Friday, August 23, 2013

Week 2

Our week started off with a hot breakfast! This is something I am just not good at because let's face it I don't wanna get up and cook.


Then my big kids waved goodbye as they went on to high school! This year I have an 11th grader and a brand new 9th grader!!!

YAY DEVLIN!!!!

YAY DAMIAN!

There he goes off to face the world!
 For sign language they learned the leter c and the phrase how are you?  In science we started to learn about bones. Again this was a review for them as they have studied bones before.  

 Skyler with the hinge joint
 
 Fox playing with a ball and socket model
 
After a hard morning of lessons we decided to have a little snack to cool off, ice cream sandwiches, YUM!
 

Skyler then decided to take her reading to a more comfy spot because it is too hot to sit in a chair she told me.


After lunch they burned off having too much energy playing outside.



Tuesday continued well and this momma is thrilled! We started using xtra math again, I think summer made them rusty! Fox shocked me with his Winning With Writing lesson today. Instead of the same junky stuff he always comes up with he actually tried, I was so excited. He chose insects as his topic and even did research using some insect flash cards we have. He used scrap paper to have me correct then wrote the final draft in his book. Writing is something he HATES! I was so thrilled with his effort.
 


Skyler took her beta level lesson 21 test today and passed! Math is so not her strong point. She tries though so hard.


We are still going on with Spell By Color and the kids are doing well with it so far.


In history we worked on our Medieval Times newspaper from Homeschool in the Woods Middle Ages project pack.


Well that was our day and sadly I forgot art :(

On Wednesday Fox took his Delta level lesson 8 test and passed! His math is so catching up the past two years. I love Math U See!


Today was a day for the cat though! He just would not leave us alone.




Trying to take pencils, jumping up to lay right in their books all day long. He wanted to do school too I guess.

Thursday and Friday all blend together since the addition of the new baby!


He will be staying with us just for a little while until he is ready to go face the world! Mainly my yard full of trees and other squirrels. He was found in another town all alone in a parking lot.

We did an experiment in science from the Blood and Guts book, the thumbless survivor test.






She tried so hard to write! They decided their thumbs were very helpful.


I guess learning about bones was so fun even Donatello wanted in on the action.

My house is full of kids and animals. I can't pass up a helpless little thing for nothing. All in all it was a good second week and I hope it just gets better!















 
 



Friday, August 16, 2013

Our first week!

Well we had our first week and it went pretty good. It was very strange to not have Damian joining but I will have to get used to that I suppose. They are enjoying the CNN student news show every morning. They have also enjoyed learning sign language from this site. I am sure we have quite a ways to go but they are liking it. We are doing a letter and a word or phrases every other day. Fox was actually taught to sign when he was a toddler and I was pretty shocked when a lot of that seemed to come back. We were going through the dictionary and he was all, Hey I know some of this! That was cool.

They are liking Spell By Color so far as well. They have a notebook where they will do any writing work and writing the rules in.



Of course Skyler likes anything with crayons.

This week in science they reviewed cells, the endocrine system and reproduction. They had already done this so it was mostly review for this week.


Of course we did our school cones. This year it was a bit different as small toys and cute supplies are getting past the older kids so I made snack cones!

 They are filled with junk and drink packs for water bottles. All in all it was a good week and I hope that continues on into next week!


Monday, August 12, 2013

Our First Day Back!


My 4th and 6th grader! Don't they look excited? We actually did have a good day. This year is really new for us because my oldest son is now starting high school! He will be in grade 9 and I am so proud of him. We came a long long way together and once upon a time my biggest goal was getting him to sleep in his own bed! Now he is going to face high school and join my daughter Devlin. The years are passing by and I can still remember the first year we did this. It has been an exciting life, I hope I have some more years before these two leave me.

We started off our year with the day books.


The day books are binders with calendars and a lot of resource type stuff, kinda like a mini office. They have all kinds of stuff in there. They use them all the time. It is the go to book for looking stuff up.

Another new thing we added was the CNN Student News. Little 10 minute news clips with what's going on in the world. I guess you would call it current events. We also started sign language. I am using a free website for that. Fox has bugged me for years to learn signing. Every other day we will learn a letter and a word or phrase. Today we learned a and girl.


Seems are little rats wanted to join school too! And of course the cat cannot be forgotten or he will grow up stupid as my son tells me!



We did all he normal school stuff. Math, grammar, writing, spelling and even art. We studied Giotto.


After school we headed off to the river. It looks like root beer!

 
 
We found teeny tiny frogs



And a sticky as my little one calls them.



Today was good and I hope they stay that way!