Weekly- Wrap Up : Snowflakes, Pattern Blocks and Getting Back into a Routine

Last week we tried to get back into a routine.... back to home school, back to chores and housework! We did accomplish a lot... it definitely was WORK getting back to into the swing of things! Just as hard for me as the kids;)

Bible
The kids and I have been reading through the Proverbs that correspond to the day of month. One or twice they have drawn one of the Proverbs, other times we just talk about it. It's been interesting what they pick up and what we talk about. It's been fun.

We also have been reading through the Egermeiers Story Bible... we've tried reading through it before. But this time we are starting from the New Testament:) So as we settle in for rest time in the afternoons we read a story or two about Christ's life (at least right now... soon it will be His resurrection and the early church).

The kids returned to Awana last week as well. They were soo excited about going back into the program! They are eagerly studying verses and doing Cubbie Hugs.

Language Arts
Everyone is still doing their First Language Lessons (FLL)! While they may initially grown, Chris and Lydia enjoy the short, fun, interactive lessons from Vol 1! This week we did 3 lessons on pronouns;) And Anna "the workbook queen" loves pulling out her workbook! She's become quite the little sentence diagram-er! We added in adverbs this week;)

We are still working on Thank You notes. So our writing/copywork has included some letter writing;)

Maybe it was the break, but this week Chris and Lydia really did well with OPG. Sometimes we hit lessons that are more challenging for them or they forget phonic rules from previous weeks, but last week I really felt like I could see am improvement with BOTH of them!! Just a sweet homeschooling mom moment to see (and hear) the kids get better at reading;)

Anna is reading like a pro;) The problem is that she's too much like her mother... she's picky about the books she reads, but she she finds a good one she reads and reads and reads and reads until it's finished:) Anna devoured Ramona and her Mother this week and only touched the history library books :( 

For Spelling, Lydia started another Unit from You Can Read @ 1+1+1=1. Anna worked through 2 lessons from Spelling Power. And Chris reviewed Sight Words from the Fall "semester" and then we played Sight Word Bingo, too;)

Lydia liked trying to read words off the Bingo cards;)

Math
Saxon, Saxon, Saxon;)

We did have one change for the New Year... and that was Chris getting to move into Saxon 2:) He was very excited! And since they always start with review, it was an easy week and a great start;)


The girls completed 4 or lessons this week:) And our Pattern Blocks from Christmas got plenty of use... from Nate and the girls;)

Lydia used them to find different ways to make certain shapes.

Anna used them for fractions... seeing how different combinations of fractions can equal a whole.

And Lydia used the Pattern Block Design to make different pictures. The butterfly was beautiful:)

History
This week we jumped into India for our history! Again, with the help of Story of the World and our awesome librarian we read a chapter, narrated, mapped it out, and read some fun books. The main characters had crazy names... so basically they were some ruthless emperors who thought they were rulers of the world when they ruled India. They made some bad decisions though that caused India to fall into the hands of a European nation (to be continued in another chapter...)!

For the activity the kids decorated a peacock picture and decorated it with glitter. The decor of the buildings and dwellings of these three rulers would have been very nicely and expensively decorated because of how wealthy India was due to trading with the world.

Anna's finished project:)

Some of our favorite books to go with India were... Tigers at Twilight(a Magic Treehouse Book), The Blind Men and the Elephant,and Taj Mahal: A Story of Love and Empire (Wonders of the World Book).

As I look at all the different countries we are visiting through our history lessons. I am a little saddened that we aren't spending more time learning about the actual country. We definitely read books about the countries and stories from the countries. But Anna seems to pick up more when she has an activity or something that goes with it. I just found these printable Country Fact Sheets from Homeschool Creations (one of my favorite home school mommas). Anyway, we'll be working on these each week, too!! To help us try to remember all the places we've been to:)

Science
Since I'm doing awful at Science this semester, I decided to ease us back into Chemistry using something seasonal and fun. So last week we did Snow and Snowflakes. 

We used the book The Story of Snow as our guide. We read it and discussed the whys and hows;) Anna made a Chemistry of snowflakes notebook page with three chemistry facts about snowflakes. While I worried it might be soo simple for Anna I learned a lot.

Do you know... What do snowflakes start from? And why are they six-sided??



I read the younger books to the younger kids and Anna and I plan to tackle the man who photographs snowflakes this week (kind of a delay there).

