Our Mid-Year Check In

We're a bit past the half-way point in our first full year of homeschool. My oldest is in the first grade), and so I did expect that I would be making some changes once we got in our groove. Little did I know, I would be doing a major overhaul.

Schedule

My biggest change has been with the schedule. I set up our homeschool to run 5 days a week from August to May (36 weeks) with a few breaks in between, coinciding with our extracurricular activities vacation schedules, which coincided with our local public school systems schedule. Big mistake. This worked at first, but we ran into a major problem. My husband, 9 months out of the year, has every Friday off or works only half-day. I thought that I would be able to homeschool while he was home on Friday (he could watch the boys for me while I gave Bridget my undivided attention) and it would work perfectly. As it turns out, my husband did not like the idea of watching the boys by himself and not being able to go out and do things as a family. Bridget did not like the boys spending so much time with Daddy while she had to do school.

I gave in and put my family first, which is something I should have done all along, and we enjoyed many day-trips/weekend trips together. Which meant that everything I had scheduled for Fridays was pushed back to the following week, and we kept getting further and further behind. This was a major scheduling blunder on my part.

The light at the end of the tunnel continued to get dimmer, until I finally decided to re-do the entire schedule. I switched our school year to 42 weeks, schooling on a 6-weeks-on, 1-week-off schedule, except during Christmas and the beginning and end of our 'summer term' where we have two weeks off. So far, this is working well. Our breaks come right when we need them. We're still not completely back on track, but I am pleased with our progress and feeling less overwhelmed.

Curriculum

I have not made any changes in our curriculum, meaning I have not purchased anything new to replace something that didn't work. We are still very happy with our choices and they work well for us. I'm glad about that considering I spent many, many hours researching curriculum choices. I have, however, not been covering a couple of subjects due to lack of time and poor preparation. I may try again next year, but who knows.

Spelling

Spelling Workout A
Spelling Workout B

We started off strong in spelling and completed the first 5 lessons of book A with no problem. They were very simple lessons. Once Bridget began working on lesson 6, she had some trouble. Bridget could read some, but she became easily frustrated and mentally shut down. Realizing that this would be a major problem moving forward, I stopped spelling lessons immediately and we did a "reading boot camp" of sorts. We borrowed a few Dick and Jane books from the library and her reading abilities improved greatly. We did this for a couple of months and we finally started back on the spelling workbooks after Christmas. I don't think we will get to Book B this school year, but Bridget has set a nice pace for herself and has been completing lessons faster than I expected. Looking back, she simply was not ready.

Grammar

First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind Level 1
First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind Audio Companion Levels 1 & 2

The lessons are short and simple, which I appreciate. We are behind some, because I had scheduled grammar for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and you've already read how well our Fridays turned out. But we're sticking with this curriculum. Bridget enjoys the picture narrations best.

To be honest, we have not even opened the audio companion. I purchased it because it was a great deal at the time, but we do not own a CD player other than the desktop computer or in the minivan. It is on my list of things to buy.

Reading

First Grade
The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading
The Harp & Laurel Wreath (Poetry and Dictation)
BOB Books

We have not completed The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading like we should have. Our daily lessons became weekly lessons, though we were still reading either BOB Books or Dick and Jane books from the library. I have every intention of finishing it but life happens. Often.

With a 1-year-old, "Morning Time" did not turn out how I had planned and so The Harp and Laurel Wreath got dropped. I am trying to find a way to work this in for next year, as Bridget and I enjoyed it when we used it for kindergarten. The little one will be two by then and hopefully much more manageable.

Preschool
My First BOB Books: Alphabet
My First BOB Books: Pre-Reading Skills

At the end of January, George turned four, so I began reading My First BOB Books with him. He loves being read to but had no interest in learning to read the letters himself. I am not worried about it at this point, as he will only be starting "Pre-K" with us in August. He has another two years before he needs to be able to read for school.

Writing

The Complete Writer: Level 1 Workbook
Zaner-Bloser Handwriting Grade 1

The Complete Writer workbook was written for a 4-day-a-week schedule, and it is the only subject that we are fully caught up on (we never got behind!). I love the format and have already purchased the level 2 workbook for next year.

Mathematics

First Grade
Math-U-See Alpha

We still love Math-U-See.

Preschool
George really loves counting, and he's very good at it for his age. He also recognizes patterns easily. He does simple math (using pictures, not numbers) and explains it to me well. The Easter Bunny gave him a workbook to further work on his math skills.

