Pluggin' Along

Life over here has just been pluggin' along.
1.   Our tweaked cleaning system is working fairly well, but there are still some kinks to work out of it. 
2.  School has been normal.
3.  I have been reading and am being inspired by Charlotte Mason's series  (6 volumes) on homeschooling which I purchased the Kindle Edition of for $0.99. 
4.  Now my thoughts are turning to next year's curriculum.  I am happy with most of our curriculum choices but I am having thoughts about changing our Science curriculum.  I love many things about Elemental Science, but I feel that there isn't enough time to go into depth in areas my kids are interested.   I feel like that information presented is very shallow.  I know it should get deeper once we hit the next rotation of sciences in 2 years but I don't know if I want to continue with it until then.  So I am contemplating 3 options:  A) Stick with elemental science and do Chemistry next year which looks like a lot of fun.  B) Just spend our Sciene time researching areas of interest to the kids (topics mentioned so far are jungles, lightbulbs, and horses).  C) Try a different curriculum like the ones suggested at Milestones Academy. 
5.  I can't wait to try out many of the ideas I have gotten from Charlotte Mason's series.  I have ideas for Penmanship, Nature Studies, Math, Reading, Narration, and other things. 

Life is moving right along.  I am very blessed to be able to stay home with my children and homeschool them even though it has meant a lot of sacrifices and big chunks of humble pie.  I am grateful for the life the Lord has given me. 

What? We did school this week?!?

First a little humor....Bree had decided to emulate Scar from "the Lion King."  Apparently chocolate chips work well as face paint. 

 We actually DID school this week.  It was awesome!!!!  All was well until Friday (today) when Audrey got sick.  Luckily everyone else has had it. 
We have been studying rocks in science.  My parents, unknowingly, provided us with a perfect science experiment for our current unit.  They gave the kids a crystal growing kit for Christmas.  So we grew our crystals this week and this was the result.  The crystals grew on rocks provided in the kits.  Trent's, the yellow on the left, lost most of it's crystals from the rock while extracting it from the container.  Luckily we had some stuck to the bottom of the rock!!!  Marissa's, the blue in the center, worked the best.  It has crystals all over it!  Audrey's, the green on the right, grew a few crystals on the rock, but the whole bottom of the container got covered with crystals that came out with the rock.  It made a whole sheet of crystal.  Pretty cool.

 In history we learned about George Washington's young years.  So of course we learned about the story (true or no, it's still a good story) of the Cherry Tree.  Here are my kids with their trees. 

We also did our other subjects that aren't so fun to take pictures of.  Math, English, Reading, Geography, ect.  All in all it was a good week. 

How NOT to Make Rock Candy

1.  Decide to make Rock Candy in the fall, on the week the weather decides to turn.
2.  Put 8 cups of water and 8 cups of sugar into your second largest pot.  Realize that it is already fairly full but refuse to pour it into the largest pot on grounds of dirtying another dish. 
3.  Bring your mixture to a boil, then attempt to add 8 cups more sugar.  Run out of space and decide it is sugary enough and be done with it.
4.  Pour your syrup into jars and add food coloring.
5.  Prepare your skewers by wetting them, rolling them in sugar, then allowing to dry.
6.  Place your completed jars in a window.
7.  Realize there isn't enough sugar in your syrup, and try adding some by just stirring it in.
8.  Realize that is not working and microwave each jar to help the sugar dissolve better.
9.  Put your skewers back in, but don't roll them in sugar again.
10.  Realize that the skewers have NOTHING growing on them.  Take them out and reroll in sugar, but put them back in before they dry.
11.  Have the same problem as in setp 10.  Pull them out, wipe them down, and wait for them to dry.  12.  Put the skewers back in, with high hopes that NOW it will all work.
13.  Wait for days, and realize your candy really isn't going to grow. 

In other news....Audrey finished her 100 picture books/chapters challenge and is moving on to her second one.  This time her challenge will be to read 100 Chapters.

And blogger has been crazy on my computer for the last week and refusing to let me even SEE my new post page, so this is all you get for this week even though I had grand plans of posting pictures, and doing multiple posts. 

