Expanding Our Horizons

Bad Mommy, Blog Update, the fun stuff!

2010-05-28T21:56:00.000-07:00

Well! It's been awhile. There've been many trips and some books finished... Let's see if I can catch this mess up.

In April we went to the Children's Festival in Hampton Roads and followed it up with an impromptu trip to the ocean.

The dogfish must've recently hatched, because mermaid purses were all over the beach. The kids collected a ton of them and they are now stinking up the break front :)

We also crashed a field trip in April. My nephew's class went to George Washington's Birthplace. The boys and I tagged along, it was a great deal of fun, even if GWB is a little old hat for us.

May has been very busy so far. Homeschooling day at King's Dominion, THANK YOU HEAV!!!!! Was a blast. Luke got to ride his first roller coaster and Andrew got to take his first solo ride on a big coaster.

We also took an impromptu trip to Washington DC, via both Amtrak and VRE. Amtrak was really nice (and super expensive), VRE was uber punctual and incredibly affordable. The boys LOVED riding the train and they were duly impressed with DC. We didn't stay too long, but we did see the Capital Bldg, the Washington Monument, the Air & Space Museum (always a hit), and we took a quick jaunt through the Natural History Museum. Luke's favorite part was this massive fountain in the center of an art gallery. Andrew, of course, loved the A&S Museum. The roses were in bloom and I have to say that was one of my favorite things.

Also, Andrew turned nine this month. His party was a lot of fun. I didn't plan a darn thing, but there was a water balloon fight, followed by water guns, followed by bicycle races, polished off with some go-kart racing. The boys really enjoyed themselves.

Brag Alert.

2010-05-28T21:36:00.000-07:00

Andrew wrote a poem and it's been accepted by a young writers magazine.

Luke is developmentally five/sixish.

Jocelyn is the greatest girl I know.

And tomorrow's review today! Week 24

2010-03-04T11:34:00.000-08:00

Andrew

Grammar - We've made it all the way up to Lesson 62 (we're doing the third option in FLL3). Andrew's enjoying memorizing Poe's "The Bells" and he had a lot of fun diagramming sentences with conjunctions (go figure).

Reading - He's about halway through "Through the Looking Glass" and continues to love the absurdity of it all.

Writing - WWE3 week 24, we're using "Around the World in 80 Days" this week. I really like how this allows me to introduce him to books, and entice him into picking them up on his own. Last week he was sneaking peaks into Pinnochio and this week he's reading as much of Fogg's story as he can (he's not allowed to read to whatever part I'm planning on using next). Also, I picked up Writing Strands 3 for a song on Amazon and Andrew has done the work for Lesson 1. At first he was completely peeved over the idea of more writing, but the humor and the simplicity of the assignments has made this first week go smoothly.

Spelling - We're on Lesson 2 of Spelling Workout D. The orange pages continue to keep him interest. He earned over 100% on his spelling test Monday (for Lesson 1) and so far, his missed words page is empty, yeah Drew!

Math - Singapore Math continues to be great. Andrew is becoming much quicker in calculating values and his frustration and stubborn refusal to do math is starting to fade. Not to say I don't have to breath on his shoulder to keep him going, but he's already gone from a half hour for Mental Math to 10 MINUTES. Again, yeah Drew!

Latin - Ecce Romani continues to please and Latina Christiana plods along. We're actually on the same lesson we did last week. We are enjoying reading Latin so much that I think we're going to start taking two weeks per LC lesson and one week per story (give or take) for ER. That means we slow down, but it's so much more enjoyable this way that I'm not worried about it.

Greek - Same old same old. We did get to some new vocabulary in Hey Andrew! and I've left his Greek more in his lap. Now, he knows he has to do one verse a week for transcription and this week he's learning how being lazy means you end up with a lot to do on Friday. He paced himself better last week.

History - Uh, we watched some history channel and biography shows on hulu.

Science - Hulu again.

Devotions - We've been using Devotions for Kids, but it doesn't require much of Andrew, he just sits and listens. Today I found a Bible Study from back in 2000 that was in our church library. We went ahead and tried that out for today and I like it much better. So, goodbye devotions for kids, hello Bible study. We're now studying the power of the Spirit (Acts 1).

Nature - The birds are back in full force. We've read through a number of books and Andrew's definitely enjoyed his time outside observing, but I just don't have anything to show for it....

Luke

Reading - We continue to practice in our Bob Books

Writing - Well, he's practicing his name, but there's no pressure there. Luke, just enjoys writing.

Math - Luke's started doing some really loose addition and subtraction. Nothing with symbols, just me
saying things like: you have three marshmallows, how many would you have left if two of them disappeared and other such silliness.

Devotions - We're reading about Moses and the Israelites.

Nature - He's starting to learn how to identify different types of birds.

Last Week's Review, almost a week late, oops.

2010-03-04T11:06:00.000-08:00

Last week went really well.

We started using Ecce Romani with Latina Christiana. Andrew really enjoyed having a story to read and I've already seen growth in his Latin.

We read a few chapters for History and watched some History Channel stuff on Hulu about Japan that went along with some that we had read.

Greek is plodding right along, we did get to encounter some new vocabulary words and Andrew continues to work diligently at transcripting the book of John.

Grammar is grammar, writing went well... We did move up to Spelling Workout D last week. Andrew is ever so excited to read his new orange book, he got tired of the green (C). Oh and he continues to enjoy "Through the Looking Glass."

Singapore Math was fun and new for us. We're taking a break from the more challenging math and I'm very glad we have. Besides taking tons off my shoulders, it's also allowing Andrew some good math r&r.

In Science, we're slowly but surely catching up to where we should be. I really hope we'll be done with Chemistry by July (our longest break, four weeks off, woohoo!). Physics is starting to look SO good.

Luke continues to be Luke.

Nature Challenge Week 1

2010-02-19T13:20:00.000-08:00

After seeing Daisy's weekly reports full of drawings from nature I've finally decided to get started and study nature with the kids! Thanks Daisy, for the motivation.
Week One Challenge:
Well, I read the required pages in the Handbook of Nature Study and was relieved to see I didn't have to continue this if the kids totally rebelled. Also, being reminded that "I don't know" is a valid answer was very nice.

We did do the one hour outside, but haven't gone out yet today. We actually spent an entire hour hiking around the nature trail at George Washington's Birthplace on Monday. That was so much fun. With all the snow all of the animal prints and their poo were very obvious. The boys were enjoyed "tracking" the different animals and guessing who made what print or pile. Tuesday and Wednesday we kept to the neighborhood, walked down to get the mail and things. One good observation Andrew made was that the birds are quieter as the day goes on. In the mornings they're so loud, but as it wears on to afternoon they seem to settle down. Luke was pretty impressed just to be able to climb over and under logs and things in the scanty woods left around the neighborhood. His biggest observation was that thorns still hurt, even in the winter.

We decided to investigate birds in general. This was a good time for a general study of them (February is feed the birds month). Andrew has been working on various bird calls, Luke has learned to whistle, and we all have started trying to identify the various birds we see on our daily travels.

Week 22 in Review

2010-02-19T13:04:00.000-08:00

No pictures this week (and everyone stops reading the blog) sorry, but we've been busy living and haven't stopped to keep momentos.

Greek, we're through lesson 19 in Hey Andrew! 3 and Andrew has finished transcribing 1.12 in John, which means he finally gets to flip to the next page! It may seem silly, but we take our triumphs where we can find them.

Latin, we've done lesson 16 this week. It's nice to have some more verbs to work with and conjugating them has proven pretty easy, for Andrew anyway.

Science, we finally finished Unit 4. It was a bit harrowing. I'm not sure that Andrew was ready to know how fission (nuclear power plants/bombs) could effect things. Sometimes I wish he was a little slower on the uptake.

History, we went ahead and did two chapters this week, 5 and 6. We covered some interesting stuff about Japan and then skimmed through the pilgrims. It may seem wierd to fly over that particular section of history, except that we already learned all that around Thanksgiving. There were some new little tidbits, especially from "You Would Not Want to Be an American Colonist." Ah, cannibalism, always a fun topic. I think everyone, Dad included, would say that learning the history of New York was the favorite part. Wall Street? Broadway? Those alone kept us in stitches.

Reading, Andrew has started 'Through the Looking Glass' and is loving it. He's also read a few books on the early colonies. We checked out a book called "Mouth Noises" from the library and he's been popping, barking, and clicking ever since. I really need to update his reading blog, I'm getting rediculously behind.

Writing, WWE 3, week 22, same old same old. Sometimes I worry about the monotony and wonder if I should get the workbooks, but I hate the idea of spending that much money for something I can do myself. I'm thinking about doing the end of year evaluation next week, just to see if he can do it (I'm pretty sure he could), but then what?

Spelling, we finished Spelling Workout C this week. D was supposed to be here last Friday, but apparently the shipper didn't put it out until this week. Wierd, because I had gotton a notice that it was on its way.

Grammar, FLL3 and the beat goes on. We both like grammar. This week Andrew got to diagram adverbs that described adjectives and other adverbs. We both thought this was really neat. There is something very satisfying about making a simple sentence turn into something with legs that looks impossible to decifer.

Math.... well, a while ago I made the mistake of giving him some placement tests, just for giggles (I know, baaaad idea) and I discovered that while he can do some really difficult math on a white board, or in his head, if it's simple math on a worksheet he completely freezes up. So, he ended up testing at 3a for Singapore math, which is really where we're at age wise anyway, but STILL! I ordered it, in a panic, and we've done the first four lessons this week. It's much easier than what we had been doing (which means less time, I'm going to end up turbo lazy), but this is so thorough that I can relax knowing he won't choke on his standardized testing later. I do have to say, that while he misses the geometry games (we focused on Singapore this week), Drew is glad for the break.

Luke has had a wonderful week, mostly thanks to Joanne on the WTM boards and her web site Get Off Your Butt Parenting. I knew Luke was different, but I did not know how different extroverts are from introverts. My poor baby is living in a house with three people that define comfort by time alone. So, we are changing things and Luke is so much happier now that we're more considerate of his need to be with people. I even took him to McDonald's to play with the tons of other littles that congregate there with their tired mothers. He is, get this, peacefully napping at this very moment.