History & Geography 

Story of the World: Ancient Times
MapTrek: The Complete Collection

Story of the World was one of the main reasons why I had to overhaul my schedule and expanded to a 42-week school year. I was trying to cram 42 lessons into 36 weeks and it was not working. History lessons felt rushed because I was trying desperately to keep up. We're still behind where I need to be even for the 42 week schedule, but it is running much more smoothly and we are back to enjoying it.

Science 

Elemental Science: Biology for the Grammar Stage

Biology for the Grammar Stage is broken up into 3 units: animals, the human body, and plants. Bridget has a huge interest in learning about as many animals as possible, and the curriculum was lacking in that. It is set up for a 36-week school year and so when I re-did our schedule, I also expanded the animals unit and made my own notebook pages. We still do some of the science demonstrations from the animals unit along with the coloring pages. The human body and plants units will probably stay the same, except done later in the school year. We will be covering plants during the summer, the same time that we'll be working in our garden! I also plan on using Elemental Science's Earth Science and Astronomy curriculum for second grade, because I like their format and lessons overall.

Art Skills and Appreciation 

Drawing with Children

This totally didn't happen! We did not do even one lesson from this book. We just never had the time. Maybe in the future (summer perhaps?).

Music Skills and Appreciation 

Piano
John W. Schaum Piano Course Pre-A The Green Book

We did not have the time to do a weekly piano lesson like I had planned. The youngest was either sleeping or wreaking havoc. He either wants to climb onto the piano bench with big sister and pound on the keys or have me hold him while he throws his body weight down towards the piano trying to escape my grasp (but screams if I put him on the floor).

Lately, however, Bridget has taken up an interest in teaching herself the tunes to her favorite songs. After dinner some evenings, I have left Liam in his high chair to finish eating while I help Bridget at the piano. She's now reading some notes, does well with using the correct fingers, and also understands how to count out the correct beats. It is not the piano lesson I had envisioned, but it works for us.

Conclusion

I have learned that homeschooling is not what we sometimes expect it to be. We can plan and schedule and hope that things work out, and sometimes they do. So far, the new schedule is working great for this stage of life. I have every intention of using it for next year. Subjects will get harder for Bridget as she moves up, and I know that I will have to allow for that. We will also be welcoming new students into our classes; George begins Pre-K in August, and Liam will soon be participating in various subjects as well. It won't be long that I'll be juggling a 6th grader, a 3rd grader, and a 1st grader each day, planning group lessons and assigning work appropriate for each student. 

Homeschooling is anything but predictable!

Week in Review 2016: #3

Life

Is it really Friday? I do not know what happened to the week. We've been a lazy bunch this week and stayed indoors as much as possible. The weather is near freezing and we keep getting reports of snow, though I have not seen anything more than a few flakes. The central and western parts of our state have gotten a few inches. This morning, there was a bit of snow/ice on the housetops in our neighborhood, and on our back patio table.

The children have done well with entertaining themselves in the afternoons. While I was in the kitchen cooking dinner yesterday, they emptied out a storage box and pushed one another around. Bridget was pushing at least 1.5 times her weight when both boys were in the box. She got a good workout! She pushed them from one side of the living room, stopped midway and spun them around a few times, then pushed them back. George and Liam had a blast. George kept ordering her to go faster and Liam just sat there with the biggest smile on his face.

I could not decide which picture to share, so I am sharing a few. They all have different expressions in each one, and I treasure them all so much. I love seeing my children enjoy their childhoods together.

After Bridget tired out, George got out of the box and pushed Liam. With not so much weight in the box, George was able to push the box very fast, though I am not sure how much Liam enjoyed this. He looked worried most of the time.

This was our first full week without having Daddy around. The children were all still asleep when he left for work, and George and Liam were sound asleep when he came home, though Bridget was able to see him since she and I were usually reading stories on the couch. I felt that George was missing his daddy so on Wednesday morning, I told him to wake George up and bring him to our bed. That way George would get to see him before he left for work, and then George and I could snuggle before the other two woke up (George is my most snuggly child). 

Homeschool 

Reading

Bridget is still reading this Dick and Jane book. 

She reads to me for 20-25 minutes each day after lunch. She rarely needs any help with the words. When she reads a word incorrectly, she catches it herself and tries again without me needing to stop her and help her. We are almost to the end of the book. I was able to renew it at the library for one last time. 

After we finish this book, we will be back with the BOB Books, though I think she will breeze right through those. She surprised me today when we sat down to read a book from the library we got for one of the animals we are studying in science. I opened to the first page and was about to start reading when all of the sudden she began reading the words to me. I did need to help her along with this book as it did contain some larger words and terms, but she ended up reading the entire thing with minimal help from me. What has happened to my little girl?

