Sep. 18, 2009 - Weekly Report Week 3- Sept 14-18

What a short week.  Sunday Ceilidh started cheerleading and she absolutely loved it, though I hear she fell on her head while attempting a cartwheel.  Monday we had a normal school day, the kids studied math, grammar, spelling, science, health and vocabulary.  That afternoon Austin was supposed to start fencing, but he had a panic attack when we got there, so Ceilidh did the class instead and we withdrew his registration.  Perhaps after christmas he will be ready to try again.  Following that class he was supposed to be in an Communicating with confidence for teens class, but between his panic attack and then sitting in traffic for 1hour we missed that one too.  The silver lining in this, is the fencing club was next to some railroad tracks off an industrial area.  Next to the tracks was a lot of open area so we did a nature study.  Austin and Hunter heard, and then watched a hawk circling and diving to hunt.  They all found various flowers growing in amonst all the dried out plants, caught a few bugs and watched a squirrel running across the parking lot.  The study of nature calms Austin a lot and it wasn't long before he was feeling much better, but he was still set on not fencing.

Tuesday I had to cancel school as both Austin and Isabelle were sick with fevers.  I figured we would catch up as the week progressed.  Wednesday we did catch up in most subjects, the kids even did home ec and learned how to make french toast.  However, when we got home from our library run, we found a notice taped to the front door.  The maintence guys would be here on Friday(today) to replace my kitchen cabinets/counters.  VERY exciting, however that meant dismantling all teh cupboards, moving all our school stuff and kitchen stuff up against the far wall(we school in the kitchen), cleaning under appliances etc.  This of course meant no school Thursday and we will be away from home most of today so they can do the kitchen without us underfoot.  So again no school today.  The kids are admittedly not upset that they only had school 2 days this week, but we will make up for lost time next week.

Other exicting news, this weekend is arts weekend in the province.  Today we get free admission to our local museum, which is perfect timing because I wanted to take the kids next week anyway as part of our nature study.  The museum has tanks of live fish (bull trout, pike etc) that match perfectly with the chapter we are doing in our nature study book.  Tomorrow we are headed to Drumheller to the Tyrell Museum (or as the kids call it the Dinosaur museum), they have never been and the free admission makes up for the cost of gas to get there.  It should be a very exciting weekend with all these fieldtrips.

The most exciting part of this week as far at the older 2 kids are concerned is tonight.  Austin won the grand prize in the summer reading program for our library branch.  It was an invitation for 2 to the haunted library tonight.  THe kids will participate in a ghost tour, murder mystery, have snacks etc.  Initially he was taking a friend, but I had to put the kibosh on that friendship due to some stuff that happened, so now Ceilidh is going with him and they are both so excited.

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Sep. 11, 2009 - Weekly Report Week 2 September 7-11

We had a more challenging week this week.  Not because of the level of school work but because sour attitudes regarding schoolwork.  We did do school on Labor day, but had Thursday off due to a Dr's appointment and various errands to run.  A great highlight this week was the homeschool support group/used book sale I attended.  I made $85 and only spent $2 on used  curriculum.  I think I am learning to be more selective in what I buy and more willing to sell what I have sitting around collecting dust.  Okay onto the academic side of things, despite the bad attitudes we still accomplished a lot this week. 

Austin and Ceilidh Grade 5

Grammar Austin completed 4 more lessons in R&S 3 and wrote his first unit exam, he got an 86%.  Ceilidh completed 3 lessons in R&S3.

Spelling Ceilidh is still laggin behind Austin in this area (by 11 chapters), but she is coming along.  She has scored 100% on her post test earlier this week and then 80% on today's pretest for the next chapter.  Austin scored 90% on the last 2 pretests he did and then 100% on each of the post-tests.  By the end of next week he will have completed the entire workbook and will be moving up a level.

Science We completed our study of Mercury and moved onto Venus in Apologia Elementary Astronomy.  Earlier this week they made craters in flour to show the impact of asteroids on Mercury's surface.  Today they made lava out of melted butter over acustard cup into flour to show the flow of lava on a planet such as Venus.  The kids are really getting a kick out of the study of astronomy.  They also completed week 14 in sonlight science 3.

Latin This week they completed all review exercises to remind them what they learned last year and wrapped up chapter 3.

Home Ec In home ec this week they learned to safely chop vegetables to make a stew and also make plaster pins and magnets.

