School Week 15 2011-2012

This week we get back to a full schedule, even though we have a vet appointment for the baby bunnies and I need to go to Walmart.  Hopefully we will get everything done before we leave the house.  X7 is rowing the book Amber on the Mountain.  We are also reading The Stray for co op.

 A9 is reading Fantastic Mr. Fox for co op and for our read a loud time we are on Book 2 of My America Meg's Prairie Diary.


We had a great holiday weekend!  Thanksgiving was a great time spent with my family! The food was great, I didn't go anywhere near the mashed potatoes and gravy or the pork, but the turkey and red rice was more than satisfying!   Some shopping got done on Black Friday even though I already had most of the gifts since I've been doing most of my shopping online. 

This is the first year I took the kids out to get a gift for each other.  Funny thing X7 kept looking at stuff he liked all the while telling me how his sister really likes to play with that stuff as well... Suuuuure.. ha ha!!!  He picked something pretty good for her! We also got gifts for daddy and then daddy took them to get gifts for me as well!

Dh got a new toy as well, a new TV since ours died a week ago.  This one is nice!! its a bit smaller than out last one(42") but it has Wi-Fi, so now we have the internet on our TV which allows us to stream online movies from both Amazon Prime and Netflix!! Dh is very happy with his X-Mas gift!!!
Thanks Grandpa!!!

School Week 14 2011-2012

This was a short week because of the thanksgiving holiday.  We usually take the whole week off but I knew the kids would probably be bored out of their minds without some school,  so we did math, independent reading time and read a loud time.  A9 was able to do two math lessons in three days and she read three books independently! The Magic Finger, The White Stallion and The Family Under the Bridge.  Next week A9 will be reading Fantastic Mr. Fox for co op.

We also started the next My America series Meg's Prairie Diary Book 1. We read that book in three days!  X7 did math and reading as well.  We read three different thanksgiving books and the co op book for Nov/Dec, The Stray by Dick King-Smith. 

We will be spending Thanksgiving at my mom's this year! Tomorrow is going to be a long day since I'm planning on going to Walmart at midnight for their Black Friday sale!!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

School Week 13 2011-2012

This week X7 is rowing the book Cranberry Thanksgiving! We love this book, I think it is safe to say we love all of our FIAR books!  We have been doing read a louds as well using the Mr. Putter and Tabby books for co op.

A9 is done with Matilda and has started reading Misty of Chincoteague.  She is to start Fantastic Mr. Fox for co op next week... hopefully she'll be done with Misty by then.

We are to start book 3 of My America: Oregon Trail Diary.  We've had a wonderful time reading these books aloud.  No matter how late school goes we always make time for My America books! I wish they would have made more of them...

Next week is Thanksgiving but we will be having school all three days... we'll have independent reading and read a loud time.... maybe math.

Bunnies update:  Piggy is doing great, he is gaining about 20 grams every day, which means mamma is feeding him/her.... the grey bunny which we've named Fuzzball is active and it's eating but her weight is not really increasing, is is staying between 88 and 90 grams.  I think a second visit to the vet is in order.  Papa bunny has an appointment Tuesday morning to get nurtured... no more babies from him I'm afraid.
Both bunnies are looking so cute in their own ways.. Piggy is chubby and delicious and Fuzzball is tiny and adorable!

School Week 12 2011-2012

This week X7 is rowing the book How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World....  another favorite! A9 is almost done with Matilda, she is really enjoying this book as well! The kids started their art basics class and they are going to be having homework for it! 

 Not much to say this morning... I am exhausted... trying to feed a baby bunny takes some work.  The light color one is doing very good,  mamma is feeding it just fine... the grey one... not so much.  It doesn't matter how many times I feed it, it does not gain any weight... he's not loosing weight either, he seems to be stuck and I'm not sure if I can do anything to help him continue forward.. I have a feeling only mamma can do that.

I just hope that she will continue to feed the other one.... still praying for baby bunnies. 

Baby Bunnies Update

We started with six baby bunnies, we are now down to two... I think the fact that the mom is still so young(six months), we think she did not have enough milk for all of them so only the strongest ones were able to get any... as of right now the light color bunny seems to be the strongest because he is well fed, the grey one is a bit weaker.  I took them to the vet and she was not very optimistic about their chances... She gave me some food and showed me how to feed them and I have been doing that... They are both hanging in there... let's just say we are praying these bunnies to health!  The male papa is getting fixed on the 11th, and the mom as soon as she is done nursing... which maybe be sooner that I want her to...
I don't think I can go through this again... but the babies are the cutest things I have ever seen!!

