Term D, Week 3 Report

Yeah, so I guess I missed Week 2.

This was another rough week, as I started out by getting absolutely NO sleep Sunday night. So, we spent the week kind of in survival mode, rather than Productive Mode. We got the basics done, though. We did manage to do one day of science and we finally got around to doing history today (it was originally scheduled for Tuesday!). We are studying Rome, and we learned about gladiators today, as well as about Roman construction/building. I had no idea that gladiators were slaves/POWs/criminals. Nor that they were so specific in their different types of gladiators. Nor did I know that they went to "gladiator school" in essentially a prison environment. All very interesting. Oh, and did you know these gladiator fights went on for SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS!?! Sometimes, when I think about the history of our own country, and how many people think we have gone so far astray of our founding, I have to think about the other nations/empires/etc that lasted so much longer. I wonder if the incredible advance of technology has sped up the process of weakening our national fiber. If we marched along more steadily in our advances, rather than in leaps and giant bounds, would we be able to keep more in line with our founding principles? Anyways, I digress.

So,we agreed to set aside some of our tax return for homeschooling materials, and I actually went down to the bank today and set up a separate account, just so I can track expenditures better. So now I am faced with the fun, but kind of daunting, task of deciding what we want most. We are planning to start Latin either this summer or next fall, so that is a definite. I also will need the next level of Writing With Ease. Oh, on a reporting note, we started doing the WWE1 lessons 2 per day, so we can get through the material faster. I guess Noodle should really be in WWE2 (and probably a bit further along in math) now, as a 2nd grader, so I think we will continue through summer with language arts and math, probably just 3x/week. I am sure other homeschoolers experience a similar "floundering" as they try and figure out what works best, and I know people's pproaches and methods evolve over time and depending on the child, but it can be unnerving to feel like you are trying to reinvent the wheel, but not just ANY wheel, a customized wheel tailored specifically to your child's unique gifts and abilities.

We have read a bunch of chapters of Inkheart the past couple of days. We started it over a year ago, and took MANY months off. I want to watch the movie with the kids, though, so we have recommitted ourselves to finishing it. Plus, I've started reading up in the playroom, so they can do other stuff while they listen instead of just sitting on the sofa. I think that makes a big difference for Spud. It's a good story, but I don't recommend it for a read-aloud simply because of the length. The language is quite descriptive, and the chapters are often long, and there are a lot of chapters. I think it would have a much better pace as a silent read.

Did I mention Noodle started the Math U See Beta book? I am excited for her to learn addition and subtraction of large numbers. I think that is kind of fun math to do. It's very orderly, but you do have a sense of accomplishment at the end because you have been dealing with BIG numbers! I told her as much this week. We'll see if I can spark some enthusiasm from her. She's not a big fan of math right now, which I think is too bad because it comes to her rather easily. Though she does like it now that I set a timer for 30 minutes, and if she finishes her math work in that amount of time, we will play a game of her choosing for 10 minutes, plus whatever time is left out of the 30. I've been teaching her to play Racko.

Noodle finished the last (seventh) Rainbow Fairy book this week, and while we have some of the Pet Fairies from the library, we are taking a fairy break and reading Rascal, from the Puppy Place series. It seems appropriate, since she is going to be getting her very own dog in a few months. She's enjoying it so far. We own a few of them, so it seemed like a good choice.

End of Term (Term B, Week 6 Report--kind of)

So I think I'll just have to accept that I probably won't get the Week 6 Reports done, at least not with the same detail. I'm too relieved to have a break that my "homeschool brain" shuts off and I can't bring myself to sit down and type up what we did. We did celebrate the end of the term with another Fun Friday Dance Party, though, which was fun. We didn't do dinner this time, which was nice because it was a bit less crazy, and we shortened it to 2 hours.


I taught the kids the line dance to "The Hustle" and we also played some games, including Twister and a game where all the kids laid heads together in a circle and tried to keep a balloon up in the air by kicking it with their legs. It was fun.