Math Austin completed another chapter in MUS Gamma.  I realized as I went to give him his test I forgot to give him the chapt 10 test previously so he wrote both chapter 10 and 11.  He only scored a 64% on chap 10 but got 97% on chap 11.  He also wrote his first unit test in Horizons math today but I have not scored it yet. We bought a new game called Iguana Factor to help him master his times tables, esp his 9's which is what the chap 10 test was on.  Ceilidh completed chapter 10 and wrote the test scoring 87%, and like Austin wrote her first unit test in Horizons.  She is also waiting for me to mark it.

Austin had a week full of tests, but is very happy with the scores he earned and with his ability to write them.  Many homeschoolers shy away from tests/exams but I find them important.  Less for what they show the child has learned but for the skill required to write them.  Austin has anxiety disorder in addition to other LD's and used to have panic attacks at the mere thought of writing an exam.  By doing them often at home he is learning how to keep himself calm enough to write them, and is growing in his confidence to do well with each successful attempt. 

Art We completed lesson 6 in Artistic Pursuits using oil pastels to draw a landscape.  The kids sat on a hill behind the house and drew what they saw, Ceilidh focused on the hill itself and all the trees.  Austin focused on the school in the distance and the kids playing soccer in the field.

Hunter Grade 1

Reading Despite claims that he is never going to learn to read he is progressing well with his lessons in Ordinary Parents Guide to teaching reading, Explode the code and Jolly phonics.  He is finding his lessons easy right now which is what I wanted so he could build his confidence.  He has also been learning the sight word 'the' and I have been having him read it everytime we come to it in anything we do.

Writing He completed 4 more lessons in HWOT and also got practice writing inhis ETC and Jolly Phonics books.

Math He completed 4 more chapters in MUS primer.  We are slowing down a bit now because we are moving on from basic counting to learning about the tens place and the units place and he needs more time in this area to really get it.

Science We starting reading Christian Liberty Press Nature Reader K, which gives and animal for each letter of the alphabet.  He is enjoying the stories.  Hunter joins the older 2 to use Apologia Astronomy and has really enjoyed learning about Mercury and Venus this week.

Art Art was also done with the older kids. He drew a picture of the hill at sunset (though we did art class at noon) and titled it Sunset Bloom, Who knew he had such a creativity in naming his artwork.

Isabelle Totschool

This week I made a few new games for Isabelle.  I cut a hole in the lid of a coffee can and she sticks play coins through the hole and once they are all in she pulls off the lid and dumps them out to start again. SHe plays with this ALL. THE. TIME.  I also made a colour matching game and a game to match letter tiles to the letters in her name.  SHe enjoys them but they are hard for her still, so she prefers the coin game.

She also did some paint with water pictures and I introduced her to the white board.  She thinks the whiteboard is the most amazing thing and loves to draw and erase pictures for quite some time. 

This will be our last somewhat quiet week as next week extracurriculars start up.  Tomorrow we are heading to a free carnvial at our old church and on Sunday Ceilidh starts Cheerleading to kick off the start of extra currics.  I am hoping to have the pictures from the last 2 weeks developed to post by then and hopefully will buy a new digital camera to bette document our adventures this year.

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Sep. 4, 2009 - Weekly Report week 1 Aug 31-Sept 4

We survived week 1 of the new school year.  Our plans to start school inthe summer went out the window when Ceilidh's admission to hospital for testing happened, so we started this past Monday instead.  We started Monday with school and then at noon when we finished headed over to the Not-back-to-school picnic with other homeschoolers.  This year we decided to implement workboxes and so far they have been a huge success.

Austin and Ceilidh grade 5

Grammar: Austin finished to the end of review one in R&S 3, and Ceilidh finished to the end of lesson 22.  They also had a chance to play their new game Go to Press which they both enjoyed a lot.

Spelling: Austin got 100% on 4 out of 5 spelling pretests allowing him to skip 4 chapters,  Today he made an error and had to finally start a chapter.  Ceilidh made a mistake on her first pretest and had to do the chapter.  Today she wrote the post test and got 100%.

Math: They each completed 3 lessons in Horizons 3, 1 chapter in MUS Gamma and had 1 day to explore with pattern blocks for fun.

Art: The use of workboxes ensured we got to art this week.  Thye worked through lesson 5 in Artistic Pursuits K-3 book 1.  They had to chose a picture/photograph to use as their inspiration for a watercolour painting (using water co9lour paints)

Austin chose the American Gold Finch

Ceilidh did 2 pictures first, one called Skunk vs. Squirrel the second was a baby bunny

Science: We continued to work through Apologia Astronomy, first making our pinhole viewer to wrap up our study of the sun and then on to Mercury, we completed this chapter this week.  In addition we completed week 13 of Sonlight Science 3.

