Beracá Valley Academy: April 2016

A few days ago I posted our Year 4, Term 1, exam and I mentioned how Alice (age 7) is a September baby. I was not quite sure that she would be ready right away to jump into a more rigorous lesson schedule so decided a year or so ago to give her a few weeks of being 6 before jumping into Year 1, which is why we have been using an October/November start date. It was a bit rocky for the First Term that year and I had to slow down a little, but we managed to work her back up to getting on pace with her older brother in terms of which week of school I was scheduling in following the Ambleside Online curriculum.

At this point, she is doing fairly well and she has improved on her attention span. Understanding the readings is still a factor sometimes. History (names & following the happenings) seems to bog her down; however, I have tried to work on laying a better groundwork for her before we jump into the readings that give her trouble.

All that said, I am really impressed with her progress.

On another note, reading skill: Some books she has read with just a little help from me are posted here. I believe she is doing great!

Exam Questions (taken from AO's website with a few adjustments):
A sampling of her answers are in purple.

Bible (same as her older brother since we read together from the Year 4 listings). By the way, she did much better on her answers in this category than she did last term. Yay!
1. Tell how the people of Israel took Jericho.
2. Tell about John the Baptist and how he baptized Jesus.
3. Tell how Christ fed the hungry crowds. One day there was this boy that had a basket that only had 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread and there was like thousands of people and two fish and five loaves of bread couldn’t feed all of them so Jesus took the baskets and showed them to heaven and then there was a bunch of food in the baskets and the whole crowd was fed.

Penmanship

History
1. Tell about William the Conqueror and how he came to be kind of England. One day in his boat he went to England and fought and then all of them pretended like they were running away and then Wm gave them a warning to turn back and kill everyone so they did this and then England was surprised. Then all of them were killed.
2. Tell the story of the White Ship.

Tales
1. Tell about little 'Lias.
2. Tell about two things Christian saw in the House of the Interpreter, or about Mr. Worldly Wiseman. When Christian got hisself out of the swamp this guy came and his name was Worldly Wiseman. And then he showed him a way to a hill and he said that that would take his burden off so Christian went this way but then when he got to the foot of the hill he saw flames of fire and so he went back and went the other way. Oh but before that this guy came up and said why did you go this way? He said because Worldly Wiseman came and told me to go this way and he was like you don’t need to listen to Worldly Wiseman because he tells the wrong things.

Geography
1. What is a butte? Can you describe one? Or tell everything you know about the plains.
2. Describe a compass. What does it tell us?

Natural History & General Science
1. Tell what you know about a squirrel or a beaver.
2. Describe a favorite nature walk, and tell about something you found. One day we were on a walk and we saw these little flowers while we were resting. The name of the flowers are called little bluets. They have purple petals. And we saw a skunk.
3. Talk about the Afghan Pine or about a bird we learned about at the Nature Center. Owls turn their heads around because their eyes can’t move and because so they can look at danger all around them. I like the Great Horned Owl the best.

Arithmetic

Picture Study: Albrecht Dürer
Describe your favorite work we studied this term.

Free Reading/Read-Aloud:
Choose one to illustrate and talk about.
By the Shores of Silver Lake
Pinocchio (audio book)

By the Shores of Silver Lake

Spanish
1. Sing Juan 3:16 or Zaqueo
2. La caminata: Say what we do on a nature walk in Spanish

Recitation
1. The Oak, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
2. Colossians 1:15-17
3. Recite one of your Sunday School verses

Singing
Sing your favorite folksong and hymn from this term.

A couple of weeks ago was Term 1 exam week in our home. We tend to begin our Year-to-Year transition with Ambleside Online's schedule in late fall, initially due to Alice having turned 6 in September, consequently allowing a few weeks before beginning her in Year 1. Thus with a start date of October/November, I am able to keep her and Royal on the same weeks of lessons around the year. So far, so good!

I always use AO's exam questions as a basis for our exams, but end up adjusting here and there for various reasons.

As we have just begun Year 4, exam responses were mainly oral so as Royal narrates, I type directly into the computer.

Following are the questions and prompts. I have included a sampling of his responses (in green). Some of my thoughts and comments are in red.

