Nov. 4, 2009 - Happy November

We had eight boxes today:

1 - Our Read Alouds:  Two history books & the Boy Scout Chemistry Merit Badge book
2 - Alek's Math
3 - Bible:  We used Bible Study Guide For All Ages for the first time today.  I think we're really going to like it.
4 - Phonics & Vocabulary Workbook

5 - The Story of the USA
6 - States & Capitals review
7 - Words on the Vine: Write sentences using words with the root 'foli'
8  - Our artist for November, Hokusai:  read his biography in Lives of the Artists and watch a Youtube video about him

We also watched some Liberty Kids videos during lunch & he'll do his reading tonight.

Other things we've done in the last week:

We went to Marquette State Park with some of the other families in our homeschool group.  First we had a lesson in owls & eagles, and then a two mile hike.

This view is from the top of a mound on the river bluffs.  Our guide said that on a clear day, you can see the St. Louis arch from here.  Our day was VERY foggy!

Our state menu this week was from Maine:  Lobster Casserole, Roasted Asparagus & Blueberry Pie.  (I cheated a little on the pie  - a frozen pie from the grocery store)  Everything was delicious!

Tuesday was time for Kate to register for the 2nd semester of college already!  She'll be taking English, Math, Psychology & Music Theory.  Her schedule will be a little easier this semester - no classes before 10 a.m.

We finished Witch of Blackbird Pond on Tuesday.  Luke will finish up his book about Pocahontas by the end of the week.  He is supposed to finish reading his Chemistry book before the merit badge seminar on Saturday, so we'll concentrate on that for the rest of the week.
I've been working on Dewey, the Small Town Library Cat and The Life and Adventures of Harry Bibb.  Both of them are good books, but I just haven't had much time to read.

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Oct. 20, 2009 - Almost weekly update & Workbox Wednesday

I'm a little behind on my weekly blog entry this time, so I'll combine it with my Workbox Wednesday.  Our week started with a Chili Cook-off after church on Sunday.  These were the judges:
and Luke after three bowls of chili:
We managed to get a few good days of school in this week.  We're reading Witch of Blackbird Pond together, Luke's reading a book about Pocahontas, and I started Jumping Through Fires by David Nasser.  I just picked this book up at random from the New Biographies shelf at the library, but it's turned out to be pretty good.  It's the story of a boy's transition from Iran to America, and eventually Christianity.  It's a short book that you could probably read easily in one or two settings, but lately I seem to be having a hard time keeping my eyes open by the time I sit down to read in the evening.

We've been adding one or two states a week to our list of states/capitals to memorize.  Last week I bought the book Eat Your Way Through the USA which has recipes for a dinner from each state.  We started with New York.
Chicken Noodle Soup, Baked Creamed Cabbage & Red Velvet Cake

 Luke decided that he wanted this week's Friday theme to be 'airplanes'.  I usually put my own theme days together, but this time I ordered the Airplane Lapbook from Hands of a Child.  We only got about 3/4 of the way through it, so next Friday's theme will be:  Airplanes, Continued.  He decided that when he's done with everything, he'll mount it on a display board and save it for our end-of-the-year Homeschool Fair.

Kate is half-way through her semester at college now.  Last week's English assignment was a research paper on the death penalty.  She was the only one in class that got a 100%!!

Every Friday & Saturday this month, Luke is working with his Boy Scout Troop at the "Haunted Hayride."  The area Scout Troops organize the ride every year as a fund raiser.  They had over 400 people go through this weekend!  Here's Luke in his spooky make-up:

Our Last Rose of the season.  This plant didn't have a single flower all summer!

I filled all 12 boxes today.  We'll see if they all get done.

1 - Read Alouds: The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Story of Jamestown
2 - Alek's Math
3 - Phonics & Vocabulary Workbook
4 - Vocabulary:  We're starting the Words on the Vine workbook.  Our first Latin root is 'foli'.

5 - Make a shopping list for tonight's "Maine" dinner
6 - Practice Math Facts
7 - States Notebook
8 - Tree photo
9 - Read 2 chapters of Pocahontas

10 - All About Spelling
11 - Growing with Grammar:  We're on the last lesson of the chapter which is a writing exercise.  It may take more than one day to finish.
12 - Boy Scout Chemistry Badge book - Luke will be attending an all day seminar, in a couple of weeks, to earn his Chemistry merit badge.  We'll read a few pages of the book each day in preparation.