Besides all that, Luke made a little bird puppet and we learned the poem "Little Bird." He continues to practice writing. I had an 'aha' moment and found out I could tuck his books into the plastic sleeves on the outside of our trapper keepers and let him use my dry erase markers. His writing is really improving and he's even started drawing people. At library time today they read some bird books and made bird feeders from waffle cones smeared with peanut butter and rolled in bird seed. Luke did all the crafts all by himself, while Drew made various bird calls he learned from "Mouth Noises." I was one proud mommy.

We're starting a nature study :)

2010-02-15T05:59:00.000-08:00

Here's a free nature study challenge. I'm so excited, we need to do more outside, but I have not been able to really find the time to put something together.

Here's the first Challenge. If you go to the blog, there's a Mr. Linky, so you can post your finished challenge blog. Btw, the link for "The Handbook of Nature Study" goes to a site with free downloads.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #1

Let's Get Started!

1. Read pages 1-8 of the Handbook of Nature Study. Highlight or underline anything that you as the nature study teacher find will help you in your guiding your children. If you read a sentence that you agree with, mark it so you will remember to come back to it when you need some encouragement.

2. "In nature-study the work begins with any plant or creature which chances to interest the pupil." So here is your challenge this week. Spend 10-15 minutes outdoors with your children, even if it is really cold and yucky. Bundle up if you need to. Take a walk around your yard or down your own street. Enjoy being outdoors. After you come inside, sit the children down and ask them one at a time to tell you something that they saw on their walk. Ask them what was interesting to them. Maybe they picked up a leaf or a stick and brought it back indoors and now they can really take a look at it. Make a big deal about whatever it is that they talk about.

3. After your discussion, come up with two things to investigate further. For instance, if they saw a bird on their walk and they came inside and talked about it, ask them if they want to know more about that bird. You have a whole week to spend some time looking it up. Maybe they found an acorn or a berry on a bush that they were interested in. That could be your focus for the week.

4. After your nature study time with the children, pull out your Handbook of Nature Study and see if the item the children are interested in is listed in the index. If it is, look up the information for yourself and then relate interesting facts to the children sometime during the next week.

5. Post an entry on your blog listing out what you did for your Outdoor Hour. I would also love to see the list of the two things that you are investigating further. Come back to this post and add your blog link to Mr. Linky. Please do not link to your blog in general but to the entry that you make about your Outdoor Hour experience each week.

Week off!

2010-02-12T06:04:00.000-08:00

This was our week off! It should have been a great deal of fun, what with all the snow and Valentine's Day. Drew was grounded, though. So, it was a pretty lame week.

I ordered Singapore 3a on February 4th from bestedusource.com. Drew can do some crazy calculations and love 'fun' math (see Geometry, Algebra) but still panics when he sees a page of simple math. I gave him a placement test last week, for giggles, and he tested exacted where we are. However, I went into a tizzy realizing that his standardized testing is coming up in May and ... he freezes when he sees too many simple problems set out for him. So, we're going to do some Singapore and see if I can't get him over this fear of basic math.

As of today, my Singapore is still sitting exactly where it was on February 5th, when it was "processed" at the post office in California. I'm so glad I payed extra for expedited service.

I ordered Spelling Workout D on Monday, we should have that today. Thank you Amazon shippers. I didn't even realize we had finished C until I went to set up our work for the next few weeks. Surprise surprise!

Luke has had a fun week, driving everyone insane. He ate some espresso beans Dad left on the counter yesterday... that was fun too ;)

I'm going to look into Alfie Kohn's books. There has to be some way to raise decent human beings without all the stress. There has to be. I finished reading "Uncle Tom's Cabin" this week and was struck by how kindly the Quakers were. There are times when I really wish we could live in the middle of nowhere. There has to be a better way.

I took too many pictures today........ here's some more :)

2010-02-06T16:13:00.000-08:00

Drew decided to build a sledding hill...

Luke thought it was a great idea...

Little Drew and his friend agreed.....

It worked well...

My poor cherry tree...

The first star of the evening. Goodnight Snowmaggeden.

Last Sunday versus Today!

2010-02-06T12:24:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday we went sledding at the beach (only real hills nearby). You can see the Potomac at the top right hand corner.

This was how our yard looked. Plenty of the white stuff:

Sledding, fun fun fun.

This morning snowmaggedon was in full force:

I tried to take a picture of a cleared walk, to give an idea of the depth, but it's not very useful ;) Take my word for it, foot and a half in the low spots upwards of two feet elsewhere and........ it's still snowing.

Shark Bait! Another field trip, thank you HEAV!

2010-01-28T20:20:00.000-08:00

Home Educators Association of Virginia sets up these wonderful homeschooling days and today we got to enjoy one! The discount was great, the drive was a little much (3 1/2 hours one way), but it was SO worth it.

We went to the Virginia Aquarium. The volunteers were so nice, and they knew everything! The exhibits were fantastic and the boys LOVED it. You know what though, I loved it too. You know it was a good trip when, after 7 hours of driving, you can tell your kids you had a wonderful time with them.

Now for the pictures:

Andrew loved the stingrays. He wants to write a report on them. I think we'll try to make a lapbook together.

They have so many hands-on exhibits. Here's Drew petting a variety of crabs.

Luke was more interested in looking. These little bubbles are a riot. They put the kids into the exhibit. Just behind the log, peeking over if you can see her, is a komodo dragon.

That's her in the next picture.

Eek! Sharks!

Andrew was followed by one fish. He did not notice, although Luke and I both thought it was hilarious.

Luke loved the turtles.

He also liked the sea horses. You can't see them, but Luke did.

Here we see a caiman:

At this point, Luke is just starting to get comfortable with the tanks, but that comfort did NOT last long...

The caiman woke up! We all three were amazed when it finally moved, okay and a little frightened.

We had such a wonderful time. Thank you HEAV! Thank you Virginia Aquarium! Thank you all you wonderful volunteers, you really made the day special.

Andrew getting help stretching a penny. Always a fun souvenier.

2010-01-25T08:50:00.000-08:00

The results are in, 91% in Spelling and 97% in Latin! I cannot believe he retained so much after the week we had! Way to go Andrew!

On Thursday we'll be doing homeschooling day at the Virginia Beach Aquarium. Another exciting bit, as neither boy has ever been to an aquarium before and dd will be skipping school to join us. I've sort of decided it was time to start taking advantage of homeschooling days, so this is my not quite New Year's resolution. Next month we'll head out to the Science Museum in Richmond and in March we'll be going down to Jamestown and York. The prices are good (Virginians, head to heav.org) and it's about time we started doing something fun :)

Week 19 in Review

2010-01-22T07:07:00.000-08:00

Is it over yet? Great.

Okay, it's not really over, but I'm posting, because we have to get to the library and .... I've had enough of this week already.

Andrew has managed to keep up with most of his work. We fell behind in grammar, but the plan is to catch up today and tomorrow (Saturday school?!? You bet!). His spelling is getting better, his writing is getting better, his Greek is getting really phenomenal (love Hey Andrew, but modified and now we're declining and conjugating ala Latina Christiana, instead of one at a time like they recommend), Latin continues on (we can almost converse now)... What else? He's reading "Stuart Little" as our library STILL hasn't gotten "Through the Looking Glass." Oh! History, Andrew made salt dough yesterday and then breached the walls with his Sea Beggars. That was fun. For science, we did not do Chemistry, but we've been doing some really interesting stuff with plants. We disected celery that had soaked up some dye for 24 hours. Then the boys ate it.

Luke is working on his plant book. He's made a little book, cut and colored some "vegetable soup," made a plant time-line and other such stuff. We'll keep working on plants next week, he's really enjoying this. The picture is Luke making dough seeds and planting them in his little dough garden.

Now, I'm going to bed... er the library... what a week.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-01-20T15:09:00.001-08:00

Luke's Vegetable Soup

2010-01-19T11:33:00.000-08:00

Luke and I sprouted some seeds last week. I did not expect them to do well, they were from store bought veggies and I really thought those were incapable of growth... I could not have been more wrong! By Sunday, our acorn squash needed to be put in a pot (we'd grown them in wet paper towels) and our potato looked pretty desparate too. We spent Monday potting them:

<---acorn squash

potato --->

We've been reading Growing Vegetable Soup and so in January Luke is learning about plants... aren't I the best planner?!?

We're heading out to the library to print out some things from here and this may be Luke's first really coehesive, everything works together week! Granted, it's starting on Tuesday, but Monday would've just ruined it anyway.

Bad case of the Moooondays.

2010-01-18T15:39:00.000-08:00

It all started badly. I needed to cover in the church office today. Instead of getting up and dressed, Drew decides to argue:
'You don't work in the office on Monday, Mom.'
'I do today, getupdressedbrushedandlet'sgo!'
'No, you don't work on Mondays.'
'Now.'
Twenty minutes later, Luke is dressed, the car is warmed up and Drew is... asleep in bed. It took everything I had to keep from dragging him to church in his pjs.

I was on time, just. Then, I start working and it turns out that someone else needs to use the printer. That's okay, it just meant I had to put off doing any of the printing/typing (99% of the work). Then, the boys start getting antsy. Then, they start arguing. I was climbing the walls, trying to be patient with everything...

Then, Luke climbed on the stage. This wasn't in the chapel, it was downstairs in the common room. Luke climbed up there (like he always does), only this time Drew took it upon himself to get Luke down. He grabbed Luke and promptly tripped and fell backwards... slamming Luke's face into the floor. Thankfully, he still has a mouthful of teeth. The only difference is the lovely kissy lips that swelled up... and the blood... everywhere (it seemed like it anyway).

By the time we got home I was ready to implode. We've managed to take our quizes, but very little other than that got done.

Augh.

