with blog posts lately.  Seems there are too many other things to fill my waking hours.  We went to my Dad's ranch this weekend for an early Thanksgiving.  Always an enjoyable time.  We were even able to hunt arrowheads, a favorite pasttime on Sunday afternoons when I was growing up.  I didn't find any arrowheads, only pieces of pottery and petrified wood.  I was able to share the experience with my kiddos, pointing out to them the signs of long ago Indians in the area, specifically the gray "burnt rocks" indicating there had been a camp/cooking fire.

We expect to move Mom into the back house this week.  She's begun bringing boxes over, but we need to get the final certificate of occupancy, hopefully Wednesday. 

School - I'm looking forward to next semester, hoping things will be more settled by then.  We've learned a bit about the Hittites, Cretes, etc this week, coinciding with our study of Israel preparing to enter the promised land.  We're also studying communication.  I'm pretty sure I didn't do a very good job teaching about telecommunications, lasers and satellites.  Science is my weakest subject and it shows! 

C had a good math week.  We use MUS with her, but she rarely enjoys math.  This week, though, she got the concepts quickly, aced most of her work, and even said math might be her favorite subject! 

I'm keeping this short so I can get some prep time in for school tomorrow.  Hoping your Thanksgiving week is filled with reminders of God's faithfulness. 

School, that is.  Between remodel errands, working part-time and watching three small children a couple of times a week, our school times have been hit and miss.  But today was a good day, so I'll go to sleep with that thought to comfort me!

In Bible, we're currently in Joshua 2 reading about the spies and Rahab.  With Weaver, our other studies correlate and have included communication and espionage.  So part of our school time yesterday included a trip to the mall where we trailed an unsuspecting shopper, trying to get information, such as what they were shopping for, apparent moods, etc.  The kids had a lot of fun with that.  Then today, K's writing assignment in Writing Strands had him hide and watch while someone did a good deed, then prepare to report on it in writing.  I had dh help out with this by putting away the clean dishes.  It seemed to go right along with our spying activities.  We've also discussed communication, and will have some fun with codes in the next day or two.

Dh's near and dear cousin is in the hospital following surgery for a brain aneurysm.  Your prayers are appreciated. 

The back house should be completed in about two weeks, hopefully in time to get my mother moved in before Thanksgiving.  I'm sure she'd like to be settled in her own place by then. 

Tomorrow's plans include more remodel errands - buying the last of the light fixtures, Art at the Library program with a couple of other homeschool friends, karate in the evening, and whatever school we happen to get to.  I want to make sure we get in the three R's and Bible if nothing else.

I'm looking forward to an extra hour of sleep this weekend?  How about you?

I'm not nearly as creative as many others in the workbox craze, but I do like that it helps my children do a portion of their work independently.  This has been a big help on days when I work outside the home, or even when I'm working from home with pressing deadlines.  So tomorrow's workboxes are planned as followes:

K - 3rd grade

1.  Bible time with Mom - We're in Joshua ch.1 

2. Learning about the earth's hemispheres. This one will involve paint and a styrofoam ball. He should enjoy.

3. Math - Tomorrow he'll cover two lessons, since much of this is still review from what he learned in Saxon 3.  He does this work independently, leaving me time to work with C.

4.  Handwriting - just a sheet from a generic cursive writing book. Tomorrow's letter of emphasis is J

5.  Spelling - a couple of exercises in his Spelling Workout D workbook

6.  Reading - Make a paper bag puppet for one of the characters in a book he just finished (Ralph S. Mouse) then tell the main points of the story using the puppet. - He doesn't enjoy writing, so a formal book report doesn't work well yet. Hopefully this will also help him with his presentation skills.

7. Working on an exercise in Writing Strands.  We're only on our second exercise so it's hard to tell if this book is going to be a good fit for us through the year.  It's started very gently, which has helped with K. I can see improvement in his writing from last year, but know we're not yet up to par.  Funny that he's such a reluctant writer, considering that I supplement our income with writing.  Doesn't look like C is going to have the writing bug either

8. Journal - free writing time. 6 minutes.

9. Keyboard practice. He's doing pretty well with this so far this year.

10. First Language Lessons Grade 3 - Tomorrow's emphasis is on narrating a passage I'll read aloud.

11. UTAWG - Uninterrupted time alone with God. This has been very informal and unstructured.  I turn him loose with his Bible and a journal.  Lately he's been reading in Genesis and is up to chapter 24 I think.

Lots of workboxers do a better job of incorporating fun into their workboxes than I do.  Right now he gets plenty of "fun" outside of school time and I really need to emphasize their true subjects.  We miss days or subjects often enough with other commitments that I want to "hit the books" when we can.

And for C - 1st grade

1 and 2 - Same as above.

3. MUS - Working on <, > and =.  It's always a struggle with C. She says she doesn't get it, but does fine on the problems when she puts effort into it.  The problem is she'd rather moan and groan than just do it.  I pray for her regularly! 

4. Reading - reading aloud from an Abeka reader that I stumbled across. I'd like to have more of these, but not willing to pay the full price from Abeka. I can always find something else for her to read aloud from. Also will review some lessons from Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading making up silly sentences using recently learned words.

5 and 6 - Pages in her phonics (Horizons) and Spelling (Spectrum) workbooks. 

7 - Journal - Free writing, though lately she's taken the lazy way out and has chosen to write "I don't know what to write" over and over. I'm hoping this is a fad that will pass.  Refer to her #3 above!

8. UTAWG

9. First Language Lessons - 1st grade. Learning about common and proper nouns.

10. Writing - Learning about sentences and writing some sentences.  I use a workbook for this, though I don't remember the publisher off the top of my head.  I think that if I have two reluctant writers, I'm not presenting it well as the teacher.

11. Let's Play Library - she set up a bookstore in the living room today, allowing customers to purchase from her stock of books. So since all the stuff is out in the middle of the room anyway, thought I'd take advantage of it and let her play with a library set I printed up from http://homeschooling.about.com/od/freeprintables/ss/library.htm

We'll probably also babysit for our neighbors who are trying to learn Mongolian as they will be relocating there within a month.  And hoping to squeeze in a trip to the library.  Hubby is traveling this week, so we're able to school into the evening if needed. 

Thanks for reading along!

When posting about our recent projects, I forgot to include our windsocks.  We've been learning about explorers and how they used the wind to help navigate their routes.  Windsocks seemed like a fitting project. 

Now, off to get in some math!

Our core subjects haven't gotten as much attention as I'd like lately, but we've gotten in several art projects lately.  I had intentionally wanted to increase the number and scope of art or arts & crafts projects this year since that is something C enjoys so much.

C's Self Portrait - I have a friend that does art projects in the classroom for her PS daughter.  She wanted to share this with my kids, so we went over to her house today.  Before completing their portraits, they studied a self-portrait by Van Gogh, one by Kahlo, and a couple of others.  She and K really enjoyed this project.

K's Self Portrait - His is as if he's standing in front of our house.  The house is behind him, along with a tree in our back yard. The brown on his face is a Band-Aid, due to a recent run-in with the fence.

The kids participate in an Art Around the World project at the library each month. September's project was bolo ties.  I never would have come up with this one on my own!

Then on our own we did these offsetting striped pictures.  K's is a dinosaur, while C chose a fish theme.  They liked how these turned out.

And finally, a couple of weeks ago we did seasonal trees. C's are on the left and go in order - spring, summer, fall and winter.  K chose to do some modern trees (pink, purple and striped) and his are spring, autumn, winter, summer. 

If only they enjoyed the core subjects as much as art!