• 1 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Oct. 14, 2009 - Workbox Wednesday 10-14-09

Tuesday was a sick day here, so this is what I originally had planned for yesterday.  We had 11 boxes today:

1-Our read alouds (BIble, Witch of Blackbird Pond, Bach Biography)
2-Alek's Math
3-State Folder - Today is NEW YORK.  We're working on 1 or 2 states a week - Luke fills out an information sheet for the state, makes a flashcard with the state name & capital,  and tomorrow we'll try the New York recipes from Eat Your Way Through the USA.

4-Phonics & Vocabulary Workbook Grade 6 from the Carson-Dellosa Publishing Practice & Apply series - We just started this book today.
5- Luke read a couple of chapters from Pocahontas and the Strangers.
6-Growing with Grammar lesson
7-Flashcard practice
8-Copywork
9-The Story of the USA - We reviewed Chapters 1-7
10-All About Spelling
11-A Pikachu paper model

• 1 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Oct. 8, 2009 - One Month of School Done

After a month of school, I'm finding out what works & what doesn't.  This was my first time with Sonlight and although I Love the book selections, that's the only part I'm really using.  We talk about what we've read, but I don't usually use their study guide questions.  Since I don't seem to be conforming to their plan, we'll just use their reading schedule as a book list and continue to do history the way I always have - adding in my own activities and lapbooks, reading from the various history books that I already have about each topic, etc.

We've been doing a lesson from Growing with Grammar about 2 or 3 times a week.  On the other days, I assign some kind of writing exercise.  Sometimes it's copywork from the book he's reading or the ideas I find here:  Online Grammar and Writing Handbook.  The Remember Me Pockets have some daily writing prompts that are great for handwriting.

I'm not getting to Science as often as I had hoped, but I'm giving myself two or three years to get through Apologia General Science.  That will give us time to get into some other science topics that catch Luke's interest.

Math & Spelling are both going well as we continue with what we were using last year.  Our "Theme Fridays" are definitely a hit!  Luke has requested that next week's theme be "Airplanes", so if you have any suggestions let me know.  Today's theme was "Columbus"
                                                         
                                       Columbus Boxes
Box 1 - Listen to the "You Are There - Columbus Discovers America" recording which I downloaded from homeschoolradioshows.com
Box 2 - Christopher Columbus Reading Sheet from theholidayzone.com
Box 3 - A maze, also from theholidayzone.com
Box 4 - A Math Worksheet from softschools.com
Box 5 - We made a Columbus Day Poster:

So far this month, we've finished Walk the World's Rim by Betty Baker.  We read this book together & I think we both enjoyed it....a little sad at the end, but a good story.

One of the foods that they mention in this book is "Yam Cakes".  We tried this recipe: Cherokee Yam Cakes and they turned out really well.

Luke read Om-kas-toe on his own.

I usually read biographies or non-fiction books, so this month I decided to try to read a fictional book:  Peace Like A River by Leif Enger.  I really enjoyed the story and it didn't end the way I expected.


We've also started books about our composer & artist of the month - Bach & Michelangelo.
In honor of Alice Dalgliesh's birthday, we read Bears on Hemlock Mountain.  Donald J. Sobol's birthday is this month too, so we'll be reading some Encyclopedia Brown books.  I have his Two-Minute Mysteries book on order from Paperback Swap.  

• 1 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Oct. 7, 2009 - Workboxless Wednesday

No workboxes today.  We went on a field trip to the Nature Institute.  I forgot to take my camera on the hike, so I only have photos of the kids in the lodge.

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Sep. 30, 2009 - Our Week

This week we went apple picking:

and had church in the park:

Luke camped out at the airport all weekend with his Scout troop:

worked the day of the fly in:

and then went for a ride himself:

Kate went for a ride in this one:

• 1 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Sep. 23, 2009 - Workbox Wednesday 9-23-09

• 2 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Sep. 19, 2009 - The end of Summer '09 at LLR

For our last week of Summer, we had beautiful weather here at LLR!  Schooling just seems so much nicer with all the windows open, clear skies, and a light breeze coming into our living/dining room a.k.a. the school room.

