Weekly Wrap Up {The Week We Started Paths of Settlement}

This week was our second week back to school.  Last week we just eased back into math and language arts type stuff.  This week we started Trail Guide to Learning Paths of Settlement {POS}.

I haven't mentioned it yet, but we are continuing with Trail Guide to Learning this year, which I am SUPER excited about!  We will be learning about some of the great men and women that helped make this nation great, the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, as well as studying the states.

These past two weeks have gone pretty well.  We've been on vacation since Memorial Day, so it had taken the past two weeks to really get back into a routine.  I was really glad the Lord led me to ease back into school verses doing everything on day one.

This is also the first year that I am schooling all four kids, so that was a little bit of an adjustment for me. Little Bits has always done things with us, but now it is for real. {smile}  The girls are pretty independent with a lot of things, so that helps.

This past week with POS we started reading several great books!  As family read alouds we are reading Abigail Adams: First Lady of Faith and Courage (Sower Series) and The Courage of Sarah Noble.  The girls are both reading Ambush in the Wilderness.  My middle school gal was also supposed to start Calico Captive this week, but someone forgot to order it.  It will be here next week. 

We all love the books!  Trail Guide to Learning offers a wonderful selection of books and has never disappointed us. 

We also started our study of the states.  I looks like we are studying two states per week.  This week we learned many important and intersting facts about Massachusetts and Connecticut.  The kids worked on state pages, map and also enjoyed cooking!  

Paths of Settlement encourages you try foods from the different states.  The girls made Scrumptious Beef & Potato Casserole for Connecticut and Boston Cream Pie for Massachusetts, both were delicious!  We have already come across lots of great recipes in Eat Your Way Through the USA, that is actually where our Boston Cream Pie recipe came from.  I decided that I am just going to incorporate recipes from the different states in my meal planning through the year, the goal is one recipe from each state.  My kids are REALLY excited about the cooking part of POS, especially my girls.  

For science, we have all become weather watchers. The kids each made a weather book, basically a front and back cover for the weather observation print outs from POS.  I even let my little guy make a book, his has blank pages to draw a picture for the weather each day {he loves to be big like his siblings}. We set up a rain gauge and outdoor thermometer to help us.  Just this past week we've learned a good deal about how to observe and predict the weather, and some cool facts about our atmosphere.  

All in all, it was a great week!  How was your week?

Be sure to visit Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers for more Weekly Wrap Ups!

          

Weekly Wrap Up {Park Day, Animal Show and Book Club}

Today ends our second week of school.  Never would have thought I'd be saying that in the middle of July! 


This week went pretty well, scattered but well.  Some how we didn't finish all of our Trail Guide to Learning -POE lessons last week so we finished them up this week. 


The Lil' Chef was exited to start Teaching Textbooks 7 this week {Thanks Mrs. Luisa for blessing us with this!!}. She continued to not be very thrilled with her writing assignments.  She is getting used to the copywork that goes along with POE but does not like to have to go off and creatively write something.  She is starting an online writing program, Time 4 Writing, next week that I am VERY excited about.  I will tell you all more about this later {it's a review}.


Computer Girl has been plugging along with her studies.  She is progressing very well with her multiplication facts while using Math Made Easy {another review}.

Alpha Boy is working on his Abeka Letters and Sounds.  He is at that point where he knows his letter sounds but they all haven't quite clicked yet.  One of the beauties of homeschooling is that we can work at our own pace.  He is also working through his Arithmetic 1 book, some of which we do orally as he is doing jumping jacks.  {smile}


Little Bits made an alligator out of a letter A and made an a book.  He also talked his oldest sister into reading countless Eric Carle and Berenstain Bears books this week.  Aren't big sisters GREAT!!

This guy was about 2 feet away from me, a little too close for comfort thank you very much.  I was able to get a good picture of him though.

On Wednesday, we went to a park play date/ farewell party.  The only probelm was that we went on the wrong day, we were a day early!  We even brought playgroup granola bars, which became our lunch.  Since we had the day wrong we went to Goodwill to look for some clothes for one of my kiddos.  God is so good!  We found several really cute outfits that work for everyday as well as church clothes.  We got 3 skirts, 5 tops , 1 pair of shorts and 2 dresses for about $65!  I have mentioned my love of Goodwill, right??

We also went to the library.  This week they were having a show about animals.  The Maryland State Zoo came and brought several animals for us to check out.  We got to see a screech owl {I really want one BTW}, a sugar glider, tarantula, and a baby alligator!!  We had a full and fun day! 

Thursday we went back to the park for the actual play date/ farewell party - this time we brought brownies.  It was nice to hang out with our friends whom we are going to miss very much! 

