Week in review

Our first day of school was Tuesday. We took this week to ease back into it.

Steven is working on memorizing his multiplication facts, we are using Times Tales to help. He is really enjoying the silly stories they use. He is also working through Mammoth Math 3 right now, just picking things that he needs to work on, then he will be switching to Mammoth Math 4 after the first of the year.

Growing with Grammar 4 he worked through lessons 1-3 refreshing his memory on subjects and predicates.

Spelling, Steven reviewed spelling rules that he learned last year. We will continue with All About Spelling finishing up level 3 and then moving onto level 4

He started reading More stories from Grandma's Attic 

Austin is working on Mammoth Math 1 doing review and will start 2 after the first of the year.

Growing with Grammar 2, lessons 1 and 2 this week working on complete sentences and fragments and also reviewed "The Goops" poem for First Language Lessons (the second half), and Explode the Code book 5 lesson 1.

He read Clara and the Book Wagon and is really working on comprehension.

Austin also started his Montessori class this week. He will be going Mon-Wed. 12:00 - 3:00. (The school district is running a test program, part time first and second grade Montessori, if all goes well they hope get a full time program going next year.) He really had a great time, he was very excited to tell me all about what they did. I think he is happy to have something that is "his", he kept asking if Steven and Abby were also doing Montessori and when I said "no, just you" he would smile. I also think it will be good for him to make his own friends. The boys are so close in age and since we homeschool they have the same friends and we all know that when you get 3 kids together one usually feels left out.

We are starting Latin this year, using Latin's Not so Tough level 2, this week the boys started going through the Latin alphabet and learning the sounds.

This week was also the first week of Classical Conversations, which I think went really well. I am teaching the Apprentices (7 - 8 year olds).I was a little nervous, but everything went well, I didn't forget anything, and I even had fun. Steven has had a bad attitude about Classical Conversations, saying, "I'm going to hate it", "I am not going to make any friends". At lunch time I asked him how it went and he said, "AWESOME!!" I said, "what, did  I hear you say?" He obviously didn't hate it and he was even sitting by a new friend he had made. I really think it's going to be a great year.

The kids learned (in week one of CC) about Charlemagne, the 7 types of Biomes, 8 parts of speech, Latins 1st conjugations present tense, European waters, skip counting by 1's and 2's and the first 8 important moments in the history timeline. I am really amazed at how quickly they pick it up. 

Abby is also doing Classical Conversations, she is in Challenge A. This was actually the second week for her, the Challenge program runs for 30 weeks while the Foundation/Essentials only runs for 24 weeks. This year I have really put the ball in her court so to speak. She is given her assignments at Classical Conversations (CC from here on out) and then she is expected to plan how she is going to get it done and make herself a weekly schedule, I then look it over add Growing with Grammar 8, Copywork for Girls, Critical Thinking Word Roots and eventually some readers. The first week she did great, I even think her CC teacher was impressed.

This last week she was been busy studying the United States map, states and capitals. This week she will add in the mountains and major rivers and will be drawing a map of the USA from memory and adding the states and capitals. She has also been writing using Bible Base Writing Lessons from Institute of Excellence in Writing. Studying Latin Declensions and vocabulary words from Latin's Not so Tough Level 3. In Math she worked with the Pythagorean theorem and also reviewed solving for an unknown with the additive inverse. For science she has been researching protozoa, writing about it and drawing pictures. By the end of the year she will have made her own biology text book.

Next week will be a full week, with full homeschooling, ORLA (Olympia Regional Learning Academy ~ enrichment classes) starting, and Abby starts volleyball and Austin will start hip hop. Steven has decided not to do anything for right now which is a good thing, because I am not quite sure how it would fit in. It's kind of nice to get back into a routine since summer is so relaxing and laid back. Give me a month or so and I am sure I will be ready for a vacation again.

Planning and Organizing

I love planning and trying to be organized. Most people who know me would probably say I am organized, but I rarely feel like it and always in search of the best system to make life easier, whether it's for school, the housework, chores or meals.

Last year we did Sue Patrick's Workbox System,  quick overview, you take your children's assignments for the day and divide them up into a set of boxes that they work through fairly independently. The great part is that you can put fun things in some of the boxes - things that you may have on hand for the kids but you usually forget to pull out. Or things that you never make time for. The kids can see the fun things in the boxes and it is motivation to do the work in the other boxes to get to that fun activity. This worked great and the kids really liked being able to see what they needed to do that day and knew when they finished everything they were done.