Well, it wasn't free, but I'm glad we went all the same :)

2010-01-16T13:38:00.000-08:00

Today was, according to my Pack Leader (Cub Scouts), a free day in honor of Robert E. Lee's Birthday (which is Tuesday) at Stratford Hall (his birthplace). Little Drew and I scrambledish to get there an hour late... I had to go to the coffee shop this morning and pick up some joe and then ran over to the bakery to get breakfast, so we were late. Anyway, we get to the ticket gate at Stratford Hall and... the gate keeper denied us entrance. He said it was most definitely NOT a free day.

Now, I love Stratford Hall, it's beautiful and educational, and beautiful, but... it's 10 big ones for an adult (rediculous when you consider George Washington's Birthplace is HALF that) and 5 smackers for a kid. We usually only go on Lee's birthday, when it's free, because I'm a tightwad... This time, though... those big brown eyes next to me pleading, I shelled out the $15.

I am SO GLAD I did! We were, literally, the only two visitors.

We had a private tour of Lee's home with a grandmotherly type guide that made it feel like she was telling us gossip about people she knew (she was not a period worker). Here's some more pics!

The oval site is a new archaeological dig. They found a basement and some other stuff underneath fields that have been farmed as long as there have been records.

Andrew took a few pictures, this is one of the carraiges. These aren't all display only, they actually use them for carraige days.

This is the view out of one of the lower floor doors. You can see the family tomb (forgot who's there, I'm terrible!) and the compass/weather vain, they all line up, I thought that was pretty neat.

This is the bridge you cross to between the visitor's center and the main touristy area. It's really hard to show the drop in the middle, but years of erosion mean that you're quite a ways up. You can just see Andrew halway down the bridge.

These are the cliffs. When you hike down to where the mill is at you get some really nice views of the Potomac and the cliffs. These are in worse shape than the others in the area. Andrew and I watched rocks and earth slipping down. It seemed like anytime you looked at them bits and pieces were falling off. It is beautiful, though.

See how happy!

This is the mill. It's rediculous, I've lived her over 20 years, I've been to Lee's birthplace countless times, yet this is the first time I've ever wandered down to the mill. It was, of course, not open, but splendid all the same. We have about 14 pictures just of the ice under where the water goes and around the big wheel.

The mill pond, it's much larger than you might think and besides sporting a mill, it also has a nifty little overrun ditch that has rapids and waterfalls. It's a concrete ditch, nothing fancy, but I think we spent about twenty minutes here, just dropping gumballs into the little creek to watch them bounce over the rapids and go flying into the oblivion off the falls.

The hike back from the mill. It's always harder going back than it is embarking.

We really had a wonderful time, my boy and me, but now we must run out and procur dinner for Dad and Luke (who were out doing manly shopping).

Friday review!

2010-01-15T12:59:00.000-08:00

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were, to my recollection, well enough. Thursday brought with it the terror of a Science Fair Project due... Friday. To be fair, my mother informed me Wednesday evening, after Jo had already gone on to her youth group meeting.

This is Jo at about 11p, we weren't even close to finished. I don't know how much coffee I drank. My darling husband showed up at about 7:30p to pick up the boys and brought me a tankard he ground and brewed himself. Needless to say, the coffee made me a little jittery (I held off eating with the hopes of having chicken cooked by the same darling man), so most of our pictures turned out slightly out of focus. The next picture was taken at 1a when we were finally finished.

It was a hard won victory for science. Right.

Anyway, there are two more kids to talk about..........................................................

Luke has been growing a few things in the kitchen. There a potato suspended in some tubberware full of water and some acorn squash seeds wrapped in moist paper towels and dangling in a ziplock bag from the light about the stove (warmest place in the house). I am very happy to say that all are sprouting (score another one for science). At library time today Luke learned about different kinds of bears, those that hibernate and those that don't. The craft was really neat. We used epsom salt in water and painted it over the bear pictures. It ends up really nice and sparkly:

Luke also played outside on Wednesday... in his pjs... I'm so cool!

All that time up last night has made me feel a little sick and pretty tired. I wanted to sleep today, but I had pretty well given the boys Wednesday and Thursday off. Drew and I did a little bit of work outside Wednesday (it was above freezing, we HAD to spend some time outside), but Thursday was mostly spent with me trying to gather everything for the estupido fair. For all the moms worrying over kids spending an hour doing five or ten math problems... Drew has been on the same math review sheet for two days. The same kid that thinks finding the orbit of an astronaut is fun, turns into a mule the moment you put a page of, I kid you not, simple multiplication fact families infront of him. For pity's sake, really.

History was great, though. We've just done chapter 1 in Story of the World Vol. 3 and we have the dubloons to prove it!

Latin, Grammar, and everything else plodded on as usual for the most part. All his reviews at the beginning of the week went well, we'll see how the slacking effects his grades on Monday. I'm just glad we get all the heavy stuff done at the beginnning of the week. It makes it so much easier for me to slack off while he just reviews all the new stuff for the rest of the week.

Is it bad that I thought today, well we're so far ahead no one will know if we just put it off? Ugh. I hope I win first place in the fair... er uh... I mean I hope Jo wins. Really, she did most of the work. I gathered the stuff together, but made her run the experiments, tally the data, record it, etc. I did do most of the glueing onto the backboard, but who'm I kidding? That is the best part!

No Hive?

2010-01-14T07:09:00.001-08:00

I don't know what happens if you end up banned from a forum. I don't know why I would have been banned, so I have to wonder... can anyone else get into the Hive? I've been trying all morning, but can't even get into Peace Hill Press, so I'm assuming they're down (or my internet company is evil).

Any thoughts?

Nothing to do with anything, really. I'm just curious.

2010-01-14T05:55:00.000-08:00

Does anyone else read the captchas before they post? I've noticed that they are almost words (and normally hilarious words). I think I'm going to start posting the captchas at the bottoms of my comments, because for some bizarre reason I enjoy reading those wierd little letter mixtures.

So, if anyone cares to, could you comment on this with your captcha code? Just so I can see what mine look like LOL.

Really.

Comment

with the captcha.

Monday, Monday

2010-01-11T13:05:00.000-08:00

As Mondays go, this has been a pretty good one. We finally got to crack open Story of the World Volume 3, new books are always so exciting! We started Chapter 2 in Challenge Math and Andrew had some fun doing seemingly impossible problems:

Luke and I looked at various seeds today. This is Luke pulling out some of orange seeds:

We wrapped some acorn squash seeds in a damp paper towel and put them into a ziplock bag full of hot air (straight from Mommy's mouth) and hung them in a window. Luke even drew a picture of his seeds. I don't even know why I decided to do this today, I meant for us to work on habitats, especially the arctic, goodness knows it's cold enough, but for some reason acorn squash seeds won out!

For physical education, hard-dee-har-har, we made stilts:

And that, my friends, was our Monday!

How was yours?

For my friends who are suffering...

2010-01-10T15:41:00.000-08:00

I want to share an excerpt from the book I'm devouring now (this is ruining my 52/52 plans, because I've read three books this week and they were all great and one was supposed to be my classical for this coming week). It's Madeleine L'Engle's "Two-Part Invention" (you might know her from the Wrinkle in Time series). At this moment, in the book, her husband is suffering from cancer:

"My friend Dana and I talk about how we want to make everything all right for those we love, and cannot. Her mother died of pancreatic cancer only a few months ago. We say to each other that if we were God we would make everything all right, and then we stop. Look at each other. Because we suddenly see that making everything all right would not make everything all right. We would not be human beings. We would then be no more than puppets obeying the strings of the master puppeteer. We agree sadly that it is a good that we are not God; we do not have to understand God's ways, or the suffering and brokenness and pain that sooner or later come to us all.

"But we do have to know in the very depths of our being that the ultimate end of the story, no matter how many aeons it takes, is going to be all right."

This really is an incredible book. I'll review it once I'm done. I wanted to post this, because I know a few people that have been suffering so many losses and I am such a dunce. I hope this helps them, it is far better than I could've ever said.

Groovy Geometry: Games and Activities That Make Math Easy and Fun (Paperback)

2010-01-08T14:51:00.000-08:00

I really can't believe I did not blog about this?!? I thought I did, but apparently not!

This is a fantastic book, I can't say enough great things about! For every lesson there is a ton of activities and games. I didn't even know there was anything fun to be done with Geometry. All these great things Andrew has been doing in math (creating angles, various card games, scavenger hunts etc) are from this book.

Silly me! Next time I won't hold out!

Week 17 in Review

2010-01-08T07:07:00.001-08:00

This has been a great week! After our two week holiday, I really wasn't sure whether we would be able to get back into the swing of things. There were a few things we did not get done, but for the most part we're just where we need to be.
Math

We started using Groovy Geometry. This is such an incredible resource! Andrew has made angles (above), found angles throughout the house, and learned about angle relationships. He's really loved math this week. Groovy Geometry also has a ton of games to play and they're fun enough that we've played them in and out of math class, by popular request. Below is Andrew's diagram of parallel lines with a transversal.

Reading, writing, grammar and spelling

Luke has read "Mat" a few times. We've been enjoying "The Wind and the Willows" for our read-aloud at bed time. He is getting much better at reading the words, instead of the pictures. Luke's also taken it upon himself to learn how to write. He still chooses the bigger kids' trash books at the library (Goosebumps and others like those). Drew has decided to start reading them to Luke, out of the kindness of his heart (and probably because I don't normally let him check out the vast quantities of those that Luke will sneak into his book bag).

Andrew is still reading "Alice in Wonderland." I'm so glad that he's enjoying this book. It was one of my favorites growing up. He's also read a few other books this week, written thank you letters to his grandmas (we're sending them out today), done a complete review of his poetry memorization, and kept up in spelling.

Latin and Greek

Andrew slogs on! He got an 87% on his review of the last lesson in Latin and he's learning the ending for "they" in Greek.
History

We've finished up everything in Story of the World 2, and are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Story of the World 3.
Science
We didn't do everything I wanted to this week. We are so far behind, I had planned on doubling up, but we only finished one chapter. The science experiment, though, went swimmingly! Dad made us wait until he was home, so it was all done in the dark. Also, the reaction was a bit bigger than I had expected, so the pictures are blurry.
If you ever wanted to know what happens when you mix Mentos (fruit flavored, we couldn't find mint anywhere?!?) and diet Coke… Viola!
Picture one, is our supplies (resting on the tubberware container of science). Two depicts our holding chamber for the Mentos.

