Amazed!!!

Jun. 3, 2008

More cooking 6/2/08

One thing we're going to try to do this summer and hopefully the next school year is to have more cooking lessons.  I am going to try to have one girl make something each week.  We started with K. making pancakes from scratch.  I have been tinkering with vegan cooking, so we made these pancakes vegan and they were delicious!! I was planning to take a picture of the pancakes alone but they were gobbled up too fast!  The recipe came from this awesome vegan cookbook, called Vegan With a Vengeance, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.  This link takes you to her website and is a recipe for banana walnut pancakes.  The basic pancake recipe is the same thing except without the bananas and walnuts.  It is technically FQ's week next week to make something so I may try to have each girl cook once next week.  And FQ can help.  He loves to help.  God bless, A.H.

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Jun. 3, 2008

Art work! 6/2/08

I have been terrible about posting pics of the girls' art work.  Here are their self portraits from the last 2 weeks of their art class. First, their teacher wanted them to practice their self portraits on paper.  Here is L's: And here is A's: I can't find any pics of K with hers, so I guess I must not have taken any.  Here are their final art projects, their self portraits on canvas: We really have enjoyed art class this year.  Sadly, our teacher is moving out of the country so we will have to work out something different for art.  Any suggestions? God bless, A.H.

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May. 31, 2008

This week in review, 5/31/08

We had a very light but productive week, I think.  My goals for this week were to get some things done, catch up, and rest.  I think we did that. K. and A., both just did a lot of math review this week.  They both also read on their own--A. is reading Charlotte's Web, while K. is reading book 6 of the Anne of Green Gables series.  She is eating through those books, like she does with every book she reads.  We went through the math part of her standardized testing and she got all the practice problems correct.  I am so proud of her.    L. homeschooled like usual.  Her stuff only takes 30 min per day, and I can't take any more breaks.  She is rapidly accelerating in her reading and reading well above her current readers and her program.  She'll be done with LA 1 in 12 weeks, which seems like it's too long.  FQ was his usual cute self.  I did buy him some paints to occupy him while I work with the girls.  We haven't opened up the paints yet, so we'll see if I have shot myself in the foot or not!!  LOL Today, Friday, was very relaxing. Usually Fridays are supposed to be our "rest" days.  We usually run around so much during the week and work so hard, that I have made Fridays our "light" and our "social" days.  We used to meet with one other homeschooling family on Fridays. Well, recently, I have been meeting with that family only every other Friday.  I guess I was feeling really drained on Fridays, plus I wanted to have the option of going to Friday park day with the local homeschooling group if I wanted to.  Today was one of those Fridays where we didn't meet with that other family.  I thought about going to the park day, but felt too tired.  And the kids were tired.  So we did errands and had some fun instead.  We returned clothes at a store, went down to the city's aquatics office to transfer A. out of her swim class, and then went grocery shopping.  We got back home in the afternoon and made homemade ice cream!!!  In the late afternoon and evening, we got very busy again.  K. had gym practice, L. had gym class, and A. had her last swim class of this session.  So I am glad we got to "rest" a bit. Next week will be a true rest week.  K. has only dance--no gym or tennis.  A. has only gym, no yoga or piano, and L. has nothing.  We will go to our neighborhood pool, cook a lot, read a lot, and play with Daddy a lot.  We're looking forward to it.  At the end of the week, we are flying out of state to go to a friend's wedding.  It will be the first of many trips this summer.  God bless, A.H.

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May. 28, 2008

This week

Well, this week we just plan to take it easy.  Since we are on a light schedule, we are very laid back and subsequently end up not doing a lot of stuff.  I don't know how this happens.  When we are actively working hard, we get almost all of our stuff done.  When we are doing "light" schedule, where we have only half of our usual assignments planned, we end up not getting a lot of stuff done.  I guess we just don't prioritize or focus during our "light" weeks.  So we are going to just do a math review, K. will continue studying for her standardized tests, and A. will keep reading Charlotte's Web and I will hopefully start The Horse and His Boy with her this week.  We have been trying to start it since last week.  L. is just flying with her reading.  She is on week 23 of LA 1 but her reading level is well beyond that.  I have considered not finishing the LA 1 program because she doesn't seem to need it, but I think she actually does.  She needs the foundational phonics "rules" and the spelling and dictation.  So we'll keep doing it, even though she is now reading Level 2 readers very well.  We had a very nice visit with my parents this past weekend.  We don't usually do much for Memorial Day, except travel, which is what we did this time as well.  LOL  But K. had a great meet.  She is happy with how she did.  She came in 5th All-Around, 2nd on beam, 5th on bars and 7th on vault.  Not bad for a first Level 5 meet.  It was great to have the family see her--my parents, my brother and sister in law, and my best friend who is essentially my sister, were all able to watch her.  And of course, her siblings and us.  We all had a very nice time!!!  So that is all we're doing this week.  Next week is the "last week of school" for our area's public schools, so I want to enjoy our days now.  God bless, A.H.