Bible
1. Tell how the people of Israel took Jericho.
2. Tell about John the Baptist and about how he baptized Jesus.
3. Tell how Christ fed the hungry crowds. How does he feed us today? He gives us jobs. He provides animals for us to kill. He helps farmers’ plants grow.

Penmanship
Royal chose to memorize Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" this term. I was a bit surprised he was okay with such a lengthy poem, but he did great! And, BONUS, a mini-history and geography lesson was involved.

Dictation (unprepared)

I was a bit unsure of how this was supposed to work. I couldn't find any how-tos on UN-prepared dictation, but did see a small number of posts over at the forum about the plausible reasons why it was included on student exams in Miss Mason's day. One that sticks out to me is that it could be a good indicator of the child's progress in spelling and focus on the details of sentences/phrases, etc.

That said, I decided to take AO's Tennyson selection (from "In Memoriam") and cut it down to just three lines, then allow Royal about 2-3 minutes to look it over for spelling, punctuation, etc.

Then I dictated:

If anyone has suggestions as to how they do unprepared dictation, please share!

Composition

1. Describe your favorite scene or character from the Shakespeare play: The Taming of the Shrew

Petrucchio is my favorite. He is funny. He can be funny whenever he’s talking to Katherine. He’s real stubborn with Katherine because he’s taming her. It’s a good thing that he’s stubborn because if he wasn’t, she would be a bully all the time. Whenever she wants something, he fights with her and says no, that he will not have it. And anything that she doesn’t want, he’ll give it to her.

2. Narrate one of these stories: Apollo & Daphne, Pyramus & Thisbe, Cephalic & Procris, or Diana & Actaeon.

English Grammar

U.S. History

1. What do you know about King Philip's War?

2. From reading Poor Richard, talk about the relationship America had with the French in trying to gain their independence from Britain. What role did Benjamin Franklin play in this relationship? The French and Americans liked each other. The French would give them supplies and the French really loved Benjamin Franklin and they were sad when he had to leave France. He (BF) started writing letters to the French to give them supplies.

3. Tell about the witches of Salem or how New Amsterdam became New York.

4. What do you know about Lord Baltimore or William Penn?

Geography

1. What do you know about Lake Itasca? Or what do you know about the Falls of St. Anthony's? (Locate it on a map and tell what's around it)

2. "The river is a museum." Explain.

3. Describe the earth's surface. (water and land forms)

Natural History & General Science

1. What are earthquakes? What causes them?

2. Talk about silk and about Epeira's Bridge.

3. Talk about the Afghan Pine or about a bird we learned about at the Nature Center. Red-tailed hawk: Their wing-span is 4 feet. They have big talons, about 2 inches long. It has spots on its chest. It has a curved yellow beak. It has a red tail. It has 3 eyelids, one on the side of its eye that is used to protect its eyes and is also see-through and one on the top of its eye and one on the bottom.

Citizenship/Government (Plutarch): Publicola

On AO's exam page, there were no questions for Publicola, so I took this quote from Anne White's study guide compilation of Publicola from Lesson Three's Narration and Discussion section. (As we are taking Plutarch at about half-pace right now ... and REALLY soaking it all in, I might add! ... this was a great question for us as we ended the term on Lesson Six (of Twelve total)

Talk about Brutus. Who was he? He was a commander in the army

"But that ancient Brutus was of a severe and inflexible nature, like steel of too hard a temper, and having never had his character softened by study and thought, he let himself be so far transported with his rage and hatred against tyrants, that, for conspiring with them, he proceeded to the execution even of his own sons." -Tell the story. He found out that his sons had turned to King Tarquin’s side and he took them before him with a bunch of other Tarquins and put them to trial and then cut their heads off.

...

Later we read of this same rage on the battlefield. Talk about this.

He was so mad at the tyrants that he let his anger control him, which was not good because he got killed in the battle. It is good not to let your hatred control you. Then the Romans made camp in the woods and all the sudden while they were in their tents, they heard a whispering voice that said, “You have won by one person.” And then they all yelled and it scared the Tuscans and most of them ran away and hid in the woods, but then the Romans came and captured the rest.

Arithmetic