Our Week: Shakespeare, Elizabeth I, and Finishing Astronomy

Three Rs

Math: Molly finished RightStart Level A yesterday. She was so excited and wanted to know if she was finished with math forever. Colin finished Life of Fred: Fractions. I had Caleigh stop her regular math because she's getting ready to start some new concepts that I want to wait for until after we move. She's just been doing some review work this week.

Spelling: Colin has finished the final spelling list in Spell to Write and Read. I'm going to have him review phonograms, rules, and reference pages. I'll probably quickly go through the last lists with him again next year. They do recommend doing each list twice. He and Caleigh both took diagnostic tests yesterday. His grade level was 11.2. I'm so glad we found this program when he was getting ready to start 1st grade. It's really taught us both so much and Caleigh is doing well with it now. Caleigh's mastery level was the same as the list she's on and she got a few words correct that she hasn't been taught yet. Her grade level was 3.3, which I think is great for her first year since she's getting ready to start some lists that will quickly make that go up.

History

We learned about Queen Elizabeth I. We read Good Queen Bess by Diane Stanely and Colin read Who Was Queen Elizabeth? by June Eding.
We also learned about William Shakespeare. We read Bard of Avon, A Child's Portrait of Shakespeare, Welcome to the Globe, and some of the Shakespeare Can Be Fun series.

Science

We reviewed to finish up our study of Exploring Creation with Astronomy. We read some books that we hadn't gotten to earlier. We had a themed lunch, made a rocket cake, did some mini-books for their notebooks, and made aliens from play-doh. See more about that and pictures in this post. We had a few more things we planned to do, including making a solar system to hang from our ceiling, making a model of a rocket, and making some spaceships from a book I have, but we'll save that for after we move since we'd just have to put it all back in a box anyway.

Art

We did a lesson from Artistic Pursuits, where the kids drew landscapes with oil pastels.

Everything Else

We met with Colin's First Lego League team to divide all the Lego pieces among the boys and to let the kids play. This picture is right before we took the table apart. We're going to miss getting together with them.

They had fun playing Wii

I took the kids ice skating on Tuesday.

Our Week with Vikings and a Surprise

It was hard for me to get back into school after having a week off, especially knowing that we'll be off for another week next week. The kids did pretty well with it though.

We spent this week learning about Vikings. We read from Story of the World: Volume 2 about Vikings coming from Scandinavia to invade France, Eric the Red and his son, Leif, and the Norse gods.
Some other books we read were Hiccup: The Seasick Viking, What a Viking!, Viking World, Leif's Saga, Viking Ships at Sunrise, Adventures with the Vikings, and Yo, Vikings. Of the Scandinavian countries, we mostly concentrated on Norway because we'll be getting the chance to explore it more next week.

The kids made their own little Vikings.

We also made Viking longships. We combined the instructions in SOTW activity guide with these, an idea I got here.

Molly coloring the pictures for the ship

Caleigh gluing on strips of paper

Notebook pages (mini-books from Homeschool Share)



Questions and a map of to label, flag of Norway, adjectives describing Vikings, a Viking longship to label.
I left the blank space to add a picture of the boats the kids made.

Colin and his FIRST Lego League team spent some time getting ready for their regional tournament tomorrow. They met to practice their skit, possible questions the judges will ask, and robot runs.

We also gave the kids an early Christmas surprise.

Chad made this pizza while I was running around trying to get all the stuff together.

The brownies wouldn't cut without falling apart so this is what he made.

The present



Opening the present




Disney shirts, toys, glow sticks, trading pins, etc.




And in the bottom Disney World tickets





Colin immediately ran to his room, where he pulled maps from our last trip out of his drawer so he could start planning.


Now I have to get back to packing because we're leaving tomorrow right after Colin's FIRST Lego League tournament.

See what other homeschoolers did this week at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Our Week: Australia, Mercury, and Lego League

We had another busy week with lots of school interruptions. It's going to be a busy weekend too. I'm hoping we can have a normal week next week and get a lot of work done before Thanksgiving week.

Astronomy

We reviewed what we learned about Mercury last week. Then we learned about spacecraft that has gone to Mercury, how Mercury transits the sun, how Mercury got its name, and how to find it in the sky. We also made a salt dough model of Mercury.

Caleigh making it into a ball

Putting some craters into Mercury

History

In history, we learned about the first people of Australia. We also learned about the Maori people and how they came to New Zealand. 

Unit Study

I had originally planned to do the FIAR book, The Pumpkin Runner, but it still hasn't come in at the library. Since we had all the other books, I just did a unit study on Australia. We learned about the geography, some history, landmarks, language, and many of the unique animals there. We made lamingtons and koala cookies. Go to this post to see more about what we did and for pictures.

Molly making the cake for lamingtons

Everything Else

With three meetings and a mock tournament, First Lego League kind of took over our week. Monday and Tuesday, the boys spent their time preparing for the tournament. At the end of the meeting on Tuesday, one of the missions suddenly stopped working. There wasn't enough time to figure out what was wrong. We had a short meeting on Wednesday to check it again and then they adjusted it. Thursday was the invitational tournament. Colin was so excited that he couldn't stand still. He was also really nervous. His hand was shaking so much when he was fixing an attachment during their first run. He seemed to get less nervous after that run went well though. I'm glad they had the opportunity to do this before the regionals. I'll post about it more soon with pictures.