We took this entire week off. I had planned to have Spud do his computer school a few times (he did it once) and have Noodle read from Sunny the Yellow Fairy (also happened once), but oh well. Spud did read some books to his Aunt Jenn who is in town, which was good, and Noodle did pick up a couple of picture books to read. And they had a great time at a cousin sleepover Wednesday night and all day Thursday. We also had a Thanksgiving activity with our homeschool group, so they got a mini history/geography lesson on the Pilgrims.

Oh, one cool thing that happened during week 6 was we spent about 30 minutes or more watching a female ring-necked pheasant forage in our "backyard habitat" (aka The Giant Weed Patch that we hope to eventually turn Back into a Garden). It was really cool. We got out my binoculars and also enjoyed watching her disappear with her amazing camouflage. We talked about why female birds are less colorful than the males (it seems to bug Noodle that only the boy birds are pretty, and she hasn't yet seen the beauty in the brown), so it was neat to see how she could "disappear" by standing still, even in plain sight.

Here is a picture of her out in the open.

Can you see her?

She's in the middle of the picture in front of the fence.

How about this one?

She's in the center of the picture, a little bit left of the green pool thing.

Here are the turkey crafts we made this month.

This is a cute picture of Spud doing Play-doh letters after we read the book, The Worm Family.

Term B, Week 5 Report

It was a good week. I already reported about the happiness on the reading front. Noodle got 100% on her spelling and math tests, so that was happy stuff, too.

Spud and I read a book called Moon Rabbit, and then sewed a rabbit for him (and then one for Noodle) based on the story.
I made a quick pattern and they were a fairly quick project (though I wish I'd have taken a little more time to ensure a better symmetry on the white bunny). After having a hard time with brown bunny's mouth, I utilized an online video directory of embroidery stitches for the white bunny's mouth, which turned out much nicer. It was good practice for the Christmas projects I'm making.

For science we learned about deserts and read some good books. While we were finishing up reading the book Cactus Hotel, Spud made this saguaro cactus out of Magformers. I thought that was pretty cool.


In history we learned about Crete and the story of the king who kept the minotaur under his castle in the maze and fed him Athenian children every year until Theseus (prince of Athens) killed the monster. I am trying to remember to do some geography with the kids, so I used our Children Just Like Me book and also a cool book I got from the library called How People Live and on Friday we read about modern day people in Crete. (They are called Cretans, which made me giggle.) That was a nice tie-in, I thought.

We also did read from Lives of the Musicians about Mozart. Did you know that if you played all of his music back to back it would go for 202 hours?! That's almost 8 1/2 days! I can't remember if I linked to this website before, but it has some great resources for music/composer study. We like to color the composers in lots of crazy colors and patterns. They kind of look like tattooed rock stars.

We also did a fun turkey craft that I got from here. I will put the pictures up next time I upload my card.

So, yeah, that's about it.

Term B, Week 4 Report

We didn't do anything fabulously exciting. Spud needed to finish up his sticker chart so he could earn a prize the same day as Noodle, so I told him I'd give him 3 stickers for each BOB book he read. He read Mat, Sam & Dot with hardly any trouble. Just goes to show what a little incentive can do. He seems to be enjoying our new "relaxed" preschool. Every day we read a story and then do something that (usually) goes along with the story. We read this hilarious book called Ugly Fish. Then we drew our own versions of Ugly Fish and the other fish in the story. I should scan Noodle's in when I find it, as hers was quite good. Here are Spud's and mine:

Term B, Week 3 Report

This is going to be a really short report.

This week we did Wetlands for Science. There isn't a page for it in our science "text" (Usborne's First Encyclopedia of Our World), but I thought wetlands merited some attention. Plus, we had BOTH Bill Nye and Magic School Bus episodes about wetlands. We read a book, watched the shows, and made a page for our science notebook.

History this week was on the Assyrians. We learned about Ashurbanipal and the fighting strategies of the Assyrians. We "reenacted" their two-man basket shield & arrow-shooting technique with markers and a laundry basket. We also built an Assyrian Siege Tower out of Legos (I'll add pictures later today, hopefully.)

