Posted in homeschooling

We've been busy little beavers getting our work done with no interruptions...for 2 weeks in a row. Yay!

Bible

The birth of Jesus

The birth of John the Baptist

Social Studies

We're still studying Knights and Castles.  We've finished the Time Traveler Book  and our now working in CHOW and The Usborne Book of World History.  Mackenzie was said to be finished with TT, as it was one of her favorites.

Our read aloud is Robin Hood and it goes along nicely with our history. And it is a GGGRRREAATTT book.  Lots of adventure.  It's hard to put it down.

We were studying the African countries last week in geography and we decided to study it for an extra week because there were 8 songs to learn.  We needed extra time. LOL

We are still enjoying Window on the World.  That book really gets us thinking and makes us more appreciative of how blessed we are here in the U.S.

Math

This week Mackenzie started colum addition and she pretty much freaked out at the sight of it. (Sigh, that girl is so dramatic...) The thought of adding 3+ numbers just sent her over the edge.  Then she watched the lesson, did a few practice problems, and declared colum addition "easy and fun!"

Language Arts

We studied friendly letters and direct quotations in grammar.  She is also memorizing a new poem, The Little Bird, as well.

Mackenzie reading More Stories From Grandma's Attic as her reader.  She loves the stories but she's not always thrilled with the length of the assignment. "My voice gets tired."  Hello? You have the option to read silently. LOL

Mackenzie has an interest in learning cursive. As her printing has improved greatly this year, I opted to let her try since we have A Reason for Handwriting transition book, which includes cursive lessons.  However, their cursive program is not as good as the printing and Mackenzie hated it.

She was still insistent on wanting to learn cursive so we checked out a few other programs online and she choose Handwriting without Tears.  We used to use it, we both liked but then a friend was using ARFH and Mackenzie loved the border sheets so we switched.

So once it arrives she can work on cursive M-Th and print her Bible verse on her border sheets on Friday.  Big excitement, I know. LOL

Science

We are studying what's in the ground this week. We've learned how subways are built, how electric cable is layed, what kind of creatures live under the ground.  Not the most exciting stuff but interesting enough.

Our science experiments have been on magnets but, I have to say, the magnets that came with our science kit are lacking.  They have not been strong enough to complete some of the experiments properly.  Mackenzie was disappointed.  I might run to the local teacher's store this week and pick up some better ones.

Extras

Mackenzie started a 4-week cooking class last week.  She is loving it.  I love it because my only involvement is paying for it and getting her there.  Yippee!  So far she's made Northern Idaho Supper Soup, bread, homade oreos and ginger banana bread.  I haven't tasted any of it yet but she says it's all good.

Soccer is officially over.  Mackenzie did fabulous.  They only lost one game.  She is very excited to play again next year.  Next she'll move on to cheerleading for the upcoming basketball season.  Daddy tried to get her to play basketball but she was not interested.

Brownies is going well.  Her troop is earning lots of badges and doing fun things.  She also works on badges at home quit often.

We worked on a science try-it yesterday and it had some fun experiments.

Art is going well.  We decided to take a break from drawing and work with colored markers for a while.  We know how to color properly with lines and dots.  Sounds weird, but it really looks a lot nicer. LOL

Kayleigh's Happenings...

Kayleigh, Kayleigh, what can you say?  She is still adorable, still hates most food, and still determined to defy me.

1) She turned 9 months old.  I forbid growing.

2) She is officially crawling.  Wahh...I really enjoyed setting her down knowing that she'd still be there if I walked away.  Thankfully, Daddy was home when she did it so he got to see the big event.  He left the next day, so it was close.

3) She decided to start pulling herself to standing postions in her crib.  At 3 a.m.  Again, right before Daddy left for his trip.  A mere 3 hours before he left in fact.  So he was able to lower the mattress before hand.  I'm totally "fix-it"challenged.  She'd be better off jumping out of the crib then allowing me to mess with the screws.  Sad but true. LOL

Other new skills are a gift for texting...

Her mealtime routine...