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May. 23, 2008

Week's summary, plans for the summer, 5/23/08

So we continue our weeks of light homeschooling. The girls are continuing to do MUS.  K. is working on preparing for standardized tests, A. is reading, writing and doing logic (her favorite subject).  L. is working through LA 1 and just being cute.  One morning this week, I woke up to find that K. had baked her own breakfast.  I bought some of those refrigerated dough things--one for cinnamon rolls and one for "crescent" rolls.  I had taught her how to make these a while back but she had never done it completely on her own. So that morning, she did both rolls!  All by herself.  I was so proud.  I know it's just refrigerated dough, but still.  I love that my kids are learning to work in the kitchen.  I am determined to raise children who cook, and cook well.  We have lots of plans for the summer.  Some are already set, others are in progress. Here's what we have so far.  Confirmed:  Las Vegas trip early June to attend the wedding of a friend. Pretty sure:  trip to Destin, FL late June, family trip (with my bother, his wife and her family) Still in the works:  Spanish school in Mexico mid to end of July, NYC/Prague/Vienna trip end of Aug I will also confirm by tomorrow 2 camps for K.  One ballet camp here in town, another competitive gymnastics camp at a gym that cranks out Olympians.  We also have swim lessons, and maybe karate camp for A.  We'll see.  More later, A.H.

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May. 23, 2008

Weekend plans, being a sports mom

Well tomorrow we are going to travel to my parents' house.  They live about 160 miles from us, 2.5hrs by car.  It is the Memorial Day weekend.  It is also the weekend before K's 9th birthday and 2 weeks after L's 5th birthday.  So we are excited to see family and enjoy the big shin dig that my mom has planned out. But the overall reason we're going is for K.s gymnastics meet.  It will be her first meet as a level 5 gymnast.  Just in case you don't follow gymnastics, the levels go from 1 (beginner) to Elite (what all the Olympic folks are).  Elite is after level 10.  Kids compete (go to meets) as early as level 2, but most gymnastics folks say that the competitions don't "count" until Level 5.  Whatever that means.  LOL  I guess it means that if you want your kid to go "all the way" in gymnastics, Level 5 is when you start to "get serious" about it.  Well--we aren't that ambitious.  Do I dream about K winning a gold medal?  Of course I do.  LOL  I dream about her winning Wimbledon, of L. winning a gold in swimming, of A. becoming a chess master.  I dream of saving the life of some very wealthy person who is then so grateful that s/he gives me one million dollars.  I confess that is my most recurrent dream.  LOL  It's funny that when K. was a baby, I thought about having her take dance, tennis, soccer, whatever.  I wanted my kids to take dance classes and play sports.  But I always thought about doing all of this on a recreational level.  It never occurred to me to do anything competitively--as in tournaments, competitions, more than one class per week, and lots of hours of practice.  I grew up in a family that didn't think athletics was important.  My hubby was completely the opposite!  When we met in college, he had just decided not to turn pro in tennis.  Up until then, that was what he was going to do with his life--play tennis professionally.  He also played soccer at a pretty high level.  So to him, "recreational sports", where you play just for fun, was a new concept.  At any rate, when K. was in her little preschool dance classes, we would go to the recitals and watch the big girls dance, the ones who were in the competitive dance classes.  I would say to myself, "that is not the route we'll be taking, that is too much".  But then, K. turned 6 and her dance teachers recommended her for the competitive level classes.  Wow.  I guess the reason I had always thought of my kids doing stuff recreationally was because I myself never qualified to take a competitive level class!  But for my hubby, it was perfectly natural to at least try the competitive level classes, as long as she liked it. Well, 3 years later and she still loves dance.  Somewhere in there, we tried a gym class and she excelled there and was promoted and recommended for the competitive team.  And since tennis is in her blood, she tried her hand at that and according to my hubby, she's very good.  And of course we have A. doing her dance, gym and yoga and loving all of that.  And little L. is quite athletic herself.  Already her swim instructors are telling me that she's quite a swimmer.  So...I've become a sports mom.  It has been an interesting experience.  I've learned a lot about myself and I have had to really let go of things and go back to God so often.  See...I am somewhat competitive.  My parents weren't into athletics, but they were very much into academics and that is where I was very competitive, many times in a negative way.  I became a Christian at age 19, so up until then, my competitive nature went pretty much unchecked, and I was guilty of a lot of "unsportsman-like conduct" in the academic world.  No--I never cheated on anything.  But I didn't share information, I was arrogant, maybe conceited, and I thought horrid thoughts about my fellow classmates.  I did what I could, short of cheating, to get ahead.  It was all about me winning the prize and keeping others from getting close to it. So when I watch my little girl compete, I have to really tell myself over and over that it's not about me.  This is her dream, her life, her sports.  The most important thing is that she enjoy it, that she wants to do it for herself and not for me.  When she stops enjoying it, I must be able to say to her sincerely, "you don't have to keep going".  I recently read a book about being a sports parent that I thought was excellent.  No--it is not a Christian book as in written by a Christian author.  But I think it is an excellent book on this topic nonetheless.  It's called Parenting Young Athletes the Ripken Way: Ensuring the Best Experience for Your Kids in Any Sport and it's written by Hall of Famer Cal Ripken (or his ghost writer, who knows!).  How did I stumble upon this book?  I have been a fan of Cal Ripken since his rookie year, 1982.  I was a huge Baltimore Orioles fan as a kid and grew up watching Cal play and followed him and the O's every year, even all the bad years, and if you know anything about major league baseball, you know that the O's have more bad years than good years.  LOL  So--I had to get this book just because it is written by Cal.  But it turned out to be a gem of a book!  The whole focus was how to keep kids interested and enjoying sports.  It was totally kid focused.  It talked about totally letting go as a parent and allowing your kid to enjoy his/her sports and not interfering and imposing your dreams on them.  He talks about being a good sports parent, about modeling good sportsmanship, about giving the game back to the kids.  This is one of my favorite quotes, right from the first chapter, "Remember, that little guy or gal out on the field is indeed your flesh and blood, but is not you...be very careful about putting your own lost or dashed dreams onto hers.  The bottom line is that your childhood is over.  It's done, finished, and it's in the books.  And your child's life experiences in sports are going to be her own, no matter what." (pp. 12-13) I loved the book because it helps me keep things in focus.  I have sat there at practices and I have listened to other parents.  I have seen them yell at their kids during practice, berate them after meets, and just be plain ol' stinky to their kids.  I have seen them be obnoxious and hoot and holler in the stands.  I have listened to them talk to me about how they don't care if their kid isn't having fun, they will do this and they can only quit after they get that gold medal.  I do not want to be that parent.  Not ever.  Anyway--this reminds me of yet another reason I love Christianity.  Christianity is not about competition.  It is all about cooperation.  It is about winning the race yourself....and then going back and helping others finish the race too.  It is about picking someone up who may not be able to finish the race himself and helping him along.  It is about trying to get as many people to finish the race as possible.  It is about hugging and celebrating with everyone else at the finish line.  It is about everyone who chooses getting a "gold" and everyone being a winner.  It's about the ultimate prize, that is better than anything on earth--eternity with our Maker.  So, this being K's first "serious" meet, I told her I didn't care if she got a 3 or a 10.  She's my hero.  She always has been and always will be.  God bless, A.H.