Other than that, Noodle made good progress on reading Ruby the Red Fairy and was delighted to be able to create her own fairies on the Rainbow Fairies website. She and I also had a drawing together time, where we both drew pictures of fairies. I freehand drew my version of Ruby from the cover of the book. Since I'm not an artist, I was pretty pleased with the result, and I think I might enjoy drawing more fairies. Lately I'm finding that I can do okay if I have a picture to look at, and as long as it isn't supposed to look real. Cartoonish style is much easier for me.

We had a really full non-school week. We ended up taking Tuesday off, as we had some errands that we had to do and we also needed to get a present ready for Spud's friend's birthday on Wednesday. We checked out both Dollar Tree and Robert's Crafts looking for gift ideas (being on a very tight budget). We ended up buying a recipe box (as both kids thought the friend would like to have a box) and then making him a very cute Sculpey clay dinosaur and painting a peg doll like a caveman for him. We also made a little clay fire and Spud made a snake. Spud also painted a dinosaur magnet for him. We cut a piece of green fabric and put that in the box also. We also made him a necklace out of a circle of wood (we painted his initial on one side and a cool pattern on the other) and some beads and strung it on a leather string. I wish I'd have taken a picture. It was fun to work on together, and great because we had all the supplies already at home. I'd like to get more ideas for homemade birthday gifts and try to do that more often.

Noodle had Imagination Club on Wednesday, also, so we spent a lot of time out on Wednesday as well.

Thursday was a nice, regular day. Very productive!!

Friday Noodle took her Math test (100%) and spelling test (missed one, but easily fixed the mistake when I had her look at the word again), and did her reading and writing assignments. We hosted a Halloween Party for our homeschool group, which was fun. I wish I'd have planned things a little earlier, though. I think it went well, but I felt a little frazzled trying to do too much prep at the last minute. C'est la Vie!

Oh, we started on the subtraction chapters this week, and Noodle did so well on the first subtraction chapter on Monday that she wanted to take the test Monday, too. She did and didn't miss any. She has her addition facts down very solid (and is getting quicker as we keep doing the flash cards--she got 18 cards in a minute this week!) so I think that makes a big difference. I think we'll do two chapters a week for a while if she keeps sailing through them.

Term B, Week 2 Report

Oh yeah, I'm on top of things this week. We actually ended a little early today because Noodle had a friend come over so I decided "socialization" (snerk) was more important than more science (which we've already done 2x this week).

Language Arts
Reading
Noodle is nearly finished with the Yesterday's Classics First Reader. It has been a good one and she's enjoyed it. Three days this week, though, she read from Ruby the Red Fairy. It is a bit above her comfort level and is a beginning chapter book, but I wanted to find a book she'd enjoy reading and that would show her that YES she CAN read chapter books. If I'm there with her to help her when she gets stuck on a word (only so she doesn't get too confused trying to decipher the meaning when the words are wrong), she can maintain a fairly decent pace and enjoy reading the book. Earlier in the week we agreed on a "4 page/day" assignment, which seemed a little skimpy to me but I didn't want to push her too much, and today she was so into the book she read 10 pages! She just kept saying, "I have to find out what happens next!" and, "Sorry, Mom, but I just have to read one more page." I was so delighted!

She also read some advanced BOB books that we hadn't done before. And she picked up the Big Dog, Little Dog book I'd read to Spud yesterday and read it all the way through. Since she has not been a self-motivated reader, I am tickled every time she chooses to read something or read more on her own.

We (Noodle & I) also played the Y Not? game from Happy Phonics a couple of times this week after reviewing the Y-ending pages in Phonics Pathways. The first day we played it, she loved it and we had to play it three times. I was happy to do so.

Grammar
We learned pronouns this week. "A pronoun is a word used in the place of a noun."
I, me, my, mine
you, your, yours
he, she, him, her, it, his, hers, its
we, us, our, ours
they, them, their, theirs
She did really well and seems to grasp the concept without much difficulty. Next week we'll do a review page (from the Worksheet generator link I posted yesterday) to see if it is clicking. I think it is.

Spelling
Noodle was struggling with the words could and would when she would encounter them in her reading, so we did a list of regular "ou" words (i.e. proud, loud, round, found, out, etc.) and the three irregular words could, should & would. She got 100% on her Spelling Test today, but then in her reading stumbled over could the first time, but got it in subsequent encounters. Being as visual as she is, I think she has to see the words a lot before they are solid in her mind. My goal with spelling is to reinforce the rules as well as revisit some of the ones we may not have covered too solidly in the past.