That third blurry one is me leaping away and attempting to catch a picture of Mt. VisCokeulus.

I don't know that we learned anything, other than… Mentos and Coke do not mix.

It was a good week. We didn't get everything done, but we there was enough done for me to be able to rest easy this weekend. Oh, and this morning we woke up to more snow!!!! There's supposed to be even more dropped throughout the day!!!! Eeeeh!

Ah, the sound of reading :)

2010-01-05T09:49:00.000-08:00

It started out so quiet. Luke was practicing his reading. Andrew was enjoying a new book. Then, I just had to break out the camera and then the reading stopped and the giggles and goofies ensued.

WOOHOO, we're back!

2010-01-04T13:23:00.000-08:00

Today has gone so much better than I'd dare hope! Luke did not do a single thing I had scheduled, but he did do work. Somehow he's learned how to write an A:

He also did some workbook pages from a Nursery Rhyme book his gramma gave him for Christmas:

Andrew has done stellar. He did every single topic and we were done on time. Even with an interruption to go to the bank. My buttons are bursting.

For math, he made an angle and moved it around to practice measuring angles:

Then, we played a game where we had to draw angles, just using a ruler. If you were close enough to right, you got a point. We're going to play this one again later today, he loved it. Andrew also ran through the house measuring angles and decided two things, our house is slightly off and 90 degrees is the most common angle (except here, where you have to average together a list of 88 through 92 degree angles).

Greek went really well, as did Latin. We wound it up with a new chapter in Science and (for writing) thank you letters to both his grandmothers:

Finally get to Upload some pictures :)

2010-01-02T11:55:00.000-08:00

This is one of the color by numbers pages Luke got for Christmas (you can tell he's excited).

Drew is modeling his new coat, but the coat didn't quite make it into the picture.

Two of my favorite ornaments. We got these for our first Christmas after we were married. We're not blonde.... but who cares, right?

We went to the beach this morning. It's about 30 out, but Luke wanted to see the ducks.

Decade in review :)

2009-12-31T08:43:00.000-08:00

It seems incredible that we've not just passed the millenium (gasp, with all our computers still functioning), but are now embarking on the tens. Am I the only one looking forward to the roaring 20s?

In the past ten years I have:
Had the honor to care for Big Drew's grampa up until his death.
Honored that same Grampa by making little Drew his namesake (middle name).
Faced the loss of every thing we had accumulated due to a hurricane.
Managed to get it all back and then some.
Shaved my head and regretted it.
Wept while my sweet little girl pranced merrily off to school.
Wept while my sweet little boy dragged himself off to school.
Been blessed with my third little surprise and honored another grandfather through another middle name.
Supported my mother through breast cancer and terrible medical care.
Took the plunge and removed Andrew from school.
Learned to love homeschooling.
Taught my youngest phonics and found out that I can teach reading :)
Made so many incredible friends.
Learned how to write a short note, as well as how rewarding it can be.
Joined a new church.
Found out my mil was engaged (WOOHOO).

That's all I've got off the top of my head, what a decade.

How old do I feel? I'm talking about a decade as if it was summer break.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-12-30T18:06:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas!

2009-12-30T08:51:00.000-08:00

Drew bought me a new connection chord for our camera for Christmas, whoopee! So, I finally get to post pictures, instead of scans which just did not do anything justice. I'll post Andrew's Christmas Cantata once I get it edited down to just him. I know everyone would love to watch 30 minutes of K through 5th graders singing and telling the Christmas story, but I don't have permission from all those parents, so it'll just my my son (of whom I am very proud).

Christmas Eve went really well. We were at my sister's this year, instead of Mom's and that caused some problems. I had to leave at 5pm to get to the candle light ceremony at church, so Drew stayed later with the kids. It's almost an hour drive, so I couldn't run home and change. I learned a valuable lesson. Polish food leaves a smell, much like b.o. on one's clothing. I got to scrunch on stage with others who were desparately trying to breath through their mouths while I whispered, "it's a food smell, really, it's not b.o." The reading went well, even if I was mortified.

The kids had a wonderful time at Heather's, baking cookies, making ornaments, tracking Santa and all that good stuff. The next morning was pandemonium, but a nice pandemonium. Jocelyn was cool about all her presents, I believe the best I got was, "oh, neat." Andrew tore through like a tornado and to this day some of his presents are still in their boxes. He did not get everything on his list and has attributed it to being mean to his brother. I'm not saying anything. Luke is at that beautiful point in life where every present is seen as... well... a gift. He recieves each one with surprise (for me?!?), opens them with excitement and squeels with joy, no matter the gift. I think I need to remember how nice it is, how heartwarming, to see someone react with so much surprise and happiness. That's something I think I should emulate.

I wrote out notes to go with our Christmas cards this year (see my reading blog to understand why). The response has been really touching. It's amazing how, telling someone what you really think of them (positive things, of course) can so deeply move them. I have the most incredible neighbors, I tell everyone about them... except them, of course. For some reason, I've let the past 11 years go without a formal thank you, or even letting them know what everyone but them has been told, how important they are to us. I've gotten so many tearful visits and on one hand it makes me feel guilty, because I should've told them this all along, but on the other I'm so glad to see that one simple little note can convey all I hoped it would.

I've read a ton, if you're looking for a book hop on over there and take a gander. Merry Christmas everyone, and I hope your New Year bangs in bright!

Christmas Fun!

2009-12-21T13:21:00.000-08:00

We're having a craft day to make up for the absolute lack of art the rest of this term.

We made some ornaments from cheap plastic beads. I read about them here. Since I don't have the chord to connect my camera to the computer, I tried to scan them in, lol.

We also attempted a six sided snowflake ala Donna Young. We're going to try a few in tin foil, and I'll scan those in as soon as we're done.

Andrew is working on a craft stick manger. That can't be scanned in, but you can rest assured it will be well done!

Here's a link to some real snowflakes (they won't let you use the pictures though).

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

2009-12-21T07:08:00.000-08:00

I've added some new blogs to our role. Instead of listing all the books the kids are reading here, they will be reviewing the books on their own blogs! If you're interested in books for three-year-olds, so far all read-alouds, then go to Luke's Reading Blog, there is also a link just below the picture/title of this blog. For the eight-year-olds, we offer Andrew's Reading Blog and, for the grown-ups, we have my reading blog.

Enjoy! I hope you find these useful. I know they're helping me get narrations out of Andrew. He doesn't have a post up yet as he is putting a lot of thought into it, but it should be a doozy once he's ready.

Possibly over a foot of snow, and one wonderful neighbor...

2009-12-19T07:57:00.000-08:00

We've gotten a TON of snow. My little dog disappears in its depths, we've had to dig the kids out twice. Hiding in the house, we hear the engine of something big, I wondered who could be doing construction... it was my neighbor, on his tractor, clearing our driveway.

What a good day!

Augh! It's Friday already and we have to do what?!? It's going to what?!? Through Sunday?!?

2009-12-18T06:19:00.000-08:00

Am I the only one that wakes up Friday morning, especially those Fridays that occur before holidays* and think, "OH, NO!" Fridays used to be TGIF, but here lately they are the impending dead line and a reminder of all I forgot to do that week. Not to mention that it seems we always have at least two other things to do on Friday, because everyone chooses Friday as the "convenient" day to do things. In this house, we will refer to Friday as, ONIF (rather than TGIF). Meaning, Oh No It's Friday.

This week we did manage to accomplish everything I laid out for Andrew. He read all of his library books by Wednesday and starting digging into some of the books we have around the house. Big Drew wonders that we ever go to the library, citing the shelves, mountains, and boxes of perfectly good books we have at home. He simply does not understand the desire for 'fresh' reading material.

We have library time today, which means Luke has craft time and Andrew has "shopping" time (his word for wandering choosing books). This evening we are going caroling with Cub Scouts and then waiting to see if this monsterous weather pans out. If anyone is interested, we're expecting anywhere from a few inches to a foot of snow. Sigh. I finally have money to buy Christmas presents and it looks like we could be snowed in. If you think I'm joking, ask any Virginian what happens once the first flake is in view. It's a zoo out there (buy some t.p. and milk, quick!).

Jocelyn turned 13 this week, she was given the week off from French.

Quick Synopsis of Andrew's Week:
Greek: Complete Lesson 14 (B)
Latin: Complete Lesson 12, quiz on Monday! (Grade hinges on quiz)
Reading: "First Biographies, Benjamin Franklin;" "The Gift of the Magi;" As well as all of his and his brother's library books. (A)
Writing: "The First Fur Tree" and narration; Dictation from "The Gift of the Magi;" "The Legend of Saint Nicholas" and narration; Dictation from "Miss Manners' Basic Training, Conversation" (A)
Grammar: Completed through Lesson 42 and OU 4 (A)
Spelling: Completed Lesson 30 (98%)
Math: Everything was covered and Andrew is doing some extra work in the measurement books (B)
Science: We have covered TWO CHAPTERS! I'm hoping to find time for an experiment this afternoon. (A)
History: Two chapters left. I had been planning on doing them both today if we can.(A)

Luke's Week in Review!
Devotions: We read the story of "The Tower of Babel" and discussed different languages. For Luke, anything that is not "X" is "Chinese." He apparently detests English, and believes that we all speak "X." I tried to figure out how this confusion came about, but it will remain one of the mysteries of toddlerhood.
Math: We did count some things and read a lovely book with lots of numbers and counting. At one point, Luke identified the numbers on the car radio and he is getting much better at correctly identifying 1.2.3 as 'one, two, three.' There was, however, no truly formal work in math this week. Miquon sat ignored.
Reading: Two out of three lessons were covered, but something even more exciting happened! I did as planned and made the letter and word cards, as well cutting out corresponding pictures. One letter at a time Luke would glue down the letters, creating the word, sounding it all out and finally (bump ba ba baaaa) match them with a picture. I made it impossible for me to ruin this, by doing all the work for him, because of all the steps, no matter how much I may have wanted to help, short of taking the letters back and doing it myself I could NOT have taken this over. If you don't understand what I meant with all that, then you're wonderful, you must never accidentally (and with good intentions) find yourself doing your children's work, as I sometimes catch myself doing. Luke read. He read and he comprehended well enough to match the words with pictures. I am beside myself with delight. Take that! anyone whom ever said a parents cannot teach reading.
Days of the Week: We've continued identifying the day and then chanting the days of the week from that day, around to it again (today is Friday, tomorrow is Saturday and then Sunday, Monday, etc), followed up with the standard (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, in regular order). Sometimes we start with Sunday as the first day of the week, but I'm really unsure as to what order is "correct." Silly, isn't it?

