Nature Study Club Post 10 Spring is Here!

Spring is here and that means lots of nature study for us! We have been visited by so many different critters in the last few weeks. I will post all of the pics we've taken in the last two weeks.

Our tree is finally blooming, this is the only time of year it blooms so I really wanted to take a pic of how beautiful it looks!

My favorite bird, the cardinal and the female cardinal! The visit all the time but they scare so easily... they are starting to get used to us.. I hope!

I finally got a pic of the very elusive chickadee, he never stays at the feeder long... but I got him that time!

The house finches are always around, the truth is we are not sure if they are house or purple finches, A9 says house, so I guess that's what they are!

The mourning doves are always around as well, they have no problems being near us!

The robins, of course they are around all year!

We had another visitor to our feeders... a squirrel.. this little guy is very brave!

The Mallards visited us during a rain storm!

This is a male cowbird... they are pretty cute!

This is the female cowbird.

We found an egg sack on one of our bushes!

I have no clue what type of egg sack this is, praying mantis maybe!!

This afternoon we found a groundhog on our neighbors yard, turns out they have been trying to catch him for a couple of days now. Well, they got him!

No worries though, they are going to take him to the woods and release him there.

These guys are always around, the grackles.

One more pic of the groundhog before they take him away, we feed him some apple slices.

One last pic of my fave... the cardinal!

We keep seeing a blue heron, I'm trying very hard to get a pic. I love watching birds from my deck, I love hearing their songs. I will try to get more pics soon!

School Week 32 & 33 2011

My last school post was on the last week of March. We had just started Book 1 of the next My America series Virginia's Civil War Diaries. Then we were forced to take a two week break due to illnesses... and here we are! back to school again!

School Week 32

Last week we read book 2 of My America Civil War Diaries, After the Rain. It was nice to get back into our school routine, A9 is really enjoying this series as well. A9 has 3 more weeks of math, she is done with vocabulary and will soon be done with her cursive copywork.

We were able to get back to our narration and dictation exercises and our language lessons.
We took it easy the first few days, but instead of having a light school Wednesday, she worked very hard on all her subjects so that we could have Friday off for a field trip to the movies. We went to see African Cats as part of Earth Day.

BTW, before she got sick, A9 had another field trip to see The Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet at Wilson College. I was already sick so she went with Mrs. Long! She loved it!

I took it easier on X6 since he had a harder two weeks than his sister. We went through an ordeal with him, but thank God and all who prayed for us he is doing great!

He worked on his math, his reading and phonics... that's it. That is all I required of him this past week. We read the book The Legend of The Three Trees for Easter.

School Week 33

This week we are reading book 3 of My America Civil War Diaries, A Time to Dance. We are also reading the book Meet Abraham Lincoln. Since the Civil War deals heavily with him I thought this would be a great time for A9 to learn all about our 16th President!

Two more math lessons and we are done for the year... well, she needs to take a final math test the following week! She will be done with cursive copywork this week, and we will continue to do narration and dictation because we have fun doing it and we have about two weeks left of language lessons.

The boy will be rowing If Jesus came to my House and doing a Jesus lapbook. He has two more books to row and he will be done! I think he has two more math lessons as well. Like I said before, he won't be done with reading made easy, we will continue to do this throughout the summer.

We did a lot of nature studies the last few weeks, we've had so many new visitors to our feeders. A9 has a new blog where she talks about all of the birds visiting our backyard. I will post some pics as well since her blog is only available to a couple of people.

Here's praying we finish healthy!

No School Week

We are taking an early Easter break, I've had a chest cold that turned into a high fever that kept me from my endoscopy this morning. Now I have no fever(Thank God) but still have a chest cold, sore throat and a stuffy, runny nose.... not ideal for the amount of reading we usually have for school... so we are taking our break early! and I'm back on my vitamin C!!!!!

School Week 31 2011

This week A9 and I are starting the next series in the My America books, the Civil War diaries.
It takes place in Gettysburg, which is great since we live about a half hour from Gettysburg!

I will be posting more later, right now I need to get back to school.

The boy and I are rowing the book Papa Piccolo.

School Week 30 2011

This week we are reading the last book on the My America Underground Railroad series, Message in the Sky.
The next set of books deal with the Civil War, we were planning to go to Gettysburg after finishing the underground railroad series.

We wanted to visit The Dobbin House Tavern(In the mid-1800's, a secret crawl space, featured in "National Geographic", served as a "station" for hiding runaway slaves on their perilous journey to freedom on the "Underground Railroad." After the battle of Gettysburg ceased, and the armies had departed, it served as a hospital for wounded soldiers of both the North and the South).

However, If we wait till we are finished with the Civil war books then we can make a whole day out of it and visit some of the places mention in that series as well.

Of course that would mean that Daddy would be coming along as well!! and the weather will probably be a bit warmer by then.

X6 is rowing the book Abuela.