This year I have revamped our workboxes and have also adding in a filling system for me that makes it easier in planning.  Each of the boys have a file container, with 1-36 dividers. 

I took all their consumable books apart and broke them up into weeks (1-36), anything else needed (readers, etc.) for week 1 will go in that file, anything needed for week 2 will go in week 2 file etc. For books that aren't consumable I made a chart divided into lessons and we will mark off each lesson after it is completed.

Behind the week dividers I have a file for each day of the week (Mon. - Fri.), this is where I will take the weeks work and divide it into days, so it is easy to grab in the morning and place in the workboxes. No having to hunt for each book or supplies, there are all right there.

Next, I have a file folder for "text" books by subject, so we don't have to hunt those down either. 

Last I have a file folder for each subject. This is where I will put their finished work.

This makes it really nice because everything is all in one container/file box that sits right by their desk on top of their workboxes. I don't have them work in any specific order they can pick and choose which workbox they want to do when. There are a couple boxes like Latin and Classical Conversations that we do together, but the rest is up to them.

Cuneiforms and Mummified Dolls

This past week was a fun week, one I think the kids will remember. We made Egyptian cuneiforms (first writings), the kids rolled out their clay and use either cuneiform writing or hieroglyphic letters to make out their names.

Steven working hard!

Austin's Cuneiform

We also mummified a Barbie doll and 2 G.I. Joe dolls. I got this great idea from another blogger http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jaminacema/319302/ who showed how they mummified their dolls.

We went to Value Village and just got a some cheap dolls paid about $4 for all of them. When we started we talked about how they take out all the organs except the heart. They leave the heart because the Egyptians believe that the gods weighed a person's heart when they entered the Next Life. The weight of the heart tells the gods if the person had lived a good life on earth. Since they left only the heart we used a shapie pen and drew red hearts on the dolls.

Next we washed the body with wine (rubbing alcohol) and said a prayer, then rubbed oil and spices over the bodies (dolls). Then we sprinkled with salt (Natron) to dry out the body. We waited 40 minutes to represent the 40 days they left the bodies to dry out. While we waited the kids made their tombs/coffins for their bodies.

After our bodies had dried out for 40 days we then wrapped them in cloth that was soaked in flour and water. There you have it our mummified dolls!

The kids had a great time making their mummies. Austin didn't like the messy part of wrapping them so I helped him out a little.

Back to School

We had a great week back at school! Here are a couple of pictures I snapped on Tuesday of the kids doing school. Austin had already finished so he was already off playing by the time I thought to take pictures.

This year we are learning about Ancient History following "The Story of the World Vol. 1" So far we all are really enjoying it.
This week we learned about the Early Egyptians and how they lived along the Nile River. We recreated the Nile river flooding to showed how it helped to water the crops. Hopefully in a week or so we will have grass growing.

Building the river

Flooding the river

Flooding the river again!

Our curriculum order from ORLA came in this week, it's always fun to open the boxes and see all the fun and exciting things we will be learning this year.

Learning his letters

Austin had fun playing with his Handwriting without tears wood pieces.

We're Reading!!

Steven has been learning to read this year and I am amazed at how fast he is picking it up. He really enjoys reading. We started in September with Hooked on Phonics, which I really hesitated using because of the whole, "I learned to read with Hooked on Phonics" saying. But I do have to say it has really worked and I have liked it up until we hit the first grade. Now we do the lesson and when we get to reading the book it comes with it throws words and blends or ending they haven't taught. So I have decided to take a little break and just have him read some "real" books. After spring break we will start back up with the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading by Jessie Wise from The Well Trained Mind, just to give him more of a foundation.

Steven is so excited to read "real" books. Here is a couple of pictures of him reading his first "real" book, "Hop on Pop".

Then the next night he read "Ten Apples up on top".

Austin has been practicing writing his letters lately. He was really happy that he finally learned how to make an "S". YEAH! While teaching the others one morning I look over and see Austin practicing his writing on the window.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Saint Patrick’s Day or St. Patrick’s Day, holiday honoring Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. It is celebrated annually on March 17, his feast day. Saint Patrick was a missionary in the 5th century ad who is credited with converting Ireland to Christianity. St. Patrick’s Day is a national holiday in Ireland. It is also celebrated by people of Irish descent in many other countries, especially by Irish Americans in the United States.