Tea Party!

Today we had our second American Girl Summer Book Club meet.  9 girls, 4 moms and my boys!  The girls had read Meet Felicity last week, so we talked about the book and the characters.  We made 2 batches of short bread cookies, the girls got dressed up and we had a tea party.  My boys helped serve the girls, which was really sweet.   The boys looked really cute with their dad's hats on and eyeliner mustaches! 


Looking back, I 'd say we had a pretty good week.  We accomplished school and had some great fellowship with friends.  Hope you all had a great week too!

By His Grace,
Brandi

Weekly Wrap Up - The week we studied Knights

This past week we finally learned about castles, cathedrals, knights and the code of chivalry.  We have been meaning to read about them for the last two weeks but for one reason or another we had not gotten to them. 

  

We read a great little picture about knights called Knights in Shinning Armor by Gail Gibbons.  The kids really enjoyed it.  I thought it gave a pretty detailed picture of the life of a knight.  During the reading of the book all the got dubbed a knight and had the title Sir added to their names.  They must have really enjoyed this because they continued it even when the neighbor kids came over the play later in the day. 

After reading the book the kids decided to make their own swords and shields from all of the Stampin' Up! card stock rotting away in my craft room : )

Today they are going to mount their horse (bikes) and practice jousting with lances (pool noodles of course!).  They really looking forward to this, I am just going to be praying that they are no casualties. 

This week we also read in Story of the World 2 about the code of chivalry, which I thought was pretty interesting.  Then in Medieval World, we read more on castles and cathedrals.  We had read a little about castles last week and we were blessed with some huge boxes which the kids used to build a castle, draw bridge and all.  Thanks again Erica!

This is kinda the only shield that survived the battle long enough to have it's picture taken.

As we read this week, the kids colored print outs from a medieval times coloring book for their history notebook.  We also did oral narration and discussion. 
The kids watched the cartoon Robin Hood.  We discussed the stealing that Robin and his men did and whether it was pleasing to the Lord.  I was happy to hear them say that even though giving to the poor is a good thing, stealing it not.  Yay! 

We also got back into our Apologia Astronomy book, we finished up lesson 1 and did most of lesson 2.  We just started this not to long ago and I plan to continue this in the summer.  If you have ever done the Apologia Astronomy, then you know that lesson one has you use balloons to make the planets to hang from your ceiling.  Yeah, that didn't work out so well for us - me lovely kids used up all the balloons for a water fight so I resorted to paper planets.  Such is life I guess.

The girls had their last book club on Wednesday evening, they just finished reading Treasures of the Snow.  Their WONDERFUL book club teacher invited a couple from our church that had lived in Switzerland AND knew Patricia St. John (the author).  From what I hear, they also knew
Corrie Ten Boom, a favorite of my girls, so that was an added bonus. 

Last but definitely not least, we started a new read a loud called Mr. Pipes.  I am diggin' this book!  We are reading the first one in the series (there are 4).  It is a historical fiction, with a good story line, that teaches about hymns and where they originated.  It is put out by Christian Liberty Press.  So far so good!

We also managed to accomplish math, phonics and grammar!  Praise God for a productive week.

Weekly Wrap Up! 8/22/11 - 8/26/11

This is our 4 week back to school.  We still aren't back to doing all subjects but I feel like we have a pretty good start. 

This week all the kids and I have been learning about How the Bible Came to Us.  Which has been pretty interesting so far.  We have gone over all the different books of the Bible and who wrote them.  Read an overview of the Old and New Testaments (these pages were pretty cool, the kids want to copy them and make it a board game out of them).

We have kept up with Keys for Kids and our memory verse this week.  Our verse this week is...
1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Computer Girl is playing with Little Bits while I was working with Alpha Boy and The Lil' Chef was doing hereindependent studies.

For history I have been using MFW - Rome to Reformation as a guideline but have still been tweaking it a bit.  We have been reading mostly from Mystery of History this week, we have read about the Punic Wars, Spartacus and Julius Caesar.  I also included What in the World by Diana Waring, we listened to the Punic Wars, Roman Republic and Julius Caesar (I am going to be reviewing this soon).

THe Lil' Chef is reading to the boys while I am working with Computer Girl.  You don't see alpha Boy because he is in the "tent" under the coffee table.

MFW has Augustus Caesar's World as a read a loud for the next 9 weeks (or so) but after looking at this book I have decided to shelf it.  I have to tell you, this book, well the decision whether to read it or not read it really stressed me out a little.  I guess because I am type a like that : )  As I previewed the book I just felt there was a little too much astrology and false gods for my taste.  I know that many people have read this book and loved it but for us and the ages of my kids I am passing.  At least for now. 