Other: We also baked cupcakes on Tuesday to celebrate Austin's 11th birthday, spent 3 days on latin, 2 days doing logic puzzles and a lot of time just hanging out as a family.

Hunter Grade 1

Phonics/reading: We continued to work through OPGTR and completed lesson 10.  He did 4 pages in ETC book A and 4 in Jolly Phonics. 

Writing: He is still working his way through HWOT pre-K book but this week took some major strides and is making a few of the letters much better

Science: He joined the older 2 studying Apologia's Astronomy text.

Math: He completed 3 chapters in MUS Primer this week.  His ability to write the numbers has improved even since Monday though he still struggles with a couple of them.

Art: He joined the older 2 for art class and made a picture of a Beluga whale swimming where sharks just ate.

Other: He helped bake the cupcakes, watched leapfrog letter factory, and played with friends and family as much as he could.

Isabelle Totschool

We are using B4FIAR and this week our story was My Blue Boat.  Isabelle loved this story and I am sure I have read it 100 times already this week.

She also had fun playing with her Leap Frog Word Whammer, playing in our little sandbox, using playdough, colouring, and exploring with pattern blocks.  I hope to spend some time this weekend creating a game or something from Tools for tots for her for next week.

Other highlights of the week:

Ceilidh got registered for sewing classes and Cheerleading.  To pay for Cheer we are now doing 3 flyers routes, twice a week.  It is not a lot of money but pays for the cost of Cheer.  Austin got signed up for a "Communicating with confidence" class organized by Toastmasters.  Both have asked to join the chess club at our local library.  We had the Adventure bus come for a 1 hour session last Friday and have now booked it to come weekly for 8 weeks starting the 18th.  Austin got a call from the library.  He won the grand prize for the summer reading program and next Friday he and his best friend are headed to a haunted library.  They will do a ghost tour in that part of the city, participate in a murder mystery, have lots of snacks and more prizes and over all have a great time.  Anyone who knows Austin knows how much he loves ghosts and ghost hunting so this prize was perfect for him. 

 

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Jun. 1, 2009 - Track and Field

Today was Track and Field day for the homeschoolers.  I would say we easily had 175 kids participating.  The kids were divided by gender and age to make it a more fair competition.  Austin got sixth place in his group for all events but 2, in the 200m race he came in fifth, and in ball throw he placed 4th.  Ceilidh had a wide range of ribbons from 3rd to 7th place, but her best event was the 200m race.  Hunter was so funny to watch, High jump for his group was plain funny.  He was in a group of 5 year old little boys, the high jump mat was the same size as they were lol  On teh other hand he placed 1st in the running long jump, the rest of the time he was all over the map with his placement.  They all came home with a pile of ribbons, and a huge smile.  A great time was had by all and they are already asking if we can sign up again next year.  I love that we found this group, between the Science fair last month and track & field this month they are already feeling better about homeschooling because they are feeling like they are not missing much.  The added bonus to bein split up between genders and ages is that they all made new friends that are the same age as them, something each of them has been asking for.  Tomorrow is park day so they will see many of those kids again.

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May. 29, 2009 - Weekly Report

This was a slow week for school work.  Ceilidh had dental surgery on Wednesday so I planned to take it easy this week.  They continued reading books about caterpillars/butterflies.  Our caterpillars pupated and are being moved into our butterfly garden today in preparation of them opening up.  We listend to A Tale of Despereaux in the car this week.  What a different story from the video we watched.  Ceilidh put "His banner over me" aside in favor of reading "The People of Sparks" which is the sequel to City of Ember.  Austin is still on a graphic novel kick, though this week we also took some Star Wars dictionary/encyclopedia type books out of the library.  This week's videos included Acorn the Nature nut : waterbugs, Ancient voices and Little House on the Prairie.

We went for a walk around the lake and did some pond dipping from 2 different docks.  They compared what insects/birds/animals they found at each dock.  We came home with a bunch of minnows, water beetles and other insects to observe in our aquarium.  This has proven to be a fun thing for all the kids especially Isabelle who stares at the tank while saying "fishy, fishy" over and over and over.

Monday night I went to our support group meeting and was blessed with a TON of free curriculum including the sonlight IG's for Core 3,4 , 3+4 combined, Science 5, and a bunch of other books.  I am so excited by this because we are doing Core 3 this fall and Core 4 the following year so to be blessed with these was amazing.

The next couple weeks promise to be packed with events/activities so I will have much more to say in those reports.