Artist & Musician of the Month Activities: We continued to listen to Vivaldi this week and collected some items from the yard - leaves, dirt, flowers.
We'll let them dry out over the weekend, and then Luke is going to make paints with them according to the directions in Amazing Leonardo Da Vinci Inventions You Can Build Yourself.

 

Remember Me September Pockets:  I purchased a Remember Me Pocket from fortunatelyforyoubooks.com for the first time this month & LOVED IT.  We're not making the pockets as they have it laid out, but it is filled with activities & information that can be put in Luke's workboxes throughout the month.  One of them was a short biography of Tomie DePaola (his birthday was this week) and a colorful timeline of his life that Luke put together.

Science:  We're continuing Apologia's General Science Book.  We did this experiment on Tuesday.

Friday was Cloud Day!

We started out by reading The Man Who Named the Clouds by Julie Hannah & Joan Holub.  We also used these books:
The Cloud Book by Tomie dePaola
Clouds by Gail Saunders-Smith
Clouds by Anne Rockwell
Here are a few of the other things that we did for Cloud Day
***A crossword puzzle & a cloud worksheet that I found online. 
***Made a cloud wheel that I got here: http://www.homeschoolshare.com/docs54478/time_wonder/cloud_wheel.pdf
***Math practice was an online multiplication cloud game:    http://www.echalk.co.uk/tasters/taster3/taster.html
***Watched several cloud videos on YouTube.
***We printed off a cloud journal sheet here: http://www.goalongs.com/pdf/Cloud%20Data%20Sheet.pdf
***Took cloud photos outside
***After dinner, we tried this: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Cloud-in-a-Bottle  It took several tries and adaptations to get it to work, but Luke really had a lot of fun with it.

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Sep. 17, 2009 - Workbox Wednesday 9-16-09

 

Other than our regular subjects, we only had a couple of 'fun' boxes today.  But, one of them was a dvd which I knew would take a lot of time. 

For one box, I had Luke pick a tree in our yard and take a photo of it.  I'm hoping to make that a weekly box so that at the end of the year, he'll have a collage of the same tree changing through the seasons.

The second box was in honor of Roald Dahl's birthday this week.  First, we read his book, Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Then, we watched the movie based on his book 'Witches'.  This movie was about a little boy that was turned into a mouse.  There were several scenes in this movie that reminded us of both Stuart Little and Ratatouille.

• 1 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Sep. 12, 2009 - Four Seasons

Luke's abstract watercolor paintings done while listening to Vivaldi's Four Seasons

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Sep. 9, 2009 - Workbox Wednesday 09/09/09

Here's a few things that were in our boxes today.

Some fun things in honor of Bear Day:

A couple of art projects:

Since Vivaldi is our 'composer of the month' we did watercolor backgrounds for each season (while listening to The Four Seasons of course!).   We'll add the sonnets tomorrow and have photos of the finished project in a few days.

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Sep. 9, 2009 - Week 2

• 3 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Sep. 2, 2009 - Workbox Wednesday

We have 10 boxes today:

1-Read Alouds; 2-Math; 3-Currents Events, Definition of a Category 2 Storm

4-Handwriting, List 5 things you can put apples in; 5-Spelling; 6-Math Fact Practice

7-SL Language Arts Worksheet; 8-Story of the USA Workbook

9-Reading; 10-Apple Facts Worksheet (in honor of National Apple Month)

If you have a Workbox Wednesday entry to share this week, leave a comment with your blog address.

Some other Workbox Wednesday sites:
http://www.orca-alce.blogspot.com/
http://wayzleyacademy.homeschooljournal.net/2009/09/02/workbox-wednesday-2/

 

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Aug. 29, 2009 - Our First Week of School

The 2009-2010 school year has officially started at Living, Learning, Reaching Homeschool.  LLR Homeschool originally stood for "Little Learning Rabbits"  Homeschool, a name chosen by my oldest when she was in 2nd grade.  Our mascots were her hand drawn pink & blue bunnies.  Now that she's starting college and the youngest is starting middle school, we decided to find another name that fit our initials.