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May. 18, 2008

Weeks 27-36, not in review (NEW AND IMPROVED FORMAT!)

So I have decided a few things.  First, I don't really know how to blog.  Obviously, I seem to think it is documenting every last detail of what we're doing in our homeschool.  I blame this on my professional background as a family physician.  I am acting like I have to document our homeschool the same way I would document everything I did with my patients.  Clearly this is sick thinking.  Plus--I am sure no one was really interested in the minute details of what we're doing.  Just in case there is someone out there who is, just send me a message to let me know and I will tell you! But from now on, I am just going to summarize what we're actually doing, and I am going to try to document more what we're discussing, or maybe the main points that we're learning.  Or something.  Anything different than what I was doing before. So--from weeks 27-36, we just followed pretty closely Sonlights IG for Core 3.  We really enjoyed this Core.  My favorite books were Naya Nuki, Secret of the Andes, and Walk the World's Rim.  I also really enjoyed Incans, Aztecs, and Mayans.  I concentrated in Latin American Studies in college and this was a great review--through a Christian worldview--of those great civilizations.  K.'s favorite books were Carry On, Mr. Bowditch and Johnny Tremain.  I believe she liked more but those stuck out in her mind.  A. enjoyed The Secret Soldier, The Trail of Tears, and Escape North!  The Story of Harriet Tubman.  Interestingly, none of these were SL books but books I bought from Winter Promise. Why did I buy books from WP?  Well--since all of the "read alouds" in Core 3 were too advanced for A., I had this grand scheme of buying WP books (from their American Story I program) to use as "read alouds".  This plan did not work out too well.  Only The Birchbark House and The Secret Soldier were really suitable for this purpose.  Then, I realized that I could just read the Core 3 "readers" to A. as her "read alouds".  This way, K. could read the book as a "reader" and A. could have the same book read aloud to her and they'd be experiencing the same book together.  So...after I realized that I could do that, I no longer paid any attention to the WP books that I bought.  However, A. still read some of them on her own, and must have really liked them.  So at least the WP disaster wasn't all a waste.  K. finished the LA 3 program with flying colors, and I really think her writing has improved significantly this year.  I will publish all of her writing assignments on this blog at some point.  A. finished up LA Intermediate 2, also with flying colors.  I believe her reading comprehension has really improved for the year.  L. is working her way through LA 1, and actually reading Level 2 (or Step 2) readers, even though they are more advanced than her LA 1 readers.  She has really taken off as a reader!  We are not doing any of the grammar in LA 1, as she is way too young, but we do the phonics, reading, and spelling.  She is actually a pretty good speller too. Speaking of spelling, we learned this year that Sequential Spelling, the spelling program that SL seems to prefer, did not work well for K.  She did not like it and I don't think her spelling improved much with it.  We will try Spelling Power next year.  A., however, did really well with Sequential Spelling.  She is a visual learner, so I think she "sees" the word in her mind much more easily than K.  K. is a strong auditory learner and this shows in her spelling, as she still tends to try to spell a lot of words phonetically.  She'd do much better in spelling if our native language was Spanish, where so many of the words are spelled phonetically.  Oh well--at least our native tongue isn't French.  On the topic of Spanish, our art/Spanish combo class did not work out well at all.  We loved the art teacher and she taught art very well.  I had assumed that because she is a native Argentinian and fluent Spanish speaker, that she would not mind teaching the art class in Spanish.  Well....her primary focus was teaching art...and there were a few other children in our art class.  So--she ended up speaking a lot of English, many times almost all English.  So--we started Rosetta Stone again mid year.  Only K. and A. are doing RS, but they are doing well with it.  I am still working on finding a Spanish class for next year.  I like RS for basics, but languages are living and you have to practice it--listening and speaking--to really learn it.  Math-wise, K. finished up Math U See's Gamma book and started Delta.  A. finished up Beta and started Gamma.  L. is doing well with Primer.  Nothing to report really.  MUS works great for us.  K. discovered this year that she liked writing in her journal and writing letters to her friends.  She writes to 3 friends.  One of these girls has been her friend since they were toddlers.  She lives in our neighborhood and goes to a Christian school, so they don't see each other much.  Another girl used to be on K's gymnastics team.  And the last girl, K. met on our cruise.  For writing practice, she has to write either in her journal or write a letter to a pen-pal.  