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May. 22, 2009 - Weekly Report

I decided last week that since we have completed our year end review already, and I felt last year was a bust it was time to close that chapter and begin the next one.  Since I plan to homeschool through the summer I decided to begin the new school year this week.  Last Friday we had an end of school year "party" and on Victoria Day Monday we began our new year.

Although we are starting the new year this week I am keeping it school lite for the remainder of the summer, we wil ramp up again in the fall.  Most books were the same ones we were already using, we are just continueing through them, though we added Horizons Math 3 to our MUS Gamma to give a more rounded approach to math without losing the mastery aspect that l love about MUS.  The kids are loving Horizons and Austin often asks to do extra.  We also jumped into WWE level 2.  I had started them on level 1 3 weeks ago just to get them used to the program and this week we started with the level 2 workbooks.  They are also enjoying this.

History this week focused on Mesopotamia.  We watched a 3 part dvd series from The Teaching Company.  It was a lot of long lectures, the kids were often bored but did gather good information from them.  They apparently enjoyed them despite the boredom because they asked me to get the ancient civilization lecture set from the library yesterday.

On Tuesday we picked up our Caterpillars from the "teacher store".  The kids are having a great time studying them and watching them grow.  Austin and Ceilidh are working on lapbooks about caterpillars and butterflies.  Hunter and Isabelle have some craft pages etc they are working on instead.  We have watched 2 Acorn the Nature Nut videos on the topic, one call "Wings and Butterflies"; the second called "Caterpillars".  They watched The Magic School Bus "The Bog Beast and the Butterfly", and have been reading through a huge stack of books about caterpillars and butterflies.

We made 2 trips to the library this week.  Austin has been asking to go everyday and has not been happy with having to settle for 2 days a week only.  He is on a graphic novel bent and is reading 2-3 of them a day.  Because he reads so many other books for school I have let him have his graphic novels for his enjoyment reading. 

Ceilidh read the "City of Ember" this week and has now started "His banner over me" while waiting for "The people of sparks" to be in.

Hunter has found a love for books on tape/cd.  He can take them up to the privacy of his room and listen to them over and over again without having to wait for me to read them. 

Isabelle is happy just looking thorugh her board books on her own.  This week we listened to "Bud, not Buddy" Audio book in the van, and have just started "The Tale of Despereaux".  We love having audio books to listen to while driving around on errands etc.

Also Ceilidh started another sewing class on Wednesday afternoon.  This time she is sewing a funky pillowcase.  This is the 3rd set of sewing lessons she has taken and she loves them.

There will be no pictures for my posts for awhile.  Austin broke my digital camera (AGAIN!  Second one in 2 years), so until I can get a new one these will remain pictureless, which is not nearly as fun.

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Feb. 9, 2009 - Veterinary Science Lapbook

I was given the opportunity to review a Lapbook from Hands of a Child.  We chose the veterinary science one and boy am I glad I did.  I did this lapbook with 3 of my children ages, 10, 9 and 5.  I have to admit with the 5 year old I pretty much did all the work, but he still enjoyed learning about everything.  The older 2 were able to fill in the minibooks on their own and gleaned so much more than my younger one.  From learning the names of different medical instruments vets use to the body structure of animals and even the different roles animals play in our lives, this lapbook had a bit of everything to really help kids grasp what veterinary science and animal care were all about.  We wrapped up our lapbook with a fieldtrip to a local veterinary hospital and the staff were impressed with how much my children had retained from this project as they were able to discuss the role of the vet and the equipment with proper terminology learned in the vocabulary activity.

This lapbook is a must for anyone who has a child with a love of animals or a dream of becoming a vet one day.  Be sure to call around to local vets and book a fieldtrip after the lapbook is done to really solidify their new knowledge. 

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Jan. 10, 2009 - A week in Review January 5-9

This week went by so quickly.  I rearranged our schedule to make sure we got in science and history and it is working much better.

Austin and Ceilidh:

Grammar: Austin Finished R&S 3 lessons 3-8; which means he has started diagramming sentences, he thinks I am making school easy for him with these.  Ceilidh finished R&S 3 lessons 2-5 completing the section on dictionary skills.

Spelling: They did lists 45-49 in sequential spelling

Writing: Austin completed Writing Strands 3 activity #3, Ceilidh did activity #2.  I am rethinking using writing strands for next year, I may switch them over to Classical Writing, as I am not seeing a quality of writing I would like with writing strands. 

Word Study/Phonics: Ceilidh completed 10 more pages in MCP plaid phonics C and Austin did 10 pages in MCP plaid phonics/Word Study D.