School Week 11 2011-2012

 This week X7 is rowing the book The Wild Horses of Sweetbrier.  He is also reading another Mr. Putter and Tabby book for Co op! A9 is reading the book Matilda for her 30 minute independent reading time and our read a loud book is Westward to Home, Book 1 of Joshua's Oregon Trail Diary.

We have started a new co op term, even though the kids will continue with science and language arts, they will no longer have geography.  This term they are starting an arts basics class.  There will be no homework for this class which means we will have a little more breathing room during our school day.  The kids loved geography and hopefully we will have this class again next year!

For science this week we are doing lesson 7 Rodentia and the Rest.  Rodents like squirrels, mice and the rest like platypuses, echidnas and bunnies!!  We are going to dissect an owl pellet at co op and see how many rodent bones we can find.  

Speaking of bunnies... our bunnies had babies!  Yes, we thought we had two males although we never did look under the tan one's "skirt".  We knew the black one, Coco was a boy.  It happened Halloween night or maybe the night before, we are not sure. I found them on Friday during co op's lunch time.  I left my phone at home that morning, since the church is behind my house I decided to walk home to get my phone.. on my way back I went over to say hello to the bunnies when I noticed something right in the middle of their cage...  it was a baby bunny and it was dead :( I guess it got separated from the rest of the babies and it was too cold... I have no idea how long it  laid there but I picked it up and panicked....

I called Dh and the first thing he told me to do was to get the male out so that he could not get her pregnant again... hopefully we got him out in time!!!!  She had six babies in all but the one died.  When Dh got home we got the laundry room ready and moved Mom and babies there.  We read online that bunnies form very deep bonds and if you separate them for too long they get depressed and trying to reunited them later could be difficult, so we have them in the same room but he is unable to get to her.. they can still nuzzle and stuff but no hanky panky.. ha ha!

 We can't wait till we have five baby bunnies running around!!!  Anyone want a bunny for Christmas?

Trick or Snow?

Something is not right here.... it is Autumn... right? 

It is going to be a loooong winter....

All Hallows Eve 2011

This past Thursday was our Trick or Treat night here in town, I thought I  would share some pics of the kids and then later on during Light the Night at our Church... enjoy!

 X7 dressed as Captain America with blue hair!

 A9 as a purple Batllerina also purple hair!

 DH as the god of Thunder himself... THOR!

Avengers Assemble!!!

 Light the night at Church!

Our neighbors having a Halloween concert!! They kept playing the "Halloween" movie theme!

School Week 10 2011-2012

This week X7 is rowing the book The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge.  This book is a favorite of mine and it's been a couple of years since we last read it.

I can now finish this post since it is snowing outside and I have no place to go :) 

A9 is done with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz book and has started Matilda by Roald Dahl.  Interestingly enough her November book for Co op is Fantastic Mr. Fox, also by Roald Dahl!  Of course we didn't know that when she picked Matilda.  This will be her last co op book selection of the year.

She is almost done with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, not sure if she is going to move on to the third book, Prisoner of Azkaban... we'll see. She is getting the next Wimpy Kid book, and that one is coming out in the middle of November.

We have changed things around again, after I decided to stop doing the Dear America read a louds we made a wonderful discovery!!!  Last year when we read all of the My America books we actually skipped the westward expansion books of the series.  Joshua's Oregon Trail Diary and Meg's Prairie Diary, six books in all.  Thanks to Mrs. Long we were able to borrow 4 of the six books, which meant  I only needed to purchase two books!
I made a notebooking journal similar to the one I made last year... but much simpler since I got it done in about two hours.  So now our read a loud time is back and we are reading My America books once again!

School Week 9 2011-2012

This week X7 will be reading an assortment of "Pumpkin books"  We were supposed to go to the Pumpkin patch last Friday after Co op but it was raining, so we are going this Friday after Co op! This place has the best apple cider so I'm looking forward to going!

X7 is also going to be reading the book Mr. Putter and Tabby Pour the Tea for Co op.  

A9 has started reading Ramona Forever for Co op.  This is part of her 30 minutes independent reading time.  We have decided to scrap our American history study.  I though long and hard before coming to this decision but I feel it's the right thing to do.  We are going to finish A Time for Courage and stop there.
I had initially decided to make it last the whole school year rather than try to get it all done the first semester but after a couple of weeks I could see that continuing the study of the 1900s in American history is not what we need to do right now, there will be plenty of time for that later.