Indians, Tornadoes, and Volcanoes....Oh My!

We had a good week, for the most part.  School at home went great, however we have some changes coming.  We received an email this week from our School partner, stating that starting in October homeschoolers will need to submit year long lesson plans for Science, Math, and English for each of their children.  In addition to that, our children would need to take monthly "quizzes" on those subjects to determine if they are "learning enough."  On top of that, every quarter we would be required to submit work samples for those subjects as well.  Needless to say, the cons outweighed the pros for staying in the program so we are pulling out.  Unfortunately, it means the girls will no longer get their once a week "fun classes."  They were involved in the decision and decided on their own that they would rather drop out than complete the new requirements.  It was a sad day, but after much thought, discussion, and prayers we have decided that dropping out is what is best for our family at this time.  Hopefully we will be able to fill the void with homeschool field trips, a recreational class for each child, and a smattering of all the other wonderful homeschool activities and groups going on in our conmmunity.  Enough of that now.....on to happier things!!!

 

This week we studied all of our basics (reading, writing, math, english, ect.).  May I just say that I am very proud of my girls right now.  They each have a challenge to read 100 books (picture books on appropriate levels for each of them) or chapters from an approved book to earn a reward.  Audrey is currently up to 60 books and Marissa is at 51!!!!  This plan is working AMAZINGLY.  Audrey's reading has improved greatly in the last few months.

 

We also had a wonderful time doing our science and history this week.  In History we learned more about Pocahontas and made Indian headdresses.  We also read the book "Sam the Minuteman."  Audrey was enjoying it so much that she took it off on her own on Thursday and read the entire book to herself. 

 



The kids with their Indian Headdresses....I may have cut them a little too small.

 In Science we learned about tornadoes and volcanoes.  We had a great time building our own tornado, swirling it around, and watching it go.  We also began construction on our volcano.  More to come with the volcano next week. 


Our Tornado.  If you look closely at the top water you can see it swirling.

It was a good week overall.  We are excited to make our changes and start with our new plan.  And I promise that my children do not look like such ragamuffins in the mornings.  I don't know what happens to them at lunch time!

Weekly Wrap up

Yet another week of school has come to an end.  I am enjoying this year of homeschool SO much.  I think the kids are too. 
This week.....
Breanne created havoc, played some with her busy bags, screamed a lot, learned how to say  or rather YELL "OP!" (Stop), napped, made a lot of messes, and ate snacks.  Pretty normal week for our little toddler.

Trent worked on the letter Cc.  We reinforced the letter name and sound, worked on some worksheets (rhyming, beginning sounds, and abc order), did math (Trent's favorite), and a couple of reading lessons from Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons. 

Marissa read a lot of books (she is determined to finish her 100 books before Audrey does), passed off the last of her "black key" piano songs, worked on adding and subtracting (single digits with double digits), learned about reading map keys, and worked on her handwriting.

Audrey read a lot of books (she is determined to finish her 100 books because she REALLY wants fake nails), took her first Math test of the year and (after a few corrections) passed with an 85%, finally passed off the word "giraffe" in spelling, learned how to read a map grid, learned about asking - exclaiming - and commanding sentences, and read from her Book of Mormon reader daily.

In Sciene we learned about the seasons and what causes them.  Each child made a seasons book.  We learned about the water cycle.  We also began talking about weather and made a rain guage.  Both girls predicted that we will have 0cm of rain this coming week.  They will continue to predict and chart our rainfall for the next 4 weeks.   

In History we finished learning about Columbus and learned about Ponce de Leon and how he discovered and named Florida.  Did you know that Florida means "flowers"?  I didn't.  We made old style maps charting Columbus's journey from Europe to America.  Our state for this week was New Jersey.  Did you know that New Jersey is called the garden state because more than half the state is still farms, woods, marshes, beaches and other undeveloped land?  New Jersey also grows 2/3rds of the world's eggplant!!!! 

We had a good week.  3 more weeks to go before our first break!  What did you do this week?