Writing

Bridget's sentences this week came from The Velveteen Rabbit, and we focused on the names of the seasons and how unlike the months of the year and days of the weeks, we do not capitalize the names of the seasons. Writing is now our easiest subject. She knows exactly what to do and gets her work done quickly. 

Math

Bridget did an entire lesson this week and took the test. I am glad that she was able to get back on track. Some lessons she needs an extra week, but not this time. I hope in continues, though I am glad that we are able to take the extra time if it is needed.

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Week in Review 2015: #47 and #48

Life

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at our house and both sets of grandparents were able to join us. We ate our dinner in the homeschool room, which is really our formal dining area. It is the only place that would accommodate two tables and enough chairs for all of us. This is where you can read about our Thanksgiving in more detail.

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we bought our Christmas tree and I let the older two children decorate it themselves. My youngest has done a great job at showing us how destructive he is. Thankfully, he has calmed down a bit and is used to the tree by now. He loves the colorful lights and admires them often.

 
Bridget often sets up the little chairs in the homeschool room to play "church" with her dolls. She sets it up as the primary room at church and has singing time and a lesson. Sometimes she is able to convince George to play with her. George was busy with other toys so this time, Liam became her live student. He was so proud to be included and he sat very nicely in the chair with all of the other students.

Bridget was absolutely tickled with Liam's cooperation. They were both being so very sweet.

After Thanksgiving, Amazon had some really great deals on some toys (I prefer to do all of my Christmas shopping this way... isn't online shopping just great?!?). Along with the more "fun" toys to be saved for Christmas, I also got a few "educational" toys and gave these to the kids early. One of them is this marble run. They had a blast! I put Liam down for his nap and set it up for them in their room so that they could see what it's all about. This occupied them for THREE HOURS, until Liam woke up and I made them put it away.

They just love seeing how things work and building things. I couldn't believe they played so well together for that long. It was a blessing because I have had a cold for the past couple of days. I really needed that break from the children where I can rest my voice and try to get better.

Homeschool 

We started off the week very strong but because of my cold and inability to read aloud without having a coughing fit, Bridget has had to do most of her work independently. This is where I love math drill sheets and writing copywork.

In an attempt to still be productive while I am sick, I spent my alone time at the computer working on notebook pages for history. I had gotten behind on that. I'm also revamping the lessons, adding lessons that are not part of SOTW and changing the SOTW lesson order around a bit. It's our first year of a full curriculum and I knew things would need to be tweaked after we got started.

Family Movie Night

With it being Christmas, we have been watching all of our Christmas movies almost daily. It has been nice and a real treat for the kids. 

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Week in Review 2015: #45

Life

It has been so nice to get back to a regular schedule! I came down with whatever the kids had last week but was feeling much better by Tuesday. My husband thinks it was mainly due to exhaustion. I am glad it did not last long.

This week was a busy one with our extracurricular activities. It was Parent's Week for both gymnastics and dance. I get to watch the kids at gymnastics every week anyway, but this time Daddy was able to see them as well. Bridget does not make a big deal of it but George sure loved showing off for us.

I was able to post about Bridget's class and George's class earlier in the week with more pictures and details.

Bridget also takes ballet and tap/jazz. We were able to attend both of those classes as well.

Bridget absolutely loves ballet and this her third year. The is the first year that Bridget has taken tap/jazz. We didn't know what to expect for Parent's Week, but it looks like they have a lot of fun in both dance classes. She has some really great teachers.

In other news, our dishwasher started leaking on Thursday. I ran a load which ended with water pooled on the floor. After a little research by Mr. Fix-It aka my husband, he determined that the seal was worn out and that's why it was leaking and that a new seal would cost about $50. A new dishwasher costs about $250-$300. We opted for the brand new dishwasher as our old one is about 10 years old and was probably on its way out soon anyway.

First thing on Saturday morning, my husband took the older two kids to Lowes to purchase a new dishwasher and brought it home with him, took out the old dishwasher, and installed the new one, all by about noon on Saturday. We ran the first load and wished we had bought a new dishwasher years ago. The new one is so quiet! Now we get to wait around and wait for the next appliance to die on us.

Homeschool 

 

Writing

We are all caught up with writing! What a relief! Bridget has been a real trooper, doing 2-3 pages of worksheets per day just to get back on track. I took a look at her handwriting from this week compared to the beginning of the school year and I am very pleased with her progress.

