The Clown of God

This week we are rowing The Clown of God, it is a Christmas legend set in Italy. I was a little worried about this one because it gets a little sad at the end, but the kids seemed to like it plus I have the book's movie.
Geography: Italy
Language arts: vocabulary words, Italian words from the book. What is a legend.
Science: gravity
Math: ordinal numbers
Christian character/Bible study: doing things for God's glory, how God blesses us throughout our lives.

This week we are doing lesson 29 of Math U See, there are 30 lessons in all. I had decided to start MUS Primer the second semester of K so that we could just do math games the first semester of K. Now that we are almost done with primer we'll be starting Alpha the second semester of 1st grade. I like it a lot better like that, that way after summer vacation we go back to something that is familiar instead of starting something completely new.

The last two lessons have to do with subtraction. It is just a general introduction to subtraction, -0 and -1, stuff like that. She seemed to get it just fine.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I've been a little busy the last two weeks, between jury duty(I didn't get picked!), school, piano practice, church, getting all the Christmas' gifts(I try to have everything ready before Thanksgiving weekend, have you ever been to the Mall after black Friday?... it's crazy!!) and of course Thanksgiving. We also went to see the movie Twilight! it was very good!

Last week we did a Johnny Appleseed lapbook, it was pretty basic but the kids really enjoyed it.
We have two more lessons to go and we'll be done with Math U See Primer. We are starting Alpha in January. We are moving right along with reading made easy, A6 is doing excellent with that!

This past summer when I was planning the first half of the school year I had schedule this week off from school. But we started having so much fun doing lapbooks that I decided to do school for two days this week so the kids could do a Thanksgiving lapbook, I got greedy!
Turns out we really needed to have this whole week off. When we got up this morning nobody wanted to talk about school, starting with me. We did read The Night Before Thanksgiving and The Thanksgiving Door but our heart was not really in it. So I made an executive decision and school is canceled for the whole week as originally planned.

Last year we had a six weeks on one week off type of schedule, I thought we would continue that this year but we were having so much fun lapbooking that we just kept going. Now it is time for a much needed break. After this week we have two more weeks of school then three weeks off!!!
This will probably be my last post for this week, we are going to Grandmas for Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving Day!

Cranberry Thanksgiving

This week we are rowing Cranberry Thanksgiving, which centers around Grandmother's Famous Cranberry Bread, wild Mr. Whiskers and snooty Mr. Horace. Looks can be deceiving!
Geography: New England states
Language arts: vocabulary words
Science: cranberries, where do they grow?
Christian Character/Bible study supplement: don't judge a book by it's cover. 1 Samuel 16:7
The kids really want to make the cranberry bread recipe in the book, I'm not crazy about cranberries but the recipe looks easy enough. Maybe we'll make it for home economics on Wednesday.

Yes, we have a new President. Last Wednesday morning when the kids woke up they wanted to know who had won the election, When I told them Obama won, X4 said to me, "Mommie, we have to pray that he will take care of the babies", and that is exactly what we did!

Elections 08...In November

This week we are working on an election 08 lapbook I purchased from Five in a Row. We get to keep track of the election, we have information on each candidate and we get to learn all about the president of the USA. They kids will get to vote right along with Mom for the new President. We'll be watching the news channels to keep track of which state goes to which candidate. Then when all the votes are counted we will have a new President!





At the same time we'll be rowing the book In November. A wonderful book about what happens to nature during the month of November. What we eat and about one special day in November where we travel far to share a special meal with loved ones.
Geography: how far do we travel for Thanksgiving(map)
Science: migration, adaptation, hibernation, dormancy & weather in November
Vocabulary words: migration, adaptation, hibernation, dormancy
Art: draw nature in November

Daniel's Duck

This week we are rowing Daniel's Duck. It is the story of a little boy who carves a duck out of a piece of wood, and then tries to sell it at the County Fair. Once he gets there he meets a very special person.
Geography: Tennesse
Language arts: quotation marks
Science: winter nights, shortest day and longest night of the year.

On Thursday we'll be doing a Halloween lapbook, about the history and how it was celebrated then and now. Then Thursday night we are going tick or treating!!