Just in case you wanted to see the "tent" and what my house can look like while we are schooling : )

To replace it we are reading Detectives in Toga's.  We are 4 or 5 chapters in so far and the kids are hooked.  There is a few things in this book that I could do with out also but I think for me it is easier to modify as I am reading.  It does mention astrology, which I know was very common in Rome and they stay stuff like dumbell and stupid.  I did read dumbell a few times because of the story but the other potty mouth words I just left out.

Alpha Boy working on his letters with Sing, Spell, Read and Write.

We did a few lessons in The Human Body for Every Kid.  My kids enjoyed doing a little "experiment" on cell membrane break through which involved a colander, pinto beans and salt.  This little project really made the idea click in their heads. 


Computer Girl with our experiment on cell membrane breakthrough.

I decided to add something to our year that I didn't plan on adding.  We have all 3 of the Apologia Zoology science books and haven't used them yet.  I know, shame, shame!  I am POSITIVE that my kids will love this, possibly more than anything else we are doing this year and that my friend is why I am adding it.  We are going to do it very s-l-o-w-l-y because technically we are already doing science.  This is really more for fun.



Computer Girl working on her grammar.  Not sure if she is not really happy to be doing grammar or if she is still half a sleep.

To keep track of all that they are learning they have a drawing or coloring page that they place in their history and science notebooks.  I would LOVE to include lapbooks for them but it seems that I always print out all this stuff and they are just not into it.  For some reason my kids are just not into lapbooks.  It really does baffle me, what kid doesn't like to color, cut and paste?!  
I am always looking for fun things to add to our schooling, so last year when I stumbled upon The Story Keepers videos I was on a mission.  The Story Keepers videos are animated historical fiction videos about Christians that lived in Rome around the time of Nero.  An excellent addition to the time period we are studying!  I found the whole set last year on eBay and tucked them away, until now.  The kids watched the first one and it was a hit. 
 
Oh, before I forget.  One more thing the kids and I did this week was experience an EARTHQUAKE!!  Holy Toledo that freaked me out!  I will share more about this experience tomorrow.  But I will say that the kids got a Bible, science and geography lesson out of it.

Alpha Boy worked in his Sing, Spell, Read and Write workbook, completing the letters T and U.  He also played online at Starfall.com, mostly with the letter games.  He continued in his Abeka Arithmetic K book as well as watched his Mathtacular video. 
 
Computer Girl and The Lil' Chef have both been reviewing the math facts that they seemed to have forgotten over the summer (note to self remember to least keep up math facts a few times a week next summer and ACTUALLY DO IT!)  They have both been working on their spelling lists, Easy Grammar books, memorizing prepositions and their personal reading. 
 
Little Bits has been mostly playing near by or with one of the girls when I am working with someone else.  I read an article yesterday that reminded me of the idea to work with the todler first before everyone else.  This way the don't feel pushed to the side but they have had their one on one time like everyone else. I am going to start that next week.  I am going to do like 20 minutes of "school time" with him before I start with the other kids.  I am also shooting for a reading time with just the boys before lunch, the girls of course are welcome to listen but the reading will be directed to the boys level. 
 
Even though we are schooling I am not as structured as I plan to be next month.  I am still trying to leave a little wiggle room for stuff.  Like this morning, I took the kids to the library.  The girls browsed for books and read while the boys and I went into a reading time for kids ages 3-5.  The boys really enjoyed it and I plan to include it into our schedule at least once or twice a month. 
 
We usually don't school on Fridays, which amy be changing, {gasp} so today we plan on cleaning, catching up on laundry and baking. 

Are you back to school yet?  If so you can link up with Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers too!

 

Back to School! Well sort of.

I have gone back and forth with the idea of going back to school in August, mainly since it is so hot and my kids don't really play outside during the day anyway.  I figured out that if we stick closely to my school schedule this year we will be done by May 1, which is just about the time I am mentally done anyway.  However, I also know that this is my plan and it may not be the Lord's.  So we shall see : )

This is Little Bits, he was sorting bears.  He loves to do this.

This year we finally did it!  We started some school this past Monday.  I decided that we aren't going to get back to everything right away, just the basics and some reading.  Right now we are working on phonics, grammar and math.  We have continued reading through the summer and Bible is not considered school for us so we've been doing that all along anyway.

Alpha Boy had just finish a letter matching game, which he really enjoyed.  Not real sure why he was being camera shy.  I just love how kids think as long as they close their eyes, no one can see them.