Memorization: They are both currently working on memorizing WHole Duty of Children from in Harp and Laurel Wreath.

Math: Austin Completed Gamma Chap 8, but is not quite ready for the test so he will spend next week on drill.  Ceilidh completed Gamma chap 7.

Science: We restarted our Astronomy unit as our plans last term got derailed.  We read chapter 1 in Apologia Astronomy.  Nd did an experiement from Janice Van Cleave's Astronomy for everyone.  It demonstrated why telescopes have such a large lens at the front to catch as much light as possible making the stars brighter to our eye. 

 

For supplemental reading we used, Some of these books are geared towards younger kids because Hunter joins us for Science

 

 

History: We continued our reading of how Mummies are made.  This week for a fun project the kids did an excavation kit to dig out a sarcophagus and 4 canopic jars.  They then used those as models while they used sculpey clay to make their own versions.

 

We (meaning me) also put together the Paper Model of Ramses III temple that came in out Heiroglyphics treasure chest.  I ran out of scotch tape so used masking tape, and let's jsut say it is a good thing the egyptians did not build their temples this shoddy.

Lastly the kids played the egyptian game of Mehen also included in the above mentioned treasure chest.

History was a very busy week, but of course I also assigned supplemental reading.  The books we used were:

We also used the Magic Tree House Mummies and Pyramids research guide but I didn't take a pic of it.

And to finish off our supp reading on pyramids we read:

Bible: We completed Chapter 2 in Christian Studies 1. 

Art: Instead of using our art surric, I decided to let them paint these slate pictures I found at the $ store.  I even did one, the finished products turned out great.

Other goings on: Ceilidh got registered in a sewing class it begins in 2 weeks and she is VERY excited to get started. Austin started Cadets again last night and got a promotion from New Entry to Ordinary cadet.  THis is the first time he has to have a written exam to qualify for something and passing the exam for his promotion has really boosted his spirits.

Hunter (Kindergarten)

Hunter joined us for History, Science and Art this week.  We practiced writing the letter A in HWOT, and words that start with a in phonics.  In math we practiced patterning with various manips, including the bug counters, beads, and links. When we used the sculpey clay in history class, He decided he would rather make a bear claw print than a canopic jar, so that's what he did.  Basically he squished the clay flat, then used a toothpick to draw the lines.

 

Isabelle (Tot school)

Izzy is always trying to get her hands into what we are doing so I have started tot school for her.  This week we used her chunky farm puzzle, counted objects up to 3, and sang her 3 favorite songs "Twinkle, Twinkle" "Little Green Frog" and "ABC's"  SHe is also very much into dancing right now so we had a lot of music going to let her dance.  In other news she is still teething, she has gone from 2 teeth to almost 16 in the last 6 weeks.  CHeck out the red cheeks in the picture.  Even though her teeth are hurting her she is a smiling baby at almost all times.  The first picture is of one her dances, she has about 4 different ones depending on the music.

 

That pretty much sums up our very busy week.  Just this morning we got a very special package. Our Power4bones secret box arrived.  This is a unit study put out by Alberta Milk for use by 5th grade teachers, on human bones and how to keep yours healthy.  In the box is full lesson plans, skipping ropes, t-shirts, prizes, etc for a 7 week study of bones.  I am very excited to get started on this with the kids.

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Jan. 3, 2009 - Tieing up loose ends

Well even though it is now January I need to wrap up my december 2008 events etc.  We did school until the 15th, as you can see we have that lovely fireplace channel on while they are working.  The individula desks is a new thing for us, we have always done school around the kitchen table, but the kids wanted real desks so I located 3 free ones on freecycle and kijiji.  Isabelle was always stealing Hunter's desk so she got one of her very own for christmas from grandma and poppa.

The kids finished up their swimming lessons at the start of the month, Ceilidh and Hunter passed their classes while Austin needs to take a stroke improvement class.  Hunter doesn't get real report cards in swimming yet, but the big kids were excited by their ribbons on their cards.

We kept doing our flyers, we just finished up with those, they took up far too much school time, but they were worth the income before xmas.  Austin and Ceilidh worked hard delivering these 3 days a week. Of course by the second week of the month the ground had a ton of snow on it, but these last few days of no snow made delivery much easier.

Isabelle started to walk finally which really helped her join in on the tree decorating.

The kids had a wonderful Christmas, a great break and now it is time to get back down to business.