One popular St. Patrick’s Day tradition is wearing green clothing. Green, the national color of Ireland, symbolizes the island’s lush landscape. The main symbol associated with the holiday is the shamrock, a small three-leafed clover or clover-like plant. According to legend, St. Patrick used the shamrock, because of its three leaves, to explain the Christian doctrine of the Trinity to the Irish people. The shamrock is now the national emblem of Ireland.

Today we are celebrating St. Patty's Day by having Lucky Charms (breakfast), Bagles with green cream cheese, green grapes and keylime pie yogurt (lunch) Irish Stew, Irish soda bread, and Lime sherbet Irish drink (dinner).

This morning the kids had to figure out how many marshmellows were in their bowl of Lucky Charms. We discovered the marshmellow that showed up the most was the leprechaun hats and the least were the hearts.

Both of the boys counted theirs one by one and marked them on the piece of paper. While Abbigail decided to sort hers first and then count them.

Pirate Abbigail making us Irish Soda bread. Boy was it yummy!!!

English Tea

This past week we studied about England, so what better way to end the week than with afternoon tea. A new friend loaned me her table cloth and we pulled out G.G's (Pete's grandma) china. Abby made cherry, choc. chip scones, which were so yummy! We decided not to make the triangle sandwiches and went with fruit instead. The kids all tried the tea, but in the end switched to hot chocolate. It was a nice time. I think we would like to have a little afternoon tea, with some poem readings or something like that once a month.

Look how pretty the table is!

Even Pete joined us. The roughed looking guy drinking from such a dainty cup.

Whew, what a busy day. Tuesdays are a chaotic day this year, we are on the go from the time we get up, until the time we go to bed. We have ORLA (Olympia Regional Learning Academy, a parent partnership program) from 9:30-12:30, then we head to the YMCA for P.E. 1:00-3:00, we are then luck enough to come home for a couple of hours, before heading out again for Power Tap 6:00-7:00 and Taekwondo 6:45-7:45. When we get home the kids go to bed, then I can find a little time to chat with Pete or find myself before heading off to bed myself. Are you tired yet??LOL

Today was the first day of ORLA for us, I think the kids really enjoyed themselves. I think it will be a nice mix with homeschool. Abby really craves the socialization and I think ORLA will give her that "school setting" she is looking for. Steven enjoyed himself, it gives him a nice taste of "school".

Well it's late so I am off to bed. Goodnight!

First Cultural Gathering

Each week with Children Around the World there is a cultural gathering, where we celebrate the country we have been studying. We finished up with our first week talking about our family, traditions and whatnot. So this gathering Abby prepared a menu of Tortellini, casear salad, parmesan pull apart rolls. For dessert we had Ice Cream and then after dessert we played charades. Abby did a great job preparing everything. It was a lot of fun, I am really looking forward to the other gatherings. Here are some pictures, I forgot to take more after everything was cooked and of us eating.

Passport Pictures

The kids made their passports today for our Children Around the World trip. Each country we study they will get a stamp in their passport and then tell a little about that country.

Ending of Summer

Wow, where did the summer go? We didn't have much summer weather here so it seems like summer never really started and not it is ending. We are officially starting our school year tomorrow, I am really looking forward to this year.

Abbigail will be learning about Children Around the World and will also be doing the usual Language Arts and Math. Science she will be taking "Featuring Animals" and "Nocturnal Animal" through Olympia Regional Learning Academy (a homeschool program put on through the Olympia school district) she will also be following along with the boys in their Animal Worlds program which has quite a bit of science. A couple of other classes she will be taking through Olympia Regional Learning Academy (ORLA), are Creative Writing and Drama Lab. She is signed up for Art, P.E and will be starting Power Tap. She has a very full schedule this year, which I think will be good for her, she tend to get in trouble if she isn't busy.

Steven and Austin will be studying Animal Worlds, learning to read with Hooked on Phonics and Explode the Code (ETC), they both will be working through Math U See Primer. Steven will supplement math u see with Singapore Earlybird Math. Steven will be taking a couple of classes through the ORLA program, Story Theater, A Little Math and New Readers. Both boys are trying out Taekwondo this year and they are both very excited about it.

I feel a bit sad for Austin this year, because it seems as we keep saying, "when you are 5". He wants to do P.E and he has to be 5, he wants to be part of the ORLA program and he has to be 5, and so on. He has always been able to do what Steven does and now he isn't able to.