There is another family doing the same study and using the notebooking journal I made.  They have a 6th grader and a 4th grader doing it and the 4th grader is struggling just like we are.  The 6th grader is having no problems with it, which showed me that maybe I need to postpone it till A9 is in 6th grade.

Other than that we are moving right along with school and having a great time... our first Co op term  is almost completed, on October 28th we start the 2nd term, which means no more geography.  We will be starting an art basics class till the 2nd week in December.  We will continue to have science.

Enjoy the fall weather!

Nature Study Club Post 12

Spiders, Slugs and Worms! That is what we have been studying for science in the last couple of weeks.  Here are some pics from our Nature Study Club!

 We visited spider webs all over our backyard, we wanted to see if the spider would come out if it sensed motion in the web... they came out every time! I bet she was disappointed we were not lunch.

 We looked for different types of webs; sheet web, orb web and tangled webs... we think this is a sheet web.

 Slugs, we found a ton of them near our trees, they like wet places were there's lots of leaves... I wanted to pour salt on all of them.... after observing them for a bout 20 minutes we did just that!

Worms.. my faves! I never knew how beneficial they are to the soil.... we had a good amount which means we have good soil.. who knew!!?!?!

School Week 8 2011-2012

This week we are finally going to read Christopher Columbus and do the lapbook.   This is going to look more like an unit study, which it is.  All about Columbus!  I haven't done this with X7 yet and it is time for him to know who this man is... :)

A9 has finished the Susan B Anthony book, it's almost done with The Mouse and the Motorcycle book and will be starting Ramona Forever for Co op,  she is also reading a little book on the side that she has been wanting to read "forever".... Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone! No pictures.. yep, that is the first thing she asked when she first opened the book.... " Mom, there are no pictures in this book?", nope.. only on the chapter page... she wanted to read it anyways... She is on Chapter 16!.... She is loving it!.... I'm loving the fact that she is loving it!

This Friday after Co op we are going on another field trip to the Pumpkin Patch, I'm praying it will be a beautiful, sunny, autumn day!

School Week 7 2011-2012

This week X7 is rowing the book Climbing Kansas Mountains.  I love this book and I know X7 is going to love it as well!

X7 is doing very well with keeping up with our other subjects, the goal of course is to focus on learning how to read, but he is enjoying all the Co op activities, especially the journal entries and geography. 

For science this week we are skipping a few lessons so that we can go over lessons 13 and 14.  We need the nice weather for the experiments.  After lesson 14 we will be going back to lesson 5.

A9 is having a great time with her independent reading, she read 3 books last week! She will be done with A Mouse Called Wolf  today and should be able to start the next one as well.  No idea which one she is going to pick next but for Co op she is going to be reading Ramona Forever.  I did mention that instead of reading 3 books for Co op it was decided to assign one book a month.   We are doing written narrations (plot summaries) for each book she reads. I'm the one writing it since at this point in time it's not necessary to have her write about every book she reads.

X7's Co op book for October will be one of my all time faves... Mr. Putter and Tabby Pour the Tea! I can't wait to see what Mrs. Long is going to do with these two books, they got to do a diorama for The Littles book and it came out so nice! I will post a pic very soon.

Lake Tobias Wildlife Park Field Trip

Today Lamppost Co op had a field trip to Lake Tobias Wildlife Park as part of our Zoology 3 class.  We had so much fun. We saw a lot of animals that we are studying right now! I also made some new friends... yes, they would probably eat me if they could but they are still awesome!

 This lioness loved the little boys and I do mean LOVED them.. she kept chasing them, the boys kept running right in from of her and she either wanted to play with them or wanted to eat them... she paid little attention to the grown ups, but the kids??? she loved them!!

 Yes, that's her trying to get my son.... he was jumping right in from of her!

 MMMmmmmm... I want to taste this little boy! ha ha!!

We saw many other animals there, but the lions stole my heart! here's more pics of the other animals.

 The tiger!!

 A very big rodent!

 Petting Zoo

 Ponies!

 Safari Ride!

 Feeding the animals from the safari bus!

 More animals!

 One more of the tiger... closer!

 Lunch time!

A couple more pics of my faves!

Dinner after the field trip at Red Robin... Yuuummmm!!