"Fine Mom, I'll smile." 

My goal for us is to school in the morning and then still have time to play in the afternoon and evening.  We are also not schooling on Fridays except maybe for some math, so there is still plenty of time left over for play. 

Computer Girl doing her Daily Grams.

So far the kids are enjoying Easy Grammar, it is a nice switch from Abeka.  Although I am still trying to figure out if I am going to have them do the Easy Grammar Workbook AND the Daily Grams.  Any input on this would be appreciated. 

Little Bits was 'playing school" with his big sister.

As far as math goes, The Hubs and I decided that instead of going full force with our math books we need to take some time to brush up on our math facts, well not us but the kids.  You know how it goes, kids always seem to forget some of their math facts during the summer, at least our kids do.  I sometimes wonder if all that pool chlorine sucks them right from their brains.   Just wondering.

Having fun and gettin' creative!

For reading, the kids and I are working on The Hedge of Thorns and some books about birds.  The boys get a HUGE stack of books to browse through before their naps and the girls are each working on their chapter books.

The Lil' Chef brushing up on her drawing skills.

The girls also started their Draw to Learn: The Life of Jesus books this week and I think they are wonderful!  They are not that into them yet, but maybe in time they will learn to love them.  Regardless I am going to have them persevere through them because I think they are great for a personal devotional!

P.E. - They love to jump on the trampoline.  Today they jumped FOREVER, they did relay races and turned the back yard into an obstacle course. 

With it still being summer, I haven't been setting the alarm clock, instead we've been sleeping in a little.  We are getting things done but just a little later in the day than I would like, still I have vowed to not to start setting the alarm until after Labor Day.

Most of us LOVE bugs.  We like to collect them and check them out for a few days before letting them go.  This week we got to watch a mom and baby leaf bug.  They were really cool.  This of course opened the door to going online and looking up many different bugs.  We even enjoyed watching a dancing stick  bug on Youtube.

I am still working on getting used to schooling 3 people this year and keeping Little Bits busy at the same time.  Alpha Boy did some school last year, but he wasn't technically in kindergarten yet, so it wasn't every day.   
My plan has been to do school with Alpha Boy, Computer Girl and then The Lil' Chef.  I feel like Alpha Boy and Computer Girl need to school early while they are happy, have energy, and are focused.  If they do their school later I can tell a big difference in their attitudes and their performance. 

The Lil' Chef is the type that is up and doing school before my feet hit the floor, most days.  She is very self motivated but I still need to help her with some math and grammar.  As soon as I wake up, and I really mean AS SOON AS, she wants my help.  This has been difficult because I like to first at least have a cup of coffee with in arms reach.  Then, I like to make them breakfast and while they eat, I read Bible. So at this point, I am just still trying to figure out  going to pray about where to place every one's "mom time" for school. 

Anyone else start school this week? How did it go? 

Weekly Wrap Up!

This year we have been doing My Father's World - Creation to Greeks.  I have loved using MFW the last few years, but this year I have definitely tweaked things more than in the past.  

For quite awhile now I have been eyeballing Konos.  For those of you that haven't heard of Konos, they are the granddaddy of unit studies (according to their site).  It is a unit study curriculum that uses character traits as their topic and as their site states, they cover....

elementary science, literature, history, Bible, arts/crafts, music, writing, drama, geography, social studies, health/safety, character, critical thinking, and practical living. ** excluding math, spelling, upper grammar.

I had the chance to buy all 3 original volumes, the timeline characters, timeline wallchart, the Compass Book (this is like the How to use Konos Book) and the Index used, so I did.  Don't you just love getting new curriculum, it feels like the Holiday!

My only hang up so far, is that Konos is not done chronologically for Bible and History.  I have read that the timeline really helps solve this problem but I just haven't settled it in my mind,  Know what I'm sayin'.

After opening up our new curriculum for NEXT year, I decided to do the unthinkable.  If you are thinking, No she didn't, I have to tell ya, yes she did!  We started Konos.  Yes sir ree, with about a month left of school I am starting something totally new, pretty crazy right.  : )

Part of me just wanted to try Konos, as is, to see what I thought.  I have been wondering if I still want to follow the MFW's Rome to Reformation timeline next year and just pull in from Konos or do just Konos alone.  Not really sure yet, still mulling all the over.

Here is what I do know, we had a great week.  We started a new chore system this week, called Children's Miracle Music (I will be reviewing this shortly and have a coupon code for ya'll).  My house has been CLEAN, all week and it has been WONDERFUL!  Usually our living areas are kept up pretty well, but the girl's room generally looks like a tornado has gone thru it, twice!  I always tell the girls that for my health I do not like to even look in their room, looking in there makes my blood pressure rise 50 points.  Really!