 

Math

This week, we learned algebra. No, really. The lesson was titled "solving for an unknown". This was by far the hardest concept for Bridget to grasp. Once she got it, she got it, but it took awhile. She still doesn't want to take the test. She does well with the worksheets until she stops paying attention and adds the two numbers together regardless of their placement. Something as easy as ___ + 3 = 5, she'll answer as 8, simply because she's not paying attention. Then she'll surprise me and do an entire worksheet of problems correctly. I want her to go ahead and take the test so that we can put algebra behind us, for now.

 

Family Movie Night

Things got so busy this week that we forgot to pick a movie. Luckily, my husband had bought another box of Lincoln Logs that he found at Staples of all places. This kept Bridget and George busy all of Friday night and Saturday afternoon. They were actually playing well together.

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Week in Review 2015: #43

Life

We've had a good week. Very quiet and restful. It's nice to be done with our vacations for the year. Don't get me wrong; we all love travelling. It's fun to see new places and try new things. It's even fun to do the same things we've done before. But it's also nice to be at home, unpacked, suitcases put away, and nothing to look forward to but the upcoming holidays and family time at home.

I did manage to take Bridget to her 6-year check-up at the pediatrician's office. Nothing much to report from that. She is perfectly healthy and growing well. She's now a whopping 47 pounds (58th percentile) and measures 46.5 inches tall (70th percentile). While she was not due for any vaccinations this year, I did make her get her flu shot. She was not happy about that at all, as she thought she was in the clear. Today, she is feeling slightly under the weather. Most likely it is the effects from the flu shot. She's so sleepy and her head hurts. While there are no other flu-like symptoms, I've allowed her to take a "sick day" today to recover.


Bridget's "Sick Day"

She is trying her hardest to feel better, as tonight is our church's Trunk-or-Treat. It's the only Halloween activity we participate in (we stay indoors on Halloween and do not pass out candy), so she has been waiting all year. Costumes came earlier this week and both of the older children are thrilled with them.


Homeschool 

 

Grammar

She has been enjoying this more, I think because it requires little to no writing on her part. She does well will the poem memorizations from our book and she is getting so much better at narrations and telling things back to me in complete sentences.

 

Science

We learned about elephants, hippos and rhinos this week. They're all pretty neat, but I think I gained a new love for elephants. They are absolutely amazing animals. We read a few non-fiction and fiction stories about them. One of the issues we discussed were ways that we can ensure that elephants are still on the earth decades from now (the books discussed poaching, which has become a bigger problem that many of us care to admit). Bridget's idea was to build a big fence in the wild to protect the elephants. George, on the other hand, had the idea to "throw toys at the mean people that get the tusk out the elephant" and "maybe our car can zoom all the way to  the elephants to throw toys at the mean people and kill them". He went on and on for a few minutes, but those were two ideas I was able to write down word for word. He was obviously very passionate about it. (Disclaimer: I do not condone his idea to "kill" the poachers, and I did discuss with George that killing them was not what Heavenly Father would have us do.)  

 

A Few Books We've Read...

Baby Elephants by Alice Twine

A Baby Elephant in the Wild by Caitlin O'Connell

Elephant Families by Arthur Dorros

Elephant's Story by Harriet Blackford

Rhinoceros Mother by Toshi Yoshida

 

Family Movie Night

Our church is having their annual "Trunk-or-Treat" on our movie night. However, we have spent the week watching Halloween movies during quiet time as a special treat. So far, we have watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, Halloweentown, Casper, Corpse Bride, and Hocus Pocus. Two more on my list is It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.  That is most definitely enough movies for the week, don't you think?!

 

Next Week's Movie: TBD

 

Posts You Might Have Missed (Click Photo):

 



Biltmore Estate



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Gem Mining

 



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Week in Review 2015: #42

Life

For the past few weeks (since the last day of our Washington, DC trip), Liam has been teething. Some days are better than others, but he's been having a rough time. He is growing four molars, all at the same time. There are days that he is so cranky he screams on the floor until I pick him up, and even then he's still sobbing while holding his ice (thought it's not as bad). This typically happens in the morning, when I am doing school with Bridget, which can complicate things as he always trying to grab at the pages of anything I'm reading or working on.

Here is a picture from one of his worst days this week. One part of his gums where a tooth is coming in is even a little bloody. He was crying so hard with tears streaming down his face, but much to my surprise, he was all smiles when I brought out the camera. You can still see the tears under his eyes but he was having a good time cheesing it up for me.