Monday
Kate had her first day at Lewis & Clark Community College.  This first semester, she'll be taking English, Math, and American History.  Everything that she takes this year will also be applied to her Junior year of high school.  The admissions staff at the college has been very nice.  They even stretched the minimum age by a couple of days for us.  (Kate turned 16 two days after school started.)  I didn't get any photos of the first day .  College students just aren't too receptive to posing for Mom with their backpacks in front of the school!  Monday went well despite the usual first day confusion.  Only one of her classes was in the right room.  Another class had gotten too large & was split into two classes at the last minute.  We're having unusually wonderful weather for this time of year, so all the extra walking around campus wasn't too bad.

Tuesday

Luke and I started school on Tuesday.  We jumped right back into our workbox schedule with no problems.  I did try to keep the work load a little light this first week.  Luke had 7 boxes his first day:
1 - All our SL Read Alouds
2 - 45 minutes of Aleks Math
3 - Current Events, I picked two articles out of the Sunday paper - one national and one international.  He read the articles then marked where they were on a map.

4 - All About Spelling, we did a review of the rules that he learned last year.  I had planned to continue review all week, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well he remembered them.
5 - SL Language Arts - This was just some cursive copywork.  He hasn't done much writing over the summer, so we'll slowly transition from copywork to dictation.

6 - Story of the USA, chapter one - I'm breaking each chapter into two days.  The first day we'll read & discuss it together.  The second day, he'll look back over the reading and do the workbook questions.
7 - Reading - the first chapter of Om-kas-toe

Wednesday
Kate turned 16!!  When I picked her up from school, we went straight to the DMV for her driving test.  There were several people ahead of us, so there was an nerve wracking, hour-long wait for her name to be called.  For her first solo drive, she took Luke to Wendy's for lunch.  She didn't want a big party.  After dinner, we had cake and blew out 16 candles.

Luke's boxes today:
1 - Pirate worksheet - a fun word puzzle
2 - 45 minutes of Aleks Math
3 - Current Events, He found pictures online to illustrate the articles and added them to our current events bulletin board.

4 - Make a Hero Card for Vitiamin A, This is a free vitamin study that I found online
5 - Story of the USA, chapter 1
6 - Listen to a Bible Songs CD

Thursday
Thursday's Boxes:
1 - Morning exercises
2 - Growing With Grammar - We just continued where we left off last year.
3 - Art - We read about Leonaro DaVinci in "Lives of the Artist" and then found examples of his artwork online.

4 - All About Spelling - We started on the next level.
5 - New Testament Poster - put the New Testament books in the right order
6 - Apologia General Science - We're using the lapbook from Knowledge Box Central.  Today was two journal entries and an experiment.

Thursday afternoon is Piano & Guitar lessons.  Now that Kate has her driver's license, I get to stay home & clean (or not) while they go to lessons!

Friday
This was Kate's first time driving herself to school and back.  I did, at least, get to take a photo of her return.

Now that we have 3 drivers, I had to get another car licensed & titled which meant another hour at the DMV and a late start for school with Luke.  We still managed to get 10 boxes done before Dad got home from work. (barely)
1 - SL Read Alouds
2 - Aleks math
3 - Current Events - He used mapquest to find out how far it was from our house to the locations of the news articles.
4 - New Testament Poster
5 - Story of the USA, chapter 2
6 - Reading - Om-Kas-toe chapter 2
7 - Find a carrot recipe online and make a shopping list - This is to go along with our vitamin study: a recipe high in Vitamin A.  You can see his choice here: Curried Carrot Soup  We'll probably try it over the weekend.
8 - SL Language Arts - a lesson in Active v.s. Passive Voice
9 - MadLibs online
10 - All About Spelling

I'm happy with our first week.  We'll gradually ease into a little more work each day, but we managed to get through at least one week with no frustration or complaining.  Kate has run into several people at college that she already knows & is definitely happy with her new driving freedom!  Now that Luke is considered a middle-schooler, he's going to Youth Group Activities at church and getting more involved with Boy Scouts.