A. finished up her Music for Mozarts program in piano and began taking private piano lessons this past February.  She is doing really well.  K. is still working on the hs piano program I got from SL's catalog.  She'll finish up the level 1 book this summer and in the fall, she'll start taking private lessons.  I am really not a piano teacher, I just played when I was a kid.  I think she's developing bad habits like keeping her wrists down too low and not using dynamics.  So--it's time to get a real teacher.  I was very on and off wrt their art appreciation.  Some weeks we'd do it, other weeks not.  I am looking to improve on this next school year.  In science, I fizzled out wrt the science experiments.  We did finish all the readings, but got behind on the experiments.  I am so grateful SL now has those DVDs for purchase.  Basically, those Discover and Do DVDs show someone else doing all the scheduled science experiments so whenever I didn't feel up to doing an experiment, (usually do to time constraints and/or my feelings of intimidation), we'd just watch the DVD and see the experiment.  Anyway--we are now finished reading all the science books for Science 2 and watched the whole DVD so we "did" all of SL's Science 2 program.  K. got promoted to the senior team in gym this past Jan, so she has been working out at the gym for 10.5 hours per week.  She still dances in the competitive "company" classes so she's at the dance studio 5 hours per week.  And she still takes 3 hours total per week of tennis--1 hr of private lessons, 2 hrs of class.  A. still takes one hour each of gym and yoga, and 1.5 hours of dance per week.  And L. takes one hour each of dance and gym.  This year they are all taking swim lessons.  K. will do a week day camp at a big time gym (by this I mean a gym that cranks out Olympians).  She will also do a ballet dance camp and she and her friend (the one she's known since they were toddlers) will do a horse camp.  A. and L. will do a gym camp.  I may put A. in a karate/martial arts camp.  I want her to start that next fall so I thought summer camp would be a good intro.  I think this is all.  This ended up still being long, but at least it's not as boring.  I hope.  Oh...how can I forget.  Mr. FQ weaned at 2.5 years.  Very very bittersweet for me.  I have breastfed on and off (mostly on) for nearly 9 years in a row and have enjoyed 99% of that time.  I am so glad I nursed all 4 of my children and will remain a breastfeeding advocate for the rest of my life.  He is talking so much and in long complete sentences.  He has a very advanced vocabulary too!  He is also quite an athlete! Okay--that is enough of an update. We are currently taking it easy, between Cores.  The girls are continuing in math, L. is still doing her LA 1, and K. is doing some workbooks to prepare for standardized testing.  We have decided to have her take the standardized test that our state uses to evaluate public school kids.  She'll take it at home, since I can dl it off the official website.  We plan to start Core 4 sometime in August.  God bless, A.H.

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May. 4, 2008

Finally! An update! (May 4, 2008)

May 4, 2008 Well hello everyone again!  It has been literally months since I have written.  I knew I would be a bad blogger!  But here I am, trying again. We certainly have been homeschooling for all this time and have finished our official school year.  We are still doing stuff but we are done with Core 3.  Yay!  We loved that core, but it is always a good feeling to finish. But before I go on any further about cores and the like, I wanted to tell you all about the biggest news in our homeschool.  We finally finished construction on our “homeschool room”!!!  No—we did not do any construction!  If you knew my husband and I, you’d know that we are certifiable city slickers who don’t know the least thing about building things.  But we went through Home Depot and we are very pleased!  Enjoy the pics! Here is the "before" picture--we had a small patio area here. They broke up the concrete there and laid down a new concrete slab: FQ was a great help to the construction workers!  Anyway--you can see the new slab is more than twice the size of the old one. Here is the room when it was done--empty: We had the concrete floor stained.  Here is a close up: We are very happy with the way the floor turned out. We eagerly filled up the room with our homeschool things: K's desk area: A's desk area: And this table is for L and FQ to work on.  This used to be the only table in our previous homeschool room (which was really one of the bedrooms upstairs). In the far corner, we have a bookshelf and the kiddie trampoline for venting academic frustrations.  The trampoline is currently broken: This is our "parking" area: And last but not least, this is the IKEA bookshelf we got specifically for the room. It houses Cores PK 3/4, PK 4/5, K, 1 and 2, plus all the LA programs for those cores, along with school supplies and various other things.  We are just loving our new homeschool digs.  It has definitely become a highlight of the house.  We spend our days downstairs and I love being able to cook, do laundry, and homeschool without running up and down the stairs.  I hope to update more this coming week! God bless, A.