As far as school goes, we started Konos.  For the next few weeks we plan to study Attentiveness.  Here are some of the highlights of our week and the Attentiveness Study :

• For Bible we studied Elijah and Elisha (per MFW) and read in the Victor's Journey Through the Bible (love this books BTW)
• The kids and I studied the ear.  We read about the ear and then the kids made model of the ear out of my kitchen table, they had a great time!
• We read about Helen Keller and Louis Braille.  
• We read the biblical account of Samuel and saw how he was attentive to God's voice.
• We learned the meaning of Attentiveness.
• We talked about 15 different jobs that require people to be attentive, like a babysitter, a surgeon, firefighter, etc...
• We listened to some classical music, included Mr. Beethoven Lives Upstairs.
• We talked about ways that we can be Attentive to the Lord and how Christ was attentive to the Father.
• The girls both finished their spelling books for the year and started memorizing poems.
• We finished up our memory work on Psalm 1.
• For PE they rode bikes, and jumped and jumped and jumped on the trampoline 
• For independent reading one of the girls is reading about Corrie Ten Boom and the other is reading a Boxcar Children Book, I have them tell me about (narrate).
• As a fun book we also read The Cat in the Hat's book about money - 1 Cent, 2 Cent, Old Cent, New Cent which was a very cute yet informative little book that the kids and I enjoyed.
• We also read about instruments and an orchestra.   
• To finish out the week, tomorrow we are going to play Simon Says , watch The Miracle Worker which is about Helen Keller's life and hang up our new timeline wall chart.  I think that we are even going to put up all the Bible people that we have studied this year and review them as we hang them.

Like I said, we had a really good week.  Next week we are going to continue with our attentiveness study and focus more on musicians and sight.

Here are the books that we read from this week...

Did anyone else decide to switch up their curriculum at the end of the school year, just wondering ?

Weekly Wrap Up

This was our first week back after our winter break.  Things went pretty well, considering. 

I started a new routine with the kids (and self) this week and I am thinking that is going to take some getting used to, for all of us.  Things really do run much smoother and I am much happier if we have a plan and focus on completing it each day.  Our routine includes chores, reading time, school times, quiet/nap times, computer times and the like.   We had a few snags since I am doing physical therapy (for my neck) 3 mornings a week, but we accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish. 

I haven't talked much about our curriculum for a while but we are still using MFW, along with a few supplements, and loving it.  We are doing Creation to Greeks this year and I am really diggin' all of the old testament studies.  This week we studied the plagues that the Lord sent upon Egypt when the Pharaoh would not let God's people go.  As I was read scripture in Exodus the children and I would talk about what we were reading, well, everyone except Little Bits, he would usually just pelt Joe O's at us.  The kids keep a Bible/History notebook so they would draw a picture of each plague to go into their notebook. 

We have been using some of Diana Waring's Ancient Civilization curriculum, mostly the workbook and the audio cd's, and this week we sung her song about the plagues to the tunes of Camptown Races.  That was AWESOME!  I gave the girls 2 challenges, one to do this week and one for next.  I told them that I wanted them to write their own song about the Egyptian plagues, this should be no problem and lots of fun for them because they are ALWAYS writing songs about something.  They also need to put on a news broadcast about the plagues for their daddy and I.  The only requirements that I gave them were to do one this week and one next and I also told them they had to include their brothers.  The boys could be frogs or locust or something : )

I have been wanting to start incorporating character traits into our studies and this week I FINALLY did!!  Yay!  This week we talked about loyalty.  We talked about what it means to be loyal and ways that we can show loyalty to others.

We studied comparative and superlative words, worked on fractions, and had spelling words with a french origin.  We have been enjoying some really cool online games that we are reviewing for the TOS Crew, which I will be telling you all about real soon. 

For Health and Science we studied blood and the immune system.  We are working on a book about blood and we learned alot about the different types of blood cells and what they do.  We learned some pretty amazing facts about the body which the Lord has so miraculously created!  Then we followed that us with a Moody Science video that taught us about the immune system, this was by far the coolest science video I have seen so far (more about this later).  After watching the video and reading from our book, the girls draw pictures of blood cells and viruses for their health notebook. 

Friday is our day off so we are going to be doing a little house cleaning and we will probably make gingerbread houses because we just never got to them.  At least we are doing better them last year when we didn't get to them until MARCH.  Yes, MARCH! 

I also believe we might get a little snow tomorrow and if we do we will be making these really neat 3D snowflakes.