Feed

Chew

Spit out

Then repeat until all food offered is all over

Posted in homeschooling

The best part of our week was Kayleigh feeling better.  That allowed me time for things like schooling and folding Mt. Laundrey.

Bible

Elisha and the Widow

Naaman is healed of leprosy

Young King Josiah

Daniel

Math

We reviewed money.  It took Kenzie all of 20 minutes to finish the week's work.  So we rounded out the week using Singapore Math.  She worked on adding 3 3-digit numbers which freaked her out at first.  But after a few examples she declared it "fun!"

Science

We took a bit of a science break. At least from the book work.  We used this week to catch up on some science experiments.

We did some experiments with water.

Float and Sink

The force of water

How shape effects the ability of objects to float

How a submarine works

Kayleigh ate grass

History

We completed week 9 this week. Mackenzie is LOVING knights and castles. It goes without saying that she loved Time Traveller. Some of the extras we did...

She learned how to draw a castle and wrote a little blurb about what she thought it would be like to live in a castle. (We got this from the Draw...Then Write book from Evan-Moor.)

The girl who hates to write insisted that it would take longer to write if she wrote 3 seperate sentences instead of one long one.  "Three is more than one mom."  Whatever you say...ROFL

She made a castle hinge book with a diamond poem about castles inside it. We got the book form from www.teacherfilebox.com, which is ran by Evan-Moor. I LOVE that site. The poem idea came from a unit study.

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Bible

+We read about Elisha and Elijah.  For some reason Mackenzie always gets a kick out of them and their names. LOL

Social Studies

+We worked on Southern Asia countries in Geography.  Mackenzie doesn't like this particular song much because she says the way they say Sri Lanka is creepy. ROFL

+We started Knights and Castles in history.  Mackenzie is loving it.  We didn't do any activities from the SOTW activity guide but we did do a couple of notebooking pages from History Scribe.  She did a fabulous job. Especially on the page about knights. A minor miracle considering how much she loathes writing. ROFL  She also declared that she would like a page for Christmas so he could wait on her. LOL

+We read about some of the countries in Southern Asia in Window on the World.  We continued adding the country's flag to our prayer book that we're making.

Math

+We reviewed skip counting by 10's so that took her all of 5 minutes to complete a weeks worth of lessons.  Since we finished MUS early we worked a bit in Singapore Math and decided that MUS teaches regrouping much better. LOL  So Kenzie did it the MUS way.

Science

+We have moved on to insects and creepy crawlies this week.  Two of the pages in the First Encyclopedia of Animals had HUGE pictures of spiders on them.  Totally creeped us both out so I had to cover them up before either one of us were willing to read. 

Language Arts

+We learned about adjectives in grammar and then reviewed nouns.

+We are continuing to read Strawberry Girl and we still love it.  It has lots of excitement to keep us guessing what happens next.

+Mackenzie finished reading Third Grade Detectives: Case of the Stolen Statue and moved onto The Last Little Cat.  It has started off slow but we're hopeful that it will get better, as it's by the same author who wrote The Wheel on the School, and we wound up loving that one.

+Not much to report about spelling and handwriting, other than we did it. LOL

Extras

+Her soccer team is showing a lot of improvement.  They actually look like they know what they are doing.  The games are quite exciting now.

Her's Kenzie scoring a goal. (She's in orange, light brown braids, #9)

She also falls a lot. LOL That's the only shred of athletic "skill" she gets from me.

We also had a fieldtrip to a local fire station.  They did a play for us.

And finally I uploaded the horseback riding pictures...better late thaen never right?

And now Kayleigh's 2 teeth...

Posted in homeschooling

Bible

We read through the 23rd Psalm

 David being annointed , slaying Goliath,

 Solomon's reign and building the temple

Language Arts

In grammar we studied contractions and replaced copywork with dictation.

We started reading Strawberry Girl.  That is a fun read.  The story is about a family of Florida crackers.  There's nothing more fun then my attempts at a southern accent.  LOL  The story's pretty good too.