In other Liam news, he has been sleeping in his crib at night for two weeks now! It took maybe two nights for him to fully adjust and I think it helped that he had already been napping in his crib like a champ. It sure is nice having our king sized bed to ourselves again.

We also went on another mini-vacation this week. We headed up to the Blue Ridge Mountains to see the fall colors. We left early Thursday morning and after a 5 hour drive we were at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville checking out their fall garden. I had never seen so many chrysanthemums in one place before. We spent the night in Asheville and on Friday morning drove down to Hendersonville, where we went gem mining and apple picking. We made it back home at 9:30 Friday night. We all had a great time! I took 217 pictures on our trip so I'll be posting a few of those in later posts, but here are a couple to share now.

Liam and I in the fall garden at the Biltmore Estate



The kids at the apple orchard. We were on top of a mountain, but you can barely see another mountain top on the far left.

 

Homeschool 

 

We only had three days of school this week due to our trip. We were able to complete our writing work for the week and also got close to finishing a math lesson. All that is left to do is to take the test, then we'll be able to move on. We're moving along in other subjects as well.

 

 

Family Movie Night

No movie this week, as we were out of town on Friday night.

 

Next Week's Movie: TBD

 

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Week in Review 2015: #41

Life

Nothing much to report on our day-to-day lives. This week was a relaxed one with only our usual routines and extracurricular activities. My parents adopted a kitten named Freddie, which the children finally got to meet this evening. They were excited, but now George is not happy with the cat because it "sworded him with its claws". His words, not mine.

Liam colored his first picture this week (took no interest in it until now). He had fun scribbling at his own little table while big brother and sister colored at the homeschool table. The coloring stopped once he realized he could eat the crayons. Once that took over, I snapped a couple of pictures of him and his masterpiece before putting his crayons away and giving him his snack cup.

Liam and his first official masterpiece. Notice the red crayon on his bottom teeth.

Homeschool 

 

Reading

We had shelved Bridget's reading lesson book for a few weeks, due to her becoming too frustrated to deal with. We hadn't stopped reading in general, but just the formal lessons from the book. This week, however, she brought it out and wanted to do it. We sat together on the couch (where we do our reading) after lunch once Liam was asleep in his crib and worked on a couple of lessons. She still got very frustrated (which aggravates me because it is usually accompanied by an attitude) but she said she still wants to do it. I'm glad she's getting more serious about learning to read.

 

Science

We finished up our study of cats. I had made some notebooking pages with photos from around the web of the animals we are studying. For each animal, she tells me one thing she found most interesting about that animal, and I'll write it on the board for her or on another piece of paper and she copies it onto her notebooking page. It also includes a place to put their diet and the habitat they are typically found in. Then she gets to glue a matching picture of the animal onto her habitats board (George helps with this). Last week we studied lions and cheetahs. This week, we finished up our study of cats by learning about tigers, leopards, panthers, jaguars, mountain lions, American bobcats, and European wildcats. I was able to find a few books at the library in the children's fiction section about tigers and mountain lions. I was so disappointed that I could not find a book about cheetahs. We read about them on our non-fiction books but I was hoping for a cute 'storybook' about them. Cheetahs seem to be her current favorite of all the wild cats. She still enjoyed the other books very much (story time seems to be George's favorite part of science anyway). Next week we're learning about elephants, rhinos, and hippos!

 

Bridget and her big cats notebook pages and habitat board

 

A Few Books We've Read...

Tiger's Story by Harriet Blackford

Mother to Tigers by George Ella Lyon

Little Lions by Jim Arnosky (about mountain lions)

 

Family Movie Night

No movie this week, as we had some other things to get done to prepare for our daytrip to visit the grandparents tomorrow.

 

Next Week's Movie: TBD

 

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Week in Review 2015: #40

Life

Last weekend, we stocked up on food and other essentials in preparation for hurricane Joaquin. Thankfully, we did not get any damage at all. Areas south of where we live experienced a lot of flooding but we did well here. In the middle of the week, the sun made its first appearance in 12 days.

On Wednesday, we celebrated George. October 7th marks the anniversary of his open-heart surgery. This year made two years. I made a short post about it here. For a more in-depth look at our experience with George and his congenital heart defect, you can read about his journey here. Doesn't his super hero scar look great?

The following day we celebrated my dad's 64th birthday. We joined him down at the farm where the logging trucks have just begun their work of clearing the forest in preparation for planting new trees. Later in the day, we went over to my parents house for birthday cake.

We finally made a trip to the library. We've been so busy with various different things (trips, birthdays) that I had not made a much needed trip for books. Now that we finally had books for school (and for pleasure), I could get back on track. The kids were nice and quiet after we got home as they looked through their new selection of books.