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Dec. 7, 2007

K's work up to date, 11/25/07

Dec. 7, 2007

Week in review 11/25-12/2/07 (Week 26)

Dec. 6, 2007

Weeks in review 11/5-11/25/07 (Week 25ish)

Nov. 17, 2007

Week in review, Oct 29-Nov 4, week 24

Oct. 31, 2007

Field trips!

Last week, we went to visit a botanical garden in our city.  This garden's theme is natural plants and flowers.  We had a great time!  The last time we were here was when K. had her 5th birthday party.  It has been a long time.  The weather was perfect, with clear blue skies and only 70 degrees F.  Here are some of our pics from that trip. Oh well, I'm not nearly as good of a photographer as K.  But I try.  LOL A.H.

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Oct. 31, 2007

K's work up to date, 10/30/07

For the past 3 weeks, K. has been working on a research project about dolphins.  Here is her final draft: All About Dolphins The reason I wrote this report on dolphins and nothing else is that I do not know much about dolphins.  Also, I think that they are pretty and amazing. There it is!  A school of dolphins!  There is a very interesting fact about dolphin schools but first we must learn more about dolphins.  What are they anyway?  Fish, right?   After all, they live in the seas and rivers.  But no, they are mammals like you!  Mammals always feed milk to their young.  But unlike humans, the mother dolphins push the milk out instead of the baby sucking it.  Mammals are also warm blooded, which means that no matter what, its insides stay the same temperature.  Also, they do not lay eggs.  Dolphins are also whales.  In fact, most small toothed whales are called dolphins. There are over 50 kinds of dolphins, including Tucuxi, Encantador, Spotted, Boto, Bottlenose and White sided. Dolphins are not big or small—they are in the middle.  Most kinds are 6 feet long.  But sometimes, when the water pressure where the dolphin is swimming is very high, the dolphin is pushed into a smaller shape.  When a dolphin is born, it is 25-40 pounds.  Dolphins look very pretty.  They are rather long and are usually grey, but some can be pink or change colour.  Their skin is very soft because it falls off very often.  Soft skin can help the dolphin swim faster because the rougher the skin is the more it lags behind.  Some dolphins have only 8 teeth, while some have 140. Tucuxi dolphins have short beaks and about 140 teeth, while Botos have longer beaks and about 100 teeth.  All dolphins eat fish.  Some eat squid or small animals like crabs.  Dolphins live all over the world, even the Amazon River.  Some dolphins live in schools that have 1000 dolphins in them.  Dolphins can swim at 25 mph and can leap 20 feet, but the most interesting thing about them is their sonar system.  A dolphin uses its sonar by making a click and measuring how long it takes for its echo to come back.  The shorter it takes, the closer something is.  Just by using its sonar, a dolphin can tell a piece of aluminum from a piece of copper of the exact same size. Dolphins are very interesting animals.  It is easy to see why so many divers and scientists study them so much. Not bad for a first time.  She used a note card system, which worked very well.  She is putting together a bibliography, which I will include later on this week. God bless, A.H.

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Oct. 31, 2007

Week in review, 10/22-29/07, week 23

Oct. 28, 2007

Art work! 10/28/07

Here are some more pictures of the projects the girls have been working on. They have been working on drawing portraits.  Their teacher had them draw portraits of each other.  So K. did a portrait of A.: And this is A.'s portrait of K. (the car was put there to cover up A's name!): And finally, L. did a portrait of a boy in her class: The week after that, the girls worked on making their own pinatas.  A.'s pinata: And here is L.'s: And this is K.'s: The girls continue to really enjoy the class!  They worked on origami the next week, but their work was played with and thus destroyed pretty quickly.  LOL  I guess that is what they are for!!! A.H.