The rest of our snowflake time was spent trying to make paper snowflakes with six sides. The kids had fun with this but it wasn't until we started doing some "tough" designs that I realized we were learning about symmetry:)

The best snowflake was this one! Anna wanted to make it for our neighbor who they try to visit daily:) She is the kitten owner and an avid gardener!

Can you pick out cats and flowers ???

This is the limit to this Momma's artistic abilities;)





Well, that's about it for us:)

I've been trying to get into a routine for myself... trying to balance home schooling, the house, downtime with the kids and teaching my online classes. I'm a little stressed out... but I know that it will become routine soon.

Just thankful for the weekend... a day out to town with the family, my parents visiting for the whole day on Sunday (soo nice!) and an extra day to get myself together for schooling everyone this week:)

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers:)

WFMW: Wipe Boards and Saving paper

My kiddos love drawing and writing... seriously, some of their favorite gifts have been a plain spiral notebook or the 500 count package of printer paper;) But they go through it like crazy.... like CRAZY!

We participated in a Home Party with Expo this summer and each of the kids got a wipeboard and some Expo markers;) They were in little kid "heaven" :) And I really looked forward to incorporating the wipeboards more into our schooling;)

Like for grammar copywork;)

this is Lydia's work... go Lydia!!

But I always worry that I can't "save" their work....

like lately Chris has been writing "stories"... and I really hated him using the wipeboard because I couldn't "save" the ones worth saving! I have taken pictures of the good stories or asked him to "re-copy" them onto a piece of lined paper to save in his "work binder"... like of like a porfolio.

Well last week he wrote another and wanted to "save it". And so I decided to attempt to photocopy it??

Obviously, I needed to shift the board on the copier a little to include all the letters!

I like this solution... they can be as creative as they want without going through reams of paper AND I get to "save" the good stuff;)

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We have enjoyed Chris' shopping lessons! The girls always want to "shop" too... so I usually have to make extra copies of the receipt page. Last week, instead of making copies, slipped the 2 receipt pages into two sheet protectors and gave the kids Expos to write with:)

So nice:) the kids played "store" to their little hearts' delight and I wasn't worried about using up too much paper or it being wasted if they only used ONE out of the 4 blocks!!

Anyway, I was soo pleased with my little "tricks".... thinking of how I can use them with other subjects, too;) And hope someone else finds them helpful as well;)

Weekly Wrap-Up: Highlights, Counting Macaroni and Puppet Show Reality

Where did the week go???

Seriously between teething, colds and grocery shopping, I'm not sure how it's already time to share our week.

We did have one non-"traditional" school day. On Wednesday, after Anna spent an hour on "independent" work, Brian took both girls with him on a church trip to see a local ministry. They were excited about going and had a blast with church members! I took the boys to the library, quick stop at a friend's and the grocery store... the adventurous life of a SAHM:) LOL!!

Everyone gathered back at home and we decided to forgo school for the afternoon and push naps until later in the afternoon so we could enjoy the amazingly warm and beautiful weather;) Nice walk to the post office and 20 dirty little toes to wash:)

Here's a look at our week by subject!!

Bible
We're continuing to work on Psalm 19:) It's soo exciting to see the verses that the kids remember and I"m soo amazed that we're almost done the whole chapter!! I LOVE that my kids enjoy memorizing Scripture and it's amazing how easy it when it's reviewed over and over.

In fact they surprised me at lunch today by reciting the kiddie meal prayer,"God is great, God is good..." They said the WHOLE thing!! I think between Awana snacktime and meals with the Woods, they've picked it up;) They are such sponges at this age!!

We're also working hard on our Awana material, Anna is working on learning the books of the OT!! We've been listening to Wee Sing Bible Songs since they were tiny, so it's cute to hear her trying to sing the song.

Reading
Anna read a Magic Tree House and Frecklejuice:) I also introduced her to recording the books she is reading onto a Reading Log that I got from Jolanthe @ Homeschool Creations!! I like that she has to find important info about each book like the author, publisher, etc!! And that it has a beginning date and an ending date;) Now if we can keep track of the new words;)

ANna and I also completed lessons in grammer and spelling. I am motivated to make a grammer definition game/poster to help us memorize all the great grammer definitions:) If it's good maybe I can figure out how to share it;)

Chris worked through a lesson or two from OPG... he's doing well, but we're taking it SLOW to keep it fun!!I'm soo thankful for what he is learning and retaining... teaching kids to read was one of my greatest fears in homeschooling because it's soo important and affects all the other subjects!!