We're plugging along in spelling and handwriting.  She still hates handwriting but she has finally learned to do it neatly the first time.  Lest she have to erase it all and do it again.

We also finished our literature pocket on The Boy Who Cried Wolf.  We're reading Aesop's Fables this year and I found an Aesop's Fable Literature Pocket to add in some craftiness to our studies.  It covers 8 fables.

Mackenzie is reading another Third Grade Detective book.  She loves those.  There is currently a handwritten sign in our front window that reads "Detective Agency."  And you'll often find Mackenzie and the baby dressed in "disguises" so I won't notice them "detecting."

A couple more books and we'll be onto the advanced readers.  I made a good decision when I decided to buy all the readers that Sonlight offered.  Mackenzie reads them double time so we go through a level and 1/2 every year.  If I'd just gone with her reading level, we'd have been out of readers by grade 1. ROFL

Social Studies

History: We have officially finished our study on Vikings.  It was interesting but we're really excited to start Knights and Castles.  We read Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky this week.  Mackenzie really enjoyed it.  Especially because it was true.  We did a little book report on it to help her learn how to pull out facts from what she reads.

I'm going to shy away from SS for a minute and talk about book reports.  I don't really think book reports are necessary for a homeschooler. I think they're very useful in a regular classroom setting, where I wouldn't have time to orally evaluate each student.  If I want to know if Kenzie understands what she read or what she thought, I can ask her.  No book report necessary.

However I found these awesome book called  How to Report on Books.  It's essentially a bunch of different forms and projects that focus on different skills like setting, main character, real/make believe, identifying problems/solutions, etc.  It's been a great teaching tool for me.  And they're quick for Mackenzie.  She loves them.  Plus I bought it as an e-book so I can just print the page I want. LOL

Now back to SS...

In Geography we've been learning about maps and globes by reading Maps and Globes.  LOL  It's been pretty interesting to learn how maps have evolved over the years.  Of course we work with real maps too. ROFL

We're also continuing on with Windows on the World.  We still love it.  Plus I've been printing out flags from each country that we read about and we're going to make those into a book.  We've been writing some reminders of what we need to pray about on the flags.

Science

We are finished with birds and have moved on to reptiles.  Neither of us are enjoying the pictures of icky snakes.  Ick!!!

We are behind in experiments.  We're going to have to have a massive experiment day in the near future.

Math

This week we studied adding with regrouping.  I've said it before and I'm going to say it again.  Math-u-See is the BEST!  The way they teach just makes sense.  Mackenzie has had no problems picking up any of the concepts with this program.  And I wouldn't say she's got a knack for math.  (Clearly judging from how long it took her to master her addition facts, especially the 2s. LOL)

And quite frankly, my math skills have improved GREATLY.

Extras

She has had a busy week this week. For brownies she went horseback riding and to Disney on Ice.  Big excitement!

Soccer is going well.  Best of all the weather has been cool so we haven't been sitting in the 99 degree hit sweating to death.  Yay!

And, like I promised, we got our art lessons done.  We worked on contrast, drawing geometric shapes, and "stacking" objects.

Posted in homeschooling

I'm going to try and get back in the habit of recapping our week every Friday.  This is a homeschooling blog after all. 

It's already not going well since it's already Tuesday and I have recapped last week. LOL

Bible:

We studied Samson and Ruth this week.  Mackenzie was fascinated by Samson's long hair.  "Why couldn't he cut it?"  "Because he was a Nazerite."  "So?"  "Because God said so."  LOL I should have said that in the first place.

Social Studies:

In History we're studying Vikings.  Neither of us our thrilled with the Vikings.  It's not that we don't find it interesting, it's just that they're so mean.  It makes us angry.  Mackenzie was horrified at the thought of them constantly raiding people, even churches.

We've done some interesting activities with the Vikings though. We made a Viking warship, a Viking pendent and we had a Viking burial.  Aladdin barbie starred as the Viking.  LOL  Sadly I didn't get any pictures because of Mc Screamy.