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Oct. 28, 2007

Week in review, 10/15-10/21 (week 22)

October 23, 2007 Week in review Oct 15-21, 2007 (week 22) We had a great week!  It was still hot this past week, which is always a bummer for me.  My favorite season is autumn and I always envision beautiful trees in all shades of browns and oranges, crisp “sweater weather” and just beauty all around.  The reality here is 90 degree weather, and leaves going from green on the trees to brown on the ground.  LOL  Oh well.  I am sure the weather will get less summery soon.  So we continued on with our Bible studies in Acts, reading about Paul’s missionary travels.  He is in Jerusalem now, and is preaching/teaching the people there.  However, as usual, he has met with a lot of adversity, and has been “arrested” and taken to speak before higher authorities.  Our readings for this week came from Acts 23, starting from verse 12, ending with Acts 26:  13.  We read about the Crow Indian tribe this week, and prayed for them, using The American Indian Prayer Guide.  We began reading The Story of Eli Whitney, who, of course, invented the cotton gin.  We really enjoy this book!  Eli is quite a character, highly intelligent, tenacious and just overall very likeable.  He has a great work ethic.  We discussed what it means to have a good work ethic.  Eli became friends with a wealthy Southern lady who owned a plantation, and he could have spent his days there doing nothing.  However, he was not comfortable with that.  He wanted to do something around the plantation, or to pay her, or something because he could not stand not being “worth his salt.”  We talked about how he didn’t want to take advantage of someone’s generosity, and how it was much better to try to work for a living or to do your fair share in a cooperative manner. This week, we learned about the Iroquois concept of owning land.  Like many Native American tribes, they believe that the land did not belong to anyone, that they were just using it and make it productive, but they would return the land back to the earth.  We also read about what they wore for clothing and how they prepared them from deer skins.  We also read about moccasins and how to make them.  They look very comfortable! We read poems by Robert Louis Stevenson this week.  We had read an entire book of poems by him last year, so we were already familiar with these poems.  However, it was fun to re-read them.  We read “A Good Play”, “Block City”, and “From a Railway Carriage”.  The girls enjoyed all the poems and liked how they were easy to understand but still very profound in their message.  We continued reading from Living World Encyclopedia.  We learned about grassland plants, and how they cope with dry periods and with plant-eaters.  We learned about how early farmers chose seeds from wild plants with the biggest seeds, and in time, new species of grasses grew.  We read about grassland plant-eaters, how there are browsers and grazers.  Browsers eat the leaves from trees and bushes, while grazers eat grass.  We read about how animals will migrate to get the best food, and how their bodies use plants for food.  We also learned about grassland meat-eaters, how they basically prey upon grassland plant-eaters.  We learned about the 2 different types of carnivores—predators and scavengers.  Finally, we read about how plant-eaters survive on grasslands, how some of them can run away from predators, while others use their size and natural armor or camouflage to help them hide. We also read about watching the wind this week.  We made a wind-catcher.  We took a paper plate and taped 4 plastic cups to it.  We marked one of the cups with duct tape to distinguish it from the others.  We took an empty spool and taped it to the bottom of the plate, and then stuck a stick in it.  We then took our wind-catcher outside to see if the wind could turn it around and then we would count how many times it turned it around.  Unfortunately, there was no wind, and we didn’t catch anything.  We put our wind-catcher away to use another day, but then FQ came along and tore it apart.  Bummer.  We also read about hurricanes and how powerful and damaging they can be.  Our experiment ideas and information came from Usborne's Science Activities volume 3. A., had a pretty good week.  She continues to blaze forth in math, finishing up with multiple digit addition.  She was able to teach me this concept and thus was able to move onto the next lesson, which was subtracting multiple digit numbers (without regrouping).  She did well with this this week.  Language arts was pretty uneventful this week—she completed pages 129-133 from her Modern Curriculum Press phonics book, and did word lists 108-111 in her Sequential Spelling 1 book.  We did our usual 2 dictations this week without incident, and she finally got back to doing a creative writing project.  She is still working on her handwriting using Printing Power.  For her reading, she finished up The House on Walenska Street and seemed to really like it, as she kept telling us all about the book!  For our read aloud, we read Martha Washington, Our first First Lady, which A., also really enjoyed.  We finished up the book on Martha Washington this week. K., finished up her math lesson about prime and composite numbers and taught it to me appropriately.  She worked on the concept of a mile.  She is almost done with Gamma!!! For vocabulary, she wrote 2 sentences each from lesson 5 from Wordly Wise B.  She is still working on her research project about dolphins.  She worked on making an informational outline and a working outline.  She worked hard compiling all her notecards together and putting them in order.  She did spelling lists 108-11 from Sequential Spelling 2.  She read Martha Washington, Our first First Lady and finished it up this week.  We also read Carry on, Mr. Bowditch, chapters 6-10 this week for our read aloud.  K. also read selections from 2 Kings through 2 Chronicles this week.  This week was L.’s first official week!  She started SL’s LA 1 program this week, so I thought I could officially post about her studies as well! She began with an introduction to her spelling words for the week.  She had no trouble reading all of them.  She also worked on her printing using HWT’s Letters and Numbers for me book.  She also read all the words from the I Can Read It Word Lists book, lesson 1.  She also read from I Can Read It! Book 1, lesson 1.  She read all the readings without any trouble.  For math, we just reviewed her numbers.  She can count up to 150.  We 4 stories from 101 Favorite Stories from the Bible, and also read the following books:  Baby Says, Noah’s Ark, If you Give a Pig a Pancake, If you Take a Mouse to the Movies, George Shrinks, Calling Dr. Amelia Bedelia, and finally a short book called, What is Love?.  L., seems to really enjoy homeschooling!  That is all!!!  We are looking forward to fall weather next week!  God bless, A.H.