Lydia practiced more of her word families from the first few reading lessons of OPG. But we're really still needing to practice before we press on... so that's what we worked on... the "-ad, -an, -am, -et and -ed" families!! We'll be here for a while, better to stay and have a solid foundation:)

One fun way for Lydia to practice these families (without Mommy or her sister) is with the Leap Frog Word Whammer.



We have a subscription to Highlights magazine.... Lydia LOVES these!! So this week we started reading the February edition. I have to admit that many months the kids look through this magazine themselves. But since Friday was a little more "laid back" we read the stories together and tried out the game which corresponded to one of the stories:)

And I just found the link to Audio Editions of the magazine:)So you can listen to the stories... or now my Lydia can "read" her magazine and I can figure out to pronounce the Spanish phrases right;)

Math
We completed 4 or 5 lessons from Saxon this week:) Both kids having assessments and doing very well;)

One of Anna's lesson activities was to count a box of macaroni. Boy, oh, boy.... LOL!! Anyway, we guessed how many and then the next day we counted... grouping by 10's... thank goodness! Lydia was brave enough to help for a bit, at first counting out tens like Anna.


But soon we found a different way for Lydia to sort out 100 that was easier for her:)



















The girls counted out like 600 and then Anna and I finished counting almost a thousand more after lunch... yes, there were 1,559 of those things in that box!!

Chris is doing soo well in math with Saxon. I really debated this year starting him on Saxon because it's not very bright and attention attracting and b/c it's the 1st grade curriculum! But Chris really likes it and ASKs to do math and his worksheet. I think it's all the manipulatives with each lesson, it goes slow so he's not been stressed out and it's one-on-one time with Mommy:)

This week he "learned" some math facts, funny thing was that he already knew them...

Anna had taught him and Lydia their doubles facts while they pretended playing school... ha ha haa, I should just let ANna teach them:)

Science
We are starting our Astronomy unit that should bring us into the summer:) Whoa!! I've been a little hesitant to start because there are soo many different things to cover and I"m trying to work through it in a logical manner...

So this week we started with what we know about our Earth as a planet... really a review from a week of learning about Earth in the fall. We read some library books and flipping through our projects from the fall, but we didn't do anything amazing or creative this week.... which a motivator to this momma to find some really great stuff for us in the next few weeks:)

History
This week we studied Charles Martel and Charlemagne:) The kids loved the fighting and adventure aspect of the stories! They also really enjoy the coloring pages and they colored the puppets in the hopes of putting on a puppet show for us using some of the key figures in Charlemagne's life:) And I finally broke down and ordered a book to help with some of these middle ages fellows that aren't normally covered in children's books... so we got to read about Charles the Hammer and Pepin and Charlemagne in that book as well;)

We DID do the puppet show... hmm, very basic!

I have to admit that I was a little annoyed that the kids didn't put forth much effort.... BUT they are 6, 5, and 4 studying France in the 700 and 800's!! And we really didn't have a lot of EXCITING material to actually have the puppets act out....

so maybe when we cover this again in 4 years, our puppet show might ROCK!! Until then, I was really pleased that they know all the names of the characters AND how they relate to Charlemagne....

I have to admit that I didn't know these names before this week, besides Charlemagne!!

I'm linking up to Weekly Wrap-up:)

Homeschooling Through History: Biblical Times Fun

This week I had a few goals:

prepare and practice a chore system.... check
practice having a school time.... check
continue through history lessons.... check
have fun.... oh, yeah!

But what I didn't plan was how much fun we'd have with history this week!!! The plan for this year is to do history together during our morning, so this week we did history in the morning with everyone:) What was nice was that the two chapters we completed were relatively short and very familiar... Jesus's life and the Jewish nation under Roman rule!

We read the chapters and did the narration exercises over 3 days, but then for Anna's reading we worked through an Abeka reader called Growing Up Where Jesus Lived. I had picked it up at a consignment sale for $1!! But it was such a fun reader and just above Anna's level so it could challenge, but not frustrate, her!

