Spring Break

We are in week two of our Spring break. We had a great Easter weekend with Nina and Grandpa! On Saturday we had the Shape and Race at Church. The kids got trophies again this year, 4th in Show for A8 and 1st in Speed for X5... I know, we were shocked with that one!!
As soon as I get their pics I'll post them.

Like I said in a previous post I've been working on the book list for next year. I'm done with A8's list and now I'm working on X5's. He has 35 books for next Fall, one for each week of the school year. A8 only has 18. We are not going to do the Little House on the Prairie series next year. I chose two other books that will go along perfectly with the whole 2 weeks per book schedule.
I'll leave the Little House books for when we start Beyond FIAR, they will fit perfectly with those books.

I also have all the curricula I need for the kids for next year. A8 is going to start Wordly Wise 3000, a vocabulary workbook. Each workbook has 15 lessons, so I got 2nd and 3rd grade. One for each semester. That and Apologia Science is all I'm adding to our school next year. She'll also be reading My America books as part of American History.

That's all for now, let me go and enjoy the rest of our break!!

My Niece

Some great news! I am an Aunt once again. My sister just gave birth to my niece Gabriella Jazmeen, 6 lbs 10 oz!!

She is a beauty!!!

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!

School Week 26

This week we are rowing the book All the Secrets of the World. We read this book two years ago, we found it at the library... it is out of print so I had to keep checking Amazon.com to get it for a good price. This past summer I found it for under $20 so I bought it!!

It is a very simple book but it introduces kids to the concept of war and Dads being away from home for a long time because of fighting in a war.
For science we talked about how big ships leak oil that messes with the ocean creatures.

A8 is done with Printing Power, her handwriting workbook, she wants to start cursive handwriting so we are going to start that workbook next week.

X5 is rowing the book The Foolish Tortoise and doing a lapbook.

School Week 25

This week because of President's day we are rowing the book President's Day. I've been trying to hit all of the minor holidays this school year and been lucky to find books for pretty much all of them. This book takes a close look at Washington and Lincoln. I have tons of stuff on these two presidents for the lapbook.

This is a great way to introduce them to A8!


X5 is rowing the book The Grouchy Ladybug. I thought we would need two more weeks to be caught up on all X5's books but good news, we are there! No need to continue to do two books a week.

Let it Snow... Again... and Again

This past weekend we got about 3' of snow, no big deal. We shoveled it all, cleaned the cars, life went on..yesterday we got snow again, it was only supposed to be 2 - 4"... yeah... right.

It turned into another blizzard, on top of the blizzard we'd just had over the weekend. I'm talking about over a foot of snow and it's not over yet. I have no clue where we are going to shovel all this snow to.

Here are some pics... enjoy!!!

The backyard, we can't even move the screen door.

The swing set...

The front of the house, as you can see we are trapped!!

Thanks to the wind, we are getting all of the snow in our drive way and the neighbors across the street are not..

Our street... winter wonderland!

Neighbor kids building a fort or something, they are crazy... it is freezing outside thanks to the wind chill....

School Week 24

Here we are all caught up!!! This week we are rowing the book The Duchess Bakes a Cake. This book is a rhyming book which makes it interesting to read...

Geography: Switzerland
Language arts: new words
Science: nutrition, using yeast, bake things that need to rise(we already baked some bread)




X5 is rowing Mr. Gumpy's Outing and Harry, The Dirty Dog. In about two more weeks we'll be caught up with our book list and will only need to read one book per week.

School Week 23

One week ago we rowed the book Wake Up, Groundhog in honor of Groundhog day!
We also read about the history of the holiday and where it's celebrate now(Punxsutawney,Pa). We even made our own prediction, of course we predicted wrong, Phil saw his shadow... dumb groundhog, A8 was quite upset.. ha ha!

It was a lot of fun, A8 did the lapbook all by herself this time, she also did some copy work and she drew Phil and his shadow.

We talked about weather prediction, how they predict the weather on TV(weather channel) using satellites, and just how accurate Phil has been over the years...39%.

X5 rowed the books Stranger in the Woods and If You Give a Moose a Muffin. We did a lapbook for both books. X5 is really enjoying the lapbooks, it makes reading the book so much better for him. I have to say I like reading a book for only two days, it keeps him more interested!

We are right on schedule with math, phonics and handwriting. He gets lots of letters and numbers practice. He is working on his name since he insist on using his Webkinz user name as his name... not for long!!

School Week 22

We are a little behind on our school post so here we go. Two weeks ago we rowed the book Make Way for Ducklings. We've read this book before but never made a lapbook.