Homeschool 

 

Handwriting

Bridget is finally doing her handwriting worksheets without putting up a big fuss. That's worth noting. I don't know what it is with writing. She has neat penmanship and always wants me to write stories for her as she tells them to me, but getting her to pick up a pencil and writing things on her own is worse than pulling teeth.

 

Science

We have been studying animals diets (carnivore, omnivore, and herbivore) and mammals. This week we studied big cats, beginning with lions and cheetahs. Next week we'll cover more big cats. Science is really getting fun.

 

A Few Books We've Read...

Outside and Inside Big Cats by Sandra Markle

Cats of the Wild by Alice Twine

Just Like My Papa by Toni Buzzeo

 

Family Movie Night

We finally watched African Cats! It is a great DisneyNature film following the family of a cheetah mother and her cubs and also a pride of lions. At one point, the two big cats come face to face. The movie was very well narrated and kept the kids attention. Bridget looked as if she was on the edge of her seat the entire time. It was exciting, funny, and at times heartbreaking. At one point (during a very intense part of the movie), my husband stated that this was just too stressful for him. But we all enjoyed it.

 

Next Week's Movie: TBD

 

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Week in Review 2015: #39

Life

We had a good week! It started off with staying up extremely late on Sunday night to watch the lunar eclipse. The kids were so excited about it, but they couldn't make it to see the blood moon. I am glad that they were able to see anything at all because Sunday had been a very cloudy and gloomy day. Right about the time it got dark, the skies began to clear and we had an amazing view of the super moon right from our front yard. I was able to get some pictures of the lunar eclipse and you can view those a bit further down in this post.

Wednesday was the big special day of our week. Bridget turned 6 years old! Wednesdays are busy for us, as Bridget doesn't get out of dance class until 6 p.m., so we only had a birthday dinner with my parents (who live just down the road) and opened a few presents, but no cake. She did get a few things she has wanted for a long time: a jewelry box, a wallet, and the movie Cinderella. I also threw in a few other items, such as the game Connect4, a new hairbrush and hairbands.

All three children on Bridget's 6th birthday

Bridget and her new ballerina jewelry box.

On Saturday, we finished celebrating Bridget's birthday. My husband's parents drove in from out of town, took us out for a birthday lunch, and we came home and had birthday cake. My parents came over for that as well. Bridget also got another birthday present that she had been wanting for a long time: an old fashioned baby doll. The doll itself is estimated to be about 59 years old and Bridget has committed herself to taking very good care of it. I think I will be helping her a lot with that, especially when it comes to keeping it away from her brothers.

Bridget and her antique baby doll

 

Bridget had first requested a pink cake (pink layers, pink frosting), but then changed her mind and wanted a sunflower cake.  I like to make the kids birthday cakes myself because I think it makes it that much more special (and a part of me enjoys it too). I didn't know what I was going to do for a sunflower cake but we did decide it was going to be chocolate on the inside. I woke up bright and early this morning to make the frosting and decorate it. I think it turned out alright, considering I had no real plan until about 8 o'clock this morning.

Bridget's "sunflower cake"

I guess I did good again, as Bridget said it was the best cake ever. That is what I was going for. I am so glad my birthday girl had an amazing birthday week.

Singing "Happy Birthday" to the birthday girl

Blowing out her 6 candles, plus one more for good luck

 

Homeschool 

Grammar

I had gotten a bit behind in our grammar studies, as my focus had been a lot on reading, writing, and math. However, our everyday reading has helped Bridget so much that we were able to breeze through the lessons in her book, as she was already familiar with the concepts. I am happy to say that we did at least 3 lessons per day and we're almost back on track.

 

Reading

Bridget surprised me this week when she asked to read her BOB Books. I think we were working on writing at the time, and so we put that down and she read for about 30 minutes when it was time for me to begin preparing lunch.

 

I've been working with George on letter recognition. He has not been too interested with learning to read and at 3 years old, he does not know how to read all of his capital letters. I took some time this week to work on that with him and even purchased an app (my very first app purchase) on my kindle to practice his letters. It's his special thing now, and when he is being a bit too wild and noisy I just give him the kindle and open the app. Sometimes technology is a good thing (although I still stand firmly against it being my children's primary learning tool/toy).

 

Science

As posted above, we got to watch the lunar eclipse last Sunday. Even though we're supposed to be studying mammals right now, I took a break from that this week and we talked more about the moon, how the earth spins, the sun, etc. It's hard to not be in such awe when we look up at the sky and see the universe at work.