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Oct. 28, 2007

A.'s work to date 10/28/07

A., finally got back to doing some creative writing project.  Her assignment for week 22 (beginning Oct 15) was to narrate a story about her life.  Here is her story: I went to my Spanish and art class last Tuesday.  I go every Tuesday and Thursday.  I like my classes.  Last Tuesday I made kites.  Last Thursday, pinatas.  When it was Tuesday I made a house and I painted it.  We painted the roof red and the front of the house white.  I painted some flowers on it.  I painted some flowers on a brick.  We painted a dragonfly and two butterflies.  I liked the house, it was pretty.  For week 23, she was to compose a time line based on the events in the book she read last week, The House on Walenska Street.  She was to think of ten events in the book and put them chronological order.  Here is her time line, written on 10/24/07: 1)  Esther put a ribbon in her nose. 2)  Esther got stuck in the window.  3) Rose, Ester and Leah go to a shop. 4) They each get 2 apples. 5) They get a piece of candy to share. 6) Leah gives the candy to Ester and Esther eats the candy. 7) Esther and Rose play with glass. 8) Esther put on the locket before she got dressed and she forgot about it.  9) They went into the cellar while the soldiers are in their house. 10) Mama is happy that Esther didn’t listen to her mama and that Esther wore the locket. That is it up to date.  I think she is progressing very well.  A.H.

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Oct. 21, 2007

Week in review, 10/8-10/14/2007 (week 21)

October 18, 2007 Week in review, 10/8-10/14/2007 (week 21) What a wild week we had.  It seems that we had all sorts of appointments and things this week, plus K. had a gym meet this weekend.  We were crazy!  But we managed to get quite a bit done. For our Bible studies, we continued studying Paul’s missionary journeys and his trials and hard times.  We also read about the Cherokee tribe in American Indian Prayer Guide.  We are very saddened when we read about any of the tribes that were force to endure the Trail of Tears.  What a sad piece of history.  For memory work this week, the girls are choosing passages to memorize that are not from the Bible.  A. is memorizing the last part of Patrick Henry’s speech, and K. is memorizing Longfellow’s poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride”.  The girls will have 6 weeks to memorize these. We read about the post-war era this week in our Landmark history book, and we also read about it in The Story of the USA, book 2.  We read two stories from American Adventures, which were very interesting.  They were about what was going on during the Revolutionary war years, but in the western part of what is now the USA.  We read about the Spanish government trying to get folks from Mexico to settle into California, in order to try to protect CA from Russian and French invaders.  We were impressed with the hard work all these folks went through in order to put together fine towns and cities.  We also read about the beginning settlers of Los Angeles.  For our poetry readings, we read selections written by Thomas Hardy in Classical Poetry.  It was a pleasure to read some of his poems—we discussed how his claim to fame was initially his novels, but that he later turned to poetry.  We read “Snow in the Suburbs”, “Throwing a Tree”, and “At the Railway Station, Upway”.  I have been very impressed by the girls’ understanding of the poems and am glad for their early exposure to poetry.  I remember being frightened of having to “decipher” poetry when I was in high school.  I think having this early exposure helps children to enjoy and love poetry and not be intimidated by it. Because of our crazy week, we limited our Iroquois studies to just two topics.  We learned about the many different ways they used to make corn, and we learned about their meal patterns.  Apparently in Iroquois families, you only ate with your family at breakfast times.  The rest of the day, a pot of food would be left out and you just helped yourself whenever you were hungry.  We thought that was very interesting!!! For science this week, we learned about estuaries.  We learned how estuaries form, what life is like in an estuary, what strange animals live in estuaries and we learned about mangrove swamps.  We also learned about islands, how they form, and what sort of animals live on islands.  We learned that there were some birds that were once able to fly, but became flightless after many years of living on the island because they just didn’t need to fly.  We discussed how, even among humans, skills can be dropped due to lack of use.  For example, in previous decades, all women knew how to sew and knit because that was the only way you could get new clothes.  You made your own.  However, in time, factories were made and clothes were manufactured and were cheaper and thus, women no longer really had to learn to sew or knit.  We finished our week in science by learning about grasslands.  We learned what sorts of grasses grew in these areas and how they grow there.  All of our science studies are from Living World Encyclopedia.  We also read from Usborne Science Activities vol. 3.  We are learning about weather.  First we learned about air pressure.  We learned about air pressure.  We did an experiment where we filled a plastic cup with water.  Then we put a piece of cardboard over it.  We then turned the cup over--and were amazed when the cardboard did not fall and splash water all over us!!!  The air pressure pushing up against the cardboard was enough to keep the cardboard in place.  Then we made a homemade barometer to figure out when the air pressure was high or low.  We took a jar, stretched a balloon over it, then taped a straw with a pointed end over the balloon.  We then taped a piece of construction paper to the back.  When the air pressure outside is greater than the air pressure inside the bottle, the outside air pressure will push down on the balloon and the straw will be pushed up, like what we observed the next day: The next day, the outside air pressure must have been a lot higher, because look at this: We had a few days of rain, so our construction paper is ruined, but we are still looking at the straw to see if it is level, up or down.  We don't have any pictures of the air pressure inside the jar being greater than the outside air pressure, and thus having the straw point down.  Oh well.  What a nice experiment! A., had a very nice week.  She was able to teach me Lesson 18 from her MUS Beta book and did a great job.  She was able to move on to Lesson 19, which was basically the same thing, only harder.  LOL  Lesson 19 is multiple digit addition, but this time, going into the thousands place. She also continued forth with her MCP workbook, pages 121-128.  We continued with Sequential Spelling book 1 and did lists 104-107.  We continued with our dictations and creative writing assignments from (old) Sonlight LA 2 Intermediate.  For handwriting, she is using Printing Power by HWT, and she is getting along okay.  She does still need to really focus to make her handwriting neat.  She started reading The House on Walenska Street  for her reader and is enjoying it.  We are also reading Martha Washington, Our first first lady which we are also enjoying.  Martha Washington was quite a character!!! A. continues to excel in her piano class and her gym, dance and yoga classes.  She got to see her orthopedist and her former PT this week.  She also saw her orthotist and will be getting new braces soon.  She can’t wait! K. had a great week this week.  She continued with Lesson 28 from her MUS Gamma workbook.  She is doing multiple digit multiplication.  She started this last week and just needed a little more time to really master it.  For her vocabulary, she continued to work with Wordly Wise Book B and is reviewing lesson 4.  She is also continuing with SL’s LA 3 Advanced (new).  This week, she worked on her dictation and also started her research paper.  She will be working on her research paper for the next 3 weeks.  The program walks her through the research and preparation phase of the project.  She chose to write her paper on dolphins.  She is still working on Sequential Spelling book 2 lists 104-107.  Her reader this week was Martha Washington, our first first lady which she is enjoying.  She also read for her Bible studies from 1 Kings 19 to 2 Kings 5: 17.  We are also reading Carry On, Mr. Bowditch for her read aloud.  She continues to do her home program in piano, but she just barely remembers to practice.  She is still doing dance, gym and tennis, and has two classes in each per week.  She had a gym meet on the 14th out of town.  She did her best, and almost got all of her scores above a 9.0.  She is determined to get all above 9!  Despite the two busy mornings, with A’s orthopedic appointment, and the girls’ dental appointments, we were able to get just about everything done.  Yay!!! AH