We're doing Weekly Readers this year.  Mackenzie gets a kick out of them.

We've been LOVING Geography Songs. Kayleigh included.  We worked on the former countries in the USSR this week.  It was hard but we got them down.

Language Arts:

Our read aloud was Ginger Pye.  It was a fabulous book.  Drama, excitement, suspence, happy ending.  We loved it!  It's just hard to read outloud.  It was soooo loooong.  We're considering it for one of our top 10 favorites.

We've been working on abbrievations in First Language Lessons.  We both like that this program is mostly oral.  Mackenzie hates to write.

Mathematics:

Math was a breeze.  Reviewing skip counting by 2's.  She had the entire weeks work done in 20 minutes.

We spent the rest of the week doing Mind Benders and Dr. DooRiddles.

Science:

We wrapped up our study of birds.  I asked Mackenzie how she liked learning about birds. "It was pretty good. I would have liked to have learned how to get rid of those 2 birds who sit on our roof and poop on the house."  ROFL  So would I dear child, so would I.

Extras:

Soccer is going well.  Mackenzie has really surpised me and loves it.  She's such a girly girl that I wasn't sure if she'd like or not.   It's looking like she might not be as athetically challenged as her mother. She scored the first goal of her first game.  She'd probably do even better if she'd stop coaching the other girls and just do what she's told. ROFL

She's in a new brownie troop this year. One that actually does stuff and earns badges. What a novel idea!  They went horseback riding this weekend, so that's already a million times more then what she did with her troop last year.  Impressive!

I haven't signed her up for dance yet.  Life's been busy. Hopefully next month I'll get around to it.

We fell off the wagon with our art lessons. It's been a few weeks since we did anything but I promise we'll get back on track next week.

That's all that I can remember. LOL  Maybe if I did this on Friday like I'm supposed to...

Posted in homeschooling

Success!!!

We finished our first official week of 2nd grade and Mackenzie did great!  We got everything done that I had planned and we got a bit a head in somethings.

Here's our run down...

Bible: We reviewed creation and starting reading The Awesome Book of Bible Facts.  Mackenzie just loves that book.  She prefers to read that one to me.  So it's gone from read aloud to reader.  

Another favorite was Window on the World.  I have to say wow!  It's a book of short stories about different people groups all over the world.  It gives you facts about the country, cultural information and ways that we can pray for each people group.  Trust Sonlight to find another book to touch our hearts.  I just love the way Sonlight gets us thinking and praying for people all over the world

Social Studies: 

For history, we mainly just reviewed what we'd covered in Core 1, which wasn't that exciting, but we did get to start reading Explorers News.  I knew that would be a big hit because Mackenzie loved The Greek News in core 1.

We both can't wait to get into the meatier history. Sonlight never lets us down!

We're using The Story of the World Activity Guide 2 to add some hands-on to our history this year.  A little more work for me then the History Pockets we use last year but I'm making do.  I'm only picking the simplest of activities. I think I might need to get the 3rd guide to finish up the time periods we're covering this year. 

SOTW has some really neat map assignments too.  Mackenzie really liked those.

We also started using Geography Songs.  Can you say fun?  Mackenzie learned her continents and oceans in about 3 minutes.  And she can find them on the map.  I like how their is a book with blackline maps for us to copy and color. We'll be putting those in our notebook. Plus it came with a large blackline world map.  And even Kayleigh likes the music. LOL

We're also reviewing in Language Arts.  Nouns this week.  And she's working on memorizing the poem, The Goops.  Spelling was a breeze she aced the pretest.  And she even did her handwriting without complaint.

Our real aloud is Red Sails to Capri. So far we're loving it.  I'm getting a little confused while reading because I always try to read with accents and voices.  This book has Italians, French, British, and Russian or German.  I'm pretty much butchering them all.   Thankfully, Kenzie doesn't seem to mind.