I've been feeling under the weather for the past day or so, but A6 has been able to do a lot of her schooling with very little help from me. If I can get enough rest I usually start feeling better within a day or so.
Happy Halloween!!

The Glorious Flight

This week we are rowing The Glorious Flight. It is the true story of Louis Bleriot, the first man to cross the English Channel. It shows all of the planes he built before he got it right.
I didn't think the kids were going to like this one as much, but they really enjoyed it. There is so much material with this book.
Geography: France, English Channel, England
History: Louis Bleriot
Social Studies: family relationships
Language Arts: airplane vocabulary words, airplane memory game
Math: Roman numerals, Ordinal numbers
Science: airplanes, where do babies come from? (yes, reading this book led to "the talk").

Who knew that reading a book about airplanes would lead to talking about where babies come from. X4 was under the impression that there is this huge baby store where you get babies. He wanted us to go to the store and get a baby boy and call him Isaac. A6 just wanted a little baby to play with. It was a good thing I had an illustrated book about the subject for little ones, The Wonderful Way Babies are Made.


They were a little disappointed with how it really happens. X4 lost interest half way through the book (thank God). A6 was fascinated by the umbilical cord. So, if you ever find yourself having to explain babies to your kids I cannot recommend this book enough!

We have our Piano!

We just got our piano today! Our Church was very kind to give us this piano for free!
Thank you to all the strong men who helped us get it home!!
There are a couple of keys that don't work but hopefully are fixable. We still need a bench for it. I've seen a lot of them online for about $100 and free shipping. The kids are really excited about the piano, so am I!! A6 has already been playing it. She knows two songs, the thing is she hasn't even begun her piano lessons yet.
She learned the songs just by listening to the CD.
Here is a clip of her playing the Cuckoo song.

Pumpkin Week

This week we are doing a pumpkin lapbook that I found online for free.
We are going to be reading different pumpkin books and everyday we'll be doing different activities from the lapbook and then putting them all together. To finish the week, we'll be going to the Pumpkin patch with the kids from COOP and on Saturday Renfrew park is having a Pumpkin festival and hopefully we'll get to go to that as well!
Today we read a book about Christopher Columbus. Since today we are celebrating Columbus Day I wanted the kids to have some idea of who he was and why this is such an important day in history. They also got to color the ships and A6 drew Columbus arriving at the beach, just like the picture from the book.
We only did about an hr of school this morning since all the kids are around and wanting to play with my kids. Tomorrow we will start our pumpkin week! We'll also be doing all of the other stuff as well, math, phonics & handwriting.

Wild Horses Of Sweetbriar

This week we are rowing The Wild Horses of Sweetbriar. Based on a true story, this is a girl's touching recollection of the unusually severe winter of 1903, which she spent on a small island near Nantucket.

Geography: Nantucket, what is an island?, isolation: pros & cons.
Language arts: copy work
Science: weathering, erosion

A6 had a fever Sunday and Monday morning, we did all our schooling on the couch:) I tried not to make her think too much, but she really enjoyed the story and was able to talk about the book. By midday she was feeling much better. She even did copy work on her own! The fever never returned, but she is coughing a little.
We didn't get to go to the pumpkin patch last Saturday, but we are going with the COOP kids next Friday as a field trip.

Climbing Kansas Mountains

This week we are rowing Climbing Kansas Mountains. It is the story of a boy and his father doing something special, just the two of them, no brothers!
Geography: Kansas, land forms(plains, hills, mountains, etc)
Language arts: idioms(Kansas Mountains, when pigs fly, etc)
Science: wheat
We will be doing a lapbook for this story as well. Doing lapbooks with each story has been very beneficial to A6, it is a great way to review everything she's learned throughout the week.
We are almost done with book one of Reading made easy. Next week we'll get to start book 2!
For math u see we'll be finishing Primer by mid December and come January we'll start Alpha.
We are still working on the calendar and nutrition this week. We'll be taking a field trip to the pumpkin patch as well! Sometime next week we'll be going on a leaf hunt.
BTW, X4 is back to normal, no fever after that first night, and the hunt for a piano is looking promising!