Colin also had hockey Thursday evening so it was a long day. They played a game during practice. He was very excited to get 3 goals.

Colin on the left getting ready for face off.

I was surprised that none of the kids asked about going to park today. Someone usually brings it up every Friday morning. I'm glad no one thought of it though so we didn't have any complaining. We really needed to stay home so we could finish our unit study.
We finished the week by making a gingerbread house tonight.


Go to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see how other homeschooers' week went.

Our Week: Celts, Mr. Gumpy, & Hockey

This week hasn't been the easiest for getting our school work done. On Monday and Tuesday, we had a toddler staying with us while her mom was in the hospital having a baby. Needless to say, we didn't get to all the things I had planned for those days. Babysitting is apparently hard work. Poor Molly was so worn out from being kept up late and woken up early that this is how I found her at 5:00 on Tuesday evening after the little girl left.

I was hoping we could jump back in on Wednesday and have a really productive day. One of the kids was having a really bad day though. She broke down crying 3 times during school. The first time she didn't like starting school with grammar, the second time she didn't want to name action verbs, and finally she didn't want to read a word problem in math. She decided on her own that she needed to go lay down in her room for a while when everyone else had lunch. After a little break, she did better with the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, Thursday wasn't the best day either. Lots of whining, tattling, pestering, and fighting with all the kids. And a few more tears from my 7 year old. This time the idea of starting multiplication had her in a panic. She always worries about new things and likes to know how to do everything right away. She convinces herself it's too hard, but she did just fine with it once she calmed down.

I'm very glad we've made it to Friday. I think we all need a couple days off. I'm hoping everything goes better next week and maybe the sun will return, which should improve everyone's mood.

The Three Rs
Nothing too exciting to report here. Everyone is progressing along with their lessons. Molly has been working on the websites, Reading Eggs and Studydog, for her phonics. She's enjoying both of them. Some of the things are easy for her, but the repetition seems to be helping her remember some of the things she was having trouble with before.

Five in a Row
Our FIAR book this week was Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car. We did some fun lessons and read many books to go along with it. I'll be posting more about this soon.

History
We learned about the Celts and the story of Beowulf. We also read about Christianity coming to Britain, monks, and how they made books. Besides reading, the map work and a coloring page of Beowulf were the only things we got to for history this week.

Science
Our science this week went along with our FIAR book. We learned about clouds, the water cycle, and friction.


Friction Experiment

Art
Art also went along with our FIAR book. We discussed crosshatching that was used in the book and they tried some. We also looked at how action was shown. They drew an example by having something in their drawing throwing mud. We also worked with using texture in drawings and discussed symbolism. They each drew their own car using Draw Write Now.

Extra Stuff
On Tuesday, Colin had his First Lego League meeting. They chose their t-shirt design and the solution to their problem. They also completed their first mission, which was exciting for all of us.

Colin started roller hockey on Thursday. He's been talking about playing hockey for a while, but needed ice skating lessons first. We had planned to hold off on that until January. Then my hubby saw a sign for roller hockey so we thought we'd let him try that first.

Today we all went to a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game.



They had inflatables for the kids before the game.



 

Molly said this was the best part.





Colin waiting for the game to start. He was very happy that the Hurricanes won.



Week 5: Rome, Lego, Field Trip, & Baseball

Wow! I can't believe we're already finished with week 5. I think we're all finally settling into our new routine now. On good days, I've been able to get spelling, grammar or phonics, writing, and math with all three kids and do history or science together before lunch. That leaves the afternoon for art, fun projects, Five in a Row studies, extra books, activities, etc. The biggest obstacle to that is starting on time. I find that I get easily distracted by other things and then realize we're an hour behind before we even start.

History
I've already posted about the history we've worked on this week. We finished our study of Ancient Rome and made cookie dough Roman pillars for our fun project.

Spelling
I am so glad I decided not to rush Colin to finish Spell to Write and Read. Last year, he complained every time he started a new list of words. This year I told him he only has to do 10 new words a day instead of the whole list (20). He's stopped complaining and finishes so quickly now that's he's not spending all his time whining about it. We're not doing much of the extra stuff since this is his 5th year in the program and he's already doing separate grammar and writing programs so he's still moving along pretty quickly and has finished 6 lists so far.
Caleigh is doing so well with SWR and I can see so much improvement from last year when I attempted to start it and quit after only a few weeks. She understands the dictation and is doing a great job with the markings. She's only missed 2 words out of the 80 she's been tested on and she got them both correct on her next test.

Math
Colin- finding the area of parallelograms and triangles
Caleigh- reviewed minutes on clock and adding 2 digit number mentally; skip counting and adding with shortcuts
Molly- making patterns on geoboard, counting backwards, grouping to determine evenness and quantity

Writing
Caleigh is doing very well with cursive. We've been reviewing letters every day and she started learning o, g, qu, and e this week.
Molly is improving a lot. We're still working on capital letters.
Colin worked on the Julius Caesar chapter in Writing Tales. He's doing so much better retelling the stories and I'm so excited about how much neater his work looks. Before he was writing way too big and not paying any attention to spacing and lines.

