Weeks 7, 8 and 9 August 18th - Sept 4th

I haven't done a good job of keeping up with the weekly reports. It seems like something always comes up and I don't get to it. We have had a good three weeks and both boys are doing well. I thought I would post some pictures of projects that we have been working on.

Measuring how much air we hold in our lungs.

Taxation without representation game.

George Washington and the French and Indian War shadow puppet theatre.

Chemistry experiment. Is it sour or bitter? Lizard Legs didn't want to do that again!

Went to a baseball game with our co-op.

Turkey Lips sharing his writing assignment with the co-op.

We made horses on a stick at co-op.

Candle dipping. The boys thought it was neat at first but then when they realized how long it took they were thankful for light bulbs and electricity!

We painted toy soldiers for the redcoats and the Continental Army. Both of the boys enjoyed this craft. They are currently working on a fort to house the soldiers. They are also working on a sewing project that I will show when they are done.

Well there is our last couple of weeks in pictures. :)

Week 5 August 4 - 8th

Mondays are going to be a very full day of school. (It looks like Tuesdays will too). I would love to hear any input on what you have younger school age children doing while their older sibling is still schooling. Poor Turtle Toes is done and bored and I haven't put alot of thought into what to have him do. Honey has suggested some computer games (educational) and I will try to get those set up. Any other ideas?

MONDAY:

Both Boys



Bible Study for All Ages

Memory Work - verses and history today

Math U See

Spanish

History Read Aloud - TOG


Turtle Toes

FIAR - Three Names

Draw Write Now

Phonics


Turkey Lips

SWR - new word list

Writing - started going over how to write a newspaper article. The unit assignment for TOG is writing articles for a newspaper.

Grammar - Rod and Staff


TUESDAY:


Same a above except we did Lesson 2 of RS4Kids http://www.gravitaspublications.com/products/



This weeks lesson was on atoms forming molecules. We used marshmallows and toothpicks to make molecules and we also used a set we bought from Rainbow Resource.

We also did our recorder lesson. This is still a big hit and Turkey Lips is ready each time to keep plowing ahead but Turtle Toes needs to learn it at a slower pace.


For TOG Turkey Lips is now doing his literature reading on his own. His book this week was a children's version of Gulliver's Travels. He enjoyed this and then did his literature worksheet.


WEDNESDAY
Just the basics today because we have co-op at 12:00.
-Bible Study for All Ages

-Memory Verses

-History Songs

-Math U See

- SWR

-TOG writing assignment

- Spanish

ok so that may be a little bit more than just the basics :) The school day went quickly though.



Our co-op is 4 families and we are all using Tapestry of Grace. All of the the kids are Lower Grammar right now and then we have a class of preschool and K'ers that are doing Five in a Row. This week I taught the TOG class. I made poster board size map of the 13 Colonies and put velcro on the pieces so that we could use it like a puzzle. Then the kids labled a map of the 13 colonies. Our TOG history reading this week was on Benjamin Franklin so we did a mini lapbook on him.





Here are some of the resources we used:


http://www.benfranklin300.org/curriculum_lower.htm


http://www.awb.com/catalog/images/covers/95671.jpg


http://www.benfranklin300.org/imagebank_17_detail.htm


http://thinkexist.com/quotation/it-couldn-t-be-done-somebody-said-that-it-couldn/365632.html



THURSDAY

We did all of our regular assignments except for Math U See for Turkey Lips because I was on the phone and was trying make up time. For science today we worked on our body study. It has been working well doing Chemistry one day and then the body unit on the other day. I like the variety and I think the kids do too.



Our project for the week that went along with our TOG studies was to make music with glasses with water in them. Franklin invented the armonica from seeing someone place musical glasses. While we couldn't play a real armonica we were able to play the wine glasses.




Can you see the ripples in the water in this last picture? Turkey Lips thought this was awesome. He was saying "you can see the sound waves!" Now they want to set up the glasses to show at our Unit Celebration with our co-op.

Turkey Lips finished up two paragraphs on Benjamin Franklin that will be put in a newspaper that is we are doing for the whole unit.

Summary of the week:
We are starting to get into the swing of the school year. Our day is longer than it was last year but that is to be expected with Turkey Lips getting older and now Turtle Toes doing Kindergarten. Turkey Lips is excited about American History and has enjoyed reading the books and listening to American history selections from Your Story Hour CDs.

Turtle Toes is enjoying Five in A Row. He also likes having more school work and asks if he has more to do :) I know that will change but it is fun to see it!

We had a good week. God is showing me how important it is to rely on Him for the strength to get through the day but also to organize my priorities. I was struggling with the flow of the school day and this week I have brought it before Him each morning and He has been faithful to show me better ways of organizing my day. I am thankful that He cares about the little things!

Have a great day!

Week 4 July 28th - July 31st

We have had a good week this week. Attitudes are adjusting and we have started some of the fun subjects so the boys are enjoying the school week more. This week we added in recorder, spelling (for Turkey Lips), and science. For science right now we are working on our body study. This worked out well because while at the homeschool convention I discovered that I had ordered the wrong level of Real Science 4 Kids. I had ordered level 1 Chemistry and Biology and I should have ordered the pre-level 1. Turkey lips would have been fine with the level one (grades 4-6) but Turtle toes really needed the lower level (grades K-3) because I could see his eyes glaze over when I read the first chapter out loud. Honey was great and just ordered the lower levels at the convention and we will use the other levels later. All of that to say the new levels are on the way and seem to be taking a mini vacation in Denver, or so says my tracking number :)


The recorder is a huge hit. The boys have begged for to do it everyday and have even given Honey a concert all in B notes (because that is all we know right now!). I had never considered teaching my kids any music but rather was going to sign them both up for piano lesson. But, alas a piano wasn't in the budget right away and so I had to look around for other ideas. In that search I came upon this http://http//higherupandfurtherin.blogspot.com/search/label/Music%20Instruction . I decided to give it a go. I bought the recorders from Rainbow Resource and the instruction booklet from Amazon. So far so good. Tomorrow I believe we move on the the A note.


