Reading Level

I never knew how people were able to tell what reading level kids were reading at. I thought you had to be an education expert to determine that. Yesterday A6 was reading the book Dory Story. She read the whole book and only needed help with three words, fish names since the book is about fishes. On the book cover there is a sticker that says Level: 3.4. I didn't know what that meant.
I asked a teacher friend of mine and she told me that kids who were able to read that book were reading at a third grade and four months level. This was another one of those "I'm not sucking at this" moments!!!!

Ocean Unit Study & lapbook Part I

After a three week holiday break, school is back! I learned a lot from my first year of homeschooling. I was able to write down some things I noticed throughout last year, mainly the times of the school year when we were more motivated to do school as well as the times where motivation was non existent.

September through November, lots of energy and motivation!! Right after the Xmas holidays and Easter week? no desire to do anything... both me and the kids.

So, while I was planning this year I made sure to schedule things that would get us back into the swing of things, something to motivate us in the new year. Since it is the beginning of winter I decided to do an ocean unit study. You know, the beach, summer....{sigh}.

It is a two week study, the first week we are learning about creatures who live in the ocean. More specifically, whales, dolphins and sharks! The kids are familiar with them and want to learn more about them, also we don't really need to get too in depth since we are doing Exploring Creation: Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day in a couple of years.

The second week we'll be learning about the oceans where these creatures live as well as the Continents where the oceans are located by.

Lapbooking is something we started this year and it's been a great addition to our homeschooling. I decided to start posting pictures of our lapbooks now that I have the hang of it!
Please remember that most of our lapbooks are made using Homeschoolshare.com, if you see something you like you can just go there and find it.

Here is the lapbook for this week: whales, dophins and sharks! Like I said is very simple but the kids love it, they look at the pictures over and over.



We watched Finding Nemo since it's a perfect movie go along with our study. Happy Feet also shows ocean life and Orca whales!
I wanted to watch Jaws so they could see a Great White shark...but that's probably not a good idea. I watched that movie when I was 6yrs old and had to sleep in my grandparents bed for about a week!! Instead we are watching shark clips on YOuTube.
Along with the unit study we are reading the book Dory Story. The kids love this book, the great thing is I only paid $.25 for this book at the used book store.

Happy 2009 and other things!

I hope everybody had a great new years, we sure did! We got to relax, play and relax some more.
Everybody is healthy again, enjoying their toys. I got to go to the ladies retreat this weekend.
I got a ticket for speeding on my way there, my first ticket, YAY!!!! Don't you just hate it when that happens, especially since I was on my way to a christian retreat to encounter God. Well, I didn't let that interfere with what God had for me this weekend, and He had a lot for me.

There is a lot of stuff to process, starting with making sure I always find time throughout my day to process it. I've been making things really loud around me, maybe trying to drown out God's voice. Sometimes when we are slacking in some areas of our lives we just don't want to hear it and we make it harder to hear God's voice.
I've been doing a lot of "winging it" over the last few months and God's been faithful but it's time for me to start motivating and preparing myself for His service.
The thing is God has promised to give us everything we need to further His Kingdom and we always take that to mean he will give us everything we "want".
DH and I have a lot of talking and praying to do.

I'm so glad I decided to go for the whole weekend, since I was planning to just go for the whole day Saturday. I would like to thank my Dh for taking my Sunday school class this morning so that I could stay for the last session!

Tomorrow is the start of the second semester, I have an ocean unit study that we are doing and of course a lapbook, we won't be doing any math u see or phonics this week. I want the reentry go to smooth, we'll start that stuff next week. I'm going to do a review of all the letters, colors and shapes we've learned so far with X4 as well, then next week we'll pick it up were we left off.

Happy Christmas To All!

Sith Lord Darth Vader wishes you all a Happy Christmas!

So do I!!!!

Happy Christmas to Us!

We are celebrating Xmas today because we are going up to Nina and Grandpa's house for the 25th!
I have to say we got the kids some really great gifts this year. I can't remember spending this much money on gifts ever!!! We told the kids not to get use to it.... ha ha!


We took some pics of the kids and their gifts. A6 was all about American Girl this year, she got the doll whom she named Emma, she got a bunk bed, a tent and lots of clothes for Emma! Grandma got her a tea for two set, gorgeous!!


X4 was all about Star Wars Clone Wars this year, he did get an American boy doll as well, and some clothes for him so that brother and sister can play with brother and sister!


Here are some pics of our Christmas, enjoy and Happy Christmas!

Random Thoughts

The Christmas pageant went really well. We had so many parents come to the play the Church was full! and the funny thing is it only lasted about 15 minutes. I bought enough cookies and we had enough of everything for everybody.
Today we had our last Ladies Bible study of the year, we'll start again sometime in January, we all went out to eat to this little place called Gracie's. It was really good!!! I'll have to take Dh there sometime.
We are celebrating Christmas with the kids this Sartuday, we'll be having pernil and arroz con gandules for dinner! I can't wait!!

Holiday Vacation

We have been enjoying this week so much, no school, just play. I have been getting everything ready for our Christmas pageant tonight for Clubs, I'm in charge of refreshments!
I'm almost done getting everything ready for school for the next semester and even looking ahead to next year. Did I mention how cool lapbooks are?!?!? I did!! Oh well.. worth mentioning again!

Our Journey on the North Pole Express

This past Saturday we went to the Cumberland Railroad Station to take a ride on the North Pole Express and see Santa at the North Pole!

It was so much fun! We got there around 5:30 pm, it takes around an hour/half from our house to the train station. There was five of us, Mom and Dad, A6, X4 and we took a little friend with us M5!

The kids were loving the ride, there were so many people in their pajamas, if we do this again we'll be wearing our pajamas!! The whole thing took about 3/half hours. It was very cold and we even had some snow, the slippery kind which made everything much more fun.

Once we got there, the kids got to talk to Santa, well A6 did. X4 and M5 had issues talking to Santa!!! Once they talked to Santa they each got a little bag of goodies from Mrs. Claus!


Then we got in line for hot chocolate and Xmas cookies. The hot chocolate was delicious and really hot!! the cookies were okay....I gave mine to the kids:)

On our way back everything was so nice and relaxed. The drive home seem to go so fast.
We may do this again next year. It's more fun if a lot of people you know go as well. Maybe the Longs and the will join us next year!

Christmas Week

This week we are reading a couple of Christmas books, Madeline's Christmas and The Night Before Christmas.
We are going to read Madeline the first half of the week and do the lapbook, then we'll read the other book and do a lapbook (that I found online for free) for that one.
This is our last week of school for the year, we are finished with math u see primer and we'll be starting Alpha the second week of January. Next week I'll be getting everything ready for the second semester, book list, a folder for each week and getting the lapbooks ready for each folder.
Doing lapbooks for each book we read is making school so much easier and enjoyable for both student and teacher!
I am looking forward to the end of school and I'm sure A6 is as well!

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.