Easter Break

We are officially done with school for the next two weeks. We ended in a good place for both kids. X5 is done with book C of the Code, when we start school in two weeks he's going to start book 1. A8 finished her math in a good place, when we come back from break we will be starting with measuring, something completely new to her...

I scheduled two weeks off, Easter week is full of activities, Shape n Race being one of them. I'm in charge of food this year again, plus filling up Easter goodie bags since we are not having an egg hunt this year.

Then there's Holy Week activities in our church, we hope to make it to some of them!

As far as school planning, I'm going to work on the book list for both kids for the Fall. X5 is going to be ready for FIAR books since we mostly worked on BeforeFIAR this year. He will be doing Handwriting w/out Tears 1st grade workbook, he will be done with the K book in a few more weeks. He has about three more weeks of math, lessons 28, 29 and then 30!! He will be starting Alpha in the Fall.

X5 is doing math & handwriting at a K level but his phonics and reading are still at a preschool level. In the Fall we will continue like this, 1st grade math and handwriting, K level phonics and reading... Many Moms continue to assure me boys usually catch up in the phonics/reading area within a few years... no problem! that's the beauty of homeschooling, I can customize everything to fit where he is at, at the moment!

A8 is going to be doing FIAR Vol 4. This Vol has a lot more activities than the previous books. The books are meant to be rowed for two weeks instead of one. There are 16 books in Vol 4. Which means 32 weeks of school. For the other 4 weeks she'll do Little House in the Big Woods and Little House in the Prairie lapbooks, each book will take two weeks. This will prepare her for what is coming in 4th grade, Beyond FIAR, which uses chapter books instead of illustrative books. We will do them at the end, the last 4 weeks of the school year.

As far as math, when we get to the end of the year she will have 20 lessons done in Beta. A8 is about 10 lessons behind in math since we started with Primer on her 2nd semester of K. Instead of 30 lessons she will do 35 till she is caught up. By the time she is in 5th grade she will be ready to start Epsilon in the Fall.

I'm getting way ahead of myself here.. ha ha!! The thing is math is tricky, if I want them both to take calculus their Senior year, I have to make sure they are on the right path now... same for Science which we will be starting next Fall with Apologia science.. but again, I'm getting ahead of myself... we still have this year to finish.. ha ha!

Happy Easter!!!!!!

Our New Pet

After the death of our beloved hamster Cookie we decided to take some time and see if we wanted to get another hamster or not... after months of going to Pet stores and looking at hamsters and not really connecting with any of them I am happy to say this past weekend all that changed!

After A8's Performathon we went to Pet Smart just to "look", we found these Robo hamsters, they are supposed to be the smallest hamsters out there. Well, we fell in love, or rather DH fell in love!

We got all of our old hamster stuff out, made sure we had everything we needed. However, after researching all about robo hamsters we relized we couldn't use our old cage because robos are too small for them, they can easily get out, so we needed a fish tank instead. Lucky for us a coworker of Dh's gave us a free one last year!!

We got a new wheel for it and some things for the hamster to climb on and we were ready for a new hamster!

We got her yesterday and named her Snickerdoodles!!! She is the cutest thing, so tiny and fast..

Here is her new home!

I told you she was small!

One more because she is too cute!

School Week 30

This week we are rowing the book Mrs. Katz and Tush. I have to tell you I haven't read this book yet, but the author is Patricia Polacco and so far I've loved all her books.

Geography: Poland, NYC
Soc. Stu: immigration, loving or neighbor, Passover
Language Arts: reading comprehension
Science: yeast

X5 is rowing The Carrot Seed.

We have two weeks off. I'm going to be looking into the book list for next year. That way once we have off for the whole summer I can start getting lapbooks ready for next year. That's all I need to take care off during the summer.

School Week 29

This week we are rowing the book They Were Strong and Good. This book is jammed packed with stuff, from the Civil War to bees to family trees... I'm going to keep it simple and maybe row this book again in the future and then get more in depth.

X5 is rowing the book Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? Fun book and fun lapbook!

One more week and then two weeks off!!!

School Week 28

I'm a little late, but better late than later. This past week we rowed the book Little Nino's Pizzeria. We read this book two years ago, it's very simple with a great message. Both kids rowed the same book this week.

We mostly had fun with this book, talked about pizza toppings, fractions and how to help those in need.

We have to weeks of school before our Easter break, we just want to get through it without burning out..two weeks off sounds very nice. After that we have six weeks and off for the whole summer!

Piano Recital

Here is a pic of A8 at her recital last month. I have a video of it as well, that will be coming soon.

Here is the video clip of her performance!

New and Improved Bedroom

Last week my daughter and I had a long talk about her room. No matter how many times she cleans her room it always looked messy. Sometimes it was so bad(after playing with her little friends) that she had no idea where to start.

She had no room and too much stuff... we decided to do something about it. After praying about it for two days, yes you read right, we prayed about this!!! So after praying it finally came to us.. well to me.. I stripped her room of everything, EVERYTHING but her bed, desk and dresser. Nothing on the wall, nothing in her closet.

I left it like that for a couple of hours just so she could see how much better it looked empty than with all her stuff. Then we began the process of determining what would stay and what had to go.

She did a great job of letting alot of things go. I think she was a little worried that all her stuff would be gone but we were able to keep a lot, we just need a new way to store it.

We got rid of two pieces of furniture, her bookcase and her little drawer. We put her books in a light green crate, just like her brother has in his room. We got rid of some little stuff she had in her little drawers and we moved things around in her closet.

Since I got rid of all the stuff she had on the walls I needed to figure out what was going to replace them... we went to Target over the weekend and she picked the perfect thing!

Here are a few pics of how her room looks now!!

She picked dots, they look great on her wall!

I had to move her dresser a little and there's her crate with all her books. I will be moving her peg a little higher and to the right.

As a reward we bought her a new quilt set from Target, no more ballerinas!!

I moved her phone next to her desk and got her a small bulletin board.

This is a French memo board and it will be going above her headboard, we ordered it online because Target didn't have it in purple. We should be getting it this week!

Her room is much more manageable now, it doesn't look as crowded and the new quilt looks perfect in her pink room!

School Week 27

This week we are rowing one of our favorite books, Madeline and the Cats of Rome. This book was a gift from Nina and Grandpa and we've been waiting a almost a year to finally row it!

Geography: Rome, Italy traveling from France to Rome.
Character: stealing, adopting a pet
Language arts: vocab words, copy work, Italian words.
Science: cats, pasta

X5 is rowing the book Caps for Sale and lapbook.

I have a clip of A8's recital coming soon as well as pics from the recital! A8 started her cursive writing workbook, she is very excited about it!