By the way I have absolutely no musical experience. I can not read music and can barely keep the beat but we are clinging to "make a joyful noise" :) I will say that my kids know that I don't know what I am doing and I have been very up front about the fact we are learning this together. This has lit the fire under them even more because it is something we are doing together not just me teaching them
.


On Tuesday I saw that the library was having a speaker come and talk about Bald Eagles and that he was bringing one to the library. We finished up school for the day and went to see and listen. At first the boys were the only kids there (apparently the library normally sets these talks up for baby boomers) but then a couple of preschoolers came in the with their moms so we weren't so out of place. We took seats right in the front row and Turkey Lips instantly began asking me question to write down to ask later. It was a great talk and the Bald Eagle "Libby" has been in captivity since she was 3 because someone shot her in the wing and so now she has one wing longer than the other and can't fly properly.


When we came home I found a free lapbook on the Internet on Bald Eagles http://www.homeschoolshare.com/eagles.php and we completed it.

Here is our list for the week:

Turkey Lips:

-Bible Study for All Ages
-Math U See - including a chapter test and Unit test.
-Grammar - I made a deal with Turkey that if he does two lessons a day he only has to do grammar 3 days a week.
-Handwriting - copywork and cursive worksheets
-Spelling - Spell to Write and Read
-Outloud reading - twice a week
-Science - minit book on types of blood cells and added the spleen, pancreas, and gall bladder to his body poster
-Memory work
- Art Appreciation ( I am typing this up on Wednesday and this won't be completed until Thursday)

To be added next week
-Tapestry of Grace
- Spanish
-Chemistry (if it gets here)

Turtle Toes
-Bible Study for All Ages
- Memory Work
- Science (same at Turkey Lips)
- Phonics - Spell to Write and Read and BOB Books
- Math U See
- Handwriting

Just one little note here as I type up this list. The list is long but the lessons are short. Our longest day this week started at 8am and we were done by 11am.

Here is my planning sheet for the year. http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pelzbQX_gQJj66tgILVCvDw The time blocked off during the holiday is for when the baby comes :) ! My Spanish timeline is little off because I workbook didn't come in until yesterday so we will be a week behind but I didn't want to change it all :)

I will try to post the weekly assignment sheets for each of the boys but I haven't figured out how to do that yet :)

Weeks 2 and 3

It has been a busy two weeks. Last weekend I worked out our homeschool convention for Tapestry of Grace. This was the second year I've done this and I love doing it. It is wonderful getting to talk to other parents about homeschooling in general and Tapestry of Grace specifically. The Somervilles (Marcia Somerville is the author of TOG) were speaking at the conference so our booth was quite busy.

So for part of our school week I was also preparing for the conference. My parents flew in to take care of the boys for us (THANK YOU!) and then both of my brothers flew in Sunday night to spend the week. That means for week 3 of school we have had my whole family here. As you can imagine my reports for these past two weeks have been a little bit delayed. However we have stayed firm...well sort of...we did all of our school work that was scheduled.........hello.. anyone there...... mmmm......

Week 2

Week 2 started off with our cat having to be put down on Monday morning. We all went to the vet to find out what was wrong with our beloved Venus. The vet was compassionate and made if very clear that there wasn't anything we could do for her. We had had Venus for 13 years. Honey and I got her a few months after we were married. We've never not had her during our married life. There were many tears shed and sad hearts so there wasn't school on Monday. I don't think we could have handled not seeing here laying on our school couch trying to climb on the boys books so she could lay down on the paper (she loved to lay on paper!).

Tuesday we started school:

Turkey Lips:
Bible Study for All Ages - Completed 2 lessons (divided into 4)
Memory Work - we added in our memory work this week. We are working on Bible verses, geography songs (reviewing states and then we will move on), Veritas Press History songs, and the Calendar for Turtle Toes
Math U See - 2 pages per day with multiplication facts review
Rod and Staff Grammar - right now we are doing 2 lessons a day
Handwriting - copywork and cursive

Turtle Toes:
Bible Study for All Ages
Memory Work
Math U See
Spell to Write and Read
Handwriting


Week 3

We were down to the very basics this week with all of my family here:

Turkey Lips
Bible Study for All Ages - Ok but not every day!
Math U See
Grammar

Turtle Toes
Dude he's in Kindergarten .... no school!!!!

Well I know I said it in my first post for this school year but I will be posting our schedule later and going into a little more detail for the goals for this year. This school year has started in a whirl wind. That whirl wind has included: homeschool conference, sewing for new baby, family visiting, vacation to CO and some bad attitudes....I'll let you guess whose attitude...shhh not mine :) However God has really been showing me that parenting involves grace too just like His parenting me involves ALOT of grace.

That is if for now. I promise I will be posting pictures once we have a normal week. Have a wonderful week.