Piano Lessons

The kids are going to start taking piano lessons! Yes, both of them.
Now all we need is a piano!
We are doing Suzuki piano, which means that I'll be doing half of the work with the kids, which means that I have to take a few lessons before them so that I can help them during the week. The lessons are once a week starting in Nov for the kids, since the piano teacher has to start with me.
We've been to two lessons, really just to watch her doing it with other kids. It's amazing to see kids that young be able to play without having numbers or letters on the keys.
The search for a piano continues, in the mean time my church is going to let me use one of their many pianos to practice!
Please pray that we'll find the right piano at the right price!
Also please pray for X4, he has a bit of a fever and is not feeling well at all.

The Story of Ferdinand

This week we are rowing The Story of Ferdinand. It's about an incredibly big and strong bull who would rather smell the flowers than to fight at the bull fights in Madrid. We got to watch some bullfight videos already, I tried to make sure they would n't see any bulls bleeding or being killed by the Matador.
Geography: Spain, color Spain flag and look for Spain in map.
Language arts: sequence of events, story cards.
We'll be adding everything we do to a lapbook
Science: Ferdinand likes to lay down under a cork tree.

Also this week we'll be talking about the months of the year, for math A6 will be introduced to the unknown number or algebra... a very simple algebra(if there is such a thing).
I also have an activity pg about the colors of fall. Yes it is officially Fall!
I have a lot of Fall activities for the next few months. We'll be doing a weather lapbook that includes the weather for the four seasons, but that's another post!

Nutrition lapbook

This week in addition to the book we are rowing, we are going to be working on our nutrition lapbook. A6 will be keeping track of the food she eats throughout the week and writing it down on her lapbook, also she'll be keeping track of any physical activity we do during the week and writing it down as well. We'll be learning about the four food groups and we'll be able to track how much we eat of each group, of course there is a fifth group...the junk food group!! We won't be doing any tracking of that food group..too scary!!
Here are some pics of the lapbook, it has a lot of sections. This is the most packed lapbook we've done so far.

Mirette on the High Wire

This past Friday we had our first COOP of the school year. Things were a little different for this one, after the kids finished their show and tells we all stayed together and learned how to do a lapbook. Lapbooking can be done by any learner-- from preschoolers to adults. With this educational method, you make mini-books covering details that you've studied. After making a variety of mini-books about a larger topic, all the books are put together in a large folder. The finished product is called a lapbook because it's large and covers your lap.
Five in a Row has been using lapbooks (they call them fold n learns) for a while now but I never knew how to do them. Well, I know now and I love them. We went ahead and did lapbooks for Madeline's rescue and the little red lighthouse.
It's great to see all the info spread out like that, makes it so much easier to remember details about the story and the different subjects we are covering from a single story. I'm changing all my lessons to include a lapbook for each of them!


This week we are rowing Mirette in the High Wire, a wonderful story about a young girl who helps a old performer conquer his fear and perform once again.
We're going back to Paris, France for this one so it'll be a nice review of what we already learned when we read Madeline's rescue. Also for geography we'll be looking at all the places Bellini performed before ending up in Paris.
We'll be doing vocabulary words as well, lapbooks are a great way to display vocabulary words!
We played a game were we tried to walk on the high wire, the kids had fun pretending to do this.

This week we are starting phonics as well, A6 had no problems getting back into it. She is reading very well and she is able to figure out the different sounds certain letters make when they are together. I had to give her a little brake in between subjects because we are covering a lot more stuff now than when we first began school. The breaks worked well, she seemed ready to tackle the next subject after each break.
Math is going very well, we are almost done with Primer and we should be starting Alpha before the semester is over.
Her handwriting is getting better as well, I'm going to start a bit of spelling with her, probably every two weeks 3-5 words at a time. I have a really simple spelling curriculum where I have lists of words for each grade.
I'm working on the calendar right now, she will be learning how to spell the days of the week and then the months of the year.
This Wednesday we'll be continuing with the nutrition chapter from Home economics for homeschoolers.

The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Grey Bridge

This week we are rowing The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Grey Bridge. It is based on the story of a real lighthouse along the Hudson River in New York.

