Cambridgeshire Academy™️: April 2021

Thursday, April 22, 2021

New Books I Recommend

We have found some awesome new books lately! It seems that more publishers are realizing that homeschooling is growing substantially and they're accommodating by coming out with some great materials.

Smithsonian has these Super Simple books and I got all 3. They are laid out very well and of course super simple. I find that these can work in any grade, though they are advertised as for grades 6-12. Adults will even find these valuable!

Z really loves these Ultimate pop-up books, he has looked through them countless times since getting them a few months ago:

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Z's 3rd Grade Curriculum Plans

Here are the plans for Z's 3rd grade year. We are adding in a lot this year - Latin, cursive, piano lessons, archery, architecture, woodworking and chess.

Bible - Bible Study Guide for All Ages

Reading - Assigned Book List; Fun Book List & Family Read-alouds

Math - Saxon Math 5/4

Grammar - First Language Lessons 3

Writing - Writing With Ease

Spelling - Spelling Workout E & F

Vocabulary - Worldly Wise B & C

Latin & Cursive - MP Prima Latina & MP New American Cursive w/ Prima Latina copybook

Science - Christian Kids Explore Chemistry

History - A Child's History of the World

Art - Home Art Studio

Music - Piano lessons

Extras - Archery; Architecture; Woodworking; Chess

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Z's 2nd Grade Astronomy

After finishing up Earth Science, we are moving on to Astronomy. I'm using 2 encyclopedias as my main spine and then fleshing them out with numerous books, videos, games and other fun extras! The spines are Usborne's First Encyclopedia of Space and DK's First Space Encyclopedia (my favorite one). I also have Christian Kid's Explore Earth & Space but it didn't have enough for Z.

I created an outline using the 2 spines (USB and DK) and divided the subject material into categories. Some of these are short and some are packed full of material, like space exploration and the solar system.

Astronomy Outline of Categories

Intro to Space - USB 4-7; DK 4-7
Telescopes -USB 8-11; DK 8-13
Galaxies, Stars & Universe - USB 46-53; DK 14-23, 96-97, 102-105
Space Exploration - USB 12-25; DK 24-49
The Solar System - USB 28-43: DK 50-75
Comets and Meteors - USB 44-45; DK 76-87
Mysteries of Space - USB 26-27, 54-55; DK 88-95, 98-101
Constellations & Stargazing - USB 56-59; DK 106-117

Quotes

"If you take your children to Caesar for their education, you need to stop being surprised when they come home as Romans" - Voddie Bauchman

"Too many parents who would never send their children to a church on Sunday that taught doctrines they believed to be wrong, have had no problem placing them in state schools five days a week where they are taught conflicting doctrines and ideas." - Cal Thomas

“I believe it would be much better for everyone if children were given their start in education at home. No one understands a child as well as his mother, and children are so different that they need individual training and study. A teacher with a room full of pupils cannot do this. At home, too, they are in their mother’s care. She can keep them from learning immoral things from other children.” ~Laura Ingalls Wilder

“Schools have not necessarily much to do with education... they are mainly institutions of control, where basic habits must be inculcated in the young. Education is quite different and has little place in school.” ~Winston Churchill

"Let it be remembered, that I do not speak to the wild, giddy, thoughtless world, but to those that fear God. I ask, then, for what end do you send you children to school? “Why, that they may be fit to live in the world.” In which world do you mean, — this or the next? Perhaps you thought of this world only; and had forgot that there is a world to come; yea, and one that will last for ever! Pray take this into your account, and send them to such masters as will keep it always before their eyes. Otherwise, to send them to school (permit me to speak plainly) is little better than sending them to the devil. At all events, then, send your boys, if you have any concern for their souls, not to any of the large public schools, (for they are nurseries of all manner of wickedness,) but private school, kept by some pious man, who endeavors to instruct a small number of children in religion and learning together." - John Wesley

"I am commanded to bring my children up in the nurture and instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:4), and to do so by teaching them God’s statutes when I sit in my house, when I lie down, when I rise up, and when I walk along the way (Deut. 6:7). I am also admonished not to place myself, or by extension my children, under false teaching (Col. 2:8), or to expose them to teaching that undermines God’s Law (Matt. 5:17-20)." - Voddie Bauchman

"God has designed your family—not the youth group, not the children’s ministry, not the Christian school, but your family—as the principle discipling agent in your children’s lives." - Voddie Bauchman

“I am sure as I am of the fact of Christ’s reign that a comprehensive and centralized system of national education, separated from religion, as is now commonly proposed, will prove the most appalling engine for the propagation of anti-Christian and atheistic unbelief, and anti-social nihilistic ethics, individual, social and political, which this sin-rent world has ever seen”. – Dr. Archibald Alexander Hodge (1823-1886), Chair of Systematic Theology, Old Princeton Seminary

“Education ought everywhere to be religious education… parents arte bound to employ no instructors who will not instruct their children religiously. To commit our children to the care of irreligious people is to commit lambs to the superintendent of wolves”. ~Timothy Dwight; President of Yale University from 1795-1817

SECULARISM is a philosophy that claims that there is no God-or that if there is a God, He is irrelevant. HUMANISM essentially says that in the absence of God, humans can and should act as gods by judging, choosing, and defining what is right for themselves. The philosophy pervading the public education system combines these two philosophies into one.-Ken Ham

Remember, you are not managing an inconvenience; You are raising a human being. -Kittie Franz