Week 7 Oct 12-16

And with this post I will be completely caught up with our blogging for the new school year!!!! YIPPEE FOR ME!!! I am sure home school evals will go much simpler now! We started off our week with Math Monday. We are still working through Mathtacular 4 to help with word problems, and doing our business math. I am hoping things start to go a bit smoother so I can add some games or something else related to math.

Here are all my kiddos!!! While it is awesome having Damian home again I will say it has been trying. I regret ever putting him in school now. His learning not only had ZERO progress he has actually lost skills that took me so many years to build. I honestly have spent nights on the phone crying to my bff Linda about how sad I am and hopeless it feels. As usual she talked some sense in to me and now it is time to just work. I will say I now believe more than ever my childs' education will never be as important to anyone as it is to me!!!! We will find our way again and I know this!!

I truly believe the only reason Skyler is not freaking out about business math is because it is based on a pet shop LOL.

My Littlest Pet Shop girl <3

We are finishing up South America for geography as well as the rain forest for science. This week we wrapped up learning about some chocolate makers, Gertrude Hawk and Milton Hershey. I thought it important they hear of both genders!! We were shocked to learn of Mr. Hershey not starting out in the chocolate business. He had a few companies most of which went belly up! The first real money he made was with Lancaster Caramel, which they still so of course we bought a bag to try. I will say it was very good caramel :)

We of course did the whole math and reading stuff as well. Skyler decided to take her reader to the floor while Fox stayed at the table.

They each have readers they use. I don't really pay attention to grade levels or anything. It is hard work getting Fox to read so if he likes it I could care less what it is. Reading is reading to me!

The best thing this week was making our own chocolate!!!!! This kit was an awesome activity!

We did some research of course on the cocoa tree for our study.

Then we made some chocolate!!! Damian was more content watching than doing but that is all right! For now anyway eventually he will be expected to participate.

Can we say chocolate mouth!!!

Everyone of course enjoyed the final product!

That was pretty much the week. I am sure they are going to remember it for a very long time. I am praying really hard I can remember to blog every week about our adventures!!

Three Field Trips On One Day!!!!!!

I knew going in this would be a very very very looooong day!!! The morning started with scarecrows at Dudley Farms and was going going going all day long! It was a fun unforgettable day that is for sure.

Look at that cool scarecrow guy! I was for sure scared of him LOL. We learned about scarecrows today. Why do we have scarecrows, who were the original scarecrows, some history of scarecrows and did some scarecrow crafts! Skyler had fun the boys sat this one out. The volunteers that helped her were amazing. The farm was amazing as well. We had been there before but it was nice to go back. We love seeing all the old original things.

She made her own little scarecrow out of a cardboard tube,

She learned some history and got to play with various noisemakers that have been used to scare crows in the past.

She got to dress a scarecrow up too! I am sure that her scarecrow will scare the most crows away!!

Well, maybe her scarecrow is a nice scarecrow??























She also learned to grind corn and feed chickens!!

As I expected it was a fun day at the farm for her and for me too! On to Art In The Park at Stephen Foster . We seen some amazing artistic talent. I will say I really enjoyed the wood burning. I am hoping that may happen as a class in the future!

The couple who were doing this were just great. The talent they have is truly wonderful. Skyler adored her little wooden spoon she put a rooster on. I may have picked up a few little doo dads for a special granny for Christmas as well












Skyler made a dream catcher as well.

We got to talk all about the dream catchers. She was planning another for when we got home.






















She got a picture with a giant racoon who teaches personal safety as well as finding Edgar the alligator for a free ice cream!!!

Because Skyler for sure needs that ice cream!!!!

After Art In The Park we went home for just a bit. Long enough to eat and grab my rough and tough boys for some outside fun! Learning about first aid in the wilderness. I will say that by the time we got here I was totally exhausted. I can barely remember everything I heard because it was just packed with info. He was very knowledgeable on the subject. He spoke like it was just second nature. I do remember smelling something like Vicks Vapo Rub and licorice though!! I did find out they have a book I may just look up at some point for my rowdy boys!!

I do remember sage burning helps with mosquitoes! I also remember some type of moss being good for cuts and such because it has penicillin in it. Let's just say I still am in no hurry to get lost in the woods anytime soon! All the while he did the presentation there was a lovely fire burning that moved my tiredness into down right sleepy mode!!!

I hope to never again do this many things in one day!!!

Week Six Review

Projects Projects Projects!!!!

The kids had to do an independent project and I must say I am pretty impressed. We do and make a lot of stuff, usually with me standing over them saying this goes here or there. Most stuff is put together projects from things I have bought or found online. This time they had to make their own rain forest. Fox was not thrilled at all. He did work hard though and he was done by Friday like I told him to be. He is not the most creative child but he tried and I am happy with the result. I am of course happy to have something else to decorate our school room with.

Good job Little Man!!!!

Skyler of course was pretty much A OK with this idea. She likes to make little worlds for her toys all the time.

Good job little one!!!

They also made paper bromeliads and South American masks out of plaster of paris from a mold set I got called Masks Around The World. This is a very cool little activity. Each continent has two masks to make.

Fox took all day painting this thing in layers. He would paint one color then let it dry, paint another and let it dry and on and on it went it was finally done and dry about ten that night.

We also did a virtual field trip to the rain forest using this video.

This was our first virtual field trip. The kids really enjoyed it.

Skyler liked making the paper flowers and putting the little animals in them. Fox was a good sport about it since I agreed when he was done he got to play x box first LOL.

Here is Skyler making her spelling cards for our Total Language Plus. We are doing The Hobbit right now.

Working on vocabulary pages for Total Language Plus.

Here is all my rug rats making lunch. Damian is still not to thrilled with being back at home. He still misses school and we are still trying to find things that work with him as far as curriculum goes. We will get there  I hope.

The only other new thing we are doing is Math Monday.

All of my kids struggle in math BIG TIME!!!! So I have decided that I am going to make Mondays math days. My kiddos hate hate hate word problems and have such a hard time with them as well. So we are using Mathtacular 4 word problems DVD and workbook.  We are also using Simply Charlotte Mason Your Business Math Series. We are doing the pet shop version. I plan to make this a bit more as time goes by so we can really get a lot of review in for problem areas but as usual starting slow so I don't overload!!!

They weren't too thrilled with word problems first thing in the morning LOL

Here they are making their product ordering plan out. They got t start off with 10,000 wish I had that to start out!!!! All in all it was an all right week.