Mackenzie is finishing up the last of the intermediate readers and is reading The House on Walenska Street.  I have to say that she has given the  mother in the story an accent too.  Although she hails from Russia, she seems to have a Brooklyn accent. LOL Good stuff!  And it's cute to hear Mackenzie try and read the yiddish words.  I have no doubts she does better with them then I would.

She finished a week and a half's worth of math in 2 days.  The first lesson in Beta was place value review so it was pretty easy. Since we finished MUS early we moved on to Singapore 2A, which was also place value.  Funny how that works out. 

We haven't started science yet but we did start our art curriculum, I Can Do All Things.  It is fabulous.  It will teach us drawing, painting, colored pencils, and markers.  It's perfect for artistically challenged people like me.  Very simple and easy to implement and it has a video.  I'll let a real artist doing the teaching on this one.  Kenzie and I are doing it together.  She is really enjoying it.  So is mommy.

Kayleigh is working on sitting up.  We are using this as a motivater. It is my hope that she will sit up as well as this baby soon.  It will really make her 6 month portraits a lot easier.

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I know it's been a while but it's not my fault.  I had a huge post typed out a few weeks ago and HSB "ate it".  I'll try a few short ones to catch you up and see if HSB behaves better.

We started school yesterday.  Mackenzie is now an official 2nd grader.  Boo-hoo! 

Kayleigh also turned 6 months old yesterday.  Double boo-hoo.

It only took me 6 months to get her to take a bottle  LOL

 ETA: What we are using for second grade

Social Studies:

Sonlight Core 2, Intro to World History Part 2 w/advanced readers and bible program

Weekly Readers

Math:

Math-U-See Beta and Singapore Primary 2a and b

Science:

Sonlight Science 1

Language Arts:

First Language Lessons, A Reason for Spelling level B, A Reason for Handwriting , and Writing A-Z

Extras:

I Can Do All Things art curriculum, Brownies, soccer, and dance

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As we finished our regularly scheduled science, we raised painted lady butterflies.  Here is Kenzie releasing them, 9 out of 10 survived.

We had some stubborn ones that didn't want to leave.

Can you see it hiding?  Kenzie was excited about see God's camoflauge plan in action.

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Try, try as we might Kayleigh refuses to take a bottle (or a paci for that matter.)   Kevin really enjoyed giving Mackenzie a bottle once a day and there's nothing like a milk-moustashed little smile grinning up at you during feeding time.  He is disappointed not being able to share that with Kayleigh.

Not to mention the fact that I am not able to leave the house without her or better yet, have her leave the house without me.    My husband just came home from Iraq and we haven't been able to go out for a date and it isn't looking likely anytime soon.

So in our quest for alone time, we decided to try her out on some rice cereal.  A big deal because after Mackenzie's first disasterous rice cereal incident we swore we weren't giving any more babies anything but breastmilk before 6/7 months.

(Grandmas said 4 month baby will sleep through the night if you give her cereal.  Baby Mack lapped up the cereal but woke up EVERY HOUR for the 3 nights that we gave it to her.  We dumped the cereal and any further advice from the grandmas. LOL)

As Kayleigh already sleeps through the night we decided to give it a try.  Baby K also laps it up and it hasn't affected her sleep in anyway, so we continue on with the cereal, although not consistently every day.

Here's the fun...

And the happy ending...Kayleigh was so excited that she....

pooped herself!!!!!!!  

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We went on a field trip to the Cultural Heritage Center and learned about life in the "old days".

Practicing their listening skills

Collecting eggs from "chickens"

Making butter

Washing the clothes

Weighing produce

Milking the "cow"

At the park afterward with some of our friends

Kayleigh and her fiancee Holden.  I have marriages arranged for both the girls now. ROFL

Uh-oh...someone's making a move

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We spent our weekend at Colonial Williamsburg. 

We went for 2 reasons...

1) It was free to military. Our family motto "If it's free, it's for me."  (Of course the free didn't extend to the cost of gas driving out there twice. LOL)

2) Mackenzie can earn a brownie page for going.  Her troop is a total dud.  This year they've earned one patch as a troop and done nothing.  Not one trip or outing. We're moving on for next year.