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Oct. 11, 2008 - Report for Sept 22- Oct 10

This is a 3 week report in one because things were done a little differently around here for the last 3 weeks.  For the weeks of Sept 22 and Sept 29 Austin and Ceilidh spent a few days at Auntie's each week.  They did their independant work there mainly, though the second week I did send along spelling, grammar and History.  This gave me a chance to work on cleaning out my basement without stopping school for 2 weeks.  However on the days they were home those 2 weeks, and all of this last week we have been busy.

Sep 21 we held Isabelle's 1st Birthday party.  It is hard to imagine that a year has already passed since the chaos that surrounded her birth. 

I was really craving DQ Blizzard cake so the grown ups (well most of them) ate that, but Izzy and her uncle Colin ate this vanilla cake.  Of course she got spoiled with gifts and now that she has figured out how to open them Christmas this year should be entertaining.

I should actually back up a few more days, On Sept 19 Austin began Navy League Cadets which is for the 9-12 year old aged kids interested in Cadets.  The very next day they were picking up trash in Fort Edmonton Park, so I took the opportunity to take the others to Fort Ed as well as the Nature Center. I didn't get many pictures in Fort ed because we decided to take the wagon tour as opposed to walking through.  It was a 60 minute tour, 20 minutes through the park, 20 minutes to explore the actual Fort part, and 20 minutes through the park again.  These pictures were taken during that 20 minute middle time.

 

After making it back to the beginning the kids wanted to explore the train, which was closed for the season.

When we finished up at the Fort we waked down the path to the Nature Center.  I have to say despite it's small size I love this place.  The kids had a great time, we were the only ones there most of the time so even Izzy got to crawl around freely exploring.  We even went on a guided nature walk and found a nest made in the reeds by the pond and the kids got to try various berries the forest has to offer (something we would have only done with a trained guide because I don't know what is safe and what isn't).

As we finished up our walk it was time to meet up with the Cadets and take Austin home.  While he was a little sad to have missed out on our fun, he talked non-stop all the way home about all the new friends he is making in Cadets.

After all the excitement of that weekend, we were back down to work.  Monday and Tuesday were business as usual.  Then Tuesday night Auntie came and got the big kids, I didn't see them again until Friday afternoon.  In the time they were gone, I had bible study, and Hunter had swimming lessons, and as I mentioned above I started on the basement.  The following week they went to Auntie's again from Tuesday night until Thursday afternoon, giving me a couple more days to finish what I was doing in the basement.  Of course the basement is not finished, I own way to much junk, but I did clear a TON out and organized all of our craft stuff.  On the days the kids were home I tried to focus on Science, nature walks (while the weather was still nice) and bible study because Auntie can't teach bible or science because I beliefs are far too different.

By our home is a lake that the kids love to go to, this is a frequent site of our nature walks.  Exploring the fall leave, and watching the ducks and Muskrats can entertain them for hours.

It's amazing what happens with the weather in just a few short weeks.  It has dropped a whopping 20 degrees since these pictures were taken.  On that day it was 26 degrees, daytime high for today is 6! and from the bite in the air it won't be long before the snow flies.

Teaching the big kids of course is not the only thing I do during the day, Hunter recieves his Kindergarten instruction at home.  I try more often than not to have his learning be hands on, while he enjoys his workbooks, I do not believe a child that is only 5 years old needs to sit and do workbooks all day.  Instead I create sensory centers and table activities for him.

This is his "garden" center.  I found these worms at the dollarama in the halloween stuff.  In a small rubbermaid tote I put potting soil, the worms, silk flowers, and a small wooden rake.  He can use this to "plant" a garden.  He really enjoys this center.

The second center I made for him this week is a "Harvest" center.  In a round washbin I places Timothy hay(from the pet store), mini corn cobs (also from the pet store) and mini pumpkin decorations from the dollarama.  Next to it I keep a wicker basket, so he can harvest his fall crops.  When he tires of this center we will use the corn cobs to paint with.

I also made Pumpkin Pie Playdough for him (and the others) to play with, it smells so good

Pumpkin Pie Playdough Recipe

• 5 1/2 Cups of flour
• 2 Cups salt
• 8 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 container (1 1/2 oz) of pumpkin pie spice
• 3/4 Cup oil
• 4 Cups water
• orange food colouring (2 parts red, 1 part yellow) or wilton decroating paste in copper

Mix all ingredients together and cook over medium heat until lumps disappear.  Knead over floured surface adding flour as needed until smooth and no longer sticky.  This makes a HUGE batch, but with 3 kids who love it, having lots is a good thing

I also created a bulletin board for Thanksgiving and each day the kids told me something they were greatful for which I wrote on a leaf and added to the display.