Between the activity suggestions in the Story of the World Activity Book and then little things we added in after reading the Abeka reader.... we had so much fun:)

We made Crosses out of tissue paper, looked almost like stained glass:) They turned out sooo well... and all the glue washed off us, our clothes and the table!

Then we made dreidels! And really had fun playing dreidel with Smarties and then chocolate chips with Daddy after lunch!!

Then today we tried to do some of the activities that the people of Jesus' time would have had to do. The kids especially liked trying to carry "pitchers" of water on their heads:)

We definitely had some "spills"....
we wouldn't have gotten much water home to cook and clean with!
But we had a blast!! Lydia was a little reluctant to try... but she did:)



Finally we tried our shoulders... and that worked a lot better.
Chris is a natural:)
Even manages two containers!!!
This was supposed to be all three kids with "pitchers" on their heads... but you see Lydia's in mid-air!!!! I"m sure the neighbors are wondering WHAt In The World we are doing and teaching the kids... LOL!!!

Another "experience" was to have lunch in the living room... "sitting" on towels using a low table (or the homeschool table bench... hehee). Anna and I made bread from scratch, then served fresh fruits, and cooked carrots. We tried to make it authentic by taking the focus of the meal off the MEAT by using lunch meat. I didn't take pictures... too much going on!

Best history classes I've ever been apart of:)

Just another reason I am soo thankful that we are continuing to homeschool this year.... not only do they get to learn cool stuff, but I get to do it with them!!

What We're Using

Well we've "survived" our first week of homeschooling. We actually did well, at least in my opinion. But every year I am intriged by what materials other homeschooling families use.... there is soooo much out there so it's nice to see what others like and don't like. And for me to be exposed to other materials out there:)

So I will share my list of materials. If you have any experience with The Well-Trained Mind you'll recognize all the materials, I really didn't venture off of their suggestions for this first year. Partly because there is sooo much out there as far as homeschooling resources. Partly, because I really like the theory and thought put behind the curriculum suggestions. And partly because my homeschooling "mentor" used the same materials last year and really liked them (and our 1st-borns have similiar personalities so I was confident it would work at our house!!!).

So here goes:)

Anna - 1st grade
*Reading - Still working through Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading; Spelling Workout; working up to 3o+ minutes of free reading daily (library books and books here at the house); I read aloud to her following the suggested books from Well Trained Mind that coordinate with the time period that we are studying in history; adding in copywork (anything from vocab words to Bible verses... Grammer will have some too)

*Grammer - We are using First Language Lessons.

*Math - We are using Saxon Math grade 1! I personally think it's a bit too easy for her. BUT I like it is comprehensive in math concepts and even adds extra stuff like graphs, etc! And I KNOW that it is giving her a GOOD foundation for math.... so we will go through it, even though I already told her that some of our math this year is teaching us to follow directions and work with a happy heart.

*Bible - We do a little devotion from a devotional we were given and then we memorize at least a verse a week. We will be starting AWANA in a few weeks and that will increase our Scripture memory work... I'm soo excited about this opportunity for us:) One of the recommending reading that accompanies our History is the Bible... so we're working the Old Testament Stories right now using a copy of Egermeiers' Bible Story Book!

*History - We will working through Story of the World vol. 1: Ancient Times. I LOVE that we can do history and science all together; the MAJOR benefit of The Well-Trained Mind. I have found the Activity Book to be perfect for starting out. Maybe after a few years of homeschooling, I can get a little crazy with resources and adding stuff.... but I like the simple activity suggestions, extra reading ideas, maps and coloring pages in the appendix!

*Science- We will be starting working through Kingfisher First Animal Encyclopedia soon. I really wanted to add subjects gradually so we wouldn't get overwhelmed and so this is one I have delayed a bit.

*Music - Work through the lessons of Piano for Preschoolers Basic Course. I love this simple lesson book... it's just a matter of making time to read through the lesson together and then her practicing the new skills and songs. Also hoping to include finding some ancient music samples and start introducing them to some classical composers from a set of CDs that Brian already has.

*Art - We will get some art basics from projects, activities, Sunday school and church. We will also be exposed to art from the Ancient World from resources we will be studying from:)

Christopher - Pre-k/K
*Reading - SLOWLY working through Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading..... I stress SLOWLY... lots of fun review games; also working through some sight words; reading library books to him; Starfall Reading; some pre-reading activities in his K workbook

*Math - K Workbook from Walmart (love this series); Math Mastermind activities and manipulatives

*Writing - Loves to write alphabet and I'm hoping to start copy work this year. As well as writing letters to people??? We'll see how it goes:) I know I also need to work on writing lowercase letters with him... he can do lowercase, just usually does capital letters!