Spud spelled some words from some pictures cards, but he wasn't too excited about it. I am planning on taking a break from really requiring him to read anything for a while. I wish I had some sort of handbook that would tell me the best way to motivate this little guy to learn. Te thing I have to remind myself over and over again now is that he hates to do things he can't do
well (as judged by some unknown standard in his mind), but he likes to do things he CAN do well. He hates to be on the spot for knowledge he isn't confident about. So we are shifting our preschool approach to reading books and doing activities.
One of Spud's favorite books is Big Dog, Little Dog, so for our first day of "new" preschool, we read this book and then he colored pictures of items from the story either red or green, depending on whether they went with Fred or Ted. I cut them out for him (because he didn't want to, for who knows what reason) and he glued them on. I freehand drew the dogs, and was pretty proud of myself.

Our agreement was that we would do two activities of my choosing every day (in addition to his computer school) and then we would do "Fun Time," where he gets to choose an activity to do with me for 15-20 minutes. We only started Thursday, but both days we built towers/buildings with blocks in the playroom and then crashed our matchbox cars into them. It was surprisingly fun. I have to keep reminding myself that learning stuff (reading, numbers/math, etc) isn't a race, and it really isn't going to affect them in the long run if they master reading 6-12 (or even longer) months earlier or later. What WILL matter, though, is the attitude they have about learning. Spud is a hard kid to teach, but he's a pretty easy kid to have fun with. So I'm hoping that working on our relationship will help him feel happier and more capable.

Writing
Noodle is doing really well with Writing With Ease, Vol. 1. I like that the lessons are grab-n-go and typically take less than 15 minutes to complete.

History - The Phoenicians
Did you know that the reason purple dye/cloth was so expensive long ago is because it came from sea snails that had to be gathered and boiled to get the dye, and it took a lot of snails to make the dye and it STUNK. Maybe you did, but I didn't. We learned all about the Phoenicians this week. How they lived in land (modern day Lebanon) that was inhospitable to crops or raising animals (due to the whole "no crops" thing), so they became totally awesome goods-makers and traders. They were the first to invent blown glass! They also had the first alphabet and made really nice furniture from the cedar trees there. They set up colonies around the Mediterranean. For our activity we made "Phoenician bread," which is known today as pita bread. No, I don't know if it is exactly the same, but it was one of the suggested activities in our book and we did it. The bread is delicious, by the way. I think we'll make it again sometime. (And I had to include these pictures of the kiddos enjoying the bread this morning!)


Math
Noodle started subtraction this week. She actually did a bit of subtraction in the Primer book last year, so it doesn't seem to be giving her any trouble right now. I suppose we could move faster through the Alpha book, but I feel okay at our current pace and I like that she is getting these basic math facts down solidly. From everything I've read, staying at our current pace she'll be plenty caught up by the end of elementary school. Also, I'm considering doing math through our longer breaks (Christmas & summer) which would help us keep making progress. Ever since I instituted the sticker charts for doing her math work, her attitude has been a lot better. I will say again, incentives definitely have their place! I also found my old addition flashcards so we did those a couple times this week. She earns one Skittle per card correctly answered, as many as she can do in a minute. (She also earns an equal amount of Skittles for Spud. I have him earn Skittles for her, too, some days, to keep it equitable and help them be happy for each other's achievements.) It's great because on Tuesday she got 9 the first minute, 10 the second minute, then 14 the third minute. She wanted to keep trying for more. Thursday she got 14 right off, and tried one more time and had some trouble and only got nine. A book I read about right-brained kids talked about how doing math problems quickly for timed tests can be a challenge since it takes time to visualize the problem, so I'm hoping doing the flash cards will improve her speed in a fun, not-too-stressful way.

Spud can count to 20 very solidly, so we are working on going to 100 now. He will get a "100 Cake" when he can count to 100 unassisted, just like Noodle did, and he is excited about that.
He also does well actually counting objects up to twenty and not just saying the numbers. We are also working on counting by 10s, as I think that will help with counting to 100.