 

"Super moon" lunar eclipse, September 27, 2015 at 8:39 p.m.

Lunar eclipse, September 27, 2015 at 9:51 p.m.

Lunar eclipse, September 27, 2015 at 10:13 p.m.

My teeny astronomers, up way past  their bedtime.

My love holding my teeniest astronomer.

 

Family Movie Night

We were supposed to watch African Cats this week, but we decided at the last minute to watch Cinderella. We got it for Bridget for her birthday and we all had enjoyed seeing it at the movie theater. I need to remind myself of the message often: "Have courage, and be kind".

 

Next Week's Movie: African Cats 

 

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Week in Review 2015: #36, #37, #38

Life

We recently enjoyed a family vacation to Washington, DC. My in-laws joined us and we were able to go to a few museums, the zoo, and the monuments. This was our last big vacation for the year. Washington, DC was especially excited for their upcoming visit by Pope Francis (oh how I love this pope!) and were already beginning to block off roads and other areas and to clean up the city. While I wish we were staying long enough to catch a glimpse of him (that would be a once-in-a-lifetime treat for this American), I'm glad we left just before the big crowds arrived.

I've published a couple of posts about our trip in more details and pictures, which can be viewed here:

Washington, DC (Part 1)
Washington, DC (Part 2)

On our way out of DC, we took a detour and drive up to Maryland to see my cousin and his family. It was so nice to see them after 9 years. More about that visit in my Washington, DC posts.



Recovery after our trip has been difficult. The kids have gotten back to a good routine, but I've been suffering from a stiff body. My husband and I shared two double beds with all three children. We're used to a king-sized bed. I shared my double bed with Liam and Bridget. I feel like I slept on less than a foot of space for all 3 nights. Six nights later and I'm still not recovered.

Homeschool 

History

We studied some of the kid's favorite characters from the Old Testament: Abraham and Joseph. We reviewed the stories (the kid's know them very well already) and watched a cartoon movie about Joseph for one of our Family Movie Nights. We then ventured deeper into Mesopotamia and studied Sargon of Mesopotamia, Hammurabi of Babylon (and Hammurabi's Code), and the Assyrians. We read one of the oldest stories in the world, The Epic of Gilgamesh. To say the kids loved it is an understatement. I had purchased the children's version which comes in three separate books. My intention was to read one each day. Instead, I read them in one sitting. Bridget kept wanting more and more. It's a fascinating tale and I am glad we took the time to read it together.

 

A Few Books We've Read...

Illustrated Bible Stories for Latter-day Saints by Karmel H. Newell

Gilgamesh the King (The Gilgamesh Trilogy) by Ludmila Zeman

The Revenge of Ishtar (The Gilgamesh Trilogy) by Ludmila Zeman

The Last Quest of Gilgamesh (The Gilgamesh Trilogy) by Ludmila Zeman 

 

Family Movie Night

I am a little behind, so I have a couple of movies to report. For week #36, we had studied the story of Joseph from the Old Testament. For our movie, I picked Joseph, King of Dreams. The kids enjoyed it so much they ended up watching it again the next day.

 

We did not watch a movie for week #37 because we were on vacation in Washington, DC.

 

No movie this week either.

 

Next Week's Movie: African Cats 

 

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Week in Review 2015: #35

Life

While most weeks seem to be uneventful, this week sure wasn't! On Monday morning (August 31st), we discovered that Bridget had her very first loose tooth! She's been waiting for one and I assumed it would not happen until after her sixth birthday. Once we found out she had a loose tooth, my husband and I figured it be in there for at least a week hanging on by a thread before it finally came out. Oh boy were we wrong! The tooth came out just two days later, on the evening of  September 1st. She was tumbling in the living room and playing with Liam and my husband thinks that Liam may have kicked her mouth, but either way, out popped the tooth! She came running to me saying "I think my tooth just came out!", as she digs around in her mouth for her tooth. And there it was. A huge milestone for her. She's growing up too fast. The Tooth Fairy left her a little message with two dollars.

Bridget and her tooth!

 

Another milestone was hit in our family about the same time of  Bridget's major milestone. Liam walked! On August 31st, he took a few steps to follow his daddy. After this, he wouldn't even stand for us. But then on September 1st, he walked across the living room. I don't have any pictures to share of it but I do have a video. While I thought that was it for him, that he would now be walking everywhere, I was wrong. He still mostly crawls. He's an extremely cautious baby and I'm perfectly okay with that.

