The Week with Valentines, Projects and Friends

We had a great Valentines Week;) The week started off normal but then got very crafty after a day of fun:)


Bible
Last week we were learning about patience. This second to last section has been really great... characteristics that challenge me as well as the kids. We did do an activity where we had to come up with an acrostic of characteristics of  patient people... I liked their list....

oh, boy, I want that list to describe us!







Language Arts
Spelling... yep, did it 3 of the 5 days:)

Grammar... oh, yeah! We love First Language Lessons:) I totally stretched the article lesson this week having the kids run the length of our schoolroom to get to "A" and "An" when I called out nouns;) They loved it and it got rid of a couple Monday (& Tuesday) -wiggles:)

I also got to introduce prepositions to the middle two using some stuffed animals and a cloth "band-ade". They liked that a lot:) But now we have the task of memorizing the definition and the LONG list of prepositions recommended in FLL.

Writing... they LOVE their journals! I know it will get old, but they ASK for journal time. It is seriously the quietest time of our whole day even with the 2 yr old running around and the random spelling questions.

We are also having them write about the books they are reading and file it under their reading section of their notebook. This is giving them to look for the characters, plot,climax, conclusion, etc!

Reading... Lydia and Chris have been reading Civil War on Sunday which is a Magic Tree House book. Lydia buzzes through them and has vowed to read every book in the series that the library owns! Chris is working on the book with me... a chapter a day after completing a lesson from Ordinary Parents Guide!

Anna finished reading the Harriet Tubman biography and found a Step Into Classics version of Little Women!! I was a little disappointed she didn't want to read the unabridged version but this was a great introduction, she loved the story... so it works right now. I was comforted a LOT when I read in The Well Trained Mind that they recommend an 8th grader reading the full version of Little Women... so I was glad I didn't push too hard:)

Math
We're definitely doing math daily:) Lots of lessons and Anna has liked another book I have pulled a couple of activities for her on Fridays;) They are real-life math problems, I think she likes having something different to do every once in a while!

A highlight for Lydia and Chris was to play a "making 10" card game. 

Basically you take the face cards, 10s and jokers out of a deck of cards. And then we divided the cards into the amount of players. And we would take turns placing our card down to see if anyone could match the other digit to add to our card to make 10. For example, Lydia lays down a 3 card, I make a 10 by laying down my 7. And then I get to keep the pair... or at least that is how we play! And funny how it worked out that Chris was also reviewing his "making 10" facts the same day... very convenient for Momma!

Chris also learned about cutting squares into 1/4s, 1/2s, 1/3s and 1/8s!

History
The kids did their "presentations" to Grammie and Pey. I liked the experience of them being able to "present" their projects to others... and grandparents are oh, so gracious and not very
 intimidating:)

This week the kids wanted  do more projects:/ Since we were studying a few "turning point" battles it worked out well that the kids got to pick the major battles we were talking about this week. Here are a few links that we found helpful for our projects:

*Animated map that goes through the whole battle of Antietam. Very informative !

*civilwar.org for main information about each  battle

*A beautiful reading of the Gettysburg Address .

*Directions for a Salt Dough Map for Chris' "model" of Vicksburg.

And since I knew we had another set of grandparents coming in a week or so, it was fun for the kids to have more projects to "present".



Science
We spent our time during Science reading about more Simple Machines. The kids and I would define the machine, draw a picture, find or describe examples  and then the kids copy the information in their Science notebooks. We talked mostly about Wheels(and Axels) and Pulleys this week.

I had picked up a book about Wheels for Nate. It was the "invention of the wheel" so it fit into our study perfectly, sure it was a little too young for my older  crew but it was cool to see the development of the wheel through history. If you are interested it was called Wheels by Byron Barton, again its better for the younger group, but we still liked it for a simple wheel history:)

Other
We counted up our days and realized we needed to have a 100 Day day:) So we went to our favorite skating place and met friends! It was a much needed day "off" and oh how much I love opportunities to get together with these families... so blessed to have 2 sweet families with us for most of the day:)

After being with them, I am reminded the importance of making time to visit with friends... whether it's a fun day or in your downtime. Obviously schooling is our top priority each morning, but it's a demanding job and its soo nice to have friends to be encouraged by... or them just remind you WHY or sometimes just to nod and say they are in the "thick of it all" too!! 

We also had a simple Valentines celebration at home;) After a busy day and hosting a new family a our house, we enjoyed a quiet evening at home;) We had a super simple dinner of BLT sandwiches cut into hearts, fruit salad and carrots;) SIMPLE and they loved it!!

And then we opened Valentines that we had made for each other through the day! It was a sweet, precious time.... even seeing our little Nate sticking in colored paper hearts in each person's Valentine pouch that we had made earlier;)

Another fun week.... definitely not as structured with a day skating, Valentines Day and then some major project time on Friday, just glad we started the week off strong and that we got some schooling in each morning before the friends and projects came out;)

Oh, and did I mention we also got the dog neutered in the mix of it all;) Yep, fun and crazy times around here.... never.a.dull.moment!

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