Plantation Life at the Great Hope Plantation exhibit

The Govenor's Palace

Outer Buildings...

In town

Capital Building

We had to drag Kayleigh out of the fountain

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Today we had another outing at Hunt Club Farm.  This time we enjoyed a hayride and a trip through the pumpkin "patch."

It was alright.  The weather man said cloudy, rainy, high about 75.  So that's how we dressed.  Try sunny and 93.  Yea, that was hot.

No outing would be complete without Pouty McPout Pout griping about getting her picture taken.  However, the rule is if mommy doesn't get to take pictures we go home.  It took her a while to give me a real smile. 

That was really too bad because we had some great backgrounds to work with.  We could've gotten a really frameworthy shot. 

Posted in homeschooling

I meant to review our week last  but life got in the way.  So I guess I'll do it now.

We actually completed everything I had planned.  (As opposed to today where we did NOTHING. LOL)

In history, we are continuing on with the ancient Greeks.  Mackenzie did not get to do her beloved "notes" because the computer that is hooked up to the printer isn't working, so we had to skip that.  She says that she wants to go back and complete them when I finally get it up and running. This from the child who hates to write.

In LA we started reading The Year of Miss Agnes which we both LOVE!  Such a good book.  She's also read Clara and the Bookwagon and A Long Way to a New Land for her readers.  

We started learning about the writing process using Sonlight's Diamond Notes.  We haven't gotten too far into it to really have an opinion. This weeks lessons look more interesting.

 And we learned about onomatopoeia. Say that 5 times fast. I can't even say it one time correctly. 

We also started using Modern Curriculum Press Phonics and Wordly Wise, which she loves.  Spelling was a review week. Words that she knew perfectly for the last 4 weeks she can no longer spell.

In math she learned her -9's.  Those came as easily as the +9's.  We always like it when that happens.  Mr. Demme and his tricks that promote understanding are soooo cool.

In Bible we are continuing on in Genesis and reading about Joseph.  She always loves this story.

Since we haven't had time to get back into AWANA we've been using the Sing the Word: A New Commandment cd that came with the core.  She's working on the entire 1st Psalm.  It's supposed to take 6 weeks to learn but she's only got 2 more verses until she has it totally memorized.

I have to say I truely dislike this particular cd.  All the verses are either KJV or NKJV.  I much prefer the one in core C that used NIV verses. Neither one of us has a clue as to what they are talking about on this cd, being modern english speakers ourselves. We, of course, reread the Psalm in a different translation but it would be nice to have them "hidden in our heart" using a language we comprehend. LOL  As Mackenzie said when we read it in NIV, "Why can't they just say that on the cd?"  Why indeed my dear daughter?

In science, we're learning about water and the water cycle.  We are also adding in our own unit about the body and we started that.  Lots of fun.

For "art" she spent hours making pictures for her daddy.  We finally have an address so we can send him things and she wanted to make sure he had lots of pictures.  How sweet is she?

Posted in homeschooling

in the same week.  Yes it's true!  We completed a week of school in one week.  I'm hoping we're on a roll now.

We started subtracting twos in Math-U-See.  That is going pretty fast for her.   We're always happy when she picks up a concept quickly.

In history, we are continuing to study ancient Greece.  We took a break from CHOW and Usborne's world history and started reading The Greek News.  Mackenzie is loving the Greek News.  She insisted on "taking notes" for this book just like we've been doing for CHOW.  (We're doing this in place of notebooking for now.  Less writing for her.)  I believe we'll be finishing The Greek News next week, then taking a short break from Greece for a couple of weeks.

We've also finished reading Greek Myth's for our read aloud.  She liked it, I was getting tired of it. The reading each day was a lot so my I was getting Sonlighter's throat. LOL  We'll start reading The Year of Miss Agnes next.  We're both excited as we love starting new books.

Since I hadn't ordered LA yet, we just did A Reason for Handwriting and A Reason for Spelling.  Handwriting, as always, takes forever.  She hates writing.   I did order LA, and science, Wednesday so we should be adding that in next week. 