 

In other news, Liam broke my computer one morning this week. I left the doors to my computer hutch open while helping Bridget with her math lesson. Liam wandered over and pushed the button to my CD drive. Once it came out, he tried to pull it out even more. When he screamed at it for not coming out (he screams at whatever frustrates him) was when I noticed him. It was crooked and I managed to pop it back straight, but then it would not close. It felt as if something was blocking it from going in. It ended up being a long day, as I was now unable to close the doors to the hutch even if I wanted to, and it was nearly impossible to keep him away from it.

 

Liam, right after breaking my disc drive.

 

When my husband got home, he was able to take apart the disc drive (or whatever it is called) and repair it. My husband is good at all things computer-related (even though this is not his field of training... he's an accountant). I am so glad he got it to work again, because we use the disc drive to watch the Math-U-See instructor's lessons. Bridget thinks the instructor is a hoot!

George assisting daddy with fixing the computer.

 

Homeschool

 

Math

Bridget is back on schedule for math, and has even got ahead. She took her test for lesson 5 (and got all correct) and we began lesson 6. She HATES lesson 6. It involves writing numbers 0-100 over and over again. While her writing is quite neat for a first grader, she still hates all writing assignments. I've told her she just needs to get it done and as soon as she is done with lesson 6, we can move on to the next lesson and not worry about all that number writing again (although her numbers have improved even since beginning the lesson... no more backwards numbers!).    

 

History

We had to play a bit of catch up for history. History and science are our subjects we do after the most important one's (like reading, writing, and math). It's easy to fall behind, but it's just as easy to catch back up. We began the week reading about King Narmer and the uniting of the upper and lower kingdoms of Egypt. This was a review for Bridget as we learned this at the beginning of Kindergarten last year (before I decided to stop and wait until this year). She remembered everything and so we did not re-do of the projects.

 

Then we moved on to cuneiform and hieroglyphs. Bridget already knew a lot about hieroglyphs so we were able to breeze through this lesson as well.

 

I then went back to a previous lesson and read her a few Egyptian myths. She loved these! I'll probably end up reading them to her again before returning them to the library.

 

Next, we moved on to mummies! If you had asked me at the age of 12 what I was going to be when I grew up, I would have told you that I was going to be an Egyptologist. I loved all things Egypt, especially the mummies! After we read about making mummies, we made one using something I had from when I was a young girl learning about Egypt. We took the body apart, removed the organs and placed them in the appropriate canopic jar, then wrapped our mummy for burial.

 

Putting the lungs into the canopic jar.

 

Wrapping the mummy.

Adding the burial mask.

Our mummy ready for burial with all four canopic jars.

 

A Few Books We've Read...

Seeker of Knowledge: The Man Who Deciphered Egyptian Hieroplyphs by James Rumford

Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile by Tomie dePaola

The Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt by Leonard Everett Fisher

The Star-Bearer: A Creation Myth from Ancient Egypt by Dianne Hofmeyr

The Voyage of Osiris by Gerald McDermott 

Zekmet The Stone Carver: A Tale of Ancient Egypt by Mary Stolz

You Wouldn't Want to Be an Egyptian Mummy! by David Stewart

You Wouldn't Want to Be a Pyramid Builder! by Jacqueline Morley

 

Family Movie Night

The newest addition to my week in review is our family movie night. I choose a movie based on what we studied in history or science. This week, we watched The Mummy, starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. Movie night is actually dinner and a movie ,as we spread out a blanket on the living room floor and eat our dinner while watching the movie. This week, I made "mummies" for dinner. We also had brains (tater tots) and blood (ketchup) to keep with the gory topic. Bridget did not like me calling the ketchup "blood" and refused to dip her mummy in it. She also left the brains alone but she did enjoy her mummy! George ate everything without any issue. We carried Liam's high chair into the living room (to prevent him from crawling over the kid's dinner on the floor) and he had brains and eyeballs (grapes, cut into pieces).

 

"Mummies" for dinner!

 

The movie went over well with George but Bridget kept yelling "Turn off the movie! I want it off!", anytime anything scary was happening. Minutes later she was laughing at whatever funny thing was happening, then she was back to being scared. She wouldn't let daddy cover her eyes and ears during the scary parts---she still wanted to see. It was pretty funny. We had to talk to her for about 20 minutes before bedtime to let her know that the movie was all pretend and she ended up sleeping through the night with no problems.

 

Next Week's Movie: Joseph, King of Dreams

 

Weekly Meal Plan

Last Week: August 30 - September 5 Meal Plan

This Week: September 6 - September 12 Meal Plan

 

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