Science - Seas, Oceans
So much STUFF about the ocean to learn. Which makes sense, seeing as oceans cover ~70% of the planet. I had no idea that the Pacific Ocean alone covers 1/3 of the Earth!! Crazy! I think it would be fun to do a longer, more in depth study of oceans sometime, but for now I feel okay with only a week. We did some experiments from the book Awesome Ocean Science. Two addressed how warm water and cold water interact and one was about how the coloring of penguins helps them hide from predators. There were 3 Bill Nye shows to watch (Ocean Exploration, Ocean Life and Oceanography), but we only got the first two done. In addition to our notebook page of drawings/information, I had each kid pick an animal discussed in one of the books we read and we did a coloring page of it. Spud picked an angler fish and Noodle picked dolphins. Spud really wanted a flatfish, but I couldn't find any good coloring pages of flatfish, unfortunately.

This experiment shows how warm water and cold water can take a long time to mix (part of what happens during El Nino). The yellow water was warm and the blue water was cold. Five to six hours after combining the two, they were only somewhat mixed (2nd picture). By morning they had completely mixed. It was really a fun one to do.
For this one, we made a red ice chunk in the bottom of a paper cup and froze it, then put it in a glass of lukewarm water. You can see the cold water carrying the color down, so it demonstrates cold water sinking.

New Activity - Safari
I came up with a new activity for Spud's workbox this week. We call it "Safari" and it means he picks an animal out of our "Wildlife Fact-File" and we read about it, find it's location on the map and then color a picture. This week he picked Desmodus rotundus, the Vampire Bat. We found out that an adult Vampire Bat drinks about 5 teaspoons of blood/day, so we measured out five teaspoons of water and dyed it red. (Though at first we couldn't find red so we did green instead. Then we found the red.) And then the kids wanted to drink the colored water. Sure, they don't really need the food coloring in their systems, but it was a nominal amount and added to the fun.

Music Appreciation - J.S. Bach
We did Vivaldi last week and are just going in order. I'm either going to have to keep rechecking this book out from the library or find another one. (Heck, if I get some $$ I might even buy it.) I really like the one I've been using. We talked about Bach and listened to some of his music. I also got some very simple sheet music from Making Music Fun
It's a little advanced for Noodle right now, but I played it for them and when she has the skills, she can try it. We also colored pictures of Bach. We all did really funky color combinations, which made it fun. Punk Bach.

In other music news, Noodle was assigned to learn a simple version of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas." At first, she was really intimidated by it (it is her first encounter with eighth notes) and said she didn't think she'd be able to do it. Within two days, though, she was in love with playing the song and played it many times a day. Soon she had it memorized. Such a funny girl. I'm trying to teach her to replace her negative "I'll never get it!" self-talk with more positive speeches. Slow going.

Other Stuff
The Hiding Ghosts activity. (They liked it, then Noodle drew one for me to find the ghosts.)




Muffin Tin Monday
Yup, we're still doing it. I've seen some online that are all theme oriented (i.e. apple related or all round). I don't yet have the creative juices for that (nor do I have the money to buy "special" food), but the kids enjoy eating their lunch this way. I have been glad that we often have a variety of cereal opened,as it's good when I run out of other foods.

Fall!
Either Tuesday or Wednesday, we woke up to see that most of the leaves had fallen off our maple tree. The kids had to run out and play (they even raked the leaves themselves to play in!). It was great to watch them and it made me happy that we have the flexibility we do because of homeschooling. Granted, overall there are lots of great reasons for homeschooling, but somedays it feels more poignant than others.

It can be a challenge homeschooling with a baby. His new mobility (he's a great crawler, though still not too speedy) is both a blessing and a challenge, as it keeps him entertained but his capacity for finding the wrong things to play with has exponentially increased. Plus, the diaper changes and naps can interrupt our flow. And it's really hard to do read-alouds if he wants to be held, since he likes to grab the book and crumple or eat it. That said, he's a lot of fun to have around. And he helps us not take ourselves too seriously, and remind us of what's really important.

(Not to mention the awesome power of cuteness.)