Favorite School Books - Part 2

Cherub 1 is enjoying his school year for the most part - he has always enjoyed Science, and for the first time is also enjoying History.

He is working through Apologia's Physical Science textbook solo this year with great success. Cherub 1 enjoys seeing the Scientific Process unfold - enjoys estimating outcomes, and then doing the varied experiments to see if his ideas were correct.

For history, Cherub 1 is reading A Patriot's History of the United States. The History book is quite long and involved, so the reading is going slowly. But with the help of taking notes, Notebook Pages, maps, and timeline entries he is learning a lot about our National History.

Botany is a subject everyone enjoys - we do this all together (ages 4y-13y). We are using Apologia's Botany textbook. The children are keeping the notebook designed by the author, and have learned so much. It is quite funny to hear a 4yo say (while examining a plant) "Hey Mom - this is a vascular plant, huh ?). I am seeing a lot of Botany entries in our Nature Notebooks, with vocabulary that came originally from our Botany studies. And I am also seeing a lot of "exploration" outside as the children notice and truly "look" at plants, sometimes in a whole new way.

Lamb's Tales From Shakespeare is a much anticipated reading every week - the stories are involved enough to give details of the originals, and are a great introduction to the Great Works (actual) of Shakespeare. After reading the selected play in Lamb's, we try to find a movie of the real play, or perhaps an audio version. I dreaded Shakespeare as a student, but my own children seem to thoroughly enjoy it.

The Story of Painting - this book is essentially Art History, with some Artist Study incorporated as well. We read a section each week, and then try to re-create the style or we experiment with the medium, or we try to duplicate a work itself. We also look up other works / artists from that period (on the internet). For the cave painting section, the children made their own cave paintings along with writing a "story" that told of the details - the boys wrote mostly about going on a great hunt, of course. This book is a great spine to begin Art History with multiple ages - it is very informative for all ages, yet it gives a lot of room for further exploration for older children. It also introduces various artists throughout all time to students of all ages.