School Week 28 & 29 2011

Last week we started the Underground Railroad Diaries part of My America series. Book 1 Freedom's Wings was such a great read... we finished it in four days, only because we didn't get to read on Wednesday. I was a little concerned about how this series was going to deal with slavery, but I have to say the book was excellent.

This week are reading Book 2 Flying Free. I have a feeling we are going to go through this one in less than a week as well.

Spring is almost here and we have had many new visitors come to our feeders in the last week. I will have to post some pics for our Nature Study Club Post!

X6 rowed the book Mr. Gumpy's Outing last week and this week we are rowing the book The Caboose Who Got Loose. We are also doing some fun crafts for St. Patrick's day!

Busy Week

We are still here! We have had a busy week so far, between meetings, piano, play dates... you name it. Coop is starting this Friday so I have been trying to get ready for that. That's what happens when you leave things for the last minute.

We are also working on revamping our future coop, it will be completely new, we may even have to write our own curriculum... how cool is that!!

I went to a classical conversations meeting with other Moms from our coop and we were all inspired by what we saw and heard! It will be a lot of work in the beginning, but once everything is set up, it should run a lot smoother. I want to be a part of the planning since I feel very strongly about the curriculum I use with my kids and don' really want to switch to something inferior.

Every Mom realizes that it will take a lot of effort from everybody involved to make this a success!

I will post our plans for this week soon.

School Week 27 2011

This week we are reading Book 3 of Hope's Revolutionary War Diaries. A9 has really enjoyed this series. I usually read 10 pages a day, well last week we were so into the story that we finished it a day early, A9 did not want me to stop reading!!

I have a feeling the same thing is going to be happening with book 3. It's so funny to see A9 get so upset over the "Redcoats" taking over Philadelphia. I had to keep reassuring her that we win in the end!!

We are almost done with the George Washington book as well, the chapters are about a page and a half long and a big font, so she has no problem reading them aloud, we read two chapters a day.

Also this week we are going to be reading the book The Star Spangled Banner by Ingri and Edgar D'Aulaire. The kids don't know the national anthem and I thought this is the right time to teach it to them. We are also going to be watching the movie The Patriot!

We have been having a great time learning about the American Revolution!

X6 will be rowing the book Grandfather's Journey... this week we are learning about Japan!

School Week 26 2011

This week we (A9 and I), are reading Book Two in the My America series... We are Patriots. We are also reading about George Washington.

X6 is rowing the book The Story of Ferdinand. We love this book which is set in Spain!
It is times like these when I'm so glad I have my whole year planned out. February is always a hard month to get through and once March gets here it's even worse.
I'm starting to do an outline for next year just to keep myself motivated for this year :) Weird, I know!!!
We were able to go outside a couple of days last week and just take a nice long walk while the kids rode their bikes, it was a nice thing to do in the late morning. No such luck this week since it was snowing last night.

Coop is supposed to start next month, not sure if it's going to happen at all this spring, since we don't have enough Moms volunteering to teach a class.. we'll see.

School Week 25 2011

This week A9 and I are starting the next books in the My America series... Hope's Revolutionary War Diaries, Books 1-3. A9 loved the 1st 3 books and I'm sure it will be the same with these three!
Besides the My America books we will be reading about George Washington, Paul Revere and Ben Franklin again!

After we read all three books we are going to watch the movie The Patriot, yes the one with Mel Gibson... I love the way the movie depicts how a bunch of farmers defeated the greatest army of the time...

We also started a new writing curriculum.... after starting Writing Strands and doing it for two weeks I was not happy with it, neither was A9... I didn't want creative writing, which is what this seemed to be.. so I switched to Writing with Ease: Vol2, I also purchased Vols 3 & 4. This curriculum is more of what I had in mind. Lots of narration and dictation as a way of building up her writing skills... We did our first narration exercise today and the workbook really helps the parent ask the right questions. Tomorrow will be our first dictation exercise... I will be dictating back the same sentences she herself came up with to summarize the story we read.

X6 is rowing the book The Greatest Treasure, we are learning about China! I have been working very hard on a language lessons workbook for X6 for next year. After using LLVY 1&2 with A9, I knew that I wanted something very similar to do with X6, the things is LLVY has TOO much copywork. Sometimes over five days of copywork in a row, torwards the end it has 20 copywork lessons in a row..A9 was so tired of it after awhile. So, when we did LLVY2 she did NO copywork at all.. that was over half the book. She had it all done by December.

She is now doing Primary Language Lessons, which she absolutely loves!! I will be doing the same with X6 when he is in 3rd grade. For next year I decided that I wanted the grammar and picture study of LLVY and the narration and copywork of Writing with Ease Vol 1. The copywork is only two times a week, no more!

So I did it!! I made my own language lessons workbook using the elements I like from the two other books. I will be using it with X6 for the next two years and then we'll start PLL and Writing with Ease Level 2!

School Week 24 2011

This week we are reading our last Jamestown book, Season of Promise. We really enjoyed reading this series and are looking forward to the next one, the American revolution.

X_6 is rowing the book A New Coat for Anna.

Here's hoping February goes by very fast!!!