We'll be doing Sonlight's LA for grade 3 readers and Mackenzie is excited. We've had the readers on the shelf for a while now and she's itching to read them.  I'm interested to see how I'll like the newly re-vamped SL LA, seeing as how I DID NOT like the old version at all.  I am a bit excited about the new creative writing program they've added to it.  Creative writing is something I've largely ignored.  I imagine I'll be letting her do a lot of dictating to me for that.

Since I just ordered science, we haven't been doing it.  All in good time right?  She's been to several ultrasounds now so that's way cooler science then she'd ever get in public school.

In other news, I closed on our new house.  We still don't have a move date.  I'm hoping to hear today so I can book my movers. I really need to give them a date.

We're still missing Daddy but we're hanging in there, with God's grace.  He calls when he can and we send emails.  We're dying to send a package but they still don't have an address yet.  It's driving Mackenzie nuts.

Blessings to all our you out in cyberland!

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Mmmm, mmmm good!  This was one yummy field trip. 

We enjoyed a tour of the bakery then had a wonderful tea.  Well, Kenzie and I didn't care for the tea, but the finger sandwiches and sweets.  Can you say lemon pound cake?? 

My little super model in front of the bakery

One of the many mermaids hanging around Norfolk

Modeling the lovely hats with Ava and Devlin

And mommy too! Such a lovely picture of her. LOL

Time for Tea!

The kid-friendly tea tray.  Mommy's had better stuff.

Posing with Carrot-Jam the Bunny

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We had a little family fun at the Portsmouth Children's Museum a few weeks ago...

Wearing daddy's armor, which weighs at least as much as she does.  Tough girl!

Princess day at the water park.

 Homeschool field trip to the Young Chefs Academy.  Cheesy breadsticks was the menu item.

What Mackenzie would be like in public school.  She finished reading well before the teacher. ROFL

Finally the good stuff.

The finished breadstick, or in this case, bread HEART.

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soccer star.

You have no idea how amusing it was for me to see my dress-loving princess wearing these clothes.

Our church  and the YMCA hosted a soccer team from Jamaica to come and do a 3 day clinic last week.  It gave Mackenzie a chance to try something new and hear the gospel from another source.  She had a great time, despite her intial leariness.  She even took being the only girl in stride.

Despite the clothes, she's still a girl. LOL

Getting her award.

The "little guys" with coach Franklin

And of course we counted this as PE.

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Let's see.  Our crazy life has been keeping us busy.  Here's some of what you missed.

The end of the spring Homeschooler's bowling league.

The Pink Princesses are winners!  That's Mackenzie with her teammate, Olivia.

The pizza party.

We went on a fieldtrip today.  We took a river cruise on the Spirit of Norfolk to learn about the Elizabeth River Eco system.

Listening to the speaker tell us about the river.  He was boring and his program was not well thought out.  Even I zoned out.  (I probably zoned out before the kids. LOL)  It was one long lecture.  Mackenzie is the green/yellow bow toward the front .

He was also supposed to bring a portable touch tank.  Yeah, that was great.  An igloo cooler with one horseshoe crab.  Nice...

Homeschoolers (and private schoolers) like to boogie

Our friends Devlin and Ava.  Devlin loves him some Mackenzie. LOL

On our way back to the car, we visited some of the mermaids scattered around Norfolk.

A real anchor

A view of the river

Poor little wounded birdie in our driveway.

Mackenzie was upset that she was hurt but don't worry, we got the birdie some help.

Our new firepit.  And I'd like it to be known that it was 90 degrees that morning. But the minute we hit the beach the temp dropped 30 degrees.  We were really freezing. So we bought the pit. (And grandpa Mike and Grandma Sally were visiting.)

Mackenzie and Miranda joyriding

Mmmm, s'mores

Hot

Posted in homeschooling

Another week gone by and we actually did school this week.  LOL No visitors, no babysitting, just us.