Geography: Boston, Mass
Language arts: vocabulary words, copy work
Art: draw ducks
Science: all about ducks




Something funny happened this semester, we switched the order of school... let me explain.
A8 usually starts school with a FIAR book and lapbook and the last workbox has her spelling. I noticed that she kept going for her last box, she would do her spelling and then her language lessons and math and then she wanted to do the book.

So I decided to let her switch her boxes in whatever order she wanted them in. She has her FIAR last instead of first, which means, she doesn't need me till math. I took advantage of this and switched X5's boxes and now I am able to do different books with him!

To catch up on our book list we've been rowing two books a week, the lapbooks are very simple allowing us to do this till we are caught up.

This week we read We're Going on a Bear Hunt and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

Yes.. I'm still Here

Yes, we are still here and we are still working hard doing school! Once January comes its very hard to stay motivated. I know how we flow, I know we go strong at the beginning of the school year, we slow a little between Harvest and Christmas and we slow wayyy down after January. We've been homeschooling for three years and every year it's been the same.

This is the reason why I work so hard during the summer months to plan every week of the school year down to a T. During this time of the year all that hard work really pays off. Every Sunday I open my file cabinet and grab a folder for A8 and a folder for X5. I have very little motivation to do anything so it's a good thing every folder has everything the kids need for that particular school week!

All this to say blogging right now is way down on my list, between birthdays, snow blizzards, ladies retreats, piano recitals, sickness and Coop I just can't find much time to blog about school or anything else for that matter.

January and February are really hard months for us. The fact that we are getting all of our school done is an accomplishment in itself!!

I will continue to post our school weeks because it is a great way to keep track of everything both kids are doing, they're just going to be a little late...

and now back to the Super Bowl... oh wait! the Saints won!!! Congrats New Orleans!!!!!!

School Week 21

This week because of the holiday we are reading; A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr. We'll be doing a lapbook as well.

"this picture-book format serves as a highly effective, empathetic way to introduce the life and legacy of important Americans to young children. Here the highlights of King's life are presented with an emphasis on his childhood and family. Children will immediately relate to his painful early experiences of racism and understand the genesis of his lifelong struggle for racial equality. The book portrays the hatred King endured, the horror of his assassination and the intense power of his message. A single-page list of important dates closes the book."


X5 rowed the book The Snowy Day.

Week ? Art Project

I haven't posted anything for art in the last few weeks, we did the usual Christmas and winter crafts. The thing is, we ate them before I could take a pic of it.. ha ha!

X5 did a shapes and cotton balls snowman, haven't taken any pics of it yet, will post when I finally do. A7 finished the lines art unit, she made these really cool bookmarks I have to laminate them and make sure I take pics of that as well.

School Week 19 & 20

It's been 2 weeks since I posted anything on the blog, we got busy, we got sick... very sick and then we needed a few days to recover and the house needed my attention, laundry as well!

Last Friday X5 came down with a stomach virus, by Saturday morning A7 had it and by Saturday evening both Dh and I had it. It was bad, really bad. Thank God for our Church body and family, they took very good care of us and the kids.
By Monday I had enough energy to disinfect the areas hardest hit like the bedrooms, living room and bathroom. Washed ALL the sheets and blankets, clothes etc. I was determined to get rid of all germs...

Dh had a harder time, he was hit worse than the rest of us and he took the longest in getting better. I am happy to report we are all back to normal, no pain, appetite is back, energy is back.

We missed two days of school this past week... I am going to go ahead and post what the plan was for the past two weeks, we actually got it all done, it took three long school days to do it but we got it done! The kids did great, we had lots of breaks in between and were usually done by the time Dh got home from work.

School Week 19

This week we finished our winter study guide and lapbook. It was good that it snowed, it really helped with a lot of the lapbook activities. We read this wonderful book; Snow by Cynthia Rylant.A7 started her spelling book Learning to Spell through Copywork Book A by Sandi Queen. There are three books A, B & C. Each book has 30 weeks worth of spelling list. The book incorporates the words into sentences, one for every day of the week, then on Friday I dictate the words on the list and she writes them down, one way to make sure she now knows how to spell them.This semester we'll be doing 15 weeks, then next year she'll do the remainder 15 and start Book B and so on till she's completed all three books. We've done two weeks and so far we both love it!
A7 also started a new math book Math U See Beta.

X5 continued working on his Code Primer Book B and handwriting book plus various workbox activities.

School Week 20


This week we rowed the book Owl Moon by Jane Yolen.
We rowed this book two yrs ago but never did a lapbook, this time around we did!

Soc. Stu: Maturity, self control, bravery, realistic expectation
Language arts: metaphor, simile
Science: owls, moon phases, bird calls

We only had three days to do this book due to sickness but we got it done, the fact we already knew the story helped!