Grammar
Caleigh- pronouns
Colin- adjectives and adverbs; diagramming sentences

Reading
Molly is still working on learning some of the phonograms. She's got most of them, but there are a few that she misses every day. She's doing better with blending. For some reason she keeps having trouble with words ending in at. She sounds it all out correctly, but when she blends it she tries to add a d sound along with the t. She kept reading fat as fad. After I corrected her a few times, she told me that she knows what the word is, but she doesn't think fat is a nice word to say so she's just going to call it fad. That girl has an answer for everything.

Science
We still haven't done much science except for Colin studying the eye. I finally resolved the issue of our missing caterpillars and they arrived today so we'll start studying them soon. I also have some science planned to go with our Five in a Row book next week.

Everything Else
Colin and his First Lego League team got all the pieces set up on their table this week. They built robots and started working on programming them.

We went on a field trip to the eye doctor. For part of the First Lego League competition, they have to do a project. They've chosen the eye. The doctor showed them all the equipment, took pictures of their eyes, and discussed the eye problem they've chosen. The kids all had a good time looking at everything and they did so well with the kids. They even emailed us pictures of the kids' retinas.

Colin also had his first baseball practice yesterday.

While he was doing that, the girls had a good time playing at the playground. I just hope it's a little cooler by the next practice.

Weekly Wrap-Up: 8/30- 9/3

This was our second full week back and I've already had to make some adjustments to our schedule. I wanted us to all be starting school at the same time, but it just wasn't working. We started out trying to begin the morning with our read aloud books. Like I had hoped, the kids were much more ready to start school in the morning since our reading time is their favorite part. It seemed to be working well at first when Colin was doing review sheets for math, but as soon as he was back to regular lessons and needed me to get him started, it fell apart. It's just too hard for me to have 3 kids working on things that need me. I think I'm wasting more time going back and forth between them and confusing one because I'm talking to the other.

Colin gets up earlier than the girls so for the last couple days I decided to get him started first. We do spelling, grammar and/or writing, and math together. Then he works on his own to do math worksheets and any grammar or writing lessons he needs to complete. He's easily distracted by the girls so I feel like we're getting things done much quicker than when they're in the room with us.
Then I get Caleigh and go through the same thing with her. Once she's working on her math worksheet, I move on to Molly. By then it's usually time for lunch. After lunch, we'll do subjects that we all do together. I'm sure there will be further tweaking to this schedule as we more into the books and some lessons get longer. I'm also hoping to find a more independent math program for Colin once he finishes this one in the next few months.

History

Finished up our ancient Egypt study. You can see more about what we did here.
We started reading the SOTW chapters to go with the Greeks.

Spell to Write and Read
Colin- I decided to start Colin back at list S. We're only doing 10 words a day and we're not doing much of the extra activities since we've done many of them before and he's doing another writing and grammar program. He finished 2 lists this week and tested on them.
Caleigh- Caleigh did the consonant/vowel reference page. I started her back with A and she finished that list and tested.

Molly- working on learning the phonograms

RightStart Math
Colin-most of his lessons were on decimals. He's also doing some problems each day from Challenging Word Problems.
Caleigh- She's still in the reviewing stage of a new book.
Molly- Her lessons are focusing on seeing numbers 1-10 without needing to count.

Molly using the abacus and tally sticks for math

Art
Artistic Pursuits lesson 21 that you can see more about in my Egypt post.
Artistic Pursuits lesson 2. We were supposed to go out to observe and draw sketches for the first part of this lesson. I took the kids to a lake today to do it.

Artists at work

Pictures made with watercolor crayons

Writing
Colin- Started Writing Tales again. It got skipped most of last year so we started back at the beginning. He finished the first section this week.
Molly- starting on Handwriting Without Tears, practiced letters in salt box and on chalkboard, working on the way she holds her pencil
Caleigh- she hasn't started anything yet because I wanted her to get farther into spelling before starting cursive

Grammar
Colin- since he's at the beginning of a new book, it's all review still (nouns, pronouns mostly)
Caleigh- I'm trying to get her through the repetitive stuff quickly so she did 8 lessons in 4 days

Science
We're waiting on our caterpillars to arrive so we can start our butterfly study. It's been 4 weeks since I sent for them so I'm starting to worry that there's a problem.

Extra Stuff
We went to our homeschool group's park day today. There weren't nearly as many kids there as usual. The kids played for a little while and then we went over to the lake for our art lesson.

Colin had his first official First Lego League meeting on Wednesday. They spent some time coming up with name ideas, some of which were very interesting. After a vote, some of them still weren't sure about the winning name so I think they're going to discuss it again next week to see if anyone has new ideas and hopefully agree on something. They spent the rest of their time working on putting together pieces that will be on the table.

Checking the computer to see what pieces they need

See the table full of Legos

Colin searching the bags for needed pieces

Visit Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see what other homeschoolers have been up to this week.