We finished up doubles +1 in MUS.  Next week we begin addition, making 10.  We touched on that in the Primer level and she seemed to grasp it fairly quickly.  I'm hoping she'll remember it.

We started reading Understood Betsy.  It started out slow but it got good fast.  I think this one will be a favorite.  We added a little hands-on to this book by making butter out of whipping cream.  We both like country crock better. LOL

Mackenzie finished reading The Sword in the Tree.  She didn't even want to start that one because it looked like a "boy book" but she loved it.  How could she ever doubt Sonlight's selections? LOL 

We have one more reader and then we are finished with the grade 2s.  We have the grade 3 readers waiting but I think I'm going to hold off on those until fall.  I'm going to try SL's improved LA again and I want to save the readers to go along with it. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to order the grade 3 level LA and I'd like the readers to match.  And I'll still have the 3-5 readers/LA for when we start core 2 in January.

We have about 9 more weeks of LLATL left before we're finished but I've been alternating that with Explode the Code.  Trying to make things last longer before we have to shell out more money.  Being back in the states has made money tighter then ever.

We have finally gotten our handwriting program caught up with our spelling program.  We had stopped doing spelling so that handwriting could catch up.  We wanted out lessons to match up so the story we read in spelling matched up with the verse we're doing for handwriting.  It's our school and that's how we like it. LOL

Seriously, Mackenzie was thrilled this week when she realized the girl in the story was "doing" the same handwriting as she was and learning the same verse.  It's the little things in life that make us happy. LOL

In science we studied Uranus and Neptune.  We also caught up with some experiments that we had missed from the last time we did science.  (Which incidently, I can't recall. LOL)

We are still studying Egypt in history.  Mackenzie is in love with Egypt.  She checked out 10 more books on Egypt from the library.  So far this has been her favorite.

I also found, on my computer, files for lapbooks on ancient Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia, and Rome.  I had forgotten I had bought them from Hands of a Child for a steal.  A couple bucks each.

Anyhow, I'm going to add them in.  We won't be making lapbooks but we will do some of the activities and add them to our History Pockets.

Daddy leaves for more training this weekend, so we are going to go strawberry picking with some friends to distract ourselves.  Maybe I'll have to learn how to make something with the strawberries. LOL

Posted in homeschooling

Seriously, we're still alive.  I've tried posting but I'm still having problems with HSB since the "upgrades."  Almost everytime I go to post, it  gets lost/times out/insert other terrible glitch here.  I am beyond frusterated.  But here I am to try again.

Mackenzie's picked up a new daddy/daughter hobby, fishing...

Mackenzie had a taste of "life with a sibling" this week.  We watched a 3 yo girl, Kaitlyn, for a co-worker of Kevin's.  Day 1: "Are little sisters always this annoying?"  Uh-huh! LOL

In this next picture, I asked Mackenzie what she was drawing.  "The Nile River with a crocodile and fish."  I was impressed since we're currently studying ancient Egypt.  I was even more impressed when we looked at the picture on the computer.  "Look mom.  It looks like Kaitlyn is trying to catch a fish with a spear like the Egyptians."  One more reason why I'm convinced that every penny I spend (and I spend lots LOL) on Sonlight Curriculum is money well spent.

Today we went on a field trip to Hunt Club Farm.  We had a great time learning about various animals, insects, and plants.  We even had a chance to, GASP, socialize. LOL

Learning about birds with our guide, Ms. Renee.

Planting sunflowers

Digging for worms in a compost bed

These eggs are really popular.  All the hens want to sit on them.  Renee says it's common for more then one hen to sit on the same eggs. LOL

Check out the tadpoles.  Our friend is going to get us some for free so we can "grow some froggies."

Even Kaitlyn sat nicely and listened.  Just like in "real school." (Some family members are concerned that my dd wouldn't be able to do that. Here's proof that she can.)

Posing with Daisy the calf.  See how patient Daisy was when Clara and Kaitlyn put her in a choke hold? LOL

Goat time

Mackenzie with the Rancorts (fellow SLers) Kyle, Lauren, and Clara