Start of the week

End of the week

In amongst all the fun actual work was accomplished.  We worked on our science, here is Ceilidh working on her worksheets cooresponding to Mysteries and Marvels (Part of Sonlight science 3). 

The kids also wrote Acrostic Poems about Thanksgiving.  Austin Decided to focus on the dinner part of Thanksgiving, and has a little more to go to finish it.

Lastly we created a lapbook during our study of Genesis in our Bible study.  I got the idea for this kind of lapbook from a clip in you tube. I covered each section with contact paper and then taped them together.

Day 1

day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6 & 7

I think that pretty much sums up the last 3 weeks.  My bible study and the 3 older kids swim lessons keep our Wednesdays hopping, also Austin started guitar and Ceilidh started violin lessons again this past Thursday. The rest of this month is crazy busy which means my reports may all end up this long.  Have a Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!

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Sep. 12, 2008 - A week in Review Sept 8-12

Wow, what a week!  This was our first week of school for the year and we were very busy.  Overall things are off to a good start.  Austin is really applying himself already this year and I am very pleased with his happy attitude towards his work.  Ceilidh on the other hand acts as if I am cutting off her limbs when I give her work. Hopefully she will come around with a better attitude once she realizes the work is not going away.  Hunter is only doing Kindergarten so most of his day is still spent in play as it should be, with a few seatwork assignements.  Isabelle is even getting in on the fun occasionally, though 99% of the time she is happy to be off exploring and doing her own thing.  Here is a sampling of what we did this week.

Austin has just started MUS Gamma, Ceilidh should be starting with in a week or so.  Here is his most recent page.  I see he still has a couple problems on it to answer.

The kids use an English workbook called English Smart which is based on Canadian grade standards.  Austin is working through the grade 4 book, and Ceilidh through the grade 3 book.  Austin's assignment today was to read the story and answer some questions based on the story and make assumptions based on what he read.

Ceilidh has managed to do her phonics this week.  IT is not her favoite thing but she does it.  This week the focus has been on syllables. 

Hunter is using Handwriting Without Tears to learn his printing skills.  We are using the preschool book to get started.  He loves the current activities because it says to scribble and I am always telling him not to. In this assignment he was to scribble all the stars, the idea to to practice hand eye coordination at this point.

The older kids are using sequential spelling vol 1 they have now completed list number 37.

Three times a week the kids work on logic puzzles.  These are called logic links.  They use colour chips and clues to figure out the order they are to be placed in.  These are a huge hit.

Twice a week to do music appreciation using the following text as our spine. 

In french we are using Ecoutez, Parlez and are working through unit 1.

Spanish we are also working through level 1 in Escucha y Hablemos

Of course we can not forget Latin either.  We are on Chapter 3 of Prima Latina.  This is a sample of Ceilidh's work in this chapter from this week.

History has been a change for us.  We are back to using SOTW vol 1, because we didn't get too far in it last year.  We are still using the activity guide for map work and colouring sheets at the children's request but the older two are also doing outlining from the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia.  This week we were reading chapter 3, the first writing.  We used rubber stamps of heiroglyphics from the heirogylphics treasure chest to create cartouches and scrolls.  Austin also completed this weeks outlining and student activity pages.

For science this year we are using Apologia Elementary Astronomy.  I got the bright idea that we should launch a rocket as a way of "launching" our science study this year.  Today was the big day, it was beautiful out, very little wind.  So I hauled out the box to build the rocket.

Here it is all set to go

I put the baby in the stroller and we all head out to the open field that is behind my house.  The plan was to launch it before the school aged kids were out of school and all over the field. So I get it set up in the field and hook up the remote launcher.

The kids get ready and cover their ears

I start the count down 5....4....3...2...1...Blast off

Only there was no blast off.  Here is our rocket "post launch"

Yup it never worked.  So eitehr I did something wrong assembling it, or we got a dud.  As I was repeatedly trying to set this thing off, dark clouds rolled in so we headed back home and as we shut the door the rain began.  So much for the rocket launching on a beautiful afternoon.  I guess this proves you do not need to be a rocket scientist to homeschool your children.

Now while the older 3 are doing their work little Izzy also is doing her own thing.

Sometimes she sits with us at the table having a snack

Sometimes she is playing with her little climber in the livingroom

 

Sometimes she even joins us and does her own "work"

We finished off the week with a family movie night and watched Nim's Island.  Of course the kids think the Nintendo Wii we were given tonight is the best thing that happened all week.  Tomorrow I will be setting it up and letting them play to their hearts content while I clean the house and get ready for week 2 of school.