*I've decided I like "holidays" better than "vacations," as we rarely vacate and holidays just sounds so much warmer and exciting.

What we've accomplished, what had better be accomplished by schools end tomorrow!

2009-12-17T09:09:00.000-08:00

I lost the chord that hooks my camera up to the computer :( Until I find it I can't post any of the videos or pictures that I've taken....

Jocelyn... nothing on the French front. It's her birthday week (she's 13 augh!) and she requested a vacation. Which really means three weeks off, because (against my better judgement) we're taking the next two weeks off.

Andrew has nearly finished Story of the World Vol. 2. I'm not too worried if we fall a chapter or two short, we can read those over vacation with very little argument. He has done two weeks worth of science. Everything else is either on schedule or way ahead. He finished all of his library books by Wednesday, so for reading for right now, he's in the encyclopedia. Today, he's reading the entry on Christmas. Tomorrow, I'll think we'll look up the nativity. He's enjoyed his writing work from my little Christmas book so much that he's read half the book. That's great, except it's really narrowing down what I have to use for writing. We found Latina Christian I Pronunciation CD. I did not even know we had that! Neither of us were really impressed with it though, and while I may add some listening time to Tuesdays, I can't imagine using it overly much.

Luke's work is really so... uneven. We had done two of the three chapters we aimed for this week, but he still will not read out of OPGtTR. So, today I wrote and cut out letters for cat, rat, hat, sat, fat, and bat from index cards, using the lined side to regulate letter size. Then I cut out 'word papers' from construction paper, rectangles just big enough to fit three letters on with a little extra room to frame them. I searched high and low, but could not find pictures for bat, cat, or rat in any of my magazines. Unbelievable, I know. I drew pictures for those three, but cut out pictures for the rest. Then, I handed Luke one letter at a time and he would identify the letters and say what they stand for. Next, he would glue them onto a word paper and sound out the word he had created. After that he would match it to a picture and then glue both onto yet another sheet of paper. After we'd finished the words I had him read them a second time and he earned a star for each word he read correctly. Of course, every word got a star, because we would just go back and try again on the ones he had a problem with. For some reason, he wants to say "fast" instead of "fat"? I was so proud of him. I really thought my little project was too hard and something I would end up doing for/with him. Instead, he did most of the work himself and, except for some assistance with "r" and "s," he did all the sounding out himself too! With all that, he's done absolutely no math this week. I'm planning on working on that tomorrow. We DID cover the tower of Babel, but haven't done anything extra for it. Luke's spent most of this week playing here and here, and yesterday he took on this project (with a lot of Mom assistance) and created a beautiful snowflake!

Searching for things for Luke to do online I found these sites. He enjoyed them for a few minutes and I hope you and yours will too!

Mostly Mommy

Sesame

Noggin

Fischer Price

BBC

Things we MUST do by tomorrow. Jo, sigh... just stop growing for a few minutes. Drew, keep on as he's going. Luke, math and some more review of the days of the week.

Me, uh every thing else.

Woohoo!

2009-12-15T12:22:00.000-08:00

We went over chapter 9, in science in today! Actually, we read it yesterday, but we did the day two experiment today and (for once) it was a solid success. We now have raisins dancing away in a bowl on the kitchen counter. Andrew did a hilarious video of the experiment, but now I can't find the chords to hook the camera up to the computer, so I can't post it.

All the same, yeah us!

I think we're going to do chapter 10 tomorrow, just to try and catch up a little. After all, we're about seven chapters behind!

Trying to Out Run Christmas Vacation!

2009-12-14T11:10:00.001-08:00

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Plans for this the 16th week!

2009-12-14T09:56:00.000-08:00

Jocelyn - Back onto the French wagon. We should finish up Lesson 3 this week! Also, she'll be doing lesson 1 in her new to Christ workbook from Church.

Andrew - For devotions, Andrew will continue working in his new to Christ workbook. We'll also be working on memorizing the books of the Bible. I would like to finish the Old Testament this week.
In Latin we'll be working on Lesson 12. The weeks off are going to make it too long between the lesson and the quiz, so I believe we'll take the quizes on Monday and let the vacation start on Tuesday. He took his quiz for Lesson 11 this morning and earned a 91% once I added in a few points for corrections. He loses points for anything less than perfect, so I let him earn a few back by writing the words three times each.
In Greek we're moving through lesson 13 and should be done by Friday. He'll transcribe John 1.5 this week as well.
For reading, Andrew will be reading and narrating First Biographies, Benjamin Franklin today and tomorrow. He'll have his choice of some Christmas stories I've chosen, for the rest of the week. He'll also be reading Falling Up, by Shel Silverstein.
Writing is coming out of A Read-Aloud Family Christmas. It's full of classics and I have not gotten around to reading it to the kids, so I suppose I'll put it to work.
For grammar we'll be doing lessons 41, 42 and Oral Usage lesson 4. Andrew will learn about you understood. More sentence diagramming will happen and we'll tie it all together with that final grammar lesson on the difference between lay and lie, sit and set.
Spelling is finishing at a great spot, except that I'll have to give his test on Monday, while we're on vacation. We are on lesson 30, the review of lessons 25 through 29. The only two words that have proven difficult are throat and group.
Math is going to be busy. Today, Andrew did pages one through three in his new workbook on measurements. This covered simply how to measure. He really enjoyed it, but it is a little behind where he's at. Tomorrow we'll work on 1.2 in his Geometry book. Unfortuneatly, the book is out of print and not available on Amazon, so I can't provide a link. We'll be learning about collinear points and the definition of a triangle. Wednesday, Andrew will complete Skill 7 on improper and mixed fractions. He's going to be converting mixed numbers into improper fractions. Thursday we'll be in Geometry again and discuss the reversibility test and how much information is needed for a good definition. Friday we'll do some more in Challenge Math. I cannot say enough about how much we love this book! We are going to finish up Astronomy. Andrew has four more problems to go in Level 1. If time permits we might try one or two questions from Level 2, but I really have to stop spending all day on math, it's getting rediculous.
In history, we'll be finishing up Story of the World Vol. 2. It's exciting to finally be hitting on American history. The only concern I have is that Andrew seems to have a much longer view of history than I do. It's not necessarily a bad thing, except that he sees the treatment of the South and Middle Americans as just one more people getting conquered and either absorbed or wiped out. It's almost like he's already jaded. I worry that others will find him cold because of this.
Science, we are, we must, we WILL do science this week. For pity's sake, we're on Week 9... 9... augh! Thank goodness we school year round. Hopefully we'll finish Chemistry before we move on to Physics.

Luke - For Bible study, Luke will be learning about the tower of Babel this week. I know that seems strange, given the season, but the Bible he uses equates everything to Jesus and this way we'll keep to normal order. Luke has been a little obsessed over languages lately and this story is very timely for him. I think we'll watch a few of his favorite cartoons in different languages and discuss how we speak English and how all of our languages are the result of Babel.
For reading we're going to continue reviewing his poems and work on lessons 28, 29, and 30. Someone else mentioned using stickers on the Bob Books as a reward for reading them. I am going to start that this week as well. It's amazing how much kids love stickers!
In math we'll continue to play on A-1 through A-3a, as well as everything we've been doing. Until he can make a definite clear connection between 1, one, and * (meaning one object), I don't even want to move on. For now, he's happy tracing the flash cards with his finger and making the numbers with his cuisinaire rods and I see no reason to rush him!

We just recieved Andrew's new workbooks on measurement. That will make four things we're juggling in math. At first Big Drew was not pleased with us using different sources every day for math. He thought it would just make math confusing. However, using three sources for the past few weeks has kept Andrew attention and frustration levels have been at an all time low. Andrew now looks forward to math, let's just hope it doesn't go the way of MEP. A great program, but somehow too redundant for Andrew.

Luke has Nursery Rhyme Literature pockets. I'm hoping to have the first one ready tomorrow for use this week, but haven't added it to my plans since it only came a few hours ago. These look wonderful and they have all the creative little crafts that I just can't seem to come up with.

We're off to outrun the week's end deadline! Wish us God speed!

An attempt to make an Update.....

2009-12-11T10:27:00.001-08:00

I forgot all about the Hive updates! Here's a quick post on what we've done this week.

Yesterday, we took the afternoon and had a picnic at George Washington's Birthplace (link is to a virtual tour). At some point in January I was to get up to Ferry Farm and finally, by the spring, Mount Vernon. I think US History is going to be an ongoing theme for us, rather than a specific class. We live in such a history rich area it's a shame to ignore it. When we were on our way out I picked up a copy of "Common Sense." That resulted in an evening of read-alouds and discussion. How wonderful it is to have children I can discuss these things with!

Jocelyn

Bible: SHE JOINED OUR CHURCH! It was completely unexpected. I was also hastily dubbed God-mother to her best friend, whose parents don't care if she "finds God," but don't want to have a part of it either. I'm so blessed! Since we're all new to this church and the newbies class just started last Sunday we (Andrew, Jocelyn, Jo's friend, and myself) are all in the same Bible study. I'll have much more next week.

French: Well, we're lingering on lesson 3. I'm not sure why it seems that French is so much harder than Latin or Greek, but we're both having a tough time. Petit a petit, non?

Andrew

Bible: We've memorized up to "The Song of Solomen" and continue to review the 10 Commandments. Andrew has finished up the first section of his church devotional, what is salvation?