Piano Recital 2011

A_9 had her Suzuki piano recital yesterday. She played the song Musette and did a duet with her piano teacher to my favorite Suzuki song Goodbye to Winter. She looked so beautiful! Somebody else did her hair Nina... :)

A_9 and M_7 before the recital started!
Here is a video clip of her performance, on the second song you can hear her piano teacher playing along with her. I kept the camera on A_9 for obvious reasons!

School Week 23 2011

This week we are reading the 2nd book of the Jamestown diaries, The Starving Time. I made a notebooking journal for all the books in the My America series. A_9 has different activities for each book... from copywork to mini books, questions from the book and even drawing. I tried to add different ways for her to experience the books. So far she is enjoying it!

We've also started vocabulary. I added spelling and for A_9 to find the meaning for some of the words herself using our pocket dictionary, just for practice. She is enjoying that as well.

X_6 is rowing the book Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

School Week 22 2011

This week A_9 is starting American history! We will be reading the book series My America. We are going to be covering five periods of American history, starting with Jamestown and ending with immigration(early 1900's).

There are 15 books, 3 books for each period. The books are written in a diary format, which hopefully will be easy to not only read but for A_9 to understand and care about.

We start with Our Strange New Land, Jamestown Colony Diary.

X_6 will be rowing the book Katy and the Big Snow. Convenient since we are supposed to be getting lots of snow this week!

iPad Post

This post is brought to you by the iPad! No, I don't have an iPad... I'm just playing with one:)!

Happy 9th Birthday A!

Today is A_9's birthday. She is 9 years old!!
Here is her Hello Kitty cake, the thing is I forgot to order her a cake, I bought one already made and just bought the tops separately... she loved it so no harm done!
She had a little party with her friends, what she really wants is to go to Chuck E. Cheese for her birthday, we will be taking her today!!
Happy Birthday!

School Week 21 2011 Again!

This week we are reading the book Pocahontas by Ingri & Edgar Parin d"Aulaire. This will be our intro to American History and to My America book series which starts with Jamestown.

I thought we were done with our FIAR books but I was wrong. We still have Paul Revere's Ride, which we will read while were are reading about the American Revolution.

X6 will be reading Winter on the Farm, from My First Little House Books.

School Week 21 2011

Last Friday we had a last minute change of plans. Because of my surgery I had to cancel our dentist appointment back in November, I got a call Thursday from the dentist office asking if I would like to come in Friday morning for our regular cleaning. I said yes!!

That meant we had to get school done by 11 am. We got most of it done... well X6 did. A8 didn't get to finish her Beethoven lapbook. We read the book(Beethoven Lives Upstairs) in four days, for the fifth day I wanted to read Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers: Ludwig Van Beethoven and finish the lapbook, no such luck.

I was going to give the kids a day off today so they could play with their friends who have no school because of Martin Luther King Jr's day. However, I need A8 to finish that lapbook, so today she will be working on that and nothing else.

School Week 20 2011

This week we are reading Beethoven Lives Upstairs. This is a book based on the Classical Kids CD. The funny thing is I have owned the CD since 1989, it is one of my favorite Classical Kids CDs. I found the book by accident, actually I found the lapbook first on Homeschoolshare.com.
After seeing the lapbook I knew there had to be a book, so I went looking for it at Amazon, and there it was!!! The book follows the Cd very closely except of course for the music, that's what makes the CD so special! I will be reading the book throughout the week and listen to the CD as well. Best of both worlds with this book!

I'm hoping X6 will take an interest in the book, we are doing Madeline and the Gypsies this week but I think he will love listening to the Beethoven CD as well.

While I was looking at my school planner this weekend, I found a little mistake. I have 35 books scheduled for 35 weeks of school, however A8 had two weeks of school done before we began actual school, Roxbury week and music camp week. I had Roxbury already on the schedule but the music thing was a last minute addition. They both count toward school of course but it means I have to drop one of the books I was going to do this year.... Beethoven was the book I had to drop because all of my other books are either FIAR VOl 4 books or My America books, also I really wanted to do Shakespeare this year as well.
I want to do all the books I have scheduled to do this year, which means our school year is going to be 37 weeks instead of 36. That's not counting Field trip days and other activities that count toward the school year.

I had a couple of Moms tell me that they often end up with well over 36 weeks of school because of all the things they ended up doing during the year. I guess this year that is going to be us!

My New Comb Binder

A few days ago I posted about how I would love to own a comb binder so that I can continue to make my own workbooks for the kids for school.

Well, my Dh was listening!! He said, "why don't you just get one?" So I did! Amazon had then for $30 + $10 shipping.... I decided to check Ebay just to see how much they had it for...$26.95 and Free Shipping! So I bought it!
The GBC CombBind C55 Personal Comb Binding Machine is ideal for smaller offices or for personal use. Equipped with a 5-sheet manual punching capacity the C55 is perfect for assembling small reports. It binds documents up to 90 sheets with 1/2" combs.
YYAAAAYYY!!!