*Bible - devo. with us and then hopefully he will be able to participate in the memorization activities and assignments in AWANA:)

*History/Science - doing some of what we do with Anna. He'll probably color pictures and definitely listen as we read books... especially involving animals and battles!!! LOL... he's all BOY!
*Lots of playtime:) He's building stuff with Duplo blocks, coloring pictures,etc

Lydia - Preschooler
* Pre-reading - She is learning phonics just using ABC cards, magnetic letters, and LeapFrog.

*Writing - At Lydia's stage it's scribble scrabble... and plenty of practice! She's trying to make H's and A's... so that is cool. We have a lot of ABC wipeboards for practice if she wants to try doing letters, or numbers or shapes:)

*Bible - with us

*For the other basics (colors, shapes, patterns, numbers, position words, pre-writing) we are using the supplies we already have... games, books, puzzles, etc! And also a workbook from Walmart(i used it for Chris and it was LOVED)!! We tried the workbook this afternoon b/c she asked and I don't think she is into workbooks yet:) LOL

*Lots of play as well!!! Kids learn sooo much at this stage just from play and books!

Did you make it to the end???
Like I said at the beginning, we are new to homeschooling... so we'll see what works for us and then make changes or continue on! But I do like that we have some time daily where we all get to do "school" together... like our Bible times, reading, History, Science, any projects or field trips!

I am soo thankful that I have the ability to stay home with my kids and the support to teach them at home. My prayer continues to be that I would be found to be a faithful, loving and encouraging teacher to them. And that we would strive to serve Christ through serving one another daily.

Thanksgiving Themed school Work

I've been plotting for a week or so that this would be our THANKSGIVING study week..... although I'm still in the gathering stage:)

I thought I'd share some of he fun resources I've found:) For all those interested!! (let me first warn that I haven't checked all the accuracy of all of the resources... but most so far have been good and I have preschoolers so I'm not going into too much detail... at least not yet)

ABC Teach


The Piligrims First Thanksgiving (great ideas for each subject, some printables)

More resources on the Social Studies and Units for Thanksgiving

And there are some great thankfulness Scripture passages that would be awesome to have your family "hide in their hearts" during this THanksgiving season!!

Off to gather the crew and begin:)

Reading Struggles

Well since I first started teaching Anna to read with a method, I've been soo certain of the timing and her ability but I've been very leary of the material. It's book called Teaching Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons! It was recommended by a couple of homeschooling families that had many children who had gone through the program.

The only reviews that were negative said that the first couple lessons were tedious (phew...they weren't joking). But I've found a couple of problems and we're not even in the 20's (# of lessons). The first is that they use a lot of symbols (phonetic spellings) but they don't always carry through and use the symbols....ie the "d" sound being short with a symbol like this ">" underneath that letter. Another flaw is that the introduced sound for A is "a" like apple or in sad. But they keep wanting the kids to read the words "am" and "ram".....which have a totally different sound....we've made these two words sight words (after a brief conversation that vowels make a couple different sounds...that's what makes them special.. eh ehehe).

OK...to the point of this post..... The other day Anna was having soo much trouble remembering the "d" sound...I mean she was looking at the "d" saying "t" and "b". She really doesn't like doing the dreaded yellow reading book so her heart wasn't in it AT ALL. I did get frustrated just because she wasn't trying.... she is sooo ready and very, very able!!! Finally I realized that if this experience is bad she'll never want to do it again and so I closed the book and said that we'd do it later.

So the last few days we've been working away from the book talking about, drawing and sounding out the sound "d"!!! And this evening as the clock read 9:10, my 3-yr old wasn't in bed...she had opened the "dreaded yellow reading book" and was sounding out words... when I approached her, she sounded out a few more words (a couple with the "d" sound)!!! Finally she sounded out the word "read" and she realized what she had read and smiled!!!

Father, help me to enjoy and cherish this learning process! Help me to have patience and be encouraging. To know my child's limitations and when I need to guide. Help me have the right attitude and heart so that I can model that to her and bring glory to You.