Reading: We read "A Christmas Carol" together. Andrew finished a biography on Abigail Adams and a light reading on Colonial Medicine. Neither have anything to do with what we're studying in history, but he's so interested in this stuff that we've run with it. There were a ton of other books read, but terrible mother that I am, I didn't keep track. This must change! And so it shall! Hopefully!

Spelling: He's finishing up Lesson 29. His quiz, on Monday, for Lesson 28 earned him a 96% (throat and group...... the scourge of mankind!)

Writing: We've been using Colonial Medicine for our writing. Monday he read a bit on the death of George Washington and narrated aloud. I wrote it down and he copied. Wednesday (oops!) I dictated three complex sentences with all sorts of punctuation and some really interesting words and he managed to get nearly every bit absolutely correct! Thursday, he read a passage comparing the life expectancies and health of the colonies and Europe. He narrated and I dictated back, thus excusing myself from having to dictate again today. I really needed today off.

Grammar: We reviewed sentences this week and have continued to diagram sentences with predicate nominatives and adjectives. Drew's not super excited about grammar, but he's picking it up and he doesn't not like it, thank goodness!

Math: Monday, we worked out some great problems finding the circumference of the earth, the circumference of different orbits and distances using sound as a guide. I absolutely LOVE Challenge Math. Tuesday he worked on mixed numbers. This is not easy work at all, but I'm proud to see the progress he's made. The book he's using is another fantastic tool. Wednesday, we learned about defined and undefined terms in geometry. Andrew learned to identify lines, rays, points, and angles as well as notation for each.

Science: Uh... well... we've been thinking about making Chemical Pie, if I only knew what kind of crackers to use! Otherwise, Lady Slacker, as I'm known in many circles, has missed science every.single.day.this.week.

History: We are zooming right along! Today we're watching this. And we're planning to read about the reformation and counterreformation this afternoon... of course, it's already afternoon, so maybe "evening" would be a better description.

Greek: Andrew's learned the verb endings for 'him/her' and is now making more interesting sentences. He translated John 1.4 this week.

Latin: Lesson 11, Latina Christiana I, all's well! Ever since my darling husband rendered my car sterio useless we've started singing "Adeste Fideles" everywhere we go. Thus, we're experts at "Adeste Fideles."

Luke

Bible: We've read up to the story of Noah and the Flood in his Children's Bible. He sings 'glooooooooooooooooria in excelsis deo' for most of the day now, not by design, but it's sweet.

Reading: Well, he's read a Bob book or two, but as soon as I open his reading book he steadfastly refuses to look inside. So, we're stuck at two letter 'a' words, while he's also reading 'Sam' and 'Mac' in the Bob books. I'm not dropping reading, but I don't think I can get him to use the book anymore. So, I'll read the big book and I think I'll just have him read everything else.

Math: He continues to count, much better since I took the recommendation of the Hive to use stickers as counting tools. He's getting better at matching printed numbers with the correct amounts. We did some Miquon with the cuisinaire rods this week and he's getting much better at identifying rods with numbers and amounts. We've done some parts to whole this week as well.

Have we accomplished anything?

2009-12-11T06:37:00.000-08:00

Yes, we've been moving forward, but it seems like a ton of work lately!

Math has been totally restructered. Instead of one book, or set of workbooks, we're feasting upon three. Challenge Math, Fabulous Fraction Stories, and Geometry the Easy Way (this links to a newer version) are our three books. The Challenge Math is really incredible. Who knew a 3rd grader could understand pi? Fabulous Fractions is taking the sting out of fractions. Andrew was getting very frustrated and this is in story format, making it more interesting to him. Geometry the Easy Way is actually for adults, but it does explain things clearly and I'm sure that he'll handle his CAT5s well once we've waded through the first section. It's amazing, but all these things work together well to make math less of a chore and more of something we spend a good deal of happy time on.

Latin is going well. He continues to enjoy Latina Christiana I. We don't have any of the frills, just the workbooks, but we're progressing nicely.

Greek is a little different. Andrew has finished through John 1.4, and is moving on nicely in Hey Andrew! 3, but I'm completely lost. At least I can still sound out the words and I have the teacher's manual, so I still "know" all the answers. Thank God for that!

There really isn't much to say on the English front. First Language Lessons is so easy on me, except for writing out his workbook, and Andrew doesn't seem to feel much of anything about it. Writing with Ease does give me more room for stretching. This week we're using Colonial American Medicine as our resource. He has learned quite a bit from that! For reading, we read "A Christmas Carol" together, and I think we'll move on to "The Cricket by the Hearth." Andrew has finished the biography of Abigail Adams, as well as a few other random books. I rely so much on the generic list from "The Well-Trained Mind" for our library trips, I cannot imagine going to the library without it! I forgot about Spelling, but then there's not much to say. We do a lesson a week, his grades have been great, except for two words, "throat" and "group." It's amazing, every week he spells them differently, every week he says them, spells them out loud and writes them, repeatedly. Next week will be our Review and I'll be glad to be done with them!

Science is at such a sad stand still. I just haven't had the time, ink, or paper to get the lessons done. This puts us two chapters behind, which is just what we needed.

History, however, is looking like triumph! We will complete the "Middle Ages" by Christmas, which means we will be caught up to the history cycle!!! I'm so excited. January, we'll start the "Early Modern Times." I never did get the activity book for the Middle Ages, I'll have to order for later, but I'm hoping to scrape together enough to get the whole kit-and-kaboodle for this next era. I loved having everything for the Ancients and there's been a big hole where the activity book should have been.

Andrew is working through his 'New Life in Christ' booklet from church for devotions. We worked through all 10 Commandments in the fall and now we're memorizing the books of the Bible. It's really incredible how much he's learning, and myself too!

Now for Luke! We've started two-letter words. He can read them... if I can get him to look. Up until we really dug into reading, Luke was happy to do the work. All of a sudden he's looking everywhere, except the book. I'm not worried, he's three and there's plenty of time, but it can get frustrating.

Math is getting easier. We're using Miquon Orange, Cuisenaire Rods, along with various other blocks and flash cards. He's getting much better at identifying numerals, connecting them with a specific number of objects and matching one-to-one.

The hive posted a link to a list of suggestions for what should be accomplished in each grade. Luke has covered nearly every Pre-K requirement, but the ones he hasn't covered are going to be difficult. I think I'm going to make three lap books, not an easy task by far!

One will cover personal information, a lap book of Luke. He needs to be able to identify his name, write his name, know his birthday and address. He's supposed to know his phone number too, but we are without phones, so I guess we get a pass.

The second book will be for things like, empty-full, top-middle-bottom, more-less-the same. That book is getting exciting. I want to use velcro, for m-l-s, magnets for t-m-b, and something like a pouch and beans for e-f. I think he'll love that one!

Finally, I'm going to make one for zips, snaps, buttons, ties, lacing and velcro. For the life of me I cannot find those dolls we had as kids where you had to dress the doll. Zip his jacket, tie his shoes, that sort of thing. The only thing I can find is a purple kangaroo. So, I'm going to try my hand at a lap book with all this stuff incorporated. I included lacing, because it's something he enjoys and must have some impact on fine motor-skills.

I think that's about everything. Links to all the stuff I could find links for and whatever we've got going on in class! I'm going to try to be a better blogger. Now that I've got the generic info down, I'll try to come back and put in some more meat.

Here's to God's blessings, even (or perhaps especially) those that don't seem like blessings on the outset!

S'Alright

2009-03-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

Grades were good this week. We covered what we needed to cover and then some.

We skipped Karate.

We're skipping library today. I need to go sit with a neighbor.

Week Two of Five

2009-03-20T11:10:00.001-07:00

I couldn't blog last week. The week before there had been a ton of snow. Since nothing conked out during the snow, Westmoreland County decided to keep with tradition and screwed everything up the week after, while ostenably making repairs. IOW, no phone, no internet, for a week (a WEEK) while Verizon and Metrocast 'fixed' things that hadn't had problems. Rant off.

We've kept up with two chapters a week for history. It's put a damper on the extra things we do, but I'm getting better at saying, we can do that the next time around. This week we studied the Israelites escape from Egypt and the Phoenicians. We're making Pita Bread right now, that was one craft I could fit in ;)

In science, we've made all of the planets to scale. Granted, we had to be inventive, I didn't have any paper big enough to make a 33 inch Jupiter, but we improvised. Next week we will hang them up in the living room and work on description cards. Underneath we're going to hang up the smaller picture we made. The planets are to scale, but tiny and it shows their distances from the sun (to scale). We were thinking about moving on to third grade in June. Andrew will be done with nearly everything and that way his 'grade' corresponds with his age. Now, I wonder if we won't stick with Astronomy a little longer.

Drew is breezing through Spelling Workout. We got a few snags this week, soft and hard g and c. For some reason, my spelling skills have tanked even harder than usual. It's pretty bad when the teacher corrects the student and misspells the word herself. I just hope he ends up a better speller than me.

In math, we learned area and perimeter for squares and rectangles. We found the area of the play room floor and the perimeter of the house :) Multiplication is still not easy for Drew, but this week has shown him how useful it is. Thank goodness for real life situations. It's not often we do math skills that are so easy to equate to real life situations, but area and perimeter fit right in there.

We're reading so many books right now it's a little hard to keep up. We read the story of Saint Patrick on Monday and Tuesday, but returned to Greek Gods and Godesses right after. It's not hard to keep his attention when the stories are so interesting!

Oh, we joined the Y and now Andrew has a homeschooler's gym twice a week. We couldn't make it yesterday (thank you, again, Verizon), but we've gone three times now. Andrew is really enjoying it. It's almost like homeschooling has made him more outgoing. Does that make any sense?

That's it. We did more, but nothing worth writing home about ;)

Grades:
Language: 100%
Math: 98%
Latin: 98%
History: 100%
Science: 99%

Unbelievable Return!

