries will appear on each blog where the list resides.Blog readers see the same list on each blog, and can "HOP" from blogto blog seeing Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-30307956442769967632010-08-16T22:27:00.000-05:002010-08-16T22:38:54.145-05:00School is starting soon...stay tuned!I can't believe how fast this summer has gone by! In the past couple of months, I have been swamped with writing my book on being a missional mom, such that school preparation has been on the back burner. We are starting one week from today, though, so I better get cracking!Here is what I have decided on so far:For Harry (3rd grade):Exploring Countries and Cultures, My Father's WorldContinue withHelenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-71262197451636941252010-06-04T20:56:00.000-05:002010-08-01T21:58:31.077-05:00We made it! Year One, Complete!It is hard to believe, but we have completed our first official year of homeschooling. Since my last update, we spent a week in Southern California, where the kids had fun golfing, enjoying the beach, and visiting Disneyland for the first time...Then we had to come back and try to make it through two more weeks of school, no easy feat after time with fun in the sun! I do NOT recommend taking a Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722514203249935227.post-37825857552588967282010-05-07T00:04:00.001-05:002010-08-01T22:00:06.687-05:00Weeks 30 and 31--The End Is Near!Is this normal in homeschooling? Suddenly the weeks are whizzing by and I have no idea what happened. We're in the final stretch now, with just three more weeks of our Adventures curriculum to go. Somehow, some way, we went from being a "just thinking about homeschooling" family to one that was "just trying it out for a year" to where we are now, which is that our kids cannot imagine school any Helenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07718664238816531640noreply@blogger.com2