 

 

 

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Sep. 12, 2008 - Dental Hygiene...you're never too young to learn

 

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Sep. 11, 2008 - Growing Crystals

This summer Grandma and Poppa bought Hunter a crystal growing kit while in Victoria. These are the pictures I took while the crystals grew, I just never got around to posting them until now.

Here it is when I first set it up

1 hour

2 hour

3 hour

6 hour and completely done growing.

The kids thought it was very neat to see the crystals growing.  The only downside is they are very brittle, and do not withstand a curious kitty.  Thankfully I got the pictures before all the crystals broke off thanks to Cheezie.

 

 

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Sep. 10, 2008 - Baby Girl learns to Drive

Isabelle has recently discovered the toy cars in our yard.  She particularly loves this one. She still only goes backwards but she has a ton of fun anyway.

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Sep. 7, 2008 - Aesthetics in the "school room"

I like to decorate my school area based on the season/topic etc In anticipation of the first week of school I decided to make ours have a more fall look and feel to it.

This shelf holds our Language arts manips and we keep our globe on top.  I placed a bamboo placemat on the top, then added an oblong wooden bowl holding 3 birch bark ornaments.  I bought these last christmas and just cut the loops for hanging them off.  I added a wreath of fall leaves at the base of the globe and fall bouquet in the vase.

On our Math cabinet I added a fall coloured placemat.

On our science table I added the same place mat I used on the math cabinet, then added some "worms" I bought at the dollarama from their halloween supplies.  They look and feel real.  I put our some decorative pumpkins and goards to use with the scale.  We add fresh fall leaves with our nature walks to examine with the magifying glasses that our set out.  The tree is made of birch bark and I thought it looked great so I added it.  The bones are ones we found in the woods during our camping trip this summer, the kids really like examining them.  Lastly there is a white dish with 3 spots in it.  The kids use the plastic tongs to move soy beans one at a time from one spot to another.

The last touch I added was to hang a couple prisms from the light fixture.  The other hanging item is an ornament made from feathers that I thought was pretty so I hung it up too.

This set up will likely stay until December 1 when I switch to a winter/christmas theme.

 

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Jun. 11, 2008 - Year end

My how time flies.  We have been busy around here finishing up for the year.  We actually had our year end review back in May but I wanted to tie up some loose ends before actually finishing.  I can't believe how long it has been since I last posted.  We had a camera incident here where my eldest deleted all the pictures I had on my memory card so I can't post images of what we have been doing for the last few months.  We have taken a detour from our science studies to do life cycles, we are raising caterpillars and tadpoles.  We started with 2 caterpillars, 1 made it to pupa stage and we are currently waiting for the butterfly to emerge.  We started out with 10 tadpoles, 3 have died, 6 have back legs and a tail, one sprouted front legs over night and looks pretty cool.  The kids think growing frogs is the best thing since sliced bread.

At the end of this month we are headed to a week long family camp and the day after we return the kids start bible camp at the church.   I am going to be busy this summer planning next year's curriculum needs so I can start placing my orders to be ready to start as soon as the kids get home from Disneylans.

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Mar. 12, 2008 - Science Sunday

We managed to make it out to Science Sunday a few weeks ago, the kids had a great time learning lots, thouh Izzy was happy to just chew on her wrap.

 

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Feb. 12, 2008 - A Girl's Best Friend

If a dog is a boy's best friend than it stands to reason a cat would be a girl's best friend.  Cheezie our cat has made Ceilidh her owner.  She sleeps in Ceilidh's bed, gives Ceilidh hugs and kisses whenever she gets home, meows upand down the hallway for her if Ceilidh sleeps over somewhere else.  It really is sweet to see these two together.

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Jan. 12, 2008 - Winter fun

Unbelievably for mid January the temperature was above zero today so we decided to go for a walk to explore the lake by our home.  Here is some shots from our fun afternoon.  I had hoped to snap some more pictures while they were climbing trees etc but the batteries died in my camera.  After we walked and explored and pet every dog that came along we headed back towards home, stopping off at teh convience store for a little treat.  It was a great way to spend some time together.  Baby was snuggled warm in her wrap and just looked around smiling the whole time.  With luck tomorrow will be just as warm.

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Jan. 8, 2008 - Winter Carnival

Our church started hosting a fall family carnival last year.  This year it decided to host a winter one as well.  The kids had a great time, playing games, eating snacks and getting faces painted.  We even went for a hayride through the neighboring farmers field.

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