2009-03-09T11:50:00.000-07:00

Last week was our vacation, you can imagine how I expected today to go, especially given the time change this weekend. Incredibly, Drew was up and at em' at 7:30a.m. He ate breakfast and was ready to go by 8:30. For the first time in what seems like ages, he was able to piddlefart before we started, without having me blow a gasket!

The day was smooth as silk. I mixed up our schedule, trying to space out our language classes and get Science and History covered with a little more interest, and a little less 'are we done yet.' It worked. We covered everything, we gave it all justice and we were done by lunch!

New things we're trying:
Spelling Workout (C/3) - so much easier than doing it myself. What a relief!
Writing With Ease - well, we used it the week before last, but this was the first time I had to come up with stuff ;) It went well, Andrew seemed to enjoy the excert from "The Trumpet of the Swan."
Math - I checked out two library books, one on multiplication and the other full of math riddles. Since we're done with our 2nd grade stuff and I can't afford Saxon 3 yet, this seemed like a fun alternative. We went halfway through the multiplication book this morning, it was much more enjoyable than reciting our times tables :)
Reading - We are completely revising our Language Folder. I was not following the recommendations for the Reading section, this morning, we made a few pages for books Andrew read and I wrote out and dated all of the poems he had memorized (five!).
Handwriting - Since we've conquered cursive, I haven't been sure what to do for handwriting. We're trying out the Memoria Press Copybook I bought in December. Dry much? But at least I got to be lazy ;)

That's it in a nutshell. I'm just so glad our return was so smooth.

Wahoo! One Week Off Coming Up!

2009-02-26T12:29:00.001-08:00

Next week will be our week off. We went four weeks this time, and may go four or five (with one week off, etc) until we catch up to Andrew's grade level. I'm so happy about this upcoming week off that I can hardly think of what we did this week.

Andrew finished his 'Bible Storybook' this week. He's going to call my grandmother tonight and let her know (she bought it). The last eight chapters flew by, Andrew read them yesterday and today. Once you get to the betrayal, crucifiction, etc. the story is more compelling. He would've read all eight yesterday, but I made him wait. Now, the question is, what do we read?

For handwriting Andrew copied 'The Months' in cursive. He finished on Wednesday, we had to take Tuesday off because he was sick. We went ahead and skipped handwriting today. The only reason I can think to give is... I was just too lazy.

Andrew is still working on /k/ in Spelling. I ordered Spelling Workout, hopefully that will get us moving again. We'll have it next week (oh, the excitement).

Grammar is trucking right along. We are at lesson 65 in section one of FLL. I'm hopeing we'll be at grade level by September. It's an ambitious goal, but he's picking this stuff up so quick that I have little doubt we'll do it.

Math has thrown another speed bump in our path. We have managed to finish his 2nd grade work. Some how, we've done all of second grade math since we started in December. I'm ordering Saxon Math 3 next week. Between now and the time it comes in I guess we'll just chant the times tables.

Latin is the easiest part of our day. Andrew loves it, I love it. We'll be done with Prima Latina around September too, so Latina Christiana I is now on my list of 'must haves' for 3rd grade.

History was spent on Anansi this week. I wish I could say we delved deeper into Africa, but the truth is, Andrew read all the Anansi stories we could find. He colored Anansi, he drew Anansi, he wondered what Anansi would do if in certain situations. I think he likes Anansi. Thank goodness there are no Anansi toys, play sets, action figures, cartoons, etc. If there is, I don't want to know.

Science, we focused some more on the inner planets. Andrew made a scale drawing of the four inner planets, drew their moons, etc. I'm not sure he's really keeping any of this information, but he's enjoyed learning it.

Karate continues on as Andrew's second favorite part of the day. His 'hero' is an older boy in class that spends hours every day practicing. I can't remember his name for the life of me, but he seems like a decent enough role model for Drew. He's definitely dedicated to what he's doing.

That's it, I think... our week.

I'm off to wash the school marm off and put on a fresh set of idon'thavetodoanything.

Later!

And it just keeps getting better!

2009-02-19T12:20:00.000-08:00

Monday was nearly a day off, but then the baby got sick and I couldn't take Mom to the doctors. I have to say, I was glad, if only because I want a regular week and everything's been so out of whack lately. So, Monday was nearly a regular day, until WWIII broke out between Mom, my sibs, my grandma and anyone else that cared to join. Long story short, Mom decided to take Dd with her (she had the day off for Pres. day). Then, Mom was ordered back into the hospital. So, DD is in Richmond watching her gramma get put in a wheelchair and heaved off to the CC unit. Heck broke loose, Monday was not a regular day. Deo Gratias, my sil brought DD to Bowling Green and spared me the trip down 95. Rant off, sorry.

Other than the family drama, this week was okay for us. Once again, I'm blogging on Thursday, only this time it's because I'll be out most of tomorrow.

Reading, Andrew is almost done with his Bible Storybook. My gramma is beaming, so proud that he's read the book, enjoyed it and retained a lot of it. Drew's pretty proud too ;)

Writing, we've been doing our copywork in cursive and using that for handwriting. I'm not sure how everyone else does it, but we've been using the poems Andrew memorizes. For dictation, we have been taking sections out of 'James and the Giant Peach,' since that's what we're reading. Today, our WWE came in, WOOHOO, so next week will be quite a change for us! Oh, and Andrew has been writing once a week to a soldier he 'adopted' online. No responses yet, but it's only been three weeks; let's hope this soldier doesn't mind letters from a little boy.

Math... we eased off of multiplication. He knows how to do it, but the task of memorizing was getting daunting and with everything that's been going on, we decided on a vacation. Instead, we have covered measurements, time and directions. It's all a little review for him, except the explanation of how we (Americans) measure things, versus how the rest of the world does it. Lol, Andrew decided he'll write everything in metric, but try to remember the 'American' measurement, in case someone asks. I halfway wish the country would switch to the metric system, it's so much easier and actually makes sense.

Latin is like a refreshing swim in the middle of the day. We both look forward to it and now that we've reached Lesson 8 the lessons are coming together. I hope this stays so enjoyable for us.

History is zooming along. Since I've been given permission to skimp, in order to catch up, we've started really flying. Granted, there isn't much in depth work, but I was reminded, we'll go over it all again in a few years. I really hope we'll be caught up by the end of the first cycle, LOL.

Science really took a back seat these past two weeks. We're still doing the year of Astronomy and occasionally glimpse the night sky while running from errand to errand. Andrew's still reading some good stuff, but I really need to get back to the way we had been working.

Art... uh, what's art? Except for some pictures drawn for History and Science, Art has been totally dumped.

Karate is the ironic addition to our days. I signed Andrew up when I was still planning on taking classes this semester (it would've covered my Chemistry class). Once I realized I was short a grand or two and dropped my classes, I forgot to take him out. Thankfully, Andrew loves it. He's very serious about it and is learning his upper and lower body basics. I know his sensei, we go way back, and Ron is taking good care of my boy. Now, we practice every day for around an hour. So, while the arts have suffered, PE has made a come back.

Here's to a quiet week with nothing to do, but learn.

*Grades
Grammar: 100% (The Weeks and The Months)
Spelling: 102% (kimono was the bonus, /k/ beginning sounds)
Math: 110% (Measurements and time, money bonus)
Latin: 99% (forgot Mea Culpa)
Science: 95% (Venus)
History: 91% (Chapters 10 & 11)

The Longest Week Ever.

2009-02-12T06:32:00.000-08:00

Monday, Mom finds out her surgeon had another oopsie and forgot to let the discharge/nurses know that she needed to be on an antibiotic. So, one week later, with lots of infection, drainage, and her skin on the verge of death; Mom learns that she should've been taking antibiotics all along. In class, we covered another chapter in History, Drew enjoyed Gilgamesh; we turned our sights to Mercury in Science; Grammar, writing and spelling went on in their constant hum-drum; and Reading took a turn for the ... high hopes. Andrew's decided to read three books at once. Normally, we read a long book together and he reads an easier book on his own. This week he couldn't choose between 'Artemis Fowl' and 'James and the Giant Peach,' he decided I should read him both :)

Tuesday, my gramma showed up with an incredible book, 'The Timeline of World History.' It was really incredible, but our day had to be shortened to accomodate her visit. Right before she left, Andrew found our dog, Fred, dead. He was really old (15-16 years) and it appears he was soaking up the sun and just died. I tried to get my assistant, for Cub Scouts, to take the den meeting for me, but couldn't reach her, so we had to wrap Freddie up and leave him in the yard (he's a big dog). I hated to do it, but my hubby said he would be fine. Cub Scouts was.... well. Andrew was voted in as the lead for our Blue and Gold skit (woohoo!) and when we got home we both helped Dad bury Fred. Drew said the Sanctus once we put Fred in the hole. It was sweet.

Wednesday, Gramma came back for her book, but I couldn't go near her. I woke up with a sore/hoarse throat (eye roll). Another short day, because Mom/Magistra was too tired to do much, no History, no Science, again. We did put together and mail our Valentine's cards. My family will be super surprised, because I tend to never mail anything. Karate Wed. night, Drew had a blast, Luke was a pain, and I just wanted to sleep in the car.

Today...... looks slow again. I have to take Jo shopping for her first dance this afternoon and I don't want to do school, I feel like crud. Tomorrow, we're off to my mother-in-law's to use her telescope and work on Astronomy. Saturday there's a b-day party for our neighbor's little girl, oh and Valentine's day. I want to go to bed.

I'm not blogging tomorrow, too much to do, so this is it, my weekly report.

Feb 2-6

2009-02-06T09:08:00.000-08:00

We changed up our spelling this week, and it's shown. Andrew missed three words on his test. We used rules, instead of specific words and he just did not apply what he learned. Hopefully, this will go better next week.

We drilled the week away with multiplication. Andrew also started using a workbook for word problems. He hasn't memorized much of his times tables at all, but I think we're going to move forward and just drill multiplication for a few minutes a day. Eventually, he has to remember this stuff, right?

Grammar and writing are doing well. He's finished the cursive alphabet, so now he's doing his copywork in cursive. He's memorized, "Hearts Are Like Doors" in one week!