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Oct. 11, 2007

Art work!!! 10/10/2007

This year we are trying out a new class.  When we were in Ecuador for Spanish school, the girls took an art class, taught by professional artists who spoke mainly Spanish.  It was a great experience for the girls, and I began to wonder if we could do the same thing in our city.  Well, I researched and researched but could not find an art class taught in Spanish.  There were art classes and there were Spanish classes but not a mixture.  So, I do what I always do.  I decided to create one!!  First I had to find a teacher willing to teach!    We happened to find one at a bilingual preschool!  This was really fortunate.  The preschool is owned by one of K's former dance teachers, so we already knew her and she was willing to rent out her preschool space for afternoon art classes.  She also employed an Argentinian art teacher at the preschool, and so I asked this teacher if she would be willing to teach our girls and maybe a few other students and she said yes!!!  So all the girls take this class on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 2 hours.  I am hoping to get the teacher to speak more Spanish.  She is bilingual, of course, but since the kids all speak English it's hard for her to switch back and forth.  We invited a few of our friends to take the class--one friend gets out of kinder at noon, and the two other friends are siblings who homeschool.  The class has been wonderful!!!  I thought I'd showcase some of the things the girls have brought home. I believe the first week, they worked on newspaper/masking tape sculptures.  This L. with her dog sculpture: And A.'s snake (she had originally wanted to make an elephant, but she realized that the elephant would have to be huge, so she took her elephant's trunk and turned it into a snake): And last but not least, here is K.'s bird: The second week, they worked on just drawing faces of random people or an imaginary person. This was L's "person" or "people", I am not really sure: And this is A's drawing: And finally, K's picture--she named her person "Morgan M. Mainer": The week after that, they were to use old magazines to make a collage of sorts.  They were to cut up pieces of the pages of the magazine to create a picture.  Their teacher let them use some magazine bits and draw the rest for their projects. So L. did 3 of these, and I am not sure where her magazine piece was.  But she only used one or two magazine bits and drew the rest.  LOL  And the third picture, she didn't use the magazine pages at all, but proceeded to use construction paper to actually make a collage.  LOL A's project was of a girl.  She used magazine pieces for the eyes, nose and mouth: And K managed to use magazine pieces for all of her project: All in all, I would say the girls are enjoying the class immensely.  They look forward to it every T-Th.  And what can I say.  Four hours every week either by myself or with just FQ?  I get to update the blog, go grocery shopping and run errands.  Wow!  I feel like a real person now! Enjoy! AH

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