I have a long list of homeschool blogs that I try to visit each week.  If you're a blogger, please keep posting.  I just love looking at everyone else's ideas.

• 2 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Aug. 22, 2009 -

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Aug. 16, 2009 - Luke's Mini Office

 This was my first attempt at making a "mini office".  I attached everything with Velcro and left some blank spaces so we can add or change things as we go through the year.

 On the Left Side I have  the Solar System, How To Write a Paragraph, & the Books of the Bible:

In the center, a home-made pocket chart for the date, a holder for his ruler, page protector pockets for his current work & memory verse (That's his copy work for the first day of school.), a list of what's on his calendar for the week, and an extra spot just for something fun:

On the right side, a Roman Numerals Chart, Cursive Alphabet, Multiplication Table, Parts of Speech, and a list of the American Presidents:

• 5 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Aug. 7, 2009 - Getting Ready for Back to Homeschool

 I think I'm finally ready to start the new school year.  Kate is registered for classes at the community college.  We got her books today.  She'll go to orientation on August 14th and start classes on August 24th (two days before her birthday).  The first semester will be English, Math & American History.

If everything goes as planned, Luke and I will start school on August 25th.  This is what we'll be using:

English - Sonlight & Growing with Grammar, All About Spelling
Bible - Sonlight and class at church
Math - Alek's Math + misc. worksheets & Keys to.... Books
History - Sonlight 3+4 (American History)
Science - Apologia General Science
Music - Guitar Lessons + study a different composer each month
Art - Study a different artist each month and various art projects
Health - Finish reading the Abeka Health book that we started last year and an online study of nutrition and vitamins
Current Events - research one national & one international article from the Sunday paper each week

 My projects between now and August 25th will mostly be getting our schoolroom, a.k.a. the living & dining room, ready.  There is a lot of decluttering to do as the school supplies area and bookshelves tend to become a catch-all over the summer months.  Also, I'd like to get several bulletin boards put up.  I'm debating whether I should just buy some inexpensive bulletin boards or make my own with corrugated cardboard and fabric.  If anyone has tried the make-your-own version, I'd love to hear how it went or see photos.

This is my first 4 days of workbox planning:

Schedule Sheet:

 And the boxes:

• 1 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Aug. 6, 2009 - Art Book Giveaway

Check out Art Lessons For Kids .  It's a great site & they're having a contest for a free e-book giveaway!

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Jul. 30, 2009 - Our Texas Vacation

Our vacation this year was a trip to Dallas, TX for my niece's wedding.   We left in the wee hours of the morning on July 15th.

We wanted to stop for the night in a city that we'd never seen before, so we picked Tulsa, OK.  After driving around a little to see the city, we stopped at a nice, riverfront park for snowcones.

We arrived in Dallas on Thursday to a wonderful hotel room that my sister & her husband had arranged.  With big rooms & no clutter, I felt like we had more room than we do at home!
Luke & Doug in the room
Our view from the window
Outside our hotel room door - the atrium
A picture of me with my sister, Shay, and her husband, Mike

Of course, the wedding & reception was beautiful.  We don't have official wedding photos yet, just a few pictures that we took ourselves:

The sister of the bride, my niece Catherine & her husband, Antonio.  They were staying in the same hotel, so we got to meet for a late night snack.

The day after the wedding, we found a petting farm just a few blocks from the  hotel.

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Jul. 6, 2009 - Our First Month of Summer Comes to an End

 Now that we're really into summer, I've started working on some projects for next schoolyear.  This is a game I made to learn the books of the Bible.  When I get the Old Testament done, I'll mount them on a folding board.

Start out with an empty bookcase:
 

Put the books on the shelves (with velcro):

Then lift the tabs to see if you have them in the right order:
  

 This is my planning book.  Each page has 4 days of plans for our workboxes.  I typed in the main subjects & left blanks to write in the fun "extra's".

 A pocket behind each sheet for notes & worksheets:

My husband's extended family gets together for a picnic every year at the end of June.  A few years ago, we moved the picnic indoors as everyone was getting less tolerant of the usual 95 degree heat:

 Getting ready for a walk:

• 4 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

| Previous | Home | Next |

Free Mozart Music | Free music ringtones at EZ-Tracks.com