What else? Oh, we've finished the first section in Latin. He memorized 'The Sanctus' and has really nailed the vocabulary.

Science this week, we covered the sun and stars. He is still enjoying Astronomy and awed by the things we're learning about space.

History and reading have collided! We covered 'The Jewish People' and 'Hammurabi and Babylonia.'

side note: unexpected collect call from a prison... I didn't accept, but there's nothing like an unexpected collect call from a prison to break up the monotony, right?!?

Back to history! Andrew didn't really understand the importance of Hammurabi. We spent some extra time discussing a leader that uses fairness and understanding, versus a military dictatorship. While he found the Code of Hammurabi mostly unfair, he doesn't see death as an appropriate punishment, he did come to understand the signifigance of Hammurabi.

That's our week in a nutshell! Now, let me go reverse number search and find out what prison is holding inmates that have my phone number (oh the excitement!).

Week in Review!

2009-01-23T13:05:00.001-08:00

Andrew has finished his work on "The Caterpillar" and moved on to "Work." While he only started this poem Tuesday, he's already got it memorized!

We flew through the history of Mesopotamia and the Sumarians. There wasn't much extra we could get on that subject, so Andrew did all that was reccomended for extra work, but our reading was really non-existent. We need to go to the college library, but I REALLY don't want to drive an hour away...

Grammar, handwriting and spelling are continuing on super smooth. Next week, we'll complete the cursive alphabet. After that, all spelling, narrative, dictation and copywork will be done in script. Woohoo!

We did change the format for narratives. Andrew was doing one every day, for his reading. Read one chapter, write a narrative. Then, there were additional narratives for history... oh, and the copywork and dictation... and finally, the work needed for FLL. I realized, it was way too much, so we backed off. Now, we have a minimum requirement (two narratives, two copyworks, one dictation) and rely on history and grammar to give us the work.

Multiplication is going easier than addition did, go figure! We did start off with flash cards. I had Andrew write and review the rules and hints for multiplication, and we worked on memorizing up through four. He has done really well. Today's test was 25 problems and Andrew got them done in ten minutes!

Science has become a passion. We studied the solar system this week. We went on Nasa's web site, on Nasa's kid web site, on some other web sites I'd seen on the Hive. We watched the Nasa channel all week and probably learned more there than we did in all the books and sites we'd used. Andrew found some really cool things we could do to 'help' Nasa, so we'll be adding more projects. I'm pretty sure he doesn't need this much in depth Astronomy in 2nd grade, but he's really enjoying it, I'm really enjoying it, and I can't see that it would hurt anything. It's so exciting, who can resist?

So, all in all, a good week. I think I need glasses, suddenly I can't read the kitchen clock and I've had headaches off and on for about two weeks :( Not something I wanted or expected. We skipped the library today, because I wanted to go to the teacher's store in Fredericksburg. If you're near there, unless you want a workbook or a poster, I wouldn't waste the gas. ERG, there was nothing I wanted there. Woohoo, 45 min drive for a poster of the sun (I was not walking away empty handed).

That's it!

Sigh, so nice to get back on schedule...

2009-01-13T08:35:00.000-08:00

We are back to having our afternoons free... ish. I've started saving our 'big' projects until after lunch. Andrew doesn't mind, because they're fun, and I appreciate being able to meander. It's also cut back, more, on our t.v. time.

Yesterday, we made a barometer, today we're making canopic jars. Tomorrow? Well, we'll be making a dew point guage, and hopefully adding a thermometer to our weather guages.

I have not heard back from the local Catholic church. I guess, if they haven't called by Friday, we'll toodle back over next Monday.

Oh, another goal for this week, joing the YMCA. We need exercise!

Oops! I forgot the weekly wrap-up for last week

2009-01-12T12:07:00.000-08:00

Okay! Andrew made his cuneiform name plaque, Art 100%; he also illustrated "The Caterpillar," for another 100% in Art.

He's moved on to Lesson 3, in Prima Latina, and is still doing phenominally well. An oral review resulted in another 100%.

For Grammar, Andrew has memorized "The Caterpillar" and is practicing reciting it, his final exam will be facing Grandma (bump, bump, baaaaa). He's also finished common person nouns, finally, and seems to completely understand them. That's another 100%, for grammar.

In reading, he's continued to read a chapter a day in his "Bible Stories" book. He has written narratives, seven sentences long (he copies three of the sentences), for every chapter so far. This week, we're dropping the narratives for this. I realized he was doing way more narratives than was necessary.

We also read "The Tale of Despereaux" last week. What an incredible book.

In handwriting, Andrew is still working on cursive. He also wrote a letter to Leelo (my grandmother) and worked on the parts of a letter. He managed to make all of his letters very well for the review. He's not leaning them far enough, but we're working on it.

For spelling, we dissected the words Andrew was to learn. We found the dipthongs and other tricking spelling tricks. The result was a perfect score on his test!

Math. Math. Oh subject, that can take hours.... We have learned our numbers through a thousand, and are returning to one-digit addition. While Andrew scored well on his review, I am frankly tired of waiting for hours, to review a handful of problems. This week is dedicated to getting his simple addition memorized.

For history, we're still working on Egypt ;) Andrew made his name in cuneiform, we have read tons and tons of books, and we're looking for the light at the end of the tunnel.

Science is revolving around the weather right now. We've discussed clouds, Andrew has a chart and names the clouds every morning. We're memorizing the layers of the atmosphere, and learning how the atmosphere effects our weather. The grade for science was based on our, 'everything you need to know about weather' poster, we're making. It will have all our facts on it, complete with illustrations, cotton ball clouds, and our barometer readings.

I'm finding myself stretching out a little more know. We're leaving the science work book, to look at weather in greater depth. We've contacted the local Catholic church, their priest may help us with our Latin pronunciations. We're hoeing our own road in math. It's scary, branching out, leaving the well-beaten path, but also exhilarating. We're both enjoying ourselves.

Is it Friday yet?

2009-01-08T11:52:00.000-08:00

Okay, we went till 2 again today :( . I'm so tired, so tired, so so so tired. Did I mention, I'm tired?

Luke is trucking right along. We can count to five, he knows A, B, J, M, S, T, X, and we've done our primary colors, along with circle, square, and triangle. I love how proud he is of his new knowledge. He's even started mimicking the sounds of the letters (ah ah ah, A). We're really enjoying doing all this together, and he is wiped out after lunch. Naps, with no arguments! Man, I forgot those were possible!

Drew, on the other hand, is really provoking me with the math issues. We start the day by reading a chapter of his Bible Story Book and writing a five sentence narration. That goes by without a hiccup. Then, we do spelling. Again, no problems. We move to math...

and there we stay, for at least an hour. It could be one problem, it could be an entire sheet of problems, it will take at least one hour. Tonight, he will be sitting down with Dad to do math. Mom is tired.

After math, it's all gravy. Grammar (he can recite 'The Caterpillar'), Latin, Handwriting, Science, History, all smooth as silk. Why?

I read the post, that we should incorporate it into other classes, and we've tried that. We learned the Egyptian numerals, and those helped, but really, as soon as a number shows up, Drew shuts off.

I hate math.

We survived our first holiday!

2009-01-06T10:24:00.000-08:00

I will admit, Monday stunk. It took for-ev-er to get everything done. We did not need to review too much, but Drew dragged his feet and dawdled the entire morning away. We got 'Hooked on Pre-K' for Luke, so he had his first 'school' day. All together, I earned my eight hours sleep!

Today, we've started our first class on fancy. I was right in one respect, Andrew is loving it. We're learning about the phoenix, sphinx, catoblepas and ammuts. I will give the Egyptians this, their mythical creatures are very imaginative. Andrew is enjoying drawing these bizarre creatures, and the ammut (a cross between an crocodile, lion and hippo) is definitely his favorite.

Augh, I just wish the days would move a little quicker! Last month, we were done by lunch. So far this week, we're lucky to be done by two :(

Ah well, his potty break's over, so it's back to the grind!

Week Two!

2008-12-18T15:34:00.000-08:00

This week we've moved on to conquer Lesson 2 in Prima Latina. Andrew seems to have a real knack for this. He's been shouting 'calum' at the top of lungs all week long (woohoo). Needless to say, Luke's picking up some Latin as well. I'm surprised, and pleased, at how well Andrew's doing with this. We tried Spanish earlier this year and he lost interest pretty quick, within two lessons, so two weeks worth bodes well.

We did Chapters 2 and 3 in history. I thought we would dawdle for awhile over the Egyptians, but Andrew dove so deep into it that we flew through. IOW, in stead of cruising the Nile through January, we have read all the books, encyclopedia entries, Nat'l Geographic (inc. web info), and have exhausted all of my planned resources and some I had not planned. We've even learned their counting/numeral system. In the hive, someone asked if you play to their strengths or weaknesses. Now, I have to wonder if there's much of a choice there. If Andrew enjoys something, he will study it, to pieces, with or without me. We'll be doing our hieroglyphic signs at some point over vacation. He doesn't consider it work and this way he can get an art grade in for the week ;)

What else? Oh, we've added hundreds to our math. The Egyptian numerals helped a lot. Since they have special marks for ones, tens, hundreds, etc. and write their numbers backwards (ones on the left, the higher the number the further to the right you go), Andrew has started using their numerals instead of manipulatives.

Reading, spelling, grammar and handwriting have all continued on pretty ho hum. He's still working on cursive; the FLL curriculum is a little redundant, but it's working; and he still reads a chapter a day and writes a narrative paper. Our reviews for today came back nearly a hundred percent. For some odd reason, Andrew put e's on the end of Isis and Osiris. I think he over thought it, he had not done that at all this week, until it was review time.

The most exciting aspect of this week? We fed the sea gulls french fries at the beach waiting for the library to open. Luke would throw a handful and run at the same time, so the birds didn't know whether to fly away or stay and eat, and Andrew speculated on why they had not migrated and which was the "alfa" bird. The decision was made to research sea gulls. We got into the library and forgot all about it. Lol, which is why I prefer paper to computers, if I'd have had paper and pen I would've added it to our list of subjects to research.

C'est la vie.