Since the story takes place in NYC we will be learning about NYC today. Not too in depth, but enough that she'll know where is located in a US map and she'll be able to recognize some of the most famous images of NYC.
We'll talk about lighthouses and their purpose, and of course big bridges. We'll be starting our Home Economics curriculum. The 1st chapter deals with nutrition, lots of fruits and veggies!
I'm planning to have her do some notebooking pages with pics of different kinds of fruits and veggies and why they are good for our bodies.
This week we will start handwriting exercises once again, both upper and lowercase. I won't touch phonics till next week, and we'll be doing math as well.
This Friday will be our first COOP, which means I have to make sure I cover everything in four days.

X4 is doing really good with Letter of the Week. His sister has been a real help with that, she's been playing teacher with him. This week is the letter B , the number 2, red and the octagon.
Should be fun!!

Look Ma, No Trainning Wheels!

Two years ago we we got a bike for A6. She hardly ever used it. For some reason she seemed to be afraid to ride it. Two weeks ago it was X4's birthday! He got a bike for his birthday that he started riding right away. When A6 saw this she asked where her bike was because she wanted to ride with her brother. Two weeks later she asked her Daddy to remove the training wheels.
Twenty four hours later here she is riding her bike with no training wheels!! X4 is there as well riding his little bike!

Birthdays, Soccer Camp and Other Things

Last month was X4's birthday! For those of you who could n't make it, here are some pics.
















































Our Church had a Mini Soccer camp for the little ones, here are some pics of X4 and A6 playing soccer!



































Some of the boys started to take take their shirts off and of course X4 had to do it as well!!














Here's A6 and her new smile! She lost her tooth right before Church on Sunday!

Madeline's Rescue

We're back! This week we are rowing Madeline's Rescue. Madeline falls into the Seine River and a very special dog comes to the rescue.
Geography: The River Seine
Madeline was rescued from the River Seine in Paris. Locate the river on a map. What famous church is located on an island of this river? (Notre Dame)
Tomorrow we'll be doing a sequence of events activity and Vocabulary/Dictionary Skills, we'll get a chance to look up some words from the story that we had never heard before in the dictionary.
Science: Animal welfare. In the story, the officials kick the dog out of the school. Discuss why this in inhumane and unacceptable.
On Friday we may take a field trip to our local animal shelter to see what happens to pets who are no longer wanted.

We started math as well, A6 had to practice her numbers, for some reason we had lots of letter practice this summer but not enough number practice. We'll be doing math four days a week as well as handwriting and phonics 3 times a week.
Starting next week and every Wed we'll be doing either Library day, home economics, health & nutrition or music. We will NOT have story time that day nor math or handwriting.

I started doing Letter of the Week with X4.
This week is letter: A, number: 1, color: blue & shape: square. He got to color some stuff blue including a square. He seems to be enjoying that more.
This takes about 5 to 10 minutes plus story time, another 15 to 20 minutes depending on the book and how many questions they ask while I'm reading.

For A6 we are doing close to 2 1/2 hours of school.

A6 wants to continue doing girl scouts which will be three Mondays a month this year. COOP will be starting on the 12th of this month and from what I hear they are going to be doing really cool stuff! I don't want to overwhelm her with too many activities since we also have Clubs and Small groups during the week plus my Ladies Bible study on Tuesdays afternoon.

This year is going to be a busy one which means I won't be able to blog as much but I will try to always post what we are doing for the week and if we do something different or unexpected I'll blog about it as well.

I'll be back in September!

August has been a very busy month. We spent the first week in Roxbury Holiness camp, the kids loved it!!! We started our insects & spiders unit study, which is our way to get back into school mode, it's been going great as well and this week we have soccer camp. Dh and I've been busy with Clubs and next Wednesday is the Club carnival.

We have two more weeks in August, then everybody goes back to school full time. I'll get back to blogging about our little homeschool in September. Until then enjoy the last two weeks of summer!

I'm Done!

I just finished reading Breaking Dawn!
I went to Borders at 11:30pm Friday night and I was #212!
Once 12:01am came they started to sell the books, it took about a half hour and I had the book in my hands!
Once I got home I could not put it down, I finally went to sleep around 4am.
This book and Twilight are the